Kasimir

Back in Tremredare, the precinct had a saying. Watch gets called out for anything—a stabbing, a brawl, the sort of drek that ends up with someone iced and floating facedown in the canal in the morning, the sarge always asks: “Did you check the intimates?” Get your mind out of the gutter. Thing is, when it comes to murder most foul, there’s only so many possibilities: the wife who’s had enough, the controlling husband, the possessive ex, the violent brother, the angry sister, the debt-ridden friend, the disgruntled business associate, the former colleague with a grudge… And so the circle expands, layer by layer. But you always check the intimates, first. It’s those closest to us that we don’t see the most clearly. Who have the power to hurt us the most. We trust them. And so we let them in. We tell them our deepest secrets, our darkest fears. We laugh with them, work with them, drink with them. We stay in the same building, rub shoulders every dawn and dusk. It’s surprising, what the intimates know about a person. A good investigator always hits the street and starts listening first, rather than talking. You can learn a lot about the vic that way. Who they were, what the people closest to them thought. Maybe you can’t ever really know a person, but their intimates are your window into their life, their character. We see but through this window darkly. Still, it’s better than dead nothing. Investigation’s gotta start somewhere. The intimates. We let our guard down around them. That’s why betrayal always cuts deepest, doesn’t it? In the end, it's not strangers who cause so much suffering. It's those close to us. It began, as these things often did, with a knock on the door, at dawn. No rest for the wicked, as the saying went. It was far too early, and the dawn light that poured in through the cracks in the shutters was a thin, bleak grey. The candle sputtered and flickered, throwing shadows over the confines of the office and its single occupant. Blinking blearily, Kast stared at the case file he was trying to close and wondered if it was worth the effort of getting up and answering it. A dark case, that one. He hated working missing persons cases, but they’d flipped for it, and Wyl had won, and that meant his business partner was up at the arse-crack of dawn looking into a cheating case to do with five ducks, and Kast was in the office, wondering if he felt like answering the door today. Somedays, it felt like it wasn’t worth the effort. Missing persons cases. They got under your skin. Her name was Lu. Rumours that she was somehow connected to Cat Lekal, but Kast didn’t believe them for a second. You didn’t come all the way to the remote reaches of the Western Dominance to hide from the games the nobles played. Better places to hide elsewhere in the Final Empire, with the sorts of luxuries the nobles seemed accustomed to. The brother was the one who’d reported her missing. He’d come all the way from Gamsbrook to speak with them. Wyl hadn’t liked it. “Long way to walk, just to talk to us,” he’d said, lighting up his pipe. Busying himself with the familiar motions of flint and herbs. “You blame him?” Kast raised an eyebrow. “Desperation drives people to do stupid things. You know this.” “Bah,” said Wyl, eloquently. And then, “There’s stupid, and there’s no damnfool reason.” He saw the resemblance, in the sketch they’d been given. Kast thought it’d been seared into his memory, by now. The wary way Lu glanced out at you from the sketch. There was that tentativeness, the hesitancy. You saw it too, in the way the brother had perched at the edge of his seat. Hadn’t felt at ease around them. Maybe that should’ve been the first sign. Told you so, Wyl had scribbled on the back of a receipt from the grocer's and stuffed into the case file. Kast marked it as SOLVED, even though they weren’t going to see a single clip for it. They shouldn’t have taken the case, he thought. But missing persons cases. They spoke to you. He didn’t think it right, that people could go missing, could wander off the face of the world and drop off into vast emptiness with not a soul to worry or care about them. Call him sentimental, he supposed. He didn’t think that anyone should be lost, just like that. Someone had to go looking. Knock on the dark spaces of the world. Sometimes these spaces gave up, surrendered the people they’d eaten. Sometimes the darkness was hungry. Sometimes it felt like they were just trying to stop the tide with a shovel. There was an ocean out there, enough to drown in. Kast’d been to Lansing once, a very long time ago. He’d seen the ocean, and wondered at what lay there, beyond such immensity. Sometimes, the darkness was just what lurked in the recesses of the human heart. He’d gone out to the woods, and dug, where the marker was, and he’d found her, and part of Kast wished he hadn’t, wished she’d remained lost, because there was a certain finality to finding a body, or bones. And although there was agony to never knowing, you could often console yourself, that they were alive, somehow. People vanished for reasons of their own, all the time. People vanished everyday on the streets of Tremredare and they’d solved only a tiny fraction of these and they gnawed on your conscience, both the dead and the lost. No matter how hardened you were, how bitter, how much drek you saw on the streets of Tremredare, you never quite let go of that hope. Kast’d seen street-crusted veterans head outside for a smoke and then quietly fall apart in solitude when hours turned into days, and then that lost child turned up murdered. But he’d found her bones, and he’d done the dirty work, the work a good investigator was supposed to do. He’d hit Gamsbrook, and knocked on doors and listened. And he’d done some careful surveillance of his own. Long nights. He wasn’t getting any younger. It’d been a dispute over money. The brother was deep in debt, and trying to shake off suspicions that he’d killed her. He buried her out there, deep in the woods, but then he’d been seen, and then they’d gotten him to talk. You did what you had to. There were always ways. The intimates, Kast thought. You always had to talk to the intimates. And sometimes...Sometimes, it was those closest to you that held the knife. People always thought about danger as coming from without. But the most terrible sins were not committed by strangers but by one who wore the face of a loved one. Not for the first time in the past decade, Kast Speirs wondered wearily how he had come—not so much come, as fallen, he supposed—from the Tremredare City Watch to running a small investigation business in the arse-end of the Western Dominance. The knocking on the door grew brisk, a staccato series of sharp knocks. Right. There was no point in putting it off, any longer. “Coming!” Kast growled. He shut the case file, and reached out for his cane. There was the familiar pain, grinding in his knee and hip like shards of smashed glass as he got up, but at least the cane took the worst of it. It was looking to be one of those days again. He measured the paces to the shutters in familiar stabs of pain as his body kept the score. They’d set the office up on the second floor, and not for the first time, Kast questioned the wisdom of that decision. But he’d been younger, then. And his leg hadn’t been that bad. “What is it?” Kast snarled, cracking open the shutters. He blinked owlishly in the morning light. He recognised Douza, the blacksmith’s boy. Far as Kast heard, Douza wasn’t keen on the trade. One of the worst-kept secrets in Fallion’s Tears, as it were. Worse secrets lurked in this village. “You’re wanted!” Douza called up, cupping his hands about his mouth. “What for?” Kast snapped back. “Another murder! By the tanner’s!” “Get Wyl!” What was the point of having a business partner if he couldn’t get on his feet and read the crime scene every once in a while? Part of Kast regretted the thought: it was best to get as many eyes on the scene as possible. Likely as not, they’d pick up on something each other missed. That was how they worked. Why they went into business together, among many other things. Secrets. You couldn’t get anywhere in this village without stumbling into one. It was Kast’s job to know things, and to ferret out things people’d rather he didn’t, after all. “Mayor says to get you too!” Douza shouted up. “And Wyl says to tell you to get!” Kast sighed. So that was how it was going to be. Wyl wasn’t the sort to send out a whistle for a lark. Never had been. And damnit, Kast trusted his judgement. “Tell them I’m coming.” Flakes of ash fell from the iron-grey sky. They dusted everything in a thin coat, even as the cold wind dashed them into broad glass windows and shutters. The low buildings of the village bunched together, as if hunkering down against the assault from the windward slopes of the mountains. The last of the night mists wreathed both land and mountains, but had begun to thin, and to dissipate with the light. The red sun bathed the mountain slopes in a ruddy glow, like freshly-fallen embers. Kast wanted to stop, to take in the view, but there was no time for it. Fallion’s Tears was quiet in the early morning light, and for a while, Kast allowed himself to believe he was the only one soldiering on, cane pressing into gravel and dirt. A wisp of smoke curled upwards from the tavern, while the blacksmith’s forge had gone cold. The metallurgist’s shop was shuttered, and even the customary line at the grocer’s or baker’s was missing. Slivers of pain stabbed into him with each step. It was getting worse. He resigned himself to another visit to the apothecary. Eventually. After he closed the other five cases waiting for him, back in that study. And after getting the milk. And he had to go out and walk the ground, get a feel for what happened with the Leas Fel case. The mountains rose up, an intimidating and jagged wall, wherever you looked. Nestled on the slopes, you could make out the ashmount Morag as well, on a clear day, the sort where the air was crisp and the sky the hue of pale fire. Fallion’s Tears was the sort of place where nothing happened. It hadn’t seemed a bad place to settle down in, and even though there were days the work ran thin, Kast rather thought he preferred that to drowning in the stabbing, assault, robbery, and rioting cases that seemed rife in Tremredare. He liked the quiet, and felt the stillness soothe the restless part of him that never stopped looking for the next threat. Fallion’s Tears was the sort of place you came to forget what life made you and to bury your wounds and ghosts. He limped on. The question of where everyone was soon became clear. A throng of villagers gathered around the tanner’s, on the outskirts of the village. Gawkers, no doubt. Drawn by curiosity, because it sure as hell wasn’t the stench of the drying hides. He worked his way through the crowd, step by painful step. “Took you long enough,” Wyl said. He was studying the corpse. Kast took a quick glance around. There was no real watch in Fallion’s Tears, just a band of volunteers who more or less overlapped with what the village called a militia. These were currently holding the crowd back, which Kast was at least grateful for. The last thing they needed was the scene to be contaminated. “Sorry, got held up. You know what precinct traffic’s like at this time of the night.” The doctor was nowhere in sight, which Kast supposed could mean anything. No sign of Mayor Wilson either, which didn’t seem right, given Douza had come in a hurry to get him. “Right, wisearse,” Wyl’s sidelong glance was both mildly amused and judgemental. “What do you make of this?” “You didn’t get Douza to pull me all the way here for any old murder,” Kast muttered resentfully, but he was already here, and so he grudgingly worked the scene. Vic was Bartholomew—he recognised the build and the wild beard, and suppressed the immediate flicker of empathy. That came later. Blood pooled on the dirt, sticky, but some of it drying. Dead for a while then, best as Kast could make out. If Wyl wanted a time of death, he was better off waiting for the doctor. The thing that struck Kast though was how horrific it was. Blood everywhere, some of it plastered on the sides of the tanner’s shed, and daubed everywhere, in the dirt, on the wooden walls of the shed, and even the shutters: KILL YOU ALL EVERYONE GONNA DIE An indecipherable mess of sticky blood, and then: WHEN THE KOLOSS COME “Koloss?” Kast murmured, trying to keep his voice calm and even. “Not without the Lord Ruler’s say-so, surely.” “Been rumours,” Wyl said. “Haven’t you been listening? That traveller who came through the other week. Mists-addled, they say. Raving about a wild band of koloss.” “You don’t put much stock in it, either.” “Suppose I don’t,” Wyl said. He stuck his pipe in his mouth and kindled a flame. He took a long drag from it, exhaling pungent smoke. “Well, what else’ve you got?” Kast turned back to his examination of the scene. “More staged than the Leas Fel one.” Leas Fel—they’d assumed it was a stabbing but it hadn’t felt right, and then now another one on top of that. Fallion’s Tears wasn’t a large village. Most of those here knew each other all their lives and it had taken years for them to accept the duo from Tremredare among their number. Sometimes, Kast wondered if they’d really made it at all. “You don’t say,” Wyl cocked an eyebrow at him. “Any more words of wisdom, then?” Anger flared. Probably didn’t help that his leg still hated him. “Why don’t you stop the damned fishing expedition and just tell me why the hell you had me brought here,” Kast said, trying to get ahold of his temper. “There’s ‘don’t contaminate the investigator’ and there’s being bloody cryptic for no bloody good reason.” “It’s a murder,” Wyl said. “Obviously. Within a week of the last one. Almost never happens here. That’s almost immediately cause for concern.” “Yeah.” “And the daubings. Meant to terrify, as you rightly noticed. It’s staged, almost ritualistic.” Kast folded his arms across his chest and leaned on the cane. “Still not getting to the point,” he said, shortly. “Indulge me,” Wyl said, “For a few moments more. Look at the body.” Kast breathed in deep and reigned in his temper. He looked at Bartholomew’s corpse. Reluctantly, he knelt, gripping the cane, and fighting against the screams of pain from his bad leg. He saw signs of a struggle: the broken fingers, and bruising. Staining on Bartholomew’s hands made it difficult to tell if it was blood under his nails or just pigment. “Same MO,” Kast said, eventually. “Chest wound, with significant blood loss at the scene. Staged, but Bartholomew actually died here.” He frowned. There was the gleam of something metallic, glinting a sullen ochre in the morning light. He reached out and moved the body enough to dislodge it, and his heart nearly stopped. It was a sharp, gleaming metallic object, about half as thick as Bartholomew’s wrists, tapering to a lethal point. It was a spike, the sort you saw in Steel Inquisitors. Unmistakeable. A spike. A fecking, Lord Ruler-cursed spike. Kast had never wanted to see anything like that in his life again. He knew then, why Wyl had insisted. Of the two of them, he was the one who had the dubious benefit of experience in this instance. Memories Kast would rather remain buried. It was the past, and it was dead now. Why not let it stay dead? But the present wouldn’t let them, Kast thought sourly. And there was the matter of what the present owed the past. And Wilson—as Mayor, her instinct would be to preserve calm. The whispers had already started, infesting the village of Fallion’s Tears with fear. Exactly as the perpetrators had planned. “I think,” he said, almost-conversationally, “This must be the worst thing you’ve ever had me take a look at, partner.” KILL YOU ALL. EVERYONE GONNA DIE. WHEN THE KOLOSS COME. Wyl smirked, and the corners of his tired eyes thawed, just a little. “You’re welcome. I still owed you one for that outhouse. Spent hours digging through drek just to find the missing lockbox. You’re a real arse when you want to be.” “Sure,” said Kast, absently. He stared again at the blood-encrusted spike. Bartholomew had died for this. Kast knew he kept a vial of bronze locked in his drawer at all times. What did the killers want with a Seeker? And why had the spike been left behind? There were so many questions, and the trick (always the trick) was to find the answers before the killer—or killers—escalated again. But as the sun rose over the village of Fallion’s Tears, and the new day was birthed in bloody light, Kast thought he heard only the harsh caw of distant crows. LG74: You Want It Darker (aka a homage to Meta's game and tradition) “If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game [...] If thine is the glory then, Mine must be the shame You want it darker We kill the flame.” —’You Want It Darker’, Leonard Cohen Tucked away in a desolate corner of the Western Dominance, as far as the crow flies from Tremredare in the West, House Heron’s traditional seat of power, the quiet village of Fallion’s Tears has recently been shocked by a series of gruesome murders. Mayor Wilson has appealed for calm, even as outlandish rumours abound of a warband of koloss heading in the direction of Fallion’s Tears. Nothing ever happens in Fallion’s Tears, they say. Pity everything started happening all at once. First those awful murders, and then all that talk of koloss. But who among you could’ve committed such a terrible act? You’ve known each other most your lives—haven’t you? What buried ghosts from your past will emerge in the ashen light of the red sun? There’s always another secret. And everyone has a past, or so they say. When will yours catch up with you? General Rules: Factions: Roles: Cosmetic Roles: I wish to acknowledge some friends and colleagues who helped me with the rules of this game. Credit for the original ruleset goes, as always, to @Metacognition, as this is based off LG1 and the three successive AGs. The Committee offered helpful suggestions that tamed the thicket of decisions. I am especially grateful to @Wyrmhero, @Claincy, and @Mailliw73 for providing invaluable comments that helped eliminate mistakes and improve the game in numerous places. I am grateful for their generosity. If any mistakes remain, the reader may look these esteemed professors up and ask them why they did not correct them. Sign-ups are open now and will close on Friday, 26th February 2021, at 2300hrs SGT (GMT +8). Quick Links:

[OOC: Quick items analysis: looks like Lotus had one Crab on her, and three Chalk. She might have started with one, and we know she picked up one during D5 since it was publicly announced. Other items were most likely claimed at Night but not used. Personal speculation: she picked the Crab up earlier or N5, which is around the time the Shadowblaze came into play, to try to scan for where the Shadowblaze went to. Doesn't seem to have been used, though. Again - what has she (or the Forgotten in general) been doing with their actions? There's no sense in being quiet during the Night - the basic level of analysis still needs to be done, even if we're left with the prospect of low-info lynches ahead. Moderate Village Trusts Weak Village Trusts Nulls I stress the tiers and reads should and can be kept fluid. I will continue to think about these things through to tomorrow.]

Need us to PM you Discord usernames? Otherwise I'm on the 17S and SE Discords, so if you're on either, shouldn't be hard to find me I'll shut down the RPGgeek account if it's not being used - I don't like leaving accounts all over the place

Another Forgotten. Duncan exhaled and stared out into the darkness. He had felt dread, as the court-martial approached. Evan, insisting he would go for the gun. Distrust of Elysian. And there was the fear, festering like parasites in his gut. The fear that was a cold wyrm of dread, curled about his heart, whispering in what sounded eerily like Wyatt's voice: you were wrong once. You were wrong about Wyatt, do you really think you'd know the difference between a Rithmatist and a Forgotten anymore, Duncan? One of them resigned, one of them stubborn. Duncan had feared. He had feared Elysian was rushing to his death. He had feared that with Evan and Elysian butting heads, all the camp would lose was one of two good men. Maybe more, if the court-martial went poorly. He had feared he was wrong about Elysian. Everything reasonable told Duncan Elysian was just another soldier—just another Rithmatist, but he'd thought the same of Wyatt, too. He'd believed. And Wyatt had taken that trust and had twisted it. Had used it to get Duncan to help him kill his way through the platoon, and even now, Duncan didn't think he could ever feel the weight of his sins lift from his soul. The Daughter had been Forgotten. Duncan had not expected that. He had an uneasy feeling, but he had not dared to trust himself. Not since the quiet reader had turned out to be a fellow Rithmatist. Not since Matt. Not since Aaron, or Roddy, or Rlint, or Dig, or— The dead were legion, and the past night, Duncan had dreamed. Of when it had been better. Of reveille, at dawn. Splashing cold water on his face, and then hurrying to tug his boots on and neaten his uniform. Reporting to his place in the squad, as Wyatt nudged and cajoled various squad members into place, ready for Kingswright's inspection. Kessen a quiet presence behind him, with a few muttered complaints about what JoSeun had done to his native Britannia. "Oi!" Wyatt called out. "Pipe down, Kessen!" It subsided to disgruntled muttering, before Kessen faded back into the background. "Dig," Dig said. "Dig a hole." It was his mantra, and Duncan had yet to decide if it was meant for reassurance, or if it was something Dig held to, in the face of the cold desolation of Nebrask. Everybody lived. No one died. Dig, fallen into the hole that had become his grave. The crunch of the shovel on bone. Dig nudged him. "Dig," he said, gravely. But he smiled, and Duncan couldn't help but smile, too. Duncan felt the prickle of unshed tears in his eyes as he woke up, and held to those gossamer-thin shreds of a dream. He wanted it to be real, so badly. Wanted to wake up in his bunk on Nebrask, that first tour, to find his squad still alive, his platoon still intact. To laugh with those men and women again. To find it had all only been a terrible dream. He didn't know what it was like not to startle at shadows. Not to question his own head, or the enemy that lurked within his own head. Wyatt was always there, even when Duncan drank. His whispers crawled beneath Duncan's skull, and Duncan didn't know if he'd ever be rid of him. Everybody's wrong, whispered that cold, cold wyrm. Even you. After all, you're only human. Duncan knelt in the dark, shaking. Finally, he sucked a little moisture into his dry mouth, and began to chalk out the beginnings of the Taylor Defense. It was tempting to go Blad, with unconventional Lines of Warding, but Duncan thought this was a night for Lines of Forbiddance instead. Everybody's wrong. He set the firm, unyielding strokes of chalk against the whispers, and drew.

I'm fine with Discord if we aren't using voice chat. It's a personal problem but I just have a great deal of difficulty focusing on pure audio, which has given me lots of grief throughout my university days. I'd say I'm more likely to respond swiftly on Discord too

[OOC: Araris claimed he went for the gun. Either that's some serious-chull busing right there, or he's Village. Edit: Oh, and Burnt claimed she laid down some acid. So we just need one LoW tonight.]

[OOC: Given the nature of work this week, it is likely I won't be able to say much beyond brief/final vote changes tomorrow morning. I've completed my re-analysis and ended up with a whole lotta nuttin', so I'm gonna just leave what I have here and do my best. First, on a pure actions analysis level, I think there are several groups of people to look at: 1. Who is generally low on chalk throughout this game? If we are correct in surmising that there seems to be a dearth of LoVs/LoSs employed (why not Vigor Gears, for instance, since he has Making+? @Araris Valerian, for that matter, why haven't you been doing Making+ scans?), then one answer might be that our Forgotten are scarce on chalk. Using D6 as the cut-off: In this pool, we have: Lotus (recorded as collecting 1 Chalk throughout the game, leaving her with a maximum of 2 Chalk), Mist (also recorded as collecting 1 Chalk throughout the game, leaving her with a maximum of 2 Chalk), Devo (recorded as collecting Chalk successfully on Night 2, leaving her with a maximum of 2 Chalk until D6), Books, who is also recorded as collecting 1 Chalk successfully throughout the game, and Araris, who has basically never collected Chalk, and therefore was dead out of chalk after Warding Night 2. 2. Who did not submit a verified action D3? Here is one theory: the Connie grinch was permitted, rather than a bus. By the time Striker and Devo sealed it, it was a done deal. I think it's worth looking at non-verified action claims in that period, as Evil players may have wanted to leave open the possibility of vote manipulation. This gives us: Lotus, Books, Burnt, Araris, Devo, and Mist. Okay, the same crew. A bit less helpful. I'm not going to pull the same line of reasoning for TUO as I think TUO's grinch has a bigger chance of being a bus. Shifting gears for a bit: Rithmatist Squad, Assemble! To recap, I am moderately certain that those on this list are Villagers. (Hey I Just Met You, And This Is Crazy, Here's My Reads List) Rithmatists Maybe?: To recap, I am weakly confident that those on this list are Villagers. I am just deeply confused about everyone else, and to be fair, probably Araris, though some of it might be the fact it's almost 3.30AM right now. Mist: I feel like the amount of craps she gives is not consistent with an Evil player, who would probably be trying to ingratiate more with Village at this stage. At the same time, she has been backtracking on the RNGesus issue, and this could in part be due to the need to help the team. Just not sure, really. Early actions are Bribe heavy which could be an Evil player trying to stockpile voting firepower. Votes have also been generally static and disengaged, which can be a bad sign. Edited to add: Someone with a crab may want to scan Mist I guess. If we can verify she's picked up those items, she probably hasn't been putting in NKs. Lotus: The vote on Archer D2 post-NR claim definitely makes me think she's not paying much attention to the game (I think she mentioned something about mobile), but the vote on Devo is either a player trying to engage with the game, or performative. (Yet, Evil Lotus would be better served just going for TUO...) Also defended the camp once N4. Significant number of forgotten actions. Randby: Clearly lurking, responsive (partly) to callouts, which might be an Evil indicator, or just a new player being new. Low participation in voting. Burnt: Reasons mentioned before and a bit of gut, but Burnt also seems disconnected and generally behind on thread events, and I wonder if Evil Burnt would really be playing catch-up this much. Devo: I feel like it's hard to read Devo, though going back over the votes, I notice Devo has sealed the grinch on every single day except D1 (where Devo didn't want a Danex grinch for arguably personal reasons), and D2 when there was the huge 'let's try to tie the vote' thing, and even then she voted on Mat. It's admittedly a bit safe, and makes me a little suspicious. As mentioned, actions seem consistent with Evil and Village. God, I'm tired. I'll get back on tomorrow and decide, I guess.]

I mean, there have been very perfunctory posts from players before which was obvious filter-dodging, though not with the literal content you specify. I'm not going to name and shame in this thread, just saying that there are times where it's fairly obvious that's what they're doing, even if you can't ding them for perfunctory content. I'd argue that you can set a line from the start codified in the rules, but if you want to creatively exercise judgement in the game itself, yeah maybe refrain.

[OOC: Cheers, thanks for the heads-up! Right, general note guys: no claim is captured in a blank space - italics capture claims, normal text what is known. And everytime a player has a - in an action slot, they forgot or otherwise claimed they did not submit an action. We have a lot of Forgetful people here >> ]

[OOC: I've generally been using it as an inclusive 'or', yeah. I note when the suspect pools overlap, as they do in Burnt and Randby, as I think that's definitely a possibility to track. Another question I've been asking myself as I redo the analysis: what has Team Evil been doing with their actions? I was relooking at the Connie D3 shrek, and it struck me that I'm not sure Connie was bused so much as the grinch was allowed through. Let's relook at Sart's count: Archer is a claimed Non-Rithmatist, which makes him confirmed Village if the claim is true. (Let's just give it probability .95 to be safe.) I was first vote on Connie and TUO so I guess I have a decent likelihood of being Village >> To reflect the fact we don't have word of GM, I'll italicise these. This makes Devo the last and latest voter on Connie, which isn't unusual for Devo, but this is a train with a significant number of Villagers on it, regardless of Devo's alignment. We know TUO didn't participate in the vote. So where were the Evil players? I ask about what they've been doing with their actions because it strikes me we haven't heard anything about LoVs or LoSes, and unlike us, the Forgotten have little reason to hoard chalk. Are they playing the item hoarding game? The next closest trains: This seems to point to me that Connie wasn't really strongly bused so much as the Forgotten just sat back and allowed it to happen. (But why? Perhaps one of them was on near the end - it seems to me that before Striker and Devotary, they might have had a chance to draw it to parity with Gears by using LoSes. But we haven't seen any sign, so what have they been doing with their actions?) Compare I suppose to the TUO cycle: Does anyone remember if Evil Devo enjoys busing? Normally, I'd say Devo voting on two Evil players looks pretty good, but Devo's tendency to vote late blunts that, since that could just be a late bus due to the conclusion being foregone by that point. There's technically a Ventyl vote on TUO which I think was missed, since I don't see another way the vote could've gone to Striker. Anyway, I'm still doing link analysis, though I've got a whole lotta nuttin' at the moment. In the meanwhile, please forgive me y'all because I think we're at the point where this needs to be in the open. I feel as though the numbers ain't great, especially given the activity state. This is, in a sense, my Hail Mary pass. Action Claims Drop: Be warned: Heavy images. I asked and got permission to screenshot my spreadsheet. I just did it because why not, and I needed the practice for GMing. Apologies :/ Hope you all can make more sense of it than me right now. Edited to add: This sheet misses that Randby went for the Book of Warding, according to Gears. Sorry.]

I don't think it's necessarily more likely, just that that particular team was like that. As it was, it was good because they kind of skated by while we started cutting each other's throats. I could easily see such a game playing differently but part of good game design is anticipating where player behaviour that isn't outright gamethrowing could break your design, i.e. what your starting assumptions are. (I don't think it would break a vote incentive design, but it's just one of those 'check your parameters' cases.) MR7 was a clusterchull and I've never forgiven myself for building and running that mess, but I think the lesson on the need to build a game that is robust for player behaviour is fairly solid. I don't think subjectivity is bad per se: look at KKC where the GMs might end up judging your submissions before the game. But I do think it's important to be careful with it because once a game is won or lost or a faction gains or loses a significant advantage based on an inconsistency in judgement, there will be player unhappiness. And that's something to decide if you wanna just caveat emptor it, or back off. You'll GM eventually and you'll get there, and probably work out your own GMing philosophy while you're at it I'm just here to data-mine my memory for the incentives/occasions we've tried and what the results were.

1. They did. It did. Also, building games on anything but dead obvious player behavioural assumptions is nicht gut. Case in point: MR7. 2. Yes and no - I'm not really comfortable with introducing too much subjective GM judgement. As a GM, I feel like the most important thing is for me to make consistent judgements. If players don't see consistency, they can feel I'm being unfair, and I wouldn't think that's wrong either. Some games did have this and were fun - MR1's Nightwatcher mechanic basically was the GM's judgement on the player's submitted RP. It was broken for many, many reasons, but the moment your subjective judgement can give - or concretely, ends up giving one faction an advantage over another, you're going to get avoidable drama.

QF2 had the opposite, with vote-based incentives. Definitely a lot of noise, and Team Evil voted for each other the most -.- Also worth looking at.

[OOC: Oof, my bad - it was italicised on my chart, which is the notation for a claim and I missed it. But thank you for the catch!]

Me, realising I actually have priority but am marked busy But no, no one in their right mind wants to GM both a LG and a QF at the same time. I certainly already have my work cut out for me, too

[OOC: That's what you said the last time before you killed my Lover You people really give a guy trust issues, you know.]

[OOC: H'okay. Sorry for the time taken - I'm still working on redoing my analysis by throwing out every assumption I've made, and I've got a high caseload this week so I will need more time. But here's something to try to stimulate discussion: 1. Was the Shadowblaze stolen? 2. What do we think the Evil team strategy/profile is? 3. What does the picture of actions last night tell us? To look at this, I think we have to go back to the known actions. Judging from our items bonzana, I'd guess at least 2-3 maps were used. The write-up certainly hints that more than one map was used, too. Here are our known map actions: Ash did not have chalk, and could not have dropped the lantern or the Books. Weak assumption: We currently have Map claims from Araris, and Mist, and I think Ash claimed in a PM he would be going to use the Map - the write-up certainly suggests he did. (Oh, look at my desperation, making sense from a write-up...) Here's the thing. We also know Archer didn't use his Map - this is because he was teaching Books a specialisation ( @Flyingbooks, you able to verify if you did get one?) So this gives us a maximum of three Maps used - based off the general picture of the item supply, it doesn't look like anyone else claimed a Map unless someone started out with one. So let's look at the item distribution patterns - notice that each time on the past three Nights (Two to Four), when a Map was used, a Specialisation Book spawns, along with a rare item. On Night Four, when two maps were used, we get two Books and two rare items. Night Six is not exactly weird: we have one Lantern spawning, Rainbow Chalk (+3, but Sart could roll differently for quantity), a Gun, and three Books. I think the safest read is that this corroborates Araris's, Mist's, and Ash's claims to have used Maps. Which isn't so helpful as Ash is dead, but this tells us that neither Araris nor Mist could have put in the Night Kill. I was using the Clock, and Gears was using Making+ on Randby, who had claimed the Book of Warding. This gives us a narrow pool of players who could logically have put in the Night Kill: namely <Devo, Burnt, Books, Lotus.> Of this group, I would say I have a slight trust of Books, which leaves me with Lotus, Devo, and Burnt in the main suspect pool. Let's take a slight aside. Could Ash have been Revoked? (Since the Map was used, we know he couldn't have been hit by Vigor or Vigor+, unless someone else was using a Map within the Devo - Burnt - Books - Lotus pool, which would imply they started with one. Given TUO's reluctance to use a map though, I find it strange that they might have, if Evil. Well, if Ash was Revoked, it clearly wasn't with vanilla Revocation, or it'd be in the camp supplies again. If Ash was hit with Revocation+, it would have to also come from our pool of Night Kill players, meaning <Devo, Burnt, Books, Lotus.> But our only known players with Revocation+ (emphasis on known) are Ash (dead), and Randby (whom Gears attests to as having collected the Book of Warding.) [ @Sart - Say Gears uses Making+ and is hit by Vigor+ - would he still see Randby taking the Book of Warding? And would the Book of Warding still be there the next day?] Though I've asked Sart about a paranoid scenario, I stress this isn't much better, as the pool of known players with Vigor+ include Books, myself, and Randby. I ascribe low probability to that, though we'll know tonight for sure. I suspect that Ash simply died with the Shadowblaze. What is Team Evil's strategy at the moment? God, I wish I knew. Either they're Warding to gain Village cred, which would give us the <Araris, Burnt, Randby> pool, or they're hiding among the semi-vocals, which would give us the <Devo, Lotus, Mist, Books> pool. Burnt and Randby, I'd argue, exist in both pools. If they're Warding for Village cred, I feel like the only way to explain Team Evil's strategy is to say they're focusing on outnumbering/parity with the Village and then using that tactic to gain control of the Defense and take it down. If they're hiding among the semi-vocals, we'd be looking for semi-engaged peripherals - in that regard, Mist and Books appear more favourable in my eyes. I already have previously mentioned my light Village read on Books, and my current (defeasible) sense of Mist is that Mist hasn't even been trying to ingratiate herself with the Village, and this complete indifference is not something I'd expect from an Evil player, though it has to be said Mist seems to be switching that up of late. I semi-disagree with Archer's D3 grinch read because my sense is that Lotus's Devo vote would never have triggered a counter-train anyway, whereas I'm surprised Araris didn't bus Connie, as is a known tendency for Evil Araris. (Village Araris on the other hand, has been known to stick to his guns and ignore existing trains on an Evil player - see LG68.) But I really, badly need to finish my analysis and relook everything at this point. Which I will do, it's just been busy. I'll say upfront that my vote on Burnt is honestly a mix of gut, a desire to create a three-way tie to see what happens and who wants to move the tie, and nothing in particular shifts me in one way or another. I had a very negative reaction when Burnt suddenly PMed me D4 to ask why Striker was still alive and that she didn't like that in the middle of the TUO train. At that time, TJ felt Burnt was trying to get back into the game. My gut felt as though she was trying to trigger my known paranoia or distrust, and the timing was interesting. I told her that if TUO flipped Evil, I might be more gung-ho on Striker, but I was going to see how it went. Chronologically, this was a bit before Reading's post here - about 2-3 hours. But by this point, I feel as though it's clear TUO had decided to get bussed as he just asked for a vote count, rather than making much of an attempt at defense. In fact, honestly, it was really perfunctory. But most of the early voters - except Araris - have already died and been confirmed as Village, so I guess if anything, this could point back at Araris too. I don't like Lotus's non-commitment to votes, which is (to me), a vibe I'm getting off her posts. But then she's been semi-disengaged as well in general so I don't know if that's an Evil thing or just a 'this game isn't clicking' thing. And I feel as though Devotary's actions, while helpful, aren't really clear-cut Village either. I get the thing about Araris's actions being Village, but even a deepwolf has to bite at some point. There's a point past which continuously helping the Village out in terms of actions just makes you a Villager because the strategic pay-off isn't there. I feel as though Araris has hit that for me - anything in my head that says 'but-' is generally Urbain paranoia and also the knowledge that everyone keeps talking about Araris's kayana-Evil rep. I guess we'll see later on if I've overwritten wise paranoia or if I've learned to stop letting the trauma of Wyrm and the teachings of Gamma get in the way of what I need to do. Ultimately, I think the issue for me is if we go back to the knowledge that one of Randby and Burnt has Warding+: why aren't players with Warding+ Warding? Why did it take so long, for the game to reach crunch point? Will any of the other known players with Warding+ who I'm not currently outing (but you know who you are) Ward tonight, if WC strength hits 4? That's a place where I stop and ask because it doesn't really feel right to me, but I haven't had the time to dig into why it doesn't feel right, and as I said, I'm currently redoing my analysis. As it stands, I think I am a little happier to go for Burnt, maybe, but this could easily shift. I'm okay with the Devo-Lotus-Burnt triad, but I need to really have the time to do my re-evaluations properly or risk tunneling. And yeah, we need more people discussing, in a nutshell. Some questions: Mist, why didn't you use your Map earlier? Lotus, Randby, Devo, Burnt, y u no Ward earlier? Araris, why Devotary? Archer, just why Books, did you get the specialisation? Gears, why do you Village read Burnt? I need to get back to my work. I intend to commit to finishing analysis and finalising a vote before rollover.]

Today or tomorrow, absolute latest Friday, depending on how I juggle the many things on my plate I know it's customary (okay, so TJ tells me it hasn't been for a long time but remember my old man brain still thinks I just finished playing LG15 ) for the game to be put up on C6, so this is me slightly missing the boat, but this week is a heavy caseload week for me, and I've had a bit more to do than I expected, but everything will be better soon.

Basically, yeah. "I'm claiming Elim" is only true if it is read as a claim about the claim itself - the problem with that is that it's not clear the content of the claim is in fact an Elim claim. A clear case of a statement that's self-referential and true: "I'm writing this sentence." The truth-maker of this statement is the sentence itself. It's not clear what the truth-maker of "I'm claiming Elim" is - yes, you've certainly made a claim, but is the content of the claim also an Elim claim? That's the crux on which the truth of that sentence rests. If the truth-maker is an Elim claim, then you have made an Elim claim. If the truth-maker isn't one, then you're claiming, but unclear what propositional content the claim takes on.

Yeah, I thought about it and I remember the most is targeting but that's shared with most players in Gen 1 to... I think Gen 5, at least, in early!Wilson's parlance? If a player dies a lot, maybe don't grinch/NK that early. If they just got back into SE, give them a couple cycles' grace. That sort of thing. But I'm not really sure that's the same as discussion here about killing the actives. And IMO, this takes us to the other side of the coin—where the Contribution Crusade failed, and also, just the fact that this would not be a problem if inactivity hasn't always been a problem. For perspective — yeah, it used to be way worse during the blight, but apart from my starting run of games, I can't remember not screaming at the Village to talk more from the confines of the dead doc.

You sure about this? Because I remember Meta mentioning many times he would go ham on inactives as a Coinshot because either they're hiding or they're not helping the Village. He's also expressly said many a time in a dead doc when we complain about dying early for rallying the Village that the point isn't dying, it's helping your team. It's why he started the SE Spartans thing after... AG2 I think? When Hael and I were complaining about how it'd be good to not die early once. What he has tried to do is probably consistent with most — if a player dies a lot, let them live a bit longer. If a returning player just got back, don't kill them C1. It's why he held back on scanning me C1 when he thought I was Evil that game.

[OOC: Still clearing a massive caseload today. In light of that, for the moment - Burnt.]

Been a while, eh? Ahhh, RP without needing to put up nasssty analysisesssss. Sounds just great to me! I'll head on over and follow the instructions.

[OOC: I can confirm the only two Ash claimed to have claimed to were me and Archer. But given that Ash had a Revocation+ specialisation and an expressed desire for the Shadowblaze, pretty sure it wasn't that difficult to figure out he might've tried for it.]

[OOC: Well, it's done so now I can say it - I used the Clock, which added 3 to the Camp's Defense. Defense was 4 - so yes, Ash was a Rithmatist and had the Shadowblaze, so unfortunately the NK hasn't been as informative as it could be. No idea if it was taken before he died, or no. TBH, I strongly suspect Ash was already suspected to have the Shadowblaze - Devo mentioned it in our PM. If that's the case, the Forgotten probably knew killing the guy with the Shadowblaze and stealing it would mean we don't get the benefit of knowing Ash's alignment on top of the NK removing someone else. Anyway, I'm busy this morning due to an overwhelming caseload, so I'll be back later. If Defense is 4, no one Warded last night. Map users at least could be helpful because we know their actions are accounted for, such as Ash's. @Map Users, which of you are claiming the use of Maps last night? Edit: Burnt best thread ninja ]