Orlok Tsubodai

To be clear, I wasn’t trying to defend Fifth, who may well be suspicious in his own right. My point was to highlight that Mage had drawn suspicion to Fifth on grounds of his focus on Odium, whilst having a significantly greater focus himself. I was asserting that the hypocrisy was suspicious, as opposed to the attack on Fifth in and of itself.

On reflection, without the vote, I don’t think my analysis of the disparity between Magestar’s suspicion of Fifth and his own actions warrants a vote, and much less his being lynched. As such, Magestar. More generally, the other main point my analysis turned up is how little discussion there’s been on Hoid and Khriss this cycle. My analysis measures the number of posts in which Hoid, Khriss, and/or Shards are mentioned, with one count per entity per post (so multiple mentions of Hoid in a post add only one to the tally), but mentions of different entities in a post adding one to each entity. This turns up that only 36% of mentions as of right now are of Hoid and Khriss. Odium has more posts in which it is mentioned, at 59, than Hoid and Khriss combined (at 20 and 37 respectively). Illustrated well by Rand’s excellent post, we should be much more worried about Hoid and Khriss at the moment than about the Shards, yet out focus appears to be in completely the wrong place.

@Magestar, my apologies. I'd apparently read this post earlier, and misremembered a post going along with it. Despite the lack of a vote, my point stands to a lesser degree, I believe. You cast suspicion on Fifth when you'd had a greater number of posts, and significantly greater percentage of posts mentioning Odium than he had.

To add to this, Fifth now has nine posts in which he references Odium, with nine referencing Hoid and/or Khriss, and eight referencing other Shards. Mage, on the other hand, has nine posts in which Odium is mentioned, with two mentioning Hoid and/or Khriss, and four mentioning other Shards. Given the above, Mage's vote on Fifth for focusing on Odium seems deeply hypocritical. With the general tone I found from his earlier posts, I'm quite happy to keep my vote on Mage.

Given our proud tradition of not lynching new players on turn 1, and to give me more time to watch Pyromancer's playstyle, I'm going to switch my vote back to Magestar. Although an admittedly superficial analysis, he's voting on Fifth for focusing on Odium whilst having more posts mentioning Odium himself, and indeed the most posts mentioning Odium of any player in the game.

Three Shards have been released, which makes it more likely that he isn't Odium, and I hadn't recalled any indication from you that you thought he was. I pointed this one out because I happen to see it, and the thought occurred today. What makes you think Bard is most likely to hold Odium?

As I noted yesterday, Arinian, at the time of posting I'd been awake for something like 28 hours consecutively. I'd also lost an 18 post multiquote that had taken two hours to build, and really didn't have the energy to recreate it.

@Magestar, pointing out the IKYK seems like casting unnecessary suspicion on Fifth. Were he really Odium, pointing all this out because Odium wouldn't really spend so much time on Odium, it would remain counterproductive. Regardless of how we judge it, he's brought a significantly increased level of attention on himself. @_Stick_, given Odium has been released, and may be playing to a differing win condition, I'm surprised to see you call out a suspected location of a Shard. How does this advantage the village, given the reasonable likelihood of the Shards currently being held by 17th Sharders?

For now, TheYoungPyromancer. Much as you say Fifth is suggesting we avoid focusing on Odium, it sounds to me like you’re taking attention away from Hoid and Khriss. Drought’s point about Odium’s alignment is a sensible one. If Shards start to be shattered, we’ll want to start worrying, but we should keep attention on Hoid and Khriss regardless.

I've just lost an 18 post multiquote, and with it two hours work. I don't have the energy to go back and do it again, so I'm going to summarise my points instead. Devotary demonstrates progression of thought in their posts of last cycle, although their initial plan costs the village significantly in the action economy. I don't see why El would have a strong incentive to falsely accuse Devotary, when doing so is easily disprovable through lack of a counterclaim. On the other hand, Devotary has a strong incentive to falsely claim to have been Khriss, given the building suspicion on them. My main suspicion right now, though, is of @Magestar. This post bothered me for a while, before I realised why it struck me as off. It seems to me to be needlessly equivocal, as if Mage is reluctant to give an opinion. There are two parts in this post that contribute to my suspicion of Mage. The first line's levity is the first contributor here - I think it seems fabricated. The first entence of the second line is the other flag. Of course it wasn't necessarily likely, but it was certainly possible. The sentence included in this post doesn't add anything to the post. Again, the highlighted parts do not feel like a natural reaction, and instead read as an attempt to seem concerned, rather than showing Magestar's natural concern. There seems to be inconsistency here, and I'm surprised that Magestar is using a poke vote, given the alignment indicative discussions that have occurred. The passive language here feels off, and the aversion to a lynch triggers a tinfoil hat part of my mind considering whether Mage was Hoid or Khriss and didn't convert last cycle. It's not exactly a cast iron case, but a string of small points making me wary of Mage at this point. For now, Magestar.

I’ve now been awake for 26 hours. Consequently, my ability to engage today will be much reduced. That being said, I’ll add to the speculation on the shards being released. I don’t think it at all controversial to agree with Hemalurgic Headshot that the release of Autonomy was through accident alone - well intentioned Sharders seeking scans. Whilst the same might be able to be said about the release of Odium, with Sharders fancying their chances at vigilante kills, given its reputation and the likelihood of an interesting individual victory I think it more likely that Odium will be used against the village. That all said, speculating on why the Shards were released doesn’t really get us anywhere, and strikes me as “safe” conversation. Far more useful will be discussion on voting, however weak the suspicions are. I’ll go back through and find someone to vote on in an hour or so, after lunch.

The idea of placing reads helps us analyse the individuals making the reads as the game progresses. As 17th Shard aligned players, it's in our interests to help the rest of the village identify that we're still 17th Sharders as the game progresses. If you have reads, or indeed any other information, then I'd love to see it.

That really doesn’t matter, Pyromancer. Information has still been generated, and watching changes in suspicions generates information we can analyse, and will be particularly useful in helping identify conversions.

I haven’t had time to do a thorough reassessment of the thread, but hope to get a post up later this cycle, given my sleep cycle currently puts me mid-Atlantic somewhere near the East Coast of America. >> Off the top of my head, however, I’d agree that a PM circle is counterproductive. It’s of marginal utility, given conversions, prevents trust groups forming by tying up our PMs, and removes actions from the village. I’d like to understand further why @Devotary of Spontaneity sees it as more advantageous than standard distributions of actions. With regards to the continually mooted plans to win via sudden death, and keeping Shards in containment, I’ll announce my opposition to both. I’m here to play a Shard game, and would like the mechanics explored. Leaving the Shards in containment and/or seeking an early victory prevents us experiencing the chaos that will make this game something special. I continue to stand behind my suggestion from last cycle that we break as many Shards out of containment this cycle as possible, and agree with Rand’s suggestion that Ambition be targeted (and suggest that Cultivation similarly be targeted). I apologise if I’m behind on anything, or if I’ve misattributed ideas. I’m posting having last read the thread a couple of hours ago, but wanted something out there.

I have a number of thoughts on the discussion so far, and think that that which has been said bodes well for information generation going forward. @Young Bard, I'd start with your first post. In this post, you indicate that you'll vote tomorrow despite there only being two conversions. This strikes me as a little unusual. In any of our games, we have eliminator counts between 15 and 25%. 4 of 22 gives us an eliminator percentage of 18.18, which is hardly unusual. I'm interested in your phrasing, which seems to indicate that we shouldn't be worried about eliminator numbers, or that we're being particularly adventurous in lynching tomorrow. The more interesting point you make, though, is in suggesting that we prevent the release of shards this night cycle. This, I think, is a very dangerous view to take. If shards are removed today, with such a strong incentive for Hoid and Khrissala to convert, shards are very nearly guaranteed to be in village hands. This reduces the pool of shards that can be taken with a concerted effort by Hoid and Khriss' respective teams in future cycles. If we delay taking shards, we make it more likely that the conversion factions have their pick of shards through coordination, which does not seem sensible to me. Further, declaring the shard we want investment from gives everyone some degree of information as to our priorities in the shard we'd like to go for in further turns. This further helps target conversions, and increases Odium's ability to shatter the shards he wishes to target first. On which note, I'd strongly advise everyone to refrain from declaring that they're taking investiture from Cultivation. It doesn't seem likely that everyone follows Bard's plan, and given the usefulness of Cultivation's ability, I wouldn't be surprised if it's released. Giving the holder of Odium a couple of the potential holders of the one shard able to undo his shattering seems like a very poor move on the village's part. @Megasif, I would certainly like to see your own reasons for your misgivings in how Bard made his point on lynches, but as set out do agree with you. @_Stick_, I wouldn't be surprised if Survival had their win condition from the beginning of the game, given their pre-emptive release, and the previous incentive to return the shard immediately otherwise. I do agree with your point that if we knew which shard everyone had taken investiture from, we'd be better able to predict actions. I don't necessarily think that this helps the village, and think it serves as a further argument against mass claiming. @randuir, whilst I agree with the point you were making here, I want to highlight the equivocal way you make that point. This strikes me as slightly uncharacteristic of you to me. Following Rand's post, Bard once again defends declaring the investiture we take tonight. The thrust of his argument this time is that it's unlikely to hurt the village, and that conversion decisions won't be made on it. I disagree that the declaration won't hurt the village for the reason stated above - I think it reduces the number of the more powerful Shards that will be in village hands. @Young Bard, why do you think that preventing Shards being taken will help the village? @Steeldancer, wonderful though it is to see RP, and the activity benefits RP often brings, it would be good to see your thoughts on the game. Using RP as a smokescreen doesn't help us solve the game. @MonsterMetroid, Seonid said in the signups thread that one shard would start out of containment. @randuir then suggests that we should encourage Ambition to be released, to reduce the effectiveness of conversion factions working in concert to guarantee themselves Shards. This I think I agree with wholeheartedly, and as such would encourage a large number of people to consider taking investiture from Ambition tonight, without declaring it. The last post so far is from Drought, in which he declares that he's taking investiture from Cultivation, and wants to use it to create PMs such that we have avenues to communicate with dead players or Shades. I'm honestly not sure how this is a viable strategy. PMs are likely to be hugely limited this game as it stands anyway, and unless Drought has some way of predicting the deaths of players, I don't see how he's going to ensure that we have confirmed good players in PMs with those likely to die. Far more useful in my mind would be using PMs as normal, and if we happen to get a dead player in a PM, then making use of it if possible. Overall, my current reads as they stand are as follows: Randuir: Likely village Megasif: Mild Village Bard: Mild Hoid/Khrissala This is a conversion game. I'd strongly suggest that all players try to declare their current suspicions in the thread as much as possible, to make any volte-face they commit much more obvious.

Well done to Crimsn and Fifth. I hugely enjoyed the opening rounds of this game - the politicking, backstabbing, phishing and paranoia was perhaps the most fun I’ve had in an SE game. The game was less fun, though, after I’d won. At that point, I had a lot of influence (partly from how I approached the opening, with so many contacts, partly because I had no competition for my kill), and nothing really to use it on. I could have chosen the winner for each house following me, had I had any real desire to do so. I spoke to the GMs, and asked to be removed from the game, as I didn’t want the responsibility of choosing winners in each house. I was told that I needed to stay in (this was prior to the ruling that i could leave after subsequent winners were chosen), and spoke to the IM, who suggested I choose my own goal, giving me something to work towards, making choices secondary to a goal, rather than simply judgement. I did this, and chose as my goal to try to kill all the other players. My reasoning for this was twofold. I firstly thought it would be an interesting goal, and secondly, through necessitating the elimination of players simultaneously, meant I wouldn’t have to choose winners in houses. Realising that I couldn’t achieve this goal, as there would be two others in either the final lynch or final night, both in the same faction (in the best case scenario), I elected to have Crimsn win. This was primarily because unlike with Heatherlocke and Ffnord, I only had one Heron contact - Crimsn. This guided my decision making for the rest of the game, and was the reason for the elimination of Araris and Straw simultaneously. This brings me onto the following quote from Araris and Joe in the dead doc: Firstly: Araris, I’m sorry for having upset you. That was never my intention. I wasn’t aware of the degree of investment you had in your plan. Further, though, I’m not sure that it’s right to expect me to act in accordance with your plan simply because of investment. This is partly an issue with leaving winning players in the game, and whether their own plans should be given equal weight such that they can work against opposing plans. I considered this to be the case, so worked to my own goals, but am not sure that this was the right call. I’d question your upset at my having betrayed me. You firstly say that we had a deal in which I’d let you know if I learnt of a plan to kill you, and that you’d do the same. You express upset at my having betrayed this deal by killing you, yet a paragraph down state that you would have killed me yourself had you not worried about Straw’s action. That strikes me as pretty hypocritical, honestly. I’d also comment on Joe’s stating that I’m not trustworthy. I’d point out that this is a pretty sweeping statement to make in a public forum, and one that’s quite hurtful. Outside SE games generally, and indeed outside Free for All faction games, I think that I’m a relatively trustworthy person. In this game, I fully expected everyone to be betraying alliances with regularity. Our only win condition this game was to survive ourselves, and we ultimately needed to work to that goal regardless of promises. Making such a general statement as “[Orlok] isn’t the most trustworthy player” in a public place, in your capacity as an authority figure as a GM strikes me as an unfair claim, and one I’d appreciate being retracted.

The SE Moderation team have been trying to help the community reduce inactivity over the last few months. A large part of this is encouraging players not to sign up for games in which they know they’ll be inactive. With this in mind, we’d ask that you reconsider signing up for this game in light of your known commitments that will render you inactive.. Taking off my mod hat, I’d like to sign up as Highlord Locke Tekiel.

No Lynch.

I’ll sign up as Locke Tekiel.

No offence to Araris, but I’m going to vote No Lynch this cycle. If the game should have been decided at night for the Herons, I think the same should apply here.

I’ll add my vote to Sart, mainly to test whether I’ve been soothed again.

AG4/AN1 - Finale: Legends Once upon a time, there was a village. Not Rennan, no - this was a different place, a happy place. Children ran about the town square, giggling and playing a game of who-knows-what. At the fire at the centre of the square, an old storyteller told tales of heroes of other times to the children who could sit still long enough to listen. “In the time of the last Desolation,” she began, “there was a town. Its name is gone - long lost on the winds of time. It fell prey to the wrath of Odium, and tore itself apart before anyone even noticed it was gone. But, somehow, a few tales of its heroes survived. “Legends tell of a magical chicken - you remember, like we saw when the merchant came through last year? All bizarre and fuzzy? Well, this chicken could talk. Her name was Squawk, and she was one of the great helpers of the villagers. She organised them, banded them together to search for the murderers. “But they say a strange thing happened, then. A highstorm came, a few days after the first murder, and Squawk stayed in with the livestock, as she was accustomed to doing. But one of the traitors, the sympathisers to Odium, snuck into the barn as well, intending to kill her as she’d been such a help to the village. “The traitor raised his knife over her sleeping body, and thrust it through her heart.” The children gasped. “But as she died, Squawk transformed into a beautiful, darkhaired woman, and that is who the villagers found dead the next morning, to their confusion. Now, some say that Squawk was merely a Lightweaver in disguise, but personally I’m of the opinion that she was a Herald or a god come to save the town, and indeed some legends tell of a magical knife in that town, which could kill even Heralds and gods. But she did die, and the village mourned her.” While a pair of children ran off pretending to have magical knives, the rest remained enraptured. The storyteller smiled. “Stories also tell of a scholar by the name of Nolan. While the town dissolved into chaos, he searched through ancient books in a desperate race to find something that would help. While the villagers killed each other in a search for the murderer, he studied and studied until finally... he found it.” The storyteller lowered her voice. “He found the Words.” “Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination!” piped a child in a single excited breath. “Yes, dear,” chuckled the storyteller. “Just like that. And he said those words, and he became exactly what the town needed: a Bondsmith. The one who would unite them all. “But the villagers were few, by then, and Odium’s will was too strong. Before he could finally unite the town and drive them off, the traitors brutally murdered Nolan in the night, and even his newfound powers were not enough to fend off all of them. And so the village fell further into darkness.” The children shivered. “Tell us a happier story? Please?” asked one child. The storyteller smiled sadly at them. “There are no happy stories from that time, child. But, one last story of a hero, at least: “Once upon a time, in that long-ago village, was a man named Kharsis. He survived almost to the end with his family, never giving up hope. At the end, when all had nearly been lost, he brought hope - he organised the last few townspeople, fought against the tyranny. With his help, the villagers nearly won. “But they didn’t. Odium was just barely too strong, and the sympathisers set fire to Kharsis’ house one night. He died saving his niece from the fire.” The storyteller looked around at the children. “We don’t tell these stories because they are happy ones. We tell these because they are important. We honour those fallen heroes who died in the struggle for civilisation. We remember them, in case times like those ever come again, and we pray desperately that they never will.” She smiled. “Go on, now, run off and do something happier than listening to an old woman tell tragedies. Your parents will want you home, soon, anyway.” The children scattered, a few thanking her, until she was left staring into the fire alone. The winners of the three activity-based passes you have voted for are Ivory Dragonfly, Mint Heron, and Onyx Flamingo. Player List 1. Amethyst Scorpion - Jondesu 2. Azure Mouse - Haelbarde 3. Amber Vulture - Bugsy 4. Charcoal Hyena - Devotary of Spontaneity - Cannoc 5. Chartreuse Penguin - Herowannabe - Peng Uinneas 6. Coral Swan - Araris Valerian - Elyle 7. Cream Tuatara - Straw 8. Emerald Falcon - Dalinar Kholin / Aonar Faileas - Aldrick 9. Fuchsia Ostrich - Shqueeves/Elenion 10. Indigo Weasel - Arinian 11. Ivory Dragonfly - Fifth Scholar - Nolan 12. Magenta Albatross - Megasif 13. Mauve Crocodile - Droughtbringer 14. Melon Dingo - Ornstein 15. Mint Heron - Doc12/Arraenae - Kharsis 16. Onyx Flamingo - MonsterMetroid - Squawk 17. Opal Lion - Eternum 18. Oxblood Beagle - Steeldancer - Jai 19. Pearl Chameleon - Frozen Mint 20. Plum Rhinoceros - Coop772/BrightnessRadiant 21. Quartz Zebra - The Young Bard/Kyndedath 22. Saffron Iguana - Sart - Emalia 23. Sage Kangaroo - Magestar 24. Salmon Meerkat - Hemalurgist Headshot 25. Sapphire Elephant - Seonid 26. Scarlet Octopus - A Joe in the Bush 27. Sunburst Toucan - Randuir - Vanna 28. Taupe Gecko - Drake Marshall 29. Turquoise Gorilla - Asterion/TheMightyLopen 30. Violet Axolotl - Ripplegylf/Alvron In addition to the activity passes from voting, we are able to announce the three most active players over the last year, as measured by posting each turn they were alive, in each game they played. These players will also each receive a pass to run a non-Sanderson game. In order of activity, the passes go to Randuir, Stick, and Lopen. Congratulations to all three of you. An honourable mention should be made of Jondesu, who played the most games last year. Thank you all, once again, for playing. I look forward to another incredible year of Sanderson Elimination!

I’ve been talking to a group message containing Eternum, Sart, and Crimsn, and I’ve been talking to a few others in individual PMs.

Honestly, this is probably worth addressing. @Sart, I actually asked Joe whether I could pull out of the game - I don’t want to decide the rest of it. I continued as I had out of a sense of obligation to those who did help me, but with multiple contacts in each house doing close to what I asked of them, it hasn’t really been fun. I’m going to stay engaged in the game, and do have a couple of plans, but they certainly don’t involve picking who wins from each faction anymore.

Walin.