Elenion

Thanks: now we have confirmation that Magestar is actually an Arcos. Dani died a few cycles ago, so the write-up confirmed that she was Thorne. Since Chaos would be useful to us as a scanner to detect roles like Raths and Arcoses, I'm for letting her stick around. Jondesu

If game impact is the question, you have done more than Straw this game... Chaos, would you mind disclosing to the thread the houses of anyone you've scanned so far?

I guess I'm good with Chaos; it's basically the same as lynching Straw but with a greater possibility of success. In the last QF Chaos and I were PM-buddies, and even when DA was obviously an elim she chose to lurk instead of putting her vote down; so I could definitely see elim!Chaos try to go under the radar through inactivity. Jondesu

The "mess" is the mental conundrum that my paranoid mind has me in : if you are village and Burnt is village, Mage is probably elim; if you are elim and Burnt is village, Mage is village; if you are village and Burnt is elim, Mage is probably elim... and so on. That was the mess that I was referring to, although I do agree that I didn't articulate it well at the time. Sorry; for some reason I thought that a Lune could scan alignment as well as role. The way that you have defended yourself--logos instead of pathos--and Mage's claim that he is, in fact, actually Arcos have made me more trusting of you. If you are an elim, you're doing a very good job. My read on you is now at 60% village, up from 40% at the beginning of this cycle. I've kept up a basic idea of who's active and who's not. This is what I remember off of the top of my head. Inactive: 1x or less per turn Less-active: 1-2 times per turn (or semi-active but RP only) Semi-active: 3-4 times per turn (or less active but with long posts) Active: 5+ times per turn (or high contribution but in fewer posts) Assassin in Burgundy as The Jackal: Less-active now, previously inactive. Magestar as Lucius: Active. Jondesu as Quintus: Semi-active if RL isn't in the way. AliasSheep as Nirgal: Semi-active except for this cycle. I_am_a_Stick as Stick: Less-active/inactive border. The_Lady_of_Chaos as Tenebrum: Inactive. Elenion as Khazad: Active now, previously semi-active. The Young Bard as Gregor: Semi-active now, less-active before. TheMightyLopen as Priam: Semi-active. Previously inactive. Burnt Spaghetti as Tia: Less-active or inactive. Straw as Morsde: Has he even posted? jefrywlfersn as Jefry: Inactive Basically, we've got 12 players left alive. Of them 3 (Chaos, Jefry, Straw) are completely inactive, 3 (Assassin, Stick, Burnt) are less-active, 4 (Lopen, Jondesu, Sheep, Bard) are semi-active, and 2 (Len, Mage) are active. If we do lynch an inactive, I'd suggest we lynch Straw: I don't remember seeing one post of his in the game so far. I'd cast the vote myself, but Bard hasn't greened my name yet, so we're still officially in a duel.

Hurt Nazh, heal Vasher 1. Khriss--10 2. Nazh--8 3. Galladon--9 5. Baon--2 6. Vasher--11 7. Nightblood--10 8. Iyatil--11 9. Felt--9

I'm not super Invested in this fight (pun intended), because I haven't read Mistborn Era 2 and Shallan's character was "meh". I'll abstain from voting for this round.

I completely forgot about the PM escapade--that is a rather gaping hole in my theory. Same with the elim kill: it wouldn't have been even possible for you to have received a Blade from Wonko. It appears that I jumped to conclusions too hastily. Sorry, Bard. BTW, do you have a read on Lopen? @The Young Bard

Hurt Nazh, heal Vasher 1. Khriss--12 2. Nazh--9 3. Galladon--8 5. Baon--2 6. Vasher--10 7. Nightblood--9 8. Iyatil--11 9. Felt--9

Lopen proposed 4 possible methods here. I'm growing more and more concerned about the lack of a lynch today: if we don't choose a target and soon, the Forsworn will be able to just vote on whomever they want at the last second for an instant lynch. In the past I've mentioned my distrust of Lopen; however, it appears that no other players share this same suspicion of him other than Burnt, and so am willing to believe that I am mistaken about Lopen's alignment. Who I do wish to challenge is Bard, because of something I just remembered while looking over the Forsworn we've killed so far: Wonko was an item-swapper, right? And we know that he was one of the Forsworn's heaviest posters (if not the heaviest), because he had a Blade that El stole from him. Now here's my thought: "If I was a Forsworn, and a fellow Forsworn was getting lynched who had some good items or even an IonBlade, what would I suggest to do about it?" My answer to myself: "I would suggest setting up another fellow Forsworn as challenger in order to receive the items." I found it a bit strange at the time that Bard was the one cheered to duel Wonko: I even put my first cheer on Doc because I trusted him with the Merit and items gained, before Sheep and Dani told me that Doc had withdrawn his challenge. There was another challenge to Wonko: DA, but we know he was village. So if the elims didn't send Doc to retrieve any items, and didn't send DA to retrive any items, what does that leave? Two things: either Wonko didn't have any items of note, or Bard was the one sent by the Forsworn to retrieve items. I think the first is less likely because Wonko was more active than all of the players left alive now were at that time (or at least it feels that way). So if Wonko out-posted all of our remaining Forsworn, that means he should have been getting all of the IonBlades, leaving him with at least one before he died, but Bard never mentioned receiving any IonBlades from the lynch. I know that it looks like I'm flailing for evidence (and I probably am), but my highest priority right now is ensuring that the lynch has at least a good chance of being productive for us. If anyone else has more-concrete suspicions than this, I am happy to cheer them in their duel instead.

If you're really an Arcos, lynching you would mean the challenger's death, which we really don't need right now. And since both you and Lopen have claimed that you are an Arcos, I see no reason to doubt that, and so right now I'd say you're safe from the lynch. But as for night-kills, I can't make any guarantees about me or anyone else. However, if we don't want to lynch Mage, who do we lynch? I've explained my reasoning for why we should lynch Lopen, but so far I have had no feedback as to whether or not that would be a good idea.

Sorry; I meant Burnt. I was trying to make the point that one of your closest contacts found you suspicious, but I mixed up the names. Sorry. No, I said "I'm most suspicious of Mage, Burnt, and Lopen, but definitely not in that order", specifically noting about Burnt that I "Would not lynch at this point." What I was saying is that out of Burnt, you, and Mage, I have heavy suspicions that one, maybe two of you are elims. That group distrust is much stronger than, say, my distrust of Bard. But out of that large distrust, I pin it much more on you and Mage than on Burnt. And where did I say I'd lynch Burnt? I said just the opposite. What have you done to clear yourself? If anything, I'm trusting you less and less. What made me initially suspicious of you is the quietness factor: until recently it seemed to me that you've been lying low, trying to avoid getting suspected, until Burnt called you out in front of everyone. And as for why the lynch is on you or Burnt, it's because I smelled a rat with that whole reveal: it seems strange to me that Doc would take an action as decisive as a kill and then not record it in his WhisperGem: even if it's something like "Tonight I'm IonBlading Mage". Also, my only suspicions not related to this Lopen/Burnt/Mage mess is a bad gut read on Bard, which isn't really much to go off of, so I'm searching for Forsworn where I'm almost positive they can be found. I still have a lingering distrust about you associated with the Doc write-up, but your story does make sense for what happened, even if it isn't the most probable explanation. Doc hears you're an Arcos, somehow hears rumors of a Forsworn Arcos, goes vigilante, and gets killed by chance. However, an even-easier explanation is that you are a Forsworn Arcos that Doc somehow heard about. Another problem: how in the blazes did Doc hear about there possibly being a Forsworn Arcos in the first place? Did Wonko tell Doc before they both died? Did Doc have a Lune contact? If there are any scan roles in the game, any at all, we need them to scan Mage and tell us what his alignment is. I don't want to waste an IonBlade on a villager, but if he's Forsworn we need to take him tomorrow with the IonBlades from the store. I'm sorry if I'm being overaggressive; I'm just trying to ensure that the Forsworn can't pull out a win. Does anyone else have anything to contribute about whether or not they find Lopen suspicious (@Burnt Spaghetti and any others who have PMs with Lopen especially)? I want to weigh all of the evidence before we lynch anyone rashly, like I did with DA. We need to get a Forsworn lynched and soon, because I have a feeling that if we don't we aren't going to last much longer. My computer access for the next 11-or-so hours will be intermittent due to me going out of town and later a D&D game. I'll try to get on when I can, though, but don't expect copious amounts of activity.

I am an idiot. In predicting the minute I forgot the obvious. I have a super-easy way to clear/confirm Mage as an Arcos: @Magestar, challenge me to a duel! If he is able to challenge me, I can trust him to not be the Forsworn Arcos and will forgive his challenge. If he reads this message but does not issue me a challenge, be it known to all that Magestar is an Arcos. (and quite possibly a Forsworn Arcos)

@Tariniel @I_am_a_Stick We need more voters!

What has Vasher done to you? Kill Demoux, heal Vasher 1. Khriss--9 2. Nazh--8 3. Galladon--6 4. Demoux--0 5. Baon--5 6. Vasher--8 7. Nightblood--7 8. Iyatil--8 9. Felt--8 10. The Ire--5 11. "WalDo"--6

Well, currently the top bar of the Shard looks like this to me. @Chaos did you break something? It's never done this before. The forum 'mark as read' icons are funky as well. Most of them are a giant plus sign.

Storms! I was waiting for Mage, then went to my uncle's place and missed turnover so I couldn't take my duel off of DA. Sorry DA. Right now I'm most suspicious of Mage, Burnt, and Lopen, but definitely not in that order. I'd bet my life (character life, that is ) that at least one of them is a Forsworn. Here's an analysis of each: Burnt: Info presented: Claimed that Doc attempted to kill a player who was an Arcos. Contacted Lopen to get the player's identity. Arguments for Village: Trusted enough by Doc to get info of a sensitive nature, first to reveal her info to the thread Arguments for Elim: A few small reasons such as inactivity; could be working in tandem with Lopen for a misdirection of village night-kills My read: Neutral to start, but improving by the post. Would not lynch at this point. Lopen: Info presented: Verified Burnt's story; claimed that Doc's target was Magestar Arguments for Village: Trusted by Doc Arguments for Elim: Distrusted by Rae, could have put anyone's name he wanted as the target and we wouldn't know My read: Neutral to Forsworn. Lynch away! Mage: Info presented: Accused of being Forsworn Arcos. No response as of yet. Arguments for Village: Smear tactic? Arguments for Elim: Word of 2 other players, hints in Doc's write-up My read: Forsworn Of the three players above, I think Mage is most likely to be a Forsworn, but we can't lynch him if he really is an Arcos. This leaves the lynch to hit either Burnt or Lopen. Of the two I'd rather take Lopen, but I'll leave the actual challenging for someone who needs the merit: we need as many IonBlades as possible in order to overwhelm Mage's defenses, and judging by his activity he's got the Merit for at least one. Khazad reached the door of Tiberius' chamber and pounded hard. This was no time for subtlety: an invisible hand of death had declared war on Tiberius' lancers, and Tiberius ought to know about it. After what seemed like an eternity, the door to Tiberius' chamber opened. In the doorway was an extremely-groggy secretary. "Eh, what's going on? Why are you all here so late? "We need to see Tiberius now. It's a matter of life and death!" "I'm sorry, Tiberius cannot see you now." Khazad lost his patience. He grabbed the poor secretary by the shirt and pressed him against the door firmly but not painfully so. "We need to see Tiberius! Now!" The secretary paled, "I don't know where he is! He left an hour ago; said it was urgent. I haven't seen him since!" Khazad let the poor man go. His anger was better suited for Golds. "It looks like we were too late," Quintus added. "Indeed. Let's go searching." Khazad's sixth sense chimed in, Of course you're too late! That's what they get for being around you! Khazad was not amused.

Hurt Khriss, heal Vasher 1. Khriss--8 2. Nazh--7 3. Galladon--5 4. Demoux--4 5. Baon--5 6. Vasher--8 7. Nightblood--7 8. Iyatil--7 9. Felt--7 10. The Ire--5 11. "WalDo"--7

I had no idea that he was going to do anything like that, so I wasn't prepared at all. Here's highlights of a game I've been in where Ecth was GM-ing: We were on the planet of Ardis Prime, on a mission to extract some information about a secret imperial base from a mainframe computer located in a bunker. The bunker was located under a nobleman's mansion, so we got in there under cover of a ball that was being held. Now we needed a distraction to get into the turbolift, so we decided on having one of our party members feign drunkenness and cause a ruckus. Now we leave this scene and head into a nearby building, where our diplomat character happened to run across a strongroom by chance. He cut his way in with a lightsaber, and found himself face to face with no fewer than 16 very-surprised Stormtroopers. One stun grenade and they were all down. Now we didn't know it at the time, but that happened to be the entire garrison for the whole area. So we go back to our fake-drunken player, who suddenly becomes angry, pulls his blaster, and shoots a glass walkway above, shattering it. All of the guests turn in horror, but somehow no Stormtroopers ever show up to deal with the drunken guest. So he shoots it again. Still nothing: staring and murmuring, but none of the prissy guests have a single weapon with which to deal with this drunk smuggler. So he and my diplomat go and raid the treasury, and nobody can do anything to stop them. A few minutes later, a small detachment of our party is down in the bunker, hacking away at the computer. Well, correction: our techie was hacking, I was in a blaster battle with the constant stream of guards, and our charmer was trying not to die in the fight. So our Hacker rolls the Computers Check to do the final hacking, and rolls a Triumph: the equivalent of a natural 20. But Ecth just says that it'll come into play later. Fast-forward a few minutes and we're making a discreet getaway through the town, when all of a sudden Ecth announces that all of the screens in the entire city have suddenly begun showing the same video. He flips his GM-ing laptop towards us and we know things have gotten serious. He hits play and the laptop begins showing this video. Now Ecth has some decent video-editing skills, and has somehow prepared something just to reward us for our Triumph on the Computers Check. The video begins playing: it's a Galactic Empire Stormtrooper Corps recruiting video. All of a sudden, the video hits some static and switches over to, I kid you not, a techno remix of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up. And all of us are sitting around the game table, just dying of laughter. [When I'm on again, I'll transcribe the story of the Creepy Gungan from when I was GM-ing.]

Hurt Khriss, heal Vasher 1. Khriss--7 2. Nazh--7 3. Galladon--5 4. Demoux--5 5. Baon--5 6. Vasher--7 7. Nightblood--6 8. Iyatil--7 9. Felt--8 10. The Ire--5 11. "WalDo"--8

Now you have put yourself in a tight spot: if you are right the elims will probably want you dead tonight, and if you are wrong the elims will probably kill you to make us think that you were right. It probably would have been better if you had kept that confined to PMs. That said, there are 5 distinct possibilities that could be going on: 1. Mage and Lopen are both village; Doc was mistaken, was roleblocked from killing Mage, and was killed by an elim. 2. Mage is Forsworn, Lopen is village. Everything is exactly like Lopen told you it was. 3. Mage is village, Lopen is Forsworn. Lopen got into Doc's confidences, told Doc that Mage was evil, and now has told you that Mage is evil in order to waste a village IonBlade on a villlager. 4. Mage and Lopen are both full Forsworn; Lopen tried to bus Mage to get into your trust list, but failed 5. Lopen is a Forsworn Rath bussing a teammate. Very similar to #4, except that Lopen means to defect very soon. I've distrusted Mage ever since the Doc write-up last night, but my gut on Lopen has not been good this game. I think #2 and #3 are both reasonably likely, with #s 4 and 5 further back. However, I'm pretty sure that at least one of them is Forsworn. Finally, @Magestar, I'd like to hear your side of the story. Did Doc attack you last night? Are you really an Arcos? Ya... if I was a Forsworn and bussing DA then that would be a pretty crappy bus indeed. Hmmm... with Burnt's claim that Mage is a Forsworn, my reasons 3 and 4 actually apply to Mage almost as much as they do to DA. However, if the info is right then that also means that Mage is unlynchable, so... would you rather we duel DA or Lopen? If you and DA are willing I'm ready to drop the current duel and instead switch onto Lopen.

Mortality rate's rather high for such optimism, in my opinion. Okay, so I've got a story to share from my time GM-ing for Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Ecthelion III and the Great Fall: I was GM-ing an adventure on a jungle planet called Abyssinium in an adventure that I wrote myself. The PCs had been taken by surprise when their ally in the planetary defense forces launched a military coup under cover of the PCs plan to take down crime-lord Durgo Voss, and so the PCs fought their way to the government skyscraper in an effort to recover control of the planet's government in the aftermath of their raid. They reached the top floor and rescued the captives, and entered the offices on the 27th floor, where General Prall Chen, a Gran, had set up headquarters. Now we get to the humorous part. General Chen, seeing that the PCs had defeated his forces, jumped out of the window, presumably to his death. However, my brother Ecthelion III had other plans, so he literally jumped out of the window to follow General Chen. I asked him if he really wanted to do so, and he confirmed that he did. So I went with it. I think Ecth was expecting there to be a speeder waiting outside. There was not. Instead, General Chen activated his jetpack and flew off, but left Ecth to plummet for 27 stories. Now to give you an idea of Ecth's character: he'd racked up enough cash and XP for some serious upgrades. His character, I kid you not, was a two-hundred-pound, hairy Wookiee wearing a hydraulic mech suit. So picture with me a 350-pound mass of hair and durasteel falling from 27 stories. In addition to me asking him beforehand if he really wanted to jump, while falling I gave him the chance to make a Ranged: Light weapon check to catch his grappling hook on the side of the building as he fell. As Murphy's law predicts, he fails, and the grappling hook bounces off and falls with him. So poor Gaartatha hits the ground with nothing to slow his fall but the mech suit. We will now suspend the narrative for some math: Gaartatha began his fall from 270 feet up (82.296 meters) Neglecting air resistance and assuming Abyssinium has Earth's gravity, Ecth's character took 4.096 seconds to hit the ground. Gaartatha hit the ground moving 40.18 meters per second, or about 89.88 miles per hour. This is survivable, but only with cushioning such as from airbags. I didn't kill him outright due to the suit, but let's just say that he wasn't out of the hospital for weeks and that the suit, which he had extensively modded, was totaled. The new government after General Chen did pay his medical expenses, though.

I took 2 of his health off because I didn't want a Hoid-opoly on all of the heals. Kill him now and other characters have a chance. Hurt Mraize, heal Vasher 2. Khriss - 7 3. Nazh - 5 4. Galladon - 4 5. Demoux - 5 6. Baon - 5 7. Vasher - 7 8. Nightblood - 6 9. Mraize - 2 10. Iyatil - 7 11. Felt - 6 12. The Ire - 5 13. "WalDo" (the mystery Kandra worldhopper) - 6 14. The Nalthis Terriswoman - 5

Now this is a tough matchup for me. I like both of these characters so much, but... Szeth. I've got extra upvotes, so vote Szeth if you want them!

I apologize for leaving, but I thought it was the best way to maintain game balance. Turns out we still lost. (Looking at you, Doc! )

Hurt Hoid, heal Vasher 1. Hoid - 1 2. Khriss - 6 3. Nazh - 5 4. Galladon - 4 5. Demoux - 5 6. Baon - 5 7. Vasher - 7 8. Nightblood - 5 9. Mraize - 5 10. Iyatil - 6 11. Felt - 6 12. The Ire - 5 13. "WalDo" (the mystery Kandra worldhopper) - 5 14. The Nalthis Terriswoman - 5