TOL-IN-GAURHOTH XII, Erbar Telamarth

[Anguirel]

The noble line of the Knights of Anguirelli number some Seers among their ancestors; and I can impart this much family lore. No post-mortem "trail" is worth a succession of dreams made safely. O farsighted one, wherever you be, do not expose yourself unduly-perhaps even at all-dropping hints too early. All too often a valiant Seer has paid the highest price far too soon for lacking subtlety...

Incidentally, if we wish to avoid lynching one of our gallant band of heroes, then I am happy to volunteer myself for the noose; if the village truly wills it, though I would rather follow Master mormegil's strategy...

[Formendacil]

Alas! 'Tis bad enough to come in from a lonely night at work (and worse having to work at what I work), but coming in to find that the village is in a bigger pile of turds and stools than my job consists of is no fun...

I won't bother the village with my suspicions simply because I don't have any. As yet, we have no way of knowing who the vile Werewolves are, short of leaving the village and handing ourselves up to Sauron...

None of us is so foolish as to want to do that, methinks. Although Sauron would be rather pleased, I suppose...

But still, I am not certain that we shouldn't lynch somebody. True, it is an awfully hard fate for anyone here in the village, and I'm no more eager to volunteer myself than the next villager. But it isn't unheard of to catch a Werewolf on the first day, now is it?

That said, I'm not going to push for a lynching. I've got a bad track record of lynching all the wrong people- why do you think I shovel man-turds for a living? And I'll say this regarding my last village- I was lucky to get out in time- and according to some storytellers, I didn't. Werewolves are exceedingly cunning creatures, and are very good at sowing fear and dissention...

My question regarding Master Mormegil's strategy is this: If there are fifteen villagers, and fifteen votes cast for fifteen victims, then is the one who was voted for first just lynched off- on the strength of ONE vote, one-FIFTEENTH of the population?

It's not a likely scenario, I'll grant, but if you're counselling us to vote as randomly as possible, it is quite possible that we'll end up with someone being executed with hardly any suspicion, and most likely innocent. I agree that's a dangerous thing to all bandwaggon together against somebody, and that the chances of catching someone are no greater, but at least with a bandwaggoning you have the weight of a truer village majority behind you...

I don't suppose it's possible for ALL of the village to not vote. Would the phantom of our departed leader hound us to the grave for that? If EVERYONE in the village participated, would it perhaps be manageable...

[mormegil]

The way the plan would work is it might be discernable for us to see whose votes might not be so random, if you take my meaning. Wolves will inevitabely save themselves if need be and it may help further down the road and the beauty of it is that we eliminate wolfish influence from the true innocents vote and leave their influence to a more macro, and easier to detect, scale. Though as most plans for order are normally shot down I'm sure this plan for order based on not having order will be shot down as well.

[Anguirel]

The plan is original, but I don't think our wolves would be rash enough to fall into its trap. However, since it has not been essayed before, and seems at the least right unlikely to backfire, I am prepared to make a trial of it. I shall allow the Valar to assist and advise my vote, rather than mere reason, relatively soon.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by mormegil

The way the plan would work is it might be discernable for us to see whose votes might not be so random, if you take my meaning. Wolves will inevitabely save themselves if need be and it may help further down the road and the beauty of it is that we eliminate wolfish influence from the true innocents vote and leave their influence to a more macro, and easier to detect, scale. Though as most plans for order are normally shot down I'm sure this plan for order based on not having order will be shot down as well.

Probably, I suppose...

But let me ask another question:

Supposing all the villagers pick on the wrong people (not an impossibility, by any means), leaving the Wolves free to vote for each other and/or regular villagers, saving themselves and killing off others?

Your plan is a well-thought one, but I'm thinking that it cannot really succeed, without eventually disintegrating into a regular bandwaggoning. All it takes is two random-voters with the same suspicions voting the same way, and posting their thoughts, and you've got the makings of a bandwaggon.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Well, LMP, it seems to me that your kind offer of comfort is a bit indiscriminate, to say the least! If you spread your favours so generously, how are we to assume you a good judge of character? Aside from that, I would not risk being alone with any inhabitant of our village for awhile...

[Anguirel]

To the chase! As my grievous wound keeps me from the saddle, I tend to immerse myself in the study of lore and poetry in the darkling hours. As a result, I must say my piece quickly, acting in accordance with the messenger's untried scheme.

Hence...to avenge the insult to the Lady Estelyn, and because of a residual distrust of the Dor-Lomin folk, lacking any sense of honour as they do...

++BOROMIR88

Can this man make his living by insulting his betters, including those among the gentler sex? He is either an idle layabout or a wolf.

[mormegil]

Originally Posted by Anguirel

To the chase! As my grievous wound keeps me from the saddle, I tend to immerse myself in the study of lore and poetry in the darkling hours. As a result, I must say my piece quickly, acting in accordance with the messenger's untried scheme.

Hence...to avenge the insult to the Lady Estelyn, and because of a residual distrust of the Dor-Lomin folk, lacking any sense of honour as they do...

++BOROMIR88

Can this man make his living by insulting his betters, including those among the gentler sex? He is either an idle layabout or a wolf.

I find this rather interesting that he says he will go along with the random plan and yet he seems to not be quite as random. I could be misreading this but it seems that I am correct.

It seems a bit odd and I wanted to point it out.

[the guy who be short]

Alas! Death is upon us!

Death! Death! *tugs furiously upon beard*

Now that the theatrics are comfortably over, I would like to assert that I am most definitely not a weredwarf. Whoever heard of such a ridiculous creature?

So who is a werewolf?

Well, it seems quite obvious to me... Yes, that's right. Sauron.

Other than him? Not quite sure yet.

[Anguirel]

Aye! I have our triumvirate! the guy who be short has shown the way...

Sauron, Draugluin and Carcharoth. There, I've saved the village. I must be the Seer!

I sense the presence of many other villagers...why then this silence? Am I to be left alone to test mormegil's plan? Let's get the debate continuing...

[Boromir88]

Boromir I believe that you are a bit touched in the head. There is nobody in this village named Sauce, unless you are using that as code for your friends.~mormegil

Ok, so I'm a little paranoid, but atleast I'm no fool.

You people think you're so high and mighty for defending (And perhaps saving) villages from the wolves destructive path. It's rather ridiculous if you ask me, and goes no way to clear your name at all. It may even look more suspicious, either you had a lucky escape, or you made a bargain with the wolves, and now you've come to kill us!

Sensible statements from all, sensible indeed. Yet fair words may hide a foul tongue, as it's said.~Firefoot

So, would you agree that foul words may hide a fair tongue?

As much as I would hate to admit it, despite Anguirel's vote for me, I doubt he's a wolf. Atleast, above anyone else here he's worthy of the title "sir" (ahem, unlike "Lord" phantom), however foolish and mislead of a knight he is.

I wouldn't doubt it if a wolf jumps onto Anguirel's foolish vote to watch me kick over today, but this village is more moronic than I thought and every last one of you deserve to be slaughtered and cut into tiny pieces by the wolves If I'm hanged.

Lhuna and Estelyn still remain as my suspects and since mormegil has corrected me, and he seems really to be the most brilliant one here so far, I don't really mind him. So, my last suspect is the guy who be short, who tried to be funny with the "weredwarf" comment, but it really wasn't.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Well, LMP, it seems to me that your kind offer of comfort is a bit indiscriminate, to say the least! If you spread your favours so generously, how are we to assume you a good judge of character? Aside from that, I would not risk being alone with any inhabitant of our village for awhile...

Forsooth! What do you think I was getting at? I am not such a one as to take advantage of an innocent, if that is what you are. I take advantage of no-one, and my heartfelt sympathy is certainly for all and anyone, no strings attached (although I don't mind you patronising my tavern). Far be it from me to indiscrimately boondoggle women to my bed! I am most discriminating in that pursuit!

[littlemanpoet]

I didn't really like the plan anyway, morm, no offense. Like most of these Day One plans, they tend to distract attention from trying to rout out the werewolves, they don't get enough support, and therefore they fail. Let's wait a few days by which time plans can be more helpful.

Fea, bad girl. I may have to dock your wages for that. The nerve of trying to impersonate someone from the far distant future. How anachronistic! Forsooth! And your plan sucks too. I think I ought to take you into my bedchamber and give you a proper spanking. Now, wouldn't that be fun?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I must now make my decision, whether tis better to vote now before retiring, though I would then not be able to take the following discussions into consideration, or to attempt to rise so early that I can catch up then and make my choice. Would it be less random later? I do not know.

[littlemanpoet]

And just for the record (correct me if I've missed anything):

Firefoot:

• Questions: LMP, Fea, Shelob, & Anguirel
• Suspects: no-one
• Accuses: no-one
• Defends: no-one

Boromir:

• Questions: no-one
• Suspects: Lhuna, Esty, Guy
• Accuses: No-one
• Defends: Anguirel

Anguirel:

• Questions: Cailin, Firefoot
• Suspects: no-one
• Accuses: no-one
• Defends: Boromir
• Votes for: Boromir!

Eomer:

• Questions: no-one
• Suspects: no-one
• Accuses: no-one
• Defends: Mormegil

LMP:

• Questions: Firefoot
• Suspects: no-one
• Accuses: no-one
• Defends: no-one

That's all I have so far. Nobody else, as far as I can tell, has mentioned any names in any way that suggests questioning, suspecting, accusing, defending, and voting.

I've designed this list to be usable by anyone who wishes to join me in tracking such behavior. Feel free to correct me and or update the information.

[the guy who be short]

It is necessary that I disappear underground for some sleep in the next hour or so. We dwarves tend to turn in early, you see.

If neither Shelob nor Cailin have said something by then, I will vote for one of them. I dislike the silent.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

And your plan sucks too. I think I ought to take you into my bedchamber and give you a proper spanking. Now, wouldn't that be fun?

I should start a bandwagon for your lynching for that. I am a good and proper young lady and all should do well to remember it. Not to mention you're warping the poor young children of the village with your talk.

LMP, as I've little better to go on than minor annoyances, please defend yourself to me by providing an excellent strategy by which you think the village could win. So far, your talk has been based less on destruction of evil and more on what could quite easily be considered too much fun.

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

How anachronistic!

But didn't you know? I'm rather fond of Anakronisms.

EDIT: cross-posted with the whole 3rd page

[littlemanpoet]

Feanor remains on my list for the same reason the Phantom would were he still alive: formidable, and absolutely nothing she says can necessarily be taken at face value.

I now go to try and figure out what Eomer and Mormegil were talking about in 52 & 56, even looking in my posts in case they're barking up the wrong tree.

[littlemanpoet]

Okay, I've found a couple things that may or may not be what Eomer & Mormegil were talking about. I'm not going to mention them either.

But I am going to bring this up: while all of us post to the board about our suspicions, remember that the werewolves are talking with each other behind our backs, setting up the next step in their dire plot to thoroughly confound the innocents amongst us. Okay, so I'm slow for not fully taking to this reality until right now, but now I'm looking square at that reality, and it really makes our situation dire. Think about it. The whole time the innocents are reading these posts, the werewolves are PMing back and forth to each other, laying out the next step of who is going to say what and why, and what effect they hope to achieve by it.

Back to Eomer's & Mormegil's little bit of cahooting. The key posts are #41 - 51. If what Eomer is talking about has any basis in innocence, then there's something in there that must be read carefully, remembering that the werewolves can PM each other at will. If so, then one or more of the following people need to be looked at very, very carefully: Cailin, Anguirel, Esty, Firefoot, and Boromir. It could be, however, that Eomer & Mormegil are in fact werewolves who are plotting this nasty little distractor to get us all fishy and wondering what's being said in there while there's absolutely nothing, and we're off looking at the above named in vain.

I don't consider myself to be quite as astute as Eomer & Mormegil in picking up on the kinds of things they claim to have found. Therefore, maybe there's something there and I'm not seeing it; or, maybe there's nothing there and these two are werewolves. If I'm dead in the morning, it may be worthwhile taking a good hard look at these two, but then maybe the real werewolves will kill me off hoping to cast suspicion on them while they're innocent. So I don't know. But I just wanted to raise the issue.

I haven't had a chance to read Shelob's and Mister Underhill's posts yet, though it's not a true cross-post.

[Mister Underhill]

Okay, I've been taking a closer look at tgwbs, and I've found some stuff that jumps out at me:

#67 - Now that the theatrics are comfortably over, I would like to assert that I am most definitely not a weredwarf.

Hmm... not the same as saying he's not a werewolf... is he playing with us?

#83 - It is necessary that I disappear underground for some sleep in the next hour or so. We dwarves tend to turn in early, you see.

If neither Shelob nor Cailin have said something by then, I will vote for one of them. I dislike the silent.

#86 - Sorry, my mistake, Cailin has actually posted before. That makes Shelob my candidate for the day.

#94 - Esty - I base my "suspicion" of Shelob on the fact that she has not yet appeared. Voting her off, even if she is an innocent, will help in that it will remove a mysterious silent factor from the village.
Of course, if you're completely at a loss, it's always helpful getting an abacus to randomly choose somebody to kill for you.

Cailin - Sorry again.

#98 - [After Esty points out Lhuna's absence:] Hmm, I didn't notice Lhuna's absence. However I'm willing to put that down to time difference - seriously, that girl sleeps so late, it's like she's in another time zone.

Hmm again. This series of post strikes me as a little suspicious, with all their "mistakes" -- thinking Cailin hadn't posted when she had, then "not noticing" that Lhuna hadn't posted. I'm not too thrilled with the vote based on silence either. Several players that I now trust as innocents spoke out against this thinking at the time.

Then comes this post here in Mirth, in which tg links to a pic of himself as a Weredwarf. I know the short one is a joker. Is he taunting us here, or just being foolishly indiscreet?

#149 - tgwbs makes some analysis, including some definitive statements about several innocents. Time has proven him right on two out of three of those, and I trust morm, the last one on the list. What makes me nervous is how certain tg is so early in the game. Insight and a bit of recklessness, or wolfish knowledge showing?

#164 - Reassesses under the pressure of reactions to his analysis -- which makes me a bit nervous. Admits that some of his statements will make him look as though he has contracted "extreme schizophrenia". An unfortunate choice of words, or is he taunting us again?

#173 - Shorty gives all the reasons why he thinks he should vote for me, then votes for Shelob instead -- to keep a villager who was drawing a lot of suspicion alive? Hard to say.

#206 - Emphasizes that he predicted lmp's death. He says this as if it should make us trust him more, but how is this to his credit? He could easily have foreseen the death of our Ranger because he helped orchestrate it. Doesn't seem sorry about Shelob's death or his role in it: "Oh well."[/QUOTE]

#215 - 1) Formen suspects roughly the same people as me. Seems innocent.

2) Boro suspected Sauce to start off with.

Either startlingly bad analysis or a double-bluff in item 1. What's up with "Sauce" in item 2? Another "mistake"? Either tg is not playing a very attentive game (not his reputation, from what I gather from others' posts), or he's a wolf who can't resist toying with us. Knowing his sense of humor, the latter is easily a possibility.

In 228 and 232, tg asks for more info from morm on his Form suspicion, then, less than three hours later -- and even after morm provided some explanation of his suspicions -- he abruptly declares, "I'm bored of waiting" and casts vote for Lhuna with no explanation in the vote post and not much more in previous "analysis" posts.

Well, a closer look has made me feel worse, and not better about tgwbs.

I see Fea has posted and I don't have time to reply in detail. I'll say she's right to bring me up on the Firefoot point -- I composed that before she posted "I changed my mind." I do think your assumptions in #276 about who she dreamed about were hasty though. Trying to throw us off?

I've composed this up through about #303, so some of it may not take into account what has come after. I'll post it now and then read up, or I'll be stuck composing forever...

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Anguirel

O farsighted one, wherever you be, do not expose yourself unduly-perhaps even at all-dropping hints too early. All too often a valiant Seer has paid the highest price far too soon for lacking subtlety...

Then let all innocents be as loudmouthy as can be so that the merest hintings by the farsighted one, should they occur sooner than later, go unnoticed by the evil spirited ones, so distracted they will be by the noise of the rest of us.

Incidentally, if we wish to avoid lynching one of our gallant band of heroes, then I am happy to volunteer myself for the noose; if the village truly wills it, though I would rather follow Master mormegil's strategy...

Bad idea. If we have an innocent volunteer, assuming that you are, although it could be a brash werewolvish bluff, then there is no voting trail to follow to roust out the werewolves.

[Firefoot]

I am against picking a random villager and lynching them - there'd be nothing left to analyze. Everyone should just pick who they think is a wolf. It's unlikely that we will actually catch a wolf, but we're not likely to do so anyway, and an individualized voting can leave a pattern for analysis, and the wolves won't be able to hide as well in one giant mob bandwagon.

Anguire's been very vocal; so far he seems to be acting in the best interest of the village. His vote of Boromir was a little random, but we don't really have that much to go off of anyway. Other than that he seems to be following a fairly logical train of thought. I've also been following lmp and Morm pretty well; they seem innocent at this point.

I think that Formendacil's theory of everyone abstaining from voting (if it were still viable, that is) would only hurt the villagers in the long run. Voting is probably the most concrete evidence we have - we can compare the order of voting, the consistency of what the person said vs. how they voted, and a fairly concrete statement - "I think this person is a wolf." Though it will probably take a couple days, voting does leave a pattern.