Kasimir

Fifth's passing so you're clear to go, yeah.

I've a question here I asked in the LG91 dead doc then realised it is better posed in the thread to get more help with it. I don't know if it is a meta issue but I believe it to be more about game design and GMing, and as such, favour asking it here. I've been thinking about the role of RNG and player agency, and GM fairness. Several points: I remember running MR43 which was billed as a game in which RNG was a core mechanic - it determined how effective player searches for abilities and items were. When you select RNG as a mechanic, you are committed to accepting troll results if RNGesus is in a troll mood. Presumably, players who sign up to the game accept that caveat. Is there acceptable room for GM discretion, even so? My view is that it was a bit of a thumb on the scales to prevent RNGesus from giving everyone except Drake and Burnt (I think?) kill items that cycle. But it was also necessary - my game simply would not have functioned otherwise, so I discarded that rand and went with another one. Something Wiz and I talked about in the dead doc when trying to finesse MR1's Nightwatcher mechanic. I think there's a great temptation to solve problems by RNG in these games, and I increasingly feel like I'd prefer to find ways around it. I think it's easy, but RNG also takes away player agency, because then player decisions have nothing to do with the result: it's just up to the whims of RNGesus. I am not fully satisfied with the form the dueling mechanic took in my recent MR, but the thing I did like about results submissions was that dueling players could choose to play mindgames if they really wanted to. To some extent, the final results are a reflection of their inputs, rather than a coinflip, which gives them a bit more agency. Back to the problem at hand: the MR1 Nightwatcher mechanic, which granted requests and cursed players at the same time. We know now in retrospect that there were a few key rules: amusing/troll requests were more likely to be answered, and if your request was framed in well-written RP, it would be very likely to be granted. Is this a fair basis on which to distribute in-game abilities? Part of me thinks that you could argue that yes, it is: it's a matter of letting players put in the effort or not, even if they don't like RP. Part of me also thinks you could argue that it would be fair if everyone knew beforehand that this gets you successful requests. That being said, the counterpoints: a rule being publicised may be necessary but insufficient to make it fair, and this places RP players at an advantage. This also means that the selection criteria becomes extremely subjective. Certainly, it's the same GM making the decisions so there is some semblance of consistency but you are undeniably dependent on how the GM's judgement works, which is itself rather a black box. So, here's the design question. Suppose we took the MR1 Nightwatcher mechanic and kept it. Players spend an action making requests to receive boons. If the boons (game-applicable abilities) are granted, they are also cursed, and the GM decides the curse. This is consistent with what happened in MR1 so far. Suppose players know that submitting a good RP request is advantageous, and the GM commits to spelling out some of the criteria for what is considered 'good' or 'amusing.' Is this enough to balance things? What if we restricted the abilities the Nightwatcher can give out to say, a single-use Lurch? I'll be upfront that this feels to me like a case where it has to be RNG, but I'm curious if there's a way to build more player agency into this.

We should be Evil/Jedi together because I thought about it too, but #3 is the rough part. Wait no. We should be Jetii together. I do not accept being Evil, dar'manda, or dar'jetii >>

This right here is exactly why I went for the distro I did, to be honest, especially on the Elim side One comment I'll make that I forgot to: the tricky thing about this game is the GM has to be a bit selective because an inactive Desann Reborn or Jedi really screws the game over, so I did look among rands for players I trusted not to go inactive, and who would enjoy RP as they were likely to initiate duels. That's easy to guess, so in a rerun, I'd advise mixing it up and strongly advising players not to sign up if they can't commit.

Welcome to SE, thanks for playing @Wyrmhero YOU WERE MY BROTHER! I TRUSTED YOU!

I can finally give you the answer I was suggesting in the dead doc, but didn't want to spoil at that time: you were not that suspicious. Ash and Mat should've known better. They didn't remove votes from you because they were Evil Some of it is new player teething issues that I wouldn't be too worried about, but players who haven't played you before will get very confused by it, and you are a natural vote as a result. Also, reading people can be difficult and takes time to develop. I'm weakest at reads so I fully empathise. Glad you enjoyed!

No. Have a lot of ink unfortunately and my rule is I have to clear two bottles to be able to buy one, minus any that I really, really want. I grant there's quite a bit of leeway in terms of 'really really want' but feel ink discipline is important I just picked up the regional Diamine Ungu Senja ink for my birthday so I definitely have moments of carelessness >> Edited to add: Anyone here uses the new CON-70? I just picked one up and dear Force is it so much easier to use than the older one. At least I don't feel the button mashing as much anymore.

Something to consider: if you use Android or iPhone, see if you can download a macro photography app. In a pinch, they can be fairly useful for trying to get a close-up shot of your nib so you know what you are working with here.

A loupe would help you tell. It's possible it's just misaligned. At the cost of a Met, I'd say buy another, swap out the nibs, or even just buy another, period. But it depends on your nearby nibmeister's costs, waiting list, and what the damage is. IMO, if you can't tell if something, e.g. tipping or part of a tine broke off, it is unlikely to be the case, and more likely to be an alignment issue. I know you like EFs, but ball tipping is obvious and it feels a bit weird to me that it could break and you might not notice. Also, fixing alignment is easier (and you don't need a nibmeister for it.) One option if you don't have a loupe is potentially to take it to your local pen group/store, as someone might have a loupe and check for you. Readjusting is easy enough.

Yeah, that's fair and it's a reason why I favour removing the cooldown from you guys. My sense of the basic dynamic is that the Dark Side team should have more raw power - the Village's strength is in coming together. I'd rather encourage more tactical flexibility from the Jedi team and possibly more apprenticing (which IMO also gives Villagers more to do - I think not being apprenticed can leave them feeling very left out!) and buffing your team seems part of it.

Audaciously triple-posting (someone will probably save me from this by the time I've finished) to bring you the GM's After-Action Report. After-Action Report: The Distro: I am, strangely, very fine with this distro. We ran with the same numbers as MR2 so I felt fine replicating the roles distro from that game: two Reborn, and two Cultists. I didn't want to overdo their numbers due to potential exe control on their parts. I got a bit trickier in terms of team composition. I think it's an open secret that the past couple of Elim teams that I've fielded have featured one of <Fifth, Drake, Araris, Devo>, sometimes multiple of them. My immediate priority when looking at rands this time was to hardlock Fifth, Drake, and Devo as Village. I think it's bad when GMs have any sort of tendency that can be gamed or exploited by players, and refusing to play into this is good. When the Fifth/Drake Jedi rand came up, I hesitated. Both of them are gambiters and players with a decent risk appetite. They're also fairly noisy, meaning there was a decent chance they could find themselves MLed out of the gate. Ultimately, I was fine with this: I felt it made the game more fun, and given that MR2 was powerfully Village-skewed, a more volatile Jedi team was fine by me, to give the Elims just that bit more of an edge. In terms of the Elim rand, I had an E!Alv and E!Mads rand that I didn't want to go with. Again, it felt just a bit too typical. I liked the <Mat, Ash, Hael, Wiz> rand best: a relatively quiet, deep-lying Elim team to contrast with the noisy Jedi, and I liked that Hael-Ash-Wiz would synergise well to give the team a lot of strategic options. I also felt the team badly needed Mat to be their threadworker. It seemed like a workable team to me. In general, I have no regrets with either team. I think it was more or less fine. The Design: On a design level, I'm not sure how I feel. I agree with Fifth and Drake that there's a beautiful openness that allows the Jedi to decide how they want to play this game. I do want to preserve that. At the same time, the fact is that the redirect felt a little oppressive. Certainly, there were PoE issues involved, but the Jedi choosing to Pushmax started to cause the Elim team quite a bit of grief in this game, and I'm not sure all of it was under their control. My model more or less assumed the Jedi would apprentice more freely, but I was working with projections from MR2, so that is on me for making a bad set of assumptions. As a matter of fact, the Jedi only apprenticed Alv, and preferred to Pushmax. It is possible they could have been punished for this, as they were often unprotected. But this did not happen. Force Lightning also saw very little use. I'm not sure why, as it was a fairly potent power on the Elim side. Just as the Jedi can't redirect unless they hit the right target, the roleblock also helps shut down potential shenanigans. That being said, I think there's a clear asymmetry between abilities: the Jedi pushmaxing got off more softclears than I'd like them to have reached, and had little incentive to apprentice. My take would be the following set of suggestions: Add a cooldown lock to every ability: This shares it out, so protection, redirection, and vote manip all have a one Turn cooldown, rather than just protection. This immediately reduces how many pushes the Jedi can use, and encourages them to apprentice in order to get more uses out. It also forces both teams to be more strategic about their abilities. Remove the cooldown lock from the Disciples of Ragnos: I think this is a potential buff for them. It's harsh to have Force Lightning so restricted, especially if they are one Reborn down. Functionally, the Dark Side team is meant to be stronger: this once again feeds into the incentive to apprentice, in order to 'gang up' on them. Remove the kill lock: As Mat suggested, it might be better to just remove the kill lock and share it out across the team. I am okay with this, though I do wonder if the alternative is to go back to MR2 - allow both Reborn to kill at once. This would make refusing to apprentice a much more risky play for the Jedi. On the whole, I'm not convinced this is the best solution. Removing the kill lock might be better. Dueling: I am...okay about this mechanic, though it had some teething problems across the game. I thank @Fifth Scholar for his suggestion of the protected hour, as I think it made things a lot less stressful for him and Wiz. As such, I was happy to implement it in the game, despite disliking mid-game rule changes. I feel it was great to have two responsive players RPing in the thread. I generally like the duel mechanic, and for the purposes of this game, it feels fine. In this game, it wasn't meant to be major, and I don't think a winning team would really have an incentive to call for one. That being said, I think that the main issue for me always comes back to what to do as a tie-breaker. My main reason for initially stipulating seven combat phases was really in the hopes a tie would be avoided. While it's glorified scissors-paper-stone, I like the idea of giving players some agency over who dies instead of leaving it to a coinflip. That being said, it's difficult to figure out a tiebreaker that won't revert to a coinflip. But maybe by that point, a coinflip is fair. Not sure. My main thoughts: I'd possibly recommend reducing to five. I think seven was very stressful in terms of RP demands, not sure. That being said, they had a full forty-eight hours. You can also see from a lot of duel orders that five would simply have resulted in a tie. Protected time might be expanded to maybe eight hours or so, to account for timezones. Hael would've been in big trouble if he'd had to duel. I sort of feel regret the duel wasn't democratised, but at the same time, I worry about the fact duels have the potential to slow a game down. Maybe they can be more free in a QF format, I'm not sure. It might also be interesting to make one twenty four hours, and allow the winner to return to the thread? Very much not sure. Thoughts: Alv basically submitted an insanely clutch series of orders across the game. The C2 protect on Turtle, the C4 protect on Fifth (which worked well with Fifth protecting Drake), and then the final C6 protect order on Ash which he quickly retracted as he didn't want to accidentally have protected a Cultist. I am disturbed by the strength of the Jedi tunnel on Alv. I say this with all due affection: I do not think anything short of a Seeker scan would have gotten you guys to accept he was Village To my great relief, Drake got Turtle killed by a deflect. I had Illwei and Aman on tap as pinch-hitters, but it's rough for a pinch-hitter to be told "Hi, yes, er, you're pinch-hitting for this duel, and as you're subbing for a Village player, the Village thing is to lose, but also, have fun?" @Elandera is an amazing IM. Thank you for listening to me babble or panic because I seem to have forgotten how to GM >> I believe no exe should be a viable option for this game. It only occurred to me near the end, but there are fair reasons to want to hold off, especially on a cycle like this. Thank you all for playing! I hope you all had fun.

Sajhe's Datapad: Player List:

Aftermath: No Death, But The Force “The choices of one shape the futures of all.” —Jedi proverb, adapted from the Song of Salaban. A clear day. Cloudless skies. A blade the colour of the same sky, blazing in his hands. Hamartano stood on the clear patch of dirt and breathed in. It was often…difficult to find the peace that his Master talked about. He was too impatient. Too brash. Too reckless. Too used to doing, too used to being, too used to action rather than contemplation. He was not a man meant for peace. But Hamartano had made his own peace with that. Korriban was a world steeped in Darkness, a world that needed someone to fight, to confront the long shadow the Sith had left after them. So it was when Master Skywalker was seeking to appoint a Jedi Watchman for Korriban, Hamartano had not hesitated to step forward. First, said Kyle, remember that the Jedi is only as strong as your connection to the Force. A Jedi must be disciplined. You cannot expect to open yourself to the Force with your thoughts and emotions to be in disarray. He bent and scooped a cloud of dust into the waters of the fountain. You are the fountain, Kyle said. When the dust settles, the fountain runs clear. When the dust is in motion, the fountain water is murky. The Force runs strongly through you, Mart. But you have to open yourself to the Force with a clear mind and a clear heart. Hamartano reached out to the Force, and let the Force reach into him. On Korriban, the Force was always more clouded, darker. He didn’t think it was him: Korriban was a Sith world, and the Darkness ran deep here, deep into the history of the planet, deep into the bones of the world. But there was the Force, and there was beauty here, in the desperate crags, in the scrubby plants that bloomed. The Living Force flourished when the wetgrass did, and bound him to the flocks of wild shyrack, the tuk’ata hordes that roamed the craggy, arid surface of Korriban. It bound him to the settlers of Dreshdae, to the brightest stars, to the smallest motes of dust.All was. Hamartano breathed in and felt the Force fill him. It was life, it was joy, and he wanted to laugh and shout, spin and sprint. Streen had once said the Force was like ten kilos of life in a five kilo box, and all that life flooded into him, washing away his doubts, washing away that hardened core of impatience and anger and uncertainty at the heart of his being. The Force was, and in that moment, Hamartano’s lightsaber blade came up, reversed, and he felt himself move, felt himself shift his balance so slightly to adopt the single-handed challenge opening of Soresu. He beckoned. Blue-white lightning crackling along his arms, Lib Wubum leaped. “Hamartano, a Jedi,” Tantyck mused. He fanned out the sabacc cards on one of the tables that had survived Moff’s and Smart’s rampage through the Drunk Side. “Who would have thought?” “No one,” answered Jev. “And that’s the point, isn’t it?” The point was to stay hidden. They wanted to watch the duel. The idea of a Sith Lord on their tail was terrifying and they forced themselves to breathe, to think about quokkas. A spacer had taught Jev the trick of counting quokkas over a game of pazaak, and they did it instinctively because it was calming, thinking of quokkas instead of possible escape routes, instead of the very, very many ways things could go so badly wrong. They needed to make sure there were no incriminating holos left. Almost there. Almost free. Perhaps they’d try Nar Shaddaa next, when the freighter came. A good place to disappear, and a hotbed of vice. There were plenty of opportunities on Nar Shaddaa, if you were enterprising enough, if you knew who to impersonate, and who to talk to. If they got the bounty hunters off their back. Krisbaan was dead, and good riddance. Jev wasn’t certain if they could believe that the Jedi would take care of the Gungan for them. Perhaps. But when was the world this kind? “You seem nervous,” Tantyck observed. “Looking for someone?” “No, of course not,” Jev said, and then realised they’d made a mistake. They very consciously avoided clenching their fists. So close to escape. They couldn’t fail, not here. Not now. “Merely…what hope do we have, if the Jedi dies here?” “What hope indeed,” Tantyck mused. He flicked a card at Jev. It lay flat on the table. The Knave of Sabers. Tantyck smiled. The entire world of Korriban burned with the Dark Side of the Force. Lib Wubum gathered it in, felt it empower him as he leaped, lightsaber blade spearing forth from the simple electro-spear he had been carrying in his bounty hunter disguise. His rage cracked along his arms, electrifying the very scarlet blade of his lightsaber. He slammed down, stabbing for the Jedi’s feet. Lightning and raw Force power exploded, blasting forth, creating a shockwave and a large cloud of dust. But Lib Wubum did not need eyes to see. He felt the Jedi dodge, and lashed out, using the superior reach of his saber-spear to attack. Juyo was about primal ferocity. The Jedi called the Form incomplete, but of course it was incomplete: Juyo was a Form that required Darkness, that required raw emotion. Juyo required you to tap into the thrill of the fight, to love it. Wubum laughed as he spun the saber-spear about in his hand, blade-over-haft-over-blade, and felt the shock of contact as the Jedi barely blocked in time. The time for hiding was over. The Jedi would die, and Wubum intended to enjoy every last second of the fight. Nees Bac scurried through the streets of Dreshdae. Most of the settlers were attempting to repair the damage done to the cantina, or were wrangling the weaponised gizka, or were in hiding. Nees felt a lot like hiding, himself. But the Jedi had called him for a reason. He did not understand what it was, but knew that they must have felt it was important. So he lied. He lied, even though he knew it would bring about his death, because this world he’d been stranded on, so far from Ayefa, was death to Jar’bo’ba. Nees did not particularly want to die. A very small part of him, an unworthy part of him, hated Hamartano for doing this to him, for drawing the cultists to him as the krek beetles during the Bright Land seasons. Nees wasn’t ready. He wasn’t prepared. And still he had to do this. Still, someone had to. And that was the rub, wasn’t it? Hunya complained. Nees was Ayefa, even now. Even alone, even separated. He had to do what had to be done, because there was nobody else. And that was all that mattered. He sensed the attack coming almost at the same time as he heard the snap-hiss of a lightsaber switching on, and whirled about, pressing down the activator button on the compact lightsaber hilt concealed up the sleeve of his robe. The Force screamed a warning as deep Hurrikaine amethyst tangled with deep ruby, the Sith bloodshine of the blade and the electric-violet of the Jedi’s blade lending an edge to the shadows. In the mingled purple-red light, he saw Kalabel, her eyes blank, gripping the lightsaber. A droid chirped worriedly, but Kalabel ignored it. Perched on top of the droid, a single pyramid glowed a deep, murderous red, and the Force swirled about it, Dark and tainted. Nees had an overwhelmingly bad feeling about this. So…strong… Hamartano thought, in dismay, as he stumbled backwards from another lightning-charged strike from Wubum’s saber-spear. The shock of the exchange tore the lightsaber from his grasp, and he skidded backwards, half-stunned. Is this the power of the Dark Side? Master Skywalker had never talked about what it was like to fight Darth Vader. Hamartano could only imagine. He reached out and shoved with the Force, and felt as Wubum battered aside his push mercilessly with a shove that caused Hamartano to stagger further backwards, if he hadn’t at least tried to blunt the force of the blow. Wubum laughed triumphantly as the whirling saber-spear spun about, the humming lightsaber blade, crackling lethally with Force lightning ready to cleave Hamartano in half. Touching the holo in their pocket, Jev said, “Never was much for sabacc.” “Of course,” said Tantyck. He steepled his fingers together. “You’re skittish, Jev. I wonder why. Could it be that your friend is outside right now, fighting for his life against the Jedi?” Jev swallowed. They glanced behind, looking for a way to exit this conversation. Behind them, Dacken Humtumb loomed. For once, the jovial doctor’s eyes were steely. “I suggest you stay right where you are…cultist.” Jev bolted. There was a sharp, burning pain. The scent of ozone, the stench of charred flesh. The strength seemed to bleed out from their legs. They looked down. A bright green lightsaber blade protruded out of their abdomen. The bright green of fresh wetgrass, the green of life and growing things, a green so rich that a whimsical part of Jev wanted to grab it and eat it like candy. “No…cultist…” Jev protested. To be mistaken for a cultist, so close to the end…Would the Jedi have sheltered them, if they had known? Surely the Jedi did not particularly care about the fate of a smuggler. With a sharp hiss, the blade of the lightsaber retracted. Jev toppled forward. “Another Jedi?” Tantyck asked, sharply. “Mmhmm,” said Dacken Humtumb. “We thought it best, you see. Safer that way.” Hamartano went deeper, and deeper. Past the barriers he had usually erected, past the stern sense of Jedi discipline that Kyle had sought to instill in him. He had never been a good Jedi anyway. He had tried so hard. Fighting his natural impulses. Fighting who he was. Beating at the disarray in his mind. But now, the Force flooded into Hamartano, and Hamartano flooded into the Force. All of him: everything that he was—impatience, impetuosity, generosity, kindness, compassion, laughter, love—everything washed out into the Force and the Force filled him up, like light in clear glass. Time like cool honey. Hamartano dodged, flipped to the side, and caught the twin balls of Force lightning slamming towards him. A dispassionate part of his mind noted he hadn’t known he could do this. Anger poured out of him, given freely to the Force. Anger, fear, anxiety: all of it. Washed away. The lightning flared in the palms of his open hands, and he studied it. Anger washed out of him. You accepted it: you let it rise, and then let it go. Freely, as most gifts were given. The anger: his and Wubum’s washed over him and out of him again, and the lightning caught in his palms and blasted back at the Sith. Snarling, Wubum caught his own lightning: one-handed, then two-handed as it coruscated through Hamartano with greater ferocity, taking on a faint viridian glow. Lightning crackled between the two of them, burning bright and brighter, so brightly Hamartano had to shield his eyes with the crook of his arm. If Wubum had similar difficulties, Hamartano knew nothing of them. Something had to give. Something did give. With a loud WHOOMP!, the circling arc of lightning exploded, flinging both of them away in the shockwave. The Force caught him, and set him down gently, as though it was his father, at the end of a long day’s work. Another twitch of the Force sent his lightsaber hilt flying to his hand, and Hamartano squeezed it, watched as the pale blue blade flared to life again. He had felt so proud of himself, the day he’d built it. The day he’d been deemed worthy of it. He sprang to the attack now in a streak of bright blue, the Force guiding him in a whirling, two-handed slash that was classic Ataru, lending speed and strength to his movements. Nees Bac retreated before Kalabel’s attack. She was not particularly skilled, but all things considered, neither was he. And she had his advantage in reach and weight. There was the trick he’d used, that day, when he fought the cultist off of Turtle, but he’d had the advantage of surprise then. Their blades met again, and again with a cascading shower of golden sparks, and once again, Nees found himself forced back. Kalabel’s movements weren’t natural, though. They were jerky, and her eyes were blank, and Nees once again found his gaze drawn to the glowing scarlet pyramid that sat on the droid. If he focused on it, he thought he could hear it whispering. Hunya, he thought, fiercely, as he turned aside a driving slash with a two-handed block, and lashed out with the Force. She ignored his push as though it was nothing. He was only a student. He was out of his depth, and Nees was feeling his inexperience profoundly, without the mantle of illusion with which he’d scared the previous cultist away. Their blades crossed again and again. He missed a parry and she burned a long stab along his rib cage. He hissed and fell back yet again. Realisation, stark and crisp: he was going to die here. With resignation came the anger. With anger came the hatred and the fear. Hate fueling his blade, Nees drove forward again, and his world became a whirling blaze of amethyst and crimson fire. Both of them were tiring in the heat. Even with the Force to lend them speed and strength, they trembled. Hamartano lashed out in a series of rapid strikes, meant to lure Wubum into bringing the saber-spear just so, just lateral— And then his next slash fell and cleaved Wubum’s saber-spear in half. He just didn’t have it. Just wasn’t good enough. Despair crashed down on Nees as Kalabel’s next blow burned his left arm, and it went limp. The lightsaber hilt tumbled from his grasp, hitting the ground, skittering away. Kalabel raised her lightsaber blade above her head, two-handed. The droid beeped in concern. Nees watched with trepidation as the lightsaber blade came down. And met a golden blade in a shower of sparks. A strange reversal, watching someone else in the position he had been. Sajhe stood there, his face impassive, the bright golden lightsaber blade held steadily before him in a stance Kalabel did not recognise. He flexed his knees and the blade moved, and the Force surged about him, and Kalabel was staggering back, the few precious steps it took for Sajhe to gain the space he needed. “You do not want to do this,” Sajhe said, gently. The pyramid hissed. For a moment, Nees thought he saw terror or confusion in Kalabel’s eyes. But then she lunged forward, and Sajhe swayed out of the way of her blade. “Nothing good ever came out of mastery, girl,” Sajhe said. Still in that same voice, as though he was trying to calm a terrified gizka. “Nothing’s worth it, no matter what that Sith artefact is telling you.” Sith artefact. Nees stared at the pyramid with renewed interest. If only… Wubum laughed, as his saber-spear split apart. “Really?” he hissed, eyes gleaming a feral molten gold-orange. He strode forwards, and belatedly, Hamartano realised he may have made a mistake. May? Lightning crackled along the bronze spearhead, and the scarlet bloodshine of the Sith blade. Now, Wubum had twice the weapons, and he fell on Hamartano in a whirling fury of Force and plasma. The lightsaber burned a stripe across Hamartano’s ribs, and when he backpedalled, a bold lunge with the spear scored a graze on Hamartano’s cheek, barely missing his eye. He was going to die, Hamartano thought, realisation bubbling up. Wubum was so strong… The Dark is always stronger, Sajhe had said. Even stars burn out. Yet for all her strength, for all the power the pyramid, the whispering voices had promised her, for all it burned inside her like the sun itself, Kalabel could not seem to cut him down. He fought the way a mynock flew, or an eltor ran, with a simple elegance that spoke to the fact this was what he was born to do. His golden lightsaber blade wove an impenetrable wall of defence that Kalabel was unable to get past, picking off attack after attack with ease, or nudging them just that little out of position so her swings and stabs hissed harmlessly past him. And yet, he only defended. And yet, he never retaliated. Through passion, you gain power, the Sith whispered. Harness it, use it, strike him down! “You said the Dark was stronger,” Kalabel whispered. She could not seem to batter her way past him at all. “Why?” He tells the truth! Give in to it! Once again, Sajhe deflected her attack just so, guiding it past him, and then returning to the defensive stance he had assumed. “Because it is, girl,” he said, simply. “It’s the easier path to power. So much power that you can barely hold it in. So much power you can drown in it.” She was drowning, feeling the Darkness burn inside her. Her impatience. Her frustration. Her sense she was meant for better things, that she deserved better. “Because that’s a Sith lie, girl,” Sajhe said, as he parried a slash aimed at his midsection. “Because mastery never brought anything but sorrow. Oh, it is more powerful, for certain. But once you’ve tasted that power, even if the Jedi way can’t stand up to it, it brings only ever sorrow. And that’s not a path you want to be walking down.” “How do you know what I want?” she screamed, charging at him. Kill him, kill him now! “You aren’t a killer, girl,” Sajhe said. He stopped her with a two-handed block, grabbing for her wrist with an iron grip. “You have to choose.” Unnoticed, Nees crept over to the pyramid. The droid warbled a query. NOOOO! TREACHERY! JEDI TREACHERY! Kalabel turned, just as a humming blade of amethyst swept up, ignited, drawn into Nees’s hand by the Force. Nees struck. The holocron exploded. A large wave of crackling power burst out, and Sajhe staggered back. So did Kalabel. But Nees had no way of dodging. Hamartano was tiring. He struck, but Wubum held out a hand and his lightsaber stopped dead, as though the very air had become solid. Hamartano strained, before realising Wubum was holding him fast with the power of the Force. With his free hand, he was keeping Wubum’s lightsaber from reaching him. His hand trembled. It was taking all his focus to do just that. Stalemate. "You can hold mine, but I can hold yours far longer than you can hold mine,” Wubum’s smile was knife-edged, a death’s head grin. “The Darkness grows and the sun begins to sink. You can feel the Darkness beginning to seep from the ground. Soon the tuk'ata will come for you. Perhaps I'll let you live and feed you to my pack. Without your lightsaber of course, I can’t have you hurting them, now can I? Or perhaps I could throw you into the pit with our terentatek. They've been growing hungry and it's been long since they've consumed a Jedi. Or I can drain you myself, you can choose." Choose. His hand trembled. Was it his imagination, or did the scarlet Sith blade creep forward by an inch? Hamartano struggled to push against Wubum, to bring his lightsaber down. He failed. Let go, he thought he heard Kyle saying. Trust the Force, Mart. You’re always too eager to order the Force about, to direct it. He was falling back into that pattern again, falling back into thinking of the Force as a tool, just as his lightsaber was. He always did that, always thought of the Force as a tool for order, something to be mastered and commanded. The Force is your partner. It guides you. He breathed in. Breathed out that last shred of ego, that last shred of desire. Breathed out the fear, the instinctive terror of death. He accepted. And with the last, final surrender, the Force was Hamartano, and Hamartano was the Force. In the Force, he sensed it the second Wubum made the decision, because Wubum, too, was part of the Force, for all he poisoned it with his hatred, his pride, his anger. Electricity fountained forth from Wubum’s hand, up the grip of his lightsaber, and improbably, crackled towards Hamartano. He accepted it, let it wash over him and through him. In the Force, they were one. And because they were all of the Force, all part of it, the part of the Force that was Hamartano felt the lightning arc away from him, felt it return to Wubum. Felt it disrupt Wubum’s concentration, just slightly. The blue lightsaber descended, in a final blaze of light. And in a tiny part of an ancient Sith-stained world, the Darkness lifted. Kalabel staggered backwards. “What?” she choked out. The lightsaber tumbled from her grasp, clattered to the ground, and deactivated. Sajhe only had eyes for Nees Bac, in this moment. The Jawa lay on the ground, and it didn’t take a field medic to know the Jawa was dying. His presence in the Force flickered. “Did good?” Nees Bac whispered, in halting Basic. For a moment, Sajhe wasn’t kneeling by the side of an apprentice, abandoned to death, fighting an enemy more powerful than he had the right to be confronting. He was on Dxun, in the jungle, watching, hands clasped behind his back, as Delta Squad made contact with the enemy. The screams of Republic soldiers dropping to Mandalorian blaster fire, to mines buried in the dry grass. He was kneeling by Talvon Esan’s side. “Will Vrook…do you think?” Talvon croaked, blood spilling from his mouth. “Of course he will,” said Sajhe. A comforting lie. Master Vrook Lamar had cut off all ties with his former apprentice when Talvon had defected to join the ranks of the Jedi that Revan and Alek were gathering to them. “Liar. Always…harsh Master…” whispered Talvon, with that crooked smile that, with his rumpled golden hair, had made him the charmer of their entire batch of Padawans. “Stay with me,” Sajhe insisted, gripping Talvon’s shoulder. Not another one. Cariaga Sin had died to Mandalorian orbital bombardment; vaporised, glass her coffin, as it was those of so many others who had fought to defend the Verasilian capital. Xaset Terep had fallen in the Battle of Bohman Rees, holding the single bridge that had cost at least a battalion’s worth of lives. Sajhe had felt every death. Every single one of them. “Think…we made a difference?” Beyond the ridge, brave men and women of the Republic and Mandalorian worlds died. They died screaming, or silent, in churned mud, or face down in cold water. They died in numbers wasteful beyond belief, because a warlord demanded conquest and because they could not be Jedi and turn their backs on suffering. Because someone had to act. Because all reasons dissolved in the face of the carnage. Sajhe wiped a streak of mud away from Talvon’s face. His hand came away bloody. “Of course we did,” he said, easily. “Of course we did.” “Good…” Talvon wheezed. His hand went slack. Sajhe felt the tremor in the Force as he died, the pain of the loss reverberating through every fibre of his being. Another bond severed. Another death. And still Sajhe lived. Still Sajhe lived. He forced himself to smile down at the dying apprentice. “Yes,” Sajhe said, solemnly. “Yes, you did good.” “Good…” whispered Nees, in that accented Basic. “Good…” With an effort, he asked, “You…Ja’bo’ba?” Sajhe shook his head. “No. Taken from me a long time ago.” When he’d turned away from war. When he’d walked a solitary path into exile, darkness, and loneliness. “Two hundred and thirty seven Jedi went to war with Revan and Alek…” he murmured. “Every single one of them fell. In battle, to Darkness…Only one came back to face the Council’s judgement. They never understood why.” Because he had enough of death, of Darkness. Because he had not fallen, only lost his way. Only suffered. Only tasted enough of human suffering for lives. “Ja’bo’ba find…” said Nees. “Taught…said you be Ja’bo’ba too…Only learned a bit. Not very good Ja’bo’ba. But I tried.” Sajhe shook his head. “No. Ja’bo’ba do not try. Only act. Only are. On this day, the day it was impossible to get right, you were a Jedi, more than anyone else. You did what you had to do. The rest…is up to the Force.” “Good…” managed Nees. “Good…” For a long moment, he was silent; his presence in the Force ragged with pain and thready. Sajhe knelt by his side, willing whatever strength he could into the dying Jedi. There was that moment, then. Grace unexpected, a sudden ripple of surprise in Nees’s Force presence. “Utini…” the Jawa breathed. And then faded out, merging into the Force, a tiny trickle of a stream joining the thundering cataract that was Life itself, sublimated into it, drowning for the last time, in a joyous surrender to glory that was the Force. Nees breathed in. Tattered Jawa robes fluttered to the ground as the Force exhaled. We are luminous beings, thought Sajhe, wearily. He scrubbed at his eyes with his free hand. Old memories. Old sorrows. Not this crude matter. “Is he…dead?” “Yeah,” Sajhe said, roughly. “But there is no death, there is the Force.” “What…” Kalabel hesitated. “What do I do now?” He looked at her, consideringly. “Go back to your life, I suppose. Or find a way off-world—ask for a berth with a Republic freighter. Skills like yours, any ship would take you. Whole galaxy’s open before you, now.” “I don’t feel it anymore.” “Better off that way, believe me.” “But…” she was struggling for the words. “How do you go back, after it all?” “It’s harder than you would expect,” Sajhe said, after a long pause. “Losing the Force, after a lifetime…it was like an artist gone blind. A musician deafened.” He looked down at his hands. “But then you learn that there is life, beyond the Jedi. An entire galaxy to see. Things to do.” He looked over at her, and he shrugged. “And you learn that if you are strong enough to turn away from war and Darkness, you are strong enough to decide what you want to do with your life and take it.” He nudged at the Jawa robes with the toe of his boot. “You’ve got more years ahead of you now than Nees does. You got the gift of time, girl. Don’t stand over his grave and talk about it. Now, shoo.” Kalabel shooed. The game is over! The Village has won! Congratulations to the Village team, and to Fifth's dueling skills! Wiz / Lib Wubum was killed! He was a Desann Reborn! Alv / Nees Bac was killed! He was an Apprentice, acknowledged by Sajhe as a Jedi Knight of the Old Republic! JNV / Jev was executed! They were an unlucky Settler who got a bit screwed over by the fact the exe couldn't be skipped today! Thank you all for playing, and especial thanks/kudos to Fifth and Wiz for that very engaging final duel! Doc links in next post - please wait for me to reserve it, along with final player list.

Cycle has ended! Stay tuned for the next cycle! No more votes and actions will count past this point! Please also stop dueling! I was going to post a prequel meme but unfortunately we had a malfunction so you're just gonna have to wait

I am taking medication and going to lie down for an hour or two before getting back to work. In an ideal world, this won't knock me out for that long. But we don't live in an ideal world. If I do not make it back in time and am knocked out, I might miss rollover by an hour or two. Fingers crossed this won't happen. I ask patience of you, and ask that you please respect rollover being at 0100hrs SGT (GMT+8) - I will ignore all votes, actions, and game-relevant posts in both threads past rollover. Thank you for your cooperation. P.S. I'd normally ask Wyrm to close for me but frankly I feel bad consistently asking him for help. Edited to add: If anyone wants to get in on the dueling action, feel free to submit your seven style choices to me in your PM and which of <Wiz, Fifth> you'd like to fight. It won't formally count for anything, but I will PM you after rollover and let you know if you would have murdered them or been murdered by them :eyes: I mostly mention this as the dead doc has had a go.

Added. Done. Edited to add: In the hopes of speeding things up through committee - My guess is that there will be at least one more QF before the AG. Either way, here's the list of the top five people on the hook, please go get yourselves sorted out and make sure to get your two approvals. 1. @Fifth Scholar 2. @Ookla the Omniscient (already approved I believe) 3. @Araris Valerian 4. @Karnatheon 5. @Kasimir Fifth is currently really busy, so I expect it to functionally be between Szeth and Araris.

This latest flimsi pinned to the board blows in the wind.

Rule Clarifications:

They are. The only line I am drawing is they shouldn't be posting in this thread. They could theoretically even refuse to RP but that'd be a bit sad

Cycle Six: Duel Beneath Cloudless Skies Outside the Drunk Side, away from Sajhe's wrath, there is a small, flat patch of dirt. The gizka scurry away. Perhaps they know what is coming. A clear day. Cloudless skies. The swoop ganger, with a blade the same colour as these sunlit skies. The Gungan bounty hunter, electro-spear held at the ready. Circling, like the firaxan sharks of Manaan. Like coiled akk hounds, ready to pounce. A good day for one of you to die. 1. This thread locks at the same time as the main cycle thread: on Friday, 9th November, at 0100hrs SGT (GMT+8.) Duel submissions must be in by then. 2. Please refamiliarise yourself with the duel rules before proceeding. 3. Ask me if you are unsure about anything. 4. Be respectful of each other, and remember you're here to have fun 5. Finally, you should be aware I am willing to tell you if a post counts, or not, and your current state in the point standings. I can't tell you that of your opponent's, but I'm not here to make life difficult for you. 6. May the Force be with both of you, @Fifth Scholar and @Ookla the Myopic.

Rule Clarifications: Player List:

Cycle Six: Where The Fun Begins Hamartano strode into the Drunk Side, his blaster in hand. Sajhe looked up from where he was cleaning the glasses, and adjusting the settings on the hotpot that he had heating at all times. This was where it began, Sajhe thought. Or where it led to. Two roads, in the desert. The desert in the heart of your brother. The path of mastery, the path of exerting yourself on the world. The path that led away: the path of denial, the path that embraced the tumultuous tides of the world, the world in all its embodied misery and joy, sorrow and celebration. Hamartano claimed the tallest stool in the bar and swung a leg over, sitting astride. “Well,” pronounced the swoop ganger. He flicked a catch above the trigger, and the length of the blaster shrank, contracting into itself. Another flick of a button and a bar of humming blue plasma snarled forth from Hamartano’s hand. The bar fell dead silent, except for the whine of blaster fire. Two stray shots, probably from nervous trigger-fingers, which Hamartano casually deflected into the floor and the ceiling of the bar. “I am on the Jedi Council,” he proclaimed. “And we have decided it is time to show ourselves to you once more.” He pointed at Nees Bac, who he acknowledged with a smile, the first Hamartano had cracked in ages. “The Jawa man has been my helper here. A little short, but the Council thought he’d do alright. And he has. Saved that one—” he now jabbed his finger at Turtle—“from some Sith a couple days ago. He’s been the one actively fighting them, you know. Had the nerve to put me on reconnaissance, saying the Force would guide him to his needed targets. I guess it has. Me, I just rely on Old Faithful here.” He patted his lightsaber hilt. “That said, the both of us have been doing some watching and messing around with the Force, and we’ve got news.” “GIZKA MAN!” he hollered, and Humtumb stumbled in. A thumb flew in his direction. “Gizka man is not one of those Desaan types we’re supposed to be hunting. Neither is the midget”— he pointed directly at Moff—“or the quieter guy there”—his finger alighted on Kalabel. “And unless the Sith have gone even more Force-mad, it ain’t Turtle either. Doesn’t stop ‘em from being in league with the unsavoury types, but it does leave us with only a few people to check.” He retracted his blade and jumped down. “Jev. Smarts. Lib. KD. One of ’em wants me and Nees dead. Reckon it’s Smarts, from my sense of the guy, but it’s never too soon to be exploring other people too. I ain’t never felt good about Lib, and KD has been tailing Smarts too much for my liking anyway. One of ‘em wants to try me, they can come at me. I’ll be ready with this guy.” He flourished the lightsaber and ignited it once more, twirling outside and sending four blasts deflected into the hearts of the gizka jumping up and down near the entrance. “But till then y’all gotta make some choices.” “Alright,” said Smarts, slowly. “You say this. And why should we believe you?” He set down the jumble of circuitry he was working on. “Old Barles just saw a madman with a lightsaber the other day. You say you’re one of them. From my point of view, you’re just as likely to be with those Sith cultists as anyone else. And you, figuring I’m a Sith cultist? That’s rich, Hamartano, coming from the guy who offed Myhar Impay. What does an ecologist have to do with the Sith, even?” That put the fluffkit among the gizka, as the bar erupted into noise. Settlers of Dreshdae argued. Surely the Jedi had come, the Jedi knew that the settlement was beleaguered—hadn’t they heard, after all, about the Jedi who had saved Turtle? Turtle, who was scarcely to be found now, as though fear of the Sith cultists had driven him into hiding. Some suspected more nefarious reasons behind Turtle’s disappearance. Tantyck glanced over, his eyes flicking from Hamartano to Smarts, as though he was weighing them up, deciding where to set his feet on unstable ground. “Frankly, Hamartano, you’re unreliable. You’re a maniac, and I’m not certain that someone like you would actually be a Jedi. At the same time, I don’t trust Smarts, and I think we need to proceed carefully here.” “Believe that I do,” belched Moff, who had briefly pulled his head out of a keg of Mandalorian ale that was higher than he was tall. “Wave that lightsaber around, you should not. A laser pointer, it is not. Impressed I am not. Bigger, mine is. And plaid!” He pulled out his own lightsaber, with a flourish, and flicked it on. A plaid blade hummed to life, with a shower of alcohol fumes. Moff narrowed his eyes. “The same to me it all is. Whether the Jawa a Jedi is, or lightsaber Louise there is. Or the technician. Only one answer there is to the question. Taught us they did, in Jedi school.” “I’m almost afraid to ask,” Smarts said, caustically. “DUEL! DUEL! DUEL!” Moff chanted. “The victor the Jedi is! Simple, it is!” “What,” said Smarts, flatly. Moff beamed beatifically. “Winner, the Force is with. Loser, dead is. What could be simpler?” He swept the lightsaber in a flourish that was made a touch more complex by the fact he was inebriated and swaying. “THROW ME OUT OF THE JEDI ACADEMY FOR PARTYING, WILL YOU?” he demanded, drawing himself up to his full height. “THEN DIE, YOU SHALL!” With his free hand, he gestured. A table ripped itself free and slammed through the air, tumbling straight for Smarts’s head. At the same time, with a shriek like a mynock out of hell, he flipped through the air, lightsaber blazing vengefully, tumbling towards Nees Bac’s throat. Nees Bac ducked. “Ny shootogawa! Ny shootogawa! Eyeta! Eyeta!” Nees was babbling. Bar9 patched a translation in to Kalabel’s comlink. Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! Friend! Friend! But who knew anymore, in these days when Sith cultists lurked in the streets of Dreshdae and Jedi apparently hid under the guises of swoop gangers and Jawa? It didn’t matter. On the other side of the Drunk Side, the table hurtled with lethal intent towards Smarts—and just stopped. Right there. With a snarl of frustration, Smarts gestured and the table reversed course and sped right for Nees. “TOLD YOU, I DID!” Moff exclaimed, triumphantly. “REVEALED HIMSELF, THE SITH HAS!” The very-abused table slammed into the wall, and stopped there. Nees Bac crouched, flinching back from it, shielding himself with his hands. “Eyeta!” he cried out. “Jar’bo’ba, eyeta!” The air rippled, almost as though forming a solid wall as Smarts shoved. Moff’s cry of triumph was cut off as the Jedi dropout was smashed back into the wall of the cantina, and he proceeded to drop to the ground, blinking like a stunned mynock. “I have had it with the challenges!” Smarts growled, striding forward, blue-white lightning crackling in the palm of each hand. The rest of the cantina were scuttling out of the way, sensibly. “I have had it with the constant suspicion, the disrespect! I have had it!” He thrust both hands outwards, and the ball of lightning flared, blasting out at Moff, who was huddled in a small ball at the base of the cantina wall, battered and dazed. There was the whine of a blaster bolt, and Smarts whirled about. The bolt deflected from his bare hand. “It was you,” Turtle whispered, emerged at last. Perhaps he’d been drinking to drown it all in the Drunk Side. No one in the aftermath was really sure. “You tried to kill me.” Smarts clenched his fist, and Turtle gasped, lifted into the air. He began clawing desperately at his throat as the invisible vise grew tighter and tighter, battling an unseen force. In the moment Turtle grew limp, Moff struck. A single, clean blaze of speed and light and power. And then, it was over. Moff calmly pressed the activation button, and the plaid lightsaber blade slipped back into the hilt and disappeared entirely. “Wha—” breathed Smarts, as he toppled over, a black hole burned into his chest. He struggled to breathe. “Worse nights, Moff has had partying,” Moff informed him. “The power of a hundred death sticks, one after another, cut with spice and recreational Force Lightning. Immune I am now, Experimented, I did, in my partying days at the Academy. Expelled for a reason, I was.” Meanwhile, Hamartano had zoomed in on his target. His eyes narrowed. The world narrowed down to a simple tunnel: that state he thought of as focus. No one else mattered—just him and the target he was tracking down. The Desann Reborn. The last of Tavion’s elite cultists. So close now that he could feel what success tasted like. Reporting in to the Council would feel so satisfying. He held the humming lightsaber blade out to his side, ready to strike. “Not in here,” Sajhe said. For a moment, Kalabel had a vision of Sajhe, battle-worn, battle-scarred, in armoured robes of a design she hadn’t seen in her life, standing between Nees Bac and Lib Wubum, a golden blade the rich hue of sun-ripened wheat blazing to life in his hand. The moment passed. He was just Sajhe, holding that old battered hallikset, his shoulders straight. “No blasters, no lightsabers. Not interested. Take it outside.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “You’ve screwed with my cantina enough. Gonna cost a great deal to fix the damage you and your delinquent friend have caused.” Hamartano looked as though he was going to object. Lib Wubum hefted his electro-spear. “You’re making a big mistake,” the Gungan bounty hunter said, calmly. “My quarrel isn’t with you, and my bounty isn’t on you, Jedi. You can still walk away.” The red pyramid puzzle hummed in Kalabel’s hands. Better off without them, she thought. Better off without them all. It sang to her. Sang of power, of freedom. Of the ability to do exactly what she wanted. No rules. Only desire. Hamartano angled that bright blue lightsaber across his chest in a defensive stance. “Sure,” he said, to Sajhe. “You want to die on your feet, Sith?” he demanded of Lib Wubum. “Or you want me to cut you down right here?” “So be it,” spat the Gungan bounty hunter, disgruntled. He snatched up his spear, and stalked out of the door, without a backwards glance. “You chose, Jedi.” Mat / Smarts was executed! He was a Cultist! (For real this time!) Turtle / Turtle was killed! They were a Settler! (I know, this was such a surprising flip!) @Fifth Scholar and @Ookla the Myopic have entered a duel! They are now prohibited from posting in the main thread! They also cannot vote or be voted on this cycle! Apologies for the wait, I was trying to do justice to Scar's duel attempts in the thread The cycle has begun and will end on Friday, 9th December 2022 at 0100hrs SGT (GMT+8)! Please be reminded that PMs are closed.

And the cycle is closed! No more votes or actions will be accepted, now you can stop sending me fifty different retractions in two minutes! >>