Fifth Scholar

Let us set a fire in our flesh.

You’re going to completely disregard what I’ve presented in favour of believing both myself and CadCom evil, without even considering the fact that you’re cementing the very wagon which an hour ago had no vocal critics whatsoever? I had no incentive to attack CadCom if we were both evil—it’d be very simple to go after Rath, or after Devotary to begin with, and you’re ignoring that I’m the one who set off a lynch train on my “teammate,” while conveniently dismissing the one situation which I’m urging you to consider. Just because you’ve been confirmed village doesn’t mean you’re helping it by dismissing me. If the Founder tips the lynch towards Devotary, we know exactly who to lynch tomorrow, but they won’t do that because Devotary is likely evil. CadCom has fairly incriminating circumstantial evidence surrounding him, but right now it isn’t enough to convince me he’s guilty, particularly with the lack of defenders, while I take issue with Devotary’s actual posts (and there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence surrounding her as well). In a world where Devotary is innocent, there’s still three Eliminators and a village voting majority tomorrow, which can’t be said for CadCom being innocent, which at this point is more likely.

Not proved, claimed, which is my fault again. This is what happens when you write your posts quickly They do plan to prove themselves to me today or tonight with an item, and I (mostly) trust this player apart from their roleclaim, so I’m not considering them a suspect, at the very least, particularly given their willingness to work with me and the reads I’ve gotten from their posts. You can probably guess who this is by now, but eh, I’m holding to my word to not explicitly reveal them without their permission VitC is what I’m suspecting from the extra vote, and an elim team with multiple “vanillas” is more than capable of getting one through. My going insane N1 is hardly attributable to coincidence, I don’t think—10% is fairly low odds, and while overall it’s more likely than not that somebody went insane from unforgettable horrors, my ego tells me it’s because I was prolific enough to get targeted. N2 I’ll grant that Ventyl probably went insane naturally, but I’ve already detailed that I don’t think that your insanity was natural either, particularly with your inability to verify your action.

I’ve had a long post get eaten by the Shard twice now, so here’s the summarised version because I need to get this out here before the cycle ends. Devotary, CadCom. -My current theory, which is possibly the product of a paranoid brain, is that there’s no Founder, and there’s a four man elim team, and no Governor or Bodyguard. -Why? The village is too powerful to have a governor/bodyguard as confirmed roles; we had a secret village role that could day track, convert and essentially alignment scan, I know an archaeologist who’s proved themselves to me, going insane is a reliable indicator of not-Deep Oneness, all neutrals that fail automatically convert to the village, we have unlimited scanning and redirects, etc, etc—in short, the Elims can’t keep up with the rate at which we can clear people if there’s also a gov and a bodyguard -however, if there’s no Founder and simply a larger team, things are much fairer, the Elims retain the same amount of voting power and it’s harder for the village to clear people—hunting sane people is a less viable strategy -Devotary and Venture have shown signs of coordination or working towards the same goals, and I really don’t think they’re village goals -CadCom is winning far too comfortably in votes right now for the Elims to not have done anything -Lingering suspicion of Devotary from Aman’s analysis, tied to Venture and perhaps Xino as Elims. The Deep One is probably Rath but only if Devotary is evil, otherwise it’s cadcom and the Elims are letting him be run over by the village, which would be uncharacteristic. We’ll know either way by lynching devotary -if none of this makes sense that’s fine, I don’t understand it either This is what happens when your post gets eaten twice. Need to go do actual work but we should reconsider blindly trusting these two as they’re pushing for it. Notice how there’s been little opposition there all game, all of it has been village, and it’s evaporated once they’ve collaborated. The CadCom lynch is probably mostly full of villagers but the Elims seem to be standing aside here. I need to go do work, but will try to check in periodically

I keep apologising for not being around enough, but I actually do feel terrible—I had a cross country meet take up nine hours of my life yesterday, but had intended to post after it was over—that said, I immediately fell asleep when I got home (with the light on, no less) and therefore couldn’t get on the Shard. So this one’s entirely on me. This game is probably taking more of my time than I can spare, so please don’t expect anything enormous out of me except maybe on the weekends, but let me see what I can respond to. @Rathmaskal, understandable, and thank you for replying promptly. That said, while you’ve done you list analysis, which is a nice and succinct way of presenting information, you’ve not yet voted; do you plan on doing so any time soon? @CadCom, I will admit to being at least slightly confused by your defence. You accuse Devotary, but then cite her action as proof of yours N1; then, after quite a long section of your post (raising good points, I would note), you end up on Xino, who was entirely tangential to most of your argument. While Xino is the last of Aman’s main candidates for being the Deep One, he is also not an excellent lynch candidate in the sense that there’s little to be said about him—if we had our Gravedigger, I’d advocate killing him to sort it out, but a lynch on him might kill discussion (which seems to already be dying). As with Devotary, I’ve received a claim from you in PM which is difficult to verify and almost amplifies my suspicions, and while you perhaps have a better record with your actual votes, the way others’ votes fell on D1 to save you remains a point of suspicion. @Devotary of Spontaneity, the Agent only being able to convert Fort Folk was a guess by Aman and I after his failure to convert presumably neutral!Sart and our reasoning that recruiting an Eliminator would be overpowered, and imbalanced, as compromised docs usually are. I...somewhat accept your reasoning justifying your vote, and had forgotten you were not part of the swing away from CadCom, but I still somewhat question the logic behind killing a likely villager over a neutral suspect and potential Eliminator. I’m no longer terribly sure how alignment indicative this is for you, but you certainly aren’t village in my eyes. As for who my final vote is actually going on, I’m somewhat torn—both Devotary and CadCom have no confirmable alibi for last night, seem to be relying on each other for their N1 alibis despite presumably both wanting to live, and have some unsavoury role in a lynch. While both of them may be Eliminators, CadCom is the only one that could be the Deep One of the two, so my vote will stay there. If rollover is at 9 EDT/6 PDT today, I’ll probably have time to get back on before the cycle ends, so I’ll make my actual final decision then, but these are my current thoughts.

My apologies for my failure to be around until now; schoolwork is still keeping me plenty busy, as is cross country, and I have quite a bit to say that I probably couldn’t have covered last night. First of all, Aman’s death is no accident. I was in intensive PMs with him last night, which is partially why I never got around to posting much in the thread itself, and his claims there are notable enough that the Eliminators might have well decided to kill him for it. The Government Agent, according to Aman, was able to Day track, and could confer this power upon other Fort Folk by converting them to his sub-faction within the village. Their goal was to lynch the Deep One and one of his subordinates/Dagon’s Will members. While I’m unsure of how much of this was lies, I do know he was also in communications with @Sart and one or two other people, and from what I can tell of my PM with him, he likewise gave at least some of this information to them. Given that he was absolutely convinced the Elim team was Devotary, Venture, and Xino, these people are out as immediate suspects (he hardly would have shared it with them), leaving Araris and CadCom as potential claimants who would (or their teams would) have acted on the information. I’m currently leaning towards CadCom, especially as a potential Deep One, because of the circumstances surrounding his survival D1, and because he’s the only reasonable candidate remaining for an active Deep One. I also think it’s worth noting that Devotary is by no means off the hook; despite a claim she made to me last cycle in the middle of Aman and I investigating her, the evidence still stands that she killed Striker last round over Sart, helped push the last-second lynch away from CadCom (who I suspect) on C1, and also was potentially driven insane by her own team yesterday in an attempt to deflect Aman’s conviction that she was the Deep One. Perhaps she was not, but her behaviour still resembles that of a Cultist, and again the fact that Aman specifically was killed last night (someone who had claimed neutral at the time) when he was suspecting Devotary and Venture is telling. Rath apparently beat me to the punch, but I can independently confirm that Sart stole from CadCom last night, and he should be village right now. Kinda wish I’d tracked Devotary now instead, but Aman was adamant that Sart be a guaranteed village convert. That said, @Rathmaskal, where have you been, and why did you not respond to Aman’s PM yesterday? From my understanding, he tried to contact you repeatedly, and you never got back to him (at least that was the case five hours before his death). How much did he reveal to you? Ventyl going insane is probably from Unforgettable Horrors, unless they have been sending in actions while pretending to be inactive, and are another vanilla Cultist; however, I have far stronger suspicions as to who that actually is, so they’re a very low priority suspect right now. In other news, someone should have had the Necromicon last night, and used it. Any hints that could confirm anything about the Deep One?

Okay, I might have been insane technically yesterday, but I’m actually going literally insane right now. Aside from the colossal headache Aman’s claims are giving me, and his odd decision to publicise almost everything that’s happening, there’s this: Which is incredibly unnatural. I suppose Voice in the Crowd was used, or Devotary's the Governor, but either way this looks like an effort to save Sart which was not dissimilar to how CadCom slipped the noose yesterday. Nevertheless, votes on Araris (?!) and Striker were added, and this definitely looks unnatural. I said at the beginning of the game that I suspected those using ViaC, and that still holds. Right now I’d fully agree with Aman that Devotary and Sart look evil, but am unsure where the push against Venture is coming from. More thoughts after I send some PMs and refocus after doing college apps all afternoon >>

Interesting. I would almost buy this spin, if it were not for a few things you said to me in our PM. First, while you did indeed PM me and claim criminal, you only demanded the action scan on the contingency of my village alignment—had I been evil, criminal!Sart’s plan was evidently to take a no-response as tacit approval to carry out his original win condition and begin plundering from the village. This is inconsistent with his statements that he “forced” me to action-scan him, and that he had made a predetermination to abandon his previous win condition and become a villager. Thus, Sart is not displaying the fidelity towards the village which this post implies, and caused me to waste my action last night. Further, this is assuming criminal!Sart to begin with; I would not put it past Sart to falsely claim Criminal to get me to waste my action and have his teammate drive me insane, and then use this situation which popped up with Aman as a pretext to justify it. Another inconsistency is in Sart’s claims themselves. He PMed me this cycle (when I couldn’t respond, of course), and instead of explaining the situation with Aman, which was very relevant given that I was in close contact with him (and Sart knew about this contact), he instead lied and said he had forgotten to submit his action. He also failed to tell me about the situation with Aman and his withdrawal of the action order the night I was submitting an action specifically to convert him, and while perhaps I’m getting too bent out of shape about this one particular loss of action, it would have been very useful employed elsewhere, considering the small player size, and given that I’m now insane and can’t take action this turn either, or even vote or PM, my hands feel tied. TL;DR—If Sart is the criminal, he’s not acting in village interests, and if he’s not the criminal he’s almost certainly evil. While I do sympathise with a criminal!Sart who was perhaps between a rock and a hard place, I’m also significantly annoyed about losing my actions for two consecutive turns, and believe that Sart has shown himself willing to lie and work with the Elims irrespective of his actual alignment, which is a valid cause for the village to lynch him. You’re perhaps right that focus is too narrow right now. If Sart isn’t evil...my next best guess is probably Striker or CadCom? If CadCom is evil, then it’s the counterwagoners, and not you or Aman, that are evil with him, as you’ve both demonstrated your not-evilness fairly clearly (unless there’s a WGG but I don’t want to even think about that world right now; besides, the silver bones makes sense as something the Elims wouldn’t have anticipated). I think at least one Elim, if not more, are lurking or inactive, though as it’s often difficult to discriminate between one lurker and another, I’d rather lynch through our plethora of active suspects, and leave the Bounty Hunter and Gravedigger to root out inactives. (Or any charitable-feeling Cultists )

Okay, I’m away with my team at a cross country meet, and can’t vote, but Sart anyway (just for fun)—aside from what Aman said, he’s probably an Eliminator who tricked me into thinking he was a thief in my PM with him, telling me to action scan him and convert him into a villager. He took no action, but I went insane anyway, suggesting that the Deep One targeted me (or I got really really unlucky with Unforgettable Horrors), he had made me target him to waste one of my actions, and that some other Eliminator submitted a kill. That’s independent from Aman’s claims, which I’ll evaluate at another time. Right now, I trust neither of them but would rather see an Elim dead than a neutral. Can confirm the PM stuff with Aman as factually correct, though I’d not put it past him to sow false seeds to set up a fake neutral claim. Also, he seems to have *too* much information about Hoid and what he supposedly has to do, though I can’t speak beyond this because I don’t have the time.

(Starting all my sentences with R’s was great fun, but it’s unfortunately starting to take too much time, and because I’d like to be direct I’m dropping it as a convention If I had more time, I’d try to stay faithful to it.) I’m...not entirely sure I like this first paragraph from Aman, though it’s hard to explain exactly why. The wording here: Seems a little too...quid pro quo, for a lack of a better term—while Aman is encouraging analysis, I’ve often found the sentiment of “do this specifically and I’ll stop suspecting you” to be an Eliminator one. More specifically, it’s easy to envision an Elim!Aman trying to pocket a village!CadCom whose lynch would reflect poorly on him by “saving” him from suspicion. If none of this makes sense, I blame my four hours of sleep I’m glad there weren’t any Voices in the Crowd—in general, it makes the lynch less reliable, and as I said D1 anyone using it is at least slightly suspect, as grievances can and should be aired publicly, without allowing the Eliminators the opportunity of hiding behind anonymous voting. Further, the lack of anonymous voting from the “group of four” which were active yesterday but didn’t place votes (Rath, Devotary, Xino, Hats) suggests one of a few things: -CadCom is village, and yesterday’s lynch was V/V. The Elims in this group didn’t care enough to chip in on the lynch. -CadCom is evil, and most of this group made no apparent effort to save him, suggesting that the more inactive members of this group who didn’t see the end of the cycle might be evil. -CadCom is evil, and most or all of this group is village. -CadCom is evil, is the Deep One, and several votes on him were from elim teammates, so he wasn’t worried about dying. (Too much tinfoil?) Commentary on last cycle’s lynch which is sort-of in response to Sart and Aman: -Araris and Sart look the cleanest from yesterday’s lynch, though I do have a bias towards trusting them because of their play styles. -I’m starting to veer away from my suspicion of Rath, especially now that he’s clarified his lack of vote was likely due to IRL reasons. I would like more analysis from him, but for once I’m actually getting a good tone read off his posts, skimming back through them, so he’s my largest trust aside from the other two. -Xino, Hats, Ventyl and Ark are tossups until we get more content from them. (Which I would very much appreciate.) -Aman’s role in the lynch yesterday seemed fair—while I don’t necessarily agree with his most recent post, he does seem to be making genuine effort to solve the game (though for Aman this is fairly NAI). Neutral until I get more time to actually look into him properly. -One of Striker and Venture are likely evil, regardless of CadCom’s alignment—it’s a pet theory of mine (which I developed five minutes ago ) that if the lynch was V/V the Elims would probably want one person on either side of the lynch and another person off to the side, and if it was V/E they’d need votes to save CadCom. I suppose this analysis should make me question Sart more, but it’s again a tone thing, and Sart is putting in enough effort right now regardless of alignment that I don’t wish him dead. Devotary I vaguely suspect, but with no actual reasoning against her I’m dropping it unless I can find something which corroborates my gut. My suspect list is outpacing the number of Eliminators, regardless

Returned just now from school; please let me piece my sanity back together so I can start writing a five-page Spanish essay and I’ll see if I can respond to some of this later tonight.

Re: your first paragraph, very much agreed that public discussion of any necronomicon claims to ensure lack of distortion is best; however, I’m less certain that you can’t become insane D1–Mists of Releh has the insanity cost attached to it, and can be used during the Day (though it’s less useful for catching Eliminators now than during the Night). Reading this, I agree with all points except the first. Right now, I feel as though Striker could have said what he did as either an Eliminator or a villager, while Sart’s comments, if harder to decipher and longer, actually contain AI content (Araris’, too, to some extent). Readiness to expose oneself to analysis (especially by voting) is typically a better sign than guarded or vague statements, so I’d trust Sart and Araris over, say, Devotary and Striker. Regardless, both are slippery players, so your more uncertain statements on both of them, which I would ordinarily view as hedging, are perfectly merited Rest of the things I’m going to mention before I have to log off the Shard for the rest of the cycle: -Right now my vote is on CadCom, and it’s going to stay there; a single vote won’t kill him, and if he doesn’t show up by the end of the cycle to contribute, I won’t feel too guilty about killing him. Respectively, more posts from @ILuvHats and @xinoehp512 would be nice, as well as any posts at all from @shanerockes, @Ventyl and @Ark1002. Really, the game is more fun and meaningful when you guys contribute, aside from the fact that I don’t want half the players in the game as a blind spot in my suspect pool. Reads list forthcoming, perhaps tonight, but I’m running out of time to post it; suffice it to say that out of the active players, I “trust” Aman and Araris the most, appreciate Sart’s willingness to be active but distrust him, and retain my suspicion of Rath (when do I not? ) after his comment to Araris earlier. Rather than trying to force us into lynching one of the few active players D1, though, I’d simply say that if by some miracle all of the lurkers and inactives appear, and we get an active discussion going, I’d personally be in favour of lynching him. (Rath is my first choice, but Devotary also works, who as usual is mostly registering as a giant question mark to my brain. ) Right now, though, most of the votes are on inactives or lurkers (perhaps rightfully so), and I don’t see that changing unless people overcome their aversion to removing an active player D1.

Receive my profuse apologies for my lack of contribution here; RL is really catching up to me, and I’m at this point just trying to keep up with the thread, let alone analyse it. Ruthful will also take a break, at least for the cycle; it’s time to get to the important thing: voting. @Rathmaskal, you ask: to which I reply, why does Araris need a reason for the vote? Recently, it’s got discussion moving, and has provided the analyseable content we need to separate villagers and Eliminators. Random votes are still votes, which are the best metric for analysis out there. Running with this same idea, I appreciate Sart’s willingness to vote, but would question the utility of voting on an inactive. Ritual sacrifices to allow conversion are a viable Eliminator strategy, so killing those not posting isn’t entirely useless, but it stalls discussion, and typically (though not always) inactive players are villagers, as Elims tend to have more engagement in the early game. (Retaining their silence for too long could be seen as an Eliminator unwilling to give clues to the thread, though we’re nowhere near that point.) Right now, to summarise, I’m uncomfortable with Sart and Rath, but will go for CadCom—he’s had twenty-four hours to view the thread since the initial post, but is still around since making a brief RP check-in, and I’d like to hear more from him and not allow him to slip under the radar. (Reasoning also applies to @ILuvHats, though they’re newer, so I’m minded to give them the benefit of the doubt; that said, Hats, if you have more RP or thoughts to share, that would be wonderful. )

Returning after looking over the rules, I have a few quick thoughts to lay out (but not much time, so this post will probably be short). Regarding what Sart said, that the deck is stacked against the village, I both agree and disagree; while our roles are certainly hampered by lack of communication, the great advantage of this game is that we know which roles are evil and good already, and the powers of the two are fairly difficult to confuse. Role-trading is therefore a viable strategy to rule out who the cultists are; in addition, we (presumably) have the necromicon, which I would advise the holder to use immediately, despite the guarantee of insanity; catching and disposing of the Deep One early makes it a price worth paying. Regrettably (or perhaps not, as this game would be little fun if it could be solved by mass roleclaims), it appears that claiming anything this game is fraught with risk; the Governor claiming could expose the Bodyguard via PM spying, or vice versa, and the only things protecting the Archaeologist and the Gravedigger are silver bones or the elder sign pendants. Revealing roles also puts us at the mercy of third parties: the bounty hunter has strong incentive to pursue roled players, even villagers, to achieve their win condition: as such, all of this makes claiming, except as a way to avoid a lynch on a powerful villager, a poor idea, for the most part. Roleless players are also enormously important to this game. Right now, if I’m reading the rules correctly, everyone has access to an action tracking ability which could easily catch the Order members submitting kills, or even the Deep One himself doing his reveal. Retribution, assuming the scanner doesn’t die, would then be swift. Redirection, receiving copies of PMs, and sending them anonymously are also worthwhile actions, if less effective than the tracking at directly catching cultists. Regarding “Voice in the Crowd,” I would suspect anyone using it at least to a moderate degree, as it makes the Founder’s vote manipulation harder to identify, and makes the lynch much more uncertain. Recommending it as an action therefore feels wrong, even though it is publicly available. RP to come, and perhaps a longer post, in twelve hours or so. Right now I have to leave

Ruthful gave her best smile as her grandchildren crowded about her knees, laughing. “Giveus a stowwy, Gramma!” the toddler, Noma, demanded, and a chorus of approval greeted the sentiment, even from the older ones. They loved to hear her “tales” about shadowy horrors and the brave who had overcome them, and this visit would be no exception. They’re so innocent now, she thought sadly. What would these children say if they knew of the fanaticism, the threats that actually underly these dense woods? If they knew that I told these stories to prepare and guard them, and not to amuse? There are so few left untouched by the curse of this town, our family among them. Unless I have missed something. Unless I have failed, at last, in my vigilance... She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. Now was certainly not the time to be fretting about things beyond her control. Ruthful smiled again, scooping up one of the youngest, Boza, in her arms and swinging her around. The child giggled. “Lemme go, Gramma!” she exclaimed, and Ruthful obliged, giving a last pat on the head as a parting shot. She sat the girl down on her knee and began to talk. “A very long time ago, before your grandparent’s grandparents were born, a curse had haunted the small town of Innsmouth by the sea...” This is normally where I do my role analysis, or at least something briefly game-related, but unfortunately I’ve not read the rules in a week, and have work to do tonight, so that will have to wait. For now, I’m liking the RP, and would encourage everyone to check in with at least something.