Long Game 10: A Game of Shards

[leiftinspace he/him]

Never mind. Jain

[vineyarddawg]

I can't believe everybody is doing this to Team Odium.  We're so misunderstood.  All we wanted to do was kill all life in the Cosmere.  Is that too much to ask??

 

EDIT: This post was approved by Joe, honorary member of Team Odium

Edited March 4, 2015 by vineyarddawg

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

Had post, but tablet misbehaving

 

Tl;Dr: Jain has given me ultimate power! Muahahahahaha

 

Switched targets. Sorry, it ain't you no more.

 

Bort, I'm sorry my actions last cycle lead to you being lynched instead of Jain. My only intention was to bring information to the table that no one else seemed to be considering so we could find Odium faster. I didn't mean to deflect suspicion from Odium. I honestly thought Splinter would have told someone if he learned someone couldn't receive investiture.

 

At least now we've found Odium. Jain. I hope this lynch ends the game.

 

You are a scary, scary player. We should've killed you earlier.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

You fools! Odium will reign. Hatred cannot be killed. The one who wields the power may vary, but the power remains. Hatred infests every heart. 

[leiftinspace he/him]

Except for those who only have love. 

[Alvron]

*strolls past whistling 'What's Love got to do with it?'*

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

Except for those who only have love. 

 

Do not forget the power of friendship!

[leiftinspace he/him]

Ooookaaaaay....

[leiftinspace he/him]

*strolls past whistling 'What's Love got to do with it?'*

*starts whistling back 'All you need is love!'*

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Aftermath

 

“Don’t you see what you’ve done? They think it’s me now!” Jain paced back and forth, running his hands over his head, trying to find a way out of this mess. His Panda sat on the shelf, looking down on him.

 

I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING JAIN. YOU DO NOT NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THE SHARDS.

 

“But Pandy, they-”

 

DO NOT CALL ME THAT! I AM ODIUM!

 

Jain fell to his knees before his toy, the Toy that had been his master for years, ever since Maw had found it, and awakened it to hate. Why had Maw seen fit to pass his shard on to it?

 

“But, what do we do then? They’re coming for us! They’ll destroy us both!”

 

NO JAIN. WHY WOULD THEY DESTROY A SIMPLE TOY? THEY'LL DEFINITELY KILL YOU, BUT I WILL SURVIVE, AS I ALWAYS HAVE.

 

Why him? Why had Maw decided to torture him? Jain had always been content to live as a normal man, he’d never sought after power! He had to escape somehow, from both Odium and the other Shards. But how? They knew about him. They knew who he was.

 

There was a pounding and the door, and the Window outside was Cloudy. They were here!

 

OPEN THE DOOR JAIN. OUR ALLY HAS ARRIVED.

 

Jain tentatively plodded to the door, then slowly opened it, resigned to his Fate. But instead of Hoid or the Shards, the Logicspren Cognition stood without. Why had Survival come alone? Before he could ask his question, the Sprenshard breezed past him, entering the House.

 

“Odium. I can delay the shards no longer, They are coming for you.” The Logicspren spoke without emotion, simply stating facts. “You know you cannot survive. Have you chosen your heir?”

 

I HAVE. IF THEY DO NOT SHATTER ME, THEN I WILL BE GIVEN TO ANOTHER. HE IS WILLING.

 

“Good, I have made arrangements for you to be saved from shattering, I must leave now to prevent the shards from discovering my Betrayal. Good Luck.” Ignoring Jain again, the Shard swept from the room.

 

Jain stood next to the door, rather confused. “When did, no, Why did Survival Ally with you?”

SURVIVAL KNEW THAT I HAD NO REASON TO SHATTER HIM. HIS INTENT DOESN’T INTERFERE WITH MINE, UNLIKE THE OTHERS. AS FOR WHEN, I DO NOT KNOW. HE STRUCK A DEAL WITH MY PREDECESSOR.

 

There was a flash through the window, and Jain turned to see the Door caving in, as Gerald Hobbes threw Bort’s corpse through it. “I don’t see why the other shards objected to me using Bort’s head as a battering ram for this door,” Hoid said.  “He was mostly dead anyway.  Storming voidbringers.  And now, dear Odium… I’m afraid your time has run out.” Hobbes, or Hoid, whatever his name truly was, grinned at Snoopy. “So any Last words?”

 

Jain backed away, raising his arms defensively. “I’m just a Puppet! I was never Odium! It was all him!” He pointed one hand at the innocent looking toy Panda on the shelf. Hoid stared at him, then looked at the Panda, then back to him.

 

“What? Do you really think I’m stupid Jain? Why would-” The bolt of Red smoke hit him in the chest, knocking him backward through the wall, as the Panda’s eyes started to glow. It rose, floating off the shelf and out the door.

 

MIDUS, DID YOU REALLY EXPECT TO FIND ME WHERE I WOULD BE EXPECTED? I KNOW HOW YOU THINK, AND I KNOW HOW YOU’LL REACT.

 

Jain watched as Pandy, no, Odium, threw another bolt of Red smoke, this time, Hoid dodged out of the way, and threw a Bolt of Golden Energy upward.

 

More flashes. Behind Hoid stood 5 Figures.The Marquis, glowing Green with the Power of Cultivation, Cleo, radiating the purple of Devotion, Leif, radiating the Golden of Endowment, And Cognition, still in the form of a Logicspren. The Inquisitor Kae was there as well, standing with Cleo.

 

Hoid rose to one knee, and spat blood in the direction of the Panda. “So Jain was the puppet. Well Odium, did you expect this?” He rose, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

 

YOU WORKING WITH THE SHARDS? NOT AS SUCH NO. 6 WARRIORS STAND BEFORE ME, BUT HOW MANY STAND AGAINST ME? AND WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO NOW?

 

“This.” Hoid brought his arms up and cast out a beam of Pure Investiture. It flew directly towards Odium, but was blocked by a Shield of Red Smoke. The Red smoke mixed with the Rainbow mixture of Hoid’s Power.Then a Lance of Grey Investiture joined the Rainbow, followed by Purple, Golden and Green. The Sphere of Red Smoke shrunk under the combined onslaught of 4 Shards and the Wit.

 

The Shinovar dirt beneath them began to blacken and burn from the sheer power. Jain had to scramble away as he felt the heat from the rays of Power. When he was comfortable again, he turned back to watch. Odium’s shield was still holding, though the ground around it wasn’t. Long  rifts were spreading from the shield, breaking apart the ground as Odium expended his powers. Then, there was a pulse, as if everything shifted focus, and the shield fell away, before bursting back, smaller than before. Hoid took a slow step forward, straining against the force of Odium’s Hatred and, now, Fear.

 

Another Pulse, the Shield collapsed, and Odium spun away, throwing its tiny paw towards the Horizon. The beams of Power hit the toy panda, burning through it as it screamed.

 

THIS WILL NOT BE!!! I AM ODIUM!!! THIS IS NOT HOW I DIE!!!

 

The Panda flew forward towards Hoid, In a desperate charge,Jain could see that it was rapidly disintegrating from the power being cast at it. The remnants of the body exploded right before reaching Hoid, scattering him with ash. The cloud of Red Smoke billowed up, and then began to Solidify, into a Shard. God’s own Divine Hatred.

 

The stillness following the struggle almost rung in his ears, as the shards stared at their fallen foe. Finally, Hoid took a step forward towards the Shard. “Well then, we’ve finally won. Help me shatter this.” He raised his hand, obviously intending to cast more power at it, but was stopped by Cleo.

 

“Hoid, we have won. We do not need to do this anymore. Without a mind, Odium will be harmless for centuries. We have until then to decide what to do with it.”

 

Jain stared at Devotion flabbergasted. Devotion was showing Mercy on even Odium? Hoid looked even more astounded, and enraged. “Cleo, I will destroy this shard. The only way we could keep it safe is if someone took it up and became a new Odium.”

 

Kae stepped forward. “Not if Devotion guards it with her power. We can give it to someone loyal, someone like Lord Cett. He’s proven his worth, and slew the Last Holder of Odium.”

 

Before Hoid could retort, Survival stepped forward, “Their Request is logical. Contain the power, in case we ever need it again.” Hoid tried again to object, but Cognition forestalled him. “Why don’t you go tell the others that Odium is defeated. Tell them that we’re in a new Epoch, one without hatred’s Influence.”

 

He brightened considerably at this. “All right then, I’ll make sure everyone knows, but be careful with that shard, it can corrupt much quicker than you believe. However, I am taking the Shin.” He gestured to where Jain was mournfully gathering the ashes of his companion. “I still have unanswered questions.”  He grabbed Jain by the back of the neck, and vanished before he could react. Endowment and Cultivation, sharing a glance, vanished as well. Survival simply faded away, leaving Cleo and Kae to send Odium to Ash Cett.

_____________________________________________________________________

 

Ash stood atop the mountain, watching as the Shards left. He could feel Odium’s power flowing into him, constantly strengthening him. He was now one of the Shardholders. One of only 13 such beings. Amazing how one’s fortunes could change so suddenly.

 

With his newfound power and awareness, he could feel a shard forming behind him. That would be Survival. The traitor in the midsts of the shards. He turned to face him. “You’ve come with a deal I assume? Like our previous arrangement?” They’re previous arrangement had netted Cett a shard. Hopefully he could use his powers to bring back his daughter, his true daughter.

 

“Indeed. Once they interrogate Jain, they will learn of my part in the deaths of their Brothers. It’s only logical I join with Odium again to Survive.” Cognition was in his true form, Some sort of electrified pillar of obsidian.

 

“And how are we two to stand against the shards, when they know us?” Doing such a thing would be hard, to say the least.

 

“Three of us actually.” Ash turned to see Cleo and Kae walking towards them. “I bear no friendship to the remaining shards. I was a tool in their hands, not an equal. I will swear my Loyalty to Hatred.”

 

Kae smirked and added, “Odium freed me from Ruin’s control. So I now owe you a debt of service. I too will join you.”

 

Ash smiled, a much more malevolent Smile then he had ever had before. It appeared that Hatred was not something man could slay. It would always return, eventually. Odium will, and always has, reigned supreme.

 

Bort was a Voidbringer! Jain was Odium!

 

Congratulations to The Village for winning!

 

Congratulations to MetaCognition for Surviving!

 

I will eventually be rerunning this game, after it’s been heavily modified and revamped to remove all the flaws in balance and OPness. So if you have any suggestions for how this game should have been changed, please say them now.

 

Special thanks to the vineyarddawg for helping with this final writeup. As an explanation for why Winter cloud is joining Team Odium, see this Conversation. Ash is joining because he was Jain’s last investee, though he tried to invest in Hoid but was killed.

 

Metacognition is joining because he was always on Odium’s side. He held the secret shard of Survival, a shard that only wanted to survive, by any means necessary. So he went above and beyond his call, passing on vital information to Mailliw and helping Jain hide in return for a guarantee of him not being attacked. I nominate him for Most Valued Player.

 

Survival:

The only abilities that can affect you are Kills. (Lynch, Ruin, Odium, Odium's Champs.)

 

Rather than one, you have THREE Lives.

 

The first time you are killed or lynched, you survive. It appears you survived due to Honour/Being Preservation.

 

The second time you are attacked, you survive, but reveal that you’re the shard of Survival. You are still immune to Shardic Powers. Odium’s Champions can still kill you, as can the Lynch.

 

Victory Conditions: Survive, by any means. If you're alive at the end of the game, you win, even if Odium also wins.

 

Honestly, my clarification should have tipped you off. You asked if Survival was a safe role, and I said that Odium was the only ‘Evil’ Shard. That’s a vague answer right there.

 

I would also like to Nominate Luckat for the Best Plan. If she hadn’t given her plan to find Odium, Jain would have been hidden for several cycles longer. So congrats to Luckat.

 

And finally, a quick explanation of the layout of the roles. Namely, why did Team odium have no Lifeless and Awakeners? Because in past games, the village would often wipe out the entirety of a role set, firmly believing that at least one of that role had to be evil.

 

Spec Doc     Dead Doc     Evil Doc

Thanks everyone for playing! See you in a few months!

[Metacognition he/him]

Well I wouldn't say I was always on Odium's side. I was playing my own game until I realized how much more powerful the Shards were in comparison! Then I joined up to try to balance the odds! Needless to say, even that wasn't enough, but I really was a free agent of sorts. My goal was to survive by any means necessary and aimed to do that one way or the other! It just turned out that I like an underdog!

 

To my fellow Shards, I'm sorry for the deception... Okay, I'm not, because it was fun, but I'm sorry for putting you into that position.

 

Great write up, Joe and great game (I love the tags as well)! Even stacked as it was, this was still a lot of fun! I'll hold off on suggestions until I've gotten a chance to read through some of the threads, as I'm sure a few ideas are in there and I'd like to give credit for them where credit is due. 

 

Also, Congrats to the Villagers! Especially our newer players, who did such a great job in their first game! Snoopy was a stand out for me in how he managed and took control of things behind the scenes, but all of you were fantastic. Luckat, you, as always, showed incredible skill. That last plan of yours was the nail in the coffin. I couldn't think of a way around that to get the Shards to lynch anyone else. Jain was right, should've lynched/killed you sooner (only in these games is that a compliment)! I've definitely moved you up a few ranks in my "threat chart" because of it!

 

And just an overall thank you and appreciation (because I know that I'm leaving some people out, but don't know who offhand) for everyone that played! This wouldn't have been as fun or as exciting without you!

Edited March 6, 2015 by Metacognition

[leiftinspace he/him]

Just gotta say meta, well played. And that's the last time i feel sorry for you when you get upset that we don't trust you.

[vineyarddawg]

Great job, everyone. This game was great fun! And good luck getting through the Eliminator doc... it's 119 pages.  

Edited March 6, 2015 by vineyarddawg

[leiftinspace he/him]

Great job, everyone. This game was great fun! And good luck getting through the Eliminator doc... it's 119 pages.

Good Tranquline Halls! Did you do that just to make things difficult for people to read it?

[little wilson she/her]

Good Tranquline Halls! Did you do that just to make things difficult for people to read it?

 

That's far from being the longest evil doc. LG2 was a little longer than that (124 pages), LG4 was 79 pages (but it had no margins at all, so with the margins, it would be over 100 pages) and the AG's evil doc was 158 pages....And that's not even counting the Urbain Revolution in LG7 (which was not an evil doc).

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

Good Tranquline Halls! Did you do that just to make things difficult for people to read it?

Heh, the Doc actually mostly died off around cycles 4 or 5, and we were already around 100 or so at that point. XD Like Wilson said, that ain't got nothing on the Urbain Inquisition.

But yes, excellent game, Joe! Definitely loved the whole flavor and concept behind the game, with the Shards v Odium, truly an epic Cosmere showdown! And excellent write-ups, especially this end one!

 

Oh and yes, Meta's betrayal! Mwahaha! We basically knew by a few cycles in that we needed some outside edge, and once Meta was revealed as Survival, we had no problem letting him live to help us out! (Even if we didn't tell him who all of us were and kept a *couple* plans and motivations back from him at first -- just in case)

[Tulir he/him]

Really fun game everyone.  Nice writeup Joe, and thanks for running it.  

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

Good Game all! 

 

Trying to flit just at the edge of the radar is surprisingly hard. Pity I was caught through process of Elimination (badum tsh. Please send all hate mail/credit for that terrible pun to Gamma Fiend.). I'd also like to vote for Meta for the MVP for leaking information from the Shards from right under their noses.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

We knew the list of Shards from Day 3 on. Snoopy, that's what I wanted to troll you with so many times after I was dead, but I had to keep it a secret that Meta was a traitor. That definitely helped. 

 

First, congrats to my champions, you all did very well. Without the Shardic Coalition, I think we would've had a very good chance of winning this game. Vine, especially for a new player, you did great! 

 

One regret I have is that, as Odium, I never once made a kill. First, we were waiting for the Witness, then I was locked down. This happens a lot to me as an Eliminator apparently. (See LG9 and my role as an Illusionist.)

 

Congrats also to the Coalition! While I strongly disagree with your methods, you did play very well. Piff and Leif managed to get into contact with just the right people and that worked out very well for you. Snoopy also deserves props for managing that. One suggestion though, if you had lynched Leif after Araris died or was "killed." If Endowment had been passed on, he/she would've gotten an updated list of Shards, and after comparing it with Snoopy, you'd have caught Jain quickly. 

 

Meta, congrats on not having to use even one of your lives this game. How ironic it was that you, a Kill on Sight player that most people tend to kill right away, ended up having to survive to win.

 

Also, props to Lu. We really should've killed you earlier. They were set on lynching Alv, but then you had to come and ruin it. But very well done. You always do that at the end of games, and everyone always forgets about it. Never again. (That's a compliment.)

 

Everyone else, well done. You all played a great game and Joe, thanks for GMing it. The writeups were great!

 

Now on to complaints and suggestions:
First off, the Coalition. Keeping information like that severely hurt your team. You could've shared everything you had and spent less time wasted on useless arguments about lynching. We already knew all the Shards, so it wouldn't have hurt, but I get that you didn't know that. I would definitely recommend sharing more and not just coming down hard on anyone who voted for a Shard (with good reason sometimes). If I had been innocent and a regular, I would've very much been on Vine and Araris's side in that argument. It worked out well for you, though.

 

Game Balance:

I realize that you've already noticed these, Joe, but I'll point them out anyways. 

 

Making the Shards all safe roles extremely unbalanced the scales. Even if only good players had gotten those roles, it would've been better to say that they weren't guaranteed. A bit of healthy Paranoia^TM.  

 

Overall, this was a very fun game to play!

[little wilson she/her]

Making the Shards all safe roles extremely unbalanced the scales. Even if only good players had gotten those roles, it would've been better to say that they weren't guaranteed. A bit of healthy Paranoia^TM.

 

This is actually something I've had in mind for a while. I hate safe roles, but I understand that some roles shouldn't be on Team Evil. So I've no problem deciding for my own personal use that something is technically a safe role and team evil won't have it. But I'm not telling the players that. They can wonder. Paranoia never hurt no one. (double negatives intended)

[vineyarddawg]

Good Tranquline Halls! Did you do that just to make things difficult for people to read it?

 

Well, we spent quite a bit of space really trying to figure out the complexities and mechanics of the game, so that was a part of it. (I love that part, by the way.  I love a game with the complex mechanics like this one that Joe created.  The best part is that all of them made sense and were thematically appropriate for the setting.  This really is a great model you've got for future games, Joe.)

[Lord Pifferdoo he/him]

I survived! Free drinks at my manor on Scadria...oh wait.

 

I'll just go back to my summer home on First of the Sun. I'm pretty sure I never moved this entire game.

 

Great game!

[Kasimir he/him]

Paranoia never hurt no one. [/color]

It's not overcompensation, it's paranoia. So noted.

[little wilson she/her]

It's not overcompensation, it's paranoia. So noted.

 

Don't act like you didn't see the white text, Kas. I know you did. And that's exactly what it was for. That double negative was specifically for you and overcompensation.

[luckat she/her]

Thanks for running the game Joe. It had great mechanics, and I'd love to see it again with improved balance. 
 
Odium and his Champions, you all did great from beginning to end, and I want to congratulate you on sowing chaos to the end and not giving up.
 
Also, thanks for the compliments on my plan. I'm glad I was able to do something helpful despite having no role and no extra information.