DrakeMarshall

Well, Hithon's safe for now I guess... I refuse to let him escape into death before I question him about the Ghostbloods. Uther threw himself back on his feet and stabbed his poison coated blade right at the joint of the leg that just nearly impaled Hithon. Damnation. The blade struck at just the wrong angle and deflected off the carapace. The forelegs are well armored. Hithon had managed to get back on his feet and appeared to be climbing up on the chasmfiend. Stormlight should keep him marginally safe up there... "Try to get it enraged!" Apparently they wanted to make the chasmfiend knock itself out. Get it enraged... This I can do. Uther retreated from underneath the chasmfiend so that he was in its line of sight. It was starting to flail wildly to free itself of its attackers; Uther stepped back a little more to get clear of the legs. Then he threw a rock at its face with stormlight-enhanced strength. It bounced harmlessly off the shelled face, but it got the chasmfiend's attention. The chasmfiend bellowed in exasperation. It thundered towards Uther, swooping down it's head as if to devour him, the mandibles on either side positioned in to catch Uther's dodge. Uther waited. He had missed the timing of this twice already; he wouldn't be spooked into swinging too early. He held his breath to keep his stormlight from escaping. The chasmfiend was about to crush him... Uther swung. His sword met the mandible on the left right between two segments. The mandible gave way with a crack and the blade sheared off the first few meters, leaving a residue of blackbane on the stump. Hopefully that much poison so close to the brain should at least weaken or confuse it... Uther lunged to the side with the cut mandible just in time as the chasmfiend's jaws occupied where he had been standing. With uncanny agility, the chasmfiend's head changed directions and snapped at Uther on the ground. If it weren't for the speed stormlight granted him, Uther would have been cut in half. He sprinted towards the chasmfiend's body, relying on the fact that it could only turn its head so far. I don't know who is crazier... Captain storming Kaladin for sending us against this beast, or all of us for going along with it. Maybe all radiants are a bit crazy. Must have something to do with the stormlight... Makes us reckless. Uther sidestepped a leg that tried to stomp down on him. He could see why stormlight might make a man reckless. With the amount of the stuff raging inside of him, keeping the beast distracted and angry was almost easy. Another leg swooped in. Uther leaped away from it just in time, and it mangled a parshendi corpse on the chasm floor instead of cutting through him. Another attack, another dodge. Another attack, another dodge. It felt strange, to be experiencing a sort of balance in the midst of such chaos... But he felt like he could fight the chasmfiend like this indefinitely. Then his stormlight ran out. Something slammed into his back, hard. He went sprawling, and felt several ribs crack. They didn't heal. Everything hurt more without stormlight. Uther rolled to dodge the chasmfiend's foreclaw smashing down. He came deadly close to being crushed. The recent blow he sustained combined with the loss of stormlight left him moving sluggishly. The chasmfiend stabbed Uther through the stomach with a smaller leg, pinning him on the chasm floor. I'm dead. The chasmfiend roared in triumph and lifted it's foreclaw again to finish him off. Uther saw a discarded arrow on the chasm floor in front of his head. Hadn't those been poisoned? Desperately, he reached for the arrow shaft... CRUNCH. Uther had rammed the poison arrowhead through the joint of the leg that was holding him. The shell gave way and the arrowhead stabbed into the flesh inside. The chasmfiend instinctively jerked back the wounded leg, freeing Uther. He threw himself to his feet and ran. He was out of stormlight, weaponless, and seriously injured. Soon the adrenaline would wear off and the pain and blood loss from his gut wound would probably incapacitate him, provided he didn't get a little more stormlight... I hope it doesn't chase me... The chasmfiend, perhaps starting to be confused by the poison, was flailing more wildly then ever. As he was running away, Uther heard a deafening crash, and saw over his shoulder that the creature had rammed its head into the chasm wall.

It looked like Sareth had climbed on top of the beast and distracted it, giving Uther some breathing room. Uther's arm healed in a few seconds, as stormlight leaked from the wound instead of blood. The chasmfiend rammed its head into the chasm wall to shake Sareth off. Rock gave way before its carapaced head with a resounding crack... But it looked like it was momentarily dazed. Sareth threw a bag of red powder over the chasmfiend's face in an attempt to blind it. Well that's a new one... "Strike now!" someone shouted. Uther would gladly comply. The chasmfiend had lost interest in him for a moment, so he approached its legs... Oh storms. Hithon, who had followed his initial charge, was now stumbling along directly underneath the chasmfiend, surrounded by its crashing legs. Storm that man. It was a death sentence... And it was the only initiate Uther had said he would look out for. "Hithon, MOVE!!!!" Uther shouted. He didn't seem to hear Uther. The chasmfiend, who had finally noticed Hithon underneath it, retracted one of its legs to impale him. Uther started running. Faster... The leg stabbed through the air with unnatural speed and grace, perfectly targeted to puncture the blind initiate's skull. Uther would be too late. Hithon was dead. No. He sucked down stormlight desperately, more and more... more stormlight then he had ever drawn before. Time seemed to pass at a trickle, and the icy storm inside of him threatened to tear Uther apart. The only things that seemed to be moving were Uther and the fiend's razor-tipped leg... Uther slammed into Hithon and they were both sent sprawling. The leg speared forward and pierced the rock where they had been instants before. Damnation that was close... The chasmfiend trumpeted in irritation at the pair. We are barely more than a nuisance to it yet... But by the Almighty, I'm going to be a storming big nuisance. Uther examined the leg that had just missed him. The underside of the joint between the first and second leg segment... The sword should be able to pierce that. I was planning to continue this but I gotta go now so I'll probably continue it in a second post in a few hours.

The amount of investiture nightblood consumes increases exponentially. I suspect that the destruction nightblood causes also increases exponentially the longer you wield it. If you had a big enough pile of investiture, I would guess all of nightblood's effects would increase faster and faster. That would probably include the physical enhancement it grants, the aura, and everything else. Earlier, I had said its a bit like a game of rock-paper-scissors. If you have a normal sized stash of investiture, that's true. But if you have a big hoard of investiture... Nightblood is probably something close to the cosmere version of a nuke. Get a really big stockpile of energy, light it off somewhere populated, and it destroys everything. Like a nuclear weapon, merely the threat of such destruction is extremely influential. And plus... I would guess type IV entities can do a lot of other things that even Vasher doesn't know about. All we have seen is one type of object (a sword) with one command (destroy evil). It is hard to say what other kinds of type IV could be capable of.

Well, last cycle, the person who tentatively made it to the top of my list was Jon, and it looks like he's on everyone else's lists too. And this cycle I do notice Jon was pretty quick to jump on the inactive lynch (although I won't put too much stock in that, lots of people were, including myself). It's just a lot of little things I guess. I sorta wish I knew all your playstyles better... I don't know if this is normal for Jon or not. I still think inactivity is a serious issue for this game though... Hm. Fine. I guess a free inactive or two won't be a critical problem this early in the game, and we really do need to get started. Some time mid-game I would still support jailing Quiver though. So, I'll switch my vote to Jondesu. I kind of feel bad for tunneling on you @Jondesu, but you are definitely my best lead right now. If you have anything to say about the present and past suspicions I've leveled against you, please speak up. As for the other suspects people are naming... Arinian and Ecthelion. Well, I'll need to read through Arin's posts, since I don't really remember any particular OOC comments from Arin. As for Ecth... I don't agree with some of Ecth's reasoning, but he still doesn't really strike me as all that suspicious. Also... Since there's not a death today, I'm guessing that means the elims are investigating everyone. That means that once the elims start killing, we might have more than one murder every cycle (assuming none of them bond spren by then...). Also I am pleased to note that two other initiates have joined me in the suicidal charge clever diversionary tactics.

...And... "Scatter!" Uther yelled, before the beast got too close. He lunged to the side as the chasmfiend thundered by. It may be fast, but it's not that good at changi- Storms. The chasmfiend had dug its claws into the chasm walls and flipped itself around. It was coming in for another pass. Uther breathed in a wealth of stormlight and held his breath, a tempest of power washing through his veins. Why do I get the feeling this isn't going to end pleasantly... This time the chasmfiend advanced more intentionally. Step by step, then... Uther dived forward with stormlight-enhanced speed. Moments after, the rock he had been standing on cracked as one of the chasmfiend's foreclaws stabbed down. He thrust his sword up at the carapaced arm, but it rebounded off the chasmfiend's shell with a dull metallic cling. Uther rolled to the side a little too late as the chasmfiend scraped the claw back along the rock, towards him. An unbelievable pain shot through his forearm as he felt the bones crack in multiple places and muscle fibers be severed. Stormlight streamed from his arm, depleting the storm inside him but slowly bringing relief the pain. Uther lay on his back for a moment, dazed. He saw the spren fluttering over his head. "Get up!" Was that... The spren? Then it smacked him. "Get! Up!" Brought out of his stupor, Uther threw himself on his feet, scooped his sword off the ground, and fell back a few steps from the creature. For a moment, it looked like the chasmfiend's attention was on another initiate who had followed Uther in the charge. That's probably why it didn't just finish me off while I was on the ground... It also gave him a precious few seconds to heal his arm before joining the fight again. I need to be more careful... Storms, how do you be careful when you are deliberately trying to get a chasmfiend to be angry at you?

With Aman's clarifications, I strongly recommend that we don't execute sheep. Just leave them in jail. And now for the fun part. I'm going to go offline in a few hours, but maybe I can get a good RP in Also. If we see someone who used to consistently gain max honor start gaining more around 1 per cycle, we can probably "Go!" Storms... Why did Captain Kaladin think this was at all a good idea? This training is making the first time I should have died look like nothing. The chasmfiend trumpeted a challenge at the newcomers to the chasm. Uther had a good look at the creature for the first time. Rows upon rows of carapace. Rows upon rows of well armored legs. A brutally powerful set of mandibles that would be unconcerned with all armors short of shardplate. A hungry pair of eyes. Well... Someone's got to keep the creature's attention... Damnation. Uther started out in the distraction group. When the beast inevitably lost interest in his group, he would be able to move in to poison it. Uther and a handful of other initiates committed to distracting the creature charged. Well, I guess our good captain will know which of us are the stupid ones... It was hard to read the chasmfiend's alien expressions, but Uther thought he saw genuine surprise spread across its face as a group of its prey ran right at it. Hesitantly, it roared again at them. Perfect. We have its complete attention. Then it responded. The chasmfiend moved with unnatural grace and speed, its foreclaws thundering towards his group. Oh storms. We have its complete attention. Anyone else want to join my crazy charge?

I'll start this cycle with some analysis... Unless someone else gains reasonable suspicion, I'd be in favor of jailing quiver. But I don't think we should execute sheep. Now that they are jailed, they pose no threat to our votes, so executing doesn't accomplish anything. And... Even as an inactive and jailed, sheep probably contributes to the total count of village, which is part of the elims' win condition. It means that if we leave sheep alive, they might still eat up one of the elims' kills. For this reason I would definitely recommend y'alls take your votes off sheep unless you actually think they might be an elim (which I personally find very unlikely). In regard to the spren... This probably confirms that spren have different honor costs. Because I feel like there's enough people with max honor right now that we wouldn't have all gone for the same two spren. Also, Aman, your write-ups are great as always. Also... What's the deal with everyone getting hurt in the fall? Is there some kind of WoB out there I haven't seen that says that Kaladin being able to fall without being hurt is exclusively a Windrunner thing? So far as I know, the only instances in which a radiant has fallen a long distance with a large amount of stormlight in them have resulted in a large expenditure of stormlight, but no injuries if they land on their feet. Uther watched as Captain storming Kaladin revealed a live, mature chasmfiend to them. "Well then I guess today is our lucky day. Cause not only are we seeing one of them up close. We get to kill one!" Delightful... I was right. He was serious. Well, at least there's a chance that the murderer will get eaten by the chasmfiend... "Did I say we? I meant you all, of course. My Squires and I are only here to supervise." Of coarse you are. Smug bastard. "In case you’re all wondering how you’re getting down there, well… I hope you listened when I said to bring every infused sphere you own, because trust me. You’re going to need a lot to survive this drop." Then he pushed Ranatar into the chasms. "So." Kaladin said with a wide grin. "Who's next?" I swear, the only time I've ever seen that man smile is when he is tormenting someone. Uther wasn't about to give the Windrunner the satisfaction of pushing him off. He looked over the edge of the chasm... Storms that's a long way... A sudden vertigo gripped him. No! I'm not jumping off a storming cliff for no reason. So far down... The fall will kill me! Then... Nothing. I will deny the grip of terror in myself. I will not shy away from self-sacrifice. Fine then. Uther braced himself to jump. He saw the Hithon, the blind man, next to him, preparing to do the same. Hithon checked his pack before jumping. Uther froze. No... In the man's pack there was a small, nondescript glass vial, with two bands of steel wrapped around it to reinforce it. Uther knew that vial. He had one just like it in his pack. On the underside of the stopper there would be a tiny, triple-diamond insignia. It contained a mix of blackbane distillate and sedatives. More then enough to kill a man; it might even have some effect on a chasmfiend. Hithon was a Ghostblood assassin. There was no other explanation. The vial was the standard issue toxin among their ranks. Typically administered to the target with a sharp dagger like the one at Uther's side, the mixture would quickly paralyze someone, rendering them incapable of resisting, shouting for help, or even breathing... then send them into a deep sleep from which they would never wake up. Quick and painless. And if he's anything like me, he didn't come with just a single vial of poison to take down a greatshell, either. This one is dangerous... Storms... Maybe the Ghostbloods are the ones behind these attacks... I'm never going to be free from them, am I? Hithon threw himself from the edge with confidence and grace. Is he even really blind, or is it all just a load of crem? The chasmfiend roared in the distance, the multiple pitches overlapping in a way that sounded like a hundred trumpets being blown in coordinated fury. As serious as the revelation about Hithon was... Confront Hithon later. Kill chasmfiend now. No point in waiting at the top of the ledge any longer. Uther leapt out into empty space, sucking in a measure of light from his pouch of spheres. He had seen others act with caution, trying to break their fall on the way down. He saw little point to this; trying to break his fall would just hurt him on the way down. The wind rushed around Uther for a moment, drowning everything else out. The flickering spren streamed alongside him, fluttering its wings around Uther's head as if it weren't falling at breakneck speed. Then the ground slammed into his legs. A cloud of stormlight exploded from the point of impact like dust from an old mattress. He felt the jarring force radiate from his feet, but the stormlight absorbed it. He stood up and examined his surroundings. Hithon, Ranatar, Sareth, Kintas, Czarn... All in the chasm with him. The rest were at the top still, either steeling themselves to face the the drop or steeling themselves to face Kaladin when they didn't jump. Ranatar, the one who had been pushed down at the beginning, was just finishing describing a plan when Uther hit the ground. "There is no way any of us can take this creature alone. This whole exercise isn’t about personal honor or glory, but about working together and surviving as a group, so support each-other, share your stormlight when someone runs out and don’t take stupid risks. If someone sees faults in this plan, or thinks he has a better idea, speak up now. Otherwise, get down here and get your weapons ready." We're going to need an extra edge to beat that thing without shards. Ranatar's plan is good, but I'm not sure it will be enough... This will require more thought. Uther drew his sword. A fine piece of steel, requisitioned from the Kholin armory. Good slashing edge. Someone had even hammered a little double eye insignia in the center of the crossguard. He undid the stopper on his first vial of poison and smeared a thick layer of its contents of the blade. Far more of it then was practical to kill a human. He hid the vial from Hithon's line of sight, just in case the blindness really was an act. I may serve honor, but at the end of the day I am still an assassin. I'm not above using poison, particularly against this monstrosity. If he could find a weak joint in the chasmfiend's armor, maybe the poison could weaken it. "We wait for the others now."

Hm... I am curious to see how a blind man fares in the coming days... I don't think people become radiants for no reason, however. I am sure this one has strength. "Apologies, Czarn, I fear I did not see you there... If I may, I believe I can offer some answer to your questions. In regard to mending your uniform... I may be able to help you there. Ask after Bala among the group from Sebarial's camp." Bala also used to be an informant for the Ghostbloods a few years ago... But still an excellent seamstress from what I've heard. "As for watching your back... I don't like the idea of an initiate dying from some plan our captain windbrain cooked up. I don't yet consider you an ally or enemy, but if it is in my power, I will not leave you to be eaten by a chasmfiend. And, naturally, it is more likely to be in my power to do something if you stay close tomorrow, if we really are getting sent out after a greatshell." And, for what its worth, even a blind radiant can take a lot of punishment. I wonder what place this one has in the orders... "I suspect, however, that for this question, addressing two people is fortunate. Czarn, what is your take on the matter?"

Good question. This is kinda tentative, but I think that trying to prevent a town jailing from being wasted is not something an elim would be very likely to do. I trust you slightly more then most of the other players.

Well, never fear, for the below reasons I'm changing my vote. I never suspected you all that much... but to be honest your explanations haven't been such that my initial, slight suspicions are particularly alleviated. If that's the case, we should probably vote inactives up. While I hate losing a lynch to take out an inactive... Considering the voting requirements on this game, we need to jail/lynch inactives, or else we will soon be rendered incapable of carrying out executions or pardons. Looks like we should vote up Ashetvl.

Oh. Sorry mage I just pulled up Doc's last RP post after he asked to start a conversation, shoulda seen your post... Also sheeeeeeeep I'm sorry to see you leaving hope all goes well for you and maybe in a little while we meet again. Also, if sheep has said they are going inactive... @Amanuensis do you have an inactivity filter? If no, then I would support jailing sheep... But if yes, we shouldn't waste the vote on someone who will die anyway. Well the tongue is the fastest healing organ in the body, even without stormlight Although the liver is best in terms of how much of it you can lose and still have it grow back. I mean... It validates it in the sense that you now have a solid reason to vote sheep... But it also invalidates your original reasons for voting sheep to be honest. You voted sheep originally on the suspicion that they were elim, but I doubt an elim would drop out like this (unless they are drought... cough, cough...). If I have a legit suspicion (even a small one) I'll vote on that over an inactive... And anyways, you yourself literally just said you see no point in voting on the confirmed inactives. Still, a lot of this depends on if we have an inactivity filter or not. Anyways... Sorry but no RP post this time. And my analysis is unfortunately kind of limited since this game has a sort of slow start (even if I am enjoying the breathing room for RP).

Do you know it was a dead stick? There are plenty of other explanations for Stick not being casted... But it does kind of stand to reason that living things are a bit harder to cast. They take a bit more light and/or a bit more skill. Connection is a different spiritual attribute from innate investiture... It is related in a lot of ways, but I don't think that the boat's connection to its crew makes it any more invested. If it were connected to a shard that might be different.

I'm not so sure... The one time I've played elim I very nearly sent a PM with that very mistake, before catching myself. Maybe that's just me being a rookie... But just saying, it's not such an outlandish mistake for an elim to make, if he didn't double check the post. I don't actually think I want to vote on Arin for this... But I'm just saying, I'm not going to completely discount the way he phrased that. Certainly. Good to see you again, Mi9. I notice your vote still stands, even if you did it just to make Sheep talk... And I also agree with some of what Lopen voiced. If nothing else comes up, I might have to vote on you Jondesu. I wish I had a more solid suspicion, but I think I'd rather you were jailed than Sheep. Uther considered the nature of the murder. It didn't seem like the diagramist's style. Storms, what if its the Ghostbloods? I've been gone long enough, they could have planned something like this... But why? Storms... He idly examined the spren fluttering around him, flickering like a candle despite the steady torrent of rain around it. Why does it keep following me...? His contemplations were disturbed as one of the initiates approached. "Hithon Thindir. Who do I have the presumed honor of addressing?" "I am Teresh." Even though the man looked to be blind, Uther still double checked that a band of rope still hid the insignia on his wrist. When it comes to this, it doesn't hurt to be careful... Shouldn't stormlight heal his eyes...? "Lovely weather we've been having, isn't it?" Uther said with an ironic smile. @Doc12

...And that's a much better description of the two factors I was trying to get at. If the whole "cognitive intent" thing I talked about wasn't clear, the above hits the nail on the head. Note however that I never said something could be soulcast immune, so much as just very resistant. Yes, enough investiture could do it, but it takes more sometimes. I theorize that voidbringers are hard to soulcast since they have both a fair measure of investiture and a lot of cognitive resistance. An experienced soulcaster with enough stormlight might be able to do it, but I would guess that this would be difficult enough that it is probably more practical to whack a voidbringer with your shardblade then it is to try and soulcast it. I still do believe that the marginal amount of investiture within Stick (being a living thing) contributed to making it hard to soulcast, however. Shallan probably did have more stormlight when she soulcasted the boat, and the boat was "willing" to change... But I still think that living things probably have some inherent resistance due to their investiture. Jasnah soulcasting her attackers is an impressive show of skill (and/or having a lot of stormlight), since they were living human beings and since their cognitive aspects almost certainly did not want to be soulcast.

And... Finally storming caught up! And with some time to post! My activity is a little spotty, which is why I really like these long cycles. Sometimes I'll be super-active, sometimes less so, so 3 days gives me plenty of time to weigh in. So... Lets start with the highstorm... Uther was roused early in the morning. While he would have loved to get more sleep, he couldn't say he found this development too surprising, given that Kholin probably had some kind of training program in mind for the initiates. He quickly dressed himself in uniform. This initiates uniform was a lot nicer than his old uniform in Sebarial's army... Uther allowed himself to be shepherded to the roof by an impatient member of stormblessed's squires. That strange spren followed him. It had a pair of wings, but the rest of its form was hard to distinguish... Just a warm glow, flickering almost like a candle's light. Damnation... Is that a stormwall on the horizon? "Prepare..." a faintly echoing, female voice spoke. Uther glanced around. Who said that? "You all have about five minutes to brace yourselves!" These next words were clearly from Captain Stormblessed. Uther saw a set of ropes some initiates were tying themselves to... They were going to weather the highstorm. The first since the weeping. Storms. (What an appropriate curse for this situation...) Uther considered tying himself at the back... But no. That is fear speaking... He remembered his conversation with Sareth the other night, about truth... Truth and untruth. The greatest lie is fear... Fear is simultaneously the grandest lie we tell ourselves and the most basic reality. And it will not have me today. IT WILL NOT. I already died once, and I don't give a damnation if I have to do it again. It's hard to describe exactly why... But... "Words..." the voice spoke again. Yes, words. "I will deny the grip of terror in myself. I will not shy away from self-sacrifice." Powerful words. The wrath of the stormwall would prove if he spoke them truly or not. Trial by fire... A time-honored means to grow. Uther tried to feel peace as the stormwall tore through the air, closer, closer... He could not feel peace. But the fear... It did not control him. As quickly as his concern for the highstorm came and went, a new concern arose. The mark! Typically, a layer of skin-colored face-paint could cover the triple-diamond insignia emblazoned on his wrist, when he needed to conceal it... But a highstorm would wash away such insignificant deception. They would all see... But what if you could change that? Isn't illusions one of the powers attributed to the ancient radiants? Uther sucked in a measure of stormlight, experiencing the familiar, life-giving strength and alertness. Desperately he focused, trying to impose an image on his wrist where there was no mark. Was never any mark. He concentrated. Willed the illusion to be. Minutes slipped away as the stormwall charged him, and... Nothing. Storms... Maybe I'm doing it wrong? Or maybe this has something to do with the different types of spren... Need to hide it. Moments before the stormwall struck, Uther knotted a rope over the wrist, covering the mark from the casual onlooker. It will have to suffice. He stared at the stormwall, seconds from tearing into him, thunder and rain and rocks and debree raging inside of it. Storms but that's an intimidating sight... Overcome it. You cannot vanquish an enemy if you are a slave to fear. "Good luck." Stormblessed said with an infuriatingly smug look pasted on his face. Uther faced the storm at the front of the initiates. Standing. Then the stormwall crashed into him, throwing him off his feet. Uther yelled in defiance as stormlight filled him. His flesh was torn away and regrown, his body frozen and then filled with the all-consuming heat of the vast wealth of stormlight, his bones cracked and remended in mere moments. There was no thought, no possibility of thought. Only pain and blessed stormlight streaming from his countless injuries. And then... Stillness. The rain slackened off into the riddens... It was over. I've seen a good few greenvines in Sebarial's army be broken in... Been one myself, once upon a time. But storms, this Windrunner isn't messing around... In most armies, being left to the stormfather is a death sentence, not an initiation rite. Uther looked around him, assessing the damage. His uniform was in worse shape even then most of the others. Nobody was left standing, but many of the initiates were picking themselves up now. Uther gritted his teeth and tried to rise, only to discover that the stormlight kept him from even feeling worn out. Physically, anyway. He was pleased to note that this morning he still remembered most of the initiates names, having made sure to find out who everyone was the previous night. On his left and right were the initiates Kintas and Tintallë, respectively. Captain Stormblessed descended from the sky to survey the recruits. He doesn't look very pleased about something... "Last night, an initiate died." What...? "Or, should I say, an initiate was murdered, considering his eyes now resemble smoldering coals." Which initiate died? Uther scanned the assembly. Hm... Lomot is missing. An odd choice for an assassin to target... I can think of a few well-funded factions who must not have taken kindly to the re-founding of the Knights Radiant... At least the damnation Sons of Honor aren't likely to be involved; they love the radiants. "Highprince Dalinar is convinced at least one person here was involved. Under normal circumstances, we would cease all training, but as you all know, these are desperate times, and thus we cannot afford to stop for anything. As such, he has given me permission to make your lives a living hell until all those who are responsible are found." Well. That explains why he's trying to break us down at least. But why would they think an initiate did it? Aren't there plenty of other groups who view the radiants as little better than voidbringers? "So, take the day off to talk amongst yourselves. And don’t worry, you won’t have to leave this wonderfully frigid rain for a second. In fact, my Squires will be waiting just inside to make sure you have all the time you need to come clean. Enjoy, Initiates, and please, try not to get too sick. I’ve got big plans for you all tomorrow. Plans as big as a greatshell, in fact." I really hope he only meant that last part figuratively... My experiences with those creatures have been... Unpleasant. Uther stood on the roof as a gentle rain pelted the initiates, silently recovering from the storm and deep in thought about the recent murder. Well, that was a little longer than I intended... But who needs sleep, anyway. So, down to some analysis. The annoying part is, this last cycle, chances are elims would be behaving exactly the same as town. Both elims and town should be looking to earn honor (even an elim who doesn't intend to bond soon will have a lot of solid reasons to be active enough to earn some honor). So... Now that voting is open maybe we are a little less blind, but honestly the design of this game means its a sorta slow start (even if I'm loving reading all y'alls RP, especially these write-ups). Also Aman, did I hear something about a sequel to this game? Anyways... I'm gonna hold off on a vote for now, but I fully intend to vote by the end of the cycle. I think that, especially since voting someone up won't kill them, it's worth putting someone in jail this cycle. There are kind of a lot of different approaches elims could take to be honest... Another possible elim strategy occured to me. Earn max honor each cycle, but don't spend it. Use your elim powers to kill people, then, once you hit a radiant, invest all your honor to bond the freed up spren. This one would be a little hard to detect and atm I don't really have any good idea to counter it. But I figured I'd voice this as a viable elim tactic. Also if anyone wants to start some RP with Uther/Teresh this cycle feel free to. It'd be nice to have some conversation. G'night for now all. PS: Also note that I for one am going to stick with the convention of coloring RP brown for now, unless everyone can agree on a different convention.

I am a stick. But seriously. While we've all talked about the stick as one of our fav characters... It's time to do a real consideration about the mechanics and limitations of soulcasting. So obviously a soulcaster uses stormlight to transform the substance of a material. I suspect that for a radiant who can soulcast, it doesn't matter what kind of gem they draw light from (unlike how it is with soulcaster fabrials). But soulcasting can be difficult difficult. Shallan failed to turn stick into fire (even though she could apparently transform a whole boat). So. What makes an object resistant to soulcasting? 1. Investiture. This should be pretty obvious, since investiture interferes with investiture. I would guess that the reason stick proved more challenging than a boat was partially because the stick was wood that was still alive, and thus more invested. 2. Connection / cognitive intent. It seems like the basic "intent" of a spren can make it easier or harder to soulcast. I would guess it is still possible to soulcast an object against its own will (I doubt the spren of the folks who attacked Jasnah in that alley really wanted to turn into fire or smoke or any of that), but more difficult (especially since human beings are invested). So. What I'm laying out here is not remotely groundbreaking in terms of realmatics, but its worth doing this anyway since I haven't seen anyone give serious consideration to what can make something soulcasting immune. It's worth conjecturing what the rules of this power are, since I have no doubt Sanderson has restricted it with a set of rules. I bet other magic users are pretty storming hard to soulcast. They are more invested, and also connected to at least one shard. I don't think you could just soulcast a voidbringer or stormclast to make it go away. Nor could you soulcast a fellow radiant into fire. And don't even think about trying to soulcast something like a shardblade, or, god forbid, nightblood. It's also probably pretty hard to soulcast something with a really strong identity (no, I don't mean spiritual identity... more like, identity as in how you see yourself). Even though some historical artifact might be completely nonmagical and not too invested... Still pretty hard to soulcast, just because so many people have thought about the object that it has developed a more fixed self-perception. So, living things, invested things, famous things, or connected things. All hard to soulcast. This means that some things are nigh immune to soulcasting, which is probably good since otherwise to be honest the power would be a little too strong.

When the conversation with Sareth winded down, Uther excused himself. He walked to the edge of the roof. Here it was less crowded. Uther was fascinated by the edge. Such an incredible tower... One hundred stories tall. And off on the horizon, he knew a terrible storm swept the earth. Ironically, I suspect that storm is why I am still alive... My place is to fight the desolation. That didn't mean any of this made much sense yet. He would need to talk to one of the full radiants soon, if they didn't plan to explain things in greater depth the next day. He examined them... Dalinar, the man who single handedly brought these initiates together, re-founding the Knights Radiant. Kaladin, who fought and defeated the assassin in white. Shallan, who found Urithiru and took us all here... Truly, if these people are what we initiates have to live up to... Uther waited, looking over the mountain ranges of Urithiru in contemplative silence. He shivered. The night wind at this altitude was icy. At the fringe of everything there were no heating fabrials or sphere lamps. Just a few lonely, old-fashioned torches burning in the night. Uther stood up close to one of the torches in an attempt to stay warm. A single flamespren danced around the torchlight. I wonder what orders we will all end up in... We will likely need members of all of them to weather this storm. He hoped there wouldn't be many skybreakers. He had heard... Unsavory things about them. Uther walked back to the center of the party, looking to see if there were any last things that might require his attention. The flamespren followed him. ...I've never seen one leave a fire like that...

Just a quick clarification about these rules... Most of my posts contain both analysis and RP, not one or the other. This still fulfills the requirements, yes? Yo, just wanted to say... Most people who used purple used it for OOC comments and put the RP in black. And most of those people (including myself) have switched over to use dark red for RP and black for OOC comments. I very much like the idea of color-coding to differentiate RP and OOC analysis, but please lets strive to all use the same convention.

No problem, I need to sleep too mate "I think your answer is wise." Uther's mind wandered for a moment. He wondered what Dalinar was planning for the initiates, after all the formalities were settled. Alright. So. First I want to note that Arinian is dead right about activity. With those voting requirements, inactivity is inexcusable. Actually, if there isn't an inactivity filter we might end up forced to lynch inactives just so we don't lose the ability to lynch... Aman has put in place mechanics to encourage activity (namely the honor system), which is quite helpful to this end... But we need to be careful about this. Since there is no possibility of a lynch for at least the next two cycles... It is kind of hard to have any real suspects right now. Basically, at this stage, we are all scrambling to take up spren. Doesn't really matter what side you're on, right now we are all planning to either go for a spren we don't think other people will go for, or beat everyone out on a role where we expect competition.

There's a WoB out there that says that shardblade cuts physical and cognitive. Unless you have a more recent one that says otherwise, I'm going to trust that one.

Shardblade cuts physical and cognitive (and cognitive is the bit that goes to the beyond). People killed by shardblade still go to afterlife, so far as we know. The special thing about nightblood is that it cuts in the spiritual realm. That means... Well, if you cut a radiant with a shardblade but it doesn't kill them, they can just heal it. But nightblood... I don't think you could use magic to heal it, since being hit by nightblood might actually destroy your ability to use any kind of investiture. That's why I think nightblood is a great super-weapon to use against... Well, other super-weapons. Nightblood is probably by far the easiest way to kill a full allomancer+feruchemist like TLR.

"I think I am beginning to understand... I find it important to know the root of someone's beliefs. If anyone is to claim they know anything at all, they must start with a belief that they simply choose to adopt. It says a great deal about a person, what belief they choose to found all other beliefs upon. If I do not know the basic truth you acknowledge before any others, I do not know the first note of the music that moves you. The pursuit of truth is a noble one... But I do wonder about this equation. I do not doubt that an equation could conceivably explain every pattern in nature... An equation could answer nearly every question that could be asked. But perhaps not the most important ones... So I ask. What purpose does humanity serve? Is the purpose of mankind to find truth? If a man could reach complete understanding, but also be rendered incapable of action, would this trade be desirable?" This is an intriguing new belief system... I almost feel bad for bringing out all these heavy-hitting questions... If you reply that the equation has calculated that the purpose humanity serves is 42...

Pretty sure it said in the book that the phantoms took around 100, actually. I would pull up quote but my computer is about to die, sorry.

NOOOOOO my giant post just storming got deleted. I'll try and rewrite it I guess... Also while I'm venting I just want to say that my keyboard can't type "h", "w", or "f" nineteen times out of twenty and its storming annoying. If my posts have typos that's probably why. I agree with you in principle, but I just want to point out that I for one will not be spending some honor on one bond and some on another. First of all, I'd be open to try some RP later this cycle... Second of all, I'll just say from the start... I'm gunning for a role that probably a lot of other people also will be shooting for. Third of all, I don't think that Stoneward works like bodyguard. According to my understanding of the rules it's more like doctor. They don't kill the attacker or die in the process, they just protect someone (little more powerful than vanilla doctor since they can protect against lynch). You know, you could totally just change the text color back for mentions and leave the rest purple. But fine, I'll adopt this new red convention because I don't like the idea of everyone following different color codes. An interesting conversation... Excellent. "I would potentially be interested, thank you... I fear you misunderstand my question however. By what criteria do you decide if something belongs in the book or not? Do you evaluate the truth of information according to your senses, and your observation? Do you advocate a certain method to test if something is true or not? Do you perhaps hold to a particularist belief, and assume the contents of the book to be true, thus evaluating new information based on the teachings of the book? The problem of criterion. It is impossible to discuss truth without starting there...