Anniversary Game 7/Anonymous Game 9: From Embers, A Flame

[StrikerEZ he/him]

This game was actually really fun at the start, and I did enjoy a lot of the doc stuff near the end. I'll give some more detailed thoughts later, but overall I had fun!

Also, it wasn't until much later in the game that I started picking up on who was who. Besides for Kas. I had him down by like cycle 3, if not earlier.  I wonder how many people were able to figure out who I was. I didn't pick up on very many players myself.

[Kasimir he/him]

3 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Also, it wasn't until much later in the game that I started picking up on who was who. Besides for Kas. I had him down by like cycle 3, if not earlier.  I wonder how many people were able to figure out who I was. I didn't pick up on very many players myself.

do u know how much effort it took to type chaotically and be like O LOOK AT ME PREEEEETYTY BIRB!!! 8D 8D in another AN I took part in? >> Really was not worth it. I spent so much time, and now I'm like 'eh if y'all clock me y'all clock me sorry not sorry but I'm not wasting hours of my life just to get NKed C1 again.'

Edited January 24, 2021 by Kasimir

[Mat he/him]

2 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Also, it wasn't until much later in the game that I started picking up on who was who. Besides for Kas. I had him down by like cycle 3, if not earlier.  I wonder how many people were able to figure out who I was. I didn't pick up on very many players myself.

I only figured out who you were while reading the dead doc, interestingly enough  

[StrikerEZ he/him]

1 minute ago, Kasimir said:

do u know how much effort it took to type chaotically and be like O LOOK AT ME PREEEEETYTY BIRB!!! 8D 8D in other AN I took part in? >> Really was not worth it. I spent so much time, and now I'm like 'eh if y'all clock me y'all clock me sorry not sorry but I'm not wasting hours of my life just to get NKed C1 again.'

Yeah, no, that's completely understandable. I did have fun trying to disguise myself, but I probably won't do it as much next time around. Unless I end up with more free time for a game like this next year.

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I only figured out who you were while reading the dead doc, interestingly enough  

I should read that at some point. How long is it?

[Ashbringer he/him]

I still haven't figured out... well... anything beyond the generally well known ones. Although I'd be curious to find out how people predicted me.

(I did claim myself in the dead doc... but even without that you should be able to puzzle it out )

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

Just now, StrikerEZ said:

I should read that at some point. How long is it?

Not as long as the Roshar doc for cycles 5-6. It's still a respectable 110 pages though.  

[Mat he/him]

2 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

I still haven't figured out... well... anything beyond the generally well known ones. Although I'd be curious to find out how people predicted me.

(I did claim myself in the dead doc... but even without that you should be able to puzzle it out )

I figured it out based on the RP, honestly. That reminds me...

1 minute ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Not as long as the Roshar doc for cycles 5-6. It's still a respectable 110 pages though.  

That’s one doc I’m sure glad I don’t have to try to read xD

[Kasimir he/him]

2 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Not as long as the Roshar doc for cycles 5-6. It's still a respectable 110 pages though.  

Come for the highstorm raves, stay for the anagrams  

[Haelbarde he/him]

Hah, Roshar 5-6 just got kept as a separate doc!

[little wilson she/her]

32 minutes ago, Haelbarde said:

Hah, Roshar 5-6 just got kept as a separate doc!

There was no freaking way I was adding that with the rest. Not only did you guys have a great ToC with good header/footers and all of that, it's.....204 pages. Hard pass on that.

Scadrial C7 stayed separate too.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

1 hour ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

I was. I thought you were Mailliw

Nope. I only spectacled this game. I’m Postt in the dead/spec doc. 

Because mail is the post, get it? And then the double letter at the end.

[Young Bard he/him]

Wow, that was an incredible writeup. Congratulations to Fifth, Kas, Matrim, Devotary, and everyone else who contribured to it - it was such a rollercoaster ride.

And more broadly, I've missed the Shard Games - I really hope it isn't another two years until the next one. I wasn't quite as pkugged into this one as I'd have ideally liked, but I was around enough to be really impressed by how everyone played. And finally, huge thanks to El and Wilson for running this behemoth of a game, and somehow managing to stay mostly sane through it all.

Kas was the only person I got pretty much instantly - everyone else I got stuck on. I'm really curious to find out who Lion was - I felt I should be able to place them, but just... couldn't, somehow. 

[Kasimir he/him]

8 minutes ago, Young Bard said:

Wow, that was an incredible writeup. Congratulations to Fifth, Kas, Matrim, Devotary, and everyone else who contribured to it - it was such a rollercoaster ride.

And more broadly, I've missed the Shard Games - I really hope it isn't another two years until the next one. I wasn't quite as pkugged into this one as I'd have ideally liked, but I was around enough to be really impressed by how everyone played. And finally, huge thanks to El and Wilson for running this behemoth of a game, and somehow managing to stay mostly sane through it all.

Kas was the only person I got pretty much instantly - everyone else I got stuck on. I'm really curious to find out who Lion was - I felt I should be able to place them, but just... couldn't, somehow. 

I had thought you were Maili or Sart, TBH. I just ruled you out automatically because we didn't spend enough time paranoiding/tunneling on each other. This was literally my reasoning in certain identity guessing games: "We're not screaming at each other enough for you to be Bard."

Sigh. The time I don't try to type chaotically and you instantly clock me... Oof

[dannnex male]

This was certainly a.....unique experience.  It was fun, but I wasn't nearly as active as I wanted to be. I think I'll probably stay away from anon games in the future, the whole account switching was a bit hard for me to keep track of, especially on mobile. I was having more fun guessing identities and just messing around in docs than I was actually playing the game =P

Anyhow, thanks to the GMs for running this beast of a game! Could not have been easy with all these people and accounts. 

[Mat he/him]

2 minutes ago, Dannex said:

This was certainly a.....unique experience.  It was fun, but I wasn't nearly as active as I wanted to be. I think I'll probably stay away from anon games in the future, the whole account switching was a bit hard for me to keep track of, especially on mobile. I was having more fun guessing identities and just messing around in docs than I was actually playing the game =P

Anyhow, thanks to the GMs for running this beast of a game! Could not have been easy with all these people and accounts. 

Ahhhh, so I think my guess on your identity was right... nice!  I guess I'll see later.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Matrim's Dice

[Ashbringer he/him]

Spoiler

6 hours ago, little wilson said:

A note left by Solemnheart:

If you are reading this, then I am not dead.

You may be surprised. I do not know. I certainly was.

I had acted far too late to save Odium. Mercy’s Investiture couldn’t do it. Not in pieces. And if Odium perished… I was next in line to receive the Shard, which would prove disastrous. So, I acted with what I could. I gave up the Shard, and let its power protect Odium for long enough to protect the Shard, if not the Vessel.

And then I fell through my own Perpendicularity into the splintered Cognitive Realm. Alone. Uninvested.

My soul was burning. But the Children of Adonalsium did not hunt for me; they had bigger prey to hunt than a lone Cognitive Shadow ripping itself to shreds. But a Sliver will not die so easily. Especially now that I was a Sliver for two Shards.

Not easy is, of course, relative. I was not dead – as not dead as a Cognitive Shadow could be – but I was dying. Until the Gods Beyond had mercy on me. Or, rather, Mercy on me. I had never Invested with the Shard. And so, its power, after saving Odium for a day, fell through the proverbial cracks. And then through the literal cracks. Into the Cognitive Realm. Into me.

And the power knew me. And I embraced it. For every fiber of its being wanted to… give me a merciful life. Or a merciful end. To be honest I am not sure what its Intent was in that action, but it is mine and I am its.

I was still weak, as Shards go. But I was also tied by the more solid Intent to watching. Not interfering. Letting my former conspirators, each of whom who held the mantle of Odium before quickly abdicating before the powers of the Children, die a Merciful death and not prolonging. That is, I believe, part of why the Shard never demanded I Invest and let go. More Mercy could be done by prolonging my own suffering.

 

When I Acsended for the first time, to Ambition, I had a… vision. A glance at the world, collapsing under Odium’s might – but with Mercy at His side.

When I Acsended for the second time, to Mercy, hurriedly before my own impending death before I was so briefly spared, I had another vision. This of a world at peace. Not under our Odium – that was unrealistic even then – but under… another ruler. Not destroying or warring for the Shards, but manipulating them, regulating them perhaps taking them into themselves. Mercy was intrigued by this future; one in no way guaranteed to happen, but one it, and I, were quite capable of bringing about. Perhaps that is why Mercy fled me before returning.

When I Acsended for the third time, I knew who sat upon the throne of the world. In case you have not yet guessed, it was me. Or perhaps that is simply my hubris, but that is what I saw; and my Shard agrees that my actions can make that future possible. The path toward that peace, now that the initializer of Odium was very nearly dead, would be a bloody path. One that terrified Mercy.

The ends justifying the means is one of the greatest debates in the cosmere. But what if ‘the ends’ is the ultimate end? The ultimate peace? Are not the widest inventions, the greatest empires, the very Shards themselves all products of blood?

 

Mercy alone is not capable of such an act. But it also sees the ultimate Mercy of the world out of its reach, and so we have found a… compromise. While you Children played on the various planets, I went to the one I could now reach. Threnody. Cut off by my gluttony of the perpendicularities there, but as a deity the collection of Ambition’s Investiture went so much… smoother.

I then found Opa again. My old seon. My old friend, a glimmer of a power so similar to Mercy. And with the fragment of Dominion’s power still within me, I formed a similar companion. A… skaze, I believe they are called. I believe in doing so I may have invented a Fjordish Dahkor symbol… a Thorn to my Flower. I can hardly pronounce the word myself. The two are so similar, and yet opposites. Like the power I now hold.

Whether I now hold two Shards, I am honestly not sure. One of the Children had gathered some of the Splintered remains of Ambition, but I have also heard they were considering abandoning its power. I do not know whether the fragments I collected include this. In any case… my bitter goal is complete. I am no longer Mercy. I am… something similar to what I can see happening on Scadrial, in many years. A Harmony, but something… quite different.

I am the Shard of Ruthlessness and Mercy. The Shard of Ambition and Servitude. Of Selfishness and Selflessness. Of equal and opposites that both make their points heard, but slightly miss each other. But above all, a Shard that sees a future where Ambition does not exclude Mercy.

 

And now… much has happened in the past few weeks. The death of Odium, perhaps forever. The death of many Shards. The foundation of an order, ready to unite the world under a common banner of blood. But through it all… Mercy has been washed away. As was my soul. Forgotten. FREE. Unbound and unknown, for I am dead. And no one dared to suspect otherwise.

And so, I will force my powers to act. You will not know it, but I know where the future can go. Its current path is, I admit, much better than the one Odium envisioned. But it will never… stop. The wars will be quieter but they will not stop. Not until they can be well and truly won.

For I have seen the King of the World, and I have seen His tears. Even as my powers contradict one another, they work together to bring this future of Mercy. A way to reach a finite sum of suffering in the world, even if that sum staggers a Shard’s imagination.

I am not one to let this story end. Not here. Not now. And every story needs what you are quick to call a… villain. Not a destroyer, this time; simply a man who will do what must be done for this world.

So, I write this one, last entry in the life of Solemnheart. You will not hear from me again, not in the same way. I do not even know where I will place it, what medium I will use to communicate it. Perhaps I never will share it, and it will forever be ingrained in my memory alone. But if you are in some way comprehending these words, then know one thing.

 

 I am… sorry. I too, but wish I could spare you. Lament, you spared! Could I wish? But to my sorrow… I am.

 -Lamentation

(credit to Ashbringer / Plum Rhinoceros for the above note)

Hehehehehe...

This wasn't quite how I was planning to bring Lamentation into being, but this should be fun.

[Condensation she/her]

5 hours ago, Quinn0928 said:

Er... am I allowed to say before the reveal? idk if that's against the rules or not  

I don't know for sure. Could you PM me?

4 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Yeah, I think I have certain behaviors and speech patterns that I have to consciously try to avoid, or it becomes pretty clear who I am. Beyond that, if I'm trying to hide, I have to use a non-pink color in docs, and never say the word curmudgeonly . If I really wanted to try to hide, I image I'd do it by impersonating someone else, rather than by trying to be less... me.

You think you have behaviours and speech patterns you have to avoid?

[Mat he/him]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Hehehehehe...

This wasn't quite how I was planning to bring Lamentation into being, but this should be fun.

The question is, where does Faleast fit in?  

[Araris Valerian he/him]

31 minutes ago, Condensation said:

You think you have behaviours and speech patterns you have to avoid?

Yeah. You'll notice nobody was screaming, "PM safety!" into the thread and whacking people upside the head, and that's because I was incognito .

[|TJ| he/him]

Yeah, I had a lot of fun in this game. Thanks GMs, for running it, and uh dealing with everything that came along with it. I'll say more after the reveals.  

[Ashbringer he/him]

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

The question is, where does Faleast fit in?  

[Condensation she/her]

35 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Yeah. You'll notice nobody was screaming, "PM safety!" into the thread and whacking people upside the head, and that's because I was incognito .

That's true.

You'll also notice that no one was correcting grammar.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

7 minutes ago, Condensation said:

You'll also notice that no one was correcting grammar.

That's true. But neither Wilson nor Orlok was playing this game with their unique style, so I didn't feel like I needed to all that much.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Araris Valerian

[Condensation she/her]

Just now, Araris Valerian said:

That's true. But neither Wilson nor Orlok was playing this game, so I didn't feel like I needed to all that much.

I mean... I certainly felt it at times. Especially with Sapphire Elephant - who I know was Drunk, but it was still annoying.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

I don't actually have a compulsion to correct grammar . I was referring to one of the more recent games I played where I think Orlok was trying out Wilson's style of playing chill. I never commented on the style, but I fixed everything when I quoted a post.