Long Game 48: The Terris Synod

[Elandera she/her]

Ela was tired. It was too late for her old bones, and the matter at hand was too complicated. She needed sleep, but the future of her people could be at stake. She may not like most of them, or really any of them, but they were still Terris. Besides, she'd like to stick it to the Lord Ruler before she laid down to sleep for the last time.

To do that, she needed to convince her fellows to be smart.

"Let's not kill another ally, shall we?" she said in her standard almost angry tone. "We need to be smart about this. These things of the Lord Ruler, curse him, are tricky. It's good I don't like any of you anyways, since any of you could be working for that foul creature that ruined my beautiful garden. I'd happily stab you myself if I knew who you were."

----

3 hours ago, Sart said:

"So, like, um, that was super bad, y'know? Cuz like, an Archivist would have been super good. So, like, maybe we should kill Itiah tonight? So, like, If you're submitting an action to kill someone tonight, just like, put it in the thread. That way it's like a lynch, except, y'know, random. Cuz that would be super helpful, for tracking. But, like don't vote if you're not gonna kill. I mean, obviously people need stuff in their metal minds, right?"

I'm not so sure announcing who we plan to kill would be a good option. For one, it's way too easy to lie and say you're going to put in a kill vote on person A, while you actually put in an order on person B. It also opens up the way for some really good distancing tactics for elims, considering there's no way to verify their choice. They could just say their action wasn't the one that went through.

It's also important to carefully consider all of your action options. The roleblocking could be key in stopping elims from filling their metalminds and/or making actions. The protect will also be useful if you're confident the one you're protecting may be targeted, and they're also village. It's important we get a few villagers voting on that one so the elims can't get a guarantee each one will go to protect themselves. The double-fill is another one village should consider using to help prevent elim from stocking up on charges. As (rand, araris? can't remember) said, getting more charges on certain types would be more helpful than others. It is very unfortunate Coop was a copper ferring, and I can only hope we have at least one more or a full feruchemist to help make up for it. (And don't forget the other two action options, kill and PM)

Edited August 13, 2018 by Elandera
Added the rest of the possible actions

[I think I am here. he/him]

Ok, that’s bad. Pretty bad. I guess we could now look for people who had relations to Coop, and see where that leads us. This kinda also makes me look suspicious, so maybe I can redirect everyone who voted on me to read my D1 defense post?

[DeTess she/her]

The worst thing is, in hindsight I can totally see why coop did what he did if he was a copper ferring, and I'd probably have retracted my vote if I had been around when he made the claim. With the information I had at the time, I couldn't help but see it as highly suspicious though. I'll be taking a look at those who voted on him after the claim, because copper ferrings would be a major target for the elims, and his claim was quite easily verifiable.

I'm also fairly certain that @Cadmium Compounder(who announced this in advance), @Bort, @Rathmaskal and @Ark1002 haven't posted yet. Hey guys, the game's begun

Edited August 13, 2018 by randuir

[Bort he/him]

Hey guys, sorry for my absence so far. Yet another weekend with too much to do and not enough sleep. I'll try to chip in properly later today.

[CadCom he/him]

Ethin had just arrived back from a long trip. It had always been his dream to SCUBA Dive in the Southern Dominance. Now he had accomplished that, and was able to check one more thing off his bucket list. SCUBA was an art that went under the Lord Ruler's Radar. It was time to get back to the classes he taught Here in the North, the water tended to get a little bit cold, but he had a trusty friend who could store warmth, then would tap it to warm up the water prior to his SCUBA class. 

It had been various months since he had been here, and as usual, when he returned, he discovered bad news. Spiked infiltrators in the Synod! This put them all at risk. 

Anyway, business had to pursue as normal, so it was time to advertise his SCUBA diving training courses. Ethin began putting up signs and spreading the word. Hopefully he could get some new customers. 

END RP

Hey guys. I'm checking in. Let me go ahead and look over the thread and figure out what happened. 

[Steeldancer he/him]

Great. My fears were true. I managed to help vote on and kill an important village role, and we got no net information. Blegh. 

[DeTess she/her]

1 hour ago, Steeldancer said:

Great. My fears were true. I managed to help vote on and kill an important village role, and we got no net information. Blegh. 

I'd say we got plenty to look at at least. This comment being among the more interesting samples.

Edit: in all seriousness, a heavily contested lynch like this one is always going to give us something to look at. No reason for defeatism (unless ITIAH is an elim, and the elims made an incredibly obvious effort to save him...)

Edited August 13, 2018 by randuir

[Rathmaskal he/him]

Hey folks, sorry, crazy weekend.  I'll get into the swing of things now.  I'll work on catching up with the thread right now.

[CadCom he/him]

So I do find it quite interesting how quickly the ITIAH bandwagon went up, then the counter on Coop, Then the fight between the two. It makes me wonder why everyone was defending Itiah, and I'd like answers, So I am going to find out by tagging the people that voted on Coop, as well as @I think I am here. 

What caused the quick response to save Itiah? @randuir @Snipexe @Worldhopper From Yolen @Kidpen @Steeldancer

Assuming a village team of anywhere between 3 to 5( good estimate without going into too much effort, because I don't feel like it rn) and assuming Itiah to be on that elim team, it is unlikely that they all would have voted for coop to protect itiah. Elim teams rarely all vote together on D1, but I'm not saying it isn't possible. but I expect that maybe 2 of them did vote on Coop. Even if Itiah isn't elim, of the 6, I wouldn't be surprised if 2 of them are Elim, because that seems like a comfortable amount to vote for someone who has claimed to be useful to the village. So once again, I can never be certain, but I would expect that at least 2 elims are within those 6, so these six will now be given extra scrutiny by me. 

[DeTess she/her]

34 minutes ago, Cadmium Compounder said:

What caused the quick response to save Itiah? @randuir @Snipexe @Worldhopper From Yolen @Kidpen @Steeldancer

I wouldn't know what caused the quick response involving ITAH in particular, as I'd voted on Coop well before the ITIAH bandwagon had gotten started. If I had to guess, it was a combination of people liking the coop wagon more (though ITIAH ended up with more votes at the end of D1), and my recommendation that votes are consolidated, rather than spread out, to make it more difficult for the elims to identify roles.

Edit: Assuming 4 elims (about 20% of 19), its indeed not unreasonable to assume there's 2 in each wagon, assuming there are no elims among the 6 that didn't vote. Statistically speaking, its more likely there's 2 in 1 group, 1 in another and a fourth among the non-voters, unless ITIAH is evil, in which case I expect there to have been as many elims in one group as necessary to help him survive, with any elims capable of self-nullifying their vote voting for ITIAH.

Anyway, I've started looking into the votes from yesterday more. ITIAH, kidpen and steel voted on Coop after he'd claimed to be a copper ferring.

ITIAH notes that coop is soft-claiming copper, but votes on him anyway because he thinks its a last minute claim to save his life. What's interesting to note is that he dismisses it as claim that can't be verified (while it could be quite easily verified given that coppers filling mechanic is quite unique and easy to verify), and also raises his vote on WfY as still ebing very odd, while knowing that he was filling copper, it was actually the safest place for WfY for coops vote to be. As it stands, ITIAH was the other main lynch candidate, so I can understand that he'd vote on coop in self preservation (which is a mostly NAI act if you don't have any reason to trust the other guy), but that's not part of his reasoning for voting on coop.

I don't agree with Kidpen's reasoning that coop was being too vague about his role. The only way he could have been less vague is if he'd claimed outright, and that would have been (even) worse for his long-term survival. She(?)'s also hedging a lot on the vote, immediately bringing up D1 uncertainty. Lastly, she doesn't really mention ITIAH at all apart from noting that he's the other main candidate. If ITIAH is evil, I can definitely see Kidpen being a team-mate.

Steel states that he doesn't like Coops evasiveness, which I can understand, but by the time he made his vote coop had pretty much explained why he made the vote. Like kidpen he tries to distance himself from the lynch by stating he liked neither option. Also like Kidpen he only discusses why he thinks coop is suspicious, not what he thinks makes ITIAH worth considering. Adding to that is his apologetic comment during the night cycle in which he also highlights that we learned nothing ('Really you guys, there's nothing to find there. Move along, nothing to see here').

If  ITIAH is evil, I would be highly surprised if not at least 1 of kidpen or steel is evil, but even if ITIAH ends up good I don't really like how either of them went about placing their vote. 

Edited August 13, 2018 by randuir
grammar

[Rathmaskal he/him]

Laksam had been out all day sweeping.  It seemed there was always more ash to sweep...   OK, there WAS always more ash to sweep.  He heard a commotion and managed to find the crowd just in time to see someone killed.  And now he finds out the city is closed?  What a day.  (Sorry for the lack of the wasings and such...I'll work on adding that to my repertoire)

~~

So, we've started with the d1 bandwagon that I'm sure is going to skew my reads for the rest of the game.  Wonderful.  A couple things I find mildly interesting is the way the voting went...  It seemed like mostly poke/NAI voting to start the day...then the Itiah bandwagon...then the coop counter-bandwagon...then the Itiah counter-counter-bandwagon.

Vote breakdown:

Coop - rand

Itiah - Sart > Araris > Elandera > _Stick_ > Xino

Coop - Snipexe > WfY > Itiah > Kidpen > Steeldancer

Itiah - Alvron > phattemer

I'm not sure what I'm trying to get to here.  I kind of wish I'd done the analysis before seeing that Coop flipped village so I could have a better thought of what my vote would have been.

 

[CadCom he/him]

1 hour ago, randuir said:

Anyway, I've started looking into the votes from yesterday more. ITIAH, kidpen and steel voted on Coop after he'd claimed to be a copper ferring.

I also want to add Snip on the list of possible suspects. Even though he didn't vote after Coop soft claimed, he did place his vote after Coop began to sound cryptic. Even before voting for coop, he said he agreed with the Itiah bandwagon, then proceeded to vote on Coop, and I'm not sure why.

[DeTess she/her]

4 minutes ago, Cadmium Compounder said:

I also want to add Snip on the list of possible suspects. Even though he didn't vote after Coop soft claimed, he did place his vote after Coop began to sound cryptic. Even before voting for coop, he said he agreed with the Itiah bandwagon, then proceeded to vote on Coop, and I'm not sure why.

Okay, calling it now. If ITIAH is evil, the elim team is ITIAH, steel, kidpen and snipexe (+1 maybe one more if the villages has been stacked with full feruchemists).

In all seriousness though, Snipexe stating his agreement with that bandwagon but then jumping the other way without going in depth on why he thinks the ITIAH wagon is good looks off.

[+Ark1002]

Kadik had been in hiding for a long time. He had run away from his master, and he had finally decided to come here. They can't stop me. I'm terris to. He wore a terris costume dyed black under robes of a skaa he had- no don't think about that. Now he was back. He just needed to find out what to do.

[Kidpen he/him]

3 hours ago, randuir said:

I don't agree with Kidpen's reasoning that coop was being too vague about his role. The only way he could have been less vague is if he'd claimed outright, and that would have been (even) worse for his long-term survival. She(?)'s also hedging a lot on the vote, immediately bringing up D1 uncertainty. Lastly, she doesn't really mention ITIAH at all apart from noting that he's the other main candidate. If ITIAH is evil, I can definitely see Kidpen being a team-mate.

I stand by that, to be honest. I felt like he was deliberately trying to make it seem like he was keeping his role from the elims, while simultaneously making it obvious what his role actually was. And if he's doing that, then the elims obviously know just as well as us. I didn't think there was any point to him doing that rather than claiming outright. I still wonder why he did that, for that matter.

He, by the way.

[Steeldancer he/him]

Honestly, I didn’t take Coops claim seriously. I saw it as possibly an elim trying to make a last ditch claim, but as mentioned in the very post where I voted, I was concerned that he was legitimately an important role at the same time that I was suspicious. This is why I hate voting at the end of cycles, it always ends up looking suspicious, because generally you’re basing it on previous analysis versus doing it yourself. Or you can just not vote, which I also hate because that encourages passivity. Conclusion- reading WoT all day is great, as long as you remember to vote before the last hour. 

[+Ark1002]

Kadik had learned more about the village that night. Now he just needed a place to stay. In the meantime, he leaned on a wall, wondering what to do.

****

I missed the voting, and I'm wondering how it was done. 

[CadCom he/him]

12 minutes ago, Ark1002 said:

I missed the voting, and I'm wondering how it was done. 

When someone votes, it is done by changing the font color to red, and writing the person's name, most often the player name, though the character name works as well. Ark1002  To remove a vote, You change the font color to green and do the same thing Ark1002. If you're on a PC or desktop, then the color can be changed on the top bar that gives you formatting options. If you are on a mobile, you have to put in the code ['color=red] ['/color] Just remove the ' from within the brackets and putting the words between the start code and end code brackets. (I don't speak code, so I don't know if I've used the right words.)

Edited August 13, 2018 by Cadmium Compounder

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

About three and a half hours left in the cycle. Please send in any orders within that timeframe.

I’d also like to give advance warning that Day 3, which begins Thursday night at 9 PM EDT, will be extended to seventy-two hours, to account for the fact that I will not be around for most of Friday and Saturday, and will instead be at my sister’s wedding (and the rehearsal dinner for that wedding). I hope this does not inconvenience anybody, and that you make use of the full seventy-two hours instead of all voting in the last ten minutes of the cycle.  

[Stick. she/her]

Apologies for not having posted yet. It's unfortunate that we've lost a copper ferring. And a synod member to top it off... 

Analysis of the vote will have to come tomorrow, I'm afraid. Though I will say that I understand why people didn't retract their votes off Coop even after his claim because honestly, that's the last resort for a fair number of elims when their necks are on the line. But of course, I'm not suggesting that Coop should've outright role-claimed either. He was in a tough spot.

And what are you taking about Steel? Voting at the end of the cycle is the BEST (even if it does prove to be a nuisance for the GMs (soz GMs)) because that way, you get to take in the whole picture and make a decision. imo, anyhow.

Anyway that's all for tonight cuz it's kind of 2 AM

[I think I am here. he/him]

Ok. I can see how people are getting suspicious, but again, most of the votes on me were simply bandwagon votes, piggy-backing off of the main accusers.

Yes, I also voted on Coop for self-preservation, obviously, but people seem so adamant to bring up my counter-lynch rather than the initial team up.

To me, people who voted for Coop early would be fine. Since I had the lynch lead then, it would have been safer to go with the bandwagon then bring up a new candidate, like some had did. If elims really were backing me up, it could be so they could make a tie. After all, it doesn’t matter who dies to them, as long as they’re a villager, right?

This also makes people who voted for me without proper reason suspicious too, as it matches directly with this speculation.

[Steeldancer he/him]

Heh why am I even bothering to defend myself? If I'm an eliminator, and on Itiahs team like Rand thinks, then it doesn't matter what I say, my goal was to save itiah. If I'm villager, I'm telling the truth about my motives and shouldn't feel obliged to explain them anymore. Typical of me, constantly overexplaining myself. 
72 hours? That will mean I'll probably be on my trip to college when the cycle ends. Please note when I'm driving, I'll only be able to get on sporadically where there's actually decent data/wifi in the middle of nowhere. 

[Alvron he/him]

Something that I haven't seen brought up is the fact that some votes don't count.  Let's say I'm evil and so is Itiah.  Depending on my role, I could've easily voted on Itiah tying up the vote like I did but knowing that my vote wouldn't be counted thus the seeming tie vote isn't really a tie.  Even if Itiah is evil, there is nothing to say that one or more of the votes on them weren't from Elims.  This game gives the perfect opportunity for some fake bussing.  Nothing builds trust like being the first to tunnel/vote on an Elim.  And doing so while your vote is cancelled... 

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

Cycle is closed!

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

Era stood in the center of her garden watching the sun set, remembering a time when that orb had burned yellow, unobscured by mist and ash. After Irion’s tragic death, she had wanted to calm herself by working in her garden, cultivating the ugly yet life-sustaining brown plants. When she’d been young, her garden had been truly beautiful, an area half the size of the entire village covered in colorful fruits and vivid vegetables. When the Lord Ruler had risen to power and robbed the plants of their color, she continued to work in her garden as though nothing had changed, though the work grew harder with each year. For decades, she had overseen the harvest of vegetables that helped keep the Terris self-sustaining. Now,  some saboteur had destroyed her garden. The ash that covered the furrowed dirt wasn’t just the result of the constant precipitation that plagued her existence, it had been joined by the remnants of a fire that had scoured the results of her hard work. The crop was ruined, and it was too late in the season for a replanting. Losing crops was far from an uncommon experience, but Era had never seen her work deliberately destroyed before. No Feruchemist dependent on that food source would do such a thing. Era trusted Marne when he spread the word of intruders, and Irion’s violent murder had been a shock, but only now, gazing numbly at the blaze’s aftermath, did it truly sink in for Era that death had come to Tathingdwen.

    Sighing heavily, Era began the arduous process of cleaning up the fields. She was no Sentry, capable of staying up all night, but the familiar act of sweeping away ash was relaxing, helping her clear her mind. Tomorrow, she would have to inform the Synod of their upcoming food crisis, but for now she could simply cleanse her garden of the poison brought by the Lord Ruler and his minions.

Though age had crept up on her, Era’s senses were still sharp. She heard footsteps behind her and whirled around, instinctively tapped a week’s worth of pewter. The familiar rush of power as muscle was added to her thin frame comforted her as she confronted the intruder. “An impressive display of might,” rasped the figure standing in front of her. “Do you plan to avenge your dearly departed crops?”

“Is that an admission of guilt? Were you the one to set this fire?”

“It was a mistake to gather everyone together for Irion’s trial earlier today. No guards to watch over the fields, the confusion of the proceedings, a nice warm evening, it was quite simple to sneak away and start a fire without anyone noticing.”

Era rushed towards the silhouette, intent on tearing him apart for daring to destroy months of effort, threatening the livelihood of the entire village. Her focused rage blinded her to the surroundings, and she didn’t notice the second Spiked behind her until she saw its blade jutting out through her heart.  “Don’t worry about your garden, aged warrior,” the first Spiked whispered as Era died. “I hear dried blood makes for an excellent fertilizer.”

 

The red sun dipped below the horizon, its last rays harshly gleaming off the stiletto embedded within Irion. Subdued and still in shock, most of the Terris people accepted a bewildered Marne’s request to relax inside one of the larger safe houses, where many couches offered rest to the weary. The lucky few who came in first got the couches, falling into a deep slumber, while others crouched on the floor, reading books or shifting around uncomfortably. The rough wooden surface was abrasive enough that many turned to Valwyn, the rug merchant, who made good money selling his softer wares to the exhausted Terris. Slowly, the congregation all fell asleep, the weariness of the day catching up to them, as they strove to forget about Irion’s death, and acknowledge the first killing that had been committed among them. Even Olaf was slumbering, his gaunt frame racked with snoring.

One, however, was not asleep.

A shadowy figure rose from their rug, slipping around sleeping and dozing figures as they made their way towards the tea cabinet. Marne had retreated into his individual study, so the Feruchemist met no resistance as he opened the cabinet and poured a liquid onto the tea leaves, watching as they slowly absorbed the clear fluid. The poison would kill the next person who woke up to make tea, and the figure had a fairly good idea of who that would be. A slight smirk on their face, the figure retreated back into their rug, and fell into sleep with the others.

 

---

Nighttime tea was not a habit for Izzy Dedyet; she normally frowned upon artificial stimulants, though she occasionally partook of the occasional mug of black tea. However, with her inability to focus on her book, which was getting into the mundane details of what sacrificing different animal crackers did to affect the Gods of Luck and Chance, Izzy decided to prepare herself one of those rare mugs. Boiling the water, and putting in the leaves, Izzy watched idly as the pigments in the leaves bled over into the water, a black colour emanating from the pouch she put in. After the colours stopped swirling, Izzy took a tentative sip of the tea, mindful of its high temperature, and spit it out on the floor in disgust. She had thought the tea was black—looking at the labels, she saw that it was a darker shade of herbal tea. Disgusting. Frustrated with herself for not noticing, and still unable to read her book, she plopped down in her corner with a posture approaching righteous indignation, and was quickly asleep again.

 

---

Itiah VI knew his purpose—to finally find the old Terris religion. With a book tucked squarely underneath his arm that he regarded as the first clue towards finding the Terris god, the missionary could not afford to idly lie about when a task was to be accomplished. After his harrowing experience yesterday, when he had nearly been taken and killed by the fellow members of his congregation, Itiah knew that he must redouble his studies and efforts. Rubbing his bleary eyelids, which he had allowed to droop, he knew that he was not going to be able to stay awake without help. He begrudged the Sentries in the congregation—they could get a good night’s sleep, and stay up all night the next night, without needing to work for either effect. Itiah found that patently unfair. He was forced to rely on tea to keep him awake. Walking over to the teapot, he saw with a pleasant surprise that someone had left a cup of tea sitting out, barely touched and still warm. Thankful for the ready source of caffeine, which would help him in his studies later, Itiah grabbed the cup and downed it in one gulp.

And shortly thereafter, dropped dead to the floor.

When the village awoke, they found Era sprawled lifelessly amidst her gardens, her blood watering the scorched fields. Her added bulk had faded, her pewter bracers fitting loosely around her forearms. Itiah too lay slumped, dead underneath the very noses of the congregation, his steel metalminds useless against his cold corpse. Though both bodies were searched thoroughly, no spikes were found on either, and as the new day rose the Synod and its congregation gathered again, intent on finding those responsible.

 

---

Elandera was slain by the Spiked! She was a Village Pewter Ferring (Brute)! Thanks to Devotary for doing her death scene.

Itiah was killed! He was a Village Steel Ferring (Steelrunner)!

No PMs were opened.

Day 2 has begun. It will end in 48 hours at 9 PM EDT on Wednesday, August 15.

[url=https://www.pending.me.uk][/url]

Player list:

1. Rathmaskal as Laksam, an ash sweeper from the Eastern streets

2. Xinoehp512 as Ereheman Tresni, a man with his priorities backwards

3. Steeldancer as Steel, the fastest sculpture of a squid wrought entirely in steel in all of Tathingdwen

4. Randuir as Zihel, a worldhopper looking for his twin brother 

5. I think I am here as Itiah VI, a missionary on a mission Village Steel Ferring

6. Bort as Tee Mai, a tailor specialising in offensive clothing

7. Cadmium Compounder as Ethin Hallil, a cadmium Feruchemist and SCUBA diver

8. _Stick_ as Stick, President of the Tathingdwen Tautological Society of Tautology

9. Jondesu as Remart, a man back from vacation armed with vaguely ominous statements

10. Kidpen as HanTor, a lonely Kandra that’s definitely not Spiked, nope

11. Elandera as Era, an old woman who claims to have been alive before the reign of the Lord Ruler Village Pewter Ferring

12. Snipexe as Snip, a fabric cutter in the local quilt shop

13. Worldhopper from Yolen as Tarin, a Sparker with a wonderful, awful idea

14. Alvron as Izzy Dedyet, who is not dead, feels happy, and thinks she'll go for a walk

15. Phatterner as Citona Vinid, a seemingly faithful follower of the Lord Ruler

16. Ark1002 as Kardik, a Full Feruchemist 

17. Araris Valerian as Valwyn, an honest rug merchant 

18. Coop772 as Irion, a Full Feruchemist with hidden potential Village Copper Ferring 

19. Sart, a stuttering Nameless

Edited August 14, 2018 by Fifth Scholar