Long Game 4: Colours of War

[Nepene]

While I'd be happy to be scanned to see my awakening level, as a plan it's not perfect. My Heightening doesn't prove anything, really. I mean, just because I'm Second Heightening doesn't mean that I'm not Pahn Kahl - Just that I have two additional Breaths, and that they are not locked up in an Awakened Sword. It's helpful to know that, but it's not enough.

 

It's much, much better for a Spy to check me out rather than a strawman. That proves my alignment without a shadow of a doubt. Best to be 100% sure about this if you're going to do it, yes? So if you want to do this - and I'd obviously be more than happy about it, since it kind of saves my life and proves me to be innocent - ensure you do it properly

 

The PK probably have 5-10 breaths. They used their first night to enter the breath lottery in hopes of getting enough breath to make a sword.

 

Through blackmail or lotteries they gained enough breath. On night two they transferred all of their breaths to someone who made the sword.

 

On night three this person made the sword while the rest entered the lottery.

 

As such, it is highly likely that if you are PK you are a drab or you are a person with a small number of breaths and a sword. We can check on that. Or, other people with breaths can.

 

The spy would work too. My hope is to get public commitments of what we will find from you. It's unlikely a drab PK would say that they had two breaths. We have limited resources, and if you are a lower risk suspect precious resources can be devoted to other things.

 

For this plan, would you also promise to spend your night action buying breath? That would disable your protections if you are at the fifth heightening from the many breaths your potential PK minions sent you. Or doing something non suspect we could spy on.

[bartbug]

Desperate? It looked like there was a good chance of me dying, and I wanted to try and kick start my idea by being the first person to go.

By the way, my plan is even more necessary now that an Awakened Sword has entered the game. If everyone becomes drab, then they will be unable to kill without dying.

Your vehemence against such a total sum gain is surprising. As I've said before, the point is not to make Aonar powerful. It's to get rid of the Pahn Kahl's powers.

[Aonar]

Hmm... I suppose there's an easy way to do this, though I don't like it.

 

Logically, most of the Pahn Kahl (excepting the Sword-Bearer) should be Drab, and unable to give away Breath. This means those who have not already done so need to give away their Breath. Those of you who can't or wont... you'll need to find a very good reason. Now, I know this won't catch them all, but it will likely reveal more than one of them to us. At your discretion, you may chose to give your Breath away to myself or Maill as he does not yet have a Breath and will need one soon.

 

Now, on to a different matter. Peng. You are one of the only Awakeners to have not used your Breath yet. You could just have been unsure as to what you wanted to do, or you could be the Pahn Kahl Sword-bearer. You have been careful to be active enough to avoid suspicion, yet unobtrusive enough you haven't really been noticed. Once again, do not immediately pile on this vote. I want Peng talking, not killed out of hand.

 

...I really should have done this when Barty first suggested it. If I had done so, this would have been much more effective.

 

Austre help us all if this doesn't work out.

Edited April 20, 2014 by AonarFaileas

[bartbug]

You talking about my "let's make Aonar super" idea? Because everyone needs to do it now. It's the only way to recuperate from letting the Pahn Kahl create a Lifeless Sword.

 

Come on, guys.

 

Also, is Maill verified good?

[Gamma Fiend]

Oh yes. Because when we now know the PK can (most likely) now make multiple kills a night, one of them basically unblockable, let's publicly put all of our eggs in one basket.
(Hope ya'll like the holiday themed pun)
Maybe I'm reading the rules wrong, but I'm almost positive Aodan or Aili are being taken out tonight, or very soonish. So putting all, or even a majority, of all of our breaths into them, while that would be a good idea if we could play it out and have them directing our movements, I think ultimately will backfire when we hand the PK our collective Breaths.

I'm changing my vote to Nepene for now. I'm not exactly sure when he became the plan-layer, but his assumptions about what the PK have done so far doesn't seem like guess work. While yes, that could very well be what they've done. He seems very positive that that's what the case is.

And I know I'm probably gonna get heat or some more votes shot back at me for disagreeing with the plan, but I really don't think this is a good idea. Not once it's all been declared so publicly, like this.
And if your plan is to publicly state something just so you can trick them, then me disagreeing with that doesn't screw that up anyway.
 

[Aonar]

Pretty well. Though the point of this is not to "make me super" per se, but rather to pick out the Pahn Kahl.

 

Maill has been Spied upon, and is being protected.

 

Gamma: Erm... I can't die for a while. Sorry . I have Returned, Lifeless, Mercenaries, and the Fifth Heightening to protect me. I'm as close to safe as it's possible to be right now. Even if they target me twice each night from now on, I'm still alive for three more cycles, and that's if we don't manage to kill their Swordbearer. Anyway, when I'm out of protection, I'll be giving my Breath away.

 

Nepene's statements seem to be basic conjuncture based on the facts before us. They're the same assumptions as the ones I've made in my Master List, actually.

And if my plan were to publicly state something to trick people into revealing their nature as a Pahn Kahl... then it's working perfectly, Gamma.

[bartbug]

I think the whole point is that if they kill Aodan, then we'll know if they opt to take the Breaths. If they do, that's a guaranteed Pahn Kahl down. Even better, it's guaranteed to be the one with the sword. (Because the sword is the only way to kill Aodan through all of his layers of protection).

So, let's follow down this chain of events: Today, everyone gives their Breaths to Aodan, whether they actually have Breath or not, just to make sure. Therefore, no one dies. Tonight, the Pahn Kahl kill Aodan with everything they got: Several of them are left dead from the mercenaries, and if we do this right, the mercenaries get the Awakened sword.

 

Actually, nevermind. This is totally a best case scenario. Also, if everyone gives up their Breaths, then it won't be possible to use the sword. In the rules it says that if it makes you a drab, you die. Ergo, you need Breath to use it. Worst case scenario, they kill one person to night (true worst case scenario: the person who dies is me ).

 

Sorry, but there is no downside, and Aodan will be fabulous.

 

My life to yours, my Breath to yours (Aodan).

(I'm still Drab, but just in case you guys don't believe me).

Edited April 20, 2014 by bartbug

[Awesomeness Summoned]

@Gamma... The PK can't steel the combined breaths from Aodan. As long as he has one line of protection (and we know he has more than that) the most they can do is kill him. They can't also take his breath.

Their night kill would happen first, removing one line of protection then the sword attack would happen (I confirmed this with Claincy). You cannot steal breath from someone you kill with the sword so those breaths would be lost not stolen. Not a great outcome for us losing all those breaths but also not a gain for the PK and their is the risk that they could lose the sword in the process depending on how Claincy orders the sequence of events for Aodan's other lines of protection. It's a risky venture for the PK.

The ideal solution is if we got Aodan enough breaths for the 5th heightening and a sword of his own. Then he'd be untouchable

[Edgedancer]

Doesn´t the awakend sword kill the target anyway, no matter what protection they have, and it´s breath along with it? But yeah, thanks to merc. we would get the sword.

Oh well, I only have one Breath anyway so no more Tril  instead Aonar, my life to yours, my Breath to yours.

[Claincy]

Doesn´t the awakend sword kill the target anyway, no matter what protection they have, and it´s breath along with it? But yeah, thanks to merc. we would get the sword.

Oh well, I only have one Breath anyway so no more Tril  instead Aonar, my life to yours, my Breath to yours.

Yeah. That's why awakened swords are so dangerous. They cannot be blocked. I think I states this earlier but to reiterate: if someone with an awakened sword attacks someone whom the mercenary is protecting the target will still die but so will the attacker.

[Gamma Fiend]

Ah, well those clarifications actually make sense. See, I did state in my post I might misunderstand the rules, and it turns out I did. I've never had more than one breath the entire game, and never expected to get any other breaths, really, so I really only grazed all the higher power Heightenings. I thought the Awakened Swords were able to surpass any defenses, since they contained so much Investiture. And the not-stealing Breaths does make sense, another bad assumption on my part.

Edit: Had this top part written first, and then saw Claincy's clarification so wrote this below.


I guess I can't complain too much, since this is basically the same tactic I used last game, once I was verified to everybody. But this will almost completely unempower all the players who aren't PK, Aodan, and Aili, for as long as they stay alive. And with Claincy's clarification of guaranteed unblockable death from the Awakened Sword, I re-assert this is a bad idea. Even if the PK can't get all of our Breaths, we'll all be left without any or any further protection going forward. Even if Aodan gets returned, we still would lose all of our Breaths, I assume.

That is not worth the gamble, in my opinion. Go ahead and lynch me if you want to for it, though.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Gamma Fiend

[Herowannabe]

Sorry I wasn't able to respond earlier, Easter weekend and all that, but someone asked for even more explanation from me, so here goes

First, why I voted the way I did.

Day 1: My primary goal is and always has been to take out the Pahn Kahl. But we had no leads, clues, or anything at that point, so I went to my secondary goal: an Idrian victory over the Hallandrens. I targeted a Hallandren and when votes started piling up on an Idrian I switched my vote to a different Hallandren to go for a tie or win. Plain and simple.

Day 2: honestly, I can't even remember who I voted for, and it's late and I'm too tired to go back and search through to figure out who and why. Lame defense, I know, but again, too tired to care at the moment. :\

Day 3: already explained my reasoning in an earlier post, but basically, was just trying to stir the pot and get info, which I did.

Today: still to be determined, but I'll go ahead and withdraw my vote for Wyrm. I don't think he's a bad guy anymore.

As for the whole Breath-donation thing, I don't like it. Not one bit. First of all, there are too many inactive/ less-active people that we will never get to donate Breath, and too many people who already have, it's just not going to work. It might work on paper, but it won't work in practice. And even if it does work, and Aodan is protected by Returned who really are willing to sacrifice themselves to save him (the only way to survive the awakened sword- and I'm not sure it would even let him keep all his Breath), it's still no good. The Pahn Kahl will just target everyone else and we will only have a couple of people (Aodan and the spies) capable of doing anything significant. Plus what happens after everyone donates their Breath and then a Pahn Kahl wins the Breath Lotto? No, there is just too many holes in this plan for me to support it.

Now, that being said, take it with a grain of salt because I am already a drab. I gave my Breath to Aonar on the first night, before he revealed himself as a monk. I trusted him based on his arguments and PMs, and I had painted a target on my back and didn't want my Breath to go to waste if I died. As far as I know I haven't been spied on yet, so Aonar can't trust me completely, but he can confirm everything I've said is true.

[bartbug]

Hero, you're thought about it working on paper but not in practice is literally the only valid defense against it. I'm kind of sad that you brought it up, because nothing can change that fact.

 

Just some food for thought: If everyone gives up their Breath, even if the Pahn Kahl decide to play it safe, they can't use Cuddles as a drab.

 

(of course, as you said, it won't work unless everyone does it. Which, once again, it's pretty clear that we won't get a big enough margin.)

 

Alas! I say, give up your Breath! Then we'll see the numbers after everyone has taken their place. Hero, here's what I ask of you: You don't need to be an early supporter. But if the tides shift, and people start giving up Breath, please follow suit. Once/if enough people do give up their Breath, then any who don't will have a target painted on their back.

[Metacognition]

You guys are all missing something very important, IMO about the sword. You have to be of the 9th heightening to make one, so unless they have a returned, the Swordbearer will still have 2 breaths after making the sword (10 to reach the 9th heightening minus the 8 it takes to make the sword). That means that even if they have absolutely no other breaths, they'll still be able to use the sword once without dying. 

 

I also believe, but would like clarification on this, that a sword makes it impossible for the Returned to save that person and that lifeless are ignored as well (I might just be thinking of suggestions that were brought up in the Art of Role Creation thread, thus why I would like it clarified again). If I am correct about this, that means that the 5th heightening won't save Aodan either. All they have to do is attack Aodan with their regular attack and remove the mercenary from the picture. Then they can attack with the Sword and all the other layer of protections won't count for anything. 

 

Claincy, before we go too much further, could you give us the exact rules of the sword's powers and how they interact with forms of protection? The only thing in the initial post is that you can use it to kill someone. There is nothing about it getting around other forms of protection, up to and including the bit about the mercenary. 

 

This entire plan almost seems like it would benefit the PK more than it will benefit us. As Hero points out, all they have to do is kill Aodan and play the lottery for breath before they kill someone with it again. In the mean time, we'd lose almost all of our breaths in the game (which will likely make it so there is more breath available to them to win when they enter the lottery too) and we'd be set back to worse than square one and they'd still have a Sword. This seems like a win-win for the PK and while I still heavily suspect Wyrm and haven't seen much reason to suspect Bartbug, his constant push for a plan that seems destined to fail has me changing my mind... 

 

 

Edit: I went through and found the post Claincy made about the sword. It does indeed go through Lifeless and the 5th Heightening. Thus the only thing that is not mentioned is the Divine Breath of a Returned, so I'd like to verify what would happen with that. 

Edited April 20, 2014 by Metacognition

[Gamma Fiend]

Also, my accusation of Nepene was pretty weak, earlier. But Bartbugs insistence on this plan that will almost guaranteed backfire on the villagers is pretty darn suspicious.
I'll admit, I don't know what we should do moving forward, exactly. But plotting about it publicly isn't the way to go.

Edit: Colours! I forgot the colours!

Edited April 20, 2014 by Gamma Fiend

[Aspren]

While I agree with Grim and Meta concerning the sword plan, I don't think that Bartholomew is PK. He played much the same way in the previous game, in which he wasn't spiked. That said, I haven't decided to who to vote for yet.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Aspren

[Edgedancer]

Out of couriosity, do we have more than one confirmed mercenary? If we do, the death PK may be worth the Breath.

[Wyrmhero]

I'd like to thank those of you who have changed your mind about me or changed your vote for other reasons.

 

The spy would work too. My hope is to get public commitments of what we will find from you. It's unlikely a drab PK would say that they had two breaths. We have limited resources, and if you are a lower risk suspect precious resources can be devoted to other things.

 

For this plan, would you also promise to spend your night action buying breath? That would disable your protections if you are at the fifth heightening from the many breaths your potential PK minions sent you. Or doing something non suspect we could spy on.

 

Why would entering the Breath Lottery matter? Having a measure of protection would just stop me from being attacked overnight, and if that's how you're planning on proving my innocence, I'd rather you didn't

 

Also, clarification there - I am of Second Heightening, so I have three Breaths - I started the game with one, and then gained two more over the course of the game, on nights 1 and 3.

 

Now, there's one other thing that people are missing about Bart's plan, which is that it would also neccessitate revealling our Returned. If everyone gives their Breaths away in public, then either our Returned will die or they will not give them away. All the Pahn Kahl have to do after that is to go after the people who didn't give their Breaths away, and there go our Returned. For that matter, they could hide within either our Returned or our Drabs, and we'd be none the wiser.

 

I must admit, I didn't realise that an Awakened Sword was an unblockable kill. As such, I'll have to definitely say no to the plan, at least until we know whether we can save Aonar with the Breath of a Returned. But even then, I'd still be hesitant. It might slow the Pahn Kahl down somewhat, forcing them to play the Breath Lottery every night to kill two people each cycle, but all they really need to do is have a rota - two people killing, the rest getting Breaths, and swapping the sword between them all so they can still use it. I think all that would happen is we would lose fifteen-odd Breath-based night actions between us all in return for Aonar getting two a night. Not a great trade.

 

With regards to losing Aonar and Aili tonight, if Aonar is of Fifth Heightening or more (and he must be by now), they now have to go after him with the Awakened Sword to definitely kill him - which will most likely result in the trade of Aonar and a Mercenary's role for a Pahn Kahl and an Awakened Sword. So if we do lose Aonar, we at least get something back from it. Perhaps that will scare them off though, considering how high a price it would be.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Wyrmhero

[Wyrmhero]

Updated list

 

Bart - Gammer, Cog, Wyrm

Grim - Sart, Dainard

Rick - Jim Bob Dirt, Wes

Wyrm - Aili, Thomas

Chide - Peng

Bart - Wyrm

Elo - Sifa

Peng - Aonar

 

Breath - Grim, Ben, Bart

 

People who have still not voted or given away Breath today - Alan, Asgren, Tril, Cen, Chide, Elo, Rick, Wil'son, Ver.

Rowan has retracted his vote but not voted again yet.

Cen, Chide and Ver seem to be inactive for good.

Sart, Jim, Thomas and Sifa are voting for the first time.

The polls have a 46% turnout rate.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Wyrmhero

[Nepene]

I support Aodan's plan. 

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7247-game-4-colours-of-war/page-13#entry123416

 

I'm going to side with Rowan here. We don't want to give the pahn Kahl more than we need to. Or for that matter the idrians. (Filthy rebel scum) 

 

 

That sounds like a PK comment, randomly insulting the other side to prove your allegiance to that side. As such I vote Peng. Anyone with a surplus of breaths is a major risk in that they could attack us, especially if they have been avoiding using them for useful things. Trying to start a race war is also not good behavior.

 

Gamma. If the PK attack the people who have publicly revealed they are protected it's going to be hilarious. We're going to have one of my countrymen or women rampaging through them with their own sword. Aodan doesn't have a critical vote, we can survive without him if need be. I used logic to deduce their actions, not inside knowledge.

 

And yeah. I'm not sure about the whole powering up Aodan thing. It's good he has some breaths, but those breaths might be better spend making lifeless to kill PK.

 

Edit. Wyrm, the fifth heightening protects against lynches I think. If you were secretly a PK swordbearer with many breaths you could use it to survive another night. If you promise to do something in the night though you'll be vulnerable again tomorrow.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Nepene

[Claincy]

First up I apologize for not clarifying this earlier and I am sorry that some some people missed it when I clarified the rest of the rules for swords. It is far from ideal having this many clarifications as the game is progressing but it was fairly inevitable with the first use of a ruleset this complicated and similar clarifications did happen a bit in the first games and likely will continue to every time we add new rules

Anyway: from a canon standpoint a returned shouldn't have an opportunity to save someone who was killed by a sword like nightblood. From a gameplay standard this may not be ideal though. So in the interest of balance:

"A returned can use their divine breath to heal someone who was killed with an awakened sword. However, the sword will still have consumed the persons breath and the person will be left as a perfectly healthy drab."

One other than thing that needs clarifying is the order of night kills. The PK kill comes first, followed by the lifeless, followed by any awakened sword kills.

Edited April 20, 2014 by lord Claincy Ffnord

[Wyrmhero]

Edit. Wyrm, the fifth heightening protects against lynches I think. If you were secretly a PK swordbearer with many breaths you could use it to survive another night. If you promise to do something in the night though you'll be vulnerable again tomorrow.

 

The rules state that it protects against one 'attack', but if it works like pewter, then that would make sense too. Asking Claincy for a bit more clarification.

[Claincy]

The 5th heightening will protect you from a lynch iff you took no action the night before.

A note on the 10th heightening as well. If you take a breath action during he night as your "free" action but no second action and are still at the 10th heightening you will still have protection from the 5th heightening.

[Nepene]

I'd also like to clarify something- I'd prefer if people didn't take my death as evidence of Wyrm's guity. Aonar will be investigating Wyrm hopefully, rely on that not my death. They could easily kill me to cast guilt on him. Please don't oblige them if they do.

[Aonar]

Darn. I didn't realize Fifth Heightening won't protect against the Sword. I'm still not dying any time soon though. 

 

The goal here is not to keep the Pahn Kahl from acting, or to make me more powerful, but I have a list of about 6 of you who I believe may be Pahn Kahl. It's very interesting to see who of them object, and why. Those of you who are already Drab, or have gotten off this list by other means, I'm not expecting to give away your Breath.

 

Let's imagine a worst case scenario. They get really lucky, the Mercenary kills their regular, and the Swordbearer kills me. We have more information, and they don't have any spare Breath. Realistically, they can't gain our Breath by any means, so that's not a concern.

 

I'm fine with you making a Strawman tonight Peng, I'm just going to be confirming that that's what you're doing.

 

 

 

Lets do a slightly more complete analysis of the Pahn Kahl night actions:

 

To start, here's some basic assumptions: 

 

       1. If the Pahn Kahl were able to make a Sword on the Second Night, they would have.

 

       2. Therefore, the Pahn Kahl must have started with between five and nine Breath. 

 

       3. Seeing how they were able to make a Sword on the Third Night, they must have made up the difference between                their Starting Breath and the ten Breath required using the Breath lottery and their Night kills.

 

Now, on to their logical actions based on these assumptions.

 

Night 1: Everyone but the person preforming the Night Kill enters the Breath lottery.

 

Night 2: There are two possible situations here.

 

         1. As the previous Night Kill was unsuccessful, we can assume they won between one and five Breaths in the lottery. Statistically, it is far more likely for them to have been able to gain one or two Breath in the lottery than it is for them to gain four or five, so it is fairly safe to assume they started with around eight Breaths. They would have been careful to transfer exactly the amount required for the Sword. The Swordbearer would not have taken any Night Action. Whichever Pahn Kahl did not transfer their Breath would preform the Night Kill. The majority of the Pahn Kahl would be Drab.

 

          2. The Pahn Kahl do not gain enough Breath to make the Sword. Every Pahn Kahl transfers Breath to the Swordbearer, and the Swordbearer makes the Night kill. In this case, they likely would have started with seven Breaths or less. Every Pahn Kahl save the Swordbearer is now Drab.

 

Night 3: The Swordbearer Awakens "Cuddles" and all the other Pahn Kahl save the person preforming the Night Kill re-enter the Breath lottery. Most of the Pahn Kahl are likely to still be Drab.

Edited April 20, 2014 by AonarFaileas