Arraenae

Okay, this thing sends up red flags for me. It seems very defensive and a little patronizing. Could be a village reaction, though. Ecth, what exactly is Lopen doing that makes him seem like he's trying too hard to be a villager? Also, I agree with Lopen. Just because one player does x when they're an eliminator doesn't mean that another player doing x is an eliminator. Two players might not have the same tells. Sometimes they might even have completely opposite tells.

Richelle hacked the last letter into the soft flesh, yanked the knife out one last time, and then stood up to assess her handiwork. Words emblazoned on the forehead to show that the Nobility couldn’t hide among the skaa. A hand cut off to show that the Lord Ruler’s protection could not save the Nobility anymore. A foot taken off to show that no matter how far they ran, the Nobility couldn't run far enough. Richelle stood up, satisfied with her work. She wiped her knife clean and then turned her back on the mutilated Noble’s body. She sang softly as she walked through the alleyway, a song that she’d heard at a tavern. It echoed and magnified in the darkness. “Do you hear the Nobles scream? Screaming a song of fear and pain. It is music to a people who will not be slaves again…”

There's a pretty nice fic about what life was like in Hogwarts during the Deathly Hallows. It's called Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness, (warning: character deaths, torture, sexual context) and at one point, most of the students end up in the Room of Requirement to hide from the staff. (Not a spoiler, since it's mentioned in the books). It's a pretty good fic, but much darker than the Deathly Hallows.

I'd like to sign up as Richelle, a skaa who is more than happy to bury her knife in some Noble bodies. Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music of a people Who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart Echoes the beating of the drums There is a life about to start When tomorrow comes!

I got four Forsworn in my analyses before I died (five if you count Lopen, who I later trusted). Yay!

In a small village on the planet of Scadrial, a figure made its way through the sleeping village. It glided silently through empty streets, like the wraith of long-dead inhabitants. A cloud passed over the moon, casting the entire village in shadow, but the figure moved on as if it didn’t notice the lack of light. Finally, the figure came to a rest in front of an inn, The Broken Spear, named after the object that had brought a god down. A fitting name. The figure opened the door and walked in. A few patrons still sat at the bar, singing some off-key tune, or slurring out nonsense at each other. They were probably too drunk to notice the figure, but just in case, it kept its hood wrapped tightly around its face. It climbed up the stairs, and kept walking until it reached a door marked 204. The figure opened the door and walked into the room. It couldn’t see anything with the lack of light, so it increased the number of rods in its eyes until it could see a stain on the wooden floor, with some bones piled on top -- the only remains of Paalm the kandra. The figure knelt down and removed its hood. Paalm had tried to be free, and this was the price she had payed. “I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier,” the figure said. “I shouldn’t have been so angry that you stole some of my bones. I should have been happier that at least one of us escaped, if only for a while.” The figure reached forwards and picked up a spike. It glinted silver, with red specks flashing like fire as the figure turned it in the light. Paalm had used it to break free of Harmony, only to be enslaved by another master. But some masters were kinder than others. The figure looked down at its hands, then back at the spike. Did it dare to follow Paalm’s path, and hopefully meet a less violent end? No. Not immediately. The situation wasn’t desperate enough (yet). Besides, the new master might be worse than the figure’s current one. After all, Paalm’s new master had been the one to kill her. The figure pocketed the spike, and then left the room to continue carrying out its most recently assigned duty. It regretted not having more time to pay its final respects, but its master would be displeased if it was late. The figure fingered the spike in its pocket and smiled grimly. Now, at least, it had another choice.

Unfortunately, saying that you only have 2 PMs isn't enough to clear you. Anybody, Faithful or Foresworn, can claim to only have a certain number of PMs. Your claim itself isn't alignment indicative unless it is verified and found either true or false, and thus doesn't clear you.

Because of a lack of computer access around rollover, I am closing the ionblade lynch. @Magestar, if you could compile that list of points, that would be very helpful. Hunting down points from a school computer is kind of stressful. I'm on for another 20 minutes, so if you want a response today please put them on here soon.

Magestar, I haven't defended myself from accusations because I had no access to the 17th Shard longer than five minutes since about 24 hours ago. However, now that you have mentioned them, I've gone back through this Cycle and looked. I don't know if I'll have the time to hunt down everything in the previous thread, so if somebody could link all of the accusations of last cycle, that would be really helpful. Elbereth: @Amanuensis, is the "Sound of her sticking her tongue out, since this is a voice message and thus emoticons don't work" something Elbereth typed in, or a replacement for an emoticon? Also, why is there a big blank space in the original message? Simple statement of distrust. There's no way for me to defend against it, since there is no analysis to defend against. Dani: I posted that analysis of Jondesu before I'd read your post. Of course, anybody could claim that, regardless of alignment, but that's what happened. If you independently reached the same conclusion that I did, it probably means that our conclusions might have some merit. I'm actually rather curious why your first thought was "she's copying what I said, so she must be a Foresworn" instead of "hey, someone else thought the same thing too!". Lopen: It's also possible that I, a Faithful, noticed that Bugsy had done some weird things yesterday and wanted to confront him with it. Then, when almost no other duels manifested and nobody argued in his favor, I felt uneasy and considered retracting the duel. However, I ultimately decided to go with my initial gut read on Bugsy and didn't retract the duel, which lead to a Foresworn's death. There's nothing I can say about your analysis -- with the information that you have, it's possible that that's what happened. The Foresworn might have decided that C2, they were going to bus their own teammate -- a Bellona, who late game could have been a fountain of items. You and I used the same strategy in QF12. However, even then you and Kipper waited until mid to late game to bus me. What is more likely -- that the Foresworn decided upon the tactically unsound route of bussing a teammate C2, or that I, a villager, accused Bugsy and the other Foresworn decided upon the tactically sound route of letting the doomed die and not needlessly linking themselves to him? Let's assume for a moment that confirmed good is confirmed right. If you claim that I am a Foresworn because Elbereth was suspicious of me, you must take that claim to its logical suspicion: you are a Foresworn too. Why? Elbereth mentioned that she was suspicious of Sheep, you, and me. Thus, Sheep, you, and I must all be Foresworn. Of course, then you could say that Elbereth being suspicious of me makes it more likely that I am a Foresworn, and backed up with your suspicions, this is enough to make it very likely that I am a Foresworn. Of course, then I would say that Elbereth being suspicious of you makes it [more likely[/i] that you are a Foresworn, and backed up with my suspicions, this is enough to make it very likely that you are a Foresworn. Additionally, if you trust Elbereth's reads so much, you should also trust that Sheep is a Foresworn too. Shouldn't you be more confident that Sheep is a Foresworn if I, a fellow player, have similar reads to what Elbereth has said? But wait, I might be a Foresworn! My reads count for nothing! In that case, you ought to be more confident that Sheep is a villager, because I doubt the Foresworn would have a teammate cast suspicion on another teammate, if Sheep and I are indeed teammates. One Foresworn is already dead (Bugsy) and the other is on the brink of death (Wonko). If you assume that I am a Foresworn, then that would be yet another teammate that is under suspicion, which makes it even more unlikely that the Foresworn would have one of their own cast suspicion on themselves. Or we could go with the simpler explanation, which is that Sheep and I are not both Foresworn at once, because they won't serve themselves to the village on a silver platter. However, if I am a Foresworn and if Sheep is a villager, that would mean that one of Elbereth's reads is wrong. And then the assumption that confirmed good is confirmed right cannot be true. Thus, your points cannot stand, for they are all based off of the very wrong assumption that confirmed good is confirmed right. PS: On the subject on finding the same people suspicious that a confirmed villager found suspicious, look at what I said in response to Daniyah.

Bard, because Wonko needs to die.

That... is the most counter-intuitive thing I've ever heard. Let's make the kid miss two weeks of school to improve their grades. Yeah. Because that'll definitely help.

@Doctor12, what was the gambit Elbereth mentioned in her whispergem Looking back on the thread, a few things stuck out to me. Cycle 2 I trust Lopen a little more this. If he was Foresworn, I don't think he'd be so quick to doubt the plan, because he'd want the Julii (Wonko) to be able to freely give out potentially false information and have the authenticity of the information be trusted. On the other hand, it could be a distancing tactic, but that doesn't seem as likely. Sheep casts doubt on the Julii plan. I trust him a little bit more for this, for the same reason that I trust Lopen a little more.

Please remember that all cheers should be in teal, not green.

I have 36 merit. Nyanah stared blankly at Lumina's dead body. At the face of the woman who had just tried to kill her, according to Lumina's fabrial recording. Someone else. Dead. Nyanah had witnessed many men and women die -- in fact, she'd just killed someone a few hours ago. But witnessing a death never got any easier. SHE DIED BRAVELY, the Stormfather said. "She still died," Nyanah snapped. YES, SHE DID, the Stormfather said. DON'T LET HER DEATH GO TO WASTE. DON'T LET THE PEOPLE HERE BE DIVIDED OVER HER DEATH. Nyanah nodded curtly. Lumina had died in a duel with Sanis, a Foresworn. If the Foresworn weren't caught and killed soon, this place would be torn apart by suspicion and death. Nyanah had sworn an oath against it. And so it was that Nyanah, on a world she did not know, empty of Stormlight, swore to find the Foresworn, and kill them.

Nobody tried to steal my ionblade last night, even though everybody knew I had it. This could point towards Wonko being an Arco and not a Julii, because I see no reason why the Foresworn wouldn't want to reclaim the ionblade that I got from duelling Bugsy. We might want to consider ionblading Wonko instead of duelling him, just in case he's an Arco. @Amanuensis, what happens if someone is in two duels with other people?

I started with a pulseshield, which is why I felt slightly safer waving around the ionblade and suggesting that it be used publicly. I thought I might be able to bait a Foresworn attack and cause them to waste a kill. I'm miffed that a villager triggered it instead. I attacked nobody last night, because I said I needed a minimum of three votes for an ionblade lynch. El seemed like she'd prefer to lynch Wonko than let me go at him, so I made the ionblade a second lynch, with the three vote minimum mentioned above. At most, there were two votes on Jondesu, not enough for me to use it. I still have the ionblade, and would like to use it in the same way.

Ionblade vote tally: Burnt (1): Dankness Jondesu (1): Rae The Ionblade lynch requires 3 votes on somebody and will close 5 minutes before rollover.

Looking back, this post from Jondesu kind of pings me off a little. Now that we know Bugsy was Foresworn, this looks a little like Jondesu is a Foresworn buddy trying to save Bugsy. Of course, he could have been a villager who was also suspicious of the lack of defense of Bugsy. Still, this seems a bit off.

Thank you for your contribution, Burnt. I'm sorry if I'm gunning for you more often than others -- I'll have to work on that. Revenge is fine until it affects my ability to think in an unbiased way. Elbereth. I'm offering up the ionblade as a secoond lynch precisely because I don't trust myself to be a trigger happy vigilante. I was a trigger happy vigilante in my first game, which ended up with many, many dead villagers. (About 4, if I recall correctly. Elbereth was also a trigger-happy vigilante, but she killed around 3 eliminators, so she was much more successful.) I don't want to be a vigilante, and Wonko's lynch is so set in stone that it cuts off discussion. I can solve both of those problems by offering up the ionblade as lynch #2. I trust Elbereth because bussing Wonko C2 is an insanely risky move, especially with one Foresworn and zero faithful dead. Also, if Elbereth is lying and Wonko is faithful, we can lynch her next cycle. One faithful for one Foresworn is a stupid trade, and any team with Elbereth on it would be smarter than to carry it out on C2.

Eleven hours passed between Elbereth's initial vote on Wonko and Wonko's response. In that time, nobody defended Wonko. Even Wonko didn't defend Wonko. Nobody even suggested that he had started with an ionblade. That is the second Foresworn who has been discovered where nobody tried to defend them. The second Foresworn with an ionblade, too. Wonko had voted for Bugsy, which meant that either: 1. Wonko didn't know Bugsy was Foresworn. Lack of coordination prevented Bugsy from being saved by the Foresworn. 2. Wonko was bussing Bugsy, which requires coordination. The Foresworn must pick someone to buss, which requires that they know at least one person's identity. 3. Wonko knew Bugsy was Foresworn but didn't see a way to save him, and decided to vote on him to gain a bit of trust. I'll be using the ionblade I got from Bugsy as a second lynch. Vote in purple and retract in highlight. Minimum of three votes needed for a lynch. Burnt, you haven't posted very much game discussion in a while, and we know that the other Foresworn had less merit than Bugsy and/or Wonko. It's about 5 PM in your area, yes? Much more conducive to thinking than 3 AM in the morning. I know you're good with PMs, but you can only get merit to make them with if you post.

Len, even if you trust that El and Doc are village, that does not make them right in every single situation. Every villager makes mistakes. Having other people trust them doesn't suddenly make their eliminator-hunting skills skyrocket. EDIT: I volunteer my ionblade to be the secondary lynch, then. I don't trust myself to kill a Foresworn and not a villager.

We should kill Wonko with an ionblade so we can still maintain the threat of a lynch to force discussion. @Elbereth, we can decide who kills Wonko privately. Do you want to send the PM, or should I? I trust Doc because of the speed at which he started asking for Julii to contact him. If he was an eliminator, he probably wouldn't have had enough time to create a plan, sabotage it, and start asking for volunteers. Thus, Doc is probably a villager.

As of the end of C2, I had 25 merit. I got an ionblade from Bugsy's lynch, so he probably had the most merit out of his teammates as of C1. He couldn't have earned it C2, because the lynch comes before the moment when Foresworn get their ionblades. It is possible that he earned it at the start of the game or was given it in exchange for another item by a Foresworn Julii. We know that anybody who had more merit than Bugsy C1 is probably not a Foresworn. If somebody could give us merit counts of C1, that would help us immensely. Any thoughts on what I should do with the ionblade?

We should publicly post how much merit we have. It'll help us narrow down who the Foresworn with the ionblade could be, so we can have more information to choose who to roleblock, who to try to steal ionblades from, and who definitely hadn't been getting any ionblades. Publicly sharing how much merit we have won't take the fun out of the game, because there is still room for the eliminators to manuever. If some's merit drops a huge amount, so could infer that they bought something or started a bunch of PMs (maybe both). However, we wouldn't know what items were purchased or who was PMed, which keeps the game from being too dictatorial -- you can't tell people to how to use their items if you don't know they have those items. Keeping track of merit (before purchases) is relatively simple. However, it is tedious. If everybody took fifteen seconds to post how much merit they have, it would save multiple independent players from taking two hours to record everybody's merit -- two hours that could be better spend hunting Foresworn. Additionally, posting how much merit you have will contribute to discussion, so it will earn you even more merit. Of course, I won't ask you to do something I wouldn't do myself. As I said before, I currently have 11 merit. Regardless of whether or not we adopt this plan, I will post updates of how much merit I have each cycle. More information can only help the village. We need to share with each other how much merit we have so we have a better chance of finding, blocking, and killing the Foresworn with the ionblade.

Nobody has actually defended Bugsy very much. I accused Bugsy of being a Foresworn very early in the cycle, so any Foresworn buddies with normal activity levels should have seen it already. The lack of defense is weird, and almost enough for me to call off the duel. There are several possible explantions: 1. Bugsy is Faithful and the Foresworn don't see fit to interfere with his lynch. 2. Bugsy is Foresworn and his buddies don't care enough about him to defend him and gain susupicion if we lynch him and find that he's a Foresworn. 3. Bugsy is Foresworn, but the Foresworn aren't coordinated enough to organize a defence for Bugsy, if they even know he's a Foresworn. Also, if you say you will cheer for someone, please do it in the post that you promise future cheers in. You don't loose anything from putting a name in teal and retracting it if later you want to cheer for someone else. This will cut down on things such as promising a cheer but forgetting, not being availble due to IRL circumstances, forgetting what the proper colors are, etc.