Kasimir

I can't answer the rest, but I can confirm it's Chinese and literally translates to the Emperor's Soul.

Are you referring to Drake's 'your power passes to another player' rules here? Because I'm not thinking of any recent puppeteering games, unless I was away when it happened. The case I had in mind was an early Joe game.

I'll make the changes. I don't think it super matters - at this point, the descriptions are more for the GM's benefit (and for players I guess) than for the committee's.

After-Action Report Araris will probably do his eventually. I wanted to get mine done early on. But then life happened. So here we are. Distro/Balance Overall, I don't feel the distro was particularly problematic. In fact, we went for a fairly mild/milquetoast distro, which maybe violates Tyrian/AG expectations a little, but at the same time, sometimes you don't want to just run fancy distros for the sake of breaking expectations. This was a safe distro and went pretty ok—Mistborn Village-side, a Lurcher, two Smokers, two Emotional Allomancers, and a Tineye. This seemed pretty fine against most options an Elim team with two Mistborn could bring to the table. Smokers to block any Emotional Allomancy the Mistborn could rand, a Lurcher for kill protection and in case the Mistborn drew Steel (which only happened once anyway), two Emotional Allomancers for prospective firepower, and their own Mistborn. Mistborn are highly situational and generally underperform a dedicated role on a Tyrian game, so we weren't too concerned about the Elims being OP - in most cases, it's usually just better to have the Coinshot/Lurcher etc over the Mistborn. That being said, sometimes of course the lucky rand at the right time is great. Gameplay It was a little strange for a Tyrian AG. Honestly I think that's great. With new(er) (to this format) players like Aet, Aeo, Neil, Moth, Kelsier, Spirit, TwinStorm, and RoyalBeeMage playing, actually a lot of the known Tyrian meta was thrown out the window. In a way that's neat because you can see players litigating the same issues over again, e.g. the role of Smokers, without any particular baggage. (I suspect this was also behind Aet's early dismissal of the actual team comp - potential unawareness of how Mistborn historically perform in Tyrian games.) Too, some players were way more casual about roleclaiming in thread, which was balanced by the fact not everyone was paying attention, and the amusement value from giving Fifth heart attacks There was also a lot more RP than usual which was nice to see! In general, the balance seems to be fine. The Village did score a number of own goals, e.g. by allowing the TwinStorm exe to happen, which cost them a Lurcher. At the same time, the Elims had their kill blocked twice, which should've put them behind, but in the end, was evened out by some lucky rolls (Hyena drawing Steel that Night, and then the game-closing Zinc after the Village had murdered all their Smokers for...being Smokers I guess.) A reminder to everyone that Smoking does matter in the endgame because by then, Seeking probably won't save you (maybe the calculus is different if a Seeker is alive but by that point, people had to have realised there was no Seeker or second Mistborn likely) so there is no net negative to Smoking. You might as well try to block Elim vote manipulation! A shoutout to @Archer for honesty. Mid-game, when we realised that Wonko might need to be replaced by a PH, we consulted Wilson as the interim IM, who ruled that Archer could puppet Wonko's action slot once but that we had to get a replacement if he didn't show up after that. Fortunately, Wonko was in recovery by then and returned. Nevertheless, Archer requested we login to the Hyena account so that anyone who was checking for logins wouldn't believe that Hyena was excluded from having put in the kill. This was a fair request as despite login tracking discourse, players also do not generally expect puppeteering to be allowed—it's not without precedent, but it's extremely uncommon. And that's it from me. Kas out. Signing off from my first stint as an AG co-GM. Hope you all had a good game, and once again, thanks to everyone for playing, and thanks to @Araris Valerian for GMing, and uh, @little wilson for emergency IM decisions as we only discovered we were flying without an IM mid-game when the Wonko situation came up. Still laughing at how the hell it happened, and how I was so out of it I just said 'ok' and didn't remotely understand until I'd slept on it

I...what

I did want to say this though, before I forgot/got distracted. Being a pinch-hitter in this game must be so wild If any of them come in, they're like swapping into the spirits which swap into bodies. Kandraception!

Bro just so you're clear you don't have to keep praising the Ja if it's tiresome man, though I appreciate you ran with the joke I mean I guess from a certain point of view, you made a match between me and this game

The Eleventh Metal works in mysterious ways

No, Experience obviously changed the future to retroactively make his post true. Would Kas do such a thing? I really shouldn't do this, but I've been having a lot of doubts over the past month about the negative role I've played in SE between 2023 to 2024 and I don't know if signing up for a non-solving game will help me shift gears. Especially with my plate stacked. (I can manage activity, don't worry about me.) Signing up as Konned IntoPlayin. What the hell. Let's do this. Not in this to win, just wanna have fun with my bros and new friends

Hey Raven, I appreciate the defense of me, but I can take it I could tell it was definitely a joke, I won't deny I was a tiny bit annoyed but that was more because I was worried Steel was gonna take it seriously Besides if you defend me too aggressively they'll know we're teamed then what happens next I accept your newfound devotion to Jaism sir >:P

._.

Welcome back to SE Ash! I haven't played with you in a while too Looking forward to it! (I say, as if I've signed up.)

Oh hey Wierdo! Welcome back! Nice to see you again! Time to crush them all in fencing this time

I think this might be a good point in the thread to remind people that the Lylo Group is still taking interviews from SE players, both current and former. (Honestly if you're just SE-curious, get in contact with us anyway, we'd still like to ask you a bunch of questions, just different ones from the ones the SE players get.) We comprise players in the community who first sprang to action when we noticed SE's dire demographic state, and are collecting both qualitative and quantitative data about the situation. While we are a player-formed group, we try to work with the mods and deconflict certain avenues of inquiry. Our short-term aim is to allow the community (and not just the mods) to discuss SE's predicament on solid, data-driven grounds, and to hopefully issue recommendations for improvement. Our long-term aim is to hand over an SE in recovery/in improving shape to the next generation, as most of us are likely on our way out. We aim to share the collated data with the community publicly, in the form of a preliminary report, and then a more complete final report. (The structure is subject to change, but fundamentally boils down to: we don't want people to be caught in analysis paralysis but we do want theories of change to be grounded in data, whether qualitative or quantitative.) All interviews will be kept strictly confidential. We only share findings, rather than interview transcripts or results. This is because a moderate number of players have shared fairly personal information with us. If you are willing to offer an interview, and we haven't already interviewed you, please contact: @Kasimir or @|TJ|. If you're interested in helping out, also contact us! No amount of help is too small. We've already gotten volunteers who offered to review/rewrite threads or bits and pieces, volunteers who want to try to work on SE's competitiveness problem, and so on. We're all lending what we can as members of the community, in whatever capacity we can. We could always use people with the time and energy to help. We want to make SE a fun community we can all be proud of

Araris's threats are too powerful Is it possible to learn this power?

I was gonna sign-up but you, me, and Fifth in the spec doc sounds like a fun time, I'll pass Honestly, I've got a bunch of games running in the moment and some other RL and mental health stuff on my plate. I'm putting myself down to request a ping one day from sign-ups closing to decide then.

Yeah that's always a big problem in offices. I do have a Muji pad I keep just for that, but I also do have easy access to the Japanese/Taiwanese markets, thankfully. Reasonable tbh I really hope you find a nice one on the market! I'm curious, what model is it?

I am going to regret saying this, probably, for reasons that have to do with detesting being lobbied about as a political playing piece by seemingly everyone involved in this when I'm probably one of the biggest problems in SE from 2023-2024. I am going to regret this no matter what. I will only state this: A. I do not consider myself in a position to litigate a moderation decision from 2021. I am not a particularly insightful person or a mediator, and these issues are generally not things I can deal with. I do not agree with Rae's decision to take, at every step, the most aggressive and scorched earth approach possible to resolution. However, I do not consider myself willing to police the behaviour of a victim, nor to silence her. B. Rae's experience emerged in her interview. I was appalled because who could reasonably want to believe this has happened in our community? For the record, I will state: I have seen the transcripts. I have spoken to a number of the people involved. I do not agree with the judgement it was a messy break-up and I agree with the assessment it was a case of sexual harassment. I have identified some factors* that could be regarded as confounding, but in general, still cannot in good conscience dismiss it as not constituting sexual harassment. I note that others have seen the transcripts as well in the process. Whether they choose to stand by this account or not is between them and their own honest read of the situation. I cannot in good conscience say anything else here, and damned one way or another, I guess. In general, my read of Shard policy would require me to say on grounds of conscience that this would not be consistent. It is entirely possible I'm not well-versed in it. Certainly I've never been anything more than a consistent moderation problem where SE and the Shard have been concerned. But: 1. Even if one thinks I am entirely wrong in my read of sexual harassment, I would say that there is a prima facie case to be made out of violation of the Shard's 2020 harassment policies. I note that in only one point is an explicit request to stop required. 2. I think my perspective at this point is: "Is there something we can do about this to improve the community?" On face value, if this wasn't forwarded Shard-side, that's a violation of currently-stated policy. We can't change the past. If we could, there would be so much more we could change. I don't know what would constitute justice by this point in time and I can't even begin to work that out. But my question is, can this be tightened up to bring us into full compliance with how the Shard's harassment policies are supposed to work? Training? IDK. I don't like that any of the other three didn't seem to think this should be escalated. I note that at least two of them expressed in subsequent conversations with me that the content they saw made them feel uncomfortable. One of them directly told me, "We can't police DMs", and that's directly not compliant with Shard policy at all, where one moderator mentioned that DMs can be taken into account, and: 3. I would note that, in my view, the most damaging situation would be for members of SE to believe they need to bypass SE mods and to approach 17s mods when experiencing harassment or anything else. Because this just represents a total lack of faith that SE's mod team will do right by them, and that's not a good reflection of the health of the community. 4. If we're doing a major recruitment drive, I think there's an imperative to get this right, for the sake of the new generation of players and the ones after that. We need to do right by them. *Feminist philosophy teaches us we do not require perfect victims. Similarly, pointing to relationship status doesn't really change this: sexual offences can be committed within relationships, outside of them, during messy break-ups, etc. And whether this was simply a poor sense of boundaries or actual malice changes the severity, rather than whether an offence did or did not occur. Finally, one may argue Rae had too much curiosity for her own good. I don't deny this, but I think that anyone who knows Rae enough to make statements about her for her ostensible good, as the other person did, should also know Rae enough to recognise that Rae is curious and to take this into account when regarding any interaction as explicit, robust consent.** ** There's a deeper point to be made here about what constitutes consent, and how those DMs very quickly began to assume a de facto 'opt-out' model of consent, which is deeply disturbing. I'm choosing not to litigate the rest of this at this point.

I must admit my reaction hovered between "what's with this tag man" and "dude how do you think it makes me feel, knowing I played SE with your uncle and now you"

As the GM for that game, I can probably fill in the gaps of the historical record a little as I still recall the incident. Gears made RP of his character choking Quinn's—Quinn was due to be exed. A different player filed a complaint to me about the inappropriate content of the RP and I forwarded the complaint to the IM for action. My recollection is that the decision was to speak to Gears about it, but I was really notified more or less to close the loop, as I was GMing and thus still the primary line of contact with the complainant.

This won't fit the short, snappy pattern. Bear with me. I was having a conversation with a friend about some difficulties I was experiencing trying to balance multiple obligations, and how I felt I would have disappointed my mentor. Then I went quiet for a moment, and remembered the number of times she'd commented on my penchant for self-destruction. I said, remembering her quoting Hillel at me, "...Except I'm worth protecting too, huh." Then winced as it reminded me way too much of Teft's Ideal. Tldr; YKYASFW you accidentally blunder into an Ideal when trying to talk things through with a friend.

If you meant absurdly conical...

AG11/AN15: Finale - Blowin' In The Wind The dark is generous. Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from us the truths of others. Such as that Nibbles, the eccentric chef at the Hound and Hustle, was really a Spiked Mistborn, bringing devastation to the village of Tyrian Falls at the urging of a darker master. Ruin. The dark protects us from what we dare not know. Its second gift is comforting illusion: the promise of a gentle end to the day’s labours and harsh words, the way the shadows at dusk soften the sharp edges of the harsh streets of Tyrian Falls where blood has flowed and will continue to flow; world without end. But the greatest of its comforts is the illusion that the dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it is day that is temporary. Day is the illusion. Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light and brings it forth from the centre of its own self. With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins. Blood ran through the streets of Tyrian Falls. There were those who sought to stand tall, to defend their home, no matter the cost. A shower of fortune cookies with coins baked into them cut down the brave, had the rest ducking for cover, hiding in the shelter of cellars and stone walls. Nibbles had his orders from God. He wasn’t about to let the wretched of Tyrian Falls mount even the most pitiful defense to the koloss that were advancing; like fate, like the doom thrice-denied, falling with the glee of a god onto a cursed village. Nibbles perched on the roof of the Hound and Hustle, and hummed to himself. He had his metal vials. He had his fortune cookies. He carved new names of ruin and agony into them, watched them twitch and fall like chickens to the slaughter. Tyrian Falls lay open, and vulnerable to the koloss to come. Behind him, Lysia said, “Nibbles?” He turned. The first wave of the advancing koloss surged past the trench and hit the palisade and the berm. The palisades splintered, and broke with a thunderous crunch, entire sections of painstakingly-planted wood flying wildly. The sound of a world ending. Without defenders, without fire, without steel, these were only wood. The koloss charged through all of the pitiful defenses with a triumphant roar, and then the carnage and the terror began. Lysianactomerid surveyed the horizon as the oncoming horde thundered towards Tyrian Falls, watching with a thousand dispassionate eyes. It knew that Nowko would be furious at its actions here, but he'd get over it. Lysianactomerid was irreplaceable; one of the most important resources the Abundance had access to. Its many eyes flitted from rooftop to rooftop, keeping tabs on the situation throughout the village. Meanwhile, in the inn’s boarded-up basement, another part of Lysianactomerid was hard at work. The part of Lysianactomerid that called itself Lysia was humming contentedly to herself as she busily worked around Nibbles’ bound and gagged form. He lay on a table in the center of the room, struggling wildly against his bonds. His shirt was torn open, exposing the array of metal spikes through his chest. Lysia clamped an electrical lead to a spike positioned just above his heart, then a second to a spike through his abdomen. Nibbles screamed into his gag as lightning arced through his body. Lysia patted him reassuringly on the head. “Hang in there, dear, I'm almost certain you'll survive this. Maybe not the koloss, of course, but you laid that bed yourself.” She laid an intricate fabrial lattice of diamond and heliodor on his chest, positioning it carefully between the two spikes. Immediately, the heliodors burst alight, filling with fragments of Nibbles' spiritweb. Nibbles’s screaming grew more intense, which was interesting. Apparently, the process was painful; Lysia supposed she should be taking notes. A colleague of hers in the Abundance had come up with this procedure, but it was purely theoretical. She was probably the first being to ever put it to the test. The dark is generous and it is patient. It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons reason and the love of neighbours with grains of doubt. The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout. The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light. The dark’s patience is infinite. Eventually, even stars burn out. Eventually, the curse claims Tyrian Falls. And another village dies, is doomed, is damned. On the rooftops, Lysianactomerid’s eyes observed the koloss marching ever closer. Then as they crossed a boundary line Lysianactomerid had marked out the previous day, a burst of Spiritual pressure washed over the village. In the basement, the diamonds laid across Nibbles’ chest began to glow with an odd stygian light, the telltale sign of anti-investiture. Lysia smiled. “Cheer up, Nibbles; you're about to witness history. The first person ever to escape the Tyrian Falls anomaly.” The gemstones began vibrating, humming to the pure tone of Ruin. The intricate nicrosil cage allowed the gems a small degree of freedom, and the vibration caused them to rattle against one another, heliodor clattering against diamond. Then, all at once, every single gem shattered violently, some of their shards embedding themselves in Nibbles’s bared chest. The Light began to diffuse through the air, investiture swirling with anti-investiture. In the split second before they made contact, Lysia threw a lever, causing an aluminum panel to open on the ceiling, exposing a rapidly spinning plate made of a raysium-atium alloy. Instantly, the investiture began to whirl upwards into a cyclone of black and white mist, forming a column between Nibbles and the plate. In that moment, Lysia leapt forwards into the swirling tornado, and vanished. Then, the basement exploded as the investiture and anti-investiture annihilated, sending out a shockwave through Tyrian Falls. Buildings blew apart, and wooden shrapnel flew through the streets, embedding itself in passersby. On the rooftops, Lysianactomerid's remaining hordelings became mindless, cut off from the majority of their horde. They didn't have time to react, though, as the blast tore their fragile forms apart. In the Cognitive Realm, Lysia hovered, hanging over the misty depths by the fabrial levitator strapped to her back. She groaned at the pain of the lost hordelings; she hated traveling by perpendicularity. No matter, though. She could always breed more. She turned her sights towards Silverlight, and began flying. She had answers to seek. He had lived, Corse thought dispassionately, a long life. It was not, in the end, what he had planned for it to be. But it was not a terrible one. It had been a full life, all things considered: just what anyone got. He dug the shovel into the soil. Lifted it just so, to the side, and shucked off the load of soil. Planted the shovel again. Each action economical, each action burned deep into muscle after a lifetime of tasks that Tyrian Falls had found undesirable. Things like digging graves. Where would he run, anyway? There was no escaping death, no matter where you fled. And someone had to bury the dead, even if the dead of Tyrian Falls seemed beyond all accounting. The koloss raised the sword. A lone shadow against the last of the failing light. He tipped the shovel. An almost-salute, an acknowledgement. A grave unfinished. Clumps of soil rolled off it, falling like the last grains of sand through an hourglass. The sword fell, glinting in the bloody evening light. A crow screamed, and took off, beating its wings, rising ever-higher amidst the smoke that ascended to the heavens like an offering to a vengeful god. There came a turning point in the clash of light against dark. It did not come from the death of yet another Tyrian Smoker, though two had been slain, and plenty more in other worlds where Tyrian Falls had fallen. It did not come from the surreptitious use of Emotional Allomancy to bend the wills of Tyrianers away from the death of a particular Allomancer, though those abounded as well. It came as an orphan girl fled Tyrian Falls, a furious mob on her heels. It came as Alais Short, gambler, and one of Tyrian’s hottest bachelors according to Acks, fell and Halsen shortly after him. It came as the Jaist and Rind fell separately to assassins in the night. It came as a blacksmith fell to a rabble roused to bloodthirst by the words of a housewise. It came as Aralis, the doubter, but nonetheless, with his heart in the right place, was shot multiple times by Lysia. It came as another Tyrian Falls narrowly eked out a victory against the Spiked infesting them; as Murph fell from a crossbow bolt and Samwise pursued Beagle onto the eastern wall. It came as the last survivors of this Tyrian Falls, here and now, found themselves alone against the dark. Against the army of koloss that had fallen upon them like an hour of wolves and red ruin. Ade had realised this, in her moment of mazed clarity: They just didn’t have it. They’d never had it, perhaps. They’d lost before they even began. Or they’d given up the advantage at some point in this struggle, some point Ade couldn’t possibly begin to comprehend. The Spiked never gave up. They could not be defeated in a decisive battle, in a confrontation of light and dark. The Spiked always rose to challenge Tyrian Falls, to tear it down in ruinous worship of their God. The brighter the light, the darker their shadow. And in the radiant light of the three Tyrian Falls that had, somehow, improbably endured the onslaught and triumphed, a new, darker shadow had appeared: a world in which all came to dust and ashes. A world of Ruin. Nibbles wasn’t sure what kept him on his feet. He staggered out the doorway of the wreckage, Pewter reserves dangerously low. That was fine though. He flared Tin, and sensation exploded at once, bombarding him with a thousand uncatalogued agonies, and he bit at the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. Pain from his multiple injuries blazed, all at once, and then subsided to a manageable red-white fire eating at him. He had to get to the Hound and Hustle. Or anywhere he’d stashed metals. Had to top up on his Pewter. He shouldn’t have trusted Lysia. It was an alliance of mutual necessity, not trust, but at some point, he’d let his guard down. He stumbled out into the streets. Around him, villagers were screaming, cut down by koloss. They ignored him, of course. God had willed otherwise. Lysia’s—whatever that was—had blasted a wide swathe through Tyrian Falls, leaving buildings unrecognisable, as though some farmer had come by and swung his scythe at harvest. Multiple fires had erupted through the village, voraciously devouring everything in their path. The jars of oil he’d buried at strategic locations were doing their intended job. Nibbles nearly stumbled over a corpse and fell flat on his face. Wasn’t sure he recognised who it was, either. Several blows from a koloss sword, with all the force that entailed, had rendered what was left unrecognisable. Around him, as the last of the light faded, and the world crept towards the long dusk, Tyrian Falls died with a final whimper. Days later, a young man was shovelling soil in the graveyard of a distant village when he heard a faint caw. A shadow fell over him. He paused, leaning on his shovel and shading his eyes with his upraised hand as he looked up. He felt a sharp pang of regret, mingled with grief, and remembered love. The familiar crow, bedraggled, weary, and thin, landed on the fence with another caw. Dirk knew, then, that his father was dead, and Tyrian Falls had fallen. The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins—but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. In one Tyrian Falls, a farmer hatches a mad plot to flush out the Spiked in their midst, trusting to the integrity of a banker and then a small group of friends. In another Tyrian Falls, a band of companions sacrifice themselves without hesitation, falling one by one to keep a scholar and caroler alive. In a third Tyrian Falls, a carpenter with a crossbow and an obligator make a desperate final stand against the last of the Spiked. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars. AG11 has ended! Thank you to @Wonko the Sane who provided Lysia's segments of the write-up. Credit goes also to Matthew Stover's Revenge of the SIth novelisation, which this write-up adapts because Penguin made me lean into the prequel memes anyway so let's just go full hog This year's pass winners are @Archer (Indigo Weasel), @Sart (Ivory Dragonfly), and Seoni- oh sorry, @Fifth Scholar (Amethyst Scorpion.) Congratulations! Players are reminded to take the opportunity to fill in your logbooks, as the mods will be cleaning out the accounts and changing the passwords after a couple more days. Thank you to everyone for playing in another year of the AG, and keeping SE alive. The Spiked may have won, but in the end, the true winners are the friends we cold-bloodedly murdered and stabbed in the back along the way Wait, that came out wrong... Player List: Docs: