Tol-in-Gaurhoth XIII: Enter Shamville

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

For clarification about mass lynchings: I don't like them. If there ever is a three way tie, I will pick one or two of the candidates to lynch; it's up to me and my randomness. Oh, and their deaths will be incredibly boring. Thank you.

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

"Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh I believe in Yesterday
Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be"

The villagers woke up that morning feeling as cheerful as a burned pancake, and reluctantly they strolled to the village square. It didn't take long to notice that there were only 13 residents left in Shamville, and the local lorekeeper was the one to be missing.

As one man (and a dog) the villagers hurried to Kuruharan's cottage. They didn't bother to knock but rushed in right away. The very moment when the villagers stepped over the threshold, a sickening smell puffed to greet them. Taken aback, the lot followed the stench to Kuruharan's kitchen, where an X-rated sight met their eyes.

Kuruharan laid on the floor in such condition that the villagers hardly recognised him. Huge chunks of flesh had been rended from his face and body, his stomach had been slashed open and his internal organs had been piled up on the kitchen table. A blood-stained book of folklore laid open next to the organs. "Chapter 13, traditional foods", the villagers read. "Haggis - a large spherical sausage. Haggis is made by stuffing a sheep's or other animal's stomach lining with a minced mixture of organs. Take the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys of the animal, chop them up, add suet, onions, oatmeal, cayenne pepper..." Realizing the wolves' ghastly cooking attempt and bad sense of humour, the villagers left the death-reeking house and went to get some breakfast.



Living:
Anguirel - jester
Celuien - luthier
Eonwe - militiaman
Firefoot - traveller who has a dog
Glirdan - undead with Michael Jackson's nose
Kath - writer
Kitanna - goat herder
Lalaith - goosegirl
littlemanpoet - village undertaker
Meneltarmacil - dinosaur researcher/ fossil hunter
tar-ancalime - charlatan
WaynetheGoblin - goldsmith
Wilwarin538 - official town daydreamer

Dead:
dancing spawn of ungoliant(mod) - mangled, tangled and strangled in fishing nets on Night 1
Bergil(ord) - hanged to death with profitable consequences on Day 1
Kuruharan(ord) - half devoured and prepared to be turned into haggis on Night 2

Score:
Villagers: 13
Wolves: 3


It is now Day 2. Wolves, stop PMing, please. Villagers, you know your job. Have a nice Day. It ends in 24 hours at 9:00 pm. GMT.

[wilwarin538]

The votes from yesterDay:

Wilwa --> 2 (Bergil, Kath)
Eonwe --> 1 (Glirdan)
Bergil --> 3 (Wayne, Wilwa, Lalaith)
Lalaith --> 1 (Firefoot)
Anguriel --> 1 (tar)
Tar --> 1 (LMP)
Wayne --> 2 (Anguriel, Celuin)
Celuien --> 1 (Kittanna)
Kath --> 1 (Eonwe)

I'll be back momentarily with my thoughts on everyone.

[Lalaith]

I think the wolves thought Kuru might be the seer. Why did they think that? I need to go back through his posts to find out....

[Lalaith]

Lalaith, I did not vote for you because you were suspicious of me. I voted for you felt suspicious to me at the time.

Just saw this, Firefoot. There's been a bit of a misunderstanding...my comment about "bad form" referred to myself, not to you, that I felt a bit bad about suspecting you just because you suspected me.
If you look at my posts, you'll see I hadn't suspected you up til then, but because you'd been insistent about quality rather than quantity, and then voted for me without really explaining why, I felt suspicious.
Does that clarify things?

[Firefoot]

Yes, I think so.

Okay, I've done a brief scanning of all Kuru's posts and the people who have mentioned him. He was generally considered innocent, though Kath and Lalaith and to a lesser extent Menel all found him suspicious. Lalaith was also pretty comfortable with Kath. This would seem pretty obvious, though. Kuru didn't make a whole lot of accusations. Most of his posts were spent discussing strategy and plans rather than individuals. He encouraged flexibility and plan-lessness on the villagers' part, which I basically agree with. There really isn't all that much there - I can see why the wolves would kill him - he is smart, but killing him doesn't leave a whole lot of tracks.

[WaynetheGoblin]

I dont know why the wolves would kill him either it dosent make sense. The only thing he said was about the voting. I will look back at peoples post and say my suspicions soon.

[Firefoot]

Oh, dear, poor Kuru. He was one of the two who didn't vote, as well, so we can't even use that for speculation. That may have even been a contributing factor in the wolves' choice. Will have to look over anything he said more carefully and see if there wasn't anything telling.

For the record, the final voting was (with innocents underlined):

Wilwa – 2 (Bergil 1, Kath 9)
Eonwe – 1 (Glirdan 2)
Lalaith – 1 (Firefoot 4)
Anguirel – 1 (tar-ancalime 5)
Tar-ancalime – 1 (LMP 6)
Wayne – 2 (Ang 7, Celuien 8)
Celuien – 1 (Kitanna 9)
Bergil – 2 (Wayne 3, Wilwa 11, Lalaith 13)
Kath 1 (Eonwe 12)

Did not vote: Kuru, Menel

I was about to post this yesterDay but it ended too soon, so here are some comments I had made:

Some of you have commented on my lack of substance and for that I apologize; most of my participation was early in the Day due to timezone difficulties when there really wasn't much to comment on (I was tired, too; very little rest before arriving at this village); this morning really was rushed, and I really would be rushed now.

Just to clear a thing or two up: Lalaith, I did not vote for you because you were suspicious of me. I voted for you felt suspicious to me at the time. I will have to analyze further to decide if that is still the case; a lengthy analysis will be coming on the next Day (provided that I'm still alive, of course).

...(current voting)...

I don't think we're going to be able to take much out of this [the voting]. It's entirely too spread out - more than half the villagers have received votes. It's way too easy for wolves to hide in something like that.

I will be working on an analysis now, will be posted within a couple hours. I had the barest start on it, and so far only one thing has really jumped out at me, and that's this comment of Ang's:

We need to keep ourselves wrapped in earnest debate, lynching each other, while around us our comrades drop like flies. A well-tried and tested strategy, though some have doubted its efficacy...

The wording is extremely eerie to me. Maybe it's nothing, but it caught my eye as a "Wait a minute - what is that?" type of comment.

[Anguirel]

Firefoot, would a wolf be stupid enough to use actively eerie language?

The answer is, of course, you don't know. You haven't the faintest idea, unless you jump to conclusions. Ignorance here is a sign of sagacity. Truly foolery can be wise.

But I must stop verbally knotting, or I fear my neck will be physically knotted.

The wolves selected their prey well; Kuruharan was an ideal victim, one of our best analysts and sagest speakers, but his lack of a vote and of much suspicion leaves little evidence. I suspect that the wolves took his unwonted quietness as a sign that he might be a Gifted One ducking out of cover.

The only disadvantage, then, from the lupine perspective, is that few villagers are strongly framed for this killing. The only ones to have overtly suspected Kuru were Kath and Menel. I see Menel's lack of strong reasoning, together with his missed vote, as quite deep indicators, but Kath also bears watching. She offered a damning critique of Kuru, unhindered by a a vote, when everything was still in the air lynching-wise.

But my suspicions of these two pale in contrast with the extremely talkative LMP. Kuru suspected him and was onto his game; he brushed off such analysis, turned the other cheek and left Kuru alone. LMP seems almost impossible to be Gifted as he is so much in the forefront of our debates; so a vote for him might be considered "safe". I also found the fact that he condemned me and then voted for my accuser tar-ancalime pretty suspicious; a wolf, knowing he had an innocent in his sights, hedging his bets, it seems to me. If this was a wolf-for-wolf vote, perhaps he also hoped to clear himself to preserve his role as unappointed leader...

[littlemanpoet]

Botheration! Two more bodies! How am I going to find time to make an appropriate tombstone, let alone think of an appropriate epitaph for Spawn, if I have to take care of two more bodies each day? It's unfair I tell you, not to mention most deplorable for those whose lives are lost. The loremaster was a good man, and now he's just sausage. A shame. Well, I hope you don't mind if I keep a listening ear on the discussions whilst dressing out and putting back together the corpses. I promise you a most presentable showing later in the day.

Originally Posted by Firefoot

I don't think we're going to be able to take much out of this [the voting]. It's entirely too spread out - more than half the villagers have received votes. It's way too easy for wolves to hide in something like that.

My sentiments exactly. We need to find a way to narrow it down. So I dreamt, and I dreamt, and I thought and thought, and I've seen my way to a new plan, based on the old plan: have a non-binding straw vote, to be finished half-way through the Day, by which we choose the three candidates that will be up for lynching that Day. The werewolves will find it harder to hide their votes amongst just three choices. The one so-called "flaw" this plan may have that I can see, is that through the course of the day it may become obvious to one or more of us that someone who is not one of the three up for lynching, should be, and one of the three who is up for lynching, should not. I suggest that if such a thing occurs, a simple majority of us agreeing on the change may achieve it.

Now, whereas yesterDay's plan had obvious flaws (once discussion started mind you), this plan seems to me like it would go a long way toward helping us limit the influence the werewolves could have on our voting. Let me explain. I am betting that at least one of the werewolves voted for someone new (which does happen to include me, I realize). And I'm betting that at least one of them spread their votes out over those who had more than one vote against them. Therefore, in my opinion, those who voted for someone new, and those who added a second vote for someone, ought to get a really hard look today. Now, I realize that time zone has an effect on voting to a certain degree; but late voting because you are in a 'late' time zone is no free ticket from suspicion. So I don't want to hear any whining about 'LMP, you're overlooking that I'm in a later time zone than most of you, and that's why I voted when I did.' It's too easy to hide behind that kind of excuse, so I'm not giving anyone who uses that a free ticket to innocence.

Oh, and one last thing, my "presumed innocent" list was provisional. Everybody's starting from scratch with me, including Firefoot. I would expect no different an approach from her.

[wilwarin538]

Here are my thoughts:

Anguirel - said he'd vote for Wayne no matter what, just cause of Wayne's unhelpfulness, that seems wierd, but he's probably at a "I'm not to sure but I think he's innocent" place
Celuien - seems helpful, though she could just be a very smart wolf, she's at a half way point with me
Eonwe - not sure about Eonwe, at all, I just don't get a vibe from him of any sort, I'll need to hear more from him
Firefoot - I'm going to trust her, she is helpful, nothing seems to put up a red flag about her
Glirdan - flip plops a lot(as always) but this time it seems different, something weird is going on with this boy, I'm leaning towards him being guilty
Kath - suspicious of me for defending myself. I suppose she had a point, I think I was just getting a little frightened about being the first voted for, she to is at a half way point with me
Kitanna - didn't get much from her eather, but I'm going to go with her probably being innocent
Lalaith - the one I'm most suspicious of, talks a lot, not always with a lot of info, something is just not right with her
littlemanpoet - another who I'm thinking is innocent, he's got good plans, I trust him
Meneltarmacil - hmmm, not really sad enough, considering the circumstances, he's half way between the half way point and the guilty point
tar-ancalime - see Eonwe
WaynetheGoblin - suspcious of Glirdan and Bergil, doesn't really give much reason why, definetely on my suspet list

So to summarize:

Least Suspicious: Firefoot, LMP
Not very Suspicious: Anguirel, Kitanna
Half and Half: Celuien, Kath
Not to sure: Eonwe, tar-ancalime
Fairly Suspicious: Menel
Very Suspicious: Lalaith, Wayne, Glirdan

I believe thats everyone.

So far my vote will probably be going to Lalaith. I'll reread all her posts yet again and come back with a list of reasons.

crossposted with kath, Anguirel, lmp and Lalaith