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26 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

So it seems most of us are deciding between Xino or Phatt, but Bort is worrying me. He’s going after phatt pretty hard, which isn’t necessarily an elim move, but then says we’re handing the Elims the game if we’re wrong, right after changing his vote? That move is one I’ve seen from people who ended up being elims. Bort, you’ve got my vote right now.

Bah truth is, I didn't really analyse any of Bort's posts so you might be right >> I got too lazy to analyse by the time I reached the last name on my player list ... I should probably read up now though 

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I don't think today's lynch is handing the Elims anything even if we are wrong. There are seven people left, and the Spiked have already had a Full Feruchemist, a Pewter ferring, and a Zinc ferring, which I would submit are the three most powerful roles. Even if we get it wrong today AND tomorrow, as long as villagers don't send in kill orders, it'll still be 2-1 in our favor. Obviously, I'm not advocating that we should get it wrong, but it's not as big a deal as some have said.

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The Terris people were dwindling.

Half the Synod had been slaughtered, between the Spiked killings and the justice meted out by poison at night, or a mob by day. Those that remained had retreated, seeking to manoeuvre their way into controlling the political influences of the Synod, fearful and distrustful of their own number. Initial confidence that ousting Valwyn had purified the Synod had dropped, and Citona Vinid, who had been helping Olaf administrate the legislative body, frantically defended herself against accusations from Ethin Hallil and Tee Mai, who were convinced that Vinid had unsavoury ties to Zihel. For his part, Olaf mainly sat back and watched the proceedings with a grim expression. Sitting and whispering with Marne, whose advice he valued above all the other members, Olaf assessed the men in front of him. He recognised the flaws in each, but upon a more thorough examination, he found himself agreeing with Marne about the people within the Synod. They were misguided, and made mistakes. They had been mistaken to oust Marne from his old position. They had been mistaken to entrust Olaf, a newcomer, with the survival of the last free Feruchemists in the Dominances. And their squabbling, now, was certainly not ideal. However, Olaf now felt, as he stood next to Marne, that the man had been right about his fellow Synod members; despite their infighting, each truly wanted what was best for the Terris, and as Olaf saw it, his confidence and belief in the Synod began to reform itself. These were, truly, the greatest men and women in the Terris community. Olaf simply had to unite them, and refocus them on those outside their council.

As Olaf sat in thought, he saw Tee Mai on the edges of his vision, who was approaching Vinid, hand raised to strike at the Ferring. “That’s enough!” bellowed Olaf from the swivel chair atop the raised platform on which he sat. Tee Mai lowered his hand sheepishly, looking up at Olaf with guilt, yet a little bit of resentment, within his eyes. Resentment will not do, thought Olaf. Raising his voice, he addressed the small Synod. “Your bickering is tiring me,” he announced, “and sitting here arguing amongst ourselves will accomplish little. You are each leaders of this community, and are responsible for its survival; projecting an image of doubt and paranoia will not help the Terris, especially with our numbers as dangerously low as they are. You have each questioned the merits of your fellow Synod members a hundred times; is it not likely that they are merely exhausted and worn out, as each of us are, as opposed to being secret Infiltrators?” Olaf let the question hang in the air.

Marne, however, spoke from beside him. “You have known each of the people in this room for your entire lives, with the exception of Olaf,” he told the Synod. “I would be inclined to trust them after that time. Perhaps there are Spiked in this chamber; however, it is far better to look elsewhere first, and give the Terris leadership in these chaotic times.”

The three Synod members on the ground glanced at each other. Olaf could tell that relations had not been fully restored, not yet. But the three would help him and Marne to find the last Spiked, despite their mistrust. And right now, that was all Olaf cared about. Each of its members uncertain of what the day held, yet determined to face it, the Terris Synod emerged from their meeting-house in Tathingdwen for what would be the last time, a unified front presented to the body of Terris gathered below them.


The body of Terris gathered below them had cornered Ehereman Tresni. The last Spiked attempted to defend himself against the accusations of a Stick, which was unhappy after the burning of the Tautological Society, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. The Terris had found out too much about him; his associations with Zihel and Valwyn had proven too strong to ignore. His only hope, now, was to convince the crowd that the Synod member Citona Vinid was guilty, and not he.

That hope was dashed as the Synod walked down the steps from the meeting-house, almost marching as a single group. The message of unity was impossible to ignore, and from the looks of the members, they too were focused on destroying him. Tresni cursed the Lord Ruler, who had brought him to this barren northern wasteland to die. He cursed Olaf, for abandoning the entire mission, and Leidene, for ignoring it. He cursed the Spiked who had died before him, who had failed at their mission, leaving him to carry out the destruction of a sect of highly dangerous people on his own. Most of all, however, Tresni cursed himself. Cursed himself for his inability to kill Ethin Hallil the night before, with poison. Cursed himself for his failure to put his spying to good use when he had attempted to investigate the Steel squid. And cursed himself for cracking under the withering pressure of an examination by the remaining Terris.

Tresni was not like the other Spiked sent in the mission. Valwyn worked in Pewter, making him the muscle of the group. HanTor was a sly talker, able to talk a crowd into almost anything. Zihel could potentially do anything, and had been made to counter Full Feruchemists. Of course, they had failed, too. Valwyn had been killed with strength, a sword passing through his neck; HanTor had not talked his way out of his death; and Zihel had ultimately been slaughtered by Marne. Tresni was made to be something else: a spy. Tin-enhanced senses allowing him to see the world around him, he was to gather information and use it to bring down the Synod. However, he, too, had now failed.

As Olaf walked down the staircase, Tresni felt a deep resentment for the man build inside him. He had betrayed his fellows, worked to undermine the people with whom he had been sent, and had even talked his way into becoming the head of the organisation that was leading the efforts to find and kill the Lord Ruler’s chosen. Resentment steadily increased, fueling the fires of hatred. It was time to act. The startled Terris jumped aside as Tresni parted the crowd by laying about with the scabbard of his sword. Striding over to Olaf, the Windwhisperer slapped the man across the face with a metal gauntlet, who recoiled in surprise and pain. Recovering quickly, Olaf whipped the thin sword he carried out of its sheath, facing Tresni, who smiled. The challenge accepted, the remaining Terris hurriedly scrambled aside, creating a rough ring for the duel.


Marne looked at Olaf, astonishment etched into every line of his face. Through persistent effort, the last Spiked had been cornered, and Olaf accepted a duel from him? Was the man insane, or did he have a death wish? He had seen Olaf fence, and while the man was certainly competent, Tresni had been Tathingdwen’s swordmaster for as long as he had been in the village, and was extremely skilled with the blade. Add to that the heightened senses and perceptions that Tin Feruchemy granted him…

The duel began its course as a quick pattern of thrusts from Tresni that Olaf turned away with his blade, stepping aside to take a sweep at Tresni’s unprotected back. Anticipating this, Tresni pivoted, suddenly bringing his lightweight rapier down, whistling towards Olaf’s head.

Clang! Olaf moved his sword into place just in time, parrying the attack and barely maintaining his footing. He stumbled and lowered his sword slightly, which was nicked from the impact. Tresni pressed his brief advantage, raining blows from every direction on his dazed opponent. Olaf parried them all, but he was at a nominal disadvantage, and had begun to tire, wilting under Tresni’s relentless assault. It was time to intervene here.

Marne signaled to Ethin Hallil and Tee Mai, who nodded and drew their own swords, prepared to aid Olaf in his foolish endeavor. As they approached Olaf’s ragged form, however, the man snarled, lashing out with his rapier at the two men. “Leave Tresni to me!” he commanded, as the two frantically scurried away from his circling blade. Marne again shook his head at his friend’s stubbornness, watching Hallil and Mai retreat. It seemed as though Marne had only one course remaining: to intervene himself. Slipping between two of the Terris who were gazing at the match with intent eyes, Marne worked his way to the front of the small ring that had formed to act as a perimeter for the duel. The move perhaps took him five seconds, and those five seconds had clearly not gone well for Olaf. The enhanced physical senses of Tresni had clearly aided him, as the Windwhisperer seemed to see attacks before they even came. Viciously parrying an overhead slash from Olaf, which caused his arms to shake, Tresni quickly turned his blade and slammed the flat of it into Olaf’s face. Already kneeling, Olaf now collapsed completely onto the ground, the collective groans of the Terris rising from behind Marne to accompany Olaf’s fall. As Tresni raised his rapier one last time, grinning, Marne shuddered, fracturing himself into two parts. In a decision that took a split second, but had all the backing of a week of working with the man now lying prone and helpless, Marne tapped his steel instead of his pewter, rushing into the ring and throwing himself on top of Olaf.

Straight into the path of the descending blade.


Olaf’s face burned from the impact of a rapier. Crouched on the ground, he gingerly moved his right hand to his cheek, feeling the wet blood pooling there. Of all the ways he could have died, Olaf would not have thought that this would be it—a simple duel with a servant of the Lord Ruler in the most far-flung location in the Final Empire. Olaf cursed himself for his folly as Tresni’s blade ascended. He was no chivalrous knight of olden days, to fix the world with arranged duels and glorious feats of strength on the battlefield. He was an arsonist, a plotter, a man who specialised in the execution of unscrupulous deeds in the dark. And in a fair duel, there were no means with which to use those skills. As Tresni’s blade began to lower, Olaf only hoped that Marne could avenge his death.

Little did he know the opposite would have to occur.

Olaf saw Marne dart into the ring from the right, moving with the superhuman speed of a Steelrunner, and throw himself on top of Olaf. Olaf drew in a breath to scream at him for his idiocy, that he should be the one leading the Terris after this mess, when that air was driven from his lungs by the hard lump of one of Marne’s metalminds as the Full Feruchemist slammed into him, pinning him to the ground. Tresni’s sword completed its arc, slicing through Marne’s unprotected back. Olaf screamed as Tresni drew his sword away and Marne went limp, his friend’s death so sudden that he had not even been able to speak. Marne’s dead eyes gazed up at Olaf tenderly yet firmly, as if to say, You know what you must do. Olaf indeed did.

Feeling the flames of fury feed his strength, Olaf snatched his rapier from the cobblestones, swinging it at Tresni with a powerful two-handed blow. The man parried, backpedaling and recovering swiftly with a thrust at Olaf’s side, which the Count was forced to block. Exchanging a series of quick blows with Tresni, Olaf came to the realisation that raw fury alone would not enable him to defeat such a skilled opponent. Tresni was too good a swordmaster to be bested by an untrained Count, especially an exhausted and wounded one. A new plan began to form in Olaf’s head, amidst his frantic attacks and desperate defenses.

As Tresni made a slice at Olaf’s midsection, sword held in a two-handled grip, Olaf decided that now was the time to attempt his gambit. Dancing past the blade, Olaf switched his sword to his right hand alone, extending his body fully in a lengthened thrust. It was a terribly impractical move, leaving his left side completely defenceless. Tresni saw this, sidestepping Olaf’s thrust and returning it with one of his own, straight at Olaf’s arm. Prepared as he was for the impact, the pain of it made Olaf howl, the cold steel biting into his arm with the heat of a thousand fires. Twisting his arm, Olaf allowed the sword to pierce deeper into him despite every fibre of him telling him to let Tresni extract it, which the Spiked, seeing the trap that had been laid for him, was frantically attempting to do. Olaf clung on, gritting his teeth, and slammed his sword into Tresni’s undefended heart, even as the man yanked his sword out of Olaf’s arm with his last effort. As both collapsed onto the pavement, Olaf with pain and exhaustion, and Tresni with death, a ragged cheer went up from the Synod, which instantly subsided as the memory of Marne’s death and Olaf’s wounds hit them. As Olaf began to drift out of consciousness, the Synod members rushed forward, bathing Olaf’s head in cold water to keep him awake, and binding his wounds with the cloth available. The count’s fury began to return to him as he looked around Tathingdwen, with its pristine buildings and cheery storefronts, and remembered that corruption and rot had lived and thrived in those same buildings. He turned to Hallil. “How quickly can you give Marne a decent burial?”

Hallil frowned. “Fairly quickly. Why? Is there something that needs to be done?”

Olaf stood up, instantly feeling lightheaded. Tee Mai protested, attempting to sit him back down, but Olaf merely slapped his hand away, leaning on his rapier for support. “Yes. There is. The Spiked are gone, but this city is now vulnerable to the Lord Ruler. Moreover, it has sheltered evil for far too long. Gather enough supplies, find Leidene, and get every man in this city out of here.”

“Where?” Hallil asked, with mounting trepidation.

“Anywhere, as long as it’s sufficiently hidden from the Lord Ruler,” Olaf replied irritably. “Leidene can sort out the details, and you can send Citona with her. He’s the new Synod head, by the way. Regardless, once Marne is buried, we are razing this city.”


Two hours later, with Marne buried and the Synod evacuated, Olaf stood outside his friend’s old house, where it had all begun. He had nearly burnt the structure down that time. Now, he would complete the job. Raising his lit torch, he ran its flames along the edge of the wooden structure, watching as they took hold and spread. Olaf felt a tear well in his eye as he thought of his friend, but he quickly blinked it away. He could not afford to be sentimental. Casting one last look at the burning building, he moved on to the next with renewed fury, setting it alight. And the next, and the next. With each flame kindled, Olaf felt a little more of his frustration and anger burn away, releasing it in a great show of fire. He continued his work ceaselessly, for hours, ignoring his dizziness and wounds, focusing on purging his anger.

Soon, between his work and that of the Synod, all the main buildings of Tathingdwen were ablaze. The natural spread of the flames, which were fanned and buffeted by the light afternoon breeze, would soon consume the whole city. Signaling for the Synod to rejoin the other refugees, Olaf took the longer road, moving back towards Luthadel and Keep Ffnord. A letter slipped to Jest, who had joined up with the Synod in the general confusion, should be enough to ensure that Citona Vinid took ascendancy over the Synod, and that the Terris people would live to fight the Lord Ruler another day. As for his own part, Olaf could no longer be with the Synod. Passing down the lonely northern road, he spared a single glance back at the city, and its refugees, then slipped quietly away, his flight masked by the long shadows of a setting sun. For their part, the Terris only saw a lone, dark figure, weeping as he wheezed, walk away towards the Central Dominance, his tall and foreboding frame passing slowly into the distance.


Marne’s death opened up some intriguing options for Leidene. As the killer of two Spiked infiltrators, including a Full Feruchemist, he had acquired quite a collection of spikes which were now left unguarded. Leidene currently only possessed two spikes: a bronze one through her ribcage and a pewter spike between her shoulder blades. If she gained ownership of Marne’s trove, she too could have most of the powers of a Full Feruchemist, though she would have to search elsewhere for spikes granting Feruchemical atium. That would be enough for now, she reassured herself, as she began to pile up her nonessential belongings in the middle of her house. Furniture, incriminating documents, the discarded bones of the Sparker HanTor had replaced, and all the corpses she had managed to collect. Setting the pyre alight, she smiled. Helping the Spiked infiltrate the city would soon prove to have been very profitable.

Leidene stepped out of her burning home to find the remainder of Tathingdwen similarly engulfed in flames. Count Olaf venting his sorrow, she assumed. With displeasure, she noted that the fire had already reached Marne’s house. She hobbled as fast as she could towards the doomed dwelling, wishing Olaf had waited a little bit longer before putting on his pyromaniacal display. Arriving inside the circular house with the fire raging within, Leidene began rummaging through Marne’s trinkets. He had only killed Zihel the previous night, so surely the spikes would be somewhere obvious. No such luck. They weren’t on his desk, or his wardrobe, or underneath his bed. The blaze began to thoroughly lick the walls of the house, which groaned, and the interior temperature rose precipitously. Leidene ignored this; the compulsion to claim her prize was too strong. She would not leave while the spikes had yet to be found, even as the fire burned through the walls and began to consume the entire house. The decorative rug, courtesy of Valwyn, that covered the entire floor began to smoke as a burning ember landed on it. Soon, the rug was nothing but food for the inferno, and as the flames began to devour her, the pain broke through her spike-fueled desire. She screamed, tapping gold to heal herself as she made for an exit. It took almost her entire goldmind, but she was able to escape the conflagration before she could be reduced to a skeleton. The house was not so lucky.

Leidene stared numbly at the wreckage. She had been so close, but Count Olaf’s rampant arson had cost her everything. Desperately, she stumbled towards the flaming wreckage. Deprived of fuel, the bonfire had moved on, leaving utter devastation in its wake. The rug had burned to a crisp, and the wood had been severely charred. Leidene began to brush aside the debris, vaguely hoping she would encounter the spikes now that the obstruction had been cleared away. To her surprise, she found something; the outline of a stone door previously hidden under the rug. She tried to open it, but it was much to heavy for an ordinary person to lift, especially one who could only put her weight on one leg. She was about to give up for a second time when she heard a voice calling her name. She turned to see Ethan Hallil, the SCUBA instructor and one of her fellow Synod members. “What do we do?” he cried out. “Count Olaf has gone mad!”

“Gather the remaining villagers,” Leidene responded. “Have them head down the river towards Torinost, we’ll be safe from the Lord Ruler and his minions there while we build ourselves a new homeland. Before you go though, could you open this door for me?”

“Door?” asked Ethan, confused. He walked closer to Leidene, and his gaze found the stone door. “Ah yes, hold on,” he said as he tapped pewter. With his enlarged muscles, he was able to wedge his fingers in the slit at the end of the door and throw it open. Underneath was a pit holding all thirteen spikes Marne had claimed for his own.

“That’s good, now hurry! See to your people,” Leidene commanded. “Are you sure it’s safe to leave those spikes out there in the open?” Ethan inquired. “I’ll take care of it, just go. I’ll catch up with you soon,” Leidene replied, Soothing Ethan’s fear and suspicion. Ethan took off. Once he was no longer looking, Leidene gathered the thirteen spikes. Hurriedly, she impaled herself with the relevant ones, gaining new Feruchemical powers with each thrust. Iron, steel, tin, pewter, zinc, brass, copper, and bronze became hers to command, though most of those abilities would be useless without the corresponding metalminds and time spent storing. The two spikes making up the Kandra blessing, along with the duplicate spikes granting gold, zinc, and iron Feruchemy, went into her bag. Her task complete, Leidene moved on, trailing after Ethan’s retreating form.


Xinoehp512 was lynched! He was a Spiked Tin Ferring (Windwhisperer)!

Marne was killed! He was a Village Full Feruchemist, and was a member of the Synod!

Count Olaf has withdrawn! He was an Arsonist, and a member of the Synod! 

Citona Vinid (phattemer) is now head of the Synod!

Leidene has broken from the Lord Ruler, and is carving her own path! She was a Spiked Full Feruchemist!

All Spiked are dead or fled! That means the village has won! Congratulations to the villagers, and well played to the Spiked. It was a pretty close game. 

I will have more thoughts coming later (likely about three essay’s worth) but for now I’d just like to thank everyone who signed up to play. This game wouldn’t have been so enjoyable to run without each of you involved. On that note, I’ll praise Devotary more effusively later, but she was an amazing co-GM, and a great help with all parts of the game. Finally, I’d like to apologise for the delay in the posting of this cycle, which as stated before was due to technical difficulties. Hopefully it didn’t affect anyone too adversely. 

Docs/Spreadsheets:

The Lord Ruler’s Chosen

The Terris Synod

The Citizenry of Tathingdwen

Final Player List: 

1. Rathmaskal as Laksam, an ash sweeper from the Eastern streets Village Steel Ferring

2. Xinoehp512 as Ereheman Tresni, a man with his priorities backwards Spiked Tin Ferring

3. Steeldancer as Steel, the fastest sculpture of a squid wrought entirely in steel in all of Tathingdwen Village Brass Ferring

4. Randuir as Zihel, a worldhopper looking for his twin brother Spiked Full Feruchemist

5. I think I am here as Itiah VI, a missionary on a mission Village Steel Ferring

6. Bort as Tee Mai, a tailor specialising in offensive clothing: Village Bronze Ferring

7. Cadmium Compounder as Ethin Hallil, a cadmium Feruchemist and SCUBA diver: Village Pewter Ferring

8. _Stick_ as Stick, President of the Tathingdwen Tautological Society of Tautology: Village Brass Ferring

9. Jondesu as Remart, a man back from vacation armed with vaguely ominous statements: Village Bronze Ferring

10. Kidpen as HanTor, a lonely Kandra that’s definitely not Spiked, nope Spiked Zinc Ferring

11. Elandera as Era, an old woman who claims to have been alive before the reign of the Lord Ruler Village Pewter Ferring

12. Snipexe as Snip, a fabric cutter in the local quilt shop Village Iron Ferring

13. Worldhopper from Yolen as Tarin, a Sparker with a wonderful, awful idea Village Zinc Ferring

14. Alvron as Izzy Dedyet, who is not dead, feels happy, and thinks she'll go for a walk Village Full Feruchemist

15. Phatterner as Citona Vinid, a seemingly faithful follower of the Lord Ruler: Village Zinc Ferring

16. Ark1002 as Kardik, a Full Feruchemist: Village Iron Ferring

17. Araris Valerian as Valwyn, an honest rug merchant Spiked Pewter Ferring; Rug Merchant

18. Coop772 as Irion, a Full Feruchemist with hidden potential Village Copper Ferring

19. Sart, a stuttering Nameless Village Iron Ferring

Synod Members: Bort, Cadmium Compounder, phattemer, Araris Valerian, Coop772, Alvron

Edited by Fifth Scholar
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Woohoo village :P Nice play from the elims too.

It was sorta surprising how little people were interested in making PMs this game. Speaking of actions it was very sad that only one of mine actually went through and turned out it was kinda useless because it did absolutely nothing. XD But I had loads of fun playing even though I couldn't devote nearly as much time to it as I would have liked. Nevertheless... :P Thanks to @Fifth Scholar and @Devotary of Spontaneity for making it happen! And not to mention the FANTASTIC write-ups. 

I may not be around for more SE games though I do plan to take revenge on the Synod for burning down the Tathingdwen Tautological Sciety of Tautology Ō_Ō However I will admit that your doc looks very pretty :> 

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4 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

It was sorta surprising how little people were interested in making PMs this game.

Both Steel Ferrings were going for the 25 PM action, with Rathmaskal managing to get all five charges, but they both died before they managed to tap their charges.

6 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

I do plan to take revenge on the Synod for burning down the Tathingdwen Tautological Sciety of Tautology

The only Synod member who voted to burn down the Tathingdwen Tautological Sciety of Tautology was Cadmium Compounder, as a secondary target behind Kredik Shaw. Darrel has not yet made it to Luthadel, but perhaps he'll meet up with Steel and together they can attempt to burn down the Lord Ruler's palace.

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Yeah...  I got the PM from Devotary saying I was dead the day I was going to spam PMs across the entire game.  Sad day.

Incredible write-ups by the mods.  I currently have a 100% death record through three games of SE!! (Although I'm proud to say this was the first one I wasn't actually lynched)

I did find it kind of funny that Snipexe and Xino both ended up elim again...definitely didn't see that coming.  Sorry I couldn't be there with you guys!  Haha

Also, randuir, I'm sure we'll be on the same team one of these games :D

Looking forward to the next one folks!

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Thanks @Fifth Scholar and @Devotary of Spontaneity a lot for running this game! @randuir, @xinoehp512, and @Kidpen, you guys were a great team, and I think we were pretty close to pulling a win off. The writeups were amazing this game and and interested to read Fifth's essay on the game :). But I'd definitely sign up for this ruleset again without any changes, even if there are things that can be tweaked. I didn't feel like the rules were too significant of a factor in how the game ended up.

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After these games as an elim I'm really not looking forward to my next game as a village. Either you all are going to find out that your gut is really good at reading me, or you're going to find out that it isn't, after I've been lynched :P.

I think I got killed just in time, as I'd just finished stocking up on zinc, which would have made things rather difficult in the closing stages of the game.

I'd like to say Good game to everyone. My team made a valiant effort, but some really well-aimed kills managed to get through at inopportune times.

Lastly, my thanks to the GM's for running this one, and the beautiful write-ups.

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Great game everyone! I quite enjoyed it! It was fun being part of the Synod! I think the game was fairly balanced too, and it seems like what tipped the scales most were a couple luckily placed actions that the Synod had little part in. 

I noticed while reading the elim doc that the reason I was attacked is because you believed that I had an extra life. Did you all expect that I had used the full charge? Because I was actually planning on using each individual charge separately. I also tried to draw a second kill action sent on me by not voting on the last cycles, to hopefully convince you that I was filling, and therefore vulnerable. Kudos to not falling for it. 

I started with one charge, so my original plan was to fill first two cycles, then vote and tap, and put in an action for a double fill. Which succeeded. So I had the option to go up to four charges. Even if I did that, I would have tapped each charge individually, and also put in protect orders to people I suspected would be attacked. Instead of following my original plan, we, as the synod, decided that it was a better bet to just protect immediately, and try to catch the Eliminators. We just never managed to protect the right person. :D

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Oh yeah, I forgot to mention.  I never replied to CadCom's post about my coloring of the word "Steel"...  I was trying to role claim without role claiming...haha.  I'm actually moderately surprised that anyone noticed the coloring since I tried very hard to make it just barely blue. 

Also, Alvron, still waiting for your vote on day 3.  :P

(Oh, and for some reason I had the elim team mixed up in my last post...sorry, Snip wasn't an elim again)

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1 hour ago, Cadmium Compounder said:

I noticed while reading the elim doc that the reason I was attacked is because you believed that I had an extra life. Did you all expect that I had used the full charge? Because I was actually planning on using each individual charge separately. I also tried to draw a second kill action sent on me by not voting on the last cycles, to hopefully convince you that I was filling, and therefore vulnerable. Kudos to not falling for it. 

I initially suspected you'd gone for the second life. it was only afterward that I thought of the far smarter play, which I brought up when Sart asked you to confirm the action you'd taken. My initial plan was to shave of the extra life, so you could either be lynched or killed whenever we'd need to.

I'm also kinda disappointed you guys didn't lynch phattemer. A couple of the things he did, and especially the way he jumped on the 'clean Synod' idea after I'd presented that should have been major red flags, especially after I died and flipped elim after he'd been pretty protective of me.

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A very interesting and enjoyable game! Thanks to Fifth and Devotary for running it!

Rand, even if they had tried to lynch me, it would have taken two days. I had three charges of zinc the whole game, none of which I wound up using. :P

And, by the way, you did indeed have me completely fooled. I think much of the problem was that I was relying on my original analysis post overly much instead of actually reading through previous cycles- next Long Game I think I might actually have to make the stereotypical corkboard-with-yarn just to keep track of everything.

I would definitely play this again with the same r(o)(u)les; I think it's a very interesting design with lots of room for players to innovate and play their own way without losing too much in the way of balance.

In terms of what actually happened, I think both teams had their moments of luck, and apparently so did I personally- the spec/dead doc said I dodged no less than four kill attempts with my impeccable skill at being obliviously lucky! Obviously two Spiked were killed at night, but to be fair they did pick out our Feruchemist almost right away for their end.

And, most importantly of all: I am honored to receive the leadership of the Synod by virtue of being the only candidate remaining, and would like to assure everyone still alive that this was most certainly 100% guaranteed not my fiendish plan all along at all whatsoever. I will rule with wisdom and no suspicious bits of metal. Trust me. And there's no way I'm using any other character ever again.

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As promised, my essay. :P 

(I’ll break this up to avoid throwing a single, monstrous wall of text at you guys. Instead, you get small walls! :P)

Part One: Roles

Overall Look: The main focus of the roles was, of course, to exemplify Feruchemy by giving a drawback to its user when filling, but then allowing them to tap for powerful effects. Unsurprisingly, the ones with more powerful effects also took considerably more effort to fill. I think the fill/tap mechanic worked out well overall, providing a sense of balance to the abilities, but I need to elaborate on some of the individual roles before I can go too much further in depth. So without further ado:

Skimmers/Iron: I was very pleased with how this role turned out. As the only one with a positive fill condition, and with three in a game of nineteen players, it provided a good boost to the village in more subtle ways, countering some of the fill conditions on the metalminds, and giving vote manipulation of its own when necessary. I was slightly disappointed that this role saw little use—I’ll admit its main use lay in protecting others from their fill conditions, and that the single-tap was only really useful for FFs, but with the sheer amount of vote manip on the table I expected it to see more use. I’ll talk about that a bit more when I get to the vote manipulating roles, though. My only concern, which wasn’t really an issue so much as a good combination of mechanics that somewhat trivialised the fill/tap system, with Iron was that it would be a very potent weapon if a Skimmer got in private contact with a Tin/Zinc/Copper Ferring, and I was sort of hoping that would happen, but it didn’t. Which brings me to 

Steelrunners/Steel: I have to admit, I really liked this ability. I’m very glad I took it down from unlimited PMs to 25, though, as at the beginning of the game Devotary and I thought we’d be making 52 PMs on Day 4, and I can’t imagine making 2*infinity of them. Both Ferrings started with 2 charges from RNG, and were working their way up to the full 5, but they were eliminated before they were able to unleash the full force of their PMs upon the game. I definitely think that would have been interesting to see, so the verdict remains mostly out on how this role affected the game. 

Windwhisperers/Tin: I initially had the Windwhisperer in the game on the village side, before making an 11th hour decision to give it to the Elims. My reasoning was that the Brass Ferring on the village side was worse than useless with no Elim Tin Ferring, and that Tin combined with copper could lead to too much hard-clearing of villagers that were confirmed to possess roles not on the Elim team. This issue was more of a problem with copper than tin, but I think having the Windwhisperer being Spiked made for a more interesting game, even if their only scan was obfuscated by Brass. Also a throwback to the elim scanner in the AG. 

Brutes/Pewter: This role was pioneered by @Hemalurgic Headshot when I presented this game idea to him, and I must say I very much like the basic design of it, which I tweaked very slightly. The heavy drawbacks of filling were compensated by the large advantage that the extra lives gave, especially during Night phases when attacks were flying everywhere, and death hung over everyone’s heads. Not being able to double fill was something I added by design; the extra lives were powerful enough that potentially gaining two a Night was too powerful. As for the full-tap, which Randuir castigised as a trap, I will admit that it was not terribly useful this game, though I’d argue that’s my fault—I designed the game around 25 players initially, not 20, and with more people and more time the full extra life would likely have been worth it. That’s a separate design issue, though. 

Firesouls/Brass: I very much enjoyed the mechanics of this role as essentially “bad smoking.” Smokers under AG rules offer the abilities of both Iron and Brass in this game, with Brass being arguably the less useful of the two to the village (why would you obfuscate rolescans?). The truth is, I originally had this as mostly a Spiked role, but realised that the idea of a role such as brass being “only good” in the hands of one particular group irked me. So I gave the village another brass to guard against the Elim Windwhisperer, and saw what they would do with it, and if they would use it at all. Stick and Steel both used it the same night, having each started with a single charge, and never used it again, or filled their metalminds. And that was my fault. I vastly overestimated how much votes would jump around this game, and Brass users, had they tried to fill, would have stuck out like sore thumbs. I think that if I ran this again, I would make the fill condition for brass specify that you only had to change your vote once. As written, filling was too difficult (and my apologies to Stick and Steel for giving them hard roles to work with). 

Sparkers/Zinc: I also miscalculated this somewhat, again lost in my assumptions about higher player size. A three vote swing is huge, and I failed to recognise that when I made the roles and distributed 3(!) Sparkers throughout the game, most with a high starting number of charges. Thankfully, the Sparkers were very conservative with their vote manip, but it could have ended up being an issue, especially with the infrequency of Iron usage, and the fact that both the Synod and the Spiked were sitting on 3+ charges of zinc for most of the game. That said, I don’t think the design of the role was terrible, and other than fixing the full-tap ability I liked the role overall. 

Sentries/Bronze: Another of HH’s inventions. This was another of the roles that went fairly smoothly, with the village getting two of these to counterbalance the synchronisation the Elims were capable of in their actions. The lottery system prevented things from getting out of hand, and the bronze users didn’t manage anything spectacular. A Spiked Sentry was a concept I toyed with, but ultimately rejected because the organisation of the Elim team would have made such a role somewhat overpowered unless you reached higher player counts (I think my planned role distribution had a Spiked Sentry added between 25 and 30 people signed up).

Archivists/Copper: The main break. I didn’t anticipate the central role this role would play in the early game, and I also badly judged the role itself. Knowing the roles of the whole Elim team ended up being more pivotal information than I had initially considered, and given that such information could have cleared most of the village, I suppose I should have known better here. I also made the mistake of allowing the Archivist and both FFs to start at two copper, which was from RNG but ended up being slightly unbalanced, and meant that two people in the village were one double-fill away from getting Elim role distrubutions on Day Three, which would have broken a lot of stuff. However, despite the full-tap being broken, I like the theme of the role, and I think the two-charge ability was neat, and held potential for both villagers and Elims, if it hadn’t been a mad dash to five charges in the early-game. 

Full Feruchemists: One Synod, one Spiked. Not much to say here other than that it was interesting to watch the different ways Rand and Alv approached the role, and how they used their charges. I don’t think this ended up being an issue, which was mostly thanks to my dilution of the role from its original form, which was almost certainly OP. 

Conclusion: I think roles worked out fairly well, with minor edits needed for brass and zinc and major edits for copper. I’d run these same roles again in a heartbeat, and that’s mostly thanks to the aforementioned HH, as well as El and Joe, for helping me balance these out. 

Part Two: Groups/Docs

The Synod: I shamelessly stole this concept from Len’s Gondor QF, and tweaked it to have more flavour and more people. One Spiked out of six meant that shooting up the Synod looking for Spiked wasn’t a viable strategy for the village, but also meant that the Elims had eyes and ears amongst an initially village group. After Araris’ death, the Synod actually became more divided, but they eventually coordinated enough to send in their kill. I’m overall very pleased with how this played out, and if you’re going to look at only one doc for this game, it should be the Synod one. 

The Spiked: RNG provided a mixed bag, with one new elim, one new-ish elim, and two experienced veterans of elim-hood. I think the Spiked team overall played their cards very well, but unfortunately opportune snipers that penetrated their safety net at the worst times spelled doom for them. As for their role distribution, I gave them aggressive roles, such as Zinc and Tin, to open up the option of a hard-and-fast approach. They seemed to take such an approach, being vocal members in most of the lynches, and I’m also pleased with how their team turned out. A Spiked Full Feruchemist was added to counter the fact that the game was role-madness, which favoured the village heavily enough to merit inclusion of a very powerful Spiked. 

Part Three: Generic Actions

I learned one thing from this game: SE players are bloodthirsty. If I bothered to tally the number of kill actions compared to everything else, the percentage would probably fall just short of 50%. That’s insane, since I only gave one kill. One! And three protects! Most of which failed (except the one placed on the Pewter Ferring tapping his metalmind, of course). Roleblocks were not utilised until Night 3, a whopping 2 PMs were attempted, one of which was between two Spiked to enable actions for their Windwhisperer, and one of which failed because the person PMed died that night. And double fill orders were fairly sparse, given the powerful advantages offered. Granted, Night actions themselves were limited by player activity, but everyone seemed to just want to kill kill kill. 

In regards to the individual actions, I really only want to speak about the generic kill; the other actions were fairly balanced, and didn’t mess anything up much (I might remove the restriction on protection that you can’t self-guard, as that restriction probably made villagers far less likely to use it, but aside from that the actions themselves were fine). The kill action RNG was probably under consistent influence of Alv’s gods. As Devotary said in our GM doc, the least likely outcome on paper always occurred. Out of 2 kills on Phatt and 3 on Sart, a single kill submitted by a Spiked against CadCom was the one favoured by RNG, and Alv’s kill on Araris took precedence over four kills elsewhere on villagers. A confluence of roleblock and kill actions meant that Rand nearly had his fate sealed by his own teammate (he didn’t, but died anyway), and the night kill in general seemed to fall between protected targets onto unguarded villagers or Spiked. Finally, mutual kills were common: Araris and Alv killed each other, as did Sart and Rand. However, despite the strange nature of the RNG, I think the kill system went fine, and even if it did make the game a bit swingier than is perhaps usual around here, I think it was an interesting adaptation, and I wouldn’t mind using it again. 

Part Four: Other

Vote Manipulation

This game was intended to create mass chaos with all the votes! As the first ability ever granted to me in an SE game, vote manip has intrigued me, and I made this game seeing how many forms of it I could stuff in and still have a balanced game, and also gauge the chaos that would create. I think the effect waned as the game continued, simply because the player numbers dropped, but in the initial cycles it was interesting watching the uncertainty people exhibited regarding the vote count. I anticipated massive bandwagons early on, but hoped that those would phase out as the game continued (which they did). Iron was supposed to mitigate some of the effects of rampant vote manip, but it obviously couldn’t, and didn’t, patch everything. Overall, the high levels of vote manipulation ended up adding to the fun and chaos in the game, and I believe it ended up turning out well. 

Writeups

These were a ton of fun to build and create, and I’m glad people enjoyed them. Devotary ended up doing most of the deathmurdery scenes, which she did an excellent job of, and I mainly focused on building up Marne and Olaf, and would do writeups for Spiked or generic kills during the nights. I was satisfied with the arc I managed to build, even if my ability to construct it was hampered by the fact that I didn’t have a clear idea of when the game would end, and the points in the arc often felt rushed or extended as I tried to account for how soon I thought things would wrap up. 

The story playing a greater role in the final cycles was preplanned. Marne was going to be deposed the instant the Synod sent in the kill, and I was going to have Olaf replace him. Then I decided an election would make for fun writeup fodder. I expected an Olaf landslide, and didn’t count on Devotary’s relentless campaign against me. :P Regardless, thanks to Xino’s coin, Olaf got the Synod anyway, and the Synod then got to burn things down (which was Devotary’s idea, not mine). Had Leidene been elected, the Synod could have chosen the method by which generic kill victims were killed, and if Phatt had pulled out a third-party victory, the Synod would have gained free-speech rights, and been able to type in whatever font they wanted. (I can’t imagine how wretched that would have been—the doc is painful enough in Pacifico. :P)

Now comes the part where I get to acknowledge Devotary’s central role in running this game. As many of you know, I got very unexpectedly busy around when the game started, and was really only able to devote rollover time, and an hour or so in the morning, to checking in and logging actions. In this sense, Devotary was the one to hold everything together, always logging everyone’s orders promptly and sending out PMs at the end of the cycle. Chances are that if you spent any significant amount of time in your GM PM, you interacted mostly with her, and for me as the main GM, not having to worry about that was an enormous weight off my back. All of that, and her help with writeups, was instrumental in the smooth execution of this game. I’ll admit that I was sceptical when she suggested we try to write up the death scenes jointly, but it ended up working out very well, and all of the writeups for the game were “split” between my writing and Devotary’s. The styles are different enough that you can probably infer who did what, but if you’re curious, please ask. In general, it’s safe to assume that I did anything featuring Olaf, most of the stuff featuring Marne, and a few of the Night kills, and that Devotary did actual lynch deaths during the day, and killings during the Night, and anything that didn’t neatly fit into the above categories. This division of labour was very helpful, and I would definitely recommend it to any GM pairs that want to try it in the future. To conclude: Devotary was awesome this game, and she deserves your upvotes, and your consideration as a future co-GM, should you be looking for one in a future game you run. 

Activity

Seemed generally fine, if not the highest. I think the lower player numbers, and the fact that school was starting up for many, dampened the overall activity, but nobody went completely inactive, and we had several prolific contributors, which was excellent. Activity likely also dropped because many of the active talkers were once again killed fairly early in the game, which there’s little I can do as a GM to fix. 

Final Thoughts

-I wrote too much for this.

-I’m very glad that all of you enjoyed this game, and I’m even happier that it ended up fairly balanced, despite a few concerns that need patching. 

-Overall, I perhaps erred in designing the game based too much on how I would play, and not how others actually played. The issues as a result of this are minor, but worth noting. 

-Thanks to Seonid as our IM, and to each of you who played. Especially our new players, @Ark1002 and @Worldhopper From Yolen. Please stick around for future games; we always love new people to kill new players in our games!

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It's really nice to see your thoughts presented like this, steel fifth. The only thing I'd comment on is that I wouldn't let the generic protection protect the user. In the late game with a depleted elim team (say, 1vs3), it makes it basically impossible to get the elim kill off. It'd still be difficult under the current rules, but with the current protection rules you can't be certain if it'll actually protect a villager, which brings it more on par with the other actions.

Edited by randuir
...oops
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Thanks to Fifth and Devotary for running a really fun game, and well played to everyone, but especially Phattemer. Sorry for going after you at the end there, but I was becoming more and more certain that you were playing us. Turns out I was right when I said I'd probably be wrong. @Jondesu - Don't worry about it. I was expecting to die that night cycle anyways, if we hadn't got Xino. Mostly because I was expecting to be either stabbed in the back by Phattemer, or by the elims to aim the lynch at Phattemer the next day.

As far as rules and mechanics go, all was well, with one small exception - it took a few cycles to find out how double filling a metalmind worked when you filled at night, since it wasn't covered in the rules. As it turned out, there was no point to double filling at night, since you still only got the two charges over the two nights. I might have changed this so it was more in line with double filling during the day. Normally, you submit the double fill order at night, then during the day you get two charges, with some restrictions, like maybe not being able to take an action, or speak in PMs. I'd have set up the night-filling double fill as you get two charges during the day cycle after you submit the double fill order, but during that day, any vote you place will be nullified (you're too busy to go and vote, basically).

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7 minutes ago, I think I am here. said:

Yeah! Fun game everyone! I mean, at least I learned a new experience while playing, when everyone thinks you’re evil and you’re not. I still have no idea what to in that scenario, but eh, I’m sure I’ll come up with something :P

My go-to tactic for dealing with suspicion (irrespective of whether I'm actually guilty) is to just refute those arguments I can easily prove are wrong, and then continue playing the game as if the accusation isn't there. Generally, it has worked better for me to show that I'm working to solve the game than to try and deflect all accusations to get people to accept me as innocent. In general, if I see someone who goes all-in on refuting accusations and stops trying to find those that are guilty the moment someone accuses them, I become more suspicious of them because apparently they have a reason to value their survival above trying to figure out the game.

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1 hour ago, randuir said:

My go-to tactic for dealing with suspicion (irrespective of whether I'm actually guilty) is to just refute those arguments I can easily prove are wrong, and then continue playing the game as if the accusation isn't there. Generally, it has worked better for me to show that I'm working to solve the game than to try and deflect all accusations to get people to accept me as innocent. In general, if I see someone who goes all-in on refuting accusations and stops trying to find those that are guilty the moment someone accuses them, I become more suspicious of them because apparently they have a reason to value their survival above trying to figure out the game.

Huh, those are good points. Thanks!

I can wholeheartedly agree that the method works, if there was a single person who I unequivocally thought was village in this game, it was you :P. You can imagine my face when I saw your death!

If you don’t mind me asking, when you’re an elim, and you have to help the village to take suspicion off of you, how do you decide what to do? Most of your helping-village posts seem to be actually helping the village. How do you do that without giving away too much?

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2 hours ago, I think I am here. said:

If you don’t mind me asking, when you’re an elim, and you have to help the village to take suspicion off of you, how do you decide what to do? Most of your helping-village posts seem to be actually helping the village. How do you do that without giving away too much?

In the thread I try to post the things I'd be posting if I was a villager, irrespective of my alignment. I try to avoid giving my team-mates preferential treatment, as that's just going to get more elims lynched if one of us goes down (that got me into trouble the previous game I was an elim). If I can reasonably push a lynch on someone that's not a team-mate, I'll do so, but I try to assess them objectively when I'm doing reads on everyone. If a team-mate looks innocent, I'll read them as such, and if something looks off, I'll bring it up as well.

I'm still working on properly balancing this though. I went too easy on my team-mates in a previous game, but I think I might have been a bit too hard on my team-mates in the thread this game. In particular I think my early suspicion of Araris was something I didn't need to put out there.

So in short, be an elim in the doc, but try to mostly be a villager in the thread.

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2 hours ago, I think I am here. said:

Huh, those are good points. Thanks!

I can wholeheartedly agree that the method works, if there was a single person who I unequivocally thought was village in this game, it was you :P. You can imagine my face when I saw your death!

If you don’t mind me asking, when you’re an elim, and you have to help the village to take suspicion off of you, how do you decide what to do? Most of your helping-village posts seem to be actually helping the village. How do you do that without giving away too much?

I've seen a couple times, where an elim will actually bus a teammate and push that suspicion to the point of that member being lynched. This almost always gives the illusion that the Elim is actually a village. Then that elim can subtly direct the rest of the game, while claiming that he just isn't sure who else is an elim. 

I've noticed that the majority of village analyses are incorrect for most of the game, and they falsely accuse other villagers, so all an elim would have to do is pretend that they don't know who is elim, and accuse a suspicious looking villager. As long as they do that, they will look like they're helping, and be relatively trusted.

11 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

I learned one thing from this game: SE players are bloodthirsty. If I bothered to tally the number of kill actions compared to everything else, the percentage would probably fall just short of 50%. That’s insane, since I only gave one kill. One! And three protects! Most of which failed (except the one placed on the Pewter Ferring tapping his metalmind, of course)

Are you saying the only protect order that managed to protect the person targeted by the kill was the order on someone who was self protecting? So If I had been targeted by the elim kill and the generic kill that night, would I have survived both?

Edit: Ninja'd by Rand

Edited by Cadmium Compounder
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