Kasimir

I can do you one better: here's the countdown timer. That being said, SGT is GMT+8, Hael's about an hour and a half ahead of me, and CDT is GMT-5, so we're 13 hours ahead of you (or 14.5) - sign-ups close at 7AM your time, same day, but you'll be looking at 8AM (your time) rollovers.

Basically, this boils down to wanting people to be clear about retracting their votes, beyond just verbal black text: "Oh hey I'm gonna vote for Joe now." With that in mind, searching for whether there has been an earlier retraction for each latest vote we look at starts to get really wild, alongside the other issue which is that going backwards, we'd also actually have to determine that a post really is the player's last. Easy for talkative players, less so for sporadic ones. So ideally, we're just going to go really fast through the pages until the first red shows up and then take that, rather than searching specifically for names and last posts. (Of course, this assumes you guys discuss a lot, so there's that, I guess ) In previous games, there have been one or two players who forget to retract, but this has by and large not been a problem.

Rule Clarifications Player List Spectator List Pinch-Hitter List

It was said that a man could not turn a corner in the Imperial Seat without stumbling upon a teahouse. There were many such teahouses; scattered throughout the districts of the capital. Some were little more than squat shops in which a labourer could grab a cup of hot tea at the end of the day, listen to the gossip that was the lifeblood of the Imperial Seat, and dice away his coin. Others were elegant affairs: towering edifices with arched roofs, where the artists and bureaucrats gathered to comment on paintings or exchange poetry. The Frozen Moon teahouse was neither. An establishment respected for its age, the teahouse was built next to an open courtyard, with blossoming peach trees overlooking a clear, still pond. Here, in the teahouse, the Imperial Seat’s underworld diced, fought, and otherwise mixed freely with the highest-ranked bureaucrats of the Empire. Here, affairs of state had once been decided; almost five years ago, when the streets and the gutters ran thick with blood as the factions plotted and schemed in the wake of the untimely assassination of the ailing Emperor Yazad, and one of the most cunning, most dangerous men in the Rose Empire, Arbiter Kaleva. The Frozen Moon, however, was over three centuries old, and while the sloping tiles of the roof had recently been repaired—there had been a terrible storm last summer, and half the roof had been damaged when the venerable peach tree planted in the day of Empress Taizu in the courtyard collapsed—much of the outrage of the years remained. The wooden door was a little more battered, and the paint on the walls had grown thin and faded, but the Frozen Moon persisted, looking somewhat worse for the wear, but a citizen could sit in the courtyard and sip tea and know that little had changed, at least where the Frozen Moon was concerned. Arbiter Oshin would have seen the same peach trees, as she sat in the courtyard and composed the famous Peach Yard Couplets that would lead to the formation of the Heritage Faction. There were changes, however. Little stirrings and eddies that suggested that the course of the mighty river of history was—potentially—about to shift. Wenshon went from table to table, copper kettle in hand, refilling cups of tea. Steam rose from the fired-clay cups, mingling with the sweet fragrance of the herbs. Usually, he was accompanied by a taciturn MaiPon server, but today, the server was nowhere to be found. So it was that Wenshon deftly scooped up coins, scrubbed at the tables, and carried out steaming plates of dumplings and tea sweets to the customers that frequented the Frozen Moon. In summer, it was slices of iced persimmon, neatly-arranged, and how Wenshon acquired such delicacies was a matter of some speculation. “...a disgrace! I have never heard of such an absurdity in my life,” snapped a stern-looking woman, her hair fastened back with an austere wooden clip. Conversations quieted, as the patrons of the Frozen Moon realised who was speaking. Arbiter Darela of the Reform Faction was young for an arbiter, and deadly-focused. What legislation she wanted, she got. It was said that only two people had ever seen Arbiter Darela smile. She was the pride of Salshi, her home province, and kept a miniature cultivated Salsi thorn-bush in a clay pot on her desk. Right now, however, Arbiter Darela was irritated. What was more unusual, however, was the person whom she was cross with. Arbiter Huzin, who was currently the most powerful woman in the Rose Empire, sat there, arms folded across her chest, and sighed. “That’s the problem with you, Darela,” Huzin retorted. “You’re far too stubborn for your own good—it’s your way, or nothing at all, and suddenly it’s tyranny when the Emperor seeks only to pass a law for the stability of the Rose Empire—” “A law which allows Emperor Gamman to censure individuals or organisations that offend public integrity by promoting falsehoods!” Darela shot back. “Huzin, you must see this. It is extremely dangerous to allow the ruling arbiters to decide what is truth and what is falsehood, and to allow the censure and punishment of those who disagree with us. It is far, far worse for us to cede that power entirely into Gamman’s hands.” Huzin was shaking her head. “I respect your perspective, Darela. I truly do. But this was the fourth Svordish agent we’ve caught within the Imperial Seat, and the last one provoked a riot in the Hall of Memories. Thirty-one citizens dead, Darela! You cannot continue to cry tyranny the moment Gamman enacts necessary laws and allow more to join the dead.” “Lushan wasn’t Svordish.” Huzin scowled. “He took their money. He commanded the guard. He played stones with the Svordish diplomat every Tuesday.” “Hardly the basis for subversion, Huzin! Or shall we all start looking to our friends and shunning those of foreign origin?” “Enough, Darela,” Huzin said. Darela drained her cup to the dregs and slammed it back down onto the wooden table. “I think,” she said softly, “The problem is that it will never be enough. There will always be another danger, another threat. Won’t there?” “Those who seek phantoms will always find them,” Huzin replied, just as quietly. Their voices carried in the hush that descended within the Frozen Moon. “Go to your work, Darela. We will do what we must.” For the third and final time, the central room of the Frozen Moon saw Arbiter Darela smile. It was a tired smile, perhaps, touched with wariness. “You will, I presume.” She bowed her head; whether in acceptance or challenge, it was not clear. She left behind a sizable tip for Wenshon as she left the Frozen Moon, the door creaking shut behind her with the loud complaint of age. From the shadows, unseen by all except perhaps Wenshon, who was getting on in years, but was still sharper than Gixin steel, a MaiPon man padded after her. ㄢㄋㄌ QF40: Uneasy Lies “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” —William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1: 1735. It is the fifth year of Emperor Gamman’s reign. The eighty splendid suns rise and fall in turn, illuminating the sprawling expanse of Imperial Seat. In the shadows, plotting and intrigue goes on, wheels within wheels, coin exchanging hands and playing-pieces falling into place as the game of games goes on. Emperor Gamman has schemed his way into power, riding on the chaos unleashed by the power-struggle between the Heritage, Moderation, Glory, and Discovery factions, in the weeks since the previous Emperor, Yazad, had been slain by a MaiPon assassin. But some do not forget. In a modest teahouse in a corner of the capital, schemes simmer and steep like tea leaves, reaching a boil... Gamman will fall. This cause has drawn members of the various Factions together in a private tea room of the Frozen Moon, even as you eye one another warily over cups of steaming tea. But first: can you trust everyone in your midst? ㄢㄋㄌ General Rules ㄢㄋㄌ Win Conditions ㄢㄋㄌ Roles Sign-ups have opened and will remain open until 16th October, 8PM, GMT+8. (This is to give us time to get set up and to figure if we need to tweak the Embedded Operative cycles.) The IM for this game will be @Fifth Scholar . Quick Links:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

I'd like a spec doc link, please. Looks like a busy October for me.

Another great write-up, Wyrm'alor, though I don't really know how you managed the Tarachin, nor how we flubbed our roll We're about as charming as a Hutt's rear end, it seems. Will think about the rest. Don't suppose we can send Brightweave the Creative a fruit basket an apology with a priest performing a limerick for them? This should get both Brightweave and our priests upset with us j/k I favour the limerick for the augury. Just because it seems fun. Guess Hera will have to keep on being scandalised by us [X] The limerick

Uh-oh

For the Tarachin, I'd suggest gods we haven't yet interacted with. Might be good to sound/feel them out. Neutral otherwise.

Cheers, I'll do that. Glad it appeals to you

Happy day for me (well, it's been a few weeks but I'm still in disbelief.) After three years of struggling, I finally turned in my Master's Thesis. Felt really good going to the office and handing them the printed copies. What does this have to do with being a Sanderfan, you ask? Three years is a long time. In my acknowledgements page, at the very bottom: "Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. The most important words a graduate student can write are the next words."

Death Comes As The End (aka a Scadrian murderparty) “Life was not a matter of safety — it must be hazarded to win the game.” —Death Comes As The End, Agatha Christie To tell you the truth, I should’ve never accepted the invitation. And neither should you. Bit too late for that now, though. If House Oswin had gathered and collectively decided to produce the greatest waste of space, the most useless person ever since the Catacendre—then they couldn’t really have done any worse than Talbot Oswin. Talbot Oswin; flirt, rake, dabbler, wastrel. Throws the best parties, though. Guess it must be nice to never run out of Mam’s cash. Mam was a Heron, see. Born rolling in the money, as they say. ‘Course, all of that’s besides the point. Talbot Oswin now, he’s dead. Never thought a berk could bleed out that much. The more you know. Shame about the carpet though. And the wine. Thing is, someone iced Talbot Oswin. And with the manor locked tighter than a gixie’s purse, we’re shut in here with them as did it. You’d best be finding them soon, Chief. ‘Cause Talbot Oswin? He didn’t just fall onto a knife now, did he? He was helped. Takes a certain coldness to cut a man’s throat as he’s lying there, helpless, like a trussed pig. That sort of scum? They’re as like to strike again. General Rules: Win Conditions: The Manor: Roles: Note #1: I will, obviously, be having the stuff that can't be immediately revealed checked over as thoroughly as possible. I have also edited the General Rules to remove references to start time or favoured format for vote changes as neither of that is currently relevant. I had toyed with the idea of enforcing cosmetic roles, but ultimately, I do not wish to. Picking a cosmetic role should be about fun, and having to force players to accept a freely-chosen restriction on RP sits poorly with me. I had this idea steeping for...a long time, I think, in some form or other, but ultimately, the number of players who mentioned that RP-intensive games appealed to them surprised me. And then here we go. Feedback welcome, as always.

Keeping that in mind, if we want @DrakeMarshmallow's idea to work (why not, it's a CYOA RP, right? ) my sense is that it might very well be worth a shot. Go big or go home. Buuut to do that, we'd need a lot of factors to align, or that we'd have to aim for. I don't know if we'd succeed in them all right away. I fully admit this is from a guess about Wyrm's GMing tendencies 1. How much about BioChromatic Breath does Songbearer know? We need him to be able to understand what the Fifth Heightening does, if there's any loss or fractional loss of breath. It might also help if Songbearer is aware of any precedent. Basically, we need him to be reasonably familiar with the mechanics of Breath and to not be a tabula rasa. He's studied some Breath, certainly. Might need a bit more. Might not. 2. Support from his Priesthood We need his priests to be playing the same game as him. I could be wrong ( @Wyrmhero, is this information we can ask after?) but my sense is we might have gotten a slightly lukewarm to vaguely positive about us sort of priesthood. Too early to do anything significant. Well, we have to win them over. As Drake mentioned, strong disincentives yes, but the Breath has to be held in an honest Priest in the meanwhile (even if only to retrieve Breath stored in an object), which means one of Songbearer's own. We need there to be no or minimal embezzlement, we need his Priests to be okay and comfortable with this and not about to backstab Songbearer in horror because w00ts idealists. 3. Wealth In Warbreaker, they talk about how the people who give their Breath to sustain the gods are well-compensated. While SB isn't insolvent, I bet he's probably not got the treasury it takes to collect two thousand breaths (though we might have more if we raided our priests or Awakeners, but that would cost us, I think, in support.) The question then is how we're going to drum up the funding to do this. 4. Politics Songbearer especially cannot afford to be ill-regarded by the Court of the Gods or to have influential enemies. There's nothing worse than political opponents realising the reclusive new guy is building up on...power. That breeds paranoia, and not all the moves made against SB may be overt. (Yes, he can talk about using it for good stuff...but who's that naive, right? Lmao.) The more Songbearer burnishes his reputation, of course, the more people might buy that. But conversely, it's great to have political allies who might also fund or support or extend such programmes of Breath loans, for instance. Basically, we have to pay attention to SB's political context because if we don't, Wyrm won't shield us from the politics regarding us with extreme disfavour - and potential bad consequences. We need a good policy with the Breaths, that's true. But we'll also need to cover the groundwork over several actions, more or less, or we probably won't even get to implement these successfully.

That part where @Elandera presciently figured out how many pages I'd add to the dead doc out of sheer deceased boredom

There's a quasi WoB (i.e. Sanderson has stated he likes this but is not 100% certain about confirming this) that the effects of the missed years hit you all at once when you give up the Fifth Heightening. If the same applies for diseases, this would not be workable. Edit: Aha! Knew I'd read it somewhere. Thanks/ht @Weltall :

Good point. [X] Prepare to propose our motion regarding a 'insurance-system' for injured dockworkers. Excellent. I vote: [x] Give Breath to Wyrmhero. There we go

Are we even going to be allowed to choose how to save a life? Well, now that we've got a new slate of actions to choose from - I'm going to repeat my vote for the Tarachin game. Maybe less specific now: get a bunch of gods, preferably those we haven't already talked to, and play a game of Tarachin with them. We aren't out to win, just to socialise, feel them out, and so on. Thus: [x] Be a Tarachin superstar Play a game of Tarachin with a few of the gods Also, we've spent eons cooped up in the Court of the Gods. Time to get some fresh air. [x] Ride through the city No duty, no rules, no petitions. Just fresh air and the city. Everyone's gotta see the world sometime, after all.

Have survey, and it should be automatically set to display results/responses so that's great. I'm not collecting any personal information, including usernames: the survey is 11 questions long but most of the questions are just asking you to rank factors. It's basically about SE from the perspective of a player, and then of a GM. Would appreciate it if people filled it out if they find themselves with a bit of spare time!

Sorry. Mobile's a pain. Anyway I disagree. It did make it difficult to figure out your allegiance and if the Village had more room to play in, I'd probably have bit the bullet and suggested a terminal Seek on you. The point is that deliberate (undeliberate) inactivity in your case, is a fair Eliminator tactic. This game is an illustration of where that's effective. If anything, I'd put the onus on Villitage. There are ways to counter inactivity as a strategy. Contribution Crusaders, as Bard calls them. The Wyrm Inquisition, as I prefer. Or a kill role going Meta and killing inactives to flush people out into activity. It's not great but it's not terrible either.

Thanks for the game Elan, t'was fun, goodnight all. And now my watch has ended.

Off the top of my head: Abstain for Coinspender, aye for Firesoul - let's work in some possible emotional connection to a worker past, even if SB can't remember, since we did make that choice to begin with, and aye for Brightweave. New Court, new policies. Oy vey, Coinspender's gonna hate us Somehow, I think we can live with his disregard.

It's called physique-al negotiations, storm it Let's get physique-al, physique-al... (I don't think I can link the song here as it's not PG-9 but close enough )

Uneasy Lies “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” —William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1: 1735. It is the fifth year of Emperor Gamman’s reign. The eighty splendid suns rise and fall in turn, illuminating the sprawling expanse of Imperial Seat. In the shadows, plotting and intrigue goes on, wheels within wheels, coin exchanging hands and playing-pieces falling into place as the game of games goes on. Emperor Gamman has schemed his way into power, riding on the chaos unleashed by the power-struggle between the Heritage, Moderation, Glory, and Discovery factions, in the weeks since the previous Emperor, Yazad, had been slain by a MaiPon assassin. But some do not forget. In a modest teahouse in a corner of the capital, schemes simmer and steep like tea leaves, reaching a boil... Gamman will fall. This cause has drawn members of the various Factions together in a private tea room of the Frozen Moon, even as you eye one another warily over cups of steaming tea. But first: can you trust everyone in your midst? ㄢㄋㄌ General Rules ㄢㄋㄌ Win Conditions ㄢㄋㄌ Roles Edited to note: More or less finalised version for scrutiny and comments. Edited to add #2: For the purposes of committee screening, I declare that all relevant rules have been indicated as such in the given ruleset. Rules that have been omitted are more points of order than actual game-relevant rules and include: a reminder to abide by Etiquette and Fair Play rules, as well as requests on how votes should be formatted for the purposes of swift counting, etcetera.

Ah, okay. Then I'm going to go for: [x] Be a Tarachin superstar Play a game of Tarachin with a few of the gods Ideally with the gods that are putting forth proposals. I mean, it's a way for them to get to know Songbearer and try to manipulate backstab get the newbie to vote with them, right? Why not?