Arrae

Well, I had a good time impersonating people in the dead doc. There were a lot of people with low activity whose colors I could steal to nudge the conversation one way or another. @Sart, no hard feelings on the bus. You had to make a snap decision when no one else was on.

26 minutes ago, A Joe in the Bush said:

*Noooooo* He got poke voted to death in QF16 by me, let him live!

Oh, fine. Aman.

@Kidpen I don't think Xino's code thing is necessarily suspicious. Feels like the type of thing someone would say if they want to feel clever with codes, in any alignment.

If we're slapping on poke votes, I might as well go with Aman. @Amanuensis, hi.

3 minutes ago, Sart said:

I don't think I understand this. How would we distribute these unique identifiers? And what's stopping an eliminator from reusing one of them? Sorry, it's just not connecting for me.

More importantly, we don't have any eliminators dead yet. We're already a third of the way into the cycle, and we only have one vote down. Unlike the Long Game, there's no benefit to waiting for a lynch, because we get alignment flips. I'm putting a poke vote on A Joe in the Bush. @A Joe in the Bush He was evil the last time this ruleset was run, and he hasn't posted yet. Other players who haven't posted yet are @Elandera, @Lord_Silberfarben, @BrightnessRadiant, @Kynedath, @Elbereth, @Zillah, @DrakeMarshall, and @Amanuensis

I thought Joe ran QF16?

Hello hello everyone. I haven't been around here for a while. Just a heads up, I've been dealing with a repetitive strain injury in my hands for a while, so I'm going to be using voice typing for most of this. If you see me post something completely nonsensical, feel free to ask for clarification. Voice typing misinterprets my words a lot.

I actually disagree with Elkanah’s statement that knives should be saved until the end. Generally, vigilante kills are very very swingy. Using a knife at the end of the game, when there are far fewer players, is significantly riskier than using it in the start or the middle of the game. At the end of the game, the wrong knife kill can put the village into a state of LyLo, where they must kill an eliminator this turn or lose. Comparatively, at the start and the middle of the game, there are still a lot of other bodies left. If you use a knife at the end of the game, you should be very sure that the person you are killing is an eliminator.

The last time that I played, it was usual for protection rolls to initially protect either people who were very active in leading the discussion, players who because of their reputation were likely to be killed quickly, or themselves. I don't know if the meta for eliminator kills has shifted, but if it hasn’t, then this is probably still a safe bet.

Not sure there's anything to say about silver powder. You have it or you don't. It's a completely passive item, so there aren’t many choices to make with it.

@Straw, some questions. Which of these situations are allowed:

Shade A types something. Shade B edits Shade A's text.

Shade A types something. Shade B edits Shade A's text. Shade A edits Shade B's edits.

Shade A types something. Shade B steals Shade A's formatting and types something elsewhere in the doc pretending to be Shade A.

Shade A types something in one format. They insert a section in the middle with a different type of formatting pretending to have been someone else.

I'm confused at how the whole Shade doc works.

Sign me up as Resourceful Smythe.

Dang, this sounds fun. Really don't have the time to play, though.

Sign me up for the spec doc!

Congrats to @Burnt Spaghetti and @StrikerEZ for winning the passes!

If anybody has any non-Sanderson games they want to run, now's a good time to advertise them to me. I can't guarantee that I'll be looking at the Art of Game Creation thread much, so pitch your ideas while I'm still here.

I'm surprised that nobody picked up on my identity -- I wasn't attempting to hide it at all, and in fact have been blabbing about Destiny in a lot of other places before and while this game was going. I was really surprised that @A Joe in the Bush thought I might be a mod. Apparently all I need to do to seem authoritative is use a different font, eh?

@Elandera @Straw @DeTess @Snipexe, since you have all (fortunately or not) made comments about being familiar with Destiny, I'm going to PM you and see if we can exchange usernames. I can't promise actual activity in that due to wrist and elbow issues, but it's always nice to expand friends lists with familiar people.

14 hours ago, Elbereth said:

Signing up as Lady Celeste, formerly of House Seidel. 

Watch out for this one. She betrayed her last House

#venture #neverforget #stillsalty

Sign me up for the spec doc.

Above the deliberations of the elves, above the lost human messenger, above the dwarf stuffing himself with refreshments, above the mad hobbit brandishing a knife, a small drone hovered behind a pillar, watching the proceedings. It was the size of a fist, shaped like two triangular pyramids intersecting each other. From its center, a small screen blinked with blue light.

SCAN PROGRESS 100%

It whirred appreciatively as it processed the results. This continent, called Middle-Earth by the locals, held many bodies: dead, decaying things, some barely more than dust. Most were buried, a strong signifier for the quality of people here, that they would care to do such a thing. Some of these bodies jumped out to the drone, flagged by the scan. Light poured from them, overwhelming in its amount, the way that a previously dark room was blinding after the LED grid overhead was turned on. It flooded the little drone's sensors, reading as everything from gamma rays to visible color to AM.

And the music! Oh, the music. Its blue eye closed in an emoted sigh of joy. Each of those flagged bodies whispered something to the little drone, each giving off a fragment of a sound that it felt it could coalesce into a great harmony -- that would coalesce into a great harmony, if not for a dim, discordant sound that could be most directly compared to the braying of an out-of-tune trumpet. It sounded like the choirs of heaven. It sounded like the ocean.

The little drone pulled up files of all 304 flagged bodies. It could raise one of these people. It could take one of them, great hero or kindly peasant, and bring them back to life, strengthening their ember into a flare. It could share its Light with them. For the first time in centuries, it wouldn't have to be alone.

But it could not bring back their Music, and that would be as much of a tragedy as leaving these bodies here. The people of this world had something special humming within their soul, and the little drone would not take it from them. It made its decision.

Its camera and audio sensors, put on low-power mode, flared to life.

TYPE: INTELLIGENCE GATHERING
PARTIES: Sixteen [16].
ASSOCIATIONS: Arda; Middle-Earth [Arda]; Humans; Elves; Dwarves; Hobbits

The little drone listened in.

In other words, sign me up for the spec doc. Wish I could play but with the number of big projects I have due this month, that would be a terrible idea.

37 minutes ago, Rathmaskal said:

Am I the only one who has starting thinking of Elbereth as Elberond for this game?

All hail Lord Elberond!

7 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Always.

At this point I can't even tell if the reference is intentional or not.

4 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

You have no idea how much pain this brings me in the form of LG15b flashbacks  I had a full character arc planned out for Sonder! And then I got iced in the first? second? cycle (probably second, since it's me) and then I was so furious it never got to see the light >>

...after all this time? Even four years later?

1 hour ago, StrikerEZ said:

If there was one thing I’d change, it’d be making a character I could RP better.

For me, what helps in creating an RP character here is finding some quirk or other noticeable thing that I can stick to for most of the game. This type of thing helps your character stand out across the dozens of posts per cycle. It's harder to plan for character arcs when you can die at any moment, though sometimes it's still worth a shot. Good examples of this were Asterion's PTSD and Zhier's glitter thing. Then to make them feel more like a person, throw in a few other traits.

Making your character interaction-friendly can also help a lot. If your character will react to things in fun ways, then others will want to interact with things. I played a lot off of dramatic irony with Joon's interest in Ellira, and a layer of irony on top of that with Joon being the EO despite acting so clueless and out of place. If you can pull something like that, it tends to increase reader enjoyment a lot.

Good to see that I had everyone convinced I was village even after I flipped.

I'll be honest, part of the reason why I did it was also because I'd spent so long setting Joon up as the most incompetent buffoon ever. It was just too tempting. Y'all can blame El for that, with all the comments she made about Joon.

I let my playstyle change so drastically on the last cycle because Elandera's name was bandied around so much, and I didn't know she had an extra life, so I didn't want the lynch to hit her and thought that I might be able to draw aggro by acting different. Not that anybody seemed to notice...

Stink.

This will probably be my vote for the cycle.

I don't think Itiah is the spy. Mostly because of wrong things in their post here:

Quote

Hello! While I do agree that the chances of me being an elim are the same as they were before, I can understand Striker’s point of view, and I feel like Elb’s immediate vote on them comes off as a little suspicious. However, it could just be another attempt at starting a lynch discussion (which has worked, so good job, I guess ), which they were doing before as well.

Bard’s vote on Stink... I can believe that it was just observing slight differences in their language, and not something else. Or maybe I’m just overly trusting and suck at analysis  Elandera seems to have a similar gut feeling on Elb as I do, or maybe she’s trying to distance herself by stating slight suspicion and then saying it’s most likely NAI.

Rae and Elb could also be an elim team (Or is this just me being paranoid, I wonder)? She disagrees about the vote on Striker, and then goes back to vote on him. However, this is due to what she sees as overreacting on Striker’s part, which I have to admit I agree with. Striker’s statement in response also makes sense (But is anything really overthinking in SE? ), and his comments about being fine to be lynched are something I perceive to be the mark of someone who doesn’t have anything to hide. However, I am aware of elims pulling tactics like this, but I don’t think Striker is doing this so early on.

Remember, this is the person who voted to lynch himself when he was the spy so the village wouldn’t lose. I don’t think he would be open to be lynched on the first cycle if he had an elim team he had a responsibility to. So, my vote goes to Elbereth for the quick vote on Striker for saying something I can see as an understandable thing to say, and because Elandera also has gut feeling on them (and you know what they, two gut feelings are better than one ).

And even if I’m wrong, hopefully this post will be more informative in the future as the game goes on and alignments are revealed.

At this time, I was undeclared as the EO. Also, El was village. The spy would also know that Elandera is an elim, and it just seems off for the spy to use an elim's gut read to vote on a villager? Could be misdirection, but it implies trust in Elandera that a spy wouldn't have.

Stink is still a maybe? He's 2/3 for votes on elims, which is pretty good. I also kind of felt like Stink was lying low this game more than usual -- maybe he was making a conscious effort to survive? Warning: I haven't played with Stink in a long time so take that with a grain of salt.

1 hour ago, Elbereth said:

Well. It depends on how clever soulforged!Joon is, then.  How much does he know about Ellira? She’s got a sharp hairpin and sneaks out each night briefly, but is that enough for him to realize she’s an assassin and not just a flirty distractible girl? 

Good question. The more a Forgery deviates from the original, the less likely it is to stick...

7 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

....Now I’m picturing an AU where Ellira sees Joon killing Kavela, falls in “love” then and there, seduces him/lets him seduce her, and lovingly slides a dagger through his heart during a kiss.  

Whoever gets sufficiently distracted dies first.

You're all having far too much fun as outed villagers.

Imagine if Aman had been an elim this game, we could get back at him for years of misery...

...

Kavela deserved her strangling.

@Alvron @Burnt Spaghetti @Elandera so this doesn't get lost in all the other useless stuff

Off the top of my head:

1. I think I am here (Itiah) -- he did get Alv
2. DeTess (DeTess) -- last minute lynched Striker instead of Alv. While the spy may have mislynched people, I think it's less likely tbey would mislynch a villager when they could've gotten an elim
3. xinoehp512 (Ecnelis) -- inactive, dunno
4. StrikerEZ (Roashina) -- died D1, not much to read
7. Young Bard (Kavela) -- absent at lylo, also voted on Devotary near end
8. Rathmaskal (Yesterday ""Yes"" Jones) -- voted on Elandera
10. Elbereth (Ellira) -- wrong at lylo
11. STINK (STINK) -- voted on Alv and Burnt
12. Butt Ad Venture (Lawrence Scholdei) -- died early, can't tell
13. Devotary of Spontaneity (Faitren) -- defended Alv C2

15. Little Wilson (Wai ZhierSen) -- right about Alv and Elandera, but also good at reads

11 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Don't you mean Joones Bond?  J/k 

What do you think I was going for?

Two days ago, in a timeline that may or may not exist.

Joon stepped into the bathroom, and locked the door behind him. He changed into the clean pair of pants, tossing his old pair into a corner. Joon found a body length mirror behind the door and looked himself over in it. These new pants were unfortunately cut in a wide MaiPon style that was a decade out of fashion, and was so loose that it flared slightly when he spun. Joon frowned. How was he to impress anyone with his physique when no one could see it?

At least he could enhance his other aspects. Joon brought out a comb and some hair gel. He gently brushed the front of his hair upwards, curling it in the way that he knew all the girls on the street liked it. It ought to work on Ellira too.

Finally, Joon brought out his cosmetics kit. His trump card.

Inside, a Soul Stamp waited.

He threw a furtive glance over his shoulder, but of course, the door was locked. Then, and only then, did he take it out.

He went through the motions with a practiced air, inking it and putting it on the bottom of his foot. It sank in just a quarter inch more than it should, like always.

The memories came in a rush. Five years ago, instead of letting his father discourage his first forays into politics, he had doubled down. From there, he had found the Discovery faction. In this life, he had learned disguise along with fashion, covert action along with socializing, blackmail along with flirting.

He was now Banyung. Joon Banyung.

And he still had a girl to seduce.