[Formendacil]

My autobiography begins with Night 1, when the phantom sent out the roles.

Originally Posted by PM entitled "role..."

The rules are here.

Remember, if you have any questions about the rules do not ask them on the thread. PM me! When people ask certain questions about certain things it makes people suspect a particular role, and I don't want that to happen.

-the phantom

PS Pick a dream and get it to me in the next 34 hours, Sir Luthien.

And so I was to be guided by the spirit of Lúthien. This was not the greatest thing in the world that could happen, and I told the phantom so.

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Re: role..."

Ga...ga...ga..bwah? Even with my ancient memories of playing a very successful Seer (Saurondacil, WW XV), I cannot say I relish this, Milord the Phantom. So let's just go on record stating that.

Now, Lord of Mandos, tell me the doom of one Fëanor of the Peredhil.

It was an obvious play to make. Never go into a game moderated by the phantom not knowing Fea's role. And so I had my first probable Known Innocent. I supposed she might have been Gríma, but Gríma wasn't going to eat me--though she might have been willing to sell me out.

Day 1 went more or less as expected: a lot of nonsense, ultimately little worth analysing--probably because it was unusually quiet--and I ticked Nogrod off. Nienna's death was odd, but about par for the course on Day 1. That night, I wanted to know about Nogrod. Having no real suspicions about the village, my tactic was quite simple: find out if someone I tend to suspect habitually for not making sense was suspicious. Apparently, I learned, he wasn't. Or, at least, he wasn't going to eat me.

And so Day 2 dawned... I talked quite a bit during Day 2. It was the perfect sweet spot in my final schedule--not only did I have lots of time (I don't really study...), but everyone else hereabouts was busy, so I wasn't distracted by real life, as became a danger in later days. Not much to say during the day--though I was just a wee bit concerned my two "Known Innocents" would kill each other. A seer doesn't have much to show for his efforts if he fails to find a wolf, and if I didn't, as could too easily have been the case, I wanted Known Innocents handy.

When Kuru died, I was neither outraged nor pleased--he had been neutrally non-suspicious in my mind, and this meant I didn't have to waste a dream on someone who wasn't highly suspicious--but I was concerned that his role hadn't been revealed.

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Night 3..."

Lord Mandos,

Please reveal to Formendacil, under the protection of Lúthien, the identity of Kent2010.

And also please clarify... was Kuru an ordo or just not a wolf. The narration was not especially helpful there.

I wasn't so much suspicious of Kent as I was indecisive about whether I was suspicious. Well, he was noisy, and he was agreeing with me, and he was agressive--and I didn't know his playing style, so I went ahead and got my third possible "Known Innocent," as well as a less than straightforward answer about Kuru out of the ModGod.

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Night 3..."

As you wander within the confines of your enchanted sleep, your thoughts turn towards Kent. Is he plotting our destruction? Is he killing even now? And again, Luthien returns an answer. "Rest easy. I sense nothing special about him."

***************

Now, onto your question.

The narration wasn't supposed to be helpful there.

Mira did give a tally though, and by that you can see that he was no Wolf or Vampire. You will find out his precise role soon enough.

-the phantom

Fortunately, since a straight answer is what I wanted, I don't think I saw that reply more than a couple minutes before I saw the opening narration of Day 3, so I was mollified. But we really weren't sitting in a good situation. I had nothing to show for my dreams but three potential innocents, Beren had lost his Húan, and we seemed no closer to actually finding a wolf than before.

That was the day, though, that I performed my reveal. I reckoned that, given the wolf pattern thus far for kills, I could have been a potential tragedy that night, and I figured if I revealed, the Ranger would give me a night's sleep--though I was hoping that, the Wolves knowing this, the Ranger would save his save until the next night.

That was the night I tried dreaming about Nilp. You all know how that went...

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Night 4..."

Milord,

Tell me about Nilpaurion, called Felagund.

And, preferably, let me live to tell about it.

Really, it was a gamble. The silent wolves were greatly confusing this Seer. That one, or two, wolves would be silent made sense, but all three? It seemed unlikely--and was I wrong about that! Anyway, still having no clue where the wolves might be, I tried to have another clarification dream.

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Night 4..."

Minute after minute, hour after hour, you think upon Nilp. Is he blessed, cursed, or nothing at all? Again and again you strain to hear the answer, but nothing.

Dawn is near, and still silence. But at last Luthien speaks to you. "There is evil magic at work this night, and my vision is clouded. I am sorry, but I cannot help you. Some other force blocks my power."

-the phantom

This was not at all the reply I wanted. To be honest, I'd forgotten about Gríma's dream-blocking when I made my reveal, but with Brinn dead overnight, and the village situation starting to look dire, I decided to try and squeeze a dream out of the phantom:

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Re: Night 4..."

Ah, but milord the phantom, the evil Gríma died in the night hours--surely once his spirit was no longer present, Lúthien could have passed me the knowledge in the remaining moments--after all, the wolves must certainly have finished eating and killing some time ere sun-up, since they would have to clean up their bodies and such before transforming, lest the blood identify them.

Pretty please?

The phantom was having none of it.

Originally Posted by PM entitled "nay, laddie..."

The sickness and weakness of spirit that Grima cast upon you and Luthien cannot be healed so quickly. You should be thankful that it wears off as soon as it does, and doesn't require Gandalf to come and undo the webs.

-the phantom

Among other reasons, this was why I was quiet for a lot of Day 4--that and the renewal of real life distractions as I had to run back to my hometown and the other seminarians ended their exams and began to celebrate. I hoped, though, that if I didn't say anything about my dream, or lack of one, the phantom might have mercy and give me the dream. But no...

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Re: nay, laddie..."

Oh come on! Look at the village--all your special votes and modified roles have us seriously outgunned. I mean, really! Pippin? That's as bad as having a second Cobbler!

And, for an in-universe justification, that's a pretty weak one: Gríma able to cast sickness and weakness of spirit on Lúthien? That he could do so in the first place seems unlikely, but that it'd have a lasting effect? Tsk, tsk!

The phantom did not deign to respond to my scolding.

Day 4 went miserably, as you will all recall. I mostly kept quiet. In part, this was because of the continued end-of-year distractions going on in real life, but mostly it was because, although I got online several times during the day, when I did, I found myself drawing blanks. There just wasn't anything that was popping out at me. I had three innocents, now, but otherwise the situation was dire. I also wasn't sure how much my reveal had been picked up on--Brinn had obviously caught it, and I imagined the wolves had as well, but I was unsure about the village in general, since no one referenced it. Not that I expected this changed anything, but I was hoping--maybe--that something revelatory would happen.

It didn't. We lynched Sally and lost another innocent. At this point, pretty much, I was ready to concede the game. And I wasn't even thinking about points yet.

Without thinking things over, and in a fit of irritation, since I still had no sense to make of the situation, I fired off a quick PM during Night 5, expecting it be my last:

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Night 5..."

Bah! Humbug!

I'll likely be dead by morning. But tell me about Nilp anyway.

In a charitable reminder, however, the phantom did NOT tell me about Nilp.

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Night 5..."

If you think you're going to die, are you certain you don't wish to use your dream transfer power?

I am not advising you either way. I don't have any other Night picks yet, so I have no idea how things are going to turn out. I just wanted to make sure that you remembered you could pass on a dream even if you die.

-the phantom

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Re: Night 5..."

Dream transfer power? *Has to go check game thread*

Right. That dream transfer power...

The difficulty here is that if the wolves for some reason DON'T kill me, then I'm still alive--with no dream to show for it. And, after all, they will assume that I'd send the dream on to either Fea or Kent.

So, the question is... do I send it on to Fea. Or do I send it on to Kent?

I don't suppose the ModGod is willing to hear the supplications of his priest, and split the difference? Tell Fea what Felagund is, and tell Kent what Nilpaurion is?

Gbah! This is tricky...

So... while I'd only temporarily forgotten about Gríma's dream-blocking power, I'd completely forgotten about the dream-transferring thing. But this was a problem. Instead of "whatever; the game's lost and I'm dead tonight anyway," I had to actually try and do a good job here. I began to reconsider asking about Nilp... And when I didn't give him an answer, the phantom, no doubt feeling pity for the pathetic villagers and their clueless seer, offered another reminder (is it becoming clear yet that my study of the modified roles was merely cursory?).

Originally Posted by PM entitled "one more thing..."

I agree that this is an extremely difficult choice. I have no idea what anyone else has planned, and even if I did they might change their minds.

But just so you are sure you are making a completely informed decision, remember this from the game thread-

Now, this fact from the rules may not even help you, for perhaps the baddies will forget, or will wish to continue under the old pattern for the sake of fun, or they may choose to be sporty, or they may choose to go for conversion tactics, or for vote-suck tactics, etc etc...

Anyway, I don't envy you. Best of luck with your choice.

-the phantom

Not, of course, that he actually gave anything away... *rolls eyes* My response was a bit ungrateful:

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Re: one more thing..."

So... I'm going to take that as "no, I'm not going to bend the rules for you." *overly dramatic sigh* Fine... I'll try and reason this out on my own...

While I appreciate the rule reminders--since obviously I forgot about them--I don't really see how the EVIL THREE makes a huge difference for me. I suppose it would help if were mostly certain who the Wolves are--but I'm not. I'm suspicious at this point of everyone who's not a Known Innocent

Okay, let's reason this out. If I were a Wolf, and I wanted to silence the Seer, I would not eat me tonight, but I would assume that I would pass on the message, and try and eat that person.

If I were expecting to survive tonight, I would expect the wolves to be leaving as little trail possible between my two surviving ordos--or else trying to convert one of them, or steal their votes. If it were me, I'd kill someone rather than steal votes. None of the three of us Known Innocents have a marked number more votes than anyone else (though I confess to not keeping track there) and at this point they don't seem to be clearly under suspicion.

If they were to target someone other than me--barring the whole vote transfer thing--I would kill Fea rather than Kent. Fea leaves less of a trail, and these wolves don't like leaving a trail. So it would seem that Fea should NOT get my dream.

On the other hand, the wolves may well assume that Kent would be my Innocent of choice, since I've interacted a lot with him, we think alike--whereas, at least publicly, Fea and I do not seem to.

Bah. I repeat: humbug...

I'll get back to you on this...

It was probably about this time I realised a huge part of why I was being an unsuccessful Seer thus far--I needed someone to talk to, to reason things out with. This is the greatest advantage the wolves have, and compensates in most games for their outnumbered status.

Fortunately, for the clarification of my thoughts, the phantom obliged my need to talk.

Originally Posted by PM entitled "tough tough..."

[quote

I don't really see how the EVIL THREE makes a huge difference for me.

My primary point by underlining that section was to let you know that all three have killed, therefore any one of the three could choose to go next. In other words, there is absolutely nothing stopping Thuringwethil from killing you (the vampire can't be stopped by Finrod). It doesn't matter if the Vamp killed the first Night or the last- it's anyone's turn at this point. That was all I meant.

And, of course, votes are a concern at this point. Certainly the baddies might kill Kent if they knew he had the dream result, but as he has five fewer votes than you, they still might consider you to be the threat that needs to be offed. And naturally you must consider whether or not Finrod is protecting you this night, gambling on protecting the person you're passing the dream to, or is unable to protect you or your dream-catcher due to the consecutive protection rule. A successful Finrod protection would figure huge in this game, so that must be considered. Due to that fact, I would think the WWs would shy away from doing the killing at this point. But I may be completely wrong.

Take your time. If it helps at all I'll give you up until the deadline to make your decision (rather than the usual 1 hour before). However quite soon I expect that all my selections will be in my box and I will read them, so I will no longer be able to give possible scenarios for fear of revealing plans.

-the phantom[/quote]

Right. The votes. I hadn't forgotten them--though I would have liked to. But, anyway, this gave me a chance to respond--and thus mull things over better.

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Re: tough tough..."

You do realise, of course, that half the point to protracting my decision has to do with attempting to wring information out of you? A fat lot of good it's doing, but still...

Anyway, I am pretty sure the Wolves are going to come after me--in which case it would be very awesome if somehow the Ranger were to save me, but I'm definitely not counting on that.

No reply necessary... I'll be passing the information on to Fea, I think. But I want to go back over the last day and decide if I want to find out about Nilp or not.

After that, I actually went back over the thread, found out how many votes everyone still had, and began crossing names off. It couldn't be my Known Innocents, and there were a couple others I thought I could trust. But those three (10) votes left players had me worried. Gwath, Greenie, and Shasta--and Pippin hadn't even surfaced yet. There had to have been a wolf in those three--if not all three of them. In my final reply to the phantom, I reasoned things out for the record:

Originally Posted by PM entitled "Decision"

Well, milord,

I've gone back over yesterday's voting record, and here's my findings:

It's not Fea or Kent.

Nilp, Lari, and Izzy all have 4-5 votes left, and could be a Thuringwethil, but although I'm sure there's a wolf in their number, I don't know which--and I'm hoping Nilp has had enough light shone on him that the village will go after him just in case.

Instead, I'm more concerned about the three remaining who have (10) votes each remaining. Granted, Shasta tried to put extra ones on after the deadline, but he might have known it was too late, and anyway it would still have left him with (8).

Gwath baffles me... I want to see him guilty, but I don't think he is. He's the type who'd hold onto his extra ordo votes until the last minute.

That leaves Greenie.

Milord, please forward a dream to Fea with this information.

I am gambling the wolves will kill me, but if they don't, then they'll either go votes--and take out a 10-voter, or they'll screw with my head and take out Kent. That's the hope, anyway.

For probably the last time,

~Formendacil

Finally, I got it right. And I had a thrill of hope when Fea appeared on the scene--a very, very slight hope, I might add. Once I was dead, the phantom had mercy on my frustration and let me know what was what--or else he was crushing my spirits, I don't know, because the situation was bleak. The wolves had two (10) voters left, besides stolen votes, and our (10) voter was Pippin. The only hope was, since the wolves didn't know this, that they might be forced to waste most of their votes either hiding (and killing Greenie) or counteracting the full force of the--ultimately useless--Gwath votes.

Then a nighttime Ranger kill would have been handy.

It was doable. Just barely.

Didn't happen, of course. Gwath's power was blunted by someone foolishly bringing up Pippin--and Kent went, in my opinion, quite weird. Not that there was much chance left at that point--I was glad, in a sense, that I was dead, but by the end of the day, it was no surprise when the wolves all came out, cackling victoriously. They couldn't lose anymore.

And so, all in all, a great game.