Arraenae

Armina watched impassively as Gaskon's screams faded into the distance. Waern had a ruthless, proactive streak, she noted. After all, before rising to his current level as Prelan, he must have once been a lowly Obligator too, convinning his way to the top. Armina would have to remember that. For the meantime, however, she'd have to deal with more present threats, like Locke. After looking around to make sure nobody was watching, she slipped away from the crowd. She took the stairs up a floor, then walked until she reached Locke's office. It was locked. Armina crouched in front of the handle and inserted a lockpick. After a few nerve-wracking seconds, the lock opened. Armina stepped into Locke's office and shut the door. She glanced at her pocketwatch. She had three minutes. Anything more than that would be begging for discovery. Locke's office was well-organized, with a desk completely clear of everything but a nametag with Locke's rank and a filing system in the back. A small safe was attached to the wall, next to the filing system. It looked disturbingly like Armina's office, except that this room was bigger and had a fireplace. Armina took out a pouch of ashes and scattered it in Locke's fireplace. She smiled, thinking of what would happen when it was discovered. Obviously, ashes in a fireplace didn't mean anything, but if someone, such as Prelan Waern, looked closedly, they would notice that the ashes were that of burnt paper -- specifically a letter addressed to a skaa revolutionary. Armina had made sure to leave a few incriminating phrases intact. Next, Armina headed for the safe. At some point, Waern was going to have to order everyone to turn over the content of their safes. Armina was just going to make sure that he found an extra few thousand boxings that weren't accounted for by any records. Almost like a bribe, perhaps. Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. Someone was outside! Armina dove under Locke's desk. As the footsteps paused, she suddenly remembered that she hadn't locked the door. Her breath hitched in her chest. Lord Ruler, she was such an idiot -- The footsteps continued on, then receeded. Armina breathed a sigh of relief, but froze when she heard more footsteps pounding up the stairs. Gaskon's interrogation must be done. She had to get out now! She hastily stood up and rushed towards the door, knocking Locke's nametag off his desk. Then she stepped out the door, locking it behind her, just as the crowd rounded the corner of the hall. Armina plastered a look of unconcern on her face and merged into the crowd. Hopefully nobody would discover what she had done until she could plant some more evidence.

I feel like there's no real advantage to the village for having a hub of information for roles. Knowing a soon-to-be-dead player's role isn't a lot of incentive to trade info. @Wyrmhero, can Seekers scan for the Seer?

...ninjaed. I was going to summon all of those people. I even made a nice list and was about to check who had and hadn't posted. Care to explain your vote?

This thread seems really dead compared to other recent games. Can someone ping everybody who hasn't posted yet? I'd do it, but I'm on mobile. EDIT: regardless of if we want to give Aman info, should we still lynch him D3?

Either somebody will be converted, or somebody will be dead. We'll either have two elims to hunt now or have a closer margin. I don't like the second option as much, but we have to start somewhere (unless we don't have a lynch until someone gets converted, but I don't like that much either). We'd compensate for the low village to elim ratio by having twice as long to get info for the lynch. Also, Orlok.

We start lynching D2, same way we do it on every other game.

I think holding off on the lynch for a day is a good idea because of what happened in QF25. There were two elims that game, and every single lynch kept hitting a villager, until an elim was lynched, but that was the jester and ended the game. Right now, we only have one elim, which is even harder to catch because there's no elim connections at all. Personally, I'd rather wait until there was something to go off of.

Oh no, it's just an RP vote. Before this game, I decided that Armina wouldn't like Locke (ambitious person and ambitious person, not a good combination). I'll probably retract my vote later.

I feel like that might be a good idea for today, but just for today. After that it might be a good idea lynch someone so the game won't lose its momentum. @Wyrmhero, will conversions be announced in the writeup?

“No-one leaves this building until we have removed all stain of corruption from it. All other work is suspended. Do I make myself clear?” “Yes, Prelan,” they all said, through gritted teeth. “Good,” Waern smiled, “I look forward to seeing the Canton of Inquisition work.” Armina surveyed the scene from the back of the room, her mind racing. So there was a spy here. A skaa, but still not to be underestimated, as Armina knew from her family's dealings with them. Everyone here would be locked in this building until they found whoever it was. If she caught whoever it was, that could be her ticket up, or maybe even back to Luthadel. And, most importantly, the Prelan wanted to rid this place of corruption. Armina could already nominate a few people to be eliminated. Like that blasted narcissist Locke, for instance. Even if he might not be corrupt, per say, he definitely didn't deserve getting promoted over Armina. Armina smirked. It seemed like her prayers to the Lord Ruler had finally been answered.

Armina Handler was born dealing in information. Her family, the Handlers led a double life under the spires of Kredik Shaw: by day, they cleaned, scrubbed, and washed the keeps of the Great Houses of Luthadel. By night, they sold secrets to the highest bidder and blackmailed houses to extort money. Armina grew up learning to cheat, lie, listen, and steal from the movers and shakers of Luthadel. As Armina handed out drinks to the ballgoers of Luthadel, she watched. Who was talking up Lord Elariel with marriage arrangements this time? Who did Lady Venture shun and favor within her circle? How much money had Lord Tekiel lost this time? Gradually, however, her focus came to rest not on the nobles but the ones watching them. The obligators. They were everywhere, and nothing was valid unless they had witnessed it. Lord Elariel's marriage arrangements? They were called over to listen to the entire negotiation. Lady Venture's favor? They witnessed enough of her backroom dealings to be able to piece together her goals. Lord Tekiel's gambling problem? They knew exactly how many boxings he gambled had away, down to the last clip. The obligators knew everything, and Armina wanted in. When Armina was seventeen, she made her choice. After her family gave away the layout of Keep Tekiel to a notorious skaa thieving crew, she went to the Steel Ministry. It took some haggling, some arm twisting, and more than a little bit of bribery, but at the end, Armina was allowed to join the newest batch of recruits for the Steel Ministry. Everything had been perfect. Until she had been assigned to this wretched outpost in the middle of nowhere. Here, life had been the same old mind-numbing work day after day after day. There was none of the excitement of mingling among important people, as there was in Luthadel. There were hardly any people here at all, let alone anybody worth noticing. The worst part was that this assignment might be permanent. As far as Armina knew, even Parelan Waern, high up as he was, seemed stuck here for life. But that was all about to change soon.

I don't have time with Inktober also going on.

Can one Noble pretend to be multiple Nobles?

Are you suggesting that Orlok is anything but generous and wise, when he is such an upstanding member of this community? Shame on you. Shame!

Isn't it a bit early to start prejudicing new players against someone? As far as I know, Orlok has always been fairly trustworthy considering that this is SE. Not 100%, but better than most players, including you. He's even a mod, too.

So for the Rule of Three, what about two warrior-type characters who were in a battle to prove that they were the best at general warfare? Does the Rule of Three need three people?

This sounds both awesome and game-breaking. I'm going to list a bunch of scenarios, so could you say if they would work or not? 1. Let's say that before this game starts, I and another player plan characters together who are married. Let's also say that because of chance, or because the GM is a troll, we end up on opposing factions. Would I be able to use the power of True Love Beyond Factions to convince the other player to defect their faction or to convert them to my alignment? 2. Same married couple. Let's say the other player gets attacked. Could I use the power of Love Protects All to take the attack and die instead? 3. Same married couple. Say I get bored of the same old True Love RP and my character has an affair with a third player's character. The spouse finds out. Would that create a pattern of three, maybe with a win con of something where I have to run away with the player who my character had an affair with or the spouse has to kill both of us in vengeance?

I'm just harping on that because one of the tags says "watch for secrets" and it's rare I catch something like that.

No, it's for role and alignment.

Why does a member of the elim team have an alignment scanning role?

Four players to talk to isn't a lot if you're a chatty person. Just popping in to say that.

How many Reckoners RP references will there be?

At the very least this game is creating a fair bit of dicussion. I personally enjoyed it, though I feel like it might have been better if we'd had more hints that something was off. Something more than the placement of Truthless in the roles list or the auto-PAFO to questions about secret roles/mechanics. I'd like to thank everyone who stayed civil when discussing this game and its distribution. To those who have feedback about the game: talk about the game all you want -- it's a fair target and you can feel however you want about it -- but let's keep some of the more personal accusations out of here unless they are relevant to the game, shall we? We're giving GMs a huge insight on how players view the game here, and we might get some useful ideas out of this if we stay level-headed.

"Dalan, I need you to run these messages to Brightness Kelani," Captain Favan said. "Do you know where those are?" Dalan nodded. "The northwestern section of camp, two rows from the mess hall." "Good. Here's the message. Once you're done sending this, come back. We have a lot of messages coming from Brightness Kenara's squad," Favan said. Dalan took the message and looked over it. Indecipherable lines stared back at him. For the millionth time, he wished that he could read, but all he recognized was a few letters here and there. Malnar was trying to teach him, but Dalan was a terrible student. It didn't help that they were both so busy. "Brightness Kelani does death notifications, doesn't she?" Dalan asked. A flash of worry shot through him. "What happened?" Captain Favan eyed Dalan. "Please, I won't blab. My husband --" Favan grimaced. "It's nothing. Go do your job." Hopefully it was just that. Favan had a reputation for being tight-fisted with information for no good reason, so it didn't have to be anything big. Right? Dalan tucked the message under his arm and took off in a run. He loped towards the northwestern section of camp at a steady pace, the familiar route calming his farther-fetched worries. Straight here, left at the massive shalebark-encrusted boulder, past the mess hall, left here, right there. When he passed the northern barracks, a few soldiers waved at Dalan. He smiled and waved back. The soldiers in the northern section of the camp were generally friendlier than others. Good looking, too. Once he saw the tent of the bereavement offices, he slowed down to a walk. "Brightness Kelani?" Dalan called. "I have a message for you." A pause. "Come in," said a distracted-sounding woman. Dalan entered the tent and handed Brightness Kelani the message. She looked rather grim, though whether that was how she normally looked or just how she looked today, Dalan couldn't tell. Death notification was one of the safer jobs in Dalinar's warcamp, but it was also one of the worst. Kelani took the message and read it. Her shoulders slumped a little. "Do you need me to take a message?" Dalan asked, suddenly uncomfortable. Had someone died after all? Oh, storms... Not Malnar, please not Malnar... "Stay," Kelani said, a little sharply. "Please." She turned to a filing cabinet and rifled through drawers. After a few minutes, she pulled out a file. Dalan watched with increasing desperation as her eyes flicked back and forth. Please not Malnar, please not Malnar, please not Malnar... She sighed. "Do you know where Dalan's tent is?" asked Kelani. "That's me," Dalan said. "Are you the husband of Malnar?" Kelani asked. "Yes," Dalan said. Stormfather, no no nonono. "The secretary of the army has asked me to express his deep regret that your husband, the archer Malnar, died at 10 AM today," Kelani said. "No," Dalan said. He brought his hand up to his mouth. "He's dead-- no. He said he'd be back in the morning, he, he can't be dead." "Cause of death at this time is still under investigation," Kelani said. "The secretary extends his deepest regrets to you for your loss." The world spun around him. Dalan staggered, but Kelani caught him and carried him to a chair, where she sat him down. "He said that he'd never leave me," Dalan mumbled. His voice shook. "He said our vows were as good as any and he'd never leave me for as long as he lived." Kelani nodded. "He left you something in case anything happened," she said. She took out a piece of paper with two pressed rockbuds attached to it. Alethi vinebud for eternal love and milky rockbud for regret. Dalan broke down sobbing. With one arm, he held onto the arms of the chair for support, and with the other arm, he took the proffered paper. Stormfather, what was the worth of it all? They'd gone through so much, judgement, disownment, poverty, the army, and now...He'd never see Malnar again. Never walk out out of camp and compete to identify the most plants. Never talk to Malnar about anything again, about how one day they'd travel around the world and see the flora of Azir and Jah Keved and Shinovar and all the other places. Stormfather, what he'd give even to listen to Malnar whine about the food in the mess halls one more time... He'd always said that the army would be the death of him. He'd been right. Snot ran down his nose. Dalan wiped it away with his hand. Kelani offered him a handkerchief, which he took. "How did this happen?" Dalan choked out. "We're still investigating," Kelani said. "I wish I could say more, but I don't know anything else." "Malnar wasn't -- he wasn't careless. Kelek's breath, he wouldn't have gotten himself killed for no reason..." Someone else entered the tent. "Message for Brightness Kelani." Kelani stood up. A moment later, she swore and walked out of the tent. Leaving Dalan all alone. Dalan hugged the paper to his chest, crying.

I was thinking that making everyone vote on Stink was a bad idea, on the off chance that he was a Truthless.