Mid-Range Game 23: A Desperate Alliance

[Alvron]

3 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Ah. Sart is a Ghostblood Ambasador. GG Voidbringers. Have a ineffective vote on Cloudbringer, the last voidbringer.

To the ghostbloods and Sons of Honour. Unless one of you attacked Alvron, this confirms that he has the shardblade. Go wild.

To the Alethi. We're gong to lose if any of us continue to try for peace. 

What makes you think Cloud is the Voidbringer?  The Parshendi think it's Mint but aren't entirely sure as they haven't revealed.

Why do you think I have the Blade?  This is the first time I've been attacked.

They are what four unaligned Alethi still living so why is peace suddenly not possible?

For what it's worth, we have discovered that Striker is a SoH.

[Sart]

7 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Ah. Sart is a Ghostblood Ambasador. GG Voidbringers. Have a ineffective vote on Cloudbringer, the last voidbringer.

To the ghostbloods and Sons of Honour. Unless one of you attacked Alvron, this confirms that he has the shardblade. Go wild.

To the Alethi. We're gong to lose if any of us continue to try for peace. 

Nope. I'm unaligned. Judging from the lack of kills, there may have been only 3 Ghostbloods, but that could also be a precursor to a Voidbringer attack. And if you think I'm still a Ghostblood, do you really think the GM would give the Ghostbloods 2 Ambassadors? That seems a touch overpowered, even for this game.

Unlike the rest of you fakers, I'm actually trying to work towards peace. So, Cloudbringer, time to tip the scales back.

In case you haven't noticed, we still have control of the lynch, with 3 freaking Ambassadors on our side. The Parshendi are at roughly equivalent lives with us, so all we need to do is kill one of their kill roles, and we can finally have peace.

[A Joe in the Bush]

8 minutes ago, Alvron said:

What makes you think Cloud is the Voidbringer?  The Parshendi think it's Mint but aren't entirely sure as they haven't revealed.

Why do you think I have the Blade?  This is the first time I've been attacked.

They are what four unaligned Alethi still living so why is peace suddenly not possible?

For what it's worth, we have discovered that Striker is a SoH.

His survival when he had already lost a life protecting Drake earlier in the game. Mint was in Nimble form for a while, when the others were still in decay form. i doubt it's her.

I analysed. Seonid gave a parshendi a blade. Assuming Cloud is a voidbringer, that leaves four. He wouldn't give Drake the blade, since the SoH were consistenetly attacking him. That left three options. Of them, i had no real read on Daniyah, i had a very pro-peace PM with Mint, and a very Pro-Exterminate-the-Alethi-because-they-refuse-to-go-for-peace Pm with you. And since the parshendi shardbearer seemed to be targeting all sorts of alethi, rather than just ones that seemed to be suspicious, that lead me to cross Mint off the list. 

That leaves two players: Daniyah and Alvron. Daniyah is a lot less active, so I'm inclined to think it's you of the two.

Unless seonid gave it at random, but if he did, shame on him for randomly deciding who to give it to in an effort to balance the game.

The peace is not possible since Myself (And maybe Sart if he isn't a ghostblood*) were the only two alethi actually trying for peace. Mint might also be, but Drake doesn't seem to care at all.

*Sart: I doubt there's only 3 ghostbloods. They wouldn't have any chance of winning with only three, unless they were extremely capable players. Jondesu matches that description, but Crimsn and Megasif are both far newer.  So i'm beting that either you or Straw are the last Ghostblood. As for the lack of kill, there wasn't a kill the first cycle as well, remember?

And Striker is apparently a Son of Honour? I believe I called that day 1. in fact, i think i asked Drake to scan him in my Pm with him day 1. Thank you for finally getting around to doing that.

[DrakeMarshall]

Well. News of the day is that Straw is an Alethi unaligned.

Also, for now, my vote rests on Striker, unless I am given cause to reconsider.

 

EDIT: Also, Joe... I do care about the peace, regardless of what you might think.

Do I seriously even have another option? I'm doubt it. Especially if Cloud is the last Voidbringer.

But you should understand that my commitment to peace is not the trusting kind. I am under no illusions that there are some in the Alethi that are either Sons of Honor or choose to throw it in with them.

Hence, peace involves give and take. It involves deals and compromises that nobody is perfectly happy with. I'm not going to do something for the greater good unless I have at least some kind of token assurance that the Alethi are going to uphold their part of the bargain.

Lynching BR has been a very, very good start to that. I was rather worried when it looked like absolutely nobody cared to lynch a Son of Honor for two cycles.

If you think it was unreasonable for me to be worried... How would you react, if you suddenly lost control of the lynch, and I refused to lynch an outed Voidbringer for multiple cycles? I don't think any of you would have taken it very well. So do please remember that peace is a two way street.

 

EDIT2: At the end of the day, it comes down to this.

Cloud's death for Striker's death. Can that be arranged?

That is a deal I could be happy with. (sorry Cloud...) That is an arrangement that could actually give us peace, provided Cloud is indeed a Voidbringer (which in my opinion seems pretty likely at the moment).

Edited July 24, 2017 by Drake Marshall

[Straw]

Eh, might as well kill the vile Voidbringer. Cloudjumper.

[Yitzi2]

Cloudjumper.

(Also, anybody who said "Cloudbringer", I presume that will be taken to mean "Cloudjumper", but just in case, you might want to adjust that.)

EDIT: Yes, the Voidbringers have lost a higher percentage of their members...but they're also a lot more dangerous in an open conflict.  A Stormform with Warform protection could do a lot of damage before being eliminated.

 

On 7/24/2017 at 4:36 PM, A Joe in the Bush said:

To the ghostbloods and Sons of Honour. Unless one of you attacked Alvron, this confirms that he has the shardblade. Go wild.

How does it confirm that?  He can't have been attacked by a Highprince, since no one else was attacked and survived.

EDIT: Sorry for the double post, but I don't know how to delete one.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Yitzi2

[cloudjumper]

12 hours ago, Sart said:

Nope. I'm unaligned. Judging from the lack of kills, there may have been only 3 Ghostbloods, but that could also be a precursor to a Voidbringer attack. And if you think I'm still a Ghostblood, do you really think the GM would give the Ghostbloods 2 Ambassadors? That seems a touch overpowered, even for this game.

Unlike the rest of you fakers, I'm actually trying to work towards peace. So, Cloudbringer, time to tip the scales back.

In case you haven't noticed, we still have control of the lynch, with 3 freaking Ambassadors on our side. The Parshendi are at roughly equivalent lives with us, so all we need to do is kill one of their kill roles, and we can finally have peace.

Voting on me doesn't bring peace. If you kill a Parshendi kill role, then Sons of Honor win. Judging from the kills so far, I'm assuming that the Alethi Shardbearer, like most of the Alethi, wants a SoH win. If you strip the Parshendi of a kill then the Alethi control 2/3 of the kills, and since the Parshendi are so few in number peace will not happen, unless you mean peace for the Alethi and eternal rest for the Parshendi.

12 hours ago, Sart said:

time to tip the scales back.

Are you saying that the Parshendi currently have the upper hand?

Striker

[Stick.]

Cloudbringer heh

Well I'm voting Cloud for the same reasons given last cycle.

[Yitzi2]

30 minutes ago, cloudjumper said:

Are you saying that the Parshendi currently have the upper hand?

Let's see...you have not lost a single non-Voidbringer member, while the Alethi have lost four non-SoH members.  (I'm also excluding Ghostbloods from both, of course.)  You seem to have all the remaining scanners and are unwilling to use any of them to help us find the remaining Voidbringer (or make sure there aren't actually two remaining Voidbringers), so our only option if we want to prevent betrayal is to keep taking out Parshendi until we find the Voidbringer.

So do you have the upper hand?  In an outright fight, you might or might not; it's difficult to tell, but I'm inclined to say it'd be close but we'd have the advantage.

But in a "pretend to want peace and then backstab later on" contest...I'd say you are getting dangerously close to the point where that is a possibility, and nothing in your recent behavior has done anything to indicate that is not your preferred goal.

(Oh, by the way @Seonid , did you miss my vote for BR (currently on the last page of the main thread)?  It was in a duller red color and only two letters, so that might be why, but it should probably be in the record.)

Edited July 24, 2017 by Yitzi2

[Seonid]

21 minutes ago, Yitzi2 said:

(Oh, by the way @Seonid , did you miss my vote for BR (currently on the last page of the main thread)?  It was in a duller red color and only two letters, so that might be why, but it should probably be in the record.)

Sigh. I probably did. I hate the color palette we've been given with the new software. Makes it so difficult to catch the votes sometimes. Could have sworn i caught yours, though.  At least it didn't change the lynch.  Maybe I ought to start asking for bright red votes only?

[DrakeMarshall]

48 minutes ago, Yitzi2 said:

Let's see...you have not lost a single non-Voidbringer member, while the Alethi have lost four non-SoH members.  (I'm also excluding Ghostbloods from both, of course.)  You seem to have all the remaining scanners and are unwilling to use any of them to help us find the remaining Voidbringer (or make sure there aren't actually two remaining Voidbringers), so our only option if we want to prevent betrayal is to keep taking out Parshendi until we find the Voidbringer.

So do you have the upper hand?  In an outright fight, you might or might not; it's difficult to tell, but I'm inclined to say it'd be close but we'd have the advantage.

But in a "pretend to want peace and then backstab later on" contest...I'd say you are getting dangerously close to the point where that is a possibility, and nothing in your recent behavior has done anything to indicate that is not your preferred goal.

(Oh, by the way @Seonid , did you miss my vote for BR (currently on the last page of the main thread)?  It was in a duller red color and only two letters, so that might be why, but it should probably be in the record.)

Sigh... The Alethi still outvote the Parshendi, the Sons of Honor have a shardblader and a lot of unaligned allies, and the power of the Voidbringers is directly related to their numbers, since they don't have a faction kill. Our only asset is a shardbearer who doesn't have much of a crowd to hide in. And our extra lives, which are basically all depleted. And with the abundance of Alethi surviving attacks I'm inclined to suppose that you might be outdoing us in the extra lives department. I don't think it would be very close in an open fight.

To speak bluntly, if you want the highest probability of winning, you should definitely throw it in with the Sons of Honor right now, and try to kill us all.

 

So. Do you actually want peace? Think about it.

You are irritated that I haven't scanned a Parshendi. I find this rather ironic, given that the unaligned Alethi never even dreamed of scanning one of their own people before they died. And given that the Sons of Honor are still the biggest threat in the game right now to someone who actually does want peace, and yet the Alethi remain extremely reluctant to deal with them.

You are worried about being backstabbed. Well. I'm not sure what gave you the idea that we wanted to backstab you, given that we have everything to lose from doing so. And given that to my knowledge, none of the Parshendi have done anything as an act against the peace.

I'll even confirm for you. Lynch Cloud, and you will have removed the last Voidbringer. Cloud admitted to being a Voidbringer in the Parshendi doc just today. I give this information with no strings attached. Which is more than the Alethi have done for us yet.

On the other hand, you will also yourself be in a pretty great position to be doing backstabbing yourself. You demand quite a lot of insurance against us, but you aren't willing to give us basically any insurance against you.

If that's the way it's going to be, peace talk is now over.

So. Do you actually want peace?

Edited July 24, 2017 by Drake Marshall

[cloudjumper]

5 hours ago, Straw said:

Eh, might as well kill the vile Voidbringer. Cloudjumper.

I'm not vile, just misunderstood. In the books the Alethi tried to commit genocide of the Parshendi. Who's the vile one there?

[Yitzi2]

1 hour ago, cloudjumper said:

I'm not vile, just misunderstood. In the books the Alethi tried to commit genocide of the Parshendi. Who's the vile one there?

The servants of Odium?

Though it is interesting to consider what would have happened if, instead of saying "we had your king assassinated", the Parshendi had said "your king told one of us that he wanted to sustain his rule by bringing about another Desolation, so we had him killed for all of our sakes."

[Seonid]

BrightnessRadiant wrote a death RP for her character that she graciously offered for use in the writeup. I have edited it in, and you should all go find one of her posts and upvote it.

[StrikerEZ]

Well, I'm gonna go ahead and vote on cloudjumper. I would personally rather not die by lynch, thank you very much.

[Elbereth]

Note: Starting tomorrow (technically - though I haven't been around much this cycle either), I'll be going on my annual family camping trip until Sunday. I will still have internet, but likely won't be around as much, since there are slightly more interesting things to do while camping than SE.  Apologies.

One small comment - 

On 7/24/2017 at 11:31 AM, Drake Marshall said:

You are irritated that I haven't scanned a Parshendi. I find this rather ironic, given that the unaligned Alethi never even dreamed of scanning one of their own people before they died. And given that the Sons of Honor are still the biggest threat in the game right now to someone who actually does want peace, and yet the Alethi remain extremely reluctant to deal with them.

They did, actually. Orlok considered multiple times scanning other Alethi - Joe and Asterion come to mind, for instance. He ultimately decided not to, but he was also even more Sons-aligned than I am. And yet he still wanted to scan other Alethi. 

Small thing, but it irritated me. 

[Frozen Mint]

Well. We have the unaligned Parshendi who claim that killing SoH is necessary for peace, because the SoH are going strong and more Parshendi dying, regardless of alignment, moves them closer to their win. Basically, killing the Voidbringer at this point means that we put ourselves at the mercy of the Alethi. Yes, we have a Shardbearer, but they're not too hard to hunt down if we're being honest. So from the Parshendi point of view, the Alethi are basically saying that they will work for peace so long as the Parshendi pose practically no threat to the Alethi. At which point the Alethi could work for peace... or could kill off all the Parshendi, because the Parshendi have no agency.

The unaligned Alethi want threats to them eliminated because four of them have died. Which makes it more likely that a Voidbringer hits one of them instead of an SoH. They don't trust the Parshendi, Voidbringer or otherwise, because the Parshendi haven't helped with killing any of the Voidbringers. Words are easy in SE, actions are what truly tell you about someone's motives. I will admit that I did offer to help find the Ghostbloods and the last Voidbringer. Not that it turned out to make much of a difference. The Alethi think that if they don't kill the last Voidbringer, they'll keep dying to the point of no longer having the level of control they do now, which means they'll have no choice but to side with the SoH if they want to win. So in their eyes, Parshendi support to kill the Voidbringer is the way towards peace. (To be fair, I think that if we had more promotion of peace from the Alethi earlier, more SoH would be dead, and we might not have this problem.)

So... we're at a place where peace is... I'm not quite sure. The Parshendi won't be comfortable until more SoH are dead, probably more than just killing one this cycle. And by that point, it's likely that the VB kills some unaligned Alethi. The Alethi aren't comfortable letting the VB stick around that long or even for one more cycle, by the looks of it. I don't really see how any way but peace is the way to go for the unaligned Parshendi though, and there's only one way I can promote it right now, even if it's hollow. I'll place a symbolic vote on cloud (symbolic because, honestly, does anyone believe Striker will be lynched now?). If you think I'm just putting on a show for peace or are suspicious of my true intentions, I don't blame you. But I don't know what else I can do this cycle.

Vote count:

Striker (3): Alv, Drake, cloud

cloud (7): Joe, Sart, Straw, Yitzi, Stick, Striker, Mint

[Seonid]

Cycle is closed!

[Seonid]

Day 8: The Duel

Ethelinar stalked the plateau, scowling. Dalinar was a fool. Peace with the Parshendi was unacceptable. How were the Heralds to return and restore the Vorin Church to its rightful place if the Parshendi did not summon a new Desolation? With a curse, he turned and walked towards the center of the plateau. There, he saw the Parshendi Shardbearer. There were rumors in the camp that the Shardbearer had murdered Max Mercury and Zephyras. This was an affront that could not be allowed. He counted his heartbeats as he summoned his Blade. He would see that travesty brought to justice. And by doing so, Dalinar would surely see that peace could not be maintained. His Blade coalesced in his hands, dripping condensation. He pointed it at the Parshendi across the plateau. "You! You murderer! I challenge you to a duel, to avenge the deaths of my people!" Dalinar rushed over to intervene, but was stopped by the Parshendi leader. She whispered something in his ear, and Dalinar was still again. Was the man bewitched?

Dalinar raised his voice. "The challenge has been issued and accepted. The duel is to the death. May the warriors fight with honor." Ethelinar smiled a feral smile, and charged.

The Shardblades shivered as they clashed, the massive swords ringing across the plateau as the warriors fought. The Parshendi parried, and parried, and parried again. Ethelinar growled. This close, he could see large rents in the Shardplate, where the red and black colored skin showed through. Smiling, he pushed even further for the kill, only to be parried again. He let out a howl of frustration. Why wouldn't the savage just lie down and die!

Suddenly, from the watching crowd of Parshendi came a cry of rage. "You traitor!" A hulking Parshendi stepped forward, fearsomely armored and with red spren dancing around him. Ethelinar knew him - Corinoc. He'd tried to kill him before, but the massive savage had survived somehow. "You betray our whole people for what? A piece of paper that says there is peace? There is power enough to wipe these miserable humans off the face of Roshar. Feel it now!" Red lightning danced at his fingertips, and blasted towards the Parshendi Shardbearer. Ethelinar laughed. After this, it would be simple to convince the rest of the Alethi, even Dalinar, that the savages couldn't be trusted. But a smaller Parshendi jumped in front of the lightning at the last minute, rolling away singed and burned. He couldn't tell if she was dead or alive.

The blast still knocked the Parshendi Shardbearer off of his feet, and Ethelinar moved in for the kill. Out of nowhere, a Shardblade materialized to block his stroke. "You would strike your opponent when they are downed by treachery? Where is your honor, sir?" With a grunt of rage, he shoved the wielder out of his way, only to find his opponent on his feet again. He shouted to the heavens. "By the Almighty and all the Heralds, why won't you die!"

He charged forward, only to be forced back by a flurry of quick blows. He parried them with blinding speed, wishing once again that he had also won Shardplate in the duel that had gotten him his Blade. As he parried yet another powerful blow, his foot hit a rock at the edge of the chasm. He looked down to see that he was standing at the edge of the plateau and the blow he had turned aside had carved off the piece of stone he was standing on. Suddenly he was tumbling down. His head struck the chasm wall, and he never saw the ground.

-------------------------------------

 

Day 8 has begun!

 

Corinoc (cloudjumper) was lynched but survived.

Ethelinar (StrikerEZ) was attacked twice and killed. He was a Son of Honor Shardbearer (Blade)!

Petyr and Cranium (Alvron) was attacked but survived!

Petyr and Cranium (Alvron) was attacked with a Stormform attack from Corinoc, but survived!

 

 

Vote Count:

StrikerEZ (3): Drake Marshall, Cloudjumper, Alvron

Cloudjumper (7): Straw, StrikerEZ, _Stick_, A Joe in the Bush, Yitzi2, Sart, Frozen Mint

 

 

Alethi Player List:

1. Straw @Straw
2. Stick @_Stick_
3. Samar @Sami
4. TBD @A Joe in the Bush
5. Rif @Yitzi2
6. Unnamed Character 4 @Sart
7. Kreshela @Elbereth

Parshendi Player List:

1. Kyner @Drake Marshall
2. Anya @Daniyah
3. Mint @Frozen Mint
4. Corinoc @cloudjumper
5. Petyr and Cranium @Alvron

The Dead

1. Plato Anderson (Elenion). Voidbringer Decayform
2. Arbol (Roadwalker). Voidbringer Decayform
3. Locke (OrlokTsubodai). Alethi Artifabrian
4. Aredor (asterion137). Alethi Artifabrian
5. Raaman (Hemalurgic Headshot). Alethi Guardsman
6. Zephyras (Megasif) Ghostblood Ambassador
7. Kintas (Jondesu) Ghostblood Parshendi Warform
8. Unnamed Character 5 (Crimsn-Wolf) Ghostblood Shardbearer (Plate)
9. Unnamed Character 1 (BrightnessRadiant) Son of Honor Highprince
10. Max Mercury (The Flash) Alethi Shardbearer (Plate)
11. Ethelinar (StrikerEZ) Son of Honor Shardbearer (Blade)

[A Joe in the Bush]

Well, Peace is looking a lot more likely. Once Cloud is dead we can start ignoring the parshendi completely and just focus on finding the last ghostbloods and Sons.

@Drake Marshall You guys find any more Aligned players?

[Yitzi2]

Let's finish the job.  Cloudjumper.

[Alvron]

3 minutes ago, Seonid said:

Petyr and Cranium (Alvron) was attacked but survived!

Petyr and Cranium (Alvron) was attacked with a Stormform attack from Corinoc, but survived!

Firstly:

Secondly: Cloud, I thought we were friends.

[cloudjumper]

Ok so since I'm going to die anyways this cycle I might as well explain my actions.

So after the hysteria I experienced after I realized that Alv was probably going to backstab me and kill me after they killed everyone else, I assumed that with Striker gone, village would have gone after me next. I wasn't willing to take the chance that there might be more Ghostbloods, so I thought that I was the last secret faction left and would be killed this cycle, resulting in a village victory. I attacked Alv because I was attempting to cripple the village in my death or something. I probably should have chosen Drake instead (sorry Drake) but oh well. In case you haven't noticed this plan was not exactly well thought out and I should have actually thought about it before doing it. Looking back that was really, really dumb but at least I learned something today. Wait what? No I never learn from my mistakes. Forget I said that. 

Look on the bright side though now we know that there is at least one GB out there. Good luck to you whoever you are. Also good luck to the village for finding them. But make sure to kill GB last.

Also Seonid is it possible for Voidbringers to win if they all die? Because if so then Parshendi you should totally go for Voidbringer victory even though I was super mean and stuff.

tl;dr:

I attacked Alv to cripple the village and rid them of their kill but it was not the best of decisions and a massive failure.

[DrakeMarshall]

1 hour ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Well, Peace is looking a lot more likely. Once Cloud is dead we can start ignoring the parshendi completely and just focus on finding the last ghostbloods and Sons.

@Drake Marshall You guys find any more Aligned players?

Report of the day is that Sart is unaligned.

My reasons for scanning an Alethi were that Cloud is the last Parshendi aligned, and we all know about him.

 

And speaking of that. Cloud. What... What? I don't even know. But I will gladly lynch a Voidbringer after that went down.

Congratulations on cementing my dedication to peace.

[A Joe in the Bush]

So Straw and I are the last posible Ghostbloods, right?