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Hi. Just checking and saying I am alive, and I will try to read up on things soon.

Also, I am a neutral role, unaffiliated with any other faction, and not in opposition to any other faction. I see no reason why I should not reveal this from the start.

I will make sure to find some ways to keep playing as a neutral role entertaining.

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Steel blurred out of the cognitive realm, hopping through a perpendicularity onto Scadrial. Which perpendicularity, he didn't know anymore. The shards had changed hands and reinvested themselves so many times that it was impossible to keep track of which perpendicularity belonged to which shard anymore. From there, he tore across the landscape, now using abrasion as well, with the help of a nicrosil metalmind. While abrasion wasn't very useful to use in the cognitive realm, it sped him up significantly in the physical realm. As before, he entered that between places where nothing could touch him. There was only the light presence of his spren in the back of his mind, the fire of feruchemical steel in his stomach, and the landscape blurring around him. His spren fell behind, but would catch up quickly once he actually stopped. Which he would need to soon, for he was arriving near New Seran. 
He stopped using abrasion to eliminate friction entirely, and carefully stopped burning steel and reducing how much friction was being eliminated. He had learned from hard experience that attempting to cease it all at once did not reduce momentum, and would send him flying. Sure enough, as he slowed down, the crystal-studded cultivationspren caught up with him. 
The city was a hub of activity, with cars and airships and other allomantic contraptions zooming around the waterfalls that framed the beautiful city. Unlike in Elendel, he wasn't allowed to use his extreme speed in the city, as it had been deemed "too dangerous." Thankfully, the man he was looking for was on the bottom of the city, not on the top. 
The streets were packed with people bustling this way or that. The papers headlines warned of shardic activity increasing again, and it was clear that something was going on. He felt some small responsibility towards attempting to help the situation, but in the end, what would he be able to do against shards? Let someone else do the hero work for once. 
Finding the door, he knocked three times, glaring at some individuals who were attempting to walk through him to get around the mob of people in the street. They walked around, and the door opened. 
"Terry!" he called, jovially. 
The elderly man glared at him. "You know, that sounds like a dig at my ancestry."
"Your name is Terrance. Terry is easier to say. I'm terris too, you know that."
"Well, get out of the street, young man. Why do you need me?"
He walked with Terry into a small living room, sparsely decorated in the ancient Terris tradition. They both sat on small rugs.
"How do you know I need you? Maybe I just came to see an old friend."
Terry rolled his eyes. "Don't be difficult. Your sister was always the more respectful one."
"Actually... that's the problem. My sister has been taken by a man who claims to have come from another reality." 
Terry sat back slightly, looking surprised. "Well then, you're trying to find him. But if he's from another dimension, how do you expect me to track him? Who knows how the spiritual realm works with other realities."
The younger man leaned forward, poking at the rug he sat upon. "That's the thing. I think he stole a spiritual aspect. Maybe hemalurgy, maybe something to do with coming into the Cosmere, I'm not sure. But I brought something- a piece of cloth I ripped off his suit. Not sure how much good it will do, but I know you are good at reading into the spirit webs of things."
Terrance nodded, taking the cloth from where Steel had placed it. He pulled out a metalmind, an unusual one, probably duralumin alloyed with atium or something. He held the metalmind in one hand, and the cloth in another. He almost seemed to glow for a moment, then spoke a single word. 
"Sel."
Steel raised an eyebrow. "Really, huh. Now that's something. I originally thought Roshar for the realms... but now that I think about it, Sel's are even closer together. Thank you." He burnt allomantic steel, briefly pushing a bright gold coin to Terrance, and then he left. 
Phlo winded up to Steel, face of vines peering up. "Why did you leave your breath in your suit? You risk death in less than a week if you don't have breath in you. Eobard demanded you to collect so much, and you choose not to use it?"
Steel pursed his lips. "If I carry that much breath, I'll stand out."
Phlo huffed. "You already do stand out. Anyone burning bronze, or with a seeker device can tell you're burning feruchemical steel. What's the real reason?"
"I'm worried. Worried about the idea of awakening lightning. What would happen if I did it? Would it create whatever that man desires, or would it merely fizzle in that moment between moments? It is too tempting to have all that breath there. I'll pull out the breath when I need to consume it." He didn't mention he felt the desire to simply let himself expire after the week if he failed. 
He picked his way through the crowd, thinking about Sel. Although Devotion and Dominion were reformed, the cognitive realm of Sel was still a very dangerous place. A worldhopper who didn't know what he was doing could very well end up blasted by the storm of investiture. He tried to develop a plan as he collected provisions for his trip, along with some more steel to use. But nothing came to mind. It would greatly depend on where in Sel this man had gone. 
Leaving the outskirts of the city, Steel stoked the familiar fire within him. He took another moment to admire his Returned physique. Endowment had done him a major favor, returning him after he had been blasted by Odium. And then he was off, to the perpendicularity he had left from. And hopefully, to find his sister. 

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The Cosmere was stirring.

Gilgamesh sat lazily, resting atop one of the highest points in Silverlight, watching as thousands of people scrambled about, listening as people rushed about.   Gilgamesh could practically feel the turmoil as news spread.  He listened, humming softly to himself.  Murmurs and whispers, voices from the crowds floated up to his vantage point.  Some people were worrying, as was only natural; a war between great powers was about to begin...

"The Shards..."

"Warring again?  Impossible.  They've been...."

"...in a State of Emergency.  We must leave while we can..."

"We're no longer safe..."

But some people were not worrying.  These people viewed the matter much differently.  It all depended on perspective...

"...moment has come.  We should take the chance..."

"Unrivaled power could be ours..."

"One final blaze of light..."

Gilgamesh couldn't help himself.  He grinned.  These were the moments he lived for.  Moments of turmoil, when anything, everything could happen.  The Shards were warring; did this mean disaster?  No.  It meant opportunity.  Silverlight was no longer safe?  Then only the strong would stay.  Now he could see who was really the strongest.

He stood up, wind whipping his cloak back.  He chuckled.  Gilgamesh had been waiting for this for a long time.  The prophecy, which had spoken of this time, this oncoming storm, had inspired him to journey to this realm.  And now, with no more magic left to his name, here he was.  The journey had stripped him of his powers; it had taken all he had just to get here.  

Gilgamesh's smile hardened as he gritted his teeth.  Now all he had was his strength.

He clenched his fists.

Strength.


'Sup everyone.  I'm mostly gonna be following Gilgamesh around for this one.  Like some others have said, there's not a whole lot to say about the state of the game right now anyway, so I'll check back in later.

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44 minutes ago, Sunburst Toucan said:

Hi. Just checking and saying I am alive, and I will try to read up on things soon.

Also, I am a neutral role, unaffiliated with any other faction, and not in opposition to any other faction. I see no reason why I should not reveal this from the start.

I will make sure to find some ways to keep playing as a neutral role entertaining.

This is interesting. What you are suggesting here is that either there are secret roles, or I didn't read the rules very well. We can assume that you do have some sort of win-con, however, so the question is whether or not your wincon involves cooperating with certain people or factions, or whether it is adverse to our wincons, but without directly opposing it. That makes your role potentially very useful, but also potentially very dangerous. 

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1 hour ago, Sunburst Toucan said:

Hi. Just checking and saying I am alive, and I will try to read up on things soon.

Also, I am a neutral role, unaffiliated with any other faction, and not in opposition to any other faction. I see no reason why I should not reveal this from the start.

I will make sure to find some ways to keep playing as a neutral role entertaining.

Greetings Survival. Welcome to the game. :D 

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3 minutes ago, Scarlet Octopus said:

To me the phrasing in the rules "The players will be divided into five different factions" means that there are no neutral players. @Seonid, are there any players not belonging to one of the 5 factions? If there aren't, I propose we lynch Toucan next cycle.

Alternatively, I would ask Seonid if there are secret rule and or secret roles. We may or may not get an answer, but this game is complicated enough I would hesitate to take any specific rule too literally.

Umm, @Seonid, are there secret rules and/or secret roles?

edit: RP to come. Don't have time to really dedicate to it right now.

Edited by Saffron Iguana
RP to come
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...small wonder the cosmere has been burned by neutrals, if this is how neutrals are treated.

Perhaps I should clarify, because some of us are getting hung up on semantics: I am the sole member of my faction, and the faction of which only I am part of has a win condition that does not hinder in any way the win conditions of any other factions, to the best of my knowledge and reasoning.

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Hello all! I’ll get some RP up after I get off mobile and talk some in the docs. I’d like to note that I am willing to be an emissary for my faction, if they let me, as I am just a poor worldhopper;).

Also, people seem to have been forgetting that two players won the last shard game, and the player who you have forgotten, Survival, was working with Autonomy, so for RP purposes I would consider them as joint rulers. 

Edited by Indigo Weasel
Autocorrect
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Vioax was still somewhat annoyed that she hadn't been the one to take over the cosmere.  How could the shards pass up such an opportunity?  She was the perfect candidate for this.  When she was tapped to join the worldhoppers, she was somewhat mollified.  At least someone had recognized her greatness.

~~

So, right now, I believe there is no elim...and if we manage to kill other factions, they can survive and look like another role.

I'm not sure if this means we should just keep killing people as we find their alliances...has anyone else been through a game like this and is able to weigh in?

Also, this is my first faction game, but it seems obvious that we can't leave anyone as trustworthy except our team.

I was about to ask what time zone 1:00 represented, but it looks like that was answered in the game thread - MST.  Good to know.

Edited by Violet Axolotl
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31 minutes ago, Scarlet Octopus said:

I suppose I'm left wondering how a win condition that doesn't change how anyone else wins would be fun/exciting.

Oh there're plenty of ways to have fun with weird win-cons. :P And I can think of a number of ways to win that doesn't change how the individual factions win.  It just depends on the difficulty or the flavor of the win-con whether or not it's fun or exciting.  Win-Cons like the Ghostblood Win-Con from LG26 or Autonomy's Win-Con from a previous shard-game, which was mentioned earlier, don't have to be implemented as game-ending win-cons, and neither of those really effected other players, IIRC.  Survival's win-con from past shard games has been just to survive, and people have had plenty of fun with that.  "Tag" win-cons, where a person has to perform some sort of action to a number of players or places, don't need to be game ending.  "Collecting" or "Creating" certain items could be similar.  I'm sure there are more that I'm just not thinking of at the moment.  Besides, even if it does change how other individuals win, it still might not be detrimental to the overall play of the majority.  I'm sure that many of the factions have win-cons that are detrimental to the other factions; just look at the two base win-cons from the sign-ups.  Besides, apparently any faction completing a win-con apparently ends the game.  Killing Toucan for claiming to have a neutral win-con doesn't make any more sense than killing someone from another faction; probably less, actually.  But that's just my opinion.

20 minutes ago, Violet Axolotl said:

I'm not sure if this means we should just keep killing people as we find their alliances...has anyone else been through a game like this and is able to weigh in?

Also, this is my first faction game, but it seems obvious that we can't leave anyone as trustworthy except our team.

I'm not so sure that cooperation between factions is an impossibility.  From one of Seonid's Clarifications: 

Quote

Second, the Factions and Win Conditions section has been edited to clearly communicate that any faction reaching a win condition will trigger the end of the game, and if multiple factions reach their win condition on the same turn, all of the factions with a completed win condition win.

So it would seem to me that some factions are capable of working together.  I'm sure that the more devious or scheme-ey players will end up working behind the scenes on this sort of thing, but that's never really been my style.  Like I said earlier, I'm probably going to be following around Gilgamesh for the most part.  I'm just gonna try to enjoy this final Shard game.

Edited by Taupe Gecko
Clarification, grammar lol.
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I think Toucan is lying. 

Point 1: There are five factions. This is explicitly in the rules. Unless there are several 7- or 8-Player factions out there to compensate for this, a 1-Player faction is rather inconceivable. 

Point 2: A one-player faction (if it existed at all)=a Shard. Probably a powerful one. So let’s run through possibilities:

Survival—of course they’d claim this. And, of course, there’s no way to counterclaim, and we’d have to waste a lynch to confirm it. This leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Besides, I get the feeling that if Seonid had actually wanted to put Survival in the game, he would’ve put it in the ruleset. It’s hardly a secret she’s missing, and would be too obvious a secret for such an experienced GM to think would go unnoticed. I find Survival very, very implausible. 

Odium—Claiming would be suicide given SK!Odium. Discounting this. 

Autonomy/Ruin/Dominion: If any of these were actually SKs, claiming is again suicide. So they’re out. 

Therefore, I’m forced to conclude that this is a lie, pending clarification, and Toucan is doing one of three things:

1) They are claiming hoping to be ignored for the rest of the game, are a Shard, and are trying to create a “flash in the pan” that will soon be forgotten. Remaining under the radar for the rest of the game would be nice if they could avoid the noose on C2. 

2) They are trying to be lynched. Presumably their faction has Endowment or Devotion and is trying to get us to waste an entire lynch trying to kill Toucan. If they have a time-based wincon, or need to take a few actions, this is a valuable delay tactic. 

3) They are trying to create unproductive discussion on one member of their faction to prevent analysis on other players and allow them to take actions unquestioned. 

I think 2) and 3) are the most likely, and to avoid either of these situations I recommend either a scanner or a kill Shard take care of Toucan so our discussion here isn’t hyperfocused. Preferably the former, but the latter if necessary. If we keep a broad focus we can still keep an eye on Toucan while maintaining perhaps more productive discussion. 

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RP! 

A man walked down a road in Silverlight. He didn't use to be a man. Once, he had been something greater. Together with another, he had ruled supreme.  Then his power was stolen, his alliance shattered, and everything he held dear torn away.  But that was a long time ago.

The man peered warily around a street corner. If there was one thing the man had learned throughout his extended life, it was the value of caution.  That, and the value of preparation. Though the man guessed the two were really one and the same.

A raven fluttered down and perched on the man's shoulder. He smiled, for a moment hinting at the person he used to be. A man whose life was filled with friends, laughter, and even perhaps love. But the grin faded, just as those friends had faded. Lost to an event even longer ago. An event that was simultaneously the best, and worst, moment of the man's entire existence. For just an instant, the man let himself remember how it had felt. To hold that indescribable power, to have his very soul infused with the essence that formed the fabric of reality...

The man stopped himself. He didn't deserve to remember how it had felt. With a start, he remembered his business. Stroking the raven, the man continued walking, purposefully, but cautiously, as he did the only thing he could do anymore.

Survive.

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Quote

Second, the Factions and Win Conditions section has been edited to clearly communicate that any faction reaching a win condition will trigger the end of the game, and if multiple factions reach their win condition on the same turn, all of the factions with a completed win condition win.

Yeah, this means that there is almost certainly no such thing as a neutral faction.

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“My breath to you, my breath become yours,” The woman whispered urgently. Breath left him, and entered Vioax. The room popped into even more color than it had before. She had probably just achieved 6th heightening. 

“Now go.” The woman was shaking, terrified. 

Vioax turned to leave, and then stopped. “If you go to Urithiru, you could find safety.”

The woman pulled out a gun. “I’ll be safe as soon as you leave.” So Vioax left.

- - -

Hallendren truly was beautiful. Vioax gazed on the city from above, having visited all three addresses. All three families had been terrified. This woman was cruel, and only he had the ability to stop him. She had made his decision. She would not awaken the lightning. She was going to take Lelimi down. 

He would be on Roshar, of course. The realms were closest together there. Stryl came up to her. 

“Perhaps we should run.”

Vioax shook his head. “I was given this gift for a reason. I was here for a reason. I need to stop him. But I can’t let him hurt anyone. So I need to find him.” She scrunched his face, thoughtful. “Perhaps the spren will know more.”

Stryl vined her way onto Vioax, because it was harder for her to keep up now. And then with a CRACK, Vioax left. A blur of color was all one could see. 

~~~

I love Nalthis. Im excited to be there. 

~~

Gecjo makes a good point that if we got a lucky coordination and the factions survived it would look like multiple could win, which could narrow down our options. But I don’t know if we want to lynch a random person to we’ll need to some heavy analysis this round of we want to get the factions straightened off.

I think I’ve only played one faction game before, and that was the roshar one. I don’t remember any strategies though, anyone want to pipe in on that?

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There were laws everywhere, but none were as important as the ones on Threnody. Professor Elsic muttered the simple rules to himself over and over again as he wondered the Forests of Hell, looking for the rogue perpendicularity that had brought him through to this physical realm of this storming planet. The shades watched him silently as he wandered in the dark, not daring to turn on his flashlight. His colleagues still hadn’t  figured out if electric lights counted as kindling a flame, and he was not storming about to find out. He had enough food in his pack to survive for a few days out here, assuming he couldn’t find any civilization. Storms, if he found an outpost he didn’t know what he would do. He didn’t have the clearance to interact with the locals, and if he did the amount of paperwork he have to fill out was horrifying. He checked his watch. 3:00 am. The watch had been a gift from Emily a few years back, and he’d worn it every day since. It had automatically set to Threnody Central Time when he arrived. Even after years of owning it, he still wasn’t sure how it worked, but he had the genius’s at Citron Corp to thank for it, which he audibly did. As he said the words, his mind finally processed the time, he stumbled over to a tree, slipped off his pack, and under the watchful eyes of the shades, slipped to sleep.

Written on mobile, so apologies for any spelling/grammar issues

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