Cthulu Mafia - TOWN (drunk) WIN, MADNESS SOMEWHAT AVERTED

[Bardiche]

Ronald Dale;

Glad to see we've got Bike back. What do you mean by "I'm at Ronald Dale" though?

I made my case yesterday and nothing has changed with Hayles' flip to make me think otherwise, so:

##VOTE: Nathan Greaves

Relevant Day 3 case here.

[Helga Pataki]

Quick post to get this info out there, because I won't have time until late tonight.

Last night I protected Samuel Hargreaves, because I didn't want to lose his apparent information on Nicolai (or the chance to pin down 1-2 scum in a lie if he wasn't telling the truth.)  I'd prefer to take my Night 2 target with me to my grave.

Speaking of which, that won't be a long wait.  I was the target of the (a?) slowkill and am going to die tonight.  Similar flavor to what the original Mr. Bike got - mysterious, half-remembered visitor, and now my personal obsession (The King in Yellow) is going to kill me.

As such, I may as well tell our illustrious Scum that if they used that kill on me to avoid my bulletproof, possibly weakening themselves in some other way... have a big grin and attached middle finger, because I wasn't bulletproof after night 1. ^_^  Heheh.  I hope Town will forgive me for this particular white lie, since despite some "OMG 2 much powar" it doesn't seem to have done any harm, and may have helped.

Mr. Bike the Even Younger is confirmed Town to me.

Jack is almost confirmed Town... but not quite.  We have a claimed rolecop, Nicolai, and reason (pace Hargreaves) to believe he may be Scum.  If the Scum were confident we were out of informational roles, they could most certainly pretend to be cleared to get massive townie cred.  Nonetheless, I think Jack's play has been strong and claiming to be an ex-Miller would be hugely risky for Scum who didn't know every role, which I don't think (certainly hope!) they can't, at this point.

Nicolai still seems the worst to me of our surviving players, but I won't vote for him until Hargreaves chips in.  Then probably Nathan.

Ronbard looks good to me for pointing out a relevant fact against the Hayles fakeclaim, not that I gave anyone time to panic and jump off the copclaim the way they did Pietro. >

Flavor and scumhunting to follow tonight, barring unforeseen incident.

[Helga Pataki]

:sigh:  Strike the "don't" from the last sentence of paragraph six of my post.

Also, just noticed my evil grin emoticon got hijacked by the regular smile one.  Ah, well.  Such is (briefly remaining) life.

[SnowFire]

Note: I have made a very slight adjustment to Chad's flip, specifically adding that he returns just 'doctor' to rolecops (similar to Pietro's sanity not being reflected either).  Also, to be clear, Chad didn't know about *any* of the Squeaky-Clean stuff, just that his treatment might have side effects.

Shale, no need to vote me.  Scum Miller is an OMGWTFBBQ role so if you're asking, yes, that's an illegal role.  There might theoretically be scum with the power to return false results to rolecops (if any even exist), and that may include (fake) Miller; but they wouldn't actually be a Miller, and wouldn't be informed of anything special if targeted by Chad's power.

Also, in flavor notes, Day 4 is Monday, October 29, 1928, due to not executing anyone over the hectic weekend.

Votecount.

Nathan Greaves [1]: Ronald Dale (Bardiche)

With 10 investigators, it takes 6 to lynch.  Day 4 will end in 67 hours.

[Princess Leia]

So, ol' MosGershom wants me to tell him everything I know. Well, I... there's no way an outsider like him could have anything to do with all this, so alright. I just hope whatever he knows is worth it.

Right. Surprise surprise, I wasn't always a vet. Before (and indeed during) the war I was a surgeon every bit as talented as my father had been, and the fighting gave me plenty of opportunity to hone my skills. When the war itself ended my work didn't, but gradually those whose injuries were physical either recovered or died. Leaving behind those who'd been victims of shell-shock, or something alltogether more... sinister, those who'd seen things they shouldn't. At first I dismissed their tales, focussed on putting them back together, as best as I could - but I had a gift for it. It got so an hour's conversation with a man was enough for me to read his entire life story - and then, horrifyingly, I began to realise how many of their stories were true.

I travelled the world, continuing to help those who'd encountered horrors beyond man's ken - and, a welcome relief when it happened, the occasional simple madman. I always worked alone, but I never felt entirely so; occasionally I would encounter someone for whom something about them, the way they walked, the way they spoke... I just knew, somehow, they were doing the same thing I was. I'd been reassigned to some regiment - no name even, just a number - that didn't appear on any of the records, yet somehow there were always people ready to help me, and perhaps twice a year I'd receive transfer orders sending me to some other far-flung part of the world - Brazil, Malaysia, there was no logic to it - just that every time, when I arrived, I'd find people who needed me. I assumed that whoever was running this had also taken steps to ensure no-one wondered what had happened to that promising young surgeon, though to be honest I didn't really care.

I was good at what I did, very good, but my work took its toll; the stories of every patient I cured seemed to weigh upon my own sanity, as if I'd not relieved their burdens at all but merely taken them on myself. After my second personal encounter - about which the less said the better, but it lived in a chapel and fed on human flesh - I realised I couldn't take any more. Whatever shadowy group was sending me my assignments seemed to understand, and the notion of going to Marbury... well, it felt like my own decision, but I couldn't help thinking there had been some hints placed, particularly when I arrived there and sensed something... not friendly, exactly, but not hostile, and with an... attachment to this town. Becoming a vet was my idea though - I wanted to do medicine, but after what I'd heard and seen I wanted patients who couldn't even talk to me. Life here's been relaxing, pleasant even, not that I don't still wake up in the middle of the night remembering one case or another.

Last night (well, three nights ago now, whatever) was different though. I woke with a sense that something was happening; the power here was stirring, because something... foreign and unknown to it was attacking the town. It was angry but unsure, lashing out blindly. I could do nothing against our invasion, not directly anyway, but I could talk to people, and if something were to happen to them while I was there... well, I had an affinity with whatever this thing was, and I might be able to deflect its anger a little. Though quite possibly only onto myself.

I am Town Counsellor (cute, huh? I guess Psychologist was taken). This acts as a combination of rolecop and doctor/bodyguard-like protection; I talk to people and get a sense of what they can do, and if they're targetted by... well, I read the above as implying the secondary kill is town-aligned, but it's not clear-cut. In any case, I will deflect that kill, but I should expect there to be... consequences for myself (the mod's wording of this part is odd; I read it strongly as not that I'm going to die, but something bad will happen. Maybe I'll lose my powers?) if this happens. This all made a lot more sense when I thought this was about the madness slowkill, but I guess that was there to throw me off the scent.

Night 1 I targetted Kolmogorov (lurkery, seemed like he could be either scum or a town power-role). I got back (you did want all my flavour, right?) that he has a suspicious stone that he sometimes chants over in - I don't know, possibly russian, possibly something else - and there's something insightful to his eyes. He is a Miller Rolecop[?] X, where I think X is probably best left unsaid. I... actually, thinking about it, I can see why he might have wanted to use that ability, in which case my apologies if I interfered.

Night 2 I looked at Jack; didn't want to target Pietro for the obvious reason, and figured I could resolve the miller question that way. I got that he's... normal. More normal than anyone in this town has any right to be. Vanilla, i.e. roleless, with an explicit confirmation from the mod that yes, there are no vanilla roles in this game. Which made me wtf rather, but whatever.

Last night after much agonising I decided it was worth taking a risk and looked at Greaves. He's old, much older than he looks, and has been wandering for most of it. And I get the sense that he's somehow on the boundary between life and death, and could maybe reach over to the other side - Reviver Doctor.

I'll post some actual thoughts, either now or tomorrow, but this post is already hueg, Bike wanted it for something, and I figure it's worth separating my facts and opinions. No doubt there have been all the ninjas in the world.

[Bardiche]

Ronald Dale;

So that's... three slow kills in a row, then. That still leaves a Night 1 and Night 2 attack unaccounted for, the former being on Peyton and the latter being on Pietro.

Reading back on Day 3, I find myself teetering into stronger distrust of Sopko. I'll leave Day 1 as Day 1 but his Moses case made no sense to me.

Let's look at his first Day 3 post, where he makes a good argument against Greaves that I personally really agree with! But he then goes on about serious lurker cases, accuses Greaves of being a lurker, and his final suspect of Jack being completely related to roles and nothing about content.

Then there's his Day 3 second post where he says more is going to be needed for him to start placing his vote. He proceeds to just passively prod people a little and talk about nothing really relevant to Greaves at all.

Or relevant to a vote anyway. I find it downright suspicious he ends his post with being in favour of a Nathan lynch while spending minimal effort on his eventual target, Kolgomorov. And in his actual vote, he complains Nikolai is blathering on "non-commital"-like. Whereas Kolgomorov stated a clear dislike for Hayles, and shared others' reluctance to vote. Even Sopko's own reluctanec to vote.

It's of course entirely against him that he's on the train alternate to Hayles, and that he voted Kolmogorov after Hayles picked up another vote, and that Greaves is his partner in Kolmogorov-voting. Who he agrees here is pretty darn scummy and in his votepost declares has a "high probability of scummitude", as well as he mentions somewhere that he guarantees one of Jack, Kolmogorov and Nathan is scum. This doesn't stop the good Sopko from voting Kolmogorov alongside Nathan - Nathan, whose posts have been rubbish, or Kolmogorov, who he spends a lot of time marking as a lurker. I think it would've made a LOT more sense if he had voted Greaves; especially given that Greaves has thus far not ameliorated his behaviour any bit.

I mean what the hell kind of reason does Greaves have here for voting Kolmogorov in pLYLO? His vote may be nowhere?! Vote not going anywhere doesn't help town, but it also doesn't help scum and I fail to see why you'd vote someone to prod them to vote during pLYLO.

In fact I'll debunk Greaves' Day 3 after this! He's been incredibly scummy and I can't believe Sopko agrees on that but has no problems siding with Greaves during pLYLO.

Carthrat may disagree but I don't think LAL is the most brilliant thing to adopt in pLYLO and Sopko's timing is just impeccable.

There also questionable things like his excuse for being on Hellsnake, highlighting how sound his case was and what? There's no reason to excuse your lynch targets at all and it just comes off as an attempt to avoid getting attacked over it.

I'm still in greater dislike of Greaves at the moment, though.



Yes, a Wall of Text, but I'm a novelist. What do you expect? I feel like an entirely new person, 窮则变，变则通!



Dimension Shambler'd by Hargreaves and... ... what. I don't know what to say. I'll revisit that, gotta mull it over for a while.

[Princess Leia]

Right, it's later than I realised, full reread/thoughts will have to wait until tomorrow evening. My one thought before sleeping is that Kyle looks worse than before for putting the vote on Kolgomorov when he did (though obviously I'm in a privileged position here; the rest of you will have to judge Kolgomorov really did look scummy). Also, someone targeted Peyton on night one (unless you think he was lying), so we're not looking at a one-shot vig.
Daleninja, whatever, sleep.

[Princess Leia]

judge *whether* Kolgomtorov really did look scummy, even.

[Nathan Greaves]

"Gah, morning already?" ((Sorry, all, thought we were really getting a 3-day long night phase. I'll get to work on an article shortly.))

"Anyway. I need to just find an hour or so to sit down and read through all these here notes I've got to get some good material. Been spending too long writing and not enough time actually working. ((Translation: I really haven't been giving this game the attention I should have.)) What I can definitely say right now is that Daniels is undoubtedly a non-issue, and doubly so in terms of Bike. Everything else is gonna be pending a little reread.

Before I start, though, I'll say I'm sorta conflicted about Nikolai. I'm still pissed at how he's basically been lurking around like any good Russian, but two scum wagons running along each other uncontested is either the bravest move possible from these killers, or it's just a sign that despite all his silence the guy's on our side after all. Need to sit down and think some stuff over. Shouldn't be more than an hour or two.

...Or at least that's what I was GONNA leave saying, until some guy decides to throw my claim out into the open. I...wow.
Explain to me why Nikolai has some power that you think is worth concealing, and meanwhile you tell the entire world that I'm responsible for bringing back the old guy. The very claim I was trying NOT to talk about for the sake of not attracting a kill. Jeez.

...Perhaps it is time to drop the dialect. Playing the youth was never easy for me.

The young man's claim is true, much as I would wish to have kept it concealed. It started with a trip to British India, many years ago, lost in a thunderstorm. I came across a circle of men, muttering to one another in a language I had never heard. In their midst, a body, feeble and frail to start, took form and grew youthful and lively from the brink of death itself. I screamed in shock, giving myself away. They threatened me with death on the spot unless I vowed to join their order and keep their secrets. A vow that I have kept - until today, at least.

That was the day I joined the Sacred Chosen of Thanatos, their main base thankfully being more conveniently located in Chicago. Initially I made my way to their meetings out of fear alone, but as the months passed I grew more and more intruiged, and I rose hastily in the order. Eventually it became my duty to travel the world and correct the balance of life and death itself, restoring restless spirits to The Great Wheel of life and death.

Journalism? A convenient cover story. For some reason, 'travelling necromancer' had a habit of drawing in the folks with pitchforks and torches. They don't understand that there is a balance to all things, life and death included, and in recent days Marbury has been more of an abnormality than any other place on earth. The forces are good to me, showing me this irregularity in my dreams, and I traced the killer's steps to this humble little town with all of its secrets.

As for what I can do, well, that is another story in itself. I can prevent death, true, but doing so forces me to channel my powers away from a greater potential the Sacred Chosen have given me. One who has lost his mind to insanity rather than been outright killed...I can bring them back from the grave, though not in exactly the form they once took. The human mind cannot grasp the concept of being suddenly returned to sanity, and as a result it creates a convenient cover story to explain the holes. Being his own brother, for example.

Had I chosen to protect someone, the resurrection would have been nowhere near as successful, only producing a mildly sentient husk whose opinions would be disregarded (voteless/roleless). I believed Mr. Bike to be a valuable enough asset to Town to be worth bringing back. Afterward, the Wheel will not accept any more imbalance on my part, and I cannot even offer protection.

Anyway, that is my story. Hopefully that will be enough to please you, and now I shall get around to that promised reread. If you'd prefer me to act like the youthful Mr. Greaves you all know so well, please say so. I understand a shift like this can be quite...jarring on the human mind."

[Chiaki]

Ooooooooookay, that throws things out of whack. This is either one hell of a scum gambit or the field just got a whole lot narrower. Barring a counterclaim or conflicting information from Mr. Bike, Graves' throws any suspicions I had of him right out the window. Scum reviver would be even weirder than scum miller, and the claim's uncontested (in a situation where I can't see why the actual reviver would let it stand, 1:1 being an awesome deal for town as usual), so I think I trust it.  Meanwhile, Peyton's made a very testable claim of non-scummitude, so he drops off my radar for the rest of the day...of course, if the slowkill doesn't materialize, things get interesting.

Samuel: You just outed a doctor. One who doesn't have any power left, granted, but your post doesn't show any inkling of that detail. Explain yourself.

[Princess Leia]

Gah, work tomorrow is not going to be fun.

The slowkill ignores protection. Which means a doctor is worse than useless; all they can do is prevent the secondary kill, which at this stage is town-friendly in practise even if it belongs to a third party (which I don't believe). On the assumption that the revive was a one-shot (since anything else would be ridiculously overpowered), his role was basically irrelevant, and unlike with the piece of Kolgomorov's role I held back, I couldn't give what flavour I have on him without revealing it.

[Nathan Greaves]

((Alright, here's quite possibly the longest post I've ever produced in a Mafia game. Nice, easy-to-read summary will follow.

PEYTON HADLEY

Day 1 play is very aggressive. A serious vote for Bard gives way to a serious vote for Callahan which holds throughout the day, though to be fair Ty gave him more than enough ammunition to work with. Then, of course, comes the series of posts where he looks through everyone intently...when it's only day 1. Surely this sort of massive reread is due for later days when there's more concrete stuff to work with?
That said, he does throw in here that he doesn't like what Hayles is producing, but in his summary post of the whole thing Hayles is nowhere to be seen. More interesting, the three names he gives has suspects (Ty, Hellsnake, Pietro) have all flipped Town.

Day 2, the Hadley/Ethan mechanic starts to get a lot weirder. Again, he badmouths Hayles without going so far as to vote for him, leaving his vote on the (admittedly really bad) Pietro. Still, the fact he chose to go for what was both the easier target and the Townie of the two stands out.

And of course, there's the claim. Seeing Chad flip Doc is enough to confuse me. Believing that on top of everything else we have Hadley as a BP bodyguard (especially given my own role) is extremely hard. (Given that apparently BPs/Docs/EVERYTHING lose out to the slowkill, though...)

Cue Day 3, and Hayles has disappeared from Hadley's suspicions again. Hell, in his next post he's outright agreeing with him as if all his earlier points had never happened. And of course, there's the fact that he didn't vote on Hayles until it came to hammer time, by which point it was clear the Nikolai lynch was never going to happen anyway.

Honestly, if anything this reread just manages to make Hadley look worse than he did before. The only thing that's stopping me from just dropping a vote on him right now is the fact that he's claimed to be slowkilled. If that doesn't end up going through, then there's honestly no way we can let him live.

SEAMUS O'MALLEY/EXCAL

Day 1 is...well. He starts by genuinely trying to hold Bike responsible for mod-confirmed-irrelevant flavour, and the instant he starts taking flak for it he jumps onto Hellsnake instead. That sort of shiftiness really doesn't sit well with me, even on Day 1. Finally, by the end of the day his vote is lying uselessly on Pietro.

On Day 2, he holds to his case on Pietro, but mentions the Bard/Hayles incident. Where things get awkward, though, is that he says 'Yes, Hayles is bad, but not only am I not voting him but I think Dale is scum trying to bus him hard!' which is a hell of a leap. Now that Hayles has flipped scum, this could have easily been a contingency plan to get something out of a partner getting lynched.

And, of course, the miller claim. I've said plenty of times already that being the third to claim doesn't entice me to him, and it still holds true today. About all he has to his name is being the first guy to vote for Hayles D3, except that earlier he'd been suspicious of Nikolai first and foremost and conveniently dropped these claims. What happened?

The reread's done nothing to win me over with O'Malley. Definitely not liking what I see here.

Daniels, as I've said, is a non-issue unless scum is psychic or something.

RONALD "BARDICHE" DALE

Really, I can't say there's much to Dale that I would complain about. His constant tunneling of Scum!Hayles is an absurd gambit that I probably wouldn't consider until all the likelier options had been tried. If he's anything, he's SK.
On that note, one thing that does stand out is this post. Why do you a) break into what I assume is Chinese and b) start speaking in broken English momentarily? (My main concern is that this happened on the day after the only confirmed NK we have.)

KYLE "SOPKO" HANDLEY

Oh, boy. This was not a fun reread.

Starts off by not bothering to drop a vote anywhere, until of course we have his YOU JUST CLAIMED YOUR ROLE PM MOSES rant. Of course, this case which he follows fervently for the whole D1 and makes a point of saying 'I WANTED TO LYNCH THIS GUY' on in his last post of the day...is completely disregarded by the start of D2 to go for Hellsnake instead. And of course the horrible horrible HORRIBLE idea of lynching the claimed slowkill, which does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for Town. Day 3 starts off with him saying 'hey my case was perfectly fine >:<' and then he produces solid stuff for the rest of the day.

Really, there's a part of me that wants to lynch Sopko based on the LYNCH THE SLOWKILL claim alone. Added up to everything else he's done, as well as the 'HEY LOOK AT ETHAN AND RONALD FIGHTING' point, I'm really not comfortable with him.

SAMUEL HARGREAVES

AKA The Man With The Unreadable Speech Impediment.
All that my rereading can extract from his D1 babble is the weird wishy-washy opinion on Callahan. He says that I'm misrepping the amount of danger Ty is in...because he didn't put a vote down earlier? Yeah, I'm really not understanding what he's saying here.
Day 2, he lets up on O'Malley because his early vote on Bike 'was for a reason'. You mean, the vote based on 'You're talking a lot so I'll vote you for flavour'? That's a really terrible reason to let off on someone.
That's about all I had to object to, though. The rest of his Day 2 and his Day 3 seem relatively solid, and about the only other thing he's done that's really pissed me off is his whole 'hey guys, guess who's secretly a necromancer?!' gig. Of the non-confirmed Townies, Hargreaves is probably one of the better ones, though in the face of O'Malley/Sopko/Hadley that isn't saying much.

And finally, a couple of nice short reads:

NIKOLAI KOLMOGOROV

lurk lurk lurk lurk Jump On Callahan Case lurk lurk lurk lurk Say Pietro's Acting Like A Cop While My Vote Is On Him lurk lurk lurk lurk Claim Miller Rolecop lurk lurk lurk Jump On Opposing Wagon lurk lurk lurk lurk.

MARTIN ANDREWS

lurk lurk lurk Jump On Callahan Case lurk lurk lurk OH GOD I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO PUT MY VOTE BECAUSE I SHOWED UP SO LATE TO D2 lurk lurk lurk My Vote Is Lying On Sopko At The End Of D3 lurk lurk lurk.

The lurkers are, well, lurking hard and being conveniently useless in a lot of cases. I WOULD say that Kolmogorov is the scummier of the two, but there's the ending state of the wagons yesterday as well as Hargreaves's mysterious X, so he's looking a lot cleaner following this reread.

That's the long story. Summary coming up in something much friendlier to the eyes.))

[Nathan Greaves]

"Hope you guys don't mind if I go back to playing good ol' Nathan the journalist. He's as much a part of me as my real self now, I guess. I like him.

Anyway. Final judgements following the LOOOOONG overdue reread, in roughly the order I trust them:

- Jack and Bike are, of course, confirmed Town.
- Hadley's claimed a slowkill, so judgement on him is pending whether his claim ends up being true.
- Nikolai's circumstances seem far too much of a gambit for him to be scum.
- Hargreaves was iffy early on when he suddenly dropped the case on O'Malley, but has been relatively clean since.
- Ronald/Bard looks very strong after Ethan's flip, and the lingering worry of his tunneling being nothing but a lucky SK guess (see: me vigging lolcats N1 in Meme) is the only thing stopping me from clearing him outright.
- Andrews is annoying in that sometimes he posts a hell of a lot but most of the time he's just nowhere. The lurking is the main charge against him, and he has no excuse like Nikolai does so he ranks high on this list.
- It's honestly very hard for me to choose between placing a vote down on O'Malley or Handley at this point. In the end, Handley's had a very shaky two days, and O'Malley's been consistently iffy from Day 1, so:

##Vote: Seamus O'Excal

Now to get to work on that article I owe you guys. Hope ya don't mind if I leave last night's dealings for the next issue so I have enough material to work with...that, and it'd sorta look like I'd actually produced my article on time. Ahem."

Nathan darts his eyes around the room, coughing inconspicuously as he returns to his seat.

[Chiaki]

Forgive me for not making as big a deal out of my circumstances, but most of the time I'm just working.The past couple of weeks were completely brutal for me, barely letting up until the weekends and I missed the final 12 hours of Day 3 by virtue of being 75 miles from my computer from 9 AM that morning until the following afternoon. Schedule issues are why I stopped playing Mafia for a year in the first place.

[Nathan Greaves]

Bike Falls Apart Amidst Gang Violence; Hayles Turns Into Fodder
The Third Entry In The Nathan Greaves Guest Report Series

Now caught fully in the grasp of its own paranoia, Marbury has witnessed three more deaths in quick succession in the last 24 hours.

At dawn today, the madness that looks set to consume the Town claimed its first victim - local fisherman Moses Bike, last seen diving into the local lake in an attempt to supposedly appease some demonic creature dwelling within. The creature, supposedly called Rath'napula, was unavailable for comment.

Harrowing news followed shortly afterward, as Deputy Sheriff Webster reported the death of newcomer Pietro Giovanni. A 'made man', as the term is used in shadier rings, Giovanni's reason for visiting Marbury is believed to be vengeance for the apparent death of his associate. Now, though, it seems that his friend's killer may well have found him first.

In spite of these tragic deaths, the investigation into the death of Jon Hutchins continues. Some small progress appears to have finally been made, though, as the first potential perpetrator of the crime has been convicted and executed.

Several locals were amazed at the claims that Ethan Hayles, a local farmer whose education was poor at best, could be capable of such a deed, but as the fingers turned on him he descended into his own breed on insanity. Condemning all in the room to being mere figments of his imagination, Hayles remained deluded up until the noose was tightened around his neck and his body hung loose from the rope. Uncovered, highly-technical psychology tomes found in his possession after his death have baffled the authorities - Hayles was too uneducated to have bought them himself.

Many have already decided that whatever villany Hayles was involved in, he was merely a pawn in a game much larger than him...

-----

"Gah, stupid typo." Nathan quickly corrects the spelling of 'Amidst' and leaves the article for later. ((Hopefully editing isn't a problem since this post is pure flavour :V))

[SnowFire]

Behind every good journalist is a great editor, Mr. Greaves.  That's fine.

Votecount.

Nathan Greaves [1]: Ronald Dale (Bardiche)
Seamus (Excal) [1]: Nathan Greaves

With 10 investigators, it takes 6 to lynch.  Day 4 will end in ~62 hours.

[Tanaka]

*Zenny reads up.

* Jack Daniels places his lips around the hooch bottle and doesn't stop drinking until it's empty.

((I got up to Peyton's post.  I will read that later.  As for right now I have no bloody idea what to make of the role madness that has been claimed except to wait for potential counter claims.

Oh, except I'll say that the instant kill being town-friendly makes a lot of sense given who N2's target was (Pietro).  But that's all I'm basing it off of, so I may be missing something.

Other than that I have no idea what to weigh in on aside from saying I vastly underestimated the sheer, ludicrous role madness of this game.  "There CAN'T be 4 millers why would anyone do that" HAH))

[Helga Pataki]

"You seem to have developed a right curious aversion to me, Mr... Greaves.  After we were getting along so well before you told us the truth, I can only assume it's your true self what doesn't cotton to my behavior."

"Quite frankly, friend, you've got me puzzled.  On the one hand, Mr. Hargreaves here would have me believe you're not only an innocent, but a most upstanding gentleman.  On the other, you most certainly have not comported yourself as such."

"What's a fellow to do?"

-----

First off, your case on me.  Not because my dead ass needs defending, but because your attack is just monstrously bad.

I mean, really?  REALLY?

What's the point of even making a case on me?  When you yourself want to lynch Kyle Handley in no small part because he suggested we shouldn't hesitate to lynch Mr. Bike the Elder just because of a claimed slowkill?

But let's break down that case, since you've deigned to dangle out such a spaghetti of atrocious reasoning.

You think I've been... soft... on the guy whose copclaim I hammered... because in my Day 1 summary post he ranked behind the main points of discussion for the first two days?  Because in my opening Day 3 post he, once again, didn't crack the top 4?  I guess you wanted another Wall of Text, regardless of your poke at said wall now.

Of course, where was this problem with my play when your Day 3 case was entirely focused on role speculation, to the point you put out all of one actual bit of scumhunting against me - part of a massive misinterpretation or misrepresentation of my play toward Pietro?  Where was my "dropping" Ethan (whose wrongness to that point was almost entirely rooted in his attack on me) then?

The rest of your Day 3 case on me is "why didn't you protect the obvious fakeclaim" (even if he did turn out town - btw, I would have *died* protecting that singularly worthless "Townie," which you would know if you'd actually bothered to read my post today) and "his power level is ovar 9000!", which is idiotic coming from a REVIVER IN A GAME THAT ALREADY HAD A FLIPPED REVIVER!  God.  YOU of all people building a case based on setup looks even more absurd in retrospect.

Now on Day 4 you dedicate the largest part of your post to attacking me when I've already announced a slowkill.  Notice how we're no longer in LYLO?  That means a theoretical Scum!Hadley would have nothing to gain from surviving One More Day and then being lynched tomorrow, except for a reference to a truly terrible Spider-Man comic.  Not to mention that I wasn't exactly feeling the pressure at the end of Day 3, since Scum Hayles and your august self were the only two to bring (weak sauce) cases against me and nobody seemed to be biting.  Needless to say, your pet theory from yesterday, Serial Killer!Hadley, would be incredibly moronic to claim the slowkill and get himself lynched on Day 5.

-----

Moving on.

I think O'Malley comes in a distant third in apparent scummyness right now, but I'll give you that he's the only person who looks like Scum who isn't involved in Hargreaves's investigations.

I'd especially highlight the fact O'Malley TWICE promised to be around at deadline and then wasn't.

Also, mathematically speaking, if we have 3 Millers, 3 detectable Scum and 1 Godfather, and both Jack and Nikolai are cleared, then O'Malley *must* be the Scum who claimed Miller.  Since his claim was in the interests of getting a powerful townie (Hellsnake) lynched, it's already the shakiest.

-----

At this point, cases rooted in the first two days (as yours on Kyle/Sopko is) look very close to meaningless to me.  By Day 3 when the situation was both more critical and clearer, he was contributing a lot.

I'd take your offense at Kyle/Sopko's lynch the slowkill suggestion more seriously if a) anyone had seriously considered voting that way, INCLUDING HIM, or b) you hadn't devoted the lion's share of a long post to attacking a claimed slowkill.

So yeah.

-----

Right now, I consider Sam Hargreaves's roleclear of you and Nicolai the only scumtell he's given off.  Frankly, I find it very difficult to believe you're town after the way you've played these last two days, and Nicolai looked even worse to me as of the end of Day 3.

But a gambit that seems like it would have to involve at least two, if not all three of the probable three remaining Scum?  That's marginally more difficult to believe even than that you're innocent.

As for Hargreaves outing your role?  What did you have to gain from hiding it at this point?  If you hadn't come in and said "BTW I can't do this anymore," you might have sucked a nightkill from panicked Scum/SK, perhaps saving one of our confirmed Townies or a role that still functioned.

-----

Finally, on the two lurkers, I was going to ask why you think Nikolai (whose player has been around) has an excuse but Andrews (whose player was NOT around) did not.  When Andrews has been around I think his content has been much better.

But then I realized you probably meant Hargreaves's investigation.  So agreed, reluctantly.

-----

Rereading your post, Nathan, the only thing that looks truly absurd and scummy is your weird attack on me.

Except...

Previously you claimed you came to Marbury as a journalist, due to visions of a lone killer haunting your dreams.  Now you're saying that WASN'T why you came to Marbury, you did so because it has been more of an abnormality than any other place on Earth.  Normally I'd write this off as "oh, lying flavor to cover a role."

Except, you had previously used that AS PART OF YOUR ATTEMPT TO PUSH A DAY 3 SERIAL KILLER TRAIN ON ME.  In LYLO.

[Tanaka]

((And by Peyton, I meant Nathan.  I am tired and sober back the fuck off.))

[Chiaki]

Oh, except I'll say that the instant kill being town-friendly makes a lot of sense given who N2's target was (Pietro).  But that's all I'm basing it off of, so I may be missing something.

I think the entire game wanted him dead at that point. To town, he's an incredibly scummy player who was the alternative to what turned out to be a pretty costly mislynch. To scum, he's a claimed cop who they know isn't one of them. Knowing what we know now about his role it turned out to be a hugely pro-town kill, granted, but I'm not assuming anything about where it came from.

[Helga Pataki]

"Seems to me, gentlemen, we find ourselves sorted into three groups."

"First we've got the folks who we can trust with our lives, albeit me, I'm not feeling too well about my chances of staying among their number.  If I ain't dead tomorrow, you can sure as hell string me up - what I have to do to crack this open, won't leave enough of what's 'me' to deserve anything else.  But I expect I will be."

((I.e., slowkill victim, will flip tonight or hang tomorrow.  I could still be Scum/3rd party, and the remaining slowkiller or slowkillers NOT that alignment.  But I'm dead either way, so you'll know I'm Town soon enough.))

"Gershom here, in addition to being the brother of our good Mr. Bike, ain't from around these parts, so he clearly wasn't involved in the murders."

((confirmed townie #1))

"And finally Mr. Daniels, you look downright cleaned up these last two days.  I wouldn't dream of suspecting a fine, upstanding member of society like yourself."

((confirmed townie #2))

"Then we have this trio of Mr. Hargreaves's.  His own self, who - pardon me, Sam, I was feeling right kind to you up until all of this, and I allow I still am - puts his imprimatur on a pair of our less than leading citizens, and then Mr. Greaves or whatever his name is, and Mr. Kolmogorov.  Now, if it weren't for Mr. Hargreaves, I'd be inclined to lynch the both of those two - but his piping up did spare Kolomogorov the noose yesterday, and slung it around Hayles where it ended up belonging."

((If Hargreaves is lying, he's surely Scum.  I would guess Godfather.  Nathan and Nikolai look like the two Scummiest players to me, apart from Hargreaves's guarantee on them.  That could be the whole Scum team, or Hargreaves could legitimately be a rolecop and have sucked 1-2 innocent Townies in with him.  However, if either Nathan or Nicolai is Scum, Hargreaves seems almost sure to be as well (although not the other member of the guaranteed pair).  Particularly if Nathan is Scum, since what we've seen of Nikolai's role could legitimately be a Scum role and Hargreaves could just not know it.))

"Finally we've got these four gentlemen: Mr. Dale, Mr. Handley, Mr. Andrews and Mr. O'Malley.  I said yesterday I don't feel real kindly toward Mr. O'Malley, and Mr. Handley and Mr. Andrews both have the first two days on their consciences, one for what he did, the other for what he DIDN'T."

((If Hargreaves is telling the truth, Nikolai *might* be Scum but probably isn't, Hargreaves and Nathan aren't.  That leaves us with these four to pick from.  I would rank them O'Malley > Handley = Andrews > Dale, since that was an awfully vociferous scumbus to end Day 3 on BarDale's part if he's part of Team Scum.  In this case, three of these four people would be Scum, unless Nikolai is in which case two of these four would be Scum.))

((To me the question for Day 4 is obvious: do we trust Hargreaves's claim and hunt Scum among the undetermined players, or do we test Hargreaves's claim and hunt Scum among Hargreaves's trio?))

[Helga Pataki]

Wait, I take that back, Kolmogorov is a Miller according to Hargreaves, so he CAN'T be Scum if Hargreaves is telling the truth.  Flipping either Kolmogorov or Greaves will tell us Hargreaves's alignment, Kolmogorov certainly, Greaves almost certainly.

It really is a 3 vs. 4 thing at this point.

[Hunter Sopko]

Ugh. Every time I go to post more stuff comes out and just further messes up an already confusing situation. Frustrating because it's interesting at the same time it's infuriating. Okay, today looks pretty fantastic. Let's look at all the people off the table currently, or at least being considered so by some people?

Jack: Due to role shenanigans with Chad's flip and the miller status going away

Gershom: Due to being revived.

Peyton: Due to claims of being slowkilled

Nathan: Due to reviver claim and Hargreaves claim
Nicolai: Due to Sam Hargreaves claim
Sam Hargreaves: If you're taking Nicolai and Nathan off the table due to his claim, then you're implicitly trusting him. So he probably comes off the table too.

So that leaves me, Ronald, Martin and Seamus as the only possible suspects today, depending on who you may or may not believe. Obviously we've seen some people feel differently, and we've had everyone BUT Nikolai here to say their peace, and we've had no conflicting information thusfar to immediately call any of these into question, so we just have our own wits to rely on. Bike's reaction to Hargreaves' information should also be pretty important, so I'm curious to see what he's got for us there.

Anyway, I have to agree with the assessment that it's an insane scumgambit if Hargreaves, Nathan and Nicolai are all in it together. A less popular theory that I want to put forward by far is that I disagree with Nathan in that Ronald tunnelvisioning Ethan is not as crazy a scum gambit as you'd think and shouldn't be cleared that easily because of it. Of course, if this is true it does introduce another three person scum gambit, this time between Ethan, Seamus and Ronald. This is why I'm simply advising against discounting the possibility rather than pursuing this as a full blown case.

But... goddamn. I just refreshed to see Peyton making a lot of the same groupings I am. Son of a bitch. A salesman hates being beaten to the punch. But yeah... Peyton's arguments are pretty much where I was going with this.

[Nathan Greaves]

Previously you claimed you came to Marbury as a journalist, due to visions of a lone killer haunting your dreams.  Now you're saying that WASN'T why you came to Marbury, you did so because it has been more of an abnormality than any other place on Earth.  Normally I'd write this off as "oh, lying flavor to cover a role."

Except, you had previously used that AS PART OF YOUR ATTEMPT TO PUSH A DAY 3 SERIAL KILLER TRAIN ON ME.  In LYLO.

"The serial killer story, like all good tabloids, was based around the truth. I really have been seeing a man in my dreams, prowling around and producing a notable imbalance in the Wheel, but I had to find a fitting way to explain it without revealing the whole necromancer thing. 'specially after Hellsnake, who after his OWN reviver claim had me torn over whether he was lying scum or whether this setup is just completely insane.

Guess it's the latter now.

As for Hargreaves outing your role?  What did you have to gain from hiding it at this point?  If you hadn't come in and said "BTW I can't do this anymore," you might have sucked a nightkill from panicked Scum/SK, perhaps saving one of our confirmed Townies or a role that still functioned.

"Besides the hope that I could claim ownership of the resurrection at lylo, get myself confirmed and make finding scum a lot easier?

The case on you was half for the sake of completion, and half to blow off steam at the fact the guy I wanted to lynch today is apparently dying anyway.

I'm still waiting for O'Malley to speak up. I'm thinking we're too caught up in roles and scumminess to see that scum could well be hiding in the background and letting us trip ourselves up."

[Bardiche]

Ronald Dale;

Chinese and broken English being completely flavour. Is stretch to suggest flavour is anything to do with the game.

Ugh, although I think Greaves' play is absolute rubbish and would very much want to lynch him over it... if yesterday was potential LYLO, reviving scum should've brought today either into game end or definite LYLO. Although grah your play is scummy and I don't know what to think of the way it was 'revealed'.

I don't get why people are all, "IF Peyton's slowkill is true", because we've seen it happen twice before now and I don't think it's too crazy to presume a slowkill that acted twice in a row can't act thrice in a row. I also can't find fault in Peyton's play at all.

Geh, I'm inclined to believe Greaves for now, but clearing him solely on his role and not his play feels incredibly hrghgh-worthy to me.

I'll probably switch my vote later to Sopko, but I'm re-reading Excal now, too. Don't agree with the people who think Sopko looks good because honestly, he's been way too passive and careful during LYLO, not committing to anything and not even steering discussion in a good direction.