This is a fantasy sports competition based on the 2023 Women's World Cup tournament (soccer in the USA, football everywhere else). Competition begins July 20, and the championship game will be held on August 20. As in all contests at Laughton.org, instead of simply predicting winners, participants navigate a mental labyrinth by constructing an otherwise meaningless list to utilize an arbitrary and capricious scoring formula devised by the contest staff, whose minds have wandered into the realm of H. P. Lovecraft for reasons detailed below. If you thought our 2019 scoring formula was capricious, just wait till you see this year's!
For the first time ever, this year's Women's World Cup will be played in two countries: Australia and New Zealand. In recognition of this unique situation, FIFA, the international organizing body, chose a mascot for the tournament based on a penguin that's native to both countries. They even made up a cute story about how a penguin saw children playing soccer on the beach and joined in the game. Then someone pointed out that the penguin doesn't actually live in New Zealand, so the officials involved hastily spliced some virtual DNA to make the mascot a mutant hybrid of two distinct species.
The name Tazuni combines letters from "Tasman," the sea between the two nations, and "unity," a concept that was perhaps applied a little too vigorously to a pair of unsuspecting penguins. The official story from FIFA says that she was born in the sea, which seems a bit odd for any Earth penguin, and a "Z" was substituted for the "S" in Tasman probably because "Taz" is a common nickname for Tasmanians, who are not to be confused with Tanzanians, who get their "Z" from Zanzibar… but we digress. With FIFA offering no official explanation, we propose that the change was made to fulfill an ancient prophesy. All in all, Tazuni sounds to us like a penguin from another planet or dimension.
The indigenous names of the stadium locations may also seem strange to fans from foreign lands. Sportscasters from outside the region will probably need some time to perfect their pronunciations of names such as Tōmaki Makaurau, Te Whanganui-a-tara, and Kirikiriroa. The novel vocabulary required for this tournament, together with the story of the mascot (which never states that the mutant/alien Tazuni didn't eat the children), sounded a bit Lovecraftian to the crack contest staff of Laughton.org. This has led us to stir some eldritch ingredients into the formula for this competition, beginning with conjuring up a squad of carnivorous soccer balls to accompany Tazuni onto the field (they're purely decorative and have no influence on this contest).
Use the Official Entry Form to compose an imaginary cult with 32 members. Select one country competing in the World Cup to represent each member. You may not assign the same country twice, so all of them will appear on your cult membership list. Provide the name of your cult and a brief description of it in the spaces provided. Finally, make a prediction of the total number of goals that will be scored during the course of the tournament; this number will be used as a tiebreaker if needed. Of course, the hard part is deciding which country to put in which position.
| You will organize the 32 particiating countries into this hierarchy: | 1 | High Priestess |
| | 3 | Handmaidens |
| | 4 | Sirens |
| | 8 | Martyrs |
| | 16 | Followers |
Each role has a different scoring formula.
 |  | is the inscrutable supreme leader of the cult. She gains 1 point for each goal scored by her country during the tournament. Her handmaidens assist her in gathering points for the cult. The score for this role is the number of points acquired by The High Priestess multiplied by the highest number of points acquired by any one of your Handmaidens. |
 |  | serve the High Priestess by gathering points in the same way that she does. Each gains 1 point for each goal scored by her country during the tournament. However, if any acquires more points than The High Priestess, she is disqualified, cast into a dungeon, pit, alternate dimension, or wasteland (your cult, your rules), and her points are set to zero. If the High Priestess scores enough points later to correct the imbalance, the offending Handmaiden and her points will be restored. The total score for this role is the sum of points earned by all Handmaidens in your cult who have not been disqualified. |
 |  | lure teams into making extra efforts, and they love ties. A Siren earns 1 point for each match played by her country that ends in a tie. A match that continues into overtime is worth two points, and a match decided by a penalty-kick tiebreaker is worth three. Sirens love ties so much that if two have the same number of points, their points are doubled. If three match, their points are tripled, and if four match, their points are quadrupled. The score for this role is the sum of points earned by all of your Sirens. |
 |  | sacrifice themselves for the good of the cult. Each earns 1 point per loss suffered by her country. Points earned by all Martyrs in your cult are multiplied to produce the score for this role. Specifically,
Score = M1 × M2 × M3 × M5 × M5 × M6 × M7 × M8
Thus a zero for any Martyr will result in a product of zero. |
 |  | are the common or garden-variety cultists who perform the day-to-day work of the cult. They are responsible for burning the incense, sewing the robes, maintaining the signup sheet for the Inner Sanctum, and all the other tasks that keep the wheels of the cult turning smoothly. Participating countries which are not selected for one of the roles above will join your cult as Followers. Each Follower earns 1 point per victory attained by her country during the tournament. The score for this role is the sum of points earned by all Followers in your cult. |
Note that goals scored during regulation time or overtime are reflected in the final score of each match and are counted in this contest. Should a match be tied at the end of overtime, a penalty-kick tiebreaker is played. Successful penalty kicks are scored separately and do not count as goals for the purpose of scoring this contest.
Your cult's total score will be the sum of the scores of all the roles above.The cult that acquires the most points will be the winner.
In addition to your array of 32 countries, the Official Entry Form requires that you predict the total number of goals that will be scored during regular and overtime play during the entire World Cup. In the event of a tie at the end of this contest, the player whose prediction is closest to the actual number of goals scored - regardless of whether it's higher or lower - will be the winner. Should players still be tied after the predictions are compared, the one whose entry arrived earlier at Laughton.org will prevail.
Use the Official Entry Form to submit your entry no later than 11:59pm (US Eastern Time) on Tuesday, July 18, 2023. No late entries will be accepted. The Contest Manager will send email confirming the acceptance of your entry or - if there was any erroneous or missing information - explaining why it was rejected. Be sure to check your junk folder if you don't find a message in your inbox within 24 hours of submitting an entry.
Your email address will be the unique identifier for your entry. It will only be used to confirm acceptance of your entry, to notify you if your entry is rejected for an error, or to contact you regarding prize delivery should Tazuni deign to bestow her blessing on your cult. It will not appear anywhere on this website or be used for any other purpose. If you want to change your entry after submitting it, simply submit another using the same address; the new entry will overwrite the previous one as long as it is submitted before the deadline.
Only one entry per email address will be accepted. If you have more than one address, you may submit an entry from each.
Only an email address, cult name, country selections, and a tiebreaker prediction are required to enter. However, the contest staff encourages contestants to provide descriptions of their cults. The text doesn't need to be Tazuni- or soccer-related; on the contrary, a variety of purposes and conspiracies will add spice to the competition. If your cult believes that King Charles III is a vampire, that the moon is either an optical illusion or a government-developed hologram, that Denver International Airport is actually a gateway to Hell, or that a solar flare sank the Titanic, we want to hear about it! If your cult's goal is to travel to Venus in one of Ashtar Sheran's ten million spaceships, sell spiritual vaccines, promote a diet of nothing but coconuts, or worship Gadget Hackwrench (a character from Disney's Rescue Rangers) as a deity, let us know! But don't ramble endlessly: at about the 1,000-character mark the contest staff tends to start cutting. Furthermore, racist, sexist, or otherwise scurrilous comments are prohibited. Laughton.org is a family-friendly site; offensive comments will result in your entry being rejected and may incur the wrath of Tazuni.
All beliefs and goals mentioned above belong to real cults, current or past. They may be on the lunatic fringe of society, but surely you can surpass them! To inspire you, here are a few examples:
Have you heard that auto manufacturers are planning to discontinue including AM radios? FM and digital signals provide good quality sound, but on AM radio what you perceive as static is actually coded messages from our alien overlords. If we cannot persuade companies to continue installing AM radios in cars, we will have no choice but to implant AM-radio chips in our skulls. We cannot obey if we cannot hear!
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Ah, Crystal Pepsi! Introduced in 1992, discontinued in 1994, and brought back for a few brief but blissful periods in the 2000s, it was the world's wonder cola, shimmering and sparkling in both appearance and taste. Brown Pepsi is mud compared to the shining diamond that is Crystal Pepsi! We will beseech, harass, and infiltrate Pepsico until they return it to the market.
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Honestly, who wouldn't want a prehensile tail? At our underground laboratory in [undisclosed location], we've been experimenting with processes that other scientists have used to grow replacement human organs. Our attitude is: don't replace, append! Our results thus far have been mixed, but the new fins and tentacles have proven quite useful for operating certain equipment and scaring away intruders.
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A roster of players and their entry details will be posted on this page before the World Cup tournament begins on July 20. Scores and standings will be posted on this page and updated frequently during the tournament. Due to the time difference between the stadiums and Laughton.org headquarters, there may be a significant delay between the end of a match and the relevant update on this site. Seriously, nobody on the contest staff is going to get up at 5:00 in the morning to post tournament results, not even our intern from Yuggoth.
The winner will receive a ceramic figurine of Wendoleen the Holy Yodeling Goldfish. Imported directly from Japan, where she is known as 黙って金魚、私は眠ろうとしているの (damatte, kingyo, watashi wa nemurou to shite imasu), it’s roughly 4.5” long and will make a splendid addition to anyone’s collection of idols, fetishes, or bric-a-brac.
The second-place finisher will receive a Star Wars combination pen and pocket flashlight, with which one may sign away one’s soul to the Dark Side and perhaps eventually find a way back to the Light.
The third-place prize is a Batman-shaped bar of moisturizing soap to keep your skin smooth and supple as you fight crime in your own tight-fitting superhero costume.