Mid-Range Game 23: A Desperate Alliance

[cloudjumper he/him]

Fine by me. BR. Jon.

[Sami she/her]

Seems fair. Jon 

[Yitzi2]

53 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

Hmmm. Well I know I can't really expect you to speak on behalf of the entire Alethi, but I'll take it.

BrightnessRadiant.

Jondesu.

Needless to say, if you don't intend to honor this, you'd better make sure you kill me by the end of the cycle...

If we didn't intend to honor this (and refusing to honor it would have to be a group decision), we'd pretty much have to kill all the Parshendi, so the order wouldn't matter so much.

[Jondesu he/him]

I’ll be virtually silent for a while, as I’m about to have a new baby. Don’t expect me around for a day or so probably, and only in limited capacity then. 

[Sart he/him]

35 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

I’ll be virtually silent for a while, as I’m about to have a new baby. Don’t expect me around for a day or so probably, and only in limited capacity then. 

Congratulations! Don't worry, we'll murder you so you won't have to pay attention to this game.

[BrightnessRadiant she/her]

54 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

I’ll be virtually silent for a while, as I’m about to have a new baby. Don’t expect me around for a day or so probably, and only in limited capacity then. 

Dawwwwwwww so sweet! Congrats! 

[xxGaea They/Them, Fae/Faer]

This does sound like a good compromise, so I will place my vote on Jondesu as well.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

2 hours ago, Jondesu said:

I’ll be virtually silent for a while, as I’m about to have a new baby. Don’t expect me around for a day or so probably, and only in limited capacity then. 

Awwwww, that's fine. A baby is a lot more important than a silly game on the internet, so spend as much time as possible with your wife and new child. You deserve it!

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Well. I've been preoccupied for the last few hours, but now I can post this RP. And then I'll have time to give LG36 a good proper look.

Kyner watched as they put Ramaan to death.

In truth, the death was his responsibility. He had negotiated it as a sign of peace. Pity the suspicions against Ramaan had amounted to nothing.

The box was kicked out from under Ramaan, and he feel into the grasps of the noose with an audible snap.

Ramaan's shade appeared next to the body immediately thereafter, looking disoriented. Kyner waved to him apologetically, and then the shade was sucked away into the beyond.

This was going to be a difficult day, he thought, as he walked slowly and deliberately back to the Parshendi section of the camp, lagging behind the main group. There was much to consider.

 

It was only by failing to look where he was going that Kyner survived. Deep in thought, he tripped on a rockbud, sprawling forward. At that moment, the shadow of something big and vaguely weapon-shaped passed over him. Kyner heard cursing as he rolled on his back.

An Alethi stood above him, wielding an enormous shardblade that was truly awesome to behold. It was improbably large, wickedly serrated, and painted a solid green, and cast a blinding reflection from the sun. The assailant wore a mask that did an irritatingly good job of obscuring their identity. The shardbearer brought down their blade over Kyner with a speed that didn't seem to agree with the size of the blade, ready to finish him off.

It still amazed Kyner that people on Roshar were so willing to draw blood. Even in broad daylight, blood could be a death sentence.

Kyner grabbed for something, anything to stop the incoming blade. All he could muster was a metal ink nib. A very rare and very useful scholarly tool (people on Roshar typically used those horrid reeds to write with instead of a proper ink pen), but still laughably ineffective against a shardblade.

Usually, anyway. In a split second, Kyner examined the pen. Worked from pure iron, non-alloyed. Recently crafted by the Unkalaki. Free of rust of any kind. Light compact, and thus inexpensive to reshape. The pen would suffice.

He thrust the pen overhead between himself and the shardblade, holding it with both hands to brace for the impact. Then he desperately reshaped the substance of the pen, using what he had designated to be the first alteration. The reshaping consumed about half of his remaining reserve (a somewhat troubling detail, for Kyner had yet to find a way to replenish it).

As the blade hurtled towards Kyner, the pen changed in his hands, taking on a mirror-like sheen and a slight iridescence. More importantly, it grew approximately seventy times more durable and more brittle than regular iron. The shardblade struck the pen and rebounded with a melodic gong, spreading a web of tiny cracks across the surface of the pen.

The shardbearer looked down on Kyner incredulously. Kyner did not hesitate to take the moment of surprise to plant his heel firmly in his assailant's gut. Even in scholarform, a Parshendi could deliver a powerful blow, by human standards at least. Then Kyner ran for all he was worth. Another swish of that blade would end of him. Better report this to Eshonai.

 

It only goes to show... The pen is mightier than the sword.

[Elbereth she/her]

Well. I have a lot to say, and I suggest that everyone read all of it, not just the quotes where I'm responding directly to you. 

Here goes! 

On 7/16/2017 at 2:50 PM, Drake Marshall said:

<ultimatum>

Here's the thing.

It's very likely that there's only one Voidbringer left, so that faction has basically lost.

What's more, I predict that there's only one Parshendi Ghostblood, so after you shardblade Jondesu tonight, the Ghostbloods will find it basically impossible to win.

The only secret faction who nobody has actually laid a hand on is the Sons of Honor. If my projections are even marginally accurate, nobody should even be pretending that the other factions are still major threats at this stage.

And yet you still don't feel safe enough? The Voidbringers are decimated, and you are free to shardblade Jondesu at any time and make the Ghostbloods basically unable to win, and you still need to kill off all the Parshendi, just in case?

I'd be okay with lynching Jondesu, if you'd agree to shardblade one of your own, but that's obviously never going to happen, especially if the shardblader is a Son of Honor.

 

If the Alethi actually want peace, the only condition on which we are having it on is if we lynch a suspected Son of Honor today, and then shardblade Jondesu tonight to deal with the Ghostbloods.

Otherwise you really shouldn't bother denying that you are throwing it all-in with a Son of Honor victory. In that case all pretense of peace ought to be dispensed with, because that's less headache for both of us.

</ultimatum>

 

Just good to make things clear.

Most of my response is in my post above, but a few things - 

Why would the Ghostbloods find it practically impossible to win once Jondesu's gone? They still probably have two or three Alethi Ghostbloods. That's an assumption I just don't understand. 

This may have been before the change in the game, but other factions are definitely still major threats. The Parshendi can kill. The Voidbringers (assuming there's only one left, which is hopefully the case but I'm starting to be paranoid there are two) can kill three before they're gone. The Ghostbloods also haven't been touched yet (which will change now, happily), and also have a kill every cycle. 

Also, why does it matter whether the Parshendi assume we're going for an unaligned or SoH victory? The only difference is that we'd be a little less likely to concede on the lynch. It doesn't exactly change anything else. 

On 7/16/2017 at 3:52 PM, Frozen Mint said:

Right. Good point. El.  Your skepticism of peace is fair, but I see you siding with the SoH more easily than working towards peace which worries me.

Orlok's dying next cycle, so we'll be able to see his alignment. If you ask me, we'll be in a better position to discuss lynching Jon then.

Correct. Obviously.

Why were you so certain that Orlok was dying? You're the first person to bring this up, and did so twice before anyone else. You seem very certain. 

On 7/16/2017 at 7:50 PM, Sart said:

This... isn't good. I feel like it needed to play out, regardless of how unbalanced the game might turn out to be. Still, I understand your decision. Regardless, Jondesu. Every faction except the Ghostbloods needs the Ghostbloods dead.

Disagreed, actually. I'm not sure the fix is balanced (from my limited perspective), but I do think the game needed to be fixed somehow because the Parshendi obviously weren't having any fun whatsoever and felt like they were being slaughtered.

On 7/17/2017 at 4:09 AM, Yitzi2 said:

D1?  I predicted it before the game even started.  (Which is part of why accusing me for being a SoH for saying the same thing on D1 makes little sense, though there I did add my opinion that such a game favors the Alethi; such opinion is, of course, now less true depending on how many Shardbearers the Parshendi get.)

And I figure we can lynch Jon later if necessary; if it will help make the Parshendi feel more comfortable about the situation, Jondesu HH.

How many the Parshendi get? The Parshendi got one Shardbearer. If they got any more than that I would be seriously concerned with Seonid's judgement. 

On 7/17/2017 at 8:21 PM, cloudjumper said:

Well I mean 3 were from the voidbringer decayform kills, 1 was probably from ghostblood, and 1 might have been from a Parshendi shardbearer or something. Really, the village only had to do with one of those kills, and only one person was involved, with none of the other Parshendi in on it.

How are you certain that there were three Voidbringer kills, and not a Parshendi kill and a Ghostblood kill? You also seem oddly certain.

I'd guess that either you or Mint is the last Voidbringer, or you both are, or the Voidbringers have claimed to the doc. 

22 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

Second. Jondesu didn't get shardbladed. Instead, I did. Isn't that interesting? Part of why I requested that we let the shardblader hit Jondesu is so that they wouldn't decide to go target another innocent Parshendi. The fact that the shardblader attacked me instead pretty much proves that this shardblader is a Son of Honor. Unsurprising.

Third, this presents something of a conundrum, because Jondesu is still alive. That's not good. At all. (And don't blame that on me for preventing Jondesu from dying, because the Alethi shardblader also failed to attack Jondesu in favor of attacking me instead.)

Fourth, the decayforms seem to have killed two unaligned investigative abilities. That makes life difficult, because unaligned scanners are a great tool for making peace. I'm still committed to peace (it's not really as if I have a choice, seeing as the Voidbringers might as well be out for the count), but it just got a bit harder.

Fifth, I scanned BrightnessRadiant last cycle, and learned that she is a Son of Honor.

Sixth, I'm probably going to die by a Son of Honor shardblade next cycle, unless somebody kind decides to protect me.

So, that's the rundown. I need time to think.

And I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow so I may not be able to do very much for a large chunk of this cycle.

2. I hadn't thought about that - it does make sense. The Sons know we might lynch Jondesu, and therefore of course have no incentive to kill him. >> Which is why he needs to be lynched anyway. 

3. I blame it on both of you, Drake. Both the Shardbearer and you changing the lynch to an unaligned Alethi. I'm not terribly happy about that. 

4. Not really. They're going to have a harder time for it, but even if there's only one they could do a bit of damage, and two could do a lot because no one would expect it. 

Good luck with your wisdom teeth!

14 hours ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

Let's go over this in detail, so that those in the back can hear. There were 6 attacks, 1 was the lynch, 2 were decayform, and are therefore unusable again. The other three were made by two shardblade holders and a random Ghostblood.

Drake is out last scanner, and he has found a Son of honour, so let's go over our lynch possibilities right now: Jondesu, the revealed Ghostblood with two lives, who will take up two turns of lynching, and when he dies the ghostblood kill will continue to happen no matter what, or Brightness Radiant, the Son of Honour with only one live, and a 1/3 to 1/5 chance of being the only Son of Honour with a kill role, thereby stopping the Sons of Honour from murdering our last scanner.

2 lynches for little gain, or one lynch for the possibility of lots of gain. The scales are pretty darn clear here to me. Brightness Radiant

PS: The Flash I would like to know who knew your role, but you're mostly off the hook. :Thumbs_Up:

Not necessarily. As Cloud has pointed out (several times), it could also have been three decayform kills and the Parshendi Shardbearer not getting on before the cycle ended to submit a kill or choosing not to. 

Whose gain, Joe? How exactly would you gain from Brightness' death even if she is the Shardbearer? 

Point that I think needs to be raised just for consistency's sake: Drake is likely to die this cycle, like Orlok was last cycle, and thus has nothing to lose from lying about this. And there was certainly enough discussion about that in previous days that it's not impossible for Drake to decide to do so because he thought he was going to be killed. (Note: I don't think this is the case, at all, just like it wasn't the case for either of the other two scanners. I do think he desrves to have the same point raised, though. )

Right. There have been posts since then but I can't seem to load them, annoyingly, so I'm going to post this and then see if I can fix that.

[cloudjumper he/him]

19 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

How are you certain that there were three Voidbringer kills, and not a Parshendi kill and a Ghostblood kill? You also seem oddly certain.

I'd guess that either you or Mint is the last Voidbringer, or you both are, or the Voidbringers have claimed to the doc. 

At the time I made the post I thought incorrectly that there were 5 attacks on Alethi. The way I stated was the only way five attacks could have been made. Also Len pretty much told us his plan in the doc. I was working under the assumption that he had followed that plan along with his fellow voidbringers. Also that's what I would logically do if I was a voidbringer - get all decayform kills out as quickly as I could then transition into stormform and murder everyone, which was essentially his plan.

[Elbereth she/her]

Now read through the rest of the thread, and more comments! (Not as many, happily.)

12 hours ago, Yitzi2 said:

So you think that either BR was Shardplate and Orlok was protected, or vice versa, but not both Shardplate or both protected?

Any particular reason for that?

No. Flash was Shardplate. He claimed that. You don't seem to be paying much attention this cycle? >> This is the second time you've confused something fairly obvious. 

5 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

Third, you seem to be assuming that we are going to constantly lynch random Alethi, and that the Parshendi shardbearer is going to indescriminately kill Alethi without searching for Sons of Honor. Neither of those assumptions are likely to be true, if I have anything at all to say about it.

 

Really, it boils down to this. The Parshendi now have a shardblade. And the Alethi now feel more threatened by this.

Well, that's totally understandable. We are undeniably more dangerous now.

But, frankly, if we can't move forward with negotiations the moment the Alethi lose massive superiority over the Parshendi, then I have to wonder if there is any real trust here.

 

So I have a proposal to make. Or perhaps we could call it another compromise. Because I think this arrangement would be mutually profitable.

Namely. We will all agree to lynch Jondesu.

In return, you will lynch a suspected Son of Honor next cycle. It could be Brightness, or it could be someone else, if one of the scholarforms end up unveiling another Son of Honor.

I fully understand why you want Jondesu dead. But if we cannot agree to lynch a confirmed Son of Honor at least the cycle after we lynch Jondesu, then I really have to assume that you are aiming for the Son of Honor win and not an unaligned win.

I am well aware that the lynch/Shardbearer aren't going to actually try to target unaligned Alethi. I'm also aware that that is likely to happen a lot, because mislynches and miskills do happen. Frequently. (In normal games, I believe the lynch accuracy percentage is roughly 33%.)

Yes. You are more dangerous now. This is obvious. What made you think there was trust in the first place, though? At all? This is SE. Trusting an opposite faction is... not exactly something that happens very much. 

Why does it matter what you assume, as I said earlier? I don't intend to honour this agreement, nor see a reason we should. 

8 minutes ago, cloudjumper said:

At the time I made the post I thought incorrectly that there were 5 attacks on Alethi. The way I stated was the only way five attacks could have been made. Also Len pretty much told us his plan in the doc. I was working under the assumption that he had followed that plan along with his fellow voidbringers. Also that's what I would logically do if I was a voidbringer - get all decayform kills out as quickly as I could then transition into stormform and murder everyone, which was essentially his plan.

Right. Good to know. Slightly less suspicious of you now, then, though that's still more thought about what the Voidbringers should do than I'd expect from someone unaligned. (Also, you're more active than I can ever recall seeing you. I can't verify that point completely, though, since I haven't played much recently - can someone else tell me how active he's generally been in recent games?)

[Yitzi2]

6 hours ago, Elbereth said:

Now read through the rest of the thread, and more comments! (Not as many, happily.)

No. Flash was Shardplate. He claimed that. You don't seem to be paying much attention this cycle? >> This is the second time you've confused something fairly obvious.

Yeah...not sure why.  Maybe I'm just trying to juggle too much at once; I doubt I'll be joining another SE for a while.

6 hours ago, Elbereth said:

Right. Good to know. Slightly less suspicious of you now, then, though that's still more thought about what the Voidbringers should do than I'd expect from someone unaligned.

Some people (such as me) like to consider everybody's strategy, not just their own.

[Megasif he/him]

This is probably the last time I can do this in this cycle. 

BrightnessRadiant. Jondesu.

[Elbereth she/her]

4 hours ago, Yitzi2 said:

Some people (such as me) like to consider everybody's strategy, not just their own.

I'm aware. I think it somewhat less likely that Cloud is one of those people. 

Theory only holds if there actually were three decayform kills and no Parshendi kill, though. Otherwise I'd look at... honestly, I could see any of the other three Parshendi being Voidbringers. Alv for being so annoyed and refusing to lynch another Parshendi, even a Ghostblood. Daniyah for being very, very quiet - though apparently she hasn't been very active in games since last November. @Daniyah talk, please! Drake for suing for peace so much (which is an excellent excuse to try to get Alethi lynched). 

Time to reread the thread, I think. >> 

[Stick. she/her]

2 hours ago, Elbereth said:

Time to reread the thread, I think. >> 

Same.

I have been terribly lazy this game...I think I need to brush up on the rules too haha...ha.....

 . . .

Time to reread the thread from C1! exciting

[BrightnessRadiant she/her]

Okay well I've been a bit busy with other things lately but I definitely don't intend to vote on myself this or any cycle haha....I believe Jon to be a ghostie and that's bad for everyone so there is where my vote remains and always has heh

I would very much like to know Drake's alignment, but too bad someone killed 2 Alethi scanners....hmmm

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

1 hour ago, BrightnessRadiant said:

Okay well I've been a bit busy with other things lately but I definitely don't intend to vote on myself this or any cycle haha....I believe Jon to be a ghostie and that's bad for everyone so there is where my vote remains and always has heh

I would very much like to know Drake's alignment, but too bad someone killed 2 Alethi scanners....hmmm

I'll just scan myself and then we can learn my alignment 

[Stick. she/her]

Just now, Drake Marshall said:

I'll just scan myself and then we can learn my alignment 

Good idea 

[BrightnessRadiant she/her]

5 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

I'll just scan myself and then we can learn my alignment 

That would be very nice of you  

[Elbereth she/her]

I'd suggest that all the Parshendi scan each other to find the last Voidbringer(s), but somehow I doubt that'd go down well.  

[BrightnessRadiant she/her]

3 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

I'd suggest that all the Parshendi scan each other to find the last Voidbringer(s), but somehow I doubt that'd go down well.  

haha that would be nice of all of them...although I'm inclined to believe the Parshendi might already know who they are 

I probably won't be on again before rollover so bye lol...I have Bible Study at church tonight.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

11 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

I'd suggest that all the Parshendi scan each other to find the last Voidbringer(s), but somehow I doubt that'd go down well.  

I did in the past offer to scan Parshendi, so I don't think that this idea is out of the question.

But I hope you don't take undue offense when I say I would never negotiate such a deal with you. You already vocally aligned with the Sons of Honor.

[Elbereth she/her]

Thus why I didn't think the offer would be taken up.  It's a reasonable idea if you're going for an unaligned win, certainly. If we find the last Voidbringer (still assuming there's only one), then it'll be much easier to lynch Sons every turn because the peace-aligned Alethi will be willing to given that there wouldn't be any more secret roles among you. 

It's just not what I consider ideal, because I'm not going for an unaligned win.  If you want to, though, have at it. 

[Mint11 she/her]

19 hours ago, Elbereth said:

Why were you so certain that Orlok was dying? You're the first person to bring this up, and did so twice before anyone else. You seem very certain. 

Len had mentioned it in the doc before he died. Also, Orlok had said that he was roleblocked.

Not that it will make a difference to the lynch either way now, but Jon.

18 hours ago, Elbereth said:

On 7/18/2017 at 7:44 PM, Drake Marshall said:

But, frankly, if we can't move forward with negotiations the moment the Alethi lose massive superiority over the Parshendi, then I have to wonder if there is any real trust here.

Yes. You are more dangerous now. This is obvious. What made you think there was trust in the first place, though? At all? This is SE. Trusting an opposite faction is... not exactly something that happens very much. 

I was thinking along the same lines as Drake, but I wouldn't use the word trust. I question how genuine the for-peace Alethi ever were if they're only comfortable with working together when they feel fairly safe. Of course, that doesn't apply to those who were against the peace treaty from the start.

And I'm starting to get the feeling that the Ghostbloods are controlling this game.  My gut says that there's something very fishy and very effective going on.

Sorry I haven't been on much, this week has been much more hectic than expected. Can't make any promises that I'll be able to come on more often in the next few days.