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lezian: i’m going to kill you kaladin:

Good memes, but I feel the first and third could have done with the scene where Gollum is tied up (finding a screencap is a new quest altogether).

Also, I just want to say thanks to @Biplet for keeping me sane while I was running this, even though she was playing this and I made her wake up at 8 am everyday to be on for rollover. Plus she dealt with me having to do this while we were on our little anniversary trip a few days ago. And she put up with the stress that me cursing her as an elim put on her really well. She also made a lot of really funny memes both in thread and in the doc, so that was really fun to watch as well. Anyway, I wouldn't be here without her, so just a huge thanks to her. Love you Bip. EDIT: Also also, she definitely called and woke me up ten minutes before rollover at one point because I accidentally slept in, so yeah, huge thanks for that as well.

Thank you so much to everyone who played! It was a blast getting to run this game again! I loved getting to watch all of you play and it makes me really happy to know that you guys really like these rules and have fun with them. It's always so much fun getting to run these games, and it really warms my heart to know that you guys like them too. Just...thank you guys so much. And also a huge thank you to @Elbereth and @Young Bard as well. These games would not be possible without their amazing help, especially with the spreadsheet. Most of this happens because of their work, and I just take a lot of the credit for myself since I made the rules. Anyway, I'll eventually give more thoughts about how the game went this time, and what I think I could do to improve it for the next run (I've already started making a v3 of the rules), but for now I just want to congratulate @Ashbringer, @Biplet, and @Lotus for their win! And also @Araris Valerian and @Matrim's Dice for playing really really well as the Kandra. It got really really close at the end there, and Mat very nearly could've won if things had gone slightly differently, which would've been awesome. It's not often you get to see a SK win. Also, Araris, picking Mat as your successor was such a smart move. If you'd hit a villager, the game would've ended right there. Or maybe would've ended after D5, but it would've been much harder for your successor to try and win. @Archer Thanks for making a really fun character to work with, I hope you appreciate what I did with them in the writeup. It was always really funny seeing you RP with them. @DrakeMarshall I just want to congratulate you on earning the most boxings almost every turn of the game, and I'm only saying almost because I'm too lazy to go back and check that that's actually what happened. Plus it was fun seeing you and Lotus and Bip RP together for the short period of time at the beginning of the game before Lotus died. And I'm glad you and Bip continued that RP banter between your characters throughout the game. @Illwei Thank you so much for subbing in for @Ventyl, even if you died shortly after. You immediately came in and started making the elims sweat a bit, as if they weren't already before that. Also, if anyone's curious about what possibilities they had for their roles, you can look at the version history for the Role Assignment tab in the sheet and go to the version from May 29th at 8:37 am CDT and see what could've happened. Anyway, just a huge thank you to everyone who played. These games wouldn't be possible without you, and I appreciate you all so so much. Running games brings me a lot of joy and gives me something to look forward to everyday. I often need that, so just thank you all so much for playing. It really does make me so happy that you all enjoy my games.

HOOOOOOOOOOLY CRAP. Okay so I'm gonna start by saying that this was SO STRESSFUL. And here I thought the previous MR was hard. Two games in a row Mat and I were teammates! A lot of this game was me rambling in the elim doc trying to figure out the next best plan XD. Huge thank you to my teammates, I had a blast playing with y'all, even if you were a traitor Mat. And hey Lotus, we lived to the end for you! Drake: every single time you said no elim thug would speculate the existence of an elim thug on D1, I lost my mind. Absolutely hilarious thank you for making this one of the most iconic things I've managed to do. "It's a bad plan and it wouldn't work, no one would do it." Precisely! Here's a peak at what the elim doc looked like after Araris died: Edit: Mat in the Kandra doc: "Bip trusts me!" Me, about to submit a coinshot kill on Mat:

LG77: Aftermath Iden: alive Shara couldn’t get ahead of herself. She had one last thing to do before she could finally take out Iden. Dann: alive The meeting hall where everyone had gathered at Goren’s orders seemed especially quiet today. Mostly everyone was unnerved by Earl’s recent execution and no one was happy with being stuck in one room for nearly two full days now. Especially since Goren wouldn’t even explain why they were all stuck there. Well, Shara thought, I know why. They’d agreed that Shara would be the one to start it. There had been a...disagreement between her and Philico, but Shara had ultimately won out in that argument. And so she had the right to the first blood in what would be the worst massacre in recent history. She gripped the medallion hidden in her pocket. That had been a more recent find, and thank Harmony for it. The medallion had come in handy, especially after her secret powers as a Thug had come out. She tapped the stores hidden in the metal, walking so she could get a better sightline for Dann. She grabbed a glass of water, discreetly mixing in the bits of steel one of the others had gotten for her. She downed it quickly, her nerves seeming to rattle, her heart pounding. She hardly even noticed that her hair was falling out of her neat bun on the top of her head. It’s time. Shara grabbed the coin hidden in her other pocket, took it out, burned steel, and turned to where Dann was. And she stopped for a moment, everything fading away as she saw Iden standing there next to him. Iden, who she had worked so hard for for so long, yet he didn’t care to do anything to help anyone but himself. He wouldn’t even be there if it wasn’t for her. And so, she changed her plans slightly. Moving quickly, because there wasn’t much time and the others could be impatient, Shara moved to get a new angle on Dann and Iden. She needed to do this right. She didn’t have much power left in the medallion, probably enough for one shot’s worth to spare before she’d need the rest for the chaos afterwards. She flicked the coin up into the air, and then pushed it as hard as she could. It flew through the air, shooting straight through Dann and into Iden’s chest behind him. She didn’t see Dann’s reaction before he dropped, though there probably wasn’t much of one considering the shot had killed him instantly. Dann: deceased Iden however, seemed shocked, a look of pure confusion on his face as he clutched his chest and fell to the ground. Shara ran to him, tapping pewter to push others out of her way as people began to realize what was happening. She barely heard the gunshots from the rebel guards as they turned on the few Loyalist guards that were left. Iden was struggling on the ground, clearly struggling to breathe with the coin lodged in his chest. It was a pity that Shara’s shot had missed his heart for a bit. “Shara...why?” He said. Even those two words seemed to be painful for him, and he coughed up blood after. Shara could hardly make herself look at him, nonetheless talk to him. She forced herself to anyway, kneeling down so Iden could see her face clearly. “I’ve been wanting to kill you for so long. You’ve done nothing but help yourself, and help the others who profit off of the work of so many people below you. I worked up from nothing to get where I am now. And you wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me. You couldn’t even spare a thought for my family, or for the countless other families out there who have been even worse off than mine. It’s finally time that we help people, Iden.” Shara scooted away as Iden let out his final breaths. It was finally over. Or at least, the first step in their grand plan was finally complete. She still had work to do. Iden: deceased ~ After what felt like an eternity of running and hiding from all the chaos, Yoden finally managed to find Goren in the confusion. The man didn’t even seem to be breaking a sweat. “We need to evacuate.” Yoden insisted. “There’s too many of them - your blockade isn’t going to keep the Sympathisers in, it will only lead to a massacre.” Goren returned a level-headed stare. “My job is to keep the problem contained. The situation is… unfortunate, but will be dealt with shortly. If we evacuate now, the Sympathisers will spread all over the city, spreading havoc everywhere they go. For now, it’s contained.” “Is this what you call contained?!” Yoden yelled. “It’s a massacre! If I didn’t know better, I think you’d want everyone here dead.” There was a pause. Slowly, Goren smiled. Yoden backed away slowly. “Goren… What is this. This… isn’t something you’d do. You’re here to help people.” No response. Yoden tried the door, opened it, and felt it slam shut again. Goren was almost on top of him. “We’ve had our disagreements, but we’re colleagues.” Goren smirked, and slowly started to walk towards Yoden. “You have no idea how long I’ve had to put up with your idiotic blathering. Your questions. Your pathetic attempts at policy. I’ve dreamed of this day, when I wouldn’t have to put up with it anymore. And it seems the Survivor has finally smiled upon my request.” And with that, Goren plunged the dagger into Yoden’s chest. Yoden wrapped his hands around the dagger in his chest, clutching it in disbelief, slowly sinking down against the wall as his vision went black. ~ Juno raced to hide when the screaming started. But they seemed to be everywhere, with nowhere to hide. If she’d been a little quicker, a little smarter, a little more willing to run when she had the chance… Nearby, one of the Senators screamed as a Boxing shot through his torso. Juno’s own Jacket should be able to protect her from the same fate for so long, but only if she found a way out first. Juno rounded a corner, and found Goren and Yoden standing by a doorway - could it be an exit? If anyone might know, it’s possible they did. Juno raced forward - maybe this was her chance - but something was wrong. Yoden seemed panicked, pleading, as Goren grabbed a dagger he was carrying and plunged it through Yoden’s chest. Juno stopped, but before she could turn away from the scene, Goren turned and Juno saw his dark smile. Running wouldn’t do any good. Time seemed to freeze. Goren’s awful grin, Yoden, clutching the dagger in his stomach with a look of disbelief and betrayal - dead, but still standing. Juno’s feet seemed frozen to the ground, until she noticed the thin sheen that seemed to lie between Goren, Yoden and herself. She turned, and saw Philico standing behind her, seemingly uncaring of everything in his surroundings. One of the traitors. Either that or something much, much worse. “Philico found your intrusions… troublesome, you know.” Philico said. Only, Juno could see now, it wasn’t Philico. Slowly his face started to shift and switch. First, Sweeper, then, faster and faster, a display of faces. AraRaash, Panini, Shara, his own face, for just a moment. Juno’s mouth was dry. “So you were the kandra all along. I thought you might be.” Juno tried to put more confidence into those words than she felt. “You’re a… Slider, though. I thought you were a thief. Or, the person you’re pretending to be was a thief. Whatever.” “A gift that came with this current body - he and his friends were great fans of playing with toys they didn’t understand. It’s… handy, though. I might keep it for a little while.” The kandra slowly collapsed out of a human form entirely and became translucent, revealing a nauseating mix of bones and, briefly surfacing, a spike, before it got pulled into the swirling mass once more. “Are you here to kill me?” Juno assessed her options - against a Kandra, they weren’t good. And even if she somehow won, Goren was still waiting outside the moment the time bubble dropped. The kandra seemed to consider the question - its faces moved between several emotions in rapid succession - joy, anger, fear. Eventually, it seemed to settle on an answer. “You humans attract chaos like a Koloss attracts flies. Any chaos I did, any that I could hope to do, was far outweighed by the chaos you caused amongst yourselves.” A rumble seemed to emerge from the writhing form. After a moment, Juno realised it was meant to be a chuckle. “No, you’re far more interesting alive than dead. Particularly with what’s about to happen.” Somehow, Juno didn’t feel comforted by that answer. But the kandra went on. “The Sympathisers are wearing green armbands so they can identify one another during the massacre. Acquire one, by any means necessary, and you should make it out of here alive for what comes next.” Juno paused. “Thank you. I think.” “Perhaps we will meet again someday, human. I would take great pleasure in adding your bones to my collection.” “Next time, you could just say goodbye.” The kandra briefly materialised Philico’s face to smile, and deformed back into a blob-like entity once more. Then, faster than Juno thought possible, it dashed past Juno. She watched the bubble fall as all the sounds of the outside world came rushing in once more. The blob dashed at Goren, and before Goren had even taken a single step, a fist seemed to emerge from the mass, giving Goren a swift upper cut to the jaw. As Goren collapsed, the Kandra kept moving around him and the prone body of Yoden, leaking through the underside of the door, and was gone. In a moment, there was no-one else in the corridor beside the prone bodies of Goren and Yoden, and the discarded bones of Philico. Juno forced herself to walk down the corridor towards the scene - she felt Goren’s pulse - there was still a beat there, so not dead, just unconscious. She grabbed the armband off his arm and then left to find another exit. ~ AraRaash once again found himself in the midst of a bloody battle over the fate of the Elendel Basin. He had seen many things over the course of his lives, and once again this was one of the deadliest moments he’d found himself in. He was tired of being important when it came to this planet’s people, but well...he did what Lamentation told him to. And so, he found himself talking in the corner of a room to a man with a puppet while people died around them. It was a strange experience, to say the least. “You’re a Rebel, aren’t you?” Bagel, the puppet said. “Well, yes, I am.” AraRaash said. “If the gun I was holding to your head...or, well, to Panini’s head wasn’t indication enough of that, surely the fact that none of the rebels are trying to kill me should’ve clued you into that fact.” “If you kill me,” Panini said, his face grim, “Bagel will hunt you down and enact revenge.” “And how exactly will he do that? He is attached to you, you know.” “I’m right here you know!” Bagel said. “You can’t talk about me as if I’m not here. I’ll make sure that no one ever remembers you after this, mark my words.” “Well,” AraRaash said, “I’m the one with the gun, and because of that, you two are going to do what I say.” Panini quickly ducked under AraRassh’s gun, going for AraRaash’s legs. AraRaash sighed, bending his legs unnaturally around Panini so he just slid under AraRaash. He quickly rearranged his body so that his torso twisted around to face where Panini now was. Panini gasped, and Bagel beat him to speaking. “You’re a Kandra!” “We’re going to tell everyone that you’re a Kandra,” Panini said. “No one will ever trust you again. All your plans will be ruined. You won’t get away with this!” AraRaash rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m a Kandra! Do you think I care if people know that? I’m not even the only one here, though I think MarRiis was trying to keep their involvement here a secret. Anyway, everyone here will be dead by the end of the night if things go according to plan.” He paused. “You know what secret really matters, what’s really important?” He crouched down, and leaned his face closer to Panini and Bagel’s. “Bagel, you aren’t even real. If I’m fake, you’re even more fake.” Bagel gasped, starting to shake his head. Panini looked horrified, and went to cover Bagel’s ears, but nothing could seem to console the puppet. AraRaash stood up. “Yes, that’s right. You’re not real. You thought you could come here and blackmail me with all the little secrets you learned, but I had the greatest secret to blackmail you with. Your own unreality.” AraRaash nodded to himself, watching as Panini and Bagel slowly started to unravel, muttering to themselves reassurances about each other. “And now that that’s done, I can make my way back to….” He trailed off as he turned back to the rest of the meeting hall. There were significantly less living people left. They must’ve spent a lot more time talking than he’d thought. “Rusts,” AraRaash said. “He really did manage to trick me into wasting time. I missed out on all the fun.” AraRaash made his way through the melee, killing anyone who tried to stop him and wasn’t wearing the blood green armband the Rebels had agreed to start wearing once the massacre had started. Once he was outside, he began to feel the pull from Lamentation once again. His part here was done, and he was needed elsewhere. But that could wait until the murdering was done. So he waited. ~ As the sun began to rise on the next day, not even a week after the news of the rebel attack had reached Garmet, Goren and the rebel survivors made their way out of the building. Most of them were covered in blood, and they’d lost a few of their own, but the mission was mostly successful. Goren turned to look at the others. Some of them still seemed a little restless, as if they were almost disappointed that the killing was over. Most of them just seemed tired and ready to be done. There was still so much work to do. “Shara,” Goren said, turning to her. She had been an invaluable asset to the Rebel cause, and her discovery of the medallion had served them well. “I want you to draft up a plan for how to deal with this city. We’re taking it over.” AraRaash walked up. "I wish you all the best with that." Goren and Shara looked over at AraRaash with surprise. "Unfortunately, I have... other business I need to attend to." Goren looked at AraRaash. "You've been of great service - I don't suppose I could change your mind?" "Unfortunately not. You seem to have things under control, though." "Then go well, AraRaash. May you bring message of our victory everywhere in your travels, so that others may replicate our success." AraRaash nodded, and left. Shara paused for a moment. “We are going to do this better than they did, right?” Goren smiled. “Yes, we are. Work on making sure no one gets left behind in our improvements for this city. Even the poorest here will benefit from our coup.” “And as for the rest of us,” Goren said. “We’re leaving the most political minded of our team here, along with a healthy force of soldiers, to rebuild this city from the ground up. I want minimal casualties and minimal destruction. And I want to recruit anyone we think would be helpful to our cause and is willing to make a long trip soon.” He paused, mostly for dramatic effect. “Because our next goal is to make the very long trek to Elendel. We’ve got more work we need to do there.” Dannex was killed! They were a Loyalist Duralumin Gnat/Sparker Twinborn! And that’s the game! Congrats to the Rebels, Ashbringer, Biplet, and Lotus, for winning! And an honorary congratulations to Matrim’s Dice as well, even though he got Kandrafied shortly before the elims won. Oh, and a huge congratulations to Striker for running such a fantastic game. It was a blast getting to co-GM with him again. GM thoughts will come later. Player List: @Ashbringer - Rebel Soother/Skimmer Twinborn @Biplet - Shara, advisor to a representative of the third Octant, Iden. Rebel Thug @Szeth_Pancakes - Earl Euphemie, a journalist from the Elendel Daily, definitely not a highly trained assassin. Loyalist Nicroburst/Subsumer Twinborn @Matrim's Dice - Philico, here to steal Faleast's Kandra thunder. Rebel Thief turned Kandra with a Slider Spike @Lotus - Josephine, definitely not out of her league. Rebel Pulser/Pinnacle Twinborn @Araris Valerian - Sweeper, a lowly cleaner of the political chamber building. Kandra @The Unknown Order - Walker, who...walks. Yeah. Loyalist Slider/Gasper Twinborn @DrakeMarshall - Juno, member of the Board of Somethingorother, and an enthusiastic protestor. Loyalist Archivist @Jondesu - Myra, not witty or even particularly bright, but she’s honest. Loyalist Rioter Misting @Archer - The Great Panini, wealthy patron of the arts and amateur ventriloquist, accompanied by Bagel. Loyalist Smoker/Sentry Twinborn @Illwei Loyalist Seeker Misting and Hemalurgist @Experience - Zara, questionably loyal, but in extreme ways. Loyalist Tineye Misting and Investigator @Devotary of Spontaneity - Magrait, an amalgamation of Adomert and Inedze through their stored memories from a coppermind. Loyalist Spinner Ferring and Thief @Azmine_king Loyalist Hazekiller @Mist - Lumen, a secretary who's trying her best and wants to bring justice to whoever needs it. Loyalist Leecher/Soulbearer Twinborn @|TJ| - Loyalist Lurcher/Trueself Twinborn @manukos - Bill, Bill Door. Probably shaped like a triangle. Loyalist Augur/Connector Twinborn @Dannex - Loyalist Duralumin Gnat/Sparker Twinborn @Flyingbooks - Veren, assistant to the Elendel representatives, playing both sides to get the nobility less influence in politics. Loyalist Oracle/Windwhisper Twinborn! Docs: GM Spreadsheet Elim Doc Kandra Doc Spec/Dead Doc

Let me just put it out there: I JUST turned in my final exam and final project for Spanish. On the same day this game ended I am now DONE WITH MY SPANISH 2 SUMMER CLASS

Apologies if any of these have been done before General Sanderson/fantasy books Final Empire WOR OB General Stormlight

Man, I don't even know how to feel about this I actually am kicking myself really really really hard because I was dumb and used the elim kill to try to kill Ash last night and not the kandra kill for some reason. I... don't know why. I'm decently annoyed about that but it's no one's fault and there's nothing I can do now :P. The fact that neither of Drake or Archer were Thugs makes it arguably worse but ah well. This game was really fun, before I was converted and after. I probably have more thoughts but they're also probably in my doc(s).

… everything went according to plan? Huh. On mobile right now so I’ve got more for later, but great game everyone! And Skimmer, Drake. I was a Skimmer.

Alright, it’s official! My new succulent’s name is… Evelyne! Thanks @FriarFritz for the name! Here is a picture of Evelyne:

Huh. Well that was interesting.

It's exciting to post my own topic for the first time! Something I’ve wondered about for a while now is how Helaran appeared on the battlefield from behind Amaram’s lines. It’s been theorized for a while now that Helaran was a Surgebinder. Primarily, this is because of a quick line from Taravangian discussing Shallan as a Surgebinder. Taravangian clearly believes that Helaran has some Surgebinding capability. But he’s absolutely startled by the account of an Alethi bridgeman spontaneously developing Surgebinding on his own. What did he think Jasnah, Shallan, and Helaran were up to, then? Shallan is at the Shattered Plains, but though he suspects her of Surgebinding, she doesn’t apparently warrant activating their agents. He breezes right past her miraculous survival. He doesn't fret about her coming into contact with Szeth at all. But that makes sense if Taravangian knows that the Honorblades are no longer in the Shin's possession, and haven't been for years. He may be assuming Shallan's Surgebinding ability, whatever it is, is granted by a Blade that she was trained to use. In RoW, Szeth learns that his father, who had keeping of the Bondsmith Honorblade is dead, and that Ishar took back his Honorblade at some point after Szeth’s banishment. Taravangian reveals that he knew Szeth’s father Neturo was dead prior to this revelation. My guess is that Ishar recovered his Honorblade about seven years before it’s spotted in RoW. This would coincide with him coming into power in Tukar. Nale seems to have been in contact with Ishar seven years ago, the same year that Gavilar and Shallan Davar’s mother were both killed. Did Nale's concerns, perhaps prompted by his conversations with Gavilar and Venli, influence Ishar's decision to take back his Honorblade? That’s a little bit out of the scope of what I’m thinking but pretty interesting. What I'm suggesting is that Ishar may have also taken custody of the other Honorblades as well. Helaran returns home with his new Shardblade about six and a half years ago, from the current position in the timeline. The descriptions given to this Shardblade closely resemble the Lightweaver Honorblade, which is something I never noticed until I looked at the art for the Honorblades. That gemstone in the pommel is the only thing that doesn’t seem to fit that description. How hard is it to move and set gemstones on a Shardblade? It can be done to regular Shardblades, though I don’t know if that necessarily proves anything. Sunraiser, for example, bears a pretty strong resemblance to the Bondsmith Honorblade, in my opinion. Possibly Helaran’s blade is a dead spren in a form that strongly resembles the Lightweaver Honorblade. But with the Lightweaver Honorblade, Helaran’s miraculous appearance makes more sense. He’d have used a Lightweaving to hide the fact that he was a Shardbearer mounted on a horse in the middle of an enemy army. It also might explain something that has meshed poorly for me with Helaran's being a Skybreaker acolyte, which was specifically his weird glowing effect. Shallan or the things she holds sometimes seem to glow, particularly when it’s implied that she’s using the Spiritual form of her Transformation surge. Tien’s implied bond to a Cryptic also uses the symbolism of things glowing or becoming brighter. To me this is more evidence that Helaran had some Surgebinding ability in that direction. Shallan mentions that there is no history attached to Amaram/Helaran’s Shardblade, in a world where every Shardblade known is recorded and named. It’s not out of the question that Nale would have access to an unknown Shardblade, but if he’s in contact with Ishar and seriously concerned by an oncoming Desolation, he might have access to another Honorblade and the motivation to arm someone who "impressed him" with it. Taravangian therefore might be working under the assumption that the same source (Nale) that gave Helaran his Honorblade might be supplying Shallan. This means that Amaram would have had possession of the Lightweaver Honorblade. If he perceived it as an ordinary Shardblade, perhaps he simply never noticed he was holding an Honorblade. I think this would be pretty deeply ironic for the villain who lies to himself about why he does what he does and truly believes his own lies to have the Lightweaver Honorblade. Someone who would have known, Restares/Kalak, seemed mostly to be in contact with Amaram via spanreed from afar. I doubt he’d share that information with Amaram, who I think he must have been manipulating--but it’s impossible to say. Other people who would recognize the Lightweaver Honorblade would be Szeth, Dalinar, Taln, and Ash. Szeth, Taln, and Ash don’t ever seem to witness Amaram wielding the Blade in combat that I can find, although all three are present at the Battle of Thaylen Field. Ash spends her time looking after Taln, and never mentions seeing her own Honorblade or Amaram. Szeth, likewise, spends a lot of his time occupied by other concerns, and never mentions seeing the Lightweaver Honorblade or Amaram that I can find in the text. It’s either not the one, or they miraculously miss it every time. Dalinar also saw both Helaran/Amaram’s Shardblade, when he confronted Amaram near the end of WoR, and the Honorblades in his visions of Aharietiam. Dalinar also pitched the idea of Shallan doing studies of the Honorblades seen in the vision. Dalinar has published written accounts of the visions, as I recall, but no mention is made of drawings. Quickly reading through the rest of the part, it's not clear to me if Shallan ever gets around to doing that. However, when Dalinar sees Ishar’s Honorblade, he doesn’t have the same recognition he does for Jezrien’s Blade, which is the most familiar to him; this could be a continuity error, or maybe indicative of something else. And during the battle, when Dalinar does the tally of people with him, Amaram wields Oathbringer alone. As far as I can tell, Amaram doesn’t use Helaran’s Blade until he fights Kaladin. Finally, there is the matter of Honorblades' behavior. When Taln drops his Honorblade, it doesn't vanish. This is meant to be a big clue as to its nature. Amaram drops Helaran's Blade twice in his fight with Kaladin, and it vanishes. Szeth also drops Jezrien's Blade in the fight with Gavilar, and the “bond” so to speak doesn’t appear to be broken. Szeth is able to resummon the Honorblade after being parted from it. No mention is made of where it ended up or if it vanished as he dropped it. My only explanation for this is that perception could be at work here. Szeth believes that the Honorblade should take ten heartbeats to summon, and it does. Perhaps Amaram likewise believes that a Shardblade should vanish when it is dropped, and so as it leaves his hand, it vanishes. Ishar demonstrates that the Honorblade, like a living Shardblade, can wink out of existence for a second and return in a flash. To summarize: I think it’s possible that Helaran was given the Lightweaver Honorblade by Nale, who gained access to it when Ishar reclaimed his own Honorblade. It’s not clear to me why he would do that, although Mraize says that Helaran was recruited with “displays of power” and that Helaran impressed Nale. Could Nale have shown Helaran how it would be possible to Surgebind without bonding a Cryptic? Then Helaran uses it to position himself behind Amaram’s lines. Maybe as an enemy combatant on the field of war, the kill is “legal?” This is still a mystery to me. Helaran is then killed by Kaladin. Eventually the Honorblade ends up with Amaram, who is completely ignorant of what it really is, and somehow it conveniently hopscotches anyone who could identify it. The Blades are awarded to then Rock, who "insists that they cannot be used" according to his daughter. They "gather dust in their box" until he returns to the Horneater Peaks. I find this idea extremely interesting, but a bit tenuous! I've done my best to cover all the things I can think of on my own, for and against. I specifically like Helaran's Shardblade being the Lightweaver Honorblade for the thematic connection to Amaram's lies, and because it's a simple, elegant explanation for the things about Helaran that don't quite make sense otherwise. But it seems to rely on those who could see it for what it is to simply not be around, for certain lapses of curiosity, and for Nale to be totally okay with losing an Honorblade. The gemstone is also located in the wrong place according to the art, which I am not 100% is really usable as evidence, and when it gets dropped, it vanishes ... Despite all this, I still thought it would be a fun theory to share.

We do know that at the very least medallions and normal F-nicrosil do not function the exact same, though we do not know the differences.

The limiting factor is probably how many Metalborn they can make disappear without people asking questions. Most Metalborn powers are incredibly useful and so their owners would be missed if they got their soul ripped into chunks and stapled to someone else. It is also possible that the decay factor that affects every spike based on how long it sat unattended messes with Compounding's effectivity. Or...it could just be that they don't want to waste good powers like that on grunts and reserve it as a promotion bonus for their higher-rankers.

Starsight (this one's kinda crem but it's funny)

I WAS VERY VERY CLOSE TO KILLING YOU Lol I had that bribe ready to go I was absolutely going to get you exed and claim Kandra in thread and convince the villagers to help me, should you have lived and the game continued.

Psh a traitor only in name wait actually Because I did an oopsie >> WHICH I should probably explain. Cause I figured out why the heck I used the elim kill instead of the kandra kill, and I have a half-adequate reason :P. So, once I was converted I figured out that I needed a misexe, one of each alignment killed, another misexe, one of each alignment killed. And that would be 0-0-1 and my win. Looking at the roles and the lack of a Thug I'm fairly certain that could have worked, making this worse, especially since Drake apparently didn't Blackmail me to target myself which was the other thing that could go wrong. But anyways. On D5 when I worked this out, I figured that since Bip had a Coinshot Medallion (How there were 2 kills plus Araris' death N4) she would try to target 2 villagers, and I needed only one to die otherwise the whole thing would be jeapordized. So right then and there midway through D5 I determined I needed to sabotage the elim kill, which in that scenario is actually exactly what I needed to do. But then I managed to convince Bip to double-tap Dannex, not connecting those dots and inadvertently sabotaging my own plan. If I had used the kandra kill, or if Bip's last-second action hadn't gone through, it would be D6 and Ash would be dead. Which I guess if Bip was gonna exe me anyway there wasn't a whole lot I could do (:P) but if I had convinced her to exe Drake somehow I could have killed her and Archer fairly easily for the win, or maybe she would have beat me to the kill again idk. But it does kind of bug me how... well this could have gone. It always looks that way in retrospect, I feel. Anyway, it was my own fault and I still had an absolute blast playing, thanks to my wonderful (former) teammates @Biplet (who outsmarted me in the end), @Ashbringer (who shares my title as the only players to be all three alignments in the two runs of this game) and @Lotus (who my predecessor slayed N1) and of course @StrikerEZ and @Young Bard, the dedicated and amazing GMs. Do run this again, and again Edit: And I hope @Araris Valerian forgives me for messing this up after he brilliantly set me up in such a good position. You did well.

I was actually surprised at how many other answers I got. I mean, how many rulers conduct ethically questionable experiments with a research partner? Apparently a lot more than I though, lol!

There are many different planets. Scadrial. Roshar. Threnody. These are all a part of one universe, the cosmere. But these planets are in one small piece of a galaxy within an, as far as I can see, infinite universe. The first layer. There are other universes. The various Earths. The land of the Epics, the world of Rithmatists, many others. But the key is that there exist universes governed with different laws: the speed of light, ratio of mass to energy to magic, the… permeability of the universe in question. The second layer. This is where things get complicated. Each of these universes in the multiverse is quite different. The world of Shadowblaze is quite different than the world of Radiants. But there are more. Imagine a Rosharan who enjoys breaking Vorin customs rolls a six-sided die. They have a one-in-six chance of rolling each value. In one universe, they will roll a value at random. In the multiverse, the one universe will split into six, one new universe for each potential result. However, the Rosharan is clumsy, and a third of the time their die falls of the table. A third of the time it lands on a nearby rug. A third of the time it stays on the table. Suddenly the split into six becomes a split of eighteen. An additional die will turn it into thirty-four universes. Of course, the small colony of bacteria growing on the die creates millions of times that number as they grow, divide, and move. The third layer – for every action, a universe will exist for a result. Every. Action. Even with the power I hold, comprehending that is plainly impossible. Fortunately, I do not need to. I no longer exist within a universe; I simply sift between them, a... spider on the threads of the multiverse. Peering in, searching for ones where the die was cast in a favorable manner. They are few and far between... but there are things to look for. Eventually, I will find a timeline that is useful to me. That is where my Harbingers come in. I used to think I was fated to rule the world, to create a peace throughout the universe. But the universe is far too small for my... ambitions. For now, I am lost, pouring through, looking for weaknesses I can exploit, powers I can manipulate, anything that acts as a lead. I have yet to find one. But I have made quite a discovery in my current venture, aided by AraRaash. Not one of the multiverse. Not even one that I should have needed to discover, but my intent has been elsewhere. So it is quite something. Solemnium.

Not magic system but please turn down the metaphors, it feels more like a political statement than a story.

Just thought I'd let people know that I won't be on the shard due to camp for the next 5 days. My rp characters will just be chilling or something until then.

Well then! First ever half-session of D&D, over! Just showed up in some catacombs in a middle of a series of battles, witnessed someone get their soul sucked out of them, then attempted to drag away their body to safety as a magic ice knife flies around the corner, killing an enemy. And that's pretty much it on my side!

In espionage, a "sleeper" agent is just someone who has successfully infiltrated the target country, but is not actively doing anything (gathering intelligence, performing operations, etc). I suspect Taravangian's sleepers are just regular men & women who are loyal to the Diagram or Kharbranth.

Look what I just started…

Why wouldn't the Set have its high up members be gold compounders? Is there something about hemelergy that interferes with the strength of compounding? Are they trying to limit the strength of their members? Why wouldn't Wax's uncle have gone double gold and made himself near invincible? I get that they would have to find blood makers and gold mistings (both rare), but i feel like if you were going to go through the process of this, you would want to make it count. On that same vain if thought, if not gold, wouldn't they want to compound a different one? Steel compounding sounds quite powerful in that you both get to become a coinshot and essentially become The Flash. I guess my question boils down to this; is there something that prohibits compounding metals through hemelergy (prohibiting an OP army), is it that they don't have the allomancers/ferucamists handy to pick and choose powers, or is the Set/Trell simply trying to limit their powers? I don't know if this is RAFO or if we have the info on this. Any thoughts?

I was re-reading the section where Mr. T ascended to Odium, and something caught my attention. Chapter 113 (Italics as per original text) That sounds to me as though Taravangian was losing hope, and some external force helped tilt the scales in his favor. And what external force was that? Bravery, otherwise known as Valor! What do we know about Valor? Sazed to Hoid - Epigraph to Chapter 25 We know that Hoid hated Rayse and was looking for a way to bring him down. Perhaps he did take Sazed's advice and approach Valor again. If Valor did indeed affect the situation here, that explains so much: Why did Brandon feel the need to give us 4 new Shard names? So that he could hide the foreshadowing for Valor. What exactly was the deal with Hoid's conversation with Todium in the Epilogue? Given his dealings with Valor, Hoid knew that Taravangium had Ascended to Odium. This conversation was his way of getting a feel for the newest Odium. The scene felt strange because Hoid does not want to let Taravangian know that he knows about the replacement, so he hid those relevant memories in the coin. Could one mortal really take down a Shard? Well yes, but it still seems odd that one person was able to out-plan a Shard. Okay, so maybe this was Cultivation's planning. But could a plan with so many moving pieces really work flawlessly without support? It's much easier if another Shard helps out at the pivotal moment.

This has been bugging me a lot. We know Hoid - Wit - goes where Fortune tells him to, and often without knowing the reason. We know he is terrified of Odium - of Rayse - and while he sought him out, he also avoided him. We know that he has been very careful to keep himself hidden. And we also know he had been planning for his meeting with Odium, who he clearly thought was Rayse - though perhaps he deliberately dumped his memories of knowing it had changed to Taravangian before going to the meeting (pure speculation and possibly wrong, but let's not rule it out). So, with all of that, any meeting he intended to go to with Odium - and it seemed Odium hadn't been expecting him, at least the first time round - would be one which was of significant importance. And from our perspective it was, showing that Wit naturally is invisible to the shards - assuming Endowment is just blustering in her letter in Oathbringer, or due to Wit's connection to Endowment due to that shard tempting him she can see him? But that is besides the point - and that Odium is now something to truly be frightened of if it can pull one over on Hoid. But what has Wit's goal? He didn't give any information other than a few quick taunts to Odium. That's it. So what was his goal? What, in setting, was the reason Wit risked making himself visible to Odium, other than to thumb his nose at him, now that he is safe? And those hardly were outstanding insults. Or was that the point, to give poor insults because he could? What do you think the reason Hoid did this? What did he hope to achieve?

Rather than choosing a child champion the same prophecies are fulfilled if Odium's champion kidnaps Gavinor, and attempts to execute him in the presence of people at Urithiru in an attempt to goad somebody who is not the champion prior to the fight to save him. This would violate the safe passage promise. and has some other advantages from the perspective of odium. 1) If the plan goes awry Odium's champion could still defeat Dalinar's champion because the plan doesnt require Dalinar being his own champion but it still might work if Dalinar is his own champion if somebody such as Kaladin is present (Possibly creating a Tien flashback moment) . Odium knows his predictive ability is not infallible so this is a far easier bet to hedge than say picking a child champion then having Szeth ram Nightblood into the kid's chest. 2) Instead of winning the contest it violates the terms, which is possibly a better outcome for Odium. 3) It fits with Taravangian's brutal, direct style 4) It could possibly lead to Dalinar becoming Odium's pet while still alive and because an oath is violated the stormfather possibly becomes a deadeye. 5) If odium loses in this case (Dalinar is champion and rescues Gavinor) it could still justify things like Dalinar permanently turning the stormfather into a sword by acting on his combat instincts instead of his judgement. 6) Narratively its more satisfying because it rubs personal salt in the wound and philosphy disagreement between Taravangian and Dalinar

No problem! I'll try to keep things up to date with Dark One and some of the smaller projects.

I did something like MarRiis or something in the writeup because AraRiice just felt...strange to me. Plus it’d be a little confusing with AraRaash also floating around out there. I mean, there’s a reason I run games in the summer. Don’t have much time to do it during the school year. I could maybe get a rerun of this game in just before the AG? But if I’m gonna do that, I’d rather do one of the other ideas I’ve got in the waitlist, and save this ruleset as a yearly event type thingy each summer. Or at least, every summer until I get too busy to keep doing it.

Okay for real now: Love you too! You're welcome for calling you to wake you up and also for letting you use my desk to do rollover shenanigans while I was prevented from accessing half my room in order to avoid knowing the outcome XD

The idea of a feruchenist with metalminds encasing his/her bones like wolverine is sort of terrifying and awesome at the same time. Enough gold they could probably survive the process as well.

I say that since I have been attempted to be removed four times to no avail, obviously there is something defective with that exe!

I actually have a very good argument for why you should all trust me! I would be very sad if you did not

I hope this is not a shock to you, but that is beyond my predictions. So let me explain. "So you went back... and changed what you did. Changed us." "No, not technically," AraRaash said. "Oh, this is nice, we can talk together. But all I did was change the spike. The Blessing. You and I... we're the same. Mostly the same, at the least." Faleast ran through the past few years. Nothing seemed to have changed, but he hadn't gone back with AraRaash. He wouldn't remember... whatever had happened before AraRaash changed things. Blast, he could have done anything to his past, and he'd have no idea. "Faleast. I swear, all I did was swap out the spike. Sure, that might butterfly effect something, but it wouldn't be a Divergence." "Maybe you didn't do anything... but if Lamentation can hide that from us, who knows what he did?" AraRaash didn't say anything for a while. "He didn't. I just... know he didn't. The PRE still won, we still escaped barely. So now..." "We just finish what we started," Faleast said. "Fine. But this is going to need a long explanation."

I think it's the opposite. What I heard Brandon say when talking about definitive endings is that he regrets teasing a sequel that's now been promised, because now he's obligated to write it but the wait hurts the fans (and also haunts him). He's apologizing for the long wait as well as the sequel hook. Outside of just that, Brandon's pretty open on what books he plans on giving us versus what books he'll give us if he has time; The Atzlanian falls in the first category, but it's not a major priority, so it's hard to deal with. Also, if it's any consolation, in the State of the Sanderson 2020 post, the user Inkthinker on Reddit (I can't remember if that's Isaac's username or Ben McSweeney's username...I think it's the former) notes that Brandon may try to squeeze in The Atzlanian during his time to write Mistborn Era 3, if Brandon feels like he needs a break.

Moash hate is more people being upset about how he made them feel than his actual actions. Yeah, I said it.

Matrim, as you know I've had it out for you since the beginning of the game. I absolutely intend to blackmail you tonight. Your clever sleuthing caused me to reveal my true and genuine role, so I feel obliged to redirect any kills you submit. I have chosen this path and will stick to it without deviating. I consider you my arch nemesis and would derive great pleasure from your failure. I am underhanded and ruthless and will stoop extraordinarily low to achieve my goals. Hey Striker, how does blackmail stack? If two people redirect the same person, what happens? If one person redirects another redirecting, what happens?

-Bands of Mourning, ch. 28 So affecting metals inside someone seems to be a distinct possibility with the Bands, though seeing as Marasi notes how quickly the stores are used up a few seconds or so after she starts tapping you probably couldn't sustain that level of power for long. ¤_¤

Step 1. Ask if the number of words in a Stormlight book can be counted Step 2. Tell the community you're looking for the word "money" Step 3. ??? Step 4. Profit

I'm inclined to agree with Frustration here. And this sort of seals the deal, does it not? If the BoM, which, per WoB, don't have enough investiture to be a shardblade can't be affected/sensed by allomancy then it stands to reason that shardblades can't either, so pushing on them, in whole or in part, is essentially out of the question. It might be possible with the Bands and Vin could probably have done it while she was ascending, but I wouldn't be suprised if even Rashek at baseline super-mistborn (no nicrosil shenanigans, just baseline strength) couldn't sense a blade, let alone affect it. I'd rate that a maybe, I could also see an augur becoming indecisive from their understanding that every choice would close off so many paths and I don't know if they'd be that much more self-aware than a particularly introspective person. But you're also left with no more aluminium reserves after burning it. Either it burns incredibly rapidly, it wipes itself when burned, ot both and I see no reason to doubt its given rate of burn. So I'm willing to grant that you could burn away a lashing applied to you, or a single "jolt" from a painrial (though you'd still get hit by every "jolt" except that one if you remain within its influence) as these are foreign investiture imposed on you, but I'm not willing to grant that you could continually burn aluminium to be investiture immune, as I have no reason to believe that it doesn't burn away practically instantly. Ah, then I've misunderstood you, I thought you had interpreted the suppressors to use tones. If I may be very pedantic, by this logic we've actually only seen anti-voidlight and anti-stormlight and we can't infer anti-life-, war- or towerlight. To me it seems clear that any investiture manifesting in the same way (gaseous) could be flipped to anti-x with the right tools and knowledge. Now, we don't know of any way to store, say, Preservation's mist, but that is to me the only hurdle, we know a method that works to flip it once you can do that. I don't see why they need to be able yo do that, we see fabrials all the time that can do things that seem outside the skillset of any radiant and we can easily infer functions that we haven't seen. For instance the battlefield dehumidifier (water attractor) used in WoR, where Navani worries that they might have tuned it wrongly and that it might suck the blood out of their soldiers, we've never seen this happen, but we know it's a real possibility and you could deliberately make a blood attractor to, say, drop on an enemy position like a bomb. I frankly think that a Rosharan industrial revolution is possible on the backs of pairing fabrials and waterwheels and a bit of engineering, heatrials and soulcasting could see them have bona fide steam turbines, with the ability to turn stormlight into mechanical work. Yes, there are far more possible combinations of metalborn, but they are also not reliable powersets, every windrunner gets the same powerset, reliably, but not every metalborn gets a power that's useful in a fight, let alone two, or two that interact in such a way that one of them becomes incredibly useful. I'd also be cautious of claiming five powers for a twinborn, as Allik has only seen one medallion in his life that does three, IIRC, and he talks about the ones that do two as absolutely wonderful devices, though they're obviously common enough to outfit an entire airship crew and they have at least one that does another power combination as well. So personally I'm sticking to two per medallion, as that seems to be, if not common, then at least not rare. This is not to say that having a reliable powerset is inherently better than every possible twinborn + medallion interaction, but the static powersets of the radiants might still beat most ability combinations possible for metalborn and radiants are far more common than any given twinborn, even the known possible number of bondsmiths matches the number of known crashers, ever. Sure, a twin gold, twin steel is incredibly dangerous, but you need one of two very rare combinations to start with, and such a person would still need to eat and sleep and might be vulnerable to adhesion (glued to the floor) and abrasion (sliiiiiiide), as well as more traditional things like caltrops and they'd presumably not be immune to pain, unlike Miles, because they've not been doing the infinite healing for forever. I'm also not sure if you'd get resonances off medallions, but I know there's a rough threashold where you stop getting them because you have too many powers. Ah, I misunderstood then. ¤_¤

This is a clever theory. And I tend to agree that, if the contract is broken by one side or the other, it will be the provision stating that the champions must be allowed to meet atop Urithiru “otherwise unharmed by either side’s forces” that will be violated. I’m not sold yet on a particular theory of who the champions will be and how they might be harmed, but I like how @nimvin is thinking creatively about what it might be. One thought that recently occurred to me is what if Taravangian names Moash as his champion but then has him surrender himself to Dalinar’s forces in advance of the contest. He would essentially be daring Dalinar to try to keep that storming’ cremhole safe from the myriad people who’d like to see him dead. (This could even allow a role for little Gavinor to sate all the people who think he’s going to factor into the book 5 endgame).

Happy birthday!!

I don't think anything majorly consequential happened. If my far fetched theory is true (Design was being "corrupted" while Hoid kept Odium busy), there will be a little mention of Design being different and/or Hoid being able to see some future events. Anything else that occurred will be left to us to decide on. Just like Hoid watching Taln arrive at the end of WoK, Hoid watching Jasnah arrive at the end of WoR, Hoid getting Design at the end of Oathbringer. Nothing momentous (Jasnah was momentous, I guess, but not because Hoid was there, and you could take her out of the main story and nothing much would change). This won't be any different. The main story won't change, just some side detail somewhere.

I believe Wit's goal was to see the Rayse reaction to the agreement, and if he could get some advance info on who the champion would be. While I believe Hoid is ok with whatever happen's to Dalinar, he does want to make sure Odium is held to the Rosharan system and thus Hoid will be able to travel safely in the rest of the cosmere. I doubt he plans on staying in Roshar for 1000 years, but I do believe he wants the human/singer problem solved and to make sure there is not a repeat of Ashyn.

I have two ideas about this. One, Hoid likes the sound of his own voice. A lot. And we don’t know what specifically went down between him and Rayse, but clearly it’s personal for Hoid. He wanted to meet face to face, for his own personal satisfaction. Two, Hoid wanted to check that Rayse doesn’t have any nasty surprises up his sleeve. He’s testing Rayse to see if he says or does anything suspicious. If it were still Rayse, this might have worked - the guy is not the smartest and can be manipulated into revealing too much. If Hoid notices that his Breaths have been tampered with and that tips him off, then it still worked, to an extent.

We deal with it, by asking the person that was dismissive to apologize. Honest apologies are a cure to many problems. Most older members will recognize that they were wrong or offended someone. Especially if their faults are pointed out by a mod or someone else than the person that feels offended. Now what happens if a new member gets offended/dismissed and lashes out? A mod gets busy dealing with them, because their reaction is far more jarring than the dismissive post that caused it. Also, remember that we're all just human. Most staff members recognize and know the old-timers. We know that they aren't bad people and even if they say something questionable, they don't have bad intentions. It really helps when you (the newer community members) help us notice that something is wrong. The reputation system was added for fun. Many sharders enjoy getting new ranks etc. Negative repuration was disabled because it caused poisonous situations when someone got downvoted. Now I see that positive votes can also cause harm. It's a good thing that there are serious plans to replace upvotes with reaction a'la facebook. Those seem more neutral.