TOL-IN-GAURHOTH XII, Erbar Telamarth

[the phantom]

"So, Master, is it true that the wolf has made a kill tonight, and that tomorrow will be the end?" asked Mortakh.

"Yes," answered Sauron. "Doom will fall tomorrow. If my wolf is lynched, then the villagers win. If my wolf is not lynched, we win."

"What do you think will happen, Lord Sauron?"

"If there is one thing I have learned these past few days, Mortakh, it is that Erbar Telamarth is always full of surprises. I will not venture a guess at its fate. I will simply wait, and watch..."

[the phantom]

Estelyn walked into the tavern. Feanor of the Peredhil was already there, seated at the bar.

They waited in silence.

Encaitare entered and sat at a table.

A short while later, Mister Underhill came through the doorway.

"Seen Mormegil?" asked Fea.

Underhill shook his head. "I took a quick walk down towards his home- the door was torn off... and there was blood on the lawn. I didn't go inside, or follow the blood trail. I've seen enough death."

"Well, at least he knew he was going to die, and so was probably prepared to meet his fate," said Esty. The others nodded in agreement.

"Well, this is it," said Enca. "We've got to find the last wolf."

"Indeed," agreed Mister Underhill. "Now is not the time to hold back. Everyone needs to let it all out."

"Let's analyze like crazy!" said Fea.

"And absolutely NO suicide today!" warned Esty. "Remember, every time you vote for yourself, a skwerl dies."

And, with those final words of wisdom, the villagers launched into the final debate- the debate that would decide the doom of Erbar Telamarth.

Living-

• Encaitare (jewel smith)
• Feanor of the Peredhil (tavern wench)
• Estelyn Telcontar (seamstress)
• Mister Underhill (itinerant drúadan watch-stone maker)

Dead-

• the phantom (Moderator- captured by Sauron and slain by wolves on Night 1)
• Anguirel (Ordinary- beaten to death by villagers on Day 1)
• Eomer of the Rohirrim (Hunter- died bravely battling Werewolves on Night 2)
• Cailin (Werewolf- slain by Hunter on Night 2)
• Shelob (Ordinary- beheaded on Day 2)
• littlemanpoet (Ranger- ambushed by Werewolves on Night 3)
• Lhunardawen (Ordinary- killed by Werewolf on Day 3)
• Formendacil (Werewolf- taken down by villagers on Day 3)
• Firefoot (Seer- slashed, beaten, stabbed, and snapped in half by Werewolf on Night 4)
• Boromir88 (Ordinary- couldn't stand knuckle-headed villagers any longer and commited suicide on Day 4)
• the guy who be short (Ordinary- got fed up with accusations and defenses and commited suicide on Day 4)
• mormegil (Ordinary- as he predicted he was mauled by a Werewolf on Night 5)

Score: Villagers- 3, Werewolves- 1

The following villagers have informed me that their participation will be somewhat limited today- Encaitare will not be present to participate until around 4 PM EST.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I'm sad that our choices had such a devastating outcome! Instead of the wolf, two innocents died, and now mormegil has been killed as well. I spent much of the past Night pondering our possibilities. Fortunately, it has not come to the worst, which would have been the transformation of a cursed villager into a werewolf.

What we need to do now is to plan a strategy that will give us the best chances of killing the last wolf. Here are the choices and their possible outcomes:

1. We lynch one person, it's the wolf, game over, three villagers survive, villagers win.

2. We lynch one person, it's an innocent, the wolf kills another in the coming Night, two survive, one of them is the wolf, wolves win.

3. We double lynch the two most suspicious villagers, thereby increasing our chances of getting the wolf; either we succeed and the villagers win, with two surviving, or we miss the wolf and lose.

I think the last choice is the best. It gives us the best chance of lynching a wolf. Whatever we do, the game is over by Night at the latest, more likely toDay.

I still think my list of suspects is valid; I had Enca pegged as the most suspicious and Fea as the next (50-50), with Underhill and myself as innocents. I know one of you young ladies is innocent, but it can't be helped - will you be willing to die for the best of the village? If not, you are definitely making yourself appear even more suspicious!

I ask Fea and Enca not to vote for themselves - phantom got it right, I think the suicidal votes are stupid, and all of them have gone wrong in this game. But I ask each of you to vote for the other one, then Underhill and I can finish by tieing the votes for a double lynching.

I know I'm coming out early with this suggestion, but as I consider it the very best possibility for the villagers to win, I offer it to you all. Unfortunately, I will be away for several hours this afternoon and evening, and I know Enca won't be able to defend herself until later, but I shall do my very best to make up for lost time before and after my absence.

I'm not sure how much a lot of analysis will help us - we've done so much of that! But we can go back and at least honour Boromir, tgwbs, and mormegil by attempting to pick up clues from their contributions.

If either Enca or Fea votes for Underhill or myself, she is most likely to be the wolf, and I would suggest concentrating all following votes on her!


PS - I will definitely by voting late this very last Day of the game! As I did on the previous Day, I will be up early in my time zone to discuss the possibilities with the rest of you and to cast my crucial vote just before the deadline.


PPS - I just reread morm's last post, in which he suggests this very same tactic. Since the dead are always right and always good that means we should definitely do it!

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

I'm willing to work together. I'd prefer not to die, but as long as Encai gets justly punished for messing with the votes yesterDay, I'm okay with it. Here's to hoping that Esty and Underhill are as innocent as the world thought. Once I'm back from my classes (this will be after 3:00 PM EST), I'll take a few glances about, see what's what, and decide what to do.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I've been pondering the mistaken judgement we made concerning the two innocents lynched yesterDay. Could we have known their innocence and chosen more wisely to eliminate the wolf instead?

As to Boromir88, I think not. He deliberately set himself up to be thought the Seer; I was not the only one who noticed that. He explained that by saying that he did it to protect the real seer; I suspected him to be a wolf masquerading as seer and voting for a "known" wolf to protect his secret identity. Since we did not know whether to believe his word concerning his motives for that move, we were right in suspecting him.

I never during the whole game seriously suspected tgwbs. That's the reason I didn't want to vote for him yesterDay. However, the irregularities in his voting did make him seem suspicious. My question is, who started the campaign against him? I'll go back to reread the posts later when I have time. That could give us an additional clue to the real ID of the wolf.

Fortunately, the evening meeting I was to have has been cancelled! I'll have time to discuss when the rest of you are here.

Cross-posted with Fea - thanks for your willingness to cooperate! That does speak for your innocence; however, I am unwilling to give up the only plan with some kind of certainty, so I do not suggest changing the double-lynching idea.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

I am unwilling to give up the only plan with some kind of certainty, so I do not suggest changing the double-lynching idea.

I agree. Two should die. If we're wrong, we die anyhow. If we take out two, it ups our chances of being right.

I thought this funny enough to share: last night I had a dream that Encai convinced me that Underhill was guilty. Way to have a BD dream, no?

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Okay, I've had a spare minute (several actually, given that my tutorial ended on time for the first time ever, instead of running quite far over my half-hour limit) and here is my thought:

Let's inspect each living player, Encai, Underhill, Esty, and myself.

I know that we've already gone over each other (except for Boromir not analyzing me), but let's do it from a biased point of view. With the thought "Let's just say _____ is a wolf. What has s/he said and done that would prove my point?"

No writing from personal opinion such as "I think s/he is innocent, but _____". I think it would be a good idea to write an arguement, sophistic though it may be, against everybody, with the only intentional bias being "So-and-so is obviously guilty because ______". That way we can look as objectively as possible at what possibly damns the person. And I know that we can all write well, so no claiming that you can't write a good arguement.

Good idea? I rather think so... Here's how it would work (in trusty alphebetical order):

Encai accuses Esty accuses Fea accuses Mister Underhill accuses Encai. That way everybody gets a good thorough looking into, actively searching for every possible negativity. Theoretically, once the four of us have been "proved" to be lupine, we'll look and decide on the two most convincing arguements (not based on quality of writing, though that's always nice, but based on the arguements themselves). Don't forget that you're allowed to conjecture a bit, such as saying "Esty is obviously a wolf because even though she didn't do anything, that's exactly what a quiet wolf would be doing: looking innocent."

Even if everybody else thinks my plan is a waste of time, I plan to implement it anyhow, with or without group consent. I'll search for Underhill's guilt when I get back from my [wenching] duties mid-afternoon.

[Encaitare]

I've been able to snag a few minutes in class to check up on things here. Fea wants me "justly punished" for my mistake yesterDay. As I said, RL distractions (*coughCollegeApplicationscough*) and sleep deprivation made my mind wander, and I forgot about the plan, since I really did suspect Boromir and had him stuck in my mind as guilty. But think about this: after I made the vote, Mr. U and Morm said they had been thinking me innocent until then. If they had been thinking me innocent, and I had voted for TGWBS like I was supposed to, then it's probably safe to say that the double lynching would have had the same results. Can you honestly think my honest mistake was a wolvish ploy? The key thing for a wolf to do at this point is lay low to avoid detection, and if what I did were deliberate, as you can see it has the exact opposite effect.

Now with the knowledge that Boromir was innocent, I think that the wolf was setting up Fea all along, and then needed a new scapegoat when Boromir started to catch on. Morm was most likely killed, as he predicted, because he was the last of the known innocents. Yet the wolf has also realized that in keeping me alive, s/he is drawing much attention away from him/herself.

Esty says she knows the wolf is either Fea or me. I find it curious, however, that the new players are both still alive. Why is that? It could be that Esty or Mr. U is using the newbie and esteemed Downer roles to his/her advantage, being able to stay quiet and off people's radar. I don't think it's out of the question for Phantom to have made one of them a wolf, since he knows they're both very intelligent. In fact, it sounds just like the kind of thing he would do. Since I know I am not the final wolf, I'm worried that if Fea is lynched with me, the wolf may escape. I feel as though she is suspected simply because she is Fea, and is known to be a shrewd player. Maybe our analyses will yield something... I will do the analysis of Esty when I get home from school, about 3:30-4 ish (PM EST).

[Mister Underhill]

Go for it, Fea. I don't know if I'll do much work on Enca. She doesn't have many posts. When I looked at them yesterday, I was leaning towards her innocence, but then she came along and screwed up the plan, so that's probably the most important factor in her case. Either you buy that it was accidental, or not. I agree with Esty that we need a double-lynching, and I think Enca's got to be one just to be safe after that debacle.

Fea has to be the other one, I think. You've been on a lot of lists for a long time, and I think you might have gotten lucky and slipped the noose yesterday. If not for Enca's mistake, I think it likely that you might have been lynched. I think the round-robin analysis is just another distraction tactic at this point. From my point of view, I know I'm innocent, and one of you all is the wolf, so two out of four analyses will be useless to me. I'll be looking over your posts later myself, since I'm assuming either you or Enca is the wolf and one of you isn't going to make it easy for us to pull off the double-lynch and I'll have to choose.

I'll also take a look at Esty's posts just for the heck of it, but I don't expect to find much. If she's fooled me this far, then she'll win. I can't imagine finding anything that I haven't seen already that will make me vote for her over one of you two.

I doubted Boro was the wolf, and I would have given Shorty a pass too if it wasn't for that dumb self-vote. If this village goes down, it's going to be because of innocents offering themselves and/or voting for themselves. It's not noble, it's just dumb! If Boro hadn't self-voted, Enca couldn't have screwed things up so badly; if Shorty hadn't of self-voted, I think he would have been one of the less-suspected players going into the voting.

Oh well. We must play the cards we're dealt. At this point, best bet is a double-lynch of Enca and Fea. Assuming one of you is the wolf and will attempt to mess with that, it's gonna come down to a choice between you.

EDIT: Cross-posted with Enca. For the record, I would've been pushing hard for a Fea vote yesterday until the plan got screwed up.