Mid-Range Game 17: Hic Sunt Leones

[Doc12]

From his spot by the wall, Spartacus raised his glass to the first lancer who had spoken, Tenebrum. She was greeting her old friends. Funny, that. He could’ve sworn he had some old friends here, too. The girl, Lumina. She had reminded him of Elentari, a brilliant, dangerous strategist he had met a while ago on a world  far, far away. Khazad, the poor guard he had been following (but now lost. That man was seriously in a hurry) reminded him of Mandos, an enthusiastic and powerful warrior. Nirgal was an enemy, Gregor reminded him of a villager on Nalthis, as did Lucius, except Lucius reminded him of a man laughing. Other familiar faces danced in and out of vision, and he had to remind himself that he knew no one here. All the people he had known had come from another universe entirely. 

Some of them seemed to know him though. Lumina had mentioned something about a rebellion he was apparently in. And some of the older lancers were nodding respectfully at him.

He took a quick glance of his datapad, wondering if he should start building his web of contacts. Would it be too hasty? Perhaps. slipping the datapad back, he again decided to watch and wait.

Looking around the room, he continued taking in the people. Nyanah was interesting. As were Danii and Burganaa. There was…something about them he couldn’t quite place, but everything in him warned him to be wary of them. They were not from around here either. .. He wondered whether to move to talk to them, but decided to see if any of them would approach him first.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Doctor12

[Arrae]

Nyanah heard sounds of a celebration around the corner. People! Maybe she could ask them where she was. She ran forwards into the corridor.

A crowd of people milled about a large ballroom, which was filled with bright lights. Rainbow-colored chickens squawked and flitted about a huge wall of trees that filled one part of the room, like some giant Shin exhibition. A line of people extended from the edge of the trees to the other end of the ballroom.

"What is this place?" Nyanah asked in wonder. She walked closer to the line of people, who were dressed in draping robes that fell to their knees. They were all lighteyes with gold hair, like a more pure version of Nyanah's Iriali and Veden mix. Some women stood in the line, almost indistinguishable from the men. Like the women from before, they didn't cover their arms at all. Nyanah stared at one woman's exposed safehand, shocked. Those were intimate parts of the body, something that a woman showed her lover, not something to be displayed out in the open!

A voice shook Nyanah out of her shock. 

"My lord," it said, "I do swear to serve you in all things. I swear to you my heart, my mind, my body, and my soul. I swear to you the works of my hands and my lips. All this I swear in service of the Sovereign, may she reign for a thousand years." The voice laughed, low and contemptuous.

This had to be a ceremony of some sort. Nyanah didn't want to interrupt, but she needed to know where she was. She walked towards the closest man, and asked, "Excuse me, where is this place?"

Edited October 11, 2016 by Arraenae
Deleted something that shouldn't have stayed there

[Elenion]

Khazad surveyed the room, exhausted but still paranoid. The meeting had taken most of the afternoon, much of which Khazad had spent sitting silently. That was the problem with talking to people with real power: if you didn't have power too, they were above you. And the general and his advisors weren't the type to talk to newcomers.

That one over there. He looks suspicious.

"Which one?" Khazad mumbled to himself, "They all look suspicious."

That's right. Any one of them could knife you in the back, if you don't do it to yourself first.

That last part was a mocking gesture to an unfortunate accident that Khazad had had five minutes previously. While heading towards the banquet at his usual breakneck pace, he had hit a door (thankfully not Lumina's) and been knocked sprawling on the ground. His backup knife, the one that he kept hidden in his shoe, had flipped open as he fell. Khazad came to rest staring at the small blade, which lay only a couple of inches from where his face had hit the ground.

Khazad was jolted out of his memory upon seeing Spartacus in the hall. Khazad was considering joining him where he was standing when his sixth sense butted into his mental monologue.

I still don't trust that one. You haven't known him for long enough.

Khazad relaxed, leaning back to his original position standing against the wall. He had fewer blind spots that way.

 

[Jondesu]

Quintus slipped quietly into the hall, determined to avoid the gazes of as many other Lancers as possible, and conversation entirely if he could. Renewing his vows to Tiberius took all of his force of will in order to pronounce the words crisply and clearly; he had no leeway like Sanis, whose words had sent shudders through his spine. 

Around the room, he recognized several Lancers: Khazad was as unmistakable as always, though he seemed wary; Tenebrum and Lumina he had run into at times, albeit briefly. At least one person seemed completely out of place, openly wondering in a low voice what kind of place this was. Quintus frowned. Her hair wasn't pure gold, but it wasn't simply burnished or faded. It had some very unusual mix of colors, with some strands and patches in different shades, unlike anything he'd seen before. This stranger was no normal Gold, and would bear watching.

Quietly from the periphery though, of course, where he could remain unchallenged and unseen by most.

[Darkness Ascendant]

Oh we're all RPing kk guess it's in the best interest of everyone  

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

Darkness descended onto Mars. He had received the parameters of the latest game he was to partake in, and slowly, as he descended, invisible to those below, he....changed. His features morphed, he found his clothes soon to be two sizes too small. "That" he grumbled, "will  be annoying". Upon speaking he found his tone to have changed. It was light...airy, it made grumbling difficult.

He felt around his skull, feeling himself, getting to know his new body, there was a strange bump behind his ear, and on his other ear was a brown piercing. A strange piercing shaped....he couldn't tell.

He pulled out what he had on him. A strange gem and a weird phone thing. "Hmmm," he hummed, re-reading the parameters, enclosed with it his identity.
"Hmmmm, yes, got drunk...sister jokes about me being dropped on my head...guess that explains the lump....Peirce au Fabii...huh...need to remember this...."

A small piece of paper fell out from behind the strange phone thing. It appeared to be an invitation to...an Aerie?? Well then he thought, descending into a marketplace near what looked like Kredik Shaw from his time in his other game. Better get a move on then He landed in an alley and removed his invisibility, he wouldn't be able to use it now anyway.

He walked out of the alley and saw groups of people moving past, each group appeared to be dressed in one colour, and were doing separate errands.

"Aaaaand...we have touchdowwwn. Thank you ladies and gentlemen, it's been a rough ride, yes, yes, I know, one small step for mankind, one giant leap into the universe"

They continued on their way, their heads had swiveled in his direction, but upon realisation on who he was...they continued on their way.

Hmmm, not liked by the locals. Great start

He walked over to a street vendor, who seemed to shy away from him as he approached.

"Hello! Would you mind directing me to...." Darkness faltered, what was it called again? He lifted a finger at the vendor, who was cowering in fear. He pulled out his parameters and read a bit. "Ah yes, the great Aerie of Agea"

"Su-su-surely my lord Dominus must be joking, for the great Aerie lies but over there, visible to all!", the man seemed to be on the verge of tears as he pointed over to the building that resembled Kredik Shaw

"Ah yes, how silly of me, well, I must be off, got invited to a party!", Darkness began the long walk over to the Aerie, deeply troubled.

[Amanuensis]

I should have announced this before I went to sleep. Normally I will keep answers to questions people ask me in PMs private, but this one is important enough to address for everyone.

• Who creates the PMs: us, or you?
  • You do. You can create them without my consent. If you attempt to create more than you can afford, however, there will be punishment...

[Assassin in Burgundy]

Colors. 

There were more people here than the average arena in Nalthis. The Jackal reflexively hunched down, before realizing he was one of them. On Nalthis he had been a Returned; here he was a Gold. He had figured out the system soon enough, and only had to strangle a few suspicious people. He would need to remain careful, or his lack of the knowledge of customs would give him away. 

Well then, he thought. This should be interesting. 

He made his way over to Tiberius' chamber and bent his knee before him. The man reminded him of His God King. When he said the oaths, his voice slipped, thinking of his God he was now betraying, and sweating fealty to another. He stood up and walked away.

What are the chances I will get home? He thought. Only the Healer has that box. There's no way. 

Suddenly, he smiled. If I can't get back, I'll accept that. But I'm sure as hell not going down without a fight. 

Edited October 11, 2016 by Assassin in Burgundy

[Burnt Spaghetti]

“Tia? Are we gonna see all the Lancers?”

Tia glanced down at Tarna, Tiberius's youngest daughter, who was tugging at her sleeve.  She smiled, “Yep! Your daddy is throwing them a party so there might even be some snacks!” Beside her, Tarna cheered.

‘Oh Goodie! Snacks! Do you think there will be cupcakes!? With sparkles?”

Tia laughed, “I’m not so sure about that buuuuuut….” She bent down so she was about the same height as Tarna, and whispered “I brought along some sparkles and glitter of my own to sprinkle over the food that is there.”

Tarna’s eyes widened with excitement, “Oooooooh!” she clapped her hands gleefully. “Can i have some!? Pleeeease!?”

“Of course you can! Anything for you, kid.” Tia smiled fondly at Tarna and stood back up straight. After the incident 4 months ago, she’d been able to become good friends with Tarna. A sad expression crossed her face as she tried thinking back to that. See, she didn’t remember it. She’d been told about what happened but… the actual memories were gone. Most of her memories were gone actually. She had forgotten all her memories: That she was a lancer, an Olympic Hearth Knight person even. That she’d apparently had some lover who had died to save her. Even her name, her real name, she’d forgotten. Sure, she knew what people told her it was but, that….Vesta person they talked about….that wasn’t her. Not anymore. So she chose a new name. Hestia. Though even that wasn’t quite right so she shortened it to-

“Tia? Are you okay? You’re spacing out and look weird. Like an unripe fruity face.”

Tia blinked, and pulled a face at Tarna, “I’ll show you an unripe fruity face you sneaky sapling.” She grinned at Tarna. Ah yes. That's why she was thinking about her missing memories. After she lost them, Tiberius had taken her into his own care while she recovered. It had given her plenty of time to get to know his youngest daughter. Tarna was great fun.They made a great pair of silly bumpkins.

“Did you bring your supplies for our little bit of fun Tarna?” Tia then said with a mischievous grin.
“Teehee! Of course I did, silly! I take them eeeeeeverywhere when we go on adventures!”

“Excellent! We are going to have some fun at this party then. I brought my stash too! Let's go find us some targets!”

The pair giggled together as they went and found a spot to hide while they schemed about their pranks.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Burnt Spaghetti

[Wonko the Sane]

"Excuse me, where is this place?"

Sanis observed the half-Gold newcomer. She was disoriented, confused. Easy enough prey for a knife. All these people watching, though... It could get complicated. Not a knife, then.

"My dear lady, do you refer to the Aerie, or to the ArchGovernor's ball?" Sanis gave his most magnanimous smile.

Poison, perhaps? He knew he had a vial on him somewhere. But the woman had no drink, and it would be suspicious to follow her around until she did. still, it was  better than the knife, though, if just barely.

"In either case, I find myself somewhat at a loss to explain anything that you would not already know. I have never interested myself in such things."

Perhaps he could lure her aside somehow? He knew his way around well enough. If he gave her some kind of a tour... But no. People would see them leaving together.

Sanis sighed. Perhaps it was for the best that he couldn't find a way to safely kill the girl. It was only wishful thinking, after all; Tiberius would doubtless be cross with him if he murdered one of the ArchGovernor's lancers.

[Elbereth]

All right, let’s get some game talk going here, shall we? Just because we can’t lynch yet doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss. So.

One - a few brief reminders. 1. The lynch is different than usual this game. We can’t lynch today (though we could try a mock duel for practice), but we can starting tomorrow, and given that the lynch is arguably the most critical part of the game, that’s kind of important. So I suggest everyone reread the rules before tomorrow, just so we have as little confusion as possible about that. 
2. Rath. Keep in mind that even if there were ways to clear people in this game (which… I actually think there might be, at least to an extent… thoughts on that in a later post, I think, because I’ll have to see if it would work), that doesn’t mean that person will stay good. So be careful about trust. 
3. Merit. Obviously, Merit is important in this game. As a whole, the village will without doubt gain more Merit than the eliminators. That’s just a fact. But the Forsaken can also use what Merit they have much more effectively than can the Faithful, because they can coordinate (at least to an extent). So in return we need a lot more Merit to accomplish the same thing. Thus, RP is definitely something we need to be doing. But I would also advocate that we actually start talking about the game, given that 1) that gives Merit, and 2) that’s the bit that actually helps us win the game. If everyone only RPed and never talked about analysis or strategy, things would be rather problematic, yes?
4. Limited communication - I think it’s of note that the eliminators do not have a doc together as usual. They don’t even have a PM together, only a chain of PMs. (Note that I think that as a result the evil team will be balanced a little more strongly than usual, because limited communication will hamper them, possibly a great deal.) Among other things, that means we can’t rely on looking at lynch patterns quite as usual because they’re not going to be defending each other as a team. So that’s something to keep in mind. 

Fifth… well, I had an idea, so I’ll lay it out. Note that I don’t really think we should do this idea, both because it would be a bit more boring for all involved and because it would take a lot of organization and time, which I at least don’t have the time to do. (Corollary to that - my activity may fluctuate wildly, given that I probably shouldn’t be playing at all right now. Sorry. I mean, I’ll probably be just as active as usual, but if not, the reason is school.) Basically… the way this game is laid out means that we can calculate exactly how much Merit every person in the game has. If we also all came clean about items and roles and kept ourselves accountable, it really wouldn’t be too difficult to pin down the Forsaken, in my opinion. (It would take a lot of organization - figuring out who should get what items, or organizing rotating PMs to different people so we can keep people accountable for their Merit in that way and all - but it would be doable.) Particularly given that the Forsaken with the most Merit is the one who gets the IonBlade. I’ve noticed in the past that the more cards on the table, the harder it is for the eliminators to hide - it’s why eliminators do so badly in LGs.
But I mentioned that I didn’t actually think we should do this. And that’s because it wouldn’t be fun. It’s like the item-passing in QF16, but even more dictatorship and accountability, and that’s not what makes the game interesting for everyone. 
So I thought I’d propose this, just because it was a thought I had and a possibility, but I personally advocate against it because it would make the game less fun.

RP was going to be in this post, but I should really be working on schoolwork, so it will come later.  

[Wonko the Sane]

Yeah, I agree that too much information, especially as the result of heavy regulation, makes the game stagnant. I learned that lesson in LG19, with Operation Windwhisper. It secures a village win, but at the cost of the fun of the game.

That said, it wouldn't be a bad idea for everyone to keep an eye on the approximate Merit earned each round. If we see players rotating out with their activity, or some other anomaly, we should take note of it.

I'd also caution that it's dangerous to assume that the Eliminators aren't as connected as usual. They don't start out with a doc, but they can buy group PMs as easily as we can. As soon as they figure out who everyone in the chain is, they can become fully connected.

[Burnt Spaghetti]

If the Forsworn have a pm chain couldn't they just use that to figure out who each other is and then get one of them to create a group pm for them?

Sure they may have limited communication initially, but im thinking that won't last long, and that we will be able to look at lynch patterns as normal and darn Wonko just ninja'd me. Well. Then... i agree with Wonko

[Elbereth]

Well, they do have to keep the Rath in mind as well. Making a group PM is much more dangerous if they have a Rath in their midst, and I wouldn't be particularly surprised. And even if they do decide to ignore that danger and go for a full group PM, it's still going to take a while for them to get coordinated, so I think using this time while we can is to our advantage. They may become coordinated, but for now they're not completely. 

Bringing up LG19 is an excellent point, though. That's a perfect analogy to that plan, and precisely why I don't want to do it. It didn't secure a village win in that case, though.  (Only because the game was horribly broken, but still.)

[Magestar]

4 minutes ago, Burnt Spaghetti said:

Sure they may have limited communication initially, but im thinking that won't last long, and that we will be able to look at lynch patterns as normal and darn Wonko just ninja'd me. Well. Then... i agree with Wonko

Actually, as far as lynch patterns go, I'd tend to think that they'd go rather differently in this game.  Especially as far as votes on innactives go, since it seems like they need to do something to deactivate the Duel.   I don't really think poke votes will work as well in this game either.  I'm going to read over the rules again, but it also seems like Arcos are going to be a bit of a problem from the lynch perspective.  

As far as the Merit tally goes, that wouldn't really work, because of the Bellona, unless you actually did get everyone to roleclaim, which seems really unlikely.

I'll be trying to get some RP in today as well, but I'm trying to finish the first book first.  I'll probably have it up in the next couple of hours, give or take.

[Burnt Spaghetti]

Oh thats true.... i hadn't thought of the different lynch mechanics. Hm.

[Arrae]

"My dear lady, do you refer to the Aerie, or to the Archgoverner's ball?" the man asked. The man smiled at Nyanah, and she smiled back.

"In either case, I find myself somewhat at a loss to explain anything that you would not already know. I have never interested myself in such things," The man said. His smile, which didn't extend to his eyes, reminded Nyanah of a whitespine ready to pounce.

"Um, the Archgoverner's Ball?" Nyanah asked. That sounded like something more understandable to miss.

The man's smile was uncomfortably similar to the way Rillan and the others had looked at Nyanah when they had been planning their worst.

Nyanah, you can't play with us today...

Nyanah shook her head to clear her thoughts. A response! She needed  a response. "Um, the Archgovernor's ball?" she asked. It sounded like something more forgivable to miss.

Just to be safe, she Lashed the bottom of the man's draping outfit together. If he moved too suddenly, he'd trip, and she'd be able to escape if he tried anything.

Nyanah, you can't run from us...

The Forsworn might not be so eager to complete the chain immediately. There might be a Rath on their team that will sell them out the moment that all of the Foresworn reveal themselves. Any act of coordination the Forewsworn take just make it easier for potential Raths to switch and kill them all.

On the other hand, we should be careful with people who claim to be Raths. Depending on who is a Foresworn, I could see someone claiming to be a Rath and bussing a teammate to gain trust.

[Stick.]

@Amanuensis There's an inactivity filter in this game right? (I mean, yeah, of course there is) But how long of inactivity-ness(?) does it allow before taking action? (Not that I'm planning to be on the edge of inactivity or anything :-P) Homeword is slowly eating up my brain. Piece by piece. So I might not have time, but Im absolutely almost kinda sure that I will.

 

---

Stick watches silently. She was here earlier than most lancers (the whole oath-taking part had gone well. Better than expected, anyway), and standing on the same spot had gotten boring, but she hasn't moved. She gets suspicious of everyone who enters- a habit she developed over the last few years. Now, the ballroom is alive with conversation, filled with people. Stick surveys the hall from her spot, hoping to locate some of her old companions. 

As if on cue, a cheerful looking lady enters, and walks around greeting everyone. Tenebrum. Stick greets her back. Tenebrum mentions Brown-Piercing, and Stick wonders if he's here and glances around the room. But the room's comparatively crowded now, and Stick gave up keeping a record of everyone entering the room ages ago.  

Instead, settles back in her corner and -with a sigh- takes out her dataPad. 

Time to get some work done.

---

[Doc12]

Now this was interesting... 

It seemed there was some kind of discussion among some of the lancers. Finally, some talk about why the lancers had been called. 

The name "Rath"  seemed to be thrown around many times. Spartacus took a quick glance at the sheaf of notes he'd swiped from his room.  

Yes, his room. Apparently his future self had been in this place's past, and future!Spartacus had worked together with past!Tiberius, so Tiberius had set apart a room for him whenever he visited. There he had found his future self's notes to himself. 

Time travel. So complicated. Bootstrap paradox and whatever. 

Anyway... He did a quick scan. Rath. A traitorous family never known for their loyalty. He raised an eyebrow. 

He broke into the little group. Why were they even arguing about this, then? It was simple. If anyone claimed Rath, simply refuse to trust them with  information! Of course, there was the possibility that the Rath might lie, in which case the (he checked his notes)  Lune would come in useful. He supposed the strategy might be hurtful to the Rath, and regretted that it had to be this way, but sometimes one had to be pragmatic. 

                        =o=o=o=o=

Right, as my rp was saying, I don't think anyone would want to active claim Rath. It's a role guaranteed to produce instant distrust. 

By themselves, I don't think the roles are very detectable. 

Arcos would be obvious if they survive a duel they had no chance of winning. 

Bellona would possibly be able to be detected if a player gains a large amount of merit that isn't in proportion to their number of posts. 

I suppose Fabii might also be easily detected, as vote manipulations are fairly obvious most of the time. 

Julii, with some coordination in PMs, could also be proven if a trade is arranged inside PM. 

Telemanus, Rath, Lune and Thorne are the claims that are going to be hard to prove outside of death. So... Yeah. 

 

Also, can any Julii please PM me tonight? There a possibility that I might get fake Julii claims, but I have an idea for coordinating with a Julii. I promise your merit will be worth it.

 

[Amanuensis]

3 minutes ago, I_am_a_Stick said:

@Amanuensis There's an inactivity filter in this game right? (I mean, yeah, of course there is) But how long of inactivity-ness(?) does it allow before taking action? (Not that I'm planning to be on the edge of inactivity or anything :-P) Homeword is slowly eating up my brain. Piece by piece. So I might not have time, but Im absolutely almost kinda sure that I will.

---

If someone fails to post once every day they will lose 5 Merit, but otherwise there is an inactivity filter. If you inform me ahead of time that you won't be able to manage that much due to real life circumstances, I will not punish you.

[Arrae]

This week and next week will be busier than usual for me, so I probably won't be able to post as often.

Would keeping track of merit only be acceptablely non-gamebreaking? We can rule out who is the Forsaken with the ionblade this way, and it's easy enough to independently keep track of how much merit people have assuming no purchases.

[Wonko the Sane]

"Um, the ArchGovernor's Ball?" The girl seemed so deliciously fragile as she spoke. As though the merest push could send her shattering into a million tiny fragments.

"Hm. Well, I confess that I don't know much about it. I usually stay out of politics -- it simply bores me." Sanis grinned apologetically. "But as far as I'm aware, none of us know much about what's going on. It would seem that Tiberius, in all his glorious wisdom, has deemed it proper to pause the entire war for some... party."

"I can't seem to recall your name. Have we met before? I am called Sanis. If you like, I could show you around, and introduce you to a few people. I have something of a... reputation, around here." Sanis smiled winningly.

---

Is that 100 words? I don't have a counter.

[AliasSheep]

The green was nice.  Nirgal could see little specks of white where saxifrage sprouted from the fertile ground, a rather unexpected but pleasant turn of events.  There were specks on the edge as well, where a small landslide had brought a pile of rocks down on a bunch of the flowers, but instead of dying, they had instead poked through their stone oppressors into the dim light.  He could see the sun ahead, giving a purple-ish tinge to the mostly dark sky, and the stars shone alongside it, crowning Sol with a lattice of legends. He thought he could see Urgulu, or at least what would look like it from Earth.  He'd been there once.  It felt like a long time ago, but it probably wasn't.  He'd gone there, and he'd looked up into the sky and seen Urgulu.  Once upon a time.  The saxifrage made patterns as well, like the constellations.  The stars of the ground, shining in the reflected light, carving artwork into the ground, coloured by the few flowers that managed to survive around them.  Nirgal wondered if he could see Urgulu in their patterns.  He couldn't.

-

The wine wasn't the nicest he'd ever had.  He'd thought that the ArchGovernor would have provided better; would have cared more, but apparently not.  This brought him back to his imaginings of home.  He'd known someone nearby who'd had a vineyard who had shared wine they'd had made for them.  The man hadn't cared for taking care of the vineyard himself, to Nirgal's disappointment, but the wine had been good, so they'd shared a meal over it many a time.  Occasionally Nirgal had even brought food from his estates over.  He'd never told the man he'd made it himself.

He set his glass down on the table beside him and leaned back.  He had yet to go perform his vows.  He intended to put it off as long as possible.  It wasn't the outright kind of rebellion that Sanis put on, but it was enough.  He didn't really mind that much - the travel was nice.  Io had been nice as well.  Exciting for sure. Oh well, he'd go up eventually.

Beside him, though, was someone he'd never seen before.  The man had chosen to stand for some reason, and his long coat seemed out of place among the robes worn by most of those around.  Nirgal, of course, also stood out, the fringed ends of his crimson red and jade green shawl brushing against the paved ground beneath him.  But even still, the man stood out even more. And were those a pair of old stereoscopic glasses?  They must've been over a thousand years old - wherever had the man found them?

"So, " he said, in the general direction of the strange figure, "have you gone up to confirm your vows yet?"

----

Right, with RP out of the way. @Elbereth, how did you intend to calculate each person's merit?  I considered it being based on what you yourself had earned for posts, but I don't think the system is that structured, with it being dispensed more at Tiberius' discretion than according to a definite metric, though I may be wrong.

Edited October 11, 2016 by AliasSheep
RP Formatting

[Dani]

Danii felt a prickling sensation at the back of her neck. Almost certain someone was watching her, she spun around and searched the partygoers for any eyes on her. No one. Of course, they must have averted their gaze. 
Danii had been keeping a low profile, observing the ways of this world, and by now she had a pretty good idea of how things worked. 
She was a Gold, and she had sworn loyalty to the ArchGovernor. 
All this just to find the Healer, she sighed.
But she had no choice. She had to go along with it if she were to go back to Nalthis. The throbbing in her head from the ride in the Healer's box was still there. 

Danii heard giggling from somewhere beside her, and saw two girls making their way to the far end of the room, one of them rubbing her hands, both of them with mischief in their eyes. Weird. Danii decided to steer clear of those two. 
While she waited for The Jackal, or should she say her twin brother, to return from the ArchGovernor's chamber, sipping her drink, she looked around and admired the ornate walls and the fascinating decorations that the hall was full of. 

Edited October 11, 2016 by Daniyah
Typo

[Elbereth]

1 hour ago, Wonko the Sane said:

 

Is that 100 words? I don't have a counter.

https://wordcounter.net/  

1 hour ago, AliasSheep said:

Right, with RP out of the way. @Elbereth, how did you intend to calculate each person's merit?  I considered it being based on what you yourself had earned for posts, but I don't think the system is that structured, with it being dispensed more at Tiberius' discretion than according to a definite metric, though I may be wrong.

Um. Leaving that kind of thing entirely up to the GM's discretion? Now that's a recipe for trouble if I ever heard one. From the rules:

Quote

When the game begins, each lancer will be with a total of 5 Merit. Every Chapter Merit can be gained or lost depending on how much a player participates. 1 Merit is earned whenever a player makes a post that includes at least 100 words of RP. 1 Merit is also earned when a player makes an on-topic contribution to the discussion (including, but not limited to, suggesting a plan, initiating a duel, cheering a combatant, or analyzing another player). Note that simply voting will not be enough; an explanation must be provided as well if you wish to earn Merit from your post. It is up to Tiberius to deem if your contribution is worthy of Merit. If a lancer believes they deserve more Merit then they are given in a turn, they can plead their case via the GM PM. A total of 20 Merit can be earned this way each Chapter.

So in theory it shouldn't be difficult at all to calculate exactly how much Merit every single player has earned. Not how much they have, not only because of buying items as Rae pointed out but because of PMs costing Merit as well. Even so, it could be useful. 
And yes, the Bellona throws a wrench into that, but not a huge one. Most people won't be Bellona, so while a few peoples' tallies will be inaccurate, the majority will be fine. 

Doctor, my question for you would be why it matters? I mean. The Forsaken really don't have much reason to lie about their roles. If Rath are involved, they can easily just claim Thorne. And you can use as many actions as you want in a night, I think (with the exception of multiple uses of the same Item), so we can't keep people accountable with their roles. So no, roles aren't very provable, but they don't really have to be in my opinion. 

As far as poke-votes go, they'll definitely be different. GMs, if you retract from a duel but the other person does not, you may not initiate another duel, correct? If so, then that essentially means each person may only poke one inactive per turn. This does not mean, however, that you can't still vote, as duelers may cheer for other duels even if they're engaged in their own. So as long as someone is placing a real vote, everything should be fine. 

A few more thoughts and finally RP coming... soon. Ish. 

[jefrywlfersn]

After going to say his vows to Tiberius, Jefry decided to go see some good friends of his, one of them being his best friend from his childhood, Tenebrum. While looking for her, He planned what to say upon arrival as to not embarrass himself at a grand party such as this. The architecture was outstanding and seemed bigger than it actually was with decorations everywhere that made Jefry feel as if the simple clothing upon his back was not enough to match the lavish feel of the place.

 

After some investigation, Jefry found the banquet with a wide assortment of food and drink.

“I’ll be back for you later!” thought Jefry “Now to find Tenebrum.”