Once again the sun sets behind you, casting its red rays along the railway and casting a long shadow in front of the eastward-hurtling train. You've heard it said that a red dusk is something of a "shepherd's delight"—a portent of good weather to come—but never thought to consider who the "shepherd" is. Before today, it was Troussant; the savior who was supposed to lead his flock to a better life in Levere. But he's dead, and with him all hope for the New Empire of Astarte. No, the red dusk isn't an auspice for the House of Galloux, but for the House of Verenberg; for the Unconquerable Sun emblazoned on the same burgundy red of the Verenberg standard.
You won't live to see the next chapter in Astarte's history, though. They've chosen you to die, and so quickly! To think you've crossed over five hundred miles today, only to reach the conclusion that your life must end summarily. No, this isn't right: Marion David can't die yet. "I'm nobody!" you plead. "Nobody—nothing but a history student. I'm not Troussant du Galloux, I'm not a senator, I'm not a duchess; I'm nobody. You can't possibly kill me—I'm here to follow history, and that's it! I'm no different than Alexander!"
At that, Alexander shakes his head. "We couldn't be further apart, Marion. You claim to be a historian, but a degree in history hardly makes you a historian. Ha!—far from it." He uncrosses his legs and leans toward you. "You're a Gallican through and through; your eyes are lit by the same fire that Troussant's were. A historian can't be a Gallican, or a Verenberg, or an Anatolian; a historian can have loyalties to neither gods nor men, but only to the ineffable, immutable forces that draw them together in perpetual conflict. That's history. And you're not here to witness history, my dear girl, but to make it, and history is not something that can be "made," contrary to the best efforts of gods and men."
He's right, isn't he? You're not a historian; in fact, you were nothing but an ewe following the shepherd Troussant without a second thought, powerless to stop even one of the wolves that beset his path. And now you go to your slaughter, to be forever forgotten by history, not even a footnote to the cosmically inconsequential story of Troussant du Galloux.
He was Marion David, Gallican Vanilla.
It is now Night 4. Please stop posting, and submit all actions to me by 11-02-2013, 11:59 PM EDT.
Day has broken and the locomotive has stopped, still a thousand miles from its destination. The Gallican emigrants—refugees, now—are sprawled out of the train, their conversation morose and their eyes hopeless. Officials hand out food and water rations as a dozen rail workers pull at a block and tackle, hauling a load of coal onto the train; they, unlike most of the passengers, act with a sense of purpose, if only their contractual obligation to see that the train reaches Levere soundly. Indeed, there's nothing left in Levere for the House of Galloux—Troussant's death assured that, and his followers have come to that frightful realization. However, unlike five days ago, nary a tear is shed by the thousand passengers outside the train; no, this time, there's only a pervading deadness. Death will likely be the fate of each Gallican refugee when Joachim Verenberg dashes the Ever-Lit City of Levere and the New Empire of Astarte to pieces.
Five particular travelers stand aside from the rest atop a windy knoll. They are Alexander Edwards and the remaining four people he led across the Neralbians, through Lidge, and to this heretofore insignificant spot of land in Central Astarte. Perhaps the story of Troussant and his New Empire isn't yet over, but the story of these five travelers...their story has ended. The story of the Anatolian princess Rhadamantha—the bastard child of Christoph IV and Europa Anatolis—and her loyal uncle and retainer Cadmus, fleeing to safety in Perpetuopolis. The story of Ehren Holtzer, the man traveling as Calvin Barlowe; the priest who left his life in the Achesgran Cathedral behind to purge Astarte of the House of Galloux's iniquity. And the story of Felicia Camilla, the girl who earnestly believed herself to be the adopted sister of Troussant, who would have given anything to further her brother's cause, and who now lays dying with the knife of Ehren Holtzer slipped between her ribs. Alexander addresses her again, "Your Majesty."
Felicia smiles weakly. "You knew all along, didn't you?"
"Indeed. Your mother—your birth mother, Madeleine—confided in me years ago. I knew Troussant's real mother, you see." He furrows his brow. "But when did you find out?"
"Just now. They say your life flashes before your eyes at moments like these, and mine did: the real one; the one that's been kept from me my whole life." She takes a deep breath. "I was raised as the adopted child of Madeleine and Alexis du Galloux, a child of the lower nobility but of no imperial significance. But Troussant—he was raised as their true child, the great-grandson of Christoph I and second in line for the Imperial Throne. To think our roles were reversed so perfectly, with scarcely a soul ever knowing...." She takes another deep breath, gasping as the air comes short. "I'll never know why my mother did it, or my father. No, I'm sure it was both of them. Did they want a male Gallican in line for succession? Were they protecting me from circumstances like this? Either way, I now know who I am."
"Her Majesty the Empress of New Astarte," Rhadamantha interjects. "And me, the Empress of Old Astarte, in more ways than Joachim can say he is. The two of us...we both have empires we never wanted. Lied to all our lives, and given empires we never asked for...we were alike along. I'm so sorry for you now."
Felicia shakes her head fiercely, setting her eyes on her fellow empress-regnant's. "Make no mistake, Rhadamantha. I'll have you understand this if it's the last thing I do with my life: this is the empire I've wanted my entire life, since I was old enough to witness the sort of power and clout my parents and brother wielded. And wielded so poorly at that!" she scoffs before gasping again, struggling for air. "How differently things would have gone if my parents hadn't made such a mockery of my birthright! Troussant had no right to the throne, and he floundered when fate gave him a shot at it. This exodus to Levere—this entire endeavor—was nothing but a show of weakness. He had a claim to the throne, and he had possession of the Imperial Signet. He had everything he needed to seize power at arm's reach in Ripae, but he turned tail and fled instead. And what a fool to lose the Signet, even in the chaos of battle: no true emperor dares lose his composure, no matter the circumstance. This whole thing was a charade, and it's led to the death of the Empress of New Astarte." She stands up with great effort, but without laying a hand on the willow next to her. The growing crimson stain on her blouse is suddenly evident as she unflinchingly pulls out Ehren's knife, tossing it aside. She points at Alexander. "You. Historian. Be sure to write this down.
"Felicia Camilla's rule over the land of Astarte was far too short. Let it be known—let it be known on this day and on every day hence—that I bequeath my empire to the petty Houses of both Galloux and Verenberg, to quibble over eternally as two dogs quibble over the driest and most meatless of bones. With my death, I allow them to be content with the paltry lands they've acquired here on Earth. I, the Empress Felicia Camilla, will now go forth to the lands beyond, to conquer the heavenly realms that never bestowed upon me the chance to conquer the realms beneath them. If it's Heaven I'm sent to, God with his myriad legions of seraphim will bend to my will; if it's Hell, I'll assemble my own legions from the fallen men and fallen angels whose divine ambitions have been slighted just as cruelly as mine. Rhadamantha, if it's Tartaros, I'll harvest every fruit from each of its trees and drink every drop of water from each of its lakes myself. Joachim, if it's Walhalla, I'll rally each of its chosen warriors to my cause and bring about the Twilight of the Gods with my own hands. Let it be known: no power mortal and no power immortal will stop Felicia Camilla."
A moment later, she collapses, dead.
The Verenberg priest whispers a prayer under his breath. A gust of wind hides his words, but his tears suggest repentance. It's clear now that the knife he thrust into Felicia's side was the House of Galloux's death knell: today, on March 29, 1804, the House of Verenberg vanquished his brother Galloux, laying undisputed claim to the Empire of Astarte.
He was Felicia Camilla du Galloux, Former Handmaiden to the Soi-Disant Emperor Troussant, Great-Granddaughter of Christoph Verenberg I, and the True Empress of New Astarte.
He was Ehren Holtzer, Verenberg Strongman.
They were Rhadamantha, Anatolian Survivor and her Bodyguard, Cadmus Anatolis, respectively.
Empire of Astarte has ended in victories for the House of Verenberg, the House of Anatolis, and the House of Mensor. Congratulations to Rhand, Cythare, Asenion, Seppel, and ExpiredRascals—and thanks to all for participating!
Stay tuned for the full setup, post-mortem comments on the setup and comments on the game (with awards), and an epilogue. Until then, sate yourself with the spec chat and say everything I'm sure needs to be said on how things turned out
Hehe. I'm not sure what I have to say that I've not already said in spec chat.
I really enjoyed the game, TMCT. I know there's been a lot of talk in the spec chat about what might have been done differently, but the game was a blast to play, and I really enjoyed the set-up, flavour, and your approach to modding.
@Everyone else: I recommend reading the spec chat for amusement and commentary.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
I actually failed this game. My plan was at 9 players remaining to mislynch. Then with 7 players left I would reveal myself and my ally and ask the scum to join us. After lynching, 5 would remain and my team would fully control the vote.
I could then lynch mafia and block the last mafia from killing me - this would have guaranteed a Town/Survivor victory.
I am sorry Town, but after I failed to mislynch on Day 2 I was unable to figure out who the scum were and save you without jeopardizing my own otherwise secured victory.
Private Mod Note
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An accurate description of myself:
Quote from Megiddo »
You're the dude who just lies a lot and makes people hate you and then magically becomes town later, right?
Reading spec chat: I agree that I'm ham-fisted at times, but it worked. Also, I deliberately allowed Karn to figure me out by the end of Day 1. Had I not lynched him, I would have expected him to try and kill me - which would have failed because I would have been hiding.
I also deliberately oversold my false-claim on Day 2 because I again wanted to make it obvious I was lying and make people not trust me and/or the scum try and kill me. My only threat was if I couldn't predict where the kill was going and/or if my partner was killed. Once Karn was out of the way I could draw attention to myself.
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An accurate description of myself:
Quote from Megiddo »
You're the dude who just lies a lot and makes people hate you and then magically becomes town later, right?
I started laughing hysterically a little after 350 in the spec chat. I also want to respond to a few more points:
1. I wasn't throwing the game. People had already figured us out because of Seppel, by explaining and removing the mystery I knew people like Azreal would realize that lynching my team doesn't help the Town much. This would have been a different story if the Town still had power roles to try and get value out of, because they could have lynched Seppel and then myself for two more shots of whatever was left. But, the current situation lent itself to both Town and Scum wanting to leave us alone if I told the full truth.
2. Gifts played pretty well, but I am vain enough to point out that his good claim was my idea.
3. My hubris is an ongoing "problem".
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An accurate description of myself:
Quote from Megiddo »
You're the dude who just lies a lot and makes people hate you and then magically becomes town later, right?
Asenion, I hope you don't take this personally. I quite enjoyed the period of the game in which our play coincided, but I feel I need to comment on the later parts:
I don't think you can call poor town play as a reasonable cover for your behaviour towards the end.
I think my 378 in spec chat about sportsmanship is very much relevant, and your play as the game dragged to a close was really frustrating, because it didn't respect the people you were playing with.
I mean, understand, at this point, I was an uninvolved party to this game. I had been out of the game forever, my faction was gone, and I had nothing riding on what you did in the endgame. I was quite fine with your approach to the game early on, but your demeanor in-game changed when you claimed your intent to win with scum.
Even though the town didn't figure it out, you were endangering your faction and showing a disrespect for the people you were playing with. It was poor sportsmanship and poor play imo.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
I respect your opinion and I don't want to show bad sportsmanship. I do tend to use this forum as my outlet for my arrogance, boasting, and power trips. Mafia is great for that. I hope I never cross any lines that offend people or hinder their enjoyment though and I hope to be informed if I come close. (That is part of why I'm so insistent on playing to a win condition, even if it's less fun.)
However, I disagree with you. Multiple people had already figured out that we could win with the scum because of Seppel's slip. I think it was correct to claim there. It was a calculated decision. What could the Town have figured out?
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An accurate description of myself:
Quote from Megiddo »
You're the dude who just lies a lot and makes people hate you and then magically becomes town later, right?
However, I disagree with you. Multiple people had already figured out that we could win with the scum because of Seppel's slip. I think it was correct to claim there. It was a calculated decision. What could the Town have figured out?
Claiming your intent to win with scum was... awkward. But I think you called attention too much to the precariousness of your position after that claim.
Consider this for example:
You were in the situation where the game state was 4 town, 1 scum, 2 anatolis.
If the town wasn't certain of the last scum, the correct play at that point would have been to treat the game like 7-man LYLO with 2 confirmed scum and lynch an anatolis.
They'd kill one of you, the mafia would kill one of them. They'd kill one of you, the mafia would kill one of them. And then they'd be at a classic 3-man endgame. More importantly, it would be entirely mechanical. Literally no meaningful choices for the town through that sequence of lynches. And given that they had no idea who the scum were, narrowing it down to a 3-man endgame would have improved their chances and removed the uncertainty.
Rubbing their noses in the supposed futility of their position only served to call attention to your own position, and potentially to the fact that the game was not yet in the bag for you.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
Why would they do that? I already explained their power roles were gone. There was no advantage for them from lynching us other than having their 4 players become 2 players of the scum's choice.
Private Mod Note
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An accurate description of myself:
Quote from Megiddo »
You're the dude who just lies a lot and makes people hate you and then magically becomes town later, right?
Yeah, but as you saw, the town really didn't know who the scum was. So they went all-in on a 20% shot at winning instead of going for the 33% shot. Note that this disregards any increased analyzable content in the thread gained by spending two Days lynching your faction.
You outright stated that your faction put them in LYLO, at that point, they should have taken the free-POE opportunity. Making your anti-townness more salient only served to put your win in jeopardy by risking one of the townies thinking on it long enough to realize their out.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
Lynching the neutrals was a plan I kept in the back of my mind if Seppel would continue pushing me.
@Seppel: did I fool you or did you go for the win with scum?
I am flabbergasted that I won this btw.
When I replaced in I knew i was scum before I got my PM and just wanted to do TMCT a favor to get his game to continue.
I never expected to turn it around.
"Mademoiselle." The rooster tips his hat at you in greeting, and motions toward an aniline leather chair with his beak. You've never known a rooster to do you wrong, so you oblige him. "Brandy? Whiskey?" he asks as he waddles over to the cupboard (it's a stately waddle, insofar as a waddle can be stately).
"Rye, if you have it. On the rocks."
He nods and hands you a glass filled with gypsum and calcite, a stalk of grass protruding from the top. "I don't typically trot out my reserve for guests, but you're a special case, mademoiselle." You've never had this drink before, and it's the best of this drink you've had.
He smiles politely as you finish. "Aquilus couldn't make it, unfortunately. We'll have to make do without him." Oh. The eagle was the one you wanted to see, actually; you don't even know who this rooster fellow is. Frustrated with the turn of events, you make to leave, but the leather is so lustrously soft and unfathomably deep that you ca'n't seem to lift your body from it. The rooster clucks, and with another polite smile says, "I so ever wanted someone to play Naughts & Crosses with me today. You ca'n't play against nobody, but when you're 'crosses' you play against nobody anyway. That makes me rather cross, and it makes the game all for naught."
Arms crossed, you frown. "I'm afraid I don't want to! This has gone on long enough, M. Rooster!"
"But Mademoiselle," M. Rooster says, a wing pointed at your empty glass, "we're friends, remember? I'll hear no more of your protestations, as they've nearly spoiled our evening already!" You realize it's past sundown, and follow the hurried rooster. Feeling harried yourself, you move as though drawn forward by the rooster's volition.
He takes you to the train station adjacent to his drawing room, where he paces back and forth impatiently, pecking at his pocket-watch. "I'm quite sure he said seven o'clock!" Feeling helpful, you turn to the station attendant and inquire about the seven o'clock train—and it's evidently delayed by a half-hour! Fancy that! The rooster crows and you turn back to bear him the bad news, which he only clucks at in laughter. "Why, you're rather dull, mademoiselle. Why would a bird take the train?" (You narrow your eyes in annoyance. You didn't know there was a bird, or—a minute ago—even a train, for that matter.) "He took the ferry, of course. Be a dear and fetch the schedule." Your body moves on its own to obey the rooster.
A newsstand catches your eye, but thankfully has the common sense to toss it back to you. "Terribly sorry about that!" it says. "Please do have an Evening Post. Have you seen the headline?" You haven't, so you take the paper and tip the stand a penny. The words are jumbled and unreadable, but the front page is almost filled with the unmistakable picture of a dead eagle.
You return to the rooster. "So, mademoiselle, Aquilus has died," he affirms, seeing the paper. "Quite a shame, that. I remember his funeral well; too much pomp and circumstance, though the chocolate truffles were a nice touch. Shall we go, then? I suppose you're with me for the rest of it now." You nod and start following the rooster along the train tracks.
You jolt awake—a daydream? Of course it was.
Now fully conscious, your eyes refocus on their target. What are you tracking, a hundred meters beneath you? A vole, or a sparrow, or a thrush? It's something—you know that look. You see a sparrow take off from the ground (it was a sparrow, after all), and with that, the hunt begins. You let out a cry and begin to dive, a knife-edge through the cloudless blue sky. The sparrow takes notice after a second, but in another second you intercept it. Your talons clip its left wing, and after circling back to the fallen sparrow, your beak snaps its neck—and that's that.
After a minute, the heirofalcon returns to perch on your forearm gauntlet and you retether him. The whole experience felt so much like another dream, but a pinch from the falcon's talons affirms that it wasn't; it was only a false reality lived vicariously through someone else. Hasn't that been your life? Led along from circumstance to circumstance, your actions beyond your own control. Even as a falconer, you can't say, "let's go for a dove today," because the falcon will go for whatever it damn well fancies.
Emperor Christoph's death has forced you into the most binding circumstance of your life: for centuries, the Verenbergs have been great patrons of falconry, and for the entirety of your career, Christoph himself was your greatest patron. But Joachim—Joachim hates you. For as skilled as he is with a falcon, he's doubly spiteful, and he hates you. With Christoph dead and Joachim coronated, your professional tie to the House of Verenberg has been severed, and your life in the Imperial Palace—and even your life in Ripae—has to end. There's nowhere for you but out; for as important as the Verenbergs were to you, you need to leave the city with Troussant and his Gallican followers. Your old circumstances have been resigned to the past. Whatever you were before, you're now fully Gallican: you'll be hunting Verenbergs.
You are from the House of Galloux.
You win when all threats to the House have been eliminated.
You are Sibyl Ketting, Gallican Tracker.
You may vote.
Each Night, you may /track target player. You will learn which player(s) the tracked player targeted, if any.
"Pardon Alois...pardon my brother."
Those were his last words. As Emperor Christoph lay dying—his body spent, the moment history determined his life would end at hand—those were the words he spoke.
Pardon him? The man who ordered the execution of seventeen Anatolian prisoners due for exchange. The man whose bloodlust dissolved the Treaty of Alexenburg and nearly plunged Astarte and Anatolis into war again. The man who undid seventeen years of continental peace with a stroke of his pen. Pardon him!
You thought nothing of it at the time. You did the same thing you had for six other members of the royal family, dozens other nobles, and countless other men and women: you checked the pulse of his carotid artery, nodded solemnly at those surrounding his bed, and flipped open your pocket-watch to note the time of his death. However, as you lay sleepless in your own bed that night, your aching bones close to death themselves, the words rang through your ears again and again; not spoken by the late Emperor Christoph, but by the spirit of false honor that has imbued every Verenberg emperor with his power for a thousand years. Indeed, when the Imperial Signet sealed the order to exile Alois in January 1800, the people saw Christoph as an honorable man; when the Signet sealed the order to execute him in November, the people saw Christoph as a doubly honorable man. But to what end did he carry out that charade, if only to recant on his deathbed! You know it was for one purpose: to restore his consanguinity with his nephew; to legitimize the rule of the Verenberg Emperor Joachim. There is no true honor in the House of Verenberg.
So you've made up your mind: there's no longer a place for you in the Imperial Palace as the Royal Doctor. You're at the end of your tether, and so too is your frail body; you'd rather choose the place where it's laid to rest. You'll travel eastward—to Levere.
You are from the House of Galloux.
You win when all threats to the House have been eliminated.
You are Sir Ambroise Oliver, Gallican Doctor.
You may vote.
Each Night, you may /protect another target player. All kills targeting the protected player that Night will fail.
Not once in its history has the name of the St. Tolbert family amounted to anything: not one ambition, not one accomplishment, not one acclamation. A friend once tried to reassure you on the matter: "You only took the name yourself, not 30 years ago. Give it time." And he's right; you took the name as a young orphan raised in the Convent of St. Tolbert—you're the first of your name. But that only adds more weight to the burden of your life's fruitlessness. You have a responsibility to ensure that no child and no grandchild of yours will be raised an orphan; that each child who bears the name St. Tolbert henceforth will be shielded by the past history of the name and nurtured by its future promise. You will raise the House of St. Tolbert from the foundation of your accomplishments.
Or so you used to tell yourself. Now...only God knows. At 28, you've dead-ended in the Astartean military; a non-commissioned officer can only go so far before he does. Sure, you'll follow Troussant to Levere. It seems like the right thing to do. And you might as well put your weight behind the House of Galloux, because—as useless as you are—the name St. Tolbert still can't seem to support you.
You are from the House of Galloux.
You win when all threats to the House have been eliminated.
Thrown to the ground in the chaos of the battle, you look up to see the retinue of Emperor Troussant galloping at full speed past you, away from Ripae: a dozen white chargers of the Garde Impériale, several advisers on an assortment of horses, and, in the middle of the group, Troussant himself on a black stallion. And, in a single moment, you see a gleam of light reflecting off a small metal object falling from the Emperor.
The hoofbeats of the retinue fade into the commotion of the battle, but your eyes remain transfixed on the object, falling at the pace of the sunrise in a timeless moment; daring you to lose sight of it before it hits the ground. When it finally does, you crawl over to it, staying low to the ground. And then you see it: a platinum cylinder, inlaid with alternating rings of diamond and onyx; a ribbed handle on one end and the eagle of the Astartean crest on the other. It's the Imperial Signet.
This was by the will of God; no, by His grace; of the thousands of people on this battlefield, so many more worthy and talented than you, He chose you; He gave you an instrument of such tremendous power that He can't have intended anything but for you to use it; to renew your hope for the House of St. Tolbert and refocus your aim in life to see its formation through to the end; or rather, the beginning! Thoughts and ideas spin ceaselessly through your head as they drown out the sounds of the battlefield. For now, you realize as your breath returns, you can't overplay your hand: in the hands of the Emperor, the Signet can rule over the land, but in yours, it will only turn the land against you. Yes, for now, its use is limited—but you can still get people to listen to you. That's right. Just like the name of each of the Regnant Houses, the Signet adds weight to the words it seals. Soon, you won't need the Signet, because the name St. Tolbert will do twice the job, but for now...yes, this will do. Thank you, God.
You are from the House of Galloux.
You win when all threats to the House have been eliminated.
You are Cyril St. Tolbert, Gallican Neighborizer.
You may vote.
You begin the game in possession of the Imperial Signet—keep it safe and use it with care. At any time, you can /bequeath the Signet to another player. If you die while in possession of the Signet, that player will receive it. You can choose a different player any number of times before your death.
Each Night and in the pregame (when you /confirm), if you possess the Signet, you may /neighborize target player. You will become neighbors and may talk with each other during the following Night, but your alignments will be unknown to each other. You cannot neighborize the same player on consecutive Nights.
Throughout your childhood, your friends asked the question, again and again: what's it like to be a daughter of the House of Galloux? You never had an answer for them. Two years ago, they found a new question, and pressed it further: what's it like to be the sister of a senator? You still never had an answer for them. Finally, two days ago, a new question found them: what's it like to be the sister of an emperor? And at that moment, your mind a baffled mash of emotions, your body running on more anxiety than sleep, you had an answer for them. "It disagrees with my stomach. I can't imagine it's great for my skin, either."
It was a bit sarcastic, but really, it was a silly question. All of them were. When you're adopted into a House you still live on the outside of it (the "front porch," as it were). Alexis and Madeleine Galloux have never been your parents, and Senator Troussant—Emperor Troussant, rather—has never been your brother. For as much as you've enjoyed the luxuries of the House of Galloux over the past 22 years, you'll never enjoy a single taste of its power.
Then again, maybe a handmaiden to the emperor isn't entirely without power, at least indirectly. You've seen and heard so much from Troussant already—and that was when he was but a senator. Perhaps he's something of a brother, after all: you know how he holds his tongue around the other servants, and you know how he confides in you in his moments of greatest frustration. And now that you think about it...don't you have even the smallest bit of influence over him, in those moments? The night after Christoph's death, you heard the question he asked at his bedside, despondent and at his wit's end: "my claim to the throne will never be enough; what else do I need?" And you had an answer for him. Immediately, and without a drop of sarcasm, you had the answer.
"The Imperial Signet. Get the Signet."
You know power when you see it, and there's an empire's worth of power in the Imperial Signet. Not for you, but for Troussant—you could never be the Empress Felicia Camilla and will always be the adopted Gallican child Felicie, brother of Troussant. And that's fine. In the coming months, he'll need someone like you.
You are from the House of Galloux.
You win when all threats to the House have been eliminated.
You are Felicia Camilla, Gallican Handmaiden.
You may vote.
You know that someone nearby possesses the Imperial Signet, and that person can bequeath the Signet to another player upon their death.
As long as you possess the Signet, you will not die a normal death. If you are lynched or killed, you will instead enter a near-death state and survive until the end of the following Day, until which you may still post normally but can no longer vote—all of which, except your possession of the Signet, will be revealed. I will also confirm your alignment.
You remember stepping into the rector's office like it happened yesterday (a trite sentiment, perhaps, but appropriate for a student of history, who is taught as a matter of course to remember the events of the indeterminate past with the same fidelity as the events of the day prior). "Why history?" he asked. You didn't have an answer for him then, and further attempts to answer the question have resulted in many a furrowed brow. Indeed, why history? You hate the past. Not just the things of the past, but the past itself; the graveyard where the present is resigned to stagnation after its momentary existence. The Regnant Houses—and the empire they've kept propped up for a thousand years too long—are trapped in the changelessness of that graveyard, and you hate them all the more for it, too.
Then why history, especially if you loathe the past so terribly much? Perhaps you don't see history as the study of the past, but as the study of the future by way of association with the past. Or disassociation, rather; the world is in a constant state of change, and history cannot repeat itself by nature. The Empire of Astarte as it exists in 1804 is different than the Empire of 1700, and the Empire of 1000, and the Empire as it was at the formation of the Astartean Calendar. That's why you've studied history: the implicit promise that for as long as a thing of the future bears close resemblance to a thing of the past, it will be set apart by some strikingly unique feature, in the same way we look at a familiar face and say "ah, blue eyes!—it's not who I thought after all."
Senator Troussant is the pair of blue eyes on the aging, bloated body of the Empire of Astarte. You've studied enough of the Empire's history to notice them, staring wistfully toward a future when the Senate can effect real change in the Empire; when a single House can no longer rule over 200 million people with nary a check or balance. There's never been another Troussant du Galloux in the history of the Empire, and there never will be another one when he's relegated to the past. Therefore, now is the time. Troussant has seized the opportunity of Christoph's death, and so too will you: you'll follow him to Levere.
You are from the House of Galloux.
You win when all threats to the House have been eliminated.
You are Marion David, Gallican Vanilla.
You may vote.
To you I write, my dear Florence,
On this, so bright a day.
The sun shines strong on fair Levere
(Can spring in Ripae quite compare?)
But life's so dull in your absence—
All trivialities.
None as sweet as your affection,
And daily I work with confections!
Florence, I hope you understand
Just how much I miss you.
Our life was stellar in Levere;
Our months apart I cannot bear.
And now, this trouble with Christoph,
The throne he left contested.
So frightful is the news I hear;
The city won't be safe, I fear.
With you—and only you—in mind
I write this question now,
And write it very eagerly:
Will you return to live with me?
Your life is rich and beautiful;
Your studies much less so.
The sky is filled with many lights,
Not one as bright as you—that's right.
I know I can support us both,
As business here is good.
My mignardises sell superbly
(At Ricard's shop in Central Ancy!)
But even you, your old work here:
The Société Royale.
Perhaps that silly squabble was
A pointless one, replete with flaws.
I love you as I always have;
In fact, now more than ever.
I'm worried ill from all this strife—
Oh Florence, please, cherish your life.
Colette, my dear Colette, to hear from you!
On all of us this week has been so trying;
Your words are blessings to me through and through.
At present there's just one thing that I want.
I care not of the Emperor Christoph,
Nor of his nephew, or his foe Troussant.
Nor would I care if this damned world did burn,
So long as you and I were left behind;
The stars alighting us, each one in turn.
But stars seem petty now compared to this.
My passion for astronomy aside,
To let it mar our lives would be remiss.
I can confirm the news you've heard from west:
Not even the Academy is safe
From riots, rabble, and all of the rest.
I'll leave my work behind with all due haste
And run to meet you soon in fair Levere,
That one day we may once again embrace!
You are from the House of Galloux.
You win when all threats to the House have been eliminated.
You are Florence Etoile, Gallican Vanilla.
You may vote.
"What will we do today, m'dear?"
You lift your head and shrug lazily.
"Lots of things to be done, you know! Lots of things to be done!"
He's right, of course. There's always something else. And he won't ever shut up about it.
"Get up! Up and at 'em!"
He flaps his wings in agitation. Such beautiful plumage, and he's molting it, too. What do parrot feathers fetch at market this time of year? You shrug again as you push back the covers and step out of bed, into the kitchen. Coffee? You can actually afford the Ecanian stuff now, but can't be bothered to grind it this early in the morning. What a delightful conundrum. Tea it is.
"It wasn't poison. Not poison."
You guessed as much. Is that all?
"Ague! Ague caused by weakened immune system. Tertian ague, and then paroxysm, and then death."
So death by natural causes—the old bastard worked himself to death. Of course, the other Houses would have been crazy to have killed Christoph themselves, with the succession crisis he left behind. You've always fancied the Regnant Houses insane, but at least more sane than that. You look up from your tea. "And, what now?"
"Melons, and nectar, and guava, and walnuts! Feed me!"
You shrug and go to oblige him. It's not an unreasonable demand, really; the Uchellian Parrot M. Arquus VII did more work last night than you have in months. Flying from room to room in the Imperial Palace; watching and listening for an answer to the question, "how did Christoph IV die?" And it was natural causes after all. How humdrum. Not that you care; it's another job done, another check earned. But what now?
"Your contract isn't up, m'dear."
Oh, right. There is more to do, isn't there? They want you to follow Troussant to Levere. Kill all the Gallicans, or something. How humdrum.
You are from the House of Verenberg.
You win when all Gallicans are dead, after which the game ends immediately.
Each Night, one Verenberg may /kill target player.
You are Lorelei Voghel, Verenberg Watcher.
You may vote.
Each Night, you may /watch target player. You will learn which player(s) targeted the watched player, if any. If a Verenberg possesses the Imperial Signet, you may also /redirect all actions that target the watched player that Night to another player of your choice. If Ehren is dead, you may do this and kill a player in the same Night.
1,000 libra a month—that's how much you're worth, before municipal and imperial taxes. 1,000 libra: a waterfront apartment in Ripae Proper, a purebred Eribien racing horse, or 200 shares of Adstrum Company stock. That sounds like a heavy-handed and even draconian way of measuring your value to society, but honestly, being able to quantitatively assess your value (to the penny!) means that you can gauge how much more successful you've become from month to month. And you: you've become quite successful.
As an "inquiry agent," your job is to damn well get to the bottom of things, and the breadth of clients that have contracted your services is almost as wide as the breadth of services you've provided. One month you'll reunite a noble with the sister separated from him at birth; the next you'll topple a chartered company by selling its secrets to a competitor. However, no client has been as consistently lucrative as the House of Galloux—not by a longshot. And when a Regnant House offers you a thousand libra a month for your continued service, you damn well accept. When you measure your success quantitatively, a choice like that is easy enough; when you measure your success qualitatively, the choices become burdened down by petty things like morality and ethics.
In your line of work you've seen enough of the world-within-the-world to know that all humans are fundamentally the same—neither entirely good nor entirely bad—and codes of morality and ethics are only halfhearted attempts to reconcile the perceived differences between us. When you first realized that, your interest in everything but your own self-worth dissolved, and when you realized that money is the most effective measure of your self-worth, you turned to the deep pockets of the Gallicans. Money: that's the sort of loyalty that won't ever dissolve; your loyalty to the House of Galloux is nearly as strong as Troussant's. Everything else—friendships, promises, ideals—is fragile and transient.
You are from the House of Galloux.
You win when all threats to the House have been eliminated.
You are Anna Wolfe, Gallican.
"Lord, I await Your decree. May Your word be proclaimed from the heavens; may a host of seraphim make Your divine and supreme will known to Your humble servant. And let Your will cause stirrings within the deepest reaches of Your servant's heart: conform me to Your will, prepare me to exact Your will, and bestow upon me the strength to make Your will done on this earth. May I become an extension of Yourself; a lantern to radiate the light of Your unfailing righteousness and a torch to radiate the light of Your majestic divinity. Yes, let me become like the seraphim standing before Your throne: a being of flame to immolate the wicked and the sinful, to scatter their ashes to the corners of the earth. May I burn away the impurities of the world below the heavens, that a kingdom may one day be established here that's worthy of even You, Lord."
The prayer is spoken in low tones, but it echoes throughout the chevet and across the ambulatory. This morning, the words seem foreign; contrived. You've spoken them thousands of times, but today your recital of them is rote, as if from a book you've never read.
Nothing in the chevet chapel feels right—no, everything in the entire Achesgran Cathedral is wrong, filled with a false purpose. The air is musty and the walls clammy; stained glass cherubim are suffused with melancholy as water trickles down their faces; the black marble figure of the Lord Pisches looks hopelessly powerless to unhand himself from the gilded crucifix he's bound to. And hanging above it all, leeching life from the cathedral, is the death of Christoph IV.
You know that Emperor Christoph was a paragon of honor, a man who ruled with the Lord's blessing, and you know that his nephew Joachim wields only a portion of that honor. But you also know how much more honorable even he is than the Gallican pretender Troussant. Indeed, you've never lost sight of Troussant du Galloux's wickedness; you've never lost count of his sins: he drinks to the point of violence, he gambles away his family's fortunes, and he philanders without a second thought to the damage he causes. He is a not a man suited to be the Emperor of Astarte.
...is that what you want, Lord? To purge the world of that man and his followers? Yes, it must be done. This miasma in the air of the cathedral is only a mourning veil, and when Christoph's spirit is welcomed to heaven the veil will be lifted and the cathedral's walls will resound with a new purpose. You'll join the Verenberg legions, and you'll burn away this world's iniquity.
You are from the House of Verenberg.
You win when all Gallicans are dead, after which the game ends immediately.
Each Night, one Verenberg may /kill target player.
You are Ehren Holtzer, Verenberg Strongman.
You may vote.
On one Night only, in place of the regular Verenberg kill, you may /immolate target player. Immolation cannot be prevented by any means, and if the immolated player possesses the Imperial Signet, you'll find it among their charred remains.
If, at that moment, your father had said "take revenge on them—show the world the unfailing righteousness of God and exact His wrath on them," you would have understood perfectly. You would have understood how he, on his deathbed, could rescind his entire worldview; how he could recant everything he had taught you so thoroughly and lovingly for 16 years. But he didn't. The raspy words from his throat, charred beyond healing, were the exact opposite: "forgive them—show the world the unfailing love of God and pray for their salvation."
Earlier that night, in the reverent silence of the Achesgran Cathedral, a band of vandals set fire to the north transept of the cathedral, which had been undergoing repairs that left its provisional wooden support columns exposed. One parishioner of the church was killed when the transept's marble parapet collapsed, crushing him. Another was killed when smoke from the blaze filled the room he was trapped in, suffocating him. And your father—the fire itself killed your father; the fire would even have burned him to ashes if you hadn't intervened. That itself was providence. Were it not for your father's words, you would have sought vengeance. You would have repaid like for like and burnt them alive, immolating them as a sacrifice to the God they transgressed against.
Ultimately, you know better than that. You know that life is inviolable and paramount, and that even an unsanctified life is worth saving. Your father, the Bishop John Barlowe, never let you forget that; he would scarcely allow you to kill the smallest and most insignificant of flies for an empty purpose. And those were only flies!—there exist men in the world today that treat their fellowmen as less than insects. Not just the vandals who razed the Achesgran Cathedral; no, their sin was purposeless and only made for the sake of sinning. The true evildoers are the blasphemers whose sins are masqueraded about as acts of divine righteousness.
That's who the Verenbergs are. They start petty wars as though they're messengers of God executing His supreme will; they bear grudges against other Houses as though only theirs has the right to rule over every acre of land in the world. How many lives were lost in the War of the Anatolian Succession, all for Christoph III's inability to recognize the rule of a woman over another nation altogether! You can't support such wanton waste of God-given life—not after the resolve your father showed on that night. God willing, you'll follow Troussant to Levere.
You are from the House of Galloux.
You win when all threats to the House have been eliminated.
You are Calvin Barlowe, Gallican.
"Who am I?"
The girl in the mirror mouths the question to you silently, and you can only lower your eyes and shake your head in response. Who is she? Tanned olive skin, high cheekbones, a pair of tired blue eyes, ash brown hair drawn up in a chignon, a quavering hand fiddling with bronze earrings and a bronze pendant—you've seen her so many times, but you've never been further from having the answer to her question than now. To you, her face is something out of a fairy tale, fictional and fantastical; but to her, your face is something out of a dream: in the dream world of the Imperial Palace, she's lived a life identical to yours for 16 years, her true life in the real world of Astarte blissfully forgotten.
For 16 years the girl in the mirror had lived as Rhadamantha, the daughter of an escort and an unknown father adopted by Mensor Teatra, Lady Seneschal of the Imperial Palace; it was a normal life in quarters outside the Palace—on the border of servanthood and aristocracy—with a clique of friends in the kitchens, the occasional garden party in the Orangerie, and training from her adopted mother to join the Palace's civil service in four years. But the girl in the mirror has woken from that dream, into a reality she has never known; and just as your reality was her dream, her fairy-tale reality has become your dream.
You are now Rhadamantha, the daughter of Emperor Christoph IV and the Anatolian Princess Europa.
It seems even more like a fantasy now than when Mensor Teatra told you last night, after your father's death. Christoph, the Emperor of Astarte, and Europa—a woman even more beautiful and stately than her mother, Queen-Regnant Cassiopeia of Anatolis—were siblings by marriage: in 1783, Christoph and Europa respectively married Militrisa Wisteroff and Povarikh Wisteroff, the oldest daughter and oldest son of Grand Prince Vsevold Wisteroff. They were two loveless political marriages, sanctified only through the House of Wisteroff's desire to grab power in both Astarte and Anatolis after the Treaty of Alexenburg ended war between the two. That's how your parents met and, ironically, that's how they fell in love.
You wish you could ask your mother how it all happened—was it a dance they shared at their weddings, or a love letter read by moonlight, or a stolen kiss in the gardens of the Palace? But your mother is dead, just like your father. It was the first thing you asked Mensor Teatra when she finished the story, and she answered with a grave shake of her head: Europa Anatolis died by hemorrhage when she gave birth to you. And your father...even in life, your father never knew you existed.
With your parents dead and your old life vanished, what's left for you now? You're living in a fantasy of someone else's life, and have no idea how to do it. Your grandmother Cassiopeia wants you to return from Ripae to Anatolis via Levere, and she's sent your uncle Cadmus to take you there with Troussant and his Gallican followers. But was Anatolis ever a home for you to return to in the first place? ...is this the right thing to do?
You blink back tears and grit your teeth as you smash the hand mirror on the edge of the dresser, shattering the girl in the mirror into a dozen irreconcilable pieces. You were wrong: this isn't her reality, it's yours. You don't know how you'll live your life yet, but it's all the more worth saving for that. You'll go to Anatolis, and you'll survive.
/hide behind Cadmus. If a player targets you, that ability will fail—but if a player targets Cadmus, that ability will also target you.
/stay on the lookout. If a player targets you, you'll learn what ability targeted you—but not who it came from.
"Dad?" You rub your eyes. In the pitch black of night, the gas-lamp casts a flickering light over his face, buried in a stack of papers. His fountain pen scrawls away furiously—at a letter, or a report, or a form, or some other incomprehensible jumble of ink letters and numbers.
He slows the pace of his writing without looking up. "Hm?"
"I can't fall asleep."
At that, he stops his writing and turns to face you, smiling warmly. "Neither can I. But," he starts as he points to the pile of documents, "I think something very different is stopping me from sleeping." With a yawn and a crack of his knuckles he stands up, swooping you into his arms. "However!—I can always use a break. Shall we get a glass of water?" You nod as he carries you down the hallway.
This is the most cheerful you've seen your dad while working, so you decide to ask him a question you haven't asked him before: "Daddy, why do they make you work so late?"
He smiles wearily, with great effort. "Did you ask that, or your mother?" After a sigh he continues, "do you know what I do for a living, Lucy?"
"You're an under—an under-something. For a senator."
He nods. "An undersecretary for Province-Senator Troussant. But really, I'm a bit more than that. The first fellow who took the job for Troussant was a fool; nothing but a bureaucrat." He sees your confused look and explains, "ah, a bureaucrat, that's like Cocoa when she tries to bark away our house-guests. Bureaucrats, they see something unfamiliar and make a dreadful bit of noise over it. It's horrid. Anyway," he sips at his water, "I strive to be something more than that. I want to help Troussant change the empire, and changing an empire takes a lot of work."
You frown. "That sounds hard."
"It is! But remember," he says, putting his hands on your shoulders, "change is a process. Things don't magically and suddenly change for the better one morning; the empire will only improve step by step. That's the only reason I can tolerate all of this. Someday soon, the three of us will see the change begin." He wraps his arms around you, crying. "So Lucille, please, bear with it for just a while longer."
"...and that's my story. That's why I'm going to Levere." You try your hardest to smile at the girl next to you as she cocks her head, unsure of your non sequitur story's meaning.
"If that was five years ago, what happened to your dad?"
"Alcohol poisoning."
"And your mom?"
"She hung herself, after my father died."
"Ah." The girl turns away from you, trying her hardest to keep from making even a single glance of eye contact with you. You can hardly blame her; the story has a less-than-happy ending and there's no better way to tell it: overworked for years (especially as Troussant's term as Province-Senator ended and he was elected a true Senator of Astarte), your father was never able to see the change begin. Astarte was still, immutably, Astarte. And when your father turned to the bottle—and then died by the bottle—it seemed to you that Astarte would be Astarte for the foreseeable future. That's when Christoph died. That's when Troussant made his proclamation; that's when Troussant claimed the throne; that's when the first modicum of change that your father had so vigilantly been watching for overtook the Empire of Astarte. Your father wasn't wrong, and you'll prove it—you'll join Troussant and change the empire.
You are from the House of Galloux.
You win when all threats to the House have been eliminated.
You are Lucille Blanc, Gallican.
The leather-bound book shuts with a clap and you slip it into your satchel. You had hoped to at least finish The Vordoulakas by the end of the journey, but everything in this infernal contraption has conspired against your plans: the caroming of the car bounces the words up and down the page, the klack-klack-klack of the wheels makes it impossible to focus on stopping the words from bouncing, and the smell of the engine nauseates you to the point of forgetting there were even words in the first place.
Well, at least, the journey from Anatolis to Ripae will be shorter than it was 21 years ago, when the steam locomotive was scarcely a curiosity and what would become the Adstrum Company Railway was nothing but packed dirt. However, in 1783, the occasion was a joyous one—your sister's wedding. You were hardly four years old then, your memories of the event few and far between. But the images of two people remain imprinted in your mind: first, your sister Europa, adorned in a golden bridal gown, a green chrysanthemum corsage accenting her resplendent olive skin; and second, the man she would marry. Povarikh Wisteroff.
When your parents first told you about your sister's adultery, a decade after her death, it came as no surprise. Even as a four-year-old, you could tell how rotten her husband was despite the appearances he put on and the pleasantries he displayed. You knew the marriage was loveless, and that Povarikh Wisteroff cared nothing for "Europa"—your big sister; the girl you cared more about than anything else for the first nine years of your life—and cared only for Europa Anatolis—the Crown Princess of the Kingdom of Anatolis; the heir-apparent to a nation powerful enough to force Astarte into a strategic stalemate in the War of the Anatolian Succession.
What surprised you greatly, though, was the identity of her lover; her fellow adulterer: Emperor Christoph IV. And even more shocking was that Europa, who by God's providence bore no children to Povarikh, bore one to the Emperor in secret. Their child, Rhadamantha, was born in the winter of 1788, and the childbirth claimed your sister's life.
16 years have passed since then, and Rhadamantha has been sequestered in Ripae the entire time, hidden from even your eyes. In the wake of Christoph's death and chaos in the empire's capital, your mother—Queen Cassiopeia—has sent you to Ripae posthaste. You're to return with your niece to Anatolis via Levere, alongside Troussant's entourage, and you're to spare no effort in protecting her life. If Rhadamantha is only a shadow of her mother and has only one aspect of her mother's beauty, you know she'll be worth protecting a hundred times over. Indeed, you'll guard her with your own life in a way that you couldn't guard your sister's. In the weeks between Ripae to Anatolis, nothing will be more important to you than the life of Europa's child.
You are from the House of Anatolis.
You win if Rhadamantha is alive at the end of the game.
Tonight, if the restricted player would kill Rhadamantha, the kill fails, even if that player kills you while Rhadamantha is hiding behind you. However, this won't prevent your own death.
Tomorow, if the restricted player votes Rhadamantha and more than six players are alive, the vote won't be counted. The restricted player will appear to be voting Rhadamantha as normal, but the vote total won't include the vote (for example, "Asenion (1): [Restricted Player], [Other Player]").
If Rhadamantha dies, you leave the game in defeat immediately.
"May 2, 1783: the ratification of the Treaty of Alexenburg signaled the end of the War of the Anatolian Succession. Seven years of war between Astarte and Anatolis ended in status quo ante bellum—for Astarte and Anatolis, at any rate. The House of Wisteroff's mediation of the two belligerents in Alexenburg, the capital of the Grand Principality of Wiskva, was informally rewarded with a pair of marriages into the royal families of Astarte and Anatolis. On July 25, Povarikh Wisteroff, Grand Prince Vsevold's oldest son, was married to Europa Anatolis, the daughter of Queen-Regnant Cassiopeia of Anatolis; and on August 15, Militrisa Wisteroff, Vsevold's youngest child, was married to Emperor Christoph IV, who had ascended to the Astartean throne two years into the war. Europa's marriage to Povarikh was fruitless, but in two years Militrisa gave a son to Christoph: Crown Prince Jung, the heir-apparent who, presumptively, would be the first Astartean Emperor with Wisteroff blood."
You read that in a history book once. "That's wrong," you instinctively thought. Well, not wrong, really, but you know there's so much more to the story. For as long as you could understand the concept of "family," your mother drilled the true story into your memory, again and again. Parts of the true story are well-known, just not important enough for the writers of the history books to have paid much attention. But the rest of the story...your mother once told you all the people who know the full story, and you could count them on your hands. Not even Aunt Militrisa does.
In 1787, after four years of childless marriage, Europa and your uncle Povarikh divorced, and Europa vanished. The reason wasn't publicized, and the divorce was handled so discreetly that the papers didn't seem to care. But you know the reason: Europa had become pregnant, and it wasn't with Povarikh's child. It was with the child of Christoph IV, the Emperor of Astarte. The joint adultery of Christoph IV and Europa Anatolis had thrown the two marriages that sealed the Treaty of Alexenburg into ruin and besmirched the name of the House of Wisteroff behind closed doors.
In January 1788, the bastard child was born—and Europa died, in childbirth—with such secrecy that even your grandfather Vsevold didn't discover the child's existence for a month. However, he had already acted months earlier: he sent his middle son, Tkachikh, to bear a child by the Witch-Assassin Babarikha Yada; a child conceived not of love but of aspirations for revenge. And so, in September, you were born.
Your mother trained you to kill. To kill with a knife. To kill with a garrote. To kill with poison. You knew who you were going to kill, but with each passing month the question of when couldn't be answered; the bastard child had to be killed at a time when its death would be as hurtful to the Houses of Verenberg and Anatolis as its birth was to your family. And then, Christoph died. The time was at hand: the death of Jung a year earlier had deprived Verenberg of an Emperor, so surely, Christoph's first response must have been the legitimization of his bastard, in secret, to insure against the Gallicans refusing to accept the claim of his nephew Joachim—which would make the former bastard child first in line for the imperial succession.
It's the night after Christoph's death. Your grandfather the Grand Prince, hundreds of miles away in Alexenburg, telescribes you a message in Ripae: "The bastard child will flee to Anatolis. Either Queen Cassiopeia fears the loyalty of the Verenbergs to Joachim is too great, or the Lady Seneschal fears an uprising in the Imperial Palace will spread throughout the Empire." The Lady Seneschal of the Imperial Household is Mensor Teatra, the woman who had been entrusted with delivering the bastard child from Europa and then adopting it after her death, and the only mother the bastard child has known. The subtle ambiguity of the situation strikes you: is the bastard child fleeing from Ripae, or fleeing toward Anatolis?—is the bastard child aligned with its Mensori adopted mother, or its Anatolian birth mother? You put the thought aside and read the rest of the message: "Leave with the Gallicans, find and kill the bastard child, and leave no trace of its existence." So that's it. You're to find a child who you know so little about—not even its gender—from among thousands, before it finds safety in Levere and then security in Anatolis. And the body: you can't arrive in Levere during the day; you need to get there at twilight to ensure you can eliminate all evidence of the child's existence in secret. But before that...you need to kill it.
It's funny—when a child is born of a desire to have a child, it fills the condition of its conception by the very act of being born. It's free to live with no obligations to the world. But you, who were born to exact vengeance on the Houses that have wronged yours, have yet to fill that condition 15 years into your life. Your body has been born, but your existence...your existence is still inextricably bound to the purpose for which your parents conceived you; the cord that ties you to your mother's womb. Do you hate your mother, and your father, and your family for that? It hurts to think like that. But, in another sense, thoughts like that don't matter. Either you do the House of Wisteroff right by getting revenge, or you do yourself right by freeing your life from revenge. And that makes your path clear as day—both of those will happen when you kill the bastard child.
You are from the House of Wisteroff.
You win if:
The Bastard Child of Christoph IV & Europa Anatolis is dead at the end of the game, and
The game ends at Twilight.
You know the bastard child is aligned with either the House of Anatolis or Mensor, no matter what the child may say.
You are Valentina Wisteroff, Wisteroff Hitman.
You may vote.
Each Night, you may /investigate target player. You will learn whether or not the investigated player is the bastard child.
On one Night only, you may /kill target player. You cannot investigate a player and kill a player on the same Night.
Whatever happened to the word "pretend"? Children "pretend" to have tea with their dolls; grown-ups "pretend" to have affection for each other; everyone "pretends" to be something and someone that they undoubtedly are not. But not you. Just like your father, and your grandfather, and your great-grandfather, and 64 more greats to the illustrious Sextus Mensor Avitus, you're a pretender whose pretension is the furthest thing from "pretend." You're a Pretender to the Imperial Throne.
You were getting tired of styling yourself as Pretender, anyway. That makes it sound like everything in the Empire of Astarte isn't yours by right. What a silly thought—of course it is. Sure, you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth, but when you steal 223 silver spoons by the age of 20 you stop caring about the circumstances of your birth. That's right, you're not a Pretender, you're the Emperor: Emperor Mensor Avio Volpe Trophaeus Ventura LXXIII. You coronated yourself, but your life's all the better for it. What fun is a crown if someone else puts it on your head?
And, you know, it's about time you got yourself a crown. You have enough silverware—you have enough letter-openers, flintlocks, toppers, armoires, and parasols, too. It's time for you to steal something bigger: the empire. And what an opportunity you've been afforded by the piddling quabbles of the other houses! They say Senator Troussant is taking the Imperial Signet with him to Levere. Well, then, you'll just have to take it right back, won't you? After all, your ancestor Mensor Gemma built it; and even then it was a gift for the Anatolians, not meant for these other petty houses.
Indeed, the Mensori have always been great inventors. It's not just the Signet: 1,804 years ago your family invented a new sociopolitical paradigm; a new way for human civilization to function. And give yourself some credit! You're quite the inventor—and you'll need all your skills and wits about you to slip the Signet into your hand. Then again, whatever happens, happens. Life's always best when someone else has something you want.
You are from the House of Mensor.
You win when you gain possession of the Imperial Signet, after which you leave the game immediately.
You are Mensor Avio Volpe Trophaeus Ventura LXXIII, Mensori Thief.
You may vote.
Each Day and each Night, you may either /build an automaton that's not in your inventory or /use up to two automatons in your inventory.
Each automaton is formatted this way:
Name (Flavor)
Phase: When the automaton can be used.
Ability: What happens when the automaton is used.
Durability: How many times the automaton can be used. After being used the specified number of times, it's discarded from your inventory.
Here are the automatons you can build:
Brass Monkey (One part swiftness, one part nimbleness, one part inconspicuousness. Or was that vodka, rum, and orange juice?)
Phase: Day.
Ability: You automatically rob each player you're currently voting.
Durability: One use.
Balsan Magpie (Thanks to that magnet in its feet, it loves jewelry. It...really loves jewelry. Keep an eye on it, will you? Better yet, get something else to do it for you.)
Phase: Night.
Ability: Rob target player.
Durability: Two uses, but will be discarded if used alone.
Ornithopter (Nothing distracts people like a thing that flies. Too bad you forgot to attach the landing mechanism. Oh well; you can still use the wreckage for scrap.)
Phase: Day or Night.
Ability: Rob target player. The next automaton you build will come with one extra use, but it can't be another Ornithopter.
Durability: One use.
Bisque Doll (So captivatingly beautiful that those dunderheads think it's a real person. But they also seem to know that it's yours. Hold on, how does this thing work?)
Phase: Day.
Ability: You have a second vote Today. Label your second votes and unvotes with "second."
Durability: Two uses.
If a player you rob possesses the Signet, you'll steal it from that player and win the game.
Seppel just nailed the entire scum team in his first 5 posts.
Holy ****.
I wasn't sure if it was that, or the existence of a 2-man neutral team meant that made this game so "uninteresting" to play in. I still had fun, but as a mafia game, it was very straightforward. It felt wrong to replace in and immediately be able decide who will win with us. It was like a reverse-kingmaker.
When Rhand replaced in, my scumdar was completely thrown off by how bad he was playing. When he started sheeping me for no reason at all, I should have known he was scum.
Yeh I totally messed up at one point. It was the adrenaline of Arian almost being lynched to get cleared by Azrael. It made my brain stop working
Seppel thinking I was cleared for not hammering saved my ass there.
Seppel thinking I was cleared for not hammering saved my ass there.
Yep, I mean it was fairly safe to assume it was a 2 man scum group, I dunno why Az and others thought for a second it would be any other way when Asenion claimed neutral.
Also, I even have a thing to say about that "tell" in the spec chat once that goes up.
I don't have any hard numbers on this, but I'm targeted more often than a black guy driving a beat-up sedan with a broken tail-light and no license plate, and Cy's well aware of that.
Yay Rhand! I shared a lot of my thoughts in the spec chat already, so I won't go into too much detail aside from to reiterate everyone else's thoughts that the Anatolis faction was too strong.
Also, the strongman kill ending up being weaker than a regular kill (in that it incentivized us to do something that was ultimately very subpar) was kinda underwhelming.
Also called that Asenion was a mason early on (although with the wrong other person).
I'm surprised so many non-Void people in the spec chat I had a scum read on my early in the game.
Ultimately, there were two problems with/for me (personally) this game:
-) Majora's Mask has crippled my mafia confidence, as I noted at one point ITT. Like, I know the only way I can improve is by playing more, but it's really rough when a game where you thought you were playing well ends up going THAT badly. As a result of the aftermath of MM, I've basically just drowned myself in setup design, and this game for me suffered for that, through no real fault of its own.
-) I felt kind of awkwardly...not really betrayed, per se, but I guess given false hope...by my role. It was like, hey here's this potential where you can do something awesome maybe possibly down the road.....but good luck with that. Like, all hope of me ever getting the signet was gone probably before the game even started, especially since the whole "Inside Information" aspect of my role was actually just completely useless. Inside Info is automatically assumed scum (informed minority, as described in spec chat), and when at least 4 other people in the game ALSO had Signet info, it just throws out all usefulness of that passive (ER, D_V, and the scum). My Inside Info wasn't very Inside, so I didn't really have a choice of what to do with it, which I think otherwise could have formed an interesting decision tree.
Also, side note -- this might just be me, personally, but I find that my activity suffers a bit when I'm vanilla. When I have a role that has an ability to use, I keep closer tabs on the game because I want to get my night result. When I'm vanilla and have nothing to either send in or receive, it doesn't help things because I'm not checking as often, which means that the game frequently begins Days without me actually paying attention, which keeps me in a permanent stage of behindness. Again, that might just be me personally, but...there it is.
I think that there's been more than enough said about Asenion and Seppel's faction in the spec chat, so I'll restrain from comments on that.
Overall, though, I applaud TMCT for the game -- while it did have some problems, I liked that he was willing to take chances with it and push design in various areas, rather than succumbing to the same-old-same-old. I'd definitely be interested in future TMCT games....although, hopefully after my mafia-playing mental state has had a chance to repair itself. I'm vastly too competitive to be content being this bad at the game.
Sihhe, I think you were also reading too much into your inside knowledge.
Like, you knew one mode of signet transference. You read that as the only mode, and that caused you problems. Compare this to my role, which also gave a single possible mode of transference (theft). I had to learn about bequeathal from your claim and others'.
If your role doesn't specifically state the exclusivity of something, I don't think it can be safely assumed to be exclusive. (This was demonstrated in this game, but I think it holds true in general)
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
When I first thought up the core game my intent wasn't to create a Mini with 5 factions; it was just to make a Mini with a lot of factions. From that came a 2-man mafia to accommodate third-party factions, from that came a 2-man third-party faction (to avoid every third-party faction being a one-off player), from that came two more third-party factions of one player each, and from that came a 6-man town (to fill up the rest of the game). As I said in the spec chat, if MTGS allowed 13-player Minis, I would've started off with a 7-player town here, before even knowing what neutral win cons I'd use.
From that distribution came the conflict between the 2-man neutral faction and one of the 1-man neutral factions, as well as the MacGuffin that would form the basis of the other 1-man neutral faction's win con and do something special to each of the other four factions (only two others in the final game). And from that came the roles:
Nothing to say about the Doctor. Even without the Strongman there wasn't a need for anything but a standard Doctor in the setup, so a standard Doctor there was, right from the beginning.
I think I considered a Faction Cop for all of five seconds before settling on a Tracker, which also didn't change during review. Cop is possibly my least favorite Mafia role and Tracker is possibly my favorite, so I'm inclined toward target/action-based investigative roles to begin with. But the reason I gravitated toward it here in particular was the possibility of false positives from tracking Neutrals in addition to the usual possibilities of clearing town and catching scum. I was excited when Azrael drew the role because I wanted to see how he would parse his results and act on them the following Day, but unfortunately, the D1 neutral-outing massclaim made that less interesting. Still interesting to see a Tracker and Watcher target each other, though.
The Neighborizer was originally an obscure role that had the ability to issue commands to the Doctor and Tracker, which was very thankfully axed by the reviewers immediately. Neigborizer was the next and final incarnation. How the Neighborizer would handle his possession of the Signet (keeping his mouth shut, breadcrumbing it, or claiming it) was a topic that came up now and again in review, but I never seriously expected the Neighborizer to claim it in the way D_V did (or didn't) on Day 1—we'll get back to that. In fact, I even added the line "keep it safe and use it with care" to his role PM at the eleventh hour (which I don't believe my reviewers ever saw) because that worry started creeping into my mind.
The Handmaiden was originally a third Vanilla, but I decided to include another town role that wanted its hands on the Signet (this was long before the "bequeathal" mechanic was finalized). Partially to spark discussion about the Signet (not needed in this game!), partially to give the Signet someplace townish to go if anything happened to the Neighborizer, and partially for flavor reasons (if you read the ending flavor and the Handmaiden's role PM, the flavor reason should become evident). However, ZDS wouldn't allow a fourth true PR, so after several revisions the Handmaiden ended up as a Vanilla again with relatively insignificant "trinket text"—that's a Magic term for a mechanic that has no effective mechanical purpose and is mainly there for flavor (e.g. Baneslayer's protections). The problem is, it wasn't particularly good trinket text because the ability would've had to activate for the flavor to activate.
Ironically, the Watcher was originally a Ninja, filling the same niche the final Strongman did (countering a single town PR). The change was made partially because the Tracker was already neutered by potential false positives in the neutrals (and a Roleblocker; see below), and partially because the Ninja's buddy's role change necessitated a change for herself. As for the Signet-activated redirect, I came up with that off the top of my head and I don't think it was mentioned again by me or the reviewers.
The Strongman progressed from a Roleblocker to a Role Cop (that RB'ed his target if he had the Signet) to a Strongman. The RBer was too similar in function to the Ninja, and ZDS nixed the Role Cop for reasons I can't remember (to which I agreed for more reasons I can't remember). Originally, if the Strongman used any of his kills on the Signet holder, he'd gain possession of it, but when the bequeathal mechanic was developed it needed to be the primary mode of passing the Sigil after it's holder's death, so the Strongman only got one shot at getting the Signet (and he did hit successfully with it in this game...we'll get to that when I talk about flaws).
The Survivor and the Bodyguard started with the same win con they ended up with—the Survivor being alive at the end of the game—but underwent all sorts of changes everywhere in-between. But for now I'll talk about the Survivor, who was vanilla until comments from dan prompted us to completely overhaul Anatolis. Actually...that's all I have to say. The Bodyguard was the more troublesome one.
Yeah, the Bodyguard...before I shipped it off to review I planned on giving the Bodyguard an alt win con if the Survivor died before him: taking revenge on the Hitman. That didn't pan out, so the next alt win con was for the Bodyguard to win with the mafia (lol). That stuck around for longer than it should have, until ZDS suggested changing the alt win con to the Bodyguard winning if he survived and the game lasted until Night 4 or later. When it became apparent that Anatolis had serious issues (of which the alt win con wasn't the largest or even what prompted dan to have us take another look at the faction), I became content with letting the Bodyguard leave the game in defeat if the Survivor died before him. And with that came the Survivor and Bodyguard getting a lot of tools (i.e. too many, as has been made clear) to keep the Survivor alive. In retrospect, I don't think ZDS, dan, or I were ever really satisfied with Anatolis, which should have been telling.
There wasn't a single explicit change to the Hitman after the second version of the setup, though he changed implicitly with each change to Anatolis. My intent with the second win-con was to make her a primarily pro-town neutral who had the option of siding with the mafia in a pinch. Incidentally, at that time, ZDS wanted the Hitman to be explicitly pro-town ("you win if the bastard child is dead at the end of the game and the town wins"). In either case, lynching the Hitman would effectively be a mislynch, which I would say happened in this game on Day 1.
The Thief was originally a chaotically random role (moreso than he ended up). He had the ability to steal each Night, and would always get an item from his target—the Signet, something he could use mechanically, or some nondescript item that may have hinted at it's owner's role. In the second version he kept the Nightly steal, but instead of getting non-Signet items from other players he'd have to build them himself. At that point ZDS made the obvious-in-hindsight suggestion of axing the intrinsic steal ability and forcing him to steal via the items he builds; from there, I designed the Thief to be as nonrandom as possible, with the philosophy that he should always have a tangible, concrete reason for performing any given action. To accomplish that I made sure it would be suboptimal to steal Night 1 and preferable to bide time, building a specific sequence of items that could be unleashed as hints as to the Signet's holder started piling up. ...of course, everything in the last two sentences was rendered moot by D_V's signet claim. I'll get to that.
Looking back at it now, I honestly can't believe I let myself tackle a project this overwhelmingly daunting when I hadn't designed a single other Mafia setup, even a Basic, beforehand. And for tolerating me biting off way more than I could chew, I've got to heap thanks on ZDS and gan_dan. It was certainly a great experience
But it was also a learning experience, since as we know, this setup certainly ended up with its share of flaws.
Concerning the flaws in the game design:
(I'm going to take a cue from Cantripmancer here and list out "lessons learned.")
It wasn't protected against a massclaim. I honestly believed that the town would never attempt one on D1, among other breaking strategies. As I said in review:
Quote from Me »
Having an "all threats" town win con, a hidden mafia win con (and a mafia whose existence is only implied and never stated), and a statement that any given player may have a safe alignment claim (which may still even be a non-[Gallican] house for all the town knows!) should all be deterrents, right?
But, as Megiddo said:
Quote from Megiddo »
they NEVER do what you expect.
NEVER.
...indeed.
That being said, in this case the massclaim wasn't such a big deal from a balance standpoint, but from a fun standpoint. Oddly enough, I guessed something like that would happen:
Quote from Me »
The attempted breaking strategy that jumps to mind is an early-game mass house (and/or win-con) claim, which I'm guessing someone will at least suggest, but that's somewhat of an issue even without the exact number of houses known. Even then I'd expect 8-12 players to claim ["Galloux"] and leave the town with no direction as to whether to pursue the false-claimers within its own ranks or the claimed neutrals which may or may not be official "threats" to them. And leave the mafia with exposed town NK targets. I see that as a bit crazy for the game state, but not super damaging and mildly punishing for the town. At least, that's what I think.
I missed the forest for the trees. I somehow guessed that the town would be "left with no direction" after a D1 mass house claim, but failed to realize how unfun that would make the game. Lessons learned: Players never (capital never) do what you expect. And an inactive Day that drags on and on without a clear purpose can be just as much the fault of the setup as the players.
The setup wasn't protected against 1) the Neighborizer claiming that he had the Signet and 2) his claim not leading to a lynch of the Thief (or the Neighborizer). I maintain that D_V played his role very poorly, but as I said in the spec chat, one player shouldn't be able to unilaterally hand another faction a win on a silver platter without working in direct opposition to his win con (and D_V wasn't working in support of his win con either; his breadcrumbs and claims were played fairly neutral to his win con). The mechanisms of the Thief's role shouldn't have allowed him to turn around and snatch the Signet from D_V so quickly in that case.
Lessons learned: Swing shouldn't be embodied in a single player's role so strongly, since players are volatile and (once again) never do what you expect (which on further reflection is probably the best explanation for why limited vigs are so ubiquitous and much safer than unlimited vigs). Swing should be dispersed among more players whenever possible.
The Strongman/Thief/Signet interaction.
Quote from Cythare »
Also, ER, while I agree for the most part with your earlier notes on stealing coming before our killsteal, it was particularly rough because we only were given one shot on the strongman kill, which means that the scenario that happened N1 would basically always happen. We had no reason *not* to go for it, just like you. We figured since we were only given one chance for it, we might be given priority, and when we didn't, the shot felt wasted because aside from getting the Signet, D_V was a suboptimal kill (I would have preferred Azrael or Asenion).
Quote from ZDS »
Turns out there was an (indeed) unforeseen way making the strongman kill stronger actually made it... weaker. :-p
The mafia's expectation of DM's kill was that it would damn well get the Signet. And indeed, it had priority over every other method of the Signet being passed after its holder's death. But it didn't have priority over the Thief's steal, and that was (unintentionally) bastardly. Lessons learned: Players develop certain expectations from their roles, and you should only subvert these expectations very carefully and sparingly, if at all, and even then probably only for balance reasons (e.g. playing with a cop's sanity). On that note, you should take care not to present something as "strictly better" when it can potentially be "strictly worse."
The Handmaiden should've either been Vanilla or even marginally useful. As Arian alluded to, there was a very small chance his role was going to do anything over the course of the game, as the ability would've required him to receive the Signet and him to die in sequence.
Lessons learned: Everything in Mafia design should have a purpose. Superfluous elements add to a game's clutter, and, more pertinent in this case, actually negatively impact a player's view of the setup.
Swing.
Quote from The Most Curious Thing »
This game isn't for you if:
You can't handle a healthy bit of swing.
Quote from Me »
When I said "healthy amount of swing" in signups I was definitely stretching the word "healthy" pretty thin.
The setup was too tight for what I was trying to do with it; it was too easy for things to go awry for any faction (especially the town) in the span of one phase, as happened Day 3 despite the town preparing to lower the hammer on the final nail of the mafia's coffin. Lessons learned: A Mini can't handle factional interplay on this level without any one lynch (or even the right action) altering the course of the game too far.
Anatolis needed quite a bit more work. While I don't believe the massclaim tipped the balance in favor of the mafia over the town, it certainly tipped the balance in favor of Anatolis over the Hitman. They were overpowered, no two ways about it, and even if Karn hadn't been lynched Day 1, he would've had trouble coping.
Lessons learned: ...don't put Survivor Masons in a 12-player Mini with only a 1-Shot Hitman to keep them in check? (To quote Hobbes the tiger, "that lesson certainly ought to be inapplicable elsewhere in life.")
Quote from Azrael »
It was an intriguing game, but I don't think it was designed from a player perspective.
If my design philosophy shone through in the beginning of this post, then perhaps it's clear that this was a vanity project. I didn't design this with players in mind, and my reviewers kept having to pull me in that direction. Lessons learned: You can't design games in a vacuum—players should always come before the setup.
Rhand was (almost) unquestionably the most valuable player of the game. He had pegged the scumteam when he replaced in and even told me it "Looks like i will be replacing into an unsalvageable position." He was perceived as more scummy than Dancing Mad by at least one player (Azrael), but he still evaded a Day 3 lynch despite being the leading candidate and Arianrhod being mechanically cleared. It was a solid performance that I don't think anyone saw coming.
Asenion had the highest post total as a Survivor and played ballsy all game—he drew a lot of flack in the spec chat and would have drawn even more if his D3 antics had turned the lynch toward him for a loss, but you can't argue with the results. He played well off of Haiiro's gambit on Day 1 and just rolled from there.
Azrael isn't fully deserving of this, but no one in the town really was. Azrael, for his part, made three solid track choices, the first two of which gave the town a fighting chance by pinning down Cythare and steering away from Arian. Analytically, his Day play was flawed in places, but would have been sufficient to smoke out the last scum in a game with a normal number of mislynches allowed.
If I had just claimed Gallian in the mass claim instead of my actual faction I would have changed the entire game. I was naive to think town would be reasonable - also, scum being half the lynch doesn't help.
I don't think the two-man mason survivors are that inherently broken, but the number of other abilities they had to live even if I had not been mislynched Day 1..
I didn't really worry about a massclaim in review because I firmly expected everyone to claim Gallian. Especially if anyone read Ozone, I don't expect the town to play nice with neutrals in such a small setup.
I'm glad I replaced in. I somehow never get a scum role, so I had a lot of fun with this one.
I think that while the Asenion - Seppel duo was indeed a bit overpowered, the main problem was that town wasn't informed enough about the other houses.
It might have helped if there was some kind of 'allegiances' shown in the opening post.
F.e.:
Wisteroff has strong ties with the Galloux and is frowned upon by both Mensor and Anatolis.
The houses of Anatolis and Mensor haven't chosen sides in the succession war.
The house of Verenberg is willing to work with all other houses, but not with the Galloux.
Something like that could've given town the info they needed and would have made the mass houseclaim day 1 different: it wouldn't have been safe to claim anything other than Galloux or maybe Wisteroff.
I believe that the lynch of Karn Day 1 has to be counted as a mislynch in this game: it enabled the scum + Anatolis win.
As scum, what I felt town did that enabled our win:
* Lynch Karn
* trust Seppel
* out PR's early (D_V day 1, Tanarin day 2)
Had we not known who the doc was, we would've been in a lot of trouble Night 2. (I say 'we' because we had daychat)
Azrael: what made you track Arian night 2 instead of me?
Azrael: what made you track Arian night 2 instead of me?
Dancing Mad. Due to his small number of posts in thread followed, by his complete disappearance, he was able to create a pretty good cover for himself early in the game, and by the latter stages of the game when it becomes to difficult to maintain that cover, he was gone, and you were in.
Plus, Arian was having some pretty serious activity/commitment issues at the time, and had fewer town tells than usual as a result.
It's 5 am and I can't sleep so I decided to check on this game o.0
First, I'm sorry Asenion, replacing out without a wave to you was most def rude but I went from a happy 40 hour work week to the "what are day offs again?" storm I'm currently in. Come mid-december the busy season will be over and I should have more time. Still should've posted in our QT.
Secondly, this was a really fun game to be in and I immensely enjoyed it. It's true that the whole claim switching jazz was Asenion's plan, but I think I did a fair job with it. I think we just clicked very well and used DayTalk to the utmost advantage. Had I had the time to continue I think we would've been able to control the vote much sooner and ended the game as planned. Though Seppel replacing me created much much more hilarity.
Thanks to TMCT for designing a game with outstanding flavor and really interesting roles.
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
You won't live to see the next chapter in Astarte's history, though. They've chosen you to die, and so quickly! To think you've crossed over five hundred miles today, only to reach the conclusion that your life must end summarily. No, this isn't right: Marion David can't die yet. "I'm nobody!" you plead. "Nobody—nothing but a history student. I'm not Troussant du Galloux, I'm not a senator, I'm not a duchess; I'm nobody. You can't possibly kill me—I'm here to follow history, and that's it! I'm no different than Alexander!"
At that, Alexander shakes his head. "We couldn't be further apart, Marion. You claim to be a historian, but a degree in history hardly makes you a historian. Ha!—far from it." He uncrosses his legs and leans toward you. "You're a Gallican through and through; your eyes are lit by the same fire that Troussant's were. A historian can't be a Gallican, or a Verenberg, or an Anatolian; a historian can have loyalties to neither gods nor men, but only to the ineffable, immutable forces that draw them together in perpetual conflict. That's history. And you're not here to witness history, my dear girl, but to make it, and history is not something that can be "made," contrary to the best efforts of gods and men."
He's right, isn't he? You're not a historian; in fact, you were nothing but an ewe following the shepherd Troussant without a second thought, powerless to stop even one of the wolves that beset his path. And now you go to your slaughter, to be forever forgotten by history, not even a footnote to the cosmically inconsequential story of Troussant du Galloux.
It is now Night 4. Please stop posting, and submit all actions to me by 11-02-2013, 11:59 PM EDT.
Day has broken and the locomotive has stopped, still a thousand miles from its destination. The Gallican emigrants—refugees, now—are sprawled out of the train, their conversation morose and their eyes hopeless. Officials hand out food and water rations as a dozen rail workers pull at a block and tackle, hauling a load of coal onto the train; they, unlike most of the passengers, act with a sense of purpose, if only their contractual obligation to see that the train reaches Levere soundly. Indeed, there's nothing left in Levere for the House of Galloux—Troussant's death assured that, and his followers have come to that frightful realization. However, unlike five days ago, nary a tear is shed by the thousand passengers outside the train; no, this time, there's only a pervading deadness. Death will likely be the fate of each Gallican refugee when Joachim Verenberg dashes the Ever-Lit City of Levere and the New Empire of Astarte to pieces.
Five particular travelers stand aside from the rest atop a windy knoll. They are Alexander Edwards and the remaining four people he led across the Neralbians, through Lidge, and to this heretofore insignificant spot of land in Central Astarte. Perhaps the story of Troussant and his New Empire isn't yet over, but the story of these five travelers...their story has ended. The story of the Anatolian princess Rhadamantha—the bastard child of Christoph IV and Europa Anatolis—and her loyal uncle and retainer Cadmus, fleeing to safety in Perpetuopolis. The story of Ehren Holtzer, the man traveling as Calvin Barlowe; the priest who left his life in the Achesgran Cathedral behind to purge Astarte of the House of Galloux's iniquity. And the story of Felicia Camilla, the girl who earnestly believed herself to be the adopted sister of Troussant, who would have given anything to further her brother's cause, and who now lays dying with the knife of Ehren Holtzer slipped between her ribs. Alexander addresses her again, "Your Majesty."
Felicia smiles weakly. "You knew all along, didn't you?"
"Indeed. Your mother—your birth mother, Madeleine—confided in me years ago. I knew Troussant's real mother, you see." He furrows his brow. "But when did you find out?"
"Just now. They say your life flashes before your eyes at moments like these, and mine did: the real one; the one that's been kept from me my whole life." She takes a deep breath. "I was raised as the adopted child of Madeleine and Alexis du Galloux, a child of the lower nobility but of no imperial significance. But Troussant—he was raised as their true child, the great-grandson of Christoph I and second in line for the Imperial Throne. To think our roles were reversed so perfectly, with scarcely a soul ever knowing...." She takes another deep breath, gasping as the air comes short. "I'll never know why my mother did it, or my father. No, I'm sure it was both of them. Did they want a male Gallican in line for succession? Were they protecting me from circumstances like this? Either way, I now know who I am."
"Her Majesty the Empress of New Astarte," Rhadamantha interjects. "And me, the Empress of Old Astarte, in more ways than Joachim can say he is. The two of us...we both have empires we never wanted. Lied to all our lives, and given empires we never asked for...we were alike along. I'm so sorry for you now."
Felicia shakes her head fiercely, setting her eyes on her fellow empress-regnant's. "Make no mistake, Rhadamantha. I'll have you understand this if it's the last thing I do with my life: this is the empire I've wanted my entire life, since I was old enough to witness the sort of power and clout my parents and brother wielded. And wielded so poorly at that!" she scoffs before gasping again, struggling for air. "How differently things would have gone if my parents hadn't made such a mockery of my birthright! Troussant had no right to the throne, and he floundered when fate gave him a shot at it. This exodus to Levere—this entire endeavor—was nothing but a show of weakness. He had a claim to the throne, and he had possession of the Imperial Signet. He had everything he needed to seize power at arm's reach in Ripae, but he turned tail and fled instead. And what a fool to lose the Signet, even in the chaos of battle: no true emperor dares lose his composure, no matter the circumstance. This whole thing was a charade, and it's led to the death of the Empress of New Astarte." She stands up with great effort, but without laying a hand on the willow next to her. The growing crimson stain on her blouse is suddenly evident as she unflinchingly pulls out Ehren's knife, tossing it aside. She points at Alexander. "You. Historian. Be sure to write this down.
"Felicia Camilla's rule over the land of Astarte was far too short. Let it be known—let it be known on this day and on every day hence—that I bequeath my empire to the petty Houses of both Galloux and Verenberg, to quibble over eternally as two dogs quibble over the driest and most meatless of bones. With my death, I allow them to be content with the paltry lands they've acquired here on Earth. I, the Empress Felicia Camilla, will now go forth to the lands beyond, to conquer the heavenly realms that never bestowed upon me the chance to conquer the realms beneath them. If it's Heaven I'm sent to, God with his myriad legions of seraphim will bend to my will; if it's Hell, I'll assemble my own legions from the fallen men and fallen angels whose divine ambitions have been slighted just as cruelly as mine. Rhadamantha, if it's Tartaros, I'll harvest every fruit from each of its trees and drink every drop of water from each of its lakes myself. Joachim, if it's Walhalla, I'll rally each of its chosen warriors to my cause and bring about the Twilight of the Gods with my own hands. Let it be known: no power mortal and no power immortal will stop Felicia Camilla."
A moment later, she collapses, dead.
The Verenberg priest whispers a prayer under his breath. A gust of wind hides his words, but his tears suggest repentance. It's clear now that the knife he thrust into Felicia's side was the House of Galloux's death knell: today, on March 29, 1804, the House of Verenberg vanquished his brother Galloux, laying undisputed claim to the Empire of Astarte.
Empire of Astarte has ended in victories for the House of Verenberg, the House of Anatolis, and the House of Mensor. Congratulations to Rhand, Cythare, Asenion, Seppel, and ExpiredRascals—and thanks to all for participating!
Hehe. I'm not sure what I have to say that I've not already said in spec chat.
I really enjoyed the game, TMCT. I know there's been a lot of talk in the spec chat about what might have been done differently, but the game was a blast to play, and I really enjoyed the set-up, flavour, and your approach to modding.
@Everyone else: I recommend reading the spec chat for amusement and commentary.
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
I could then lynch mafia and block the last mafia from killing me - this would have guaranteed a Town/Survivor victory.
I am sorry Town, but after I failed to mislynch on Day 2 I was unable to figure out who the scum were and save you without jeopardizing my own otherwise secured victory.
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
I also deliberately oversold my false-claim on Day 2 because I again wanted to make it obvious I was lying and make people not trust me and/or the scum try and kill me. My only threat was if I couldn't predict where the kill was going and/or if my partner was killed. Once Karn was out of the way I could draw attention to myself.
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
1. I wasn't throwing the game. People had already figured us out because of Seppel, by explaining and removing the mystery I knew people like Azreal would realize that lynching my team doesn't help the Town much. This would have been a different story if the Town still had power roles to try and get value out of, because they could have lynched Seppel and then myself for two more shots of whatever was left. But, the current situation lent itself to both Town and Scum wanting to leave us alone if I told the full truth.
2. Gifts played pretty well, but I am vain enough to point out that his good claim was my idea.
3. My hubris is an ongoing "problem".
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
I don't think you can call poor town play as a reasonable cover for your behaviour towards the end.
I think my 378 in spec chat about sportsmanship is very much relevant, and your play as the game dragged to a close was really frustrating, because it didn't respect the people you were playing with.
I mean, understand, at this point, I was an uninvolved party to this game. I had been out of the game forever, my faction was gone, and I had nothing riding on what you did in the endgame. I was quite fine with your approach to the game early on, but your demeanor in-game changed when you claimed your intent to win with scum.
Even though the town didn't figure it out, you were endangering your faction and showing a disrespect for the people you were playing with. It was poor sportsmanship and poor play imo.
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
However, I disagree with you. Multiple people had already figured out that we could win with the scum because of Seppel's slip. I think it was correct to claim there. It was a calculated decision. What could the Town have figured out?
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
Claiming your intent to win with scum was... awkward. But I think you called attention too much to the precariousness of your position after that claim.
Consider this for example:
You were in the situation where the game state was 4 town, 1 scum, 2 anatolis.
If the town wasn't certain of the last scum, the correct play at that point would have been to treat the game like 7-man LYLO with 2 confirmed scum and lynch an anatolis.
They'd kill one of you, the mafia would kill one of them. They'd kill one of you, the mafia would kill one of them. And then they'd be at a classic 3-man endgame. More importantly, it would be entirely mechanical. Literally no meaningful choices for the town through that sequence of lynches. And given that they had no idea who the scum were, narrowing it down to a 3-man endgame would have improved their chances and removed the uncertainty.
Rubbing their noses in the supposed futility of their position only served to call attention to your own position, and potentially to the fact that the game was not yet in the bag for you.
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
You outright stated that your faction put them in LYLO, at that point, they should have taken the free-POE opportunity. Making your anti-townness more salient only served to put your win in jeopardy by risking one of the townies thinking on it long enough to realize their out.
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
@Seppel: did I fool you or did you go for the win with scum?
When I replaced in I knew i was scum before I got my PM and just wanted to do TMCT a favor to get his game to continue.
I never expected to turn it around.
Survivor masons in a mini should not ever happen without serious restrictions.
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
"Rye, if you have it. On the rocks."
He nods and hands you a glass filled with gypsum and calcite, a stalk of grass protruding from the top. "I don't typically trot out my reserve for guests, but you're a special case, mademoiselle." You've never had this drink before, and it's the best of this drink you've had.
He smiles politely as you finish. "Aquilus couldn't make it, unfortunately. We'll have to make do without him." Oh. The eagle was the one you wanted to see, actually; you don't even know who this rooster fellow is. Frustrated with the turn of events, you make to leave, but the leather is so lustrously soft and unfathomably deep that you ca'n't seem to lift your body from it. The rooster clucks, and with another polite smile says, "I so ever wanted someone to play Naughts & Crosses with me today. You ca'n't play against nobody, but when you're 'crosses' you play against nobody anyway. That makes me rather cross, and it makes the game all for naught."
Arms crossed, you frown. "I'm afraid I don't want to! This has gone on long enough, M. Rooster!"
"But Mademoiselle," M. Rooster says, a wing pointed at your empty glass, "we're friends, remember? I'll hear no more of your protestations, as they've nearly spoiled our evening already!" You realize it's past sundown, and follow the hurried rooster. Feeling harried yourself, you move as though drawn forward by the rooster's volition.
He takes you to the train station adjacent to his drawing room, where he paces back and forth impatiently, pecking at his pocket-watch. "I'm quite sure he said seven o'clock!" Feeling helpful, you turn to the station attendant and inquire about the seven o'clock train—and it's evidently delayed by a half-hour! Fancy that! The rooster crows and you turn back to bear him the bad news, which he only clucks at in laughter. "Why, you're rather dull, mademoiselle. Why would a bird take the train?" (You narrow your eyes in annoyance. You didn't know there was a bird, or—a minute ago—even a train, for that matter.) "He took the ferry, of course. Be a dear and fetch the schedule." Your body moves on its own to obey the rooster.
A newsstand catches your eye, but thankfully has the common sense to toss it back to you. "Terribly sorry about that!" it says. "Please do have an Evening Post. Have you seen the headline?" You haven't, so you take the paper and tip the stand a penny. The words are jumbled and unreadable, but the front page is almost filled with the unmistakable picture of a dead eagle.
You return to the rooster. "So, mademoiselle, Aquilus has died," he affirms, seeing the paper. "Quite a shame, that. I remember his funeral well; too much pomp and circumstance, though the chocolate truffles were a nice touch. Shall we go, then? I suppose you're with me for the rest of it now." You nod and start following the rooster along the train tracks.
You jolt awake—a daydream? Of course it was.
Now fully conscious, your eyes refocus on their target. What are you tracking, a hundred meters beneath you? A vole, or a sparrow, or a thrush? It's something—you know that look. You see a sparrow take off from the ground (it was a sparrow, after all), and with that, the hunt begins. You let out a cry and begin to dive, a knife-edge through the cloudless blue sky. The sparrow takes notice after a second, but in another second you intercept it. Your talons clip its left wing, and after circling back to the fallen sparrow, your beak snaps its neck—and that's that.
After a minute, the heirofalcon returns to perch on your forearm gauntlet and you retether him. The whole experience felt so much like another dream, but a pinch from the falcon's talons affirms that it wasn't; it was only a false reality lived vicariously through someone else. Hasn't that been your life? Led along from circumstance to circumstance, your actions beyond your own control. Even as a falconer, you can't say, "let's go for a dove today," because the falcon will go for whatever it damn well fancies.
Emperor Christoph's death has forced you into the most binding circumstance of your life: for centuries, the Verenbergs have been great patrons of falconry, and for the entirety of your career, Christoph himself was your greatest patron. But Joachim—Joachim hates you. For as skilled as he is with a falcon, he's doubly spiteful, and he hates you. With Christoph dead and Joachim coronated, your professional tie to the House of Verenberg has been severed, and your life in the Imperial Palace—and even your life in Ripae—has to end. There's nowhere for you but out; for as important as the Verenbergs were to you, you need to leave the city with Troussant and his Gallican followers. Your old circumstances have been resigned to the past. Whatever you were before, you're now fully Gallican: you'll be hunting Verenbergs.
You are from the House of Galloux.
Those were his last words. As Emperor Christoph lay dying—his body spent, the moment history determined his life would end at hand—those were the words he spoke.
Pardon him? The man who ordered the execution of seventeen Anatolian prisoners due for exchange. The man whose bloodlust dissolved the Treaty of Alexenburg and nearly plunged Astarte and Anatolis into war again. The man who undid seventeen years of continental peace with a stroke of his pen. Pardon him!
You thought nothing of it at the time. You did the same thing you had for six other members of the royal family, dozens other nobles, and countless other men and women: you checked the pulse of his carotid artery, nodded solemnly at those surrounding his bed, and flipped open your pocket-watch to note the time of his death. However, as you lay sleepless in your own bed that night, your aching bones close to death themselves, the words rang through your ears again and again; not spoken by the late Emperor Christoph, but by the spirit of false honor that has imbued every Verenberg emperor with his power for a thousand years. Indeed, when the Imperial Signet sealed the order to exile Alois in January 1800, the people saw Christoph as an honorable man; when the Signet sealed the order to execute him in November, the people saw Christoph as a doubly honorable man. But to what end did he carry out that charade, if only to recant on his deathbed! You know it was for one purpose: to restore his consanguinity with his nephew; to legitimize the rule of the Verenberg Emperor Joachim. There is no true honor in the House of Verenberg.
So you've made up your mind: there's no longer a place for you in the Imperial Palace as the Royal Doctor. You're at the end of your tether, and so too is your frail body; you'd rather choose the place where it's laid to rest. You'll travel eastward—to Levere.
You are from the House of Galloux.
Or so you used to tell yourself. Now...only God knows. At 28, you've dead-ended in the Astartean military; a non-commissioned officer can only go so far before he does. Sure, you'll follow Troussant to Levere. It seems like the right thing to do. And you might as well put your weight behind the House of Galloux, because—as useless as you are—the name St. Tolbert still can't seem to support you.
You are from the House of Galloux.
...no, that's not right. Not anymore.
Thrown to the ground in the chaos of the battle, you look up to see the retinue of Emperor Troussant galloping at full speed past you, away from Ripae: a dozen white chargers of the Garde Impériale, several advisers on an assortment of horses, and, in the middle of the group, Troussant himself on a black stallion. And, in a single moment, you see a gleam of light reflecting off a small metal object falling from the Emperor.
The hoofbeats of the retinue fade into the commotion of the battle, but your eyes remain transfixed on the object, falling at the pace of the sunrise in a timeless moment; daring you to lose sight of it before it hits the ground. When it finally does, you crawl over to it, staying low to the ground. And then you see it: a platinum cylinder, inlaid with alternating rings of diamond and onyx; a ribbed handle on one end and the eagle of the Astartean crest on the other. It's the Imperial Signet.
This was by the will of God; no, by His grace; of the thousands of people on this battlefield, so many more worthy and talented than you, He chose you; He gave you an instrument of such tremendous power that He can't have intended anything but for you to use it; to renew your hope for the House of St. Tolbert and refocus your aim in life to see its formation through to the end; or rather, the beginning! Thoughts and ideas spin ceaselessly through your head as they drown out the sounds of the battlefield. For now, you realize as your breath returns, you can't overplay your hand: in the hands of the Emperor, the Signet can rule over the land, but in yours, it will only turn the land against you. Yes, for now, its use is limited—but you can still get people to listen to you. That's right. Just like the name of each of the Regnant Houses, the Signet adds weight to the words it seals. Soon, you won't need the Signet, because the name St. Tolbert will do twice the job, but for now...yes, this will do. Thank you, God.
You are from the House of Galloux.
It was a bit sarcastic, but really, it was a silly question. All of them were. When you're adopted into a House you still live on the outside of it (the "front porch," as it were). Alexis and Madeleine Galloux have never been your parents, and Senator Troussant—Emperor Troussant, rather—has never been your brother. For as much as you've enjoyed the luxuries of the House of Galloux over the past 22 years, you'll never enjoy a single taste of its power.
Then again, maybe a handmaiden to the emperor isn't entirely without power, at least indirectly. You've seen and heard so much from Troussant already—and that was when he was but a senator. Perhaps he's something of a brother, after all: you know how he holds his tongue around the other servants, and you know how he confides in you in his moments of greatest frustration. And now that you think about it...don't you have even the smallest bit of influence over him, in those moments? The night after Christoph's death, you heard the question he asked at his bedside, despondent and at his wit's end: "my claim to the throne will never be enough; what else do I need?" And you had an answer for him. Immediately, and without a drop of sarcasm, you had the answer.
"The Imperial Signet. Get the Signet."
You know power when you see it, and there's an empire's worth of power in the Imperial Signet. Not for you, but for Troussant—you could never be the Empress Felicia Camilla and will always be the adopted Gallican child Felicie, brother of Troussant. And that's fine. In the coming months, he'll need someone like you.
You are from the House of Galloux.
Then why history, especially if you loathe the past so terribly much? Perhaps you don't see history as the study of the past, but as the study of the future by way of association with the past. Or disassociation, rather; the world is in a constant state of change, and history cannot repeat itself by nature. The Empire of Astarte as it exists in 1804 is different than the Empire of 1700, and the Empire of 1000, and the Empire as it was at the formation of the Astartean Calendar. That's why you've studied history: the implicit promise that for as long as a thing of the future bears close resemblance to a thing of the past, it will be set apart by some strikingly unique feature, in the same way we look at a familiar face and say "ah, blue eyes!—it's not who I thought after all."
Senator Troussant is the pair of blue eyes on the aging, bloated body of the Empire of Astarte. You've studied enough of the Empire's history to notice them, staring wistfully toward a future when the Senate can effect real change in the Empire; when a single House can no longer rule over 200 million people with nary a check or balance. There's never been another Troussant du Galloux in the history of the Empire, and there never will be another one when he's relegated to the past. Therefore, now is the time. Troussant has seized the opportunity of Christoph's death, and so too will you: you'll follow him to Levere.
You are from the House of Galloux.
On this, so bright a day.
The sun shines strong on fair Levere
(Can spring in Ripae quite compare?)
But life's so dull in your absence—
All trivialities.
None as sweet as your affection,
And daily I work with confections!
Florence, I hope you understand
Just how much I miss you.
Our life was stellar in Levere;
Our months apart I cannot bear.
And now, this trouble with Christoph,
The throne he left contested.
So frightful is the news I hear;
The city won't be safe, I fear.
With you—and only you—in mind
I write this question now,
And write it very eagerly:
Will you return to live with me?
Your life is rich and beautiful;
Your studies much less so.
The sky is filled with many lights,
Not one as bright as you—that's right.
I know I can support us both,
As business here is good.
My mignardises sell superbly
(At Ricard's shop in Central Ancy!)
But even you, your old work here:
The Société Royale.
Perhaps that silly squabble was
A pointless one, replete with flaws.
I love you as I always have;
In fact, now more than ever.
I'm worried ill from all this strife—
Oh Florence, please, cherish your life.
Colette, my dear Colette, to hear from you!
On all of us this week has been so trying;
Your words are blessings to me through and through.
At present there's just one thing that I want.
I care not of the Emperor Christoph,
Nor of his nephew, or his foe Troussant.
Nor would I care if this damned world did burn,
So long as you and I were left behind;
The stars alighting us, each one in turn.
But stars seem petty now compared to this.
My passion for astronomy aside,
To let it mar our lives would be remiss.
I can confirm the news you've heard from west:
Not even the Academy is safe
From riots, rabble, and all of the rest.
I'll leave my work behind with all due haste
And run to meet you soon in fair Levere,
That one day we may once again embrace!
You are from the House of Galloux.
You lift your head and shrug lazily.
"Lots of things to be done, you know! Lots of things to be done!"
He's right, of course. There's always something else. And he won't ever shut up about it.
"Get up! Up and at 'em!"
He flaps his wings in agitation. Such beautiful plumage, and he's molting it, too. What do parrot feathers fetch at market this time of year? You shrug again as you push back the covers and step out of bed, into the kitchen. Coffee? You can actually afford the Ecanian stuff now, but can't be bothered to grind it this early in the morning. What a delightful conundrum. Tea it is.
"It wasn't poison. Not poison."
You guessed as much. Is that all?
"Ague! Ague caused by weakened immune system. Tertian ague, and then paroxysm, and then death."
So death by natural causes—the old bastard worked himself to death. Of course, the other Houses would have been crazy to have killed Christoph themselves, with the succession crisis he left behind. You've always fancied the Regnant Houses insane, but at least more sane than that. You look up from your tea. "And, what now?"
"Melons, and nectar, and guava, and walnuts! Feed me!"
You shrug and go to oblige him. It's not an unreasonable demand, really; the Uchellian Parrot M. Arquus VII did more work last night than you have in months. Flying from room to room in the Imperial Palace; watching and listening for an answer to the question, "how did Christoph IV die?" And it was natural causes after all. How humdrum. Not that you care; it's another job done, another check earned. But what now?
"Your contract isn't up, m'dear."
Oh, right. There is more to do, isn't there? They want you to follow Troussant to Levere. Kill all the Gallicans, or something. How humdrum.
You are from the House of Verenberg.
1,000 libra a month—that's how much you're worth, before municipal and imperial taxes. 1,000 libra: a waterfront apartment in Ripae Proper, a purebred Eribien racing horse, or 200 shares of Adstrum Company stock. That sounds like a heavy-handed and even draconian way of measuring your value to society, but honestly, being able to quantitatively assess your value (to the penny!) means that you can gauge how much more successful you've become from month to month. And you: you've become quite successful.
As an "inquiry agent," your job is to damn well get to the bottom of things, and the breadth of clients that have contracted your services is almost as wide as the breadth of services you've provided. One month you'll reunite a noble with the sister separated from him at birth; the next you'll topple a chartered company by selling its secrets to a competitor. However, no client has been as consistently lucrative as the House of Galloux—not by a longshot. And when a Regnant House offers you a thousand libra a month for your continued service, you damn well accept. When you measure your success quantitatively, a choice like that is easy enough; when you measure your success qualitatively, the choices become burdened down by petty things like morality and ethics.
In your line of work you've seen enough of the world-within-the-world to know that all humans are fundamentally the same—neither entirely good nor entirely bad—and codes of morality and ethics are only halfhearted attempts to reconcile the perceived differences between us. When you first realized that, your interest in everything but your own self-worth dissolved, and when you realized that money is the most effective measure of your self-worth, you turned to the deep pockets of the Gallicans. Money: that's the sort of loyalty that won't ever dissolve; your loyalty to the House of Galloux is nearly as strong as Troussant's. Everything else—friendships, promises, ideals—is fragile and transient.
You are from the House of Galloux.
The prayer is spoken in low tones, but it echoes throughout the chevet and across the ambulatory. This morning, the words seem foreign; contrived. You've spoken them thousands of times, but today your recital of them is rote, as if from a book you've never read.
Nothing in the chevet chapel feels right—no, everything in the entire Achesgran Cathedral is wrong, filled with a false purpose. The air is musty and the walls clammy; stained glass cherubim are suffused with melancholy as water trickles down their faces; the black marble figure of the Lord Pisches looks hopelessly powerless to unhand himself from the gilded crucifix he's bound to. And hanging above it all, leeching life from the cathedral, is the death of Christoph IV.
You know that Emperor Christoph was a paragon of honor, a man who ruled with the Lord's blessing, and you know that his nephew Joachim wields only a portion of that honor. But you also know how much more honorable even he is than the Gallican pretender Troussant. Indeed, you've never lost sight of Troussant du Galloux's wickedness; you've never lost count of his sins: he drinks to the point of violence, he gambles away his family's fortunes, and he philanders without a second thought to the damage he causes. He is a not a man suited to be the Emperor of Astarte.
...is that what you want, Lord? To purge the world of that man and his followers? Yes, it must be done. This miasma in the air of the cathedral is only a mourning veil, and when Christoph's spirit is welcomed to heaven the veil will be lifted and the cathedral's walls will resound with a new purpose. You'll join the Verenberg legions, and you'll burn away this world's iniquity.
You are from the House of Verenberg.
If, at that moment, your father had said "take revenge on them—show the world the unfailing righteousness of God and exact His wrath on them," you would have understood perfectly. You would have understood how he, on his deathbed, could rescind his entire worldview; how he could recant everything he had taught you so thoroughly and lovingly for 16 years. But he didn't. The raspy words from his throat, charred beyond healing, were the exact opposite: "forgive them—show the world the unfailing love of God and pray for their salvation."
Earlier that night, in the reverent silence of the Achesgran Cathedral, a band of vandals set fire to the north transept of the cathedral, which had been undergoing repairs that left its provisional wooden support columns exposed. One parishioner of the church was killed when the transept's marble parapet collapsed, crushing him. Another was killed when smoke from the blaze filled the room he was trapped in, suffocating him. And your father—the fire itself killed your father; the fire would even have burned him to ashes if you hadn't intervened. That itself was providence. Were it not for your father's words, you would have sought vengeance. You would have repaid like for like and burnt them alive, immolating them as a sacrifice to the God they transgressed against.
Ultimately, you know better than that. You know that life is inviolable and paramount, and that even an unsanctified life is worth saving. Your father, the Bishop John Barlowe, never let you forget that; he would scarcely allow you to kill the smallest and most insignificant of flies for an empty purpose. And those were only flies!—there exist men in the world today that treat their fellowmen as less than insects. Not just the vandals who razed the Achesgran Cathedral; no, their sin was purposeless and only made for the sake of sinning. The true evildoers are the blasphemers whose sins are masqueraded about as acts of divine righteousness.
That's who the Verenbergs are. They start petty wars as though they're messengers of God executing His supreme will; they bear grudges against other Houses as though only theirs has the right to rule over every acre of land in the world. How many lives were lost in the War of the Anatolian Succession, all for Christoph III's inability to recognize the rule of a woman over another nation altogether! You can't support such wanton waste of God-given life—not after the resolve your father showed on that night. God willing, you'll follow Troussant to Levere.
You are from the House of Galloux.
The girl in the mirror mouths the question to you silently, and you can only lower your eyes and shake your head in response. Who is she? Tanned olive skin, high cheekbones, a pair of tired blue eyes, ash brown hair drawn up in a chignon, a quavering hand fiddling with bronze earrings and a bronze pendant—you've seen her so many times, but you've never been further from having the answer to her question than now. To you, her face is something out of a fairy tale, fictional and fantastical; but to her, your face is something out of a dream: in the dream world of the Imperial Palace, she's lived a life identical to yours for 16 years, her true life in the real world of Astarte blissfully forgotten.
For 16 years the girl in the mirror had lived as Rhadamantha, the daughter of an escort and an unknown father adopted by Mensor Teatra, Lady Seneschal of the Imperial Palace; it was a normal life in quarters outside the Palace—on the border of servanthood and aristocracy—with a clique of friends in the kitchens, the occasional garden party in the Orangerie, and training from her adopted mother to join the Palace's civil service in four years. But the girl in the mirror has woken from that dream, into a reality she has never known; and just as your reality was her dream, her fairy-tale reality has become your dream.
You are now Rhadamantha, the daughter of Emperor Christoph IV and the Anatolian Princess Europa.
It seems even more like a fantasy now than when Mensor Teatra told you last night, after your father's death. Christoph, the Emperor of Astarte, and Europa—a woman even more beautiful and stately than her mother, Queen-Regnant Cassiopeia of Anatolis—were siblings by marriage: in 1783, Christoph and Europa respectively married Militrisa Wisteroff and Povarikh Wisteroff, the oldest daughter and oldest son of Grand Prince Vsevold Wisteroff. They were two loveless political marriages, sanctified only through the House of Wisteroff's desire to grab power in both Astarte and Anatolis after the Treaty of Alexenburg ended war between the two. That's how your parents met and, ironically, that's how they fell in love.
You wish you could ask your mother how it all happened—was it a dance they shared at their weddings, or a love letter read by moonlight, or a stolen kiss in the gardens of the Palace? But your mother is dead, just like your father. It was the first thing you asked Mensor Teatra when she finished the story, and she answered with a grave shake of her head: Europa Anatolis died by hemorrhage when she gave birth to you. And your father...even in life, your father never knew you existed.
With your parents dead and your old life vanished, what's left for you now? You're living in a fantasy of someone else's life, and have no idea how to do it. Your grandmother Cassiopeia wants you to return from Ripae to Anatolis via Levere, and she's sent your uncle Cadmus to take you there with Troussant and his Gallican followers. But was Anatolis ever a home for you to return to in the first place? ...is this the right thing to do?
You blink back tears and grit your teeth as you smash the hand mirror on the edge of the dresser, shattering the girl in the mirror into a dozen irreconcilable pieces. You were wrong: this isn't her reality, it's yours. You don't know how you'll live your life yet, but it's all the more worth saving for that. You'll go to Anatolis, and you'll survive.
You are from the House of Anatolis.
"Dad?" You rub your eyes. In the pitch black of night, the gas-lamp casts a flickering light over his face, buried in a stack of papers. His fountain pen scrawls away furiously—at a letter, or a report, or a form, or some other incomprehensible jumble of ink letters and numbers.
He slows the pace of his writing without looking up. "Hm?"
"I can't fall asleep."
At that, he stops his writing and turns to face you, smiling warmly. "Neither can I. But," he starts as he points to the pile of documents, "I think something very different is stopping me from sleeping." With a yawn and a crack of his knuckles he stands up, swooping you into his arms. "However!—I can always use a break. Shall we get a glass of water?" You nod as he carries you down the hallway.
This is the most cheerful you've seen your dad while working, so you decide to ask him a question you haven't asked him before: "Daddy, why do they make you work so late?"
He smiles wearily, with great effort. "Did you ask that, or your mother?" After a sigh he continues, "do you know what I do for a living, Lucy?"
"You're an under—an under-something. For a senator."
He nods. "An undersecretary for Province-Senator Troussant. But really, I'm a bit more than that. The first fellow who took the job for Troussant was a fool; nothing but a bureaucrat." He sees your confused look and explains, "ah, a bureaucrat, that's like Cocoa when she tries to bark away our house-guests. Bureaucrats, they see something unfamiliar and make a dreadful bit of noise over it. It's horrid. Anyway," he sips at his water, "I strive to be something more than that. I want to help Troussant change the empire, and changing an empire takes a lot of work."
You frown. "That sounds hard."
"It is! But remember," he says, putting his hands on your shoulders, "change is a process. Things don't magically and suddenly change for the better one morning; the empire will only improve step by step. That's the only reason I can tolerate all of this. Someday soon, the three of us will see the change begin." He wraps his arms around you, crying. "So Lucille, please, bear with it for just a while longer."
"...and that's my story. That's why I'm going to Levere." You try your hardest to smile at the girl next to you as she cocks her head, unsure of your non sequitur story's meaning.
"If that was five years ago, what happened to your dad?"
"Alcohol poisoning."
"And your mom?"
"She hung herself, after my father died."
"Ah." The girl turns away from you, trying her hardest to keep from making even a single glance of eye contact with you. You can hardly blame her; the story has a less-than-happy ending and there's no better way to tell it: overworked for years (especially as Troussant's term as Province-Senator ended and he was elected a true Senator of Astarte), your father was never able to see the change begin. Astarte was still, immutably, Astarte. And when your father turned to the bottle—and then died by the bottle—it seemed to you that Astarte would be Astarte for the foreseeable future. That's when Christoph died. That's when Troussant made his proclamation; that's when Troussant claimed the throne; that's when the first modicum of change that your father had so vigilantly been watching for overtook the Empire of Astarte. Your father wasn't wrong, and you'll prove it—you'll join Troussant and change the empire.
You are from the House of Galloux.
Well, at least, the journey from Anatolis to Ripae will be shorter than it was 21 years ago, when the steam locomotive was scarcely a curiosity and what would become the Adstrum Company Railway was nothing but packed dirt. However, in 1783, the occasion was a joyous one—your sister's wedding. You were hardly four years old then, your memories of the event few and far between. But the images of two people remain imprinted in your mind: first, your sister Europa, adorned in a golden bridal gown, a green chrysanthemum corsage accenting her resplendent olive skin; and second, the man she would marry. Povarikh Wisteroff.
When your parents first told you about your sister's adultery, a decade after her death, it came as no surprise. Even as a four-year-old, you could tell how rotten her husband was despite the appearances he put on and the pleasantries he displayed. You knew the marriage was loveless, and that Povarikh Wisteroff cared nothing for "Europa"—your big sister; the girl you cared more about than anything else for the first nine years of your life—and cared only for Europa Anatolis—the Crown Princess of the Kingdom of Anatolis; the heir-apparent to a nation powerful enough to force Astarte into a strategic stalemate in the War of the Anatolian Succession.
What surprised you greatly, though, was the identity of her lover; her fellow adulterer: Emperor Christoph IV. And even more shocking was that Europa, who by God's providence bore no children to Povarikh, bore one to the Emperor in secret. Their child, Rhadamantha, was born in the winter of 1788, and the childbirth claimed your sister's life.
16 years have passed since then, and Rhadamantha has been sequestered in Ripae the entire time, hidden from even your eyes. In the wake of Christoph's death and chaos in the empire's capital, your mother—Queen Cassiopeia—has sent you to Ripae posthaste. You're to return with your niece to Anatolis via Levere, alongside Troussant's entourage, and you're to spare no effort in protecting her life. If Rhadamantha is only a shadow of her mother and has only one aspect of her mother's beauty, you know she'll be worth protecting a hundred times over. Indeed, you'll guard her with your own life in a way that you couldn't guard your sister's. In the weeks between Ripae to Anatolis, nothing will be more important to you than the life of Europa's child.
You are from the House of Anatolis.
You read that in a history book once. "That's wrong," you instinctively thought. Well, not wrong, really, but you know there's so much more to the story. For as long as you could understand the concept of "family," your mother drilled the true story into your memory, again and again. Parts of the true story are well-known, just not important enough for the writers of the history books to have paid much attention. But the rest of the story...your mother once told you all the people who know the full story, and you could count them on your hands. Not even Aunt Militrisa does.
In 1787, after four years of childless marriage, Europa and your uncle Povarikh divorced, and Europa vanished. The reason wasn't publicized, and the divorce was handled so discreetly that the papers didn't seem to care. But you know the reason: Europa had become pregnant, and it wasn't with Povarikh's child. It was with the child of Christoph IV, the Emperor of Astarte. The joint adultery of Christoph IV and Europa Anatolis had thrown the two marriages that sealed the Treaty of Alexenburg into ruin and besmirched the name of the House of Wisteroff behind closed doors.
In January 1788, the bastard child was born—and Europa died, in childbirth—with such secrecy that even your grandfather Vsevold didn't discover the child's existence for a month. However, he had already acted months earlier: he sent his middle son, Tkachikh, to bear a child by the Witch-Assassin Babarikha Yada; a child conceived not of love but of aspirations for revenge. And so, in September, you were born.
Your mother trained you to kill. To kill with a knife. To kill with a garrote. To kill with poison. You knew who you were going to kill, but with each passing month the question of when couldn't be answered; the bastard child had to be killed at a time when its death would be as hurtful to the Houses of Verenberg and Anatolis as its birth was to your family. And then, Christoph died. The time was at hand: the death of Jung a year earlier had deprived Verenberg of an Emperor, so surely, Christoph's first response must have been the legitimization of his bastard, in secret, to insure against the Gallicans refusing to accept the claim of his nephew Joachim—which would make the former bastard child first in line for the imperial succession.
It's the night after Christoph's death. Your grandfather the Grand Prince, hundreds of miles away in Alexenburg, telescribes you a message in Ripae: "The bastard child will flee to Anatolis. Either Queen Cassiopeia fears the loyalty of the Verenbergs to Joachim is too great, or the Lady Seneschal fears an uprising in the Imperial Palace will spread throughout the Empire." The Lady Seneschal of the Imperial Household is Mensor Teatra, the woman who had been entrusted with delivering the bastard child from Europa and then adopting it after her death, and the only mother the bastard child has known. The subtle ambiguity of the situation strikes you: is the bastard child fleeing from Ripae, or fleeing toward Anatolis?—is the bastard child aligned with its Mensori adopted mother, or its Anatolian birth mother? You put the thought aside and read the rest of the message: "Leave with the Gallicans, find and kill the bastard child, and leave no trace of its existence." So that's it. You're to find a child who you know so little about—not even its gender—from among thousands, before it finds safety in Levere and then security in Anatolis. And the body: you can't arrive in Levere during the day; you need to get there at twilight to ensure you can eliminate all evidence of the child's existence in secret. But before that...you need to kill it.
It's funny—when a child is born of a desire to have a child, it fills the condition of its conception by the very act of being born. It's free to live with no obligations to the world. But you, who were born to exact vengeance on the Houses that have wronged yours, have yet to fill that condition 15 years into your life. Your body has been born, but your existence...your existence is still inextricably bound to the purpose for which your parents conceived you; the cord that ties you to your mother's womb. Do you hate your mother, and your father, and your family for that? It hurts to think like that. But, in another sense, thoughts like that don't matter. Either you do the House of Wisteroff right by getting revenge, or you do yourself right by freeing your life from revenge. And that makes your path clear as day—both of those will happen when you kill the bastard child.
You are from the House of Wisteroff.
You were getting tired of styling yourself as Pretender, anyway. That makes it sound like everything in the Empire of Astarte isn't yours by right. What a silly thought—of course it is. Sure, you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth, but when you steal 223 silver spoons by the age of 20 you stop caring about the circumstances of your birth. That's right, you're not a Pretender, you're the Emperor: Emperor Mensor Avio Volpe Trophaeus Ventura LXXIII. You coronated yourself, but your life's all the better for it. What fun is a crown if someone else puts it on your head?
And, you know, it's about time you got yourself a crown. You have enough silverware—you have enough letter-openers, flintlocks, toppers, armoires, and parasols, too. It's time for you to steal something bigger: the empire. And what an opportunity you've been afforded by the piddling quabbles of the other houses! They say Senator Troussant is taking the Imperial Signet with him to Levere. Well, then, you'll just have to take it right back, won't you? After all, your ancestor Mensor Gemma built it; and even then it was a gift for the Anatolians, not meant for these other petty houses.
Indeed, the Mensori have always been great inventors. It's not just the Signet: 1,804 years ago your family invented a new sociopolitical paradigm; a new way for human civilization to function. And give yourself some credit! You're quite the inventor—and you'll need all your skills and wits about you to slip the Signet into your hand. Then again, whatever happens, happens. Life's always best when someone else has something you want.
You are from the House of Mensor.
Day 1:
Night 1:
Night 2:
Night 3:
Night 4:
I wasn't sure if it was that, or the existence of a 2-man neutral team meant that made this game so "uninteresting" to play in. I still had fun, but as a mafia game, it was very straightforward. It felt wrong to replace in and immediately be able decide who will win with us. It was like a reverse-kingmaker.
When Rhand replaced in, my scumdar was completely thrown off by how bad he was playing. When he started sheeping me for no reason at all, I should have known he was scum.
Seppel thinking I was cleared for not hammering saved my ass there.
Yep, I mean it was fairly safe to assume it was a 2 man scum group, I dunno why Az and others thought for a second it would be any other way when Asenion claimed neutral.
Also, I even have a thing to say about that "tell" in the spec chat once that goes up.
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Mafia Stats
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Also, the strongman kill ending up being weaker than a regular kill (in that it incentivized us to do something that was ultimately very subpar) was kinda underwhelming.
Also called that Asenion was a mason early on (although with the wrong other person).
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
Ultimately, there were two problems with/for me (personally) this game:
-) Majora's Mask has crippled my mafia confidence, as I noted at one point ITT. Like, I know the only way I can improve is by playing more, but it's really rough when a game where you thought you were playing well ends up going THAT badly. As a result of the aftermath of MM, I've basically just drowned myself in setup design, and this game for me suffered for that, through no real fault of its own.
-) I felt kind of awkwardly...not really betrayed, per se, but I guess given false hope...by my role. It was like, hey here's this potential where you can do something awesome maybe possibly down the road.....but good luck with that. Like, all hope of me ever getting the signet was gone probably before the game even started, especially since the whole "Inside Information" aspect of my role was actually just completely useless. Inside Info is automatically assumed scum (informed minority, as described in spec chat), and when at least 4 other people in the game ALSO had Signet info, it just throws out all usefulness of that passive (ER, D_V, and the scum). My Inside Info wasn't very Inside, so I didn't really have a choice of what to do with it, which I think otherwise could have formed an interesting decision tree.
Also, side note -- this might just be me, personally, but I find that my activity suffers a bit when I'm vanilla. When I have a role that has an ability to use, I keep closer tabs on the game because I want to get my night result. When I'm vanilla and have nothing to either send in or receive, it doesn't help things because I'm not checking as often, which means that the game frequently begins Days without me actually paying attention, which keeps me in a permanent stage of behindness. Again, that might just be me personally, but...there it is.
I think that there's been more than enough said about Asenion and Seppel's faction in the spec chat, so I'll restrain from comments on that.
Overall, though, I applaud TMCT for the game -- while it did have some problems, I liked that he was willing to take chances with it and push design in various areas, rather than succumbing to the same-old-same-old. I'd definitely be interested in future TMCT games....although, hopefully after my mafia-playing mental state has had a chance to repair itself. I'm vastly too competitive to be content being this bad at the game.
Like, you knew one mode of signet transference. You read that as the only mode, and that caused you problems. Compare this to my role, which also gave a single possible mode of transference (theft). I had to learn about bequeathal from your claim and others'.
If your role doesn't specifically state the exclusivity of something, I don't think it can be safely assumed to be exclusive. (This was demonstrated in this game, but I think it holds true in general)
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
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When I first thought up the core game my intent wasn't to create a Mini with 5 factions; it was just to make a Mini with a lot of factions. From that came a 2-man mafia to accommodate third-party factions, from that came a 2-man third-party faction (to avoid every third-party faction being a one-off player), from that came two more third-party factions of one player each, and from that came a 6-man town (to fill up the rest of the game). As I said in the spec chat, if MTGS allowed 13-player Minis, I would've started off with a 7-player town here, before even knowing what neutral win cons I'd use.
From that distribution came the conflict between the 2-man neutral faction and one of the 1-man neutral factions, as well as the MacGuffin that would form the basis of the other 1-man neutral faction's win con and do something special to each of the other four factions (only two others in the final game). And from that came the roles:
Looking back at it now, I honestly can't believe I let myself tackle a project this overwhelmingly daunting when I hadn't designed a single other Mafia setup, even a Basic, beforehand. And for tolerating me biting off way more than I could chew, I've got to heap thanks on ZDS and gan_dan. It was certainly a great experience
But it was also a learning experience, since as we know, this setup certainly ended up with its share of flaws.
Concerning the flaws in the game design:
(I'm going to take a cue from Cantripmancer here and list out "lessons learned.")
But, as Megiddo said:
...indeed.
That being said, in this case the massclaim wasn't such a big deal from a balance standpoint, but from a fun standpoint. Oddly enough, I guessed something like that would happen:
I missed the forest for the trees. I somehow guessed that the town would be "left with no direction" after a D1 mass house claim, but failed to realize how unfun that would make the game.
Lessons learned: Players never (capital never) do what you expect. And an inactive Day that drags on and on without a clear purpose can be just as much the fault of the setup as the players.
The mafia's expectation of DM's kill was that it would damn well get the Signet. And indeed, it had priority over every other method of the Signet being passed after its holder's death. But it didn't have priority over the Thief's steal, and that was (unintentionally) bastardly.
Lessons learned: Players develop certain expectations from their roles, and you should only subvert these expectations very carefully and sparingly, if at all, and even then probably only for balance reasons (e.g. playing with a cop's sanity). On that note, you should take care not to present something as "strictly better" when it can potentially be "strictly worse."
The setup was too tight for what I was trying to do with it; it was too easy for things to go awry for any faction (especially the town) in the span of one phase, as happened Day 3 despite the town preparing to lower the hammer on the final nail of the mafia's coffin.
Lessons learned: A Mini can't handle factional interplay on this level without any one lynch (or even the right action) altering the course of the game too far.
Lessons learned: You can't design games in a vacuum—players should always come before the setup.
I don't think the two-man mason survivors are that inherently broken, but the number of other abilities they had to live even if I had not been mislynched Day 1..
/barn
I'm glad I replaced in. I somehow never get a scum role, so I had a lot of fun with this one.
I think that while the Asenion - Seppel duo was indeed a bit overpowered, the main problem was that town wasn't informed enough about the other houses.
It might have helped if there was some kind of 'allegiances' shown in the opening post.
F.e.:
Wisteroff has strong ties with the Galloux and is frowned upon by both Mensor and Anatolis.
The houses of Anatolis and Mensor haven't chosen sides in the succession war.
The house of Verenberg is willing to work with all other houses, but not with the Galloux.
Something like that could've given town the info they needed and would have made the mass houseclaim day 1 different: it wouldn't have been safe to claim anything other than Galloux or maybe Wisteroff.
I believe that the lynch of Karn Day 1 has to be counted as a mislynch in this game: it enabled the scum + Anatolis win.
As scum, what I felt town did that enabled our win:
* Lynch Karn
* trust Seppel
* out PR's early (D_V day 1, Tanarin day 2)
Had we not known who the doc was, we would've been in a lot of trouble Night 2. (I say 'we' because we had daychat)
Azrael: what made you track Arian night 2 instead of me?
Dancing Mad. Due to his small number of posts in thread followed, by his complete disappearance, he was able to create a pretty good cover for himself early in the game, and by the latter stages of the game when it becomes to difficult to maintain that cover, he was gone, and you were in.
Plus, Arian was having some pretty serious activity/commitment issues at the time, and had fewer town tells than usual as a result.
First, I'm sorry Asenion, replacing out without a wave to you was most def rude but I went from a happy 40 hour work week to the "what are day offs again?" storm I'm currently in. Come mid-december the busy season will be over and I should have more time. Still should've posted in our QT.
Secondly, this was a really fun game to be in and I immensely enjoyed it. It's true that the whole claim switching jazz was Asenion's plan, but I think I did a fair job with it. I think we just clicked very well and used DayTalk to the utmost advantage. Had I had the time to continue I think we would've been able to control the vote much sooner and ended the game as planned. Though Seppel replacing me created much much more hilarity.
Thanks to TMCT for designing a game with outstanding flavor and really interesting roles.
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