Kasimir

And jaelre makes twenty. Welcome! Kassel had considered lingering further in the courtyard, but he'd ended up making his way into the manor and getting positively scowled at by the Seeris woman, whatever her name was. He sighed. He swore he had a good memory for names, but that one was eluding him. Gossip, insults...he pulled out a steel-nibbed glass pen from the pocket of his suit jacket and tried to see if he could discreetly sketch on the tablecloth. Fortunately, his table had just one seat at it. He wasn't feeling in the mood for more gossip or association today. Plenty of time for that later. It was more constructive to see who had bothered to come, and this early into the ball, there wasn't a point in speaking to anyone. Later, he would watch who left; who lingered, and where the connections were beginning to form. If tenuous, they were still stronger connections to draw than the idle chatter and threats that often seemed to happen at house balls. Begriffsschrift They really should've sent Lissel, he found himself thinking. If the Heron house ball was a major event, as this seemed to be shaping up to be, then they should've sent the heir rather than himself. He was...disposable. A useful cousin, by all means, but no one particularly important. Just to calm his nerves, he started sketching out the Telian square of opposition on the crisp white tablecloth to pass the time, making sure to ink the pen. Fingar had criticised the Telian square on several counts, particularly on the disposition of the contraries, but Kassel found himself nonetheless interested by the way Telian had set out the neat diagonals within his logic system. The universal quantifier is contradicted on this end by a contradiction of the universal quantifier...while it implies the existential quantifier...he shook his head at that. Fingar had gotten that right, at least. The universal quantifier did not imply the existential; neither did the opposite hold true. For all of that, though, the conversation between two men long dead appealed to him far more than the antics of the other nobles growing restive, waiting for Lord Heron to make an appearance. I really hope, thought Kassel, that he doesn't intend to keep us all waiting too long...

Hey King, I'd just like to clarify something in what you've already said. So just to be very clear about what you're saying (and to avoid my being the Leeroy of this game ) : If an injured Thug doesn't burn Pewter during a Night they are injured, they will die because the injuries stack into a death. Am I correct? They do not die because of injuries becoming upgraded and the injury in this case cannot be upgraded. Thanks!

Fair enough, and thank you for the explanation. I didn't particularly get party members mourning the moral status of the "always evil" races, so I've never really understood the deal with them. I can see why it would get on the nerves of some.

I just want to make several points even though I understand discussion in the thread has gone beyond that. 1. Clarify that position, please. There are two senses of moral objectivity/relativism we can be discussing here. First is metaphysical objectivity. I do not know if you intend to push the position that all facts that the Orders take to be moral facts are subjectively grounded, rather than given objective "out there" metaphysical status. The second sense of moral objectivity/relativism simply is epistemological in nature and suggests that a proper objective stance would produce the moral truths. Which are you denying, then? At first glance, I don't think it's immediately obvious with either stance that the Orders "ascribe to a relativistic morality." When Syl tells Kaladin that something or the other is bad and makes a moral claim, Syl isn't saying, "Kal, doing that is bad for us." She's making a moral claim she believes to be a fact that has universal grounding. Regardless of whether Syl might or might not be correct as an epistemically limited agent (do spren share the same epistemic limitations as regular people?), there's nothing there that immediately suggests at relativism. In fact, I would suggest that to read her stance (assuming she is representative of the Windrunner system of morality) is to immediately deny both senses of relativism. Syl wouldn't sit back and say that what Szeth was doing was "good/correct for Szeth." 2. I do not claim the spren are amoral. I think the cryptics are. If there is a moral quality that the cryptics are claiming for, it's not immediately obvious. Second, you need to draw a distinction between what we perceive as moral qualities and what the cryptics appear to perceive as moral qualities. I suggest that given Pattern's portayal so far, you have no reason to make the assumption that Pattern chose Shallan for any particular moral qualities that called to him. I would not deny that Syl is clearly not amoral. 3. Does morality and ethics really affect people? How many people particularly care about the categorical imperative as something that guides their action? How many people are particularly troubled by the Darwinian dilemma and what that says about moral relativism? Here are other philosophical questions that genuinely affect people: how do we evaluate expert testimony? (Especially important in an increasingly technological age.) What should our disposition towards it be? Who is an epistemic peer and how do we rationally resolve disputes? What is justice and how do we achieve a just society?

Is there some reason for this growing need for not all Trollocs to be shown as evil pawns? I'm just curious because I heard the same criticism levelled at orcs in Lord of the Rings, and it frankly never really bothered me. I don't want ethical complexity in all my books and I'm perfectly happy to have Always Lawful Evil Trollocs.

Not a very long post (typing on mobile is never fun) but I wonder why you seem to consider Lightweavers (with their cryptics) to be shoo-ins for some variant of moral relativism. Sure, cryptics do seem to be more comfortable with a more fluid picture of truth, but as far as I'm concerned, it just means that they're not good fits for Kantian ethics. But that being said, I'm reading the cryptics as more amoral. I would suggest they might end up being non-prescriptivist, but I think there's less evidence for what to make of their normative concerns (if any.) Branching out slightly from (boring ) ethics-- 1. Maybe we should recast the idea of honour into a slightly more virtue ethicist/ classical philosophy light. The different Orders map out difderent pictures of what it means to be virtuous, or what it means to lead "The Good Life". And really, while there's a sense of normative value in this reading, I want to suggest it is potentially interesting because 'ethical value' doesn't fully cash out this broader sense of normative value. 2. As a bit of an aside, I think it is very interesting to consider where Skybreakers map onto, where the philosophy of law is concerned. Do Skybreakers accept the concept of wicked legal systems? (See: Dworkin.) What do they recognise as laws? Do they treat laws as possessing normative content? What sort of normative content is this? Is this ethical content? P.S. Seriously, ethicists get all the spotlight everytime someone says 'philosophy', which frustrates the other 80-90%

I hope no offense was taken over this affair :S I don't think further pursuing it is very helpful, but I'm going to make what will--from me at least--generally be final remarks. First, as is my general rule/standard practice, I deleted myself from all in-game PMs upon my termination on Night Two. As such, I have to admit I cannot be absolutely positive of what I am now going to say. I discussed some extent of Game 6 strategy with Aonar in that MR1 dead doc. It was very brief. As Padan Fain, it was not in my interests to keep people thinking about Fain and in most cases, I tried to steer the conversation away from Fain and towards the DFs, I did suspect Wilson of being the Forsaken early on and believe I said as much. However: given the tendency for people to worry about Fain, I could have used the MR1 dead doc as a way to conceal that I had been in early contact with Wilson and Awes. I am not absolutely sure that was the case as I'd also pretended to receive that Mayorial PM. (As you can see, I am doing a great job at keeping PMs straight.) So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

I don't have much to say in terms of feedback for this one, I'm afraid, but as per usual practice, I'd like to thank everyone for the great game And thanks for GMing it, Meta! Edit: No, there is something I do want to say. I at no point suspected King. That in itself was telling. I did not dare to trust him (not so easily) since prior trauma from MR1. However, that is not the same thing as suspecting him.

Great game, and I'm kind of glad I died on Night Two. I've been asking this repeatedly in the dead doc: does this make me an honorary villager? Can I be appointed an honorary villager? Because y'know, I never got around to actively sabotaging the village. I was being Mr Helpful Villager all the way until my untimely death Which was just as well as the Shadar Logath doc is full of my personal moments of panic (which Gamma had to deal with; poor GM!) with regard to how to angle for a Corrupted win >> Also, panic. A lot of panic. Did I mention the panic? I'm both amused and half-annoyed that Mashadar was getting around after my death. It's making me a hipster--lugging around Mashadar before it became mainstream. And I don't like this hipster business

...All I can think of is a reference to Mephistopheles, but I'd bet that's probably not it At least with Meta on the rules game, my job is done here

I agree about getting outside the house. Sometimes, I hit the gym, or I go and do some work. I'll pick something to challenge myself--a mathematics problem I can't solve, a logic formulation, a particular article of German grammar I've been having difficulty with, and push past it. It's hard to do it, but I keep telling myself I have to do it and once I'm engaged in it, the sadness goes away. Other times, I write. And in those very, very worst cases, when I can't focus or something, I go and sleep. A lot of times, it gets worse when I'm physically exhausted. And I tend to feel a lot better after I wake up. And if none, absolute none of these help... I make a cuppa

Can we uninvolved other-nobles set up a betting pool for how the dispute is going to go?

The first thing that struck him was the stench. Kaim found himself reflexively calling up the ko’di, using the flame and the void to keep his nausea under control. The stench of evil, of murder. He’d almost forgotten how it felt like. He’d never been able to track again; not since Shadar Logath. He shouldn’t have gone into that city, but the murderer had gone there, and he’d thought of the carnage left in his wake and knew he had to follow. He’d come out drenched—utterly soaked—in the stench of evil and that thief-taker’s sense burned out. First, he used the ko’di, decades of control snapping back in an instant, to shut down his awareness of the other, individual shadowspawn. There was something in particular, and he bent all of his lost skill towards locating it. After all, he thought, it’d left a distinct impression, after all those years. He smiled. The Trolloc that strode towards him, spiked club at the ready never knew what hit it. Kaim dodged the swing of the Trolloc’s club—the instincts of life still strong, despite death—and then the hilts of his short sword and sword-breaker appeared in his hands. He closed within striking distance in an eyeblink and cut the shadowspawn’s throat. The Trolloc gurgled—the hot heavy scent of blood freshly-spilled struck him—and Kaim strode past the afflicted shadowspawn, unconcerned, leaving it to die. He danced past the next Fist, knives flashing. Sword forms could be adapted for a knife-fighter’s reach, and an adjusted Folding the Air paired with Striking the Spark on the sword-breaker met flesh and parted it. Every blow was a step; every step a blow. In the Void, still attuned to the stink driving him onwards, his weapons were tongues of flame, licking outwards. All else was emptiness. Nothingness. All else burned. Blood; heavy-iron-stench. Trollocs bellowed and sagged in his wake. Kaim smiled. He had work to do. - Mashadar’s stench drew him; the rancid stench of evil he’d carried for long enough that he almost forgot how it felt to breathe without it. At some point, the fog changed; the gentle mists that had accompanied the golden cry of the horn and the figures that had charged out of the mists had faded; replaced by the swirling hate and darkness of Mashadar. Tendrils of Mashadar carressed him; curious, fond, even. Trollocs and even a fallen Halfman littered the ground. Some of them bore the marks of blade-wounds; still bled out onto the mist-enveloped ground. And in the middle of the carnage: smeared with manure, the still form of Leas Fel lay collapsed on the ground. More striking was the panda—as clean as though it’d been washed—grinning, thrust into Leas’s belt. Kaim grimaced as the stench intensified. “There you are,” he said. He bent down and pried the panda free. “Don’t know what bloody mischief you’d have gotten up to, stuck in that man’s belt like that.” It was a weapon, he told himself. One he’d carried for so long. One he wielded far better than any blade. And for all he’d planned to envelope the village in Mashadar, to drown it in the evil that had destroyed Shadar Logath…he thought of warm nights by the fire, a good pipe in his hand, the taste of sweet Sharan leaf, Bunnt’s apples, Witless laughing and— The flame wavered and died. He was thrust, spluttering, out of the Void as surely as if someone had dunked cold seawater over him. The stench of evil was everywhere at once, overwhelming him, just as it had that fateful night. He was older now, though. Perhaps wiser. And very much dead. He found his pipe, wondered where it’d gotten to and then shrugged. Dead men had other things to worry about. It lit up with a thought, he breathed in the sweet fragrance of that batch of Sharan leaf he’d thought he’d never smoke again. The smoke from the pipe drifted up lazily through the air as Kaim strode off; mingling with the brooding mists of Mashadar. In a few moments, the thick mists had swallowed up the still, pale, and dirt-smeared body of Leas Fel. From where Kaim gripped it, the panda swivelled its head to look back, still grinning. Black-button eyes stared at the body Kaim had claimed it from. Kaim had, for a moment, the strangest feeling he’d forgotten something. He shook it off. He had other worries, for now. - The crooning song of the draghkar led him, would’ve beguiled him, if he hadn’t been guided by the whispering evil of Mashadar, concentrated in the panda he bore with him. Mashadar was everywhere. He thought death had freed him from it, but Kaim knew better now. A seed of it remained in him; too deeply buried to be prised free. He’d touched the evil of Mashadar, and even in death, he couldn’t have remained unchanged. He hacked his way to the dragkar, felt Mashadar following him, streaming out from the panda he’d tied to his belt with a strip of torn cloth he’d cut from a corpse. “I need the hill,” Kaim said, to the draghkar, its leathery wings unfolded, bat-like and skeletal in the mists. “You’re in the way.” He stepped and threw, as he’d done on practice fields back when he was a lad, apprenticed to Ishar. The sword-breaker didn’t spin; it embedded itself into the thin membrane of the draghkhar’s wings with a meaty thwack. The draghkar screamed; the sharp note of despair and pain cutting through the crooning of its song, meant to lull the victim to its deadly embrace. Not here. Not today. Kaim knelt, untying the panda from his belt. From the hill, he had a vantage point, from which he could see the masses of trollocs gathering at various points in the village. So many shadowspawn, he found himself thinking. All for one village. For the first time, the panda was no longer grinning. Two-handed, he reversed his grip on the short-sword and drove it down into the panda. Once. Twice. He heard a thin, tearing scream, of despair, of rage, of hatred—it went on and on, a shrill note that cut through the draghkar’s song, that couldn’t be drowned out—he realised he was curled up on the ground, hands pressed desperately over his ears, but still he heard it, and it seemed to go on forever— And then— The world seemed to go still. Mashadar exploded from the ragged, torn, abused panda, spreading outwards from the hill, ravenous, vengeful, seeking. It ripped through the draghkar, shredding it, muscle from muscle, sinew from sinew, leaving a bloody thrashing mess. And then the hungry mist devoured even that. Furrows of mist arrowed down the hill, tearing through the massed ranks of Trollocs, withering what it touched and dissolving them into handfuls of scattered dust. The Halfmen writhed, thrashing about in their death agonies where the mists of Mashadar touched them, skin melting away and running where the fog touched it. The screams, Kaim thought. He’d known shadowspawn could hurt. They’d feared him, when he walked as a living man carrying the Taint of Shadar Logath with him. And now… The draghkar had gone silent, but its flayed wings twitched, limply. The ruined, tattered panda was dead now; little of the stench remained. Kaim stood up. He thought about claiming his lucky sword-breaker from the dying draghkar, and then shook his head. He walked away, into the mists of Mashadar, following their passage. Sorry, Aonar, following some instructions left for Good Guy Fain Also, I'm more than happy to leave some of Mashadar with Leas. It's in my job description after all

Whoa, already? ...Time for me to get in and do my thing with the rules o.O Could I check what the rules for inactivity this time are? >> I'll do my best to be active (and I don't think I'll have a big issue with it), but just in case...

When you compare a really difficult task to "duelling a chasmfiend stark naked."

It wasn't in the rules post itself. I think Meta left it somewhere in-thread as a rules clarification, same business as with the hook. I remember noting it because I had the Loaded Dice then.

What happened in this case: Riitiidiikiir was able to bid for and win the Loaded Dice at 1 coin each time. Now, consider that using the Loaded Dice to gamble increases your odds of winning and waives the gambling costs. Winning also gets you three coins. Doing so, you can expect to win two coins, which outweighs the entry costs.

*facepalm* I'd read Warbreaker but I'd forgotten the name of the ball game except for the bit where Lightsong is ungodly good at it. D'oh. Thanks so much, Kobold!

Does anyone know what a Taracin Superstar is? I was looking at the ranks list and got confused :S

All you need is a Terris steward by the name of Sebastian

Welcome! Is that a reference to WoR I see?

I'm agreeing with King and Tulir about the Shard game looking especially tantalising Also: not particularly constructive, but as Joe threw two roles out here, I'm thinking this role could make for great funny/trolling if thrown into a Roshar game. Adapted for Roshar: Cultist of the Stick: You seek to emulate the Stick. In fact, you are a stick. At night, you can choose to complete your journey and become...a stick. You are a stick. Once a stick, you cannot vote or be killed. All posts must be punctuated appropriately with declarations ("I am a stick!") of your stick-ness. You are a stick! >>

Amazing things, limelights, Kassel thought, studying the brilliant-white radiance shed by the heated quicklime, redirected onto the looming keep with the cunning use of mirrors. Sothar had written a treatise on the use of quicklime in warfare; used in a lost recipe for making flames that ignited under water. A shame that the treatise, along with most of Sothar's work, made for fairly dry reading. He heard the soft, muffled thump of a landing. "Drax," Kassel said, turning around. "You really shouldn't be around here. You'll give the Heron Hazekillers a scare." Drax made a rude sound. "One Heron Hazekiller, led on a merry chase," he said, folding his arms across his chest. He bent down and picked up the dropped clip, the tendrils of his mistcloak shifting with the movement. "Stop worrying and go inside." "You came by just to tell me that?" Drax shook his head. "Been counting," he said. "Looks like Heron invited pretty much all of Luthadel and then some." würfeln "For what reason," Kassel said. "That's the question." He let out a deep breath through his teeth as he counted the carriages in the keep courtyard. He thought he recognised the livery of Houses Urbain and Venture. Something big, then. Drax shrugged. "A storm's coming," he said, most unhelpfully. "Best you go inside now." "Wouldn't want to be late," Kassel nodded, adjusting the hang of his suit. More carriages were pulling up to the keep courtyard; figures emerged, aided by footmen, some followed by Terrismen stewards in their distinctive robes. He counted a few obligators as well, grey-sleeved. Time to see what Heron's got up his sleeve.