WW LXXVII: The Metamorphs of Wolf-562-e

[wintywinty]

Roles

Evil

Metamorphs (2)
These shapeshifters, native to Wolf-562-e, have infiltrated the crew of the Lothlórien in the opening move of a plot to betray the Terran League to its relentless enemy, the Radiant Empire.

Metamorphs can perfectly impersonate humans (and many other species), but revert to their true forms when killed.

The Metamorphs will secretly murder one crewmember during each Night phase. Once the number of Metamorphs is equal to the number of humans, they will attack them openly and seize control of the ship.

The Traitor
The traitor is a human spy for the Radiant Empire, and knows all about the plot– except for one little detail: which of his shipmates were murdered. Thus, he is as much in the dark about the identity of the Metamorphs as the rest of the crew. The Traitor uses a mental screening device, which protects him from the Telepath.

The Traitor also has one extra option: During the Night phase he may, if he chooses, reveal his role to any other player via pm and ask if that player is a Metamorph. If innocent, the other player may not reveal the interaction, but may of course try to get the Traitor lynched. If the other player is a Metamorph, the Traitor and Metamorphs will be able to pm for the rest of the game. The Traitor can use this option three times.


Good

Terran Intelligence Agents
Due to an administrative screw-up, these three were given no direct way to identify each other.

The Defender
Trained in martial arts, the Defender chooses a crewmember to protect each Night. May not protect the same person twice in a row. May not self-protect.

The Assassin
Armed with a gun that shoots darts lethal to the Metamorph nervous system, the assassin may pick one target every Night. Human victims will be unharmed. The Assassin need not die to make a kill.

However, the Assassin carries the dart-gun only when hunting Metamorphs. If lynched, the Assassin will throw a knife at the target, who will be killed regardless of role.

The Rest of the Crew.
Must try to catch the Metamorphs before it's too late.

Other (1),

There are two secret roles, which are secret.


The Crew

Living
Commander Inziladun –First Officer.
Lieutenant Paranoia –Second Officer.
Ensign Pitchwife –Communications Officer/Interpreter.
Master Chief Petty Officer Loslote –Chief Engineer.
Chief Petty Officer Keeper of Dol Guldur –Quartermaster.
Isabellkya –Sensor Technician, First Class.
Wilwa –Android Technician, Second Class.
Shasta –Engineering Technician.
wintywinty –Weapons Maintenance Technician.
Rikae –"Cabin Boy" (a thirteen-year-old stowaway).

Dead
Doctor Morsul –Medical Officer and Captain McNerwen. –shot by Traitor on Night One.
Ensign Blind Guardian– Tactical Officer. –Died in convulsions (Telepath).
Eomer –Security Officer. –Thrown out the airlock (Bounty Hunter).
Lieutenant Sally –Navigator. –Torn to pieces (Metamorph).

Above is a list of remaining roles and still Alive people. Just to Note, there is only person that is simply a "member of the crew" with no special role.

Just for clarification, the Bounty Hunter is one of the two Secret Roles correct?

[Loslote]

Originally Posted by wintywinty

Just for clarification, the Bounty Hunter is one of the two Secret Roles correct?

Clarification? I think that's what we all want - but alas, our dear Modwen has signed up for the Crazy Rules Race. I don't think any of us have a clue what's going on.

But yeah, I think that's what the general concensus agreed on.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Loslote

Clarification? I think that's what we all want - but alas, our dear Modwen has signed up for the Crazy Rules Race. I don't think any of us have a clue what's going on.

The "crazy rule", as you call it, happens to be a little consolation prize for the good side, which I had always meant to bring in if they lost their Telepath before anyone had got in touch (yes, I had qualms making the inexperienced BG the Seer). It's not meant to duplicate the original way of making contact.

X'd since last post.

[Loslote]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

The "crazy rule", as you call it, happens to be a little consolation prize for the good side, which I had always meant to bring in if they lost their Telepath before anyone had got in touch (yes, I had qualms making the inexperienced BG the Seer). It's not meant to duplicate the original way of making contact.

X'd since last post.

Ohhh. Gotcha. How nice of you!

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by wintywinty

Above is a list of remaining roles and still Alive people. Just to Note, there is only person that is simply a "member of the crew" with no special role.

Eh? There are four ordos living, winty. Count again.

Originally Posted by wintywinty

Just for clarification, the Bounty Hunter is one of the two Secret Roles correct?

Yes.

[wintywinty]

So do the Terrain Intelligence Agents have nothing special to do then?

[Loslote]

Originally Posted by wintywinty

So do the Terrain Intelligence Agents have nothing special to do then?

"The Terran Intelligence Agents" is another name for the Assassin, Defender, and Telepath, methinks.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Loslote

"The Terran Intelligence Agents" is another name for the Assassin, Defender, and Telepath, methinks.

Exactly. You've counted the good guys twice, winty.

[wintywinty]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Exactly. You've counted the good guys twice, winty.

Ok, Thanks.

[wintywinty]

Eomer was the first one to suspect Sally of being a Metamorph (Rikae's mention on the first page was nonsense), and then he was killed. If his killing was by the Metamorphs, then it suggests that he was on to something, and perhaps one or both of the other Metamorphs were on his list as suspicious. The other three listed as suspicious were Zil, Paranoia, and Pitchwife.

Later on, Pitchwife's list of suspicion included both Zil and Sally as two of the "trusted", and Paranoia was on his undecided list.

Later on, Eomer votes Paranoia, perhaps another Metamorph, and is killed.

Right now, until further posts can be examined (tommorow),
My top three suspects are Pitchwife, Paranoia and Zil, with Pitchwife and Paranoia at the top.

X'd with the past three posts

[Loslote]

Originally Posted by wintywinty

Eomer was the first one to suspect Sally of being a Metamorph (Rikae's mention on the first page was nonsense), and then he was killed. If his killing was by the Metamorphs, then it suggests that he was on to something, and perhaps one or both of the other Metamorphs were on his list as suspicious. The other three listed as suspicious were Zil, Paranoia, and Pitchwife.

Later on, Pitchwife's list of suspicion included both Zil and Sally as two of the "trusted", and Paranoia was on his undecided list.

Later on, Eomer votes Paranoia, perhaps another Metamorph, and is killed.

Right now, until further posts can be examined (tommorow),
My top three suspects are Pitchwife, Paranoia and Zil, with Pitchwife and Paranoia at the top.

Huh. That's a good point. I wouldn't think all of them are, in fact, morphs - that would be too good to be true, and no wolf pack would kill off someone with that clear a trail - but it's definitely worth looking into. If anything, we know that he wasn't trying to lead us astray.

As it happens, I rather trust Zil, and am entirely unsure about Noia. Pitchie, though. I agree that he's someone to look closer at. But...it's tomorrow already (past midnight) and I am sleepy. I'll stay up for a bit longer, but I'm not up for any long analysis...so that'll have to wait for later.

[Pitchwife]

So Eomer had a secret role? That sort of fits... Somehow he felt rather non-ordoish to me yesterDay; I even wondered whether his early unrelenting demand to have BG 'strung up' could be an exceptionally blatant Seer-hint and was worried whether I was putting too much pressure on him to explain himself.

But since Eomer's role is now revealed as 'Bounty Hunter', maybe he got a Hunter kill and took sally with him? That's the only other other explanation for her death I can think of, apart from her being killed by the other secret role. Doesn't fit the narration, however, where it seems she was killed by an unidentified figure after Eomer's own death... so probably not.

(Speaking of sally: yeah, I was wrong about her. That happens.)

About that Seer-wagon: having read the last game, I see how her behaviour could have been seen as repeating her wolvish preincarnation, and honestly I'm not sure how I would have reacted to it myself if I'd been around to vote, but I find it noteworthy how everybody (that is, Izzy, Shasta, Noia and Zil) jumped on her blunder like wolves on a tasty bit of lynch-meat, without even considering the possibility that she'd just made a noobish mistake.

Looking at it chronologically (leaving out the bits about vote formatting and patterns; numbers of vote posts bolded):
#69 BG's list, with Lottie as 'relatively innocent'
#72 BG votes Lottie for 'pushing people to vote' (which was a very poor reason indeed)
#73 Lottie points out that BG's 'voting for an innocent'
#74 Izzy votes BG for incongruency between list and vote
#76 BG doesn't get what she's done wrong
#77 Zil: BG's reasoning 'beyond poor'
#78 Shasta explains why BG's reasoning is bad and votes her
#80 Lottie replies to Izzy's #74 that she'd 'forgotten' the incongruency (so I take it that her earlier 'voting an innocent' was not referring to BG's list?)
#81 BG realizes her mistake
#82 Izzy rubs BG's nose in her blunder.
#83 Shasta likewise.
#86 Shasta asks whether BG's #81 was a confession.
#88 Lottie echoes Shasta.
#90 BG tries to explain her error
#92 Izzy doesn't get how BG could have done that by mistake
#93 Shasta echoes Izzy
#94 Lottie likewise
#95 BG further tries to explain herself
#97 Lottie doesn't get BG's explanation
#98 Shasta points out why BG's explanation doesn't fit
#99 Noia votes BG for her Lottie vote and suspecting Eomer after laughing him off as crazy earlier.
#100 wilwa explains how she thinks BG's mistake could have happened
#102 BG doesn't get why nobody gets her explanation
#103 Lottie thinks wilwa's explanation doesn't make sense
#104 Zil votes BG (no reason given, but see his #77)
#105 Noia concurs with Lottie about wilwa's explanation
#106 Lottie replies to BG's #102, still doesn't get it
#107 Shasta explains why he's not satisfied with BG's explanation
#108 wilwa gets what BG's saying, votes sally (2), didn't count.

Reasons given for voting BG:
Izzy - mismatch between list and vote (#74), and that's it; her following posts just repeat the point.
Shasta - BG's reason for Lottie vote (#78) plus the mismatch (#83 and following).
Noia - BG's reason for Lottie vote, her flip-flopping about Eomer plus the mismatch (#99).
Zil - no reason given in vote post, but disapproved of BG's reason for Lottie vote earlier (#77).

Judging from the reasoning, Noia looks best, making the most points against BG, followed by Shasta, whereas Izzy merely jumped on BG's list/vote blunder, and Zil didn't fully explain himself at the time.

Judging from the chronology, it looks like Shasta and Noia picked up Izzy's vote and turned it into a full-fledged wagon, with Zil nailing the coffin (ejection pod, whatever) shut. But note that Shasta's vote x-ed with Izzy's, so he wasn't actually wagoning and looks better than Noia and Zil in that respect.

Sorry if that was a bit repetitive, but I had to get it straight for myself. Need to mull it over now and see how my impressions of everybody apart from their voting resonate with it.

EDIT: corrected typo.

[Pitchwife]

Votes other than for BG:

#50 sally votes herself (not highlighted, didn't count). (For the record, winty, that post came right after my list in which I had her as trusted, and her only earlier post was typical sally early IC banter, so I had no reason to distrust her at the time.) With hindsight, obviously a morphish camouflage manœuver.

#53 Eomer votes Noia(not highlighted, didn't count):

Just sort of showed up and left and didn't contribute anything other than demanding I cease my openly meaningless case against Blind Guardian. A bit easy, methinks.

OK, Noia apparently was busy in RL, but I agree about the 'bit easy' (see my #49 list).

#67 Lottie votes me for 'feeling off' = being Mr Agreeable. (How come I 'feel off' for that when I'm suspected for it in every other game?) Her preceding list had me under 'squeamish' and wilwa under 'most suspicious', but her attitude here looks confident and ready to defend her vote (which I'd like to see her do!), therefore rather innocentish.

#72 BG votes Lottie (see above).

#108 wilwa votes sally (2; after DL, didn't count), having earlier said that

Sally's self vote is weird, but so sally-ish that it's not really all that suspicious.

Four people hadn't voted yet, but given the timing, I have to agree that it does look like a safe morph-on-morph.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

But since Eomer's role is now revealed as 'Bounty Hunter', maybe he got a Hunter kill and took sally with him? That's the only other other explanation for her death I can think of, apart from her being killed by the other secret role. Doesn't fit the narration, however, where it seems she was killed by an unidentified figure after Eomer's own death... so probably not.

Your deceased Captain wishes you to know that her narrations, apart from being outstanding gems of the literary art, are also highly informative.

In other words, if Morphisaloser2005 and Eomer of the Bounty Hunters had killed one another in the standard way, I'd have said so.