Long Game 79/Anonymous Game 10: The Rhythm of Freedom

[Steeldancer]

Just now, Onyx Flamingo said:

Guys, guys. I think I found our last elim...

Flamingo Steeldancer

Thunder rumbled in the sky, and lightning struck right next to an exposed Flamingo. 

[Onyx Flamingo]

Alright. I won't try to exe the GM today. Steeldancer/Stormfather

But yeah. That Flamingo is super sus.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Onyx Flamingo

[Azure Mouse]

Well, I received PMs last night from Scorpion, Vulture, and Weasel. Everyone's actions are accounted for... except for yours, Flamingo. 

I'm down for a 24 hour cycle. I started midway through and it still feels as if this game has gone on forever.  

[Amber Vulture]

So here’s how things look. It is a safe assumption that either Mouse or I are in Mediationform. The other plans to assume Workform today. Scorpion is in Workform and Flamingo is in Mediationform. Weasel’s form is unknown, but assumed to be Nimbleform.

Flamingo and Weasel are the only one with unaccounted for actions last Night, so one of them submitted the kill. If Weasel is an elim, Scorpion must also be evil because they covered for each other. If Flamingo is an elim, they must be solo because the game didn’t end when they had Mediationform which would have given them parity if they had another teammate.

The best course of action is to vote out Weasel today. With dots representing the Mediationforms, if they and Scorpion are evil, this will bring it from 3v**;2e to 3v**;1e to 2v*;1e with the NK, then we can kill Scorpion for the win. If Flamingo is evil, it’ll go from 4v*;1e* to 3v*;1e* to 2v;1e* with the NK. Note that this is not vote parity because the remaining villagers both have Workform and can subtract one of Flamingo’s votes. So the village will win the exe.

Let’s say we vote out v!Flamingo today instead. It can go from 3**;2e to 2*;2e to 1v;2e with the NK. So I’m only comfortable voting out Flamingo today if they explicitly open-wolf, knowing that to do so as a villager would be gamethrowing. If they are evil though, I wouldn’t complain. This is IRL day 24; I was going to support shortened days anyway 

Edit: Unless, @Azure Mouse was there a PM Part 2 from Weasel that I wasn't added to? I only got Part 1

Edited August 12, 2021 by Amber Vulture

[Indigo Weasel]

Mouse got Part 2, and responded.

Edit:

43 minutes ago, Azure Mouse said:

Well, I received PMs last night from Scorpion, Vulture, and Weasel. Everyone's actions are accounted for... except for yours, Flamingo. 

I'm down for a 24 hour cycle. I started midway through and it still feels as if this game has gone on forever.  

Edit edit: sorry for the vote edit @Steeldancer just wanted to make sure you saw this Flamingo

Edit edit edit: oof I'm sorry you're sick that sucks

Edited August 12, 2021 by Indigo Weasel

[Azure Mouse]

31 minutes ago, Amber Vulture said:

Edit: Unless, @Azure Mouse was there a PM Part 2 from Weasel that I wasn't added to? I only got Part 1

Yeah, I got the part 2 PM.

[Amethyst Scorpion]

Flamingo. They’re basically confirmed, while Weasel is not, and it makes sense to go for them first.

Also, when did I “cover” for Weasel? We are Mateform lovers, though neither of us is in Mateform anymore, but that says nothing about us both being evil.

Edit: I’m good with a 24 hour cycle.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Amethyst Scorpion

[Amber Vulture]

37 minutes ago, Amethyst Scorpion said:

Flamingo. They’re basically confirmed, while Weasel is not, and it makes sense to go for them first.

Also, when did I “cover” for Weasel? We are Mateform lovers, though neither of us is in Mateform anymore, but that says nothing about us both being evil.

Edit: I’m good with a 24 hour cycle.

That'd be the theoretical coverage. Saying you were in Mateform together. 

Mouse, was anyone else in the PM? Doesn't really matter, I'm the odd villager out or v!Flamingo is defecting. Just curious. 

Weasel 

I accuse Flamingo of being evil for not making a PM. 

[Azure Mouse]

Flamingo and Dragonfly also.

[Onyx Flamingo]

I think we can all agree on a shorter cycle.

[Amber Vulture]

ya know, for all the open wolfing, the best evil monologue so far has come from v!Mouse

Speech, speech, speech

[Steeldancer]

Cool, then the turn will end tomorrow at noon. 

[Indigo Weasel]

... I want to grab the stormform gem because it's cool but also that's not a great idea

Well and also like if Flamingo is the last elim, then the cycle ends so like a stormform gem would be a cool souvenir

Can I use my second action to try for that? my first is trying for workform cause yeah, no letting the elims get them

Hehehe hey Vulture your Flamingo exe would've also been fine 

[Onyx Flamingo]

3 hours ago, Amber Vulture said:

Speech, speech, speech

"How? How?" I stare at the Listeners around me, unable to comprehend their resilience. "How can you defy Odium?!"

It felt like ages since the Fused came to me. Since Odium had called me. I longed to serve him. To be a Regal again. I look down at the simple form I had been forced to take. Primitive.

If only they knew the strength that came with becoming something more. Of holding a piece of the gods within their gemheart. Their simple spren were not enough to satisfy the knowledge of what we could all achieve. if we simply followed him.

I hold out a gem which glows and sparks light lightning. "See? This is what you could be. This is what you could do if you simply let go. Serve Odium."

Only hostile glares and shouts greet my words. A few eyes seem intrigued.

Maybe. Just maybe one will be drawn to take up the cause.

"Even if I die here like my companions, the Fused are returning. When they gather, you will not be able to resist. Odium will win! If you do not choose him now, you will not get the choice later."

[Indigo Weasel]

"Yes, the Fused return. But Radiance returns as well. Honor may be dead. But he lives on."

●●●●

Someone talk me out of trying for the stormform gemstone just because. Edit: Or into. That works too.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Indigo Weasel

[Azure Mouse]

Fumesh gazed at the gem, the same as the one he'd found several weeks ago. The same spren that now lived in his gemheart, the spren whose power he controlled.

No - the spren who controlled him. He'd let it in, made it a part of himself. And it had changed him, like every form did, for better and for worse. And, if he were honest, for this form it had been quite a bit worse.

He'd taken the form because he thought them doomed to failure. To death. But... was serving under Odium's rule truly better than death? Knowing your children, and your children's children, and your children's children's children would be doomed to live and die at the hands of the god of hatred?

No, he thought. It was when everyone turned to look at him that he realized he'd spoken aloud.

"No," he repeated, half to himself, then again, louder. "No!" He stood up tall, speaking to the Rhythm of Resolve. He could feel the spren inside him fighting the words, clouding his thoughts. He fought through anyways. "I will not. We will not."

He'd thought the group would fall easily, once he'd taken this form of the gods. But that hadn't been what had happened. First the Fused had fallen. Then one of the spies. Then another one. The singers were coming together and fighting back.

"We might die," continued Fumesh. "But to return would be worse than death."

He stepped forwards and plucked the gem from the traitor's hand. With a clench of his fist, the gemstone shattered.

"Life before death," he intoned. "Strength before weakness. Journey before destination."

With a sound almost like a sigh, the stormspren in his gemheart left. The two spren rose like bolts of lightning into the air and faded away.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Azure Mouse

[Steeldancer]

The game is over! I'll get the aftermath up as soon as I can, given my current condition.

[Steeldancer]

LG79/AN10 Aftermath: The Rhythm of Freedom
What is freedom?
What is agency? 
What cost do these things have?
These are the questions which drive men, singers, and pirates alike to search for more, to become more. Is living in comfort true freedom? Or is living without being controlled freedom? Is freedom the ability to actually think and understand? 
When we look at the choices these singers made, we see all of these things at play. They chose to run from comfort, from control and a stable life, to the unknown, away from their gods, their ancestors, away from war. And the cost was high. Many of them perished, fallen to the sword or trickery of the servants of Odium. 
But they came off conquerer. That night, the final servant gave themselves up. After killing her, there was no more deaths after that point. 
---
Thane walked at the back of the significantly smaller group of singers. It had been several weeks since the last murder. They had finally arrived in Natanatan, and headed towards the abandoned city of Stormseat, which had been destroyed earlier in the war. 
As they were walking, Thane felt something in the rhythms. Were there others nearby?
Thane went himself, being in nimbleform, to go and see if they were friendly or not. 
He was shocked to discover that it was a large clan of Dullforms, all living in small structures on the land. Who were they? Why were they all in dullform?
He reported his findings back to Moirin, who was suitably surprised as well. If they were all dullform, with that many, that meant... 
They were the Last Legion. The Last Legion had fled Odium. 
---
Among them, a singer pulled out a gemstone he had stolen off of the corpse of the final traitor. Inside, a spren of red lightning dwelt. He grinned. 
---
And so the small group of singers who fled from the Fused ended up joining the Last Legion in their quest for freedom from their Gods. Their group was small, so their story has been lost to history. 
But Abaram would remember, thousands of years later, when the Everstorm hit Roshar, and her insane mind once again inhabited a body. And the Fused aren't really well known for forgiving and forgetting....
---
Onyx Flamingo (7): Flamingo, Vulture, Weasel, Mouse, Scorpion
Onyx Flamingo was exed! They were a Mediationform Servant of Odium!
The Singer Rebels have won the game! 
Final Player List

Spoiler

1. Amber Vulture Mediationform Rebel
2. Amethyst Scorpion Workform Rebel
3. Azure Mouse Workform Rebel
4. Charcoal Hyena Mateform Rebel
5. Chartreuse Penguin- Elrin Mateform Rebel
6. Coral Swan Dullform Rebel
7. Cream Tuatara Workform Servant
8. Emerald Falcon Mavset-im
9. Fuchsia Ostrich Dullform Rebel
10. Indigo Weasel Nimbleform Rebel
11. Ivory Dragonfly- Kethri Workform Rebel
12. Magenta Albatross Dullform Rebel
13. Mauve Crocodile  Dullform Rebel
14. Melon Dingo Dullform Rebel
15. Mint Heron- Chashen Mediationform Servant
16. Onyx Flamingo Mediationform Servant
17. Opal Lion- Atticus Artform Rebel
18. Oxblood Beagle- Jalnor Workform Rebel
19. Plum Rhinoceros- Edith Warform Rebel

Thanks for playing everyone, I hope you all had fun! Please leave your Anonymous accounts, either me (if I'm not lazy) or someone else will change all the passwords and clean up the PMs and whatnot. And goodness gracious there were a lot of PMs. I'll leave the various documents down below. I'll get my GM thoughts up later today probably. It being my first completed game since returning, I have some thoughts on how it went. 
Elim Doc
Dead Doc
 Master Sheet

[Mat]

Thanks Steel for running this! It was a lot of fun.

Looking at the Master Sheet and the identities- Drought played, that's cool  And Ostrich going inactive makes more sense now, but that's all I'll say about that... I correctly guessed Striker, Kas, Archer, Sart, Szeth, Ash, Devo, I think Lotus, maybe some others, but everyone else I couldn't tell, so nice job. I had fun with my more formal talk at the start of the game and maybe wish I'd kept it up longer, since I'm pretty sure everyone knew who I was by the end  

Can I just say- I could not figure this game out. My head was so convinced on a 5p team that I only based my suspicions late-game on that. Outside of the numbers, though, Elandera in particular played really well. Both her and Striker I gut read elim but could not for the life of me point to anything in their posts that supported that, so I largely relented the read. It's a painful reminder of why I like gut reads so much though

All the elims played really well, too. I read TUO as village for most of the game as well, and there wasn't even a gut elim to accompany that. More incorrect reads of mine include (but are not limited to) Stick, Jon, Drought, Danex/WhoeverSubbedIn, and more. Oh well, at least I got Kas, Archer, and Devo right

[Mist]

Hahahahaaahhhaha *chokes* ghh maybe I should just play games being like: nope no reads well maybe if you're lucky but analysis ... *sigh* sorrrrryyyy

Good game all

I didn't request the stormform gem can I still have it, Steel?

[Stick.]

Thanks for running the game, Steel! I wish I could’ve held on longer than the first two cycles but I enjoyed my brief time  

Kudos to Kas for being undoubtedly the greatest contributor to the thread and for being super thorough in his analysis. It was really inspiring to see such effort being put in. 

In terms of anon accounts I correctly guessed a few (Kas, Illwei, Mat, Szeth(albeit thru their lil oopsie), Devo) but there were some I was completely off about (eg I thought Heron was Elandera and Scorpion Striker)  

Also, great to you have you back, Drought!

 

[Kasimir]

Thanks for running this game Steel, and for uh, dealing with my thousand and one rule clarification questions 

58 minutes ago, Mist said:

I didn't request the stormform gem can I still have it, Steel?

Oh man I was quietly rooting for you to add it to your collection

Thoughts I guess:

• Quiet RPful game when - okay, this one was Eiwlil's fault. I felt really bad about unintentionally lynching her - I'd actually not been paying too much attention C1 other than to clock Swan and Eiwlil and so adopted standard Eiwlil tactics. I intended to remove my vote for her and put it elsewhere later on. Devo called me on this D2 when she PMed me and pointed out I hadn't even realised there were three trains at that time, including a Dingo train I somehow didn't track. And then I went off to play Hades - thanks Wyrm! - it was supposed to be a quick round and by the time I beat the final boss, it was...past rollover. Big whoops and I felt guilty so I decided to make it up by actually trying to play the game properly rather than engaging chill RP troll mode, as had been my plan.
   
• I actually had an elaborate plan to be a lazy anti-RP chill troll with really bad RP that progressively got better across the game to the point I was obviously faking it, and then have a Spartacus Spartakas pun moment a second before getting lynched. IDK as you can see I was just planning to chill intensely. Being described as a melded mind of Burnt and Illwei has got to be the best thing anyone said about me this game  
   
• Artform is fun. I'll never get tired of getting to vandalise write-ups. The last time I was a Tineye was in QF6. That's forever ago.
   
• Is this the first game Village Eiwlil hasn't voted an Elim D1? 'Cause she went on Rhino, Ross, and Weasel, or Mat, Stick, and Mist.
   
• Can't really say I dislike analysis that much, and doing it is soothing/interesting, I like puzzle-solving, and it was a nice distraction from life stuff, less cool when it was siphoning up my long weekend of leave, even less cool when I was somehow in two lylos simultaneously and wondering how this happened >>
   
• I don't think I lied about anything that I can recall this game apart from trying to soft Mediationform, so I guess the Elim doc going "Is Lion lying???" was actually kinda funny. (Also ironic given my lying spree in the MR...) Elan saying in the Elim doc that Vulture wouldn't give up warform felt like vindication  Part of this was circumstance - Mouse had given Vulture the Mediationform gem and we weren't going to lose tempo playing 'pass the gem.' The other part was that it had the appeal of being really neat: exactly - who would give up an extra passive life for a double vote? Except that the public knowledge that Vulture was warform made him a pretty good candidate, since I doubted the Elims wanted to waste a kill - and thus tempo - on him. Which meant my job (and pretty much everyone in the Slog PM and Mouse, so Rhino, Dragonfly as well) was to soft mediationform and confuse the targets. I'm gratified to see that Heron picked up on how obvious I was being  
   
• Well I guess I technically Aes Sedai-ed the Mediationform thing when Elan tried to phish whether it was Mouse from me, but well >>
   
• Good play from the Elims - managing to stay off the lynch and the radar for this long was pretty impressive, and I think no overt plays on the Tuatara tie D1 really served you all well. I'm amazed by how much hammer planning went on there
   
• Good job to the Village for not allowing a hammer through. I'm not terribly shocked but still rather !!! at the knowledge that Mat was right to keep yelling about consolidation D5 when deviation from the Heron train nearly allowed the Elim team to hammer, possibly to devastating effect. I feel like so much of the Elim doc is them checking if they can hammer, but Village participation and steadfastness blocked that. Special shoutout to @Jondesu and @Mist for stepping up especially in endgame.
   
• I don't ever want to hear anyone talking smack about Burnt's RNG method again since I used it to RNG (admittedly biased but) up a pure Village PM N1  

Edited August 13, 2021 by Kasimir

[Archer]

Good game, all!

Quote

For the village, if the decision is presented to you, you can even choose what side you want to be on.

I like this mechanic, but think that given the current meta against voluntarily converting, it actually ended up hurting the elim team more because they wasted actions handing out gems.  

Quote

Hmm. These votes on Tuatara are problematic. -Flamingo

*sighs in missed opportunities*  It’s an interesting occurrence though, because in both of the last two anon games, using pure analysis, the village has gotten a bead on an elim C1.

Quote

Gah the one scholarform is deciding to toss away scholarform for warform. I get the attractiveness of an extra life, but gosh darn it I was hoping for something more spicy. -Steel

What’d you want me to do with it? Make an Evil gem?  No seriously, if I wanted anything else, I could have grabbed it.

Also, what were the odds of an elim grabbing a contested gem? What was in the elim gem hoard?

Quote

I think they’re trying to pretend to be Kas, but I’m like 99% sure he wouldn’t have joined a game right now. -Mint Heron

it wasn’t just me!  Shoutout to @Araris Valerian for being a good IM.

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Okay just read the thread and Rhino has somehow decided that there is an elim in the pool of Flamingo, Beagle, and myself -Heron

Mat. We need to talk about your suspiciously good reads. >.>

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The age old question of “do i call it a typo, or is Amber Vulture derpcleared for thinking I was alive” -Purple Person in the Dead Doc

Yeah, I got Swan and Flamingo confused.

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I SWEAR if all the votes start changing last minute Im going to yeet my computer -Steel

I keep telling people, run the game with secret, varying rollover times. Should cut down on last minute vote swaps.

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For now, locking in Vulture. Emulating them will be difficult but they’ll have a good amount of info for us and it should create a good bit of chaos for tomorrow. / There’s a lot of maybe’s. And I’m currently on a mountaintop. I’m not imitating anyone.-Ash

Aw. I kinda wanted to see that

Quote

A bluff they’ve had set up since D2-D3? Maybe it was a really long con, but knowing who I think Vulture is (Archer), I could totally see them just making the warform gem and immediately taking that form. -Mint Heron

You get a cookie

Quote

 I'd still appreciate it if you could vote on Scorpion or Weasel. I'm curious to see which of those, if any, are in workform. -Flamingo

So that’s why they did that. Also, Flamingo, you asked at some point why we were voting you over say Mouse and like. I don’t even know. At a certain point everything got hazy and I was committed to some key assumptions and didn’t do any analysis. Normally I'd backread or something but it was really convenient having Kas do all that for me.

Thanks for making the final NK. Downside of being an elim in these kinds of games is once half the evil team has flipped, if the NK is an action, the village can afford to just action-track and shoot. I will point out though that it’s pretty much exclusively a problem for the Final Solo Elim, whose odds of winning are low anyway. Up until then, there was very little appetite for it. Believe me, I tried  

*

For the record, I actually switched my final gem grab request to Nimbleform so Weasel, the Stormform is yours.

This game had everything, huh. Thanks, GM, you did really well. 

[Mat]

31 minutes ago, Archer said:

Mat. We need to talk about your suspiciously good reads. >.>

I don't know okay, this is my problem, I say something like that but end up voting wrong anyway xD I don't trust my own gut. Maybe I should. I keep saying that :P.

33 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Good job to the Village for not allowing a hammer through. I'm not terribly shocked but still rather !!! at the knowledge that Mat was right to keep yelling about consolidation D5 when deviation from the Heron train nearly allowed the Elim team to hammer, possibly to devastating effect.

That was nice validation for me since I had been confused why I was the only one who seemed to be concerned about that, or at least was the most concerned. But I didn't know at the time it was as close as 7-6 that one Day o.o

33 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Quiet RPful game when

I don't think you'll ever have a Quiet RPful game, Kas  I think you've played/ran more games since retirement than you did before.

[---]

48 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Is this the first game Village Eiwlil hasn't voted an Elim D1? 'Cause she went on Rhino, Ross, and Weasel, or Mat, Stick, and Mist.

I didn't vote an elim in the game right before my champs qual, so Imma call this that I'm storing my energy for another flawless(ish) D1 voting record in my semis

Also, did I really not vote Tuatara D1? Because-

weh

48 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

okay, this one was Eiwlil's fault

Sure sure blame the victim here smh smh. I thought you said the correct procedure was to blame wyrm.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Illwei