I was trying to build up some trust, to later expand into a set of allies who were working behind the scenes to flush out the demons (haha). Your behaviour screamed innocent so I wanted you to trust me. I dangled the claim that two supposed Seers had contacted me and I wasn't sure who to trust. I was hoping we could "together" figure out who was telling the truth or not. I was also hoping you'd spread the information about fake Seers around, for as far as I knew, none of my allies were pretending to be Seers, and it'd help discredit the real one.

Frankly, there was no chance in hell of me trusting anyone, because there really couldn't be any proof, in my position that someone was good or bad until they died; sure, they could pretend to be a seer, as Dacke did, but "confirming" I was a normal innocent would really just be playing the odds, and anything else would obviously be impossible to substantiate. Plus, I didn't know if the demons had any kind of powers of their own. So, considering how the system was set up, the safest thing and most useful thing to be was very obviously a normal innocent -- it meant there wouldn't be a wrongful execution (of myself) and that the demons or werewolves or whatever would avoid me because they'd be better off attacking someone in the hopes of hitting the seer or some other such person.

Yeah, that was cool too. I didn't mind if you didn't completely trust me, but if you saw me as a lesser risk, that'd be to my benefit. I don't think I could hope for too much more than a partial trust. I don't think you would have fallen for it.

It might have been interesting if there was, say, a supermajority execution clause for the townsfolk -- like, if most of the town as a whole (more than 50%) agrees someone should be executed, presumably they could take care of that. It'd be a way to involve people while still leaving the token executioner as the main mode of removing werewolves/demons/whatever.

While most of my trying to get the will of the town to override the will of the Hand was deliberately trying to shift things in favour of the demons, I also wanted to make it happen to make sure everyone had a reason to get involved. It served a double purpose of giving our side an advantage, as well as making it more fun for all involved. I was unsuccessful, but I definitely tried.

Not sure what you mean on the thanking thing. My last pblic message before your death was kinda one where I had to put as many cards I could come up with into the table, hoping it would be worth something.

This is the text that I thought might be a subtle, but cheeky thanks:

"If you are innocent Garthy, your work seemed to have only favored the demons in the long term, by either causing the town to mistrust  either the Hand or you. And thus, you only accelerated their work in the long term. May the Lord be with you."

It struck me as having two meanings: "Curse you, Garthy, you ended up helping the demons!", and "Cheers, Garthy, you ended up helping the demons!".

I joined somewhat late to the party and to be honest, I ended up being busy at the given moment, so my participation was close to none.

I can say for a fact that that simply isn't true. You played a very big role, IMHO, and gave us a fighting chance. I was stunned as to how much you had managed to get going behind the scenes, and you saved *my* ass from blundering, at least twice, and in a way that would have drawn little suspicion even if your *whole* PM was intercepted. I'm still reading through your account, thanks for all the detail by the way. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in your public post just before my death you also worked in a subtle thanks? I appreciated it, but it was definitely very cheeky. Your wordplay in your demon PMs was brilliant too. I think you played a big part in taking us from a situation that should all means have been a certain defeat, into one where we had a fighting chance. It was the whole lot of us demons together, of course, but you definitely played a big part.

Garthy and Dacke were excellent masterminds, and this game would not have been as interesting without their insane plots and schemes. Nice work, you two.

Thanks. Also, many extra congrats to Dacke because I had absolutely no idea that he was pulling the strings, not even at the very end.

I realized halfway through that the innocents, once united, would be almost unstoppable - I really should have given the demons extra one-use abilities each, to make up for this. Perhaps they'd trigger upon death as awesome 'curses'? Will keep in mind for future games.

I suspect one weakness of the game was the Hand. In an ordinary game, if you stated at the start of the game "X is completely innocent", and gave them no abilities apart from that, and a guardian exists, the game is over right from the start, humans win. The Guardian Angel protects them every turn, making them invulnerable, and they collect information from every other player. All of the innocents speak to the innocent. Every character with powers reveals himself to the innocent. The wolves have to come up with some sort of lie, and hope they aren't found out, and have to randomly hit innocents hoping to take out the Guardian, after which the revealed innocent has one day to live.

Even without a Guardian Angel, one day of free-flow information via a single trusted intermediary (before the wolves annihilate the innocent) would tip the balance significantly.

If you then give that same innocent invulnerability and the vote too, plus add an infinite-shot vigilante, plus a Seer to test theories, plus a Guardian to protect *another* innocent, plus title codes (X of God) that can be used to out multiple wolves a day, and cripple wolf communication, well, that's Nintendo-hard for the wolves. It was still fun, heck, I enjoyed playing with that level of difficulty, but holy crap, the odds we were up against were immense!

Having said all of that, a single grossly-overpowered demon (eg. a Wolf-Seer) may have balanced it. Consider what would have happened with Dacke and others for example if the demons had a Seer.

Mind you, exploding death curses would be completely awesome.

So, was there any actual PM interception possible, by anyone? Any ideas how PBS got the "Father" reference from my PM?

I also left eigenbom alone as the last demon because I was trying to get the idea out there that the demons garthy and eigenbom had planned to publicly argue so that when one was killed the other would be safe from suspicion and destroy the town from the shadows.

I love it.

Great game everyone and just want to thank my fellow demons for the camaraderie, great job guys and was fun to play along with you.

The late-game (well late game for me!) demon chatting was great. We had started to talk normally again, but always wove in references suggesting we were actually the good guys, fighting behind the scenes, trying to find and destroy the demons, that we were angels, and so forth. There was a lot of clever wordplay where we would say one thing, but it was obvious that we were suggesting something else. In hindsight, communicating this way was far better than the coded system I had pushed for. I think I damaged our ability to communicate in doing this, but it did seem the right thing at the time, and we were never 100% sure exactly which bits of what we said may be overheard.

u guiz r nerbs.

Hey PBS, thanks for dropping by. I hope things have picked up a bit in your life since the last time you posted. I just want to say that you did a great job, and my apologies for my relentless in-game hounding, I had to stop that blasted census and break everyone's trust. :}

Now, I'm quite curious, how did you get the "Father" reference from my PM to the other demons? What ability did you have, or was it just a freaky coincidence? Did you hear any angels singing?

At least it made for some good entertainment, which is what it's really all about, right?

Some of the greatest fun I had during the game was when Dacke's campaign became public, and I was putting together my responses, which were quite lighthearted. He almost reduced me to tears of laughter at some points as I was thinking "Nobody is going to believe that! How can you say that? What the heck, that doesn't even make any sense!?". I couldn't believe my incredible luck. Or, so I thought...

It's just like a buddy cop movie, except Dacke and I actually worked pretty well together so it isn't like a buddy cop movie at all.

And it *was* a cop movie, IMHO. Dacke was the wacky, funny, loose cannon companion who did all sorts of crazy stuff that turned out for the best in the end, where you were the sensible, powerful, professional and stoic foil on his last case before retirement, showing that sometimes things have to be done "by the book".

this was not that fun for me

i was like the third guy dead

It's not as fun when you're taken out early. I've had it happen, and you just feel cheated. It's a bit of a limitation of TWG in general, and it's quite hard to counter.

I want the long post! I would really love to learn the details of what was happening on your side of the game.

It's around three and a half thousand words unedited, and goes off into theories that turned out to be quite wrong, and lacked much detail on the more interesting things I mentioned in the post I wrote instead. Trust me, it's better off not posted. We can always discuss things in this postmortem though.

A future wish: make it clear from the get-go that there will be no eavesdropping.

I have to agree. If I was asked to choose one, and only one suggestion for improvement, it would be to allow ordinary PMs with no need to CC the GM, so you can be 100% sure that there simply is no eavesdropping in any way. Part of the GM's role sometimes includes lying to the players about their roles, so if the GM is CC'd, you *must* assume there is a chance you can be overheard, no matter what the GM says.

Elements of setting up coded demon communication were interesting, but ultimately very frustrating to work with.

...

EDIT: Oh, and I just thought of one more thing. I want to share with you one of the crazy theories I had thought of early on, but of course could never publicly share. I had wondered, if due to the level of the Hand's power, if *everyone* was a demon, and we were all broken up into factions, and the winner was the last faction standing. That would have been hilarious to play out, and perfectly explained the Hand's unusual power. I couldn't even hint at this publicly though.

[Garthy]

• We have the census blow up in our faces, thanks to Garthy's excellent filibustering

The census was a good strategy, which of course meant it had to be stopped. My hand was pretty-much forced on that one. The Hand forced my hand.

• I decide to make the most of my protection, so I start lying out of my ass
  

Everything that was being said had so many holes in it that I thought it was the perfect opportunity to push some consequence-free suspicion onto you. The Hand would strike you down, and even if you sprouted wings and a halo at that point it still would have looked reasonable for me to have called you out on what you were saying. Or so I had thought, and hoped.

Alevice fed me information at various points in the process, and I'd have to say that without his help I probably would have reacted too soon, or said the wrong thing.

Also, Garthy too. Sucks that you were a demon and I had to kill you off; you really added a lot to the scene we had going on here.

You were a very difficult opponent. It is hard to assasinate someone's character when they are acting completely reasonbly. :} I was hoping that with my actions right to the end you'd wonder if you were actually doing the right thing.

Well said Garthy, and you were quite the foe.

Thanks. It was fun playing such a public villain.

Garthy, by the end there, had contacted me as well, which allowed me to figure out what was going and plan accordingly. Had he been innocent, I would have known that the other cabal was guilty.

I was trying to build up some trust, to later expand into a set of allies who were working behind the scenes to flush out the demons (haha). Your behaviour screamed innocent so I wanted you to trust me. I dangled the claim that two supposed Seers had contacted me and I wasn't sure who to trust. I was hoping we could "together" figure out who was telling the truth or not. I was also hoping you'd spread the information about fake Seers around, for as far as I knew, none of my allies were pretending to be Seers, and it'd help discredit the real one.

Eigenbom was pretty public in hinting about his abilities and stuff, how come he wasn't killed by you demons?

I can only speak for myself, but what he said initially seemed too risky to say if he had a real role, he seemed to be drawing suspicion toward himself already, that he was being left alone by the demons probably pushed some more suspicion his way, and ultimately, I wanted to see the Hand whack him (or you!), giving us an extra kill, and giving me something to latch on to attack Noah with eventually. On the third day he was most definitely a target, I thought him the greater threat to us above you (even though you, personally, were the greatest danger to myself), but I was trying to get the Hand to take either of you out (initially, my target was just him, but I thought I'd try a two-for-one when you stepped in). If the Hand took him out, I would have not voted for you, hoping you'd look guilty as you'd been "skipped" by the demons. eigenbom, on the other hand, I felt was sufficiently dangerous at that point that my vote would have gone to him, regardless of potential guardian angel. I personally suspected he was the Seer at that point.

Also, each of the kills I voted for was based on trying to hit potential Seers- people who were weaving hints into what they said, speaking, but trying not to say too much. I'd have to say that a lot of it was based on there always being someone who looked more dangerous than him.

I'm not sure what he wanted me to do about it, since the entire point of divulging what I'd heard was to prove that I was an innocent (so I wouldn't be executed) ... but one without powers (so I wouldn't be killed at night).

I was trying to gain your trust, and set up some disinformation that I hoped would leak out in some way. I didn't want to ask anything of you specifically, just wanted to come across as an innocent blindly searching for potential allies.

Garthy, I'd be interested to know whether you sent the PM to multiple people, or something like that.

No, just to you. I did PM various people, but that was just to you. The cover would be that you were the first to speak up, anyone after that could be a demon.

Incidentally, had Garthy not died immediately I would have also divulged what all he had said to me, but he was killed before I could.

That could have turned out quite nicely too.

First of all, a big thankyou to Inanimate for putting this all together. I had a blast really hamming it up. Your writing was brilliant, by the way, and as I mentioned by PM, I really did appreciate the awesome sendoff you gave me.

My next big thanks go to my demon allies. We had to fight under very difficult circumstances: Crippled communication due to risk of PM interception, lack of ability to bias the town vote, not knowing the exact title of the innocents making it hard to lie, and a single invulnerable public innocent holding the daytime vote. It seems that despite the odds, all of us were scheming away and setting up all sorts of things, both in public and behind the scenes. I wish we could have coordinated our strategies more closely (ie. if our ability to communicate wasn't crippled) then, despite the odds, the rest of you could very well have been in real trouble.

And thankyou also to everyone else for making the game fun and challenging. I don't want to single out individual people in case I miss anyone, because so many people did so many great things. Thankyou for making this game a blast.

As the game went by I typed notes to put in a massive postmortem post to post at game end to explain the various things that were going on behind the scenes, but I decided I'll just settle on this shorter post instead.

Yes, I was a demon from the start. I was never innocent. I had no abilities.

As for what I thought was going on, initially I thought there were two demon factions, one killing by ashing. Later on, I suspected either a small faction allied with the Hand, or a small faction who were tricking the Hand. I thought the latter most likely. It turns out I was wrong in any case. When Noah targeted me despite what was happening in public, I then knew that the this other faction (actually innocents, but I didn't know that) was far too well established. I suspected at that point that the Hand may have a vulnerability: if you took out his allies, probably Dacke and eigenbom, he would fall. I turns out that I was wrong on that one as well, but two of the more dangerous individuals were flushed out at least. :}

As for much of what I was said in public, it was basically character assassination on the Hand, because if everyone trusted him completely, it was game over. With invulnerability, there was nowhere else to strike but at his credibility. At the same time, I wanted to make the Hand as paranoid as possible about the people that he could work with. I also tried to make my actions seem as reasonable as they could be under the circumstances. I tried to put together theories on what I thought a reasonable person would come up with, based on public information. I wanted to appear to be useful, and acting in such a way so contrary to the way a demon would act, that I would be noticed, but written off as being too unlikely to be a demon due to the level of attention I was drawing. I specifically asked my allies to not back me up, so that anyone who did sympathise with me, even a little bit, would look guilty by association, and I would look isolated and alone in any case. That way, if I was eventually killed, I'd take some innocents down with me. I had also hoped to flush out this second faction, and then paint them as the bigger threat, or at least get one of them to give up some sort of clue, allowing us to knock them off in the night. It's also worth noting that what I said publicly was my roleplaying an innocent acting on public information. Thus my "theories" sometimes didn't match what I was really thinking, sometimes they did, and sometimes they lagged by a day or so.

The speech on page eight was a delight to write, even if I was appalled at myself for how blatantly manipulative it was. It's not easy coming up with a speech to tell people to act contrary to their own best interests whilst making it seem righteous and reasonable.

On the subject of PM interception, Inanimate, how did that work? PBS accidentally (or deliberately? coincidentally?) mentioned something publicly in one of my PMs (the "Father"). My early theory was that the Hand overheard bits of our conversation, but thought that it was divine guidance. I didn't know what to make of it as the game progressed. I wove in frequent references to Dacke being a demon in my messages, to test my theory. The Hand didn't strike Dacke down, so I didn't know what to make of it. At that point the public confrontation with Dacke hadn't occurred, and I suspected him of nothing. He was just someone I was trying to get killed to test a theory.

Anyway, thankyou again to everyone for making this so much fun, and thankyou in particular to Inanimate for putting it all together.

You can pull down a web page to check for a version in about four lines of C/C++ through libcurl. That includes initialisation and cleanup. Omaha sounds good too.

Up to you though.

You can ask an external applicant to bring with them x years of existing experience with that level of role. The internal applicant being promoted will have to learn.

You can expect an internal applicant to bring with them x years of experience with your specific environment. The external applicant, regardless of experience, will have to learn.

If you hire externally too often, your employees will realise that they can only be promoted via horizontal shifts between organisations.

It depends on what is more important to the company in question.

IMHO.

I would have gone with the mailing list option myself if you're at the private tester stage.

Another option is to integrate libcurl into your game, and make your game check for updates when it is run, from your website. Using libcurl it could then download it for them if you wanted to take it further, and even further still, it could exit the game, run the new installer, and go back into the updated game.

libcurl is a bit of a strange library to work with, but it works. Note that it handles downloading, not the update process itself.

This could be another option to look at, depending on the end result you are after.

Ah Glyph, if only that could be true! I could perhaps have claimed the ability to not only learn the identities and motives of all of the villagefolk, but also added that I can neatly fold their bed linen as well, thus showing my greater worth.

But no.

Glyph, I am sorry, but I fear that my death will not provide the answers that you seek.

Please, now, stand aside, and let Noah do what he has chosen to do.

There will be plenty of time to discuss and rationalise the reasons as to why my death was really for the best, in the morning.

No more words need be spoken. Darkness is upon us. It is time to end this.

I am ready.

Noah, it is time to understand the true weight of the blade that you wield.

Now, strike!

What argument can I put together, when you have already decided that there is none?

All hinges on your second and third assertions. You feel that Dacke and eigenbom have provided you with overwhelming evidence of their innocence. You would not share this evidence, and likely for good reasons, were they truly innocent. So, against what could I possibly argue?

I have no eleventh-hour abilities nor hidden caches of information to reveal at this time, so my fate is sealed.

To present this to me as an opportunity to respond in the face of the setting sun is farcical.

My only defence is in the words I have already spoken. What more can I possibly say?

Wield your blade, Noah. Show our village the form of your justice. Strike fast and true.

[grossly overpowered]

Glyph, I have just noticed your questions and offer my apologies for not responding earlier. My attention has been... consumed by matters quite pressing.

I will try to answer your questions as best I can.

Regarding the Hand, I speak about this on page nine and eleven of the town records, and others as well (I think), but the short version is:

- (i) if the Hand were a completely trusted invincible ally of the town, that alone would be enough to guarantee our rapid victory. Knowing all of our roles, even with false information around, the Hand could direct all of our actions, including protections and ability use. It would give a grossly overpowered advantage to us. The demons would stand no chance.

but:

- (ii) if the Hand was the incarnation of the devil himself, we would have no effective means to strike at the demons, as well as being attacked by them at night. This would also be grossly overpowered, this time with the demons ahead. We would stand no chance.

As such, I do not think either of the two is the case. This leaves the middle ground. As I've mentioned though, I think he is more ally than enemy (page fourteen). We have an almost-certain demon kill at his hands, and that he is against the demons is almost a certainty. What I don't know, is what he is to us. I'll give some examples to illustrate the possible nature of the inconsistency (and I have no proof of any of these, nor do I suspect any in particular, they are examples only): (i) the Hand *thinks* he is on our side, but has been told a major lie by God above; (ii) the Hand thinks he is against us, but something he does actually benefits us; (iii) the Hand is truly on our side, but has a certain code of conduct that can be used against him; (iv) the Hand has an objective that partly benefits us, and is partly harmful to us; and so forth. When I say that something is wrong, that is the sort of thing I mean. I am confident that there is a big secret regarding the Hand. He may know it, in which case he will hide it, or may not, in which case he can not.

I feel that God loves a balanced universe, and the two obvious extremes are likely too far out of balance to be the sort of challenge the Lord above would desire to preside over.

I believe the role of the Hand might have changed as Noah and PBS seem to be approaching things differently, and due to the necessity of the passing of the blade, any events that may balance the universe would likely have occurred right at that point. As mentioned, if the role shifts a third time, all of what I've said is probably completely wrong, but I don't think it'll shift. As mentioned, any changes would probably be slight. I would not be surprised if they did not change at all, nor changed slightly. I would be stunned if the changes were major.

Glyph, as for any hidden abilities that you may have, I suspect that what you know of yourself is the true extent of what you can do. But I have no way of knowing.

Now, I should point out that that as a general rule I am happy to accept any questions or queries that anyone might have, publicly or privately. If I miss a question or concern, ask me again, I will not consider it poor form to do so, and the fault will be mine for not responding earlier. When I speak as I do, I invite questions, and it would be only proper of me to answer them.

eigenbom, given your decision to respond by insulting me, and suggesting that I be slain as a remedy, I take it you have contributed all of value that you have on the matter?

To all others: Pages thirteen and fourteen of the town records have further info on what eigenbom has been up to. If you haven't seen it already, I suggest you review what I have said, and how eigenbom chose to respond, in particular. Please consider it carefully. Thankyou.

[yourself]

Enough is enough, Dacke.

You're claiming to have visions powerful enough to mass-identify large segments of the village in the space of three nights? Do you seriously consider us to be so foolish as to believe that for one second?

You yourself, on page nine of the town records, stated that the situation with the Hand was terrifically unbalanced already. I have taken your words myself as the basis of my theory that there is something wrong with the Hand, and that he cannot be entirely for us, but he isn't entirely an enemy either. Yet you would have us believe that you were trying to contact an unknown faction, and confided in the Hand, together? Did you forget your own words, and assume that there was an nigh-invincible demon-slaying super-army that you could lend your massively powerful talents to? To take out a total of three "demons" (two identified, and one "other", conveniently, myself)? And then forget that your mass-identifcation ability would make you a considerable asset to us, and the last thing you should be doing is to expose yourself to risk? And then you do exactly that, trust those you have no reason to trust, lie to the ones you should trust, all while setting others up to take the fall. And then, showing that your "visions" aren't worth a thing, you misidentify the people you did contact, but then saying people should trust you anyway, because you're sure your proven-false visions are accurate, just this one time?

Do you think us complete fools?

If what you are saying is in any way true, my congratulations to the demons for lasting more than a single day! I would say without a fact that this would have to be the most demon-hostile village in the entirety of existence! I would shake their hands were it possible to find one of them before they were set upon by an army of super-Seers and invincible guardians. If I was a demon I'd be on the first carriage out of our village.

But I think we all know that this scenario is a complete fabrication.

Dacke, you are doing yourself no justice by layering further lie upon lie. I do not know exactly what you are, Dacke, but you are a liar. And I am particularly annoyed, as you seemed to be one of the few people who were openly prepared to suggest that something was wrong with the situation we are in. I am annoyed, because right until you spun your tale I had believed that it was you being misled by a third party.

And no surprise, eigenbom, who was caught out in his own lie, has jumped in to defend Dacke. What a coincidence that the attempt to take me out of the picture came about right when the focus was on eigenbom and myself. Did you think that Dacke tricking someone into taking me out of the picture would somehow cause us to forget about your own deception?

Oh yes, guardian angel, if you exist, by all means let eigenbom direct where you put your protection! Right when Dacke and eigenbom are making every effort to take me out of the picture. I'm sure I'll be safe tonight. Hah! If there is a guardian angel out there, think very carefully about where your protection will be placed tonight. It doesn't have to be on me, necessarily, but don't let on where it is going.

And eigenbom: "come morning, his visions may be clearer"? And Dacke: "if I am let to live I will have more visions and things may become more clear then". Are you both serious? I think Dacke's "visions" have been shown to us in remarkable clarity thus far. As intriguing as it would be to hear the tale you would weave tomorrow, I doubt that the truth will be making much of an appearance.

And to the Hand: With all that is happening, a few words from eigenbom in private is enough for you to dispel the doubts you have about him? It's clear that you are trying to avoid drawing attention to eigenbom. Think carefully about the allies you have chosen. You're being led around by the word of a liar who is defending a bigger liar who has been caught out in a massive way. Think very closely about what you believe you "know", and how true it may be. If you are indeed on our side in some capacity, consider how unlikely the situation you feel you are in, actually is. And then consider what may really be happening, and please, act accordingly!

And to the rest of the town, keep a very close eye on what is happening. Watch your back if you have shared information on your abilities with the wrong people.

So there is no "Seer" behind the scenes. You have identified innocent parties, and didn't use them as a proxy, but decided, despite your power, to put yourself at risk, to lie to multiple people, who, despite your abilities, you identified incorrectly. People who would have been blamed and possibly subsequently killed based on what you said. But you're really, really certain that I'm a demon. Or something else. Maybe. You're not sure. But you're certain.

Did I miss anything?

Do I need to even say anything else at this point?

[necessarily]

Truly we are an enlightened, blessed people, due to the number of supposed Seers amongst us, based on what I have been told both publicly and privately. Coupled with an invincible crusader from Heaven above, we would surely prevail in one, two days tops?

I think some among our number are being a little less than honest.

crowe, I hope that you understand that I have to keep the possibility that you are lying open in my mind. However, I do not consider it likely that you are. Why? You could just as well have told me privately, and then denied doing it if called on it. Saying it publicly makes you a target  Also, there is now public confirmation that such messages may have been widely sent. If you were lying, it's going to suggest who your allies are. If you were a demon, you'd be doing this after losing two of your number. It would be a terrible risk. I'm going to err on the side of you being honest here. In fact, I'm going to thank you for circumventing an attempt to get rid of me during the day.

Anyway, it is now public information that these messages have been sent. Who else has received them? Even if you don't say it publicly, please tell at least one other person that you trust privately, so the information is spread around.

crowe, Glyph, and now Veo, could I confirm for certain that you received these communications from Dacke directly?

I personally doubt that Dacke is a Seer. If he was, contacting people directly and claiming as such would make him an target, especially with potentially multiple factions at work. If there is any Seer at all, legitimate or otherwise, it is most likely that Dacke is just a proxy, which would be a wise move for a Seer, fake or otherwise.

Dacke, I have some questions for you. Did you send these messages that others have claimed to have received? To whom? Why did you send them? You do not have to reveal the "Seer" feeding you this information if you do not wish to reveal them, but confirmation that someone is feeding you these messages gives us a clue as to what may be going on behind the scenes. Have you been able to establish the accuracy of any other claims the "Seer" has made?

I do not necessarily think that Dacke is the villain in this small tale. I want to hear what he has to say first.

In any case, I suggest that people remain sceptical of any "Seers" that may contact them, as it would appear that there are some active ones being less than honest behind the scenes. Keep an open mind, and trust only the ones that have given you reason to do so.

... Also, I must object that everyone was invited to a "Kill Garthy" party this evening, and I did not receive an invite.

[might]

Franklins Ghost, that is difficult to answer. I can only guess as to which of the theories I have put out there may be correct. If I had to take a position, this would be my current guess:

- Faction A are demons. They kill once each night, and the victim is torn apart.
- Demons die in an explosion of flame. We see it in the day, and get evidence of it at night (burns, no body).
- eyeliner and Randomasta were demons. All of the other casualties were not demons- but were not necessarily innocent.
- The method of death reveals information about both the killer and the victim. Ash is significant in some way related to this. Ash may be tied to the Hand somehow.
- There is EITHER a Faction B OR several independent parties lashing out. They are opposed to the demons in any case. I am leaning toward the latter, but only slightly.
- There is some inconsistency with the Hand. He cannot be entirely on our side, and he cannot be entirely against us. He is closer to being an ally than an enemy, but cannot be fully trusted.
- The Hand is opposed to the demons.
- We must rely on the Hand to some degree. The Hand is probably our best weapon against the demons, even if he isn't *entirely* on our side.
- The Hand is hiding a significant piece of information about something he knows. It may be for a good reason, or related to his actual goals. I think it's big.
- Both factions are trying to take out enemies with abilities that would warrant them keeping a low profile, or fear their attacks being blocked. Again, Faction B may be a disorganised collection of individuals. That doesn't make them any less dangerous to the demons though.
- Both Hands seem to have concentrated on lower-profile individuals as well, possibly for different reasons. Daring to questioning the Hand doesn't get you killed by the Hand- I think I've proved that one quite conclusively.
- The role of the Hand might have changed when passed between PBS and Noah. If it changed at all, I would say the changes were slight, but may be significant. If the role moves again, all bets are off- but I think the role will stay with Noah.
- At this point, if eigenbom isn't a demon, or something worse, I'll eat my hat.

I haven't gone into they "why" too much, as I've covered most of these in detail already. However, if you, or anyone else, have any questions, ask away.

I would also agree that people need to speak up. No hiding in shadows, the quiet innocents are inadvertently giving cover to the quiet demons, and this does not help us at all.

Noah, thankyou for the reference. I can see how eyeliner's statement could draw suspicion. I think an argument could be made either way, but in this case, he did turn out to be a demon, and your intuition paid off. Perhaps that is precisely the point though- his comment needed a benign explanation so he could safely fall back if called on it. Also, his statement seems to have been directed toward eigenbom (or was deliberately designed to include him at a minimum). Would you agree? Perhaps he is trying to distance himself from eigenbom as an ally? OR, instead, could it mean that he was trying to cast doubt on eigenbom specifically, which would make them rivals rather than allies? I'm not sure that I like the consequences of the latter.

And yes, the role of the Hand is a heavy responsibility indeed. I don't think anyone begrudges you missing details that come your way, myself included. However, in the case I mentioned, the omission seemed significant. It does concern me.

For what it is worth, you have my full support with respect to your public encouragement of open discourse, and in the way that you are very deliberately avoiding threatening anyone, and encouraging people to speak, publicly or privately. You'd know this already based on my stand earlier on, but I just wanted to make it clear to everyone. Whatever your specific reasons, I feel it puts us in a much better position.

[extremely]

Noah, thankyou again for answering the queries I had.

Noah, the colour theory is interesting. I did start to collect a list, but I've stopped for now because by that theory Randomasta would not be a demon (yet he is crossed off in red), and Nix would be a demon (yet he is crossed off in black). I'm working under the assumption that the colour choices in God's own town list are quite deliberate and significant. Incidentally, if the theory were true, I would be a demon, as would eigenbom, you might be one, and a decent number of other people would be too.

Incidentally, do you recall the page where eyeliner blasphemed? It may be worth all of us casting an eye over it to see what he may have been trying to do with his comment.

Incidentally, at this point, I should also note, very publicly, that Noah (the current Hand) took out a demon yesterday. This is actually extremely significant, as up to this point we had no confirmation that the Hand actually killed demons. Again, I'll assume that the demons-killing-demons possibility is very unlikely.

As to high-profile targets, which include myself, I can offer some theories as to why the demons might not be targeting them:

- They are targeting the most likely candidates with useful abilities first- those with useful abilities generally aren't going to
- They don't consider such targets a threat.
- The demons are hoping the Hand will do the dirty work for them.
- The demons are hoping another faction (or random innocents with abilities) will do the dirty work for them.
- The demons benefit from the target being left alive (eg. the target is inadvertently drawing suspicion in the wrong direction).
- The target is being protected, and the attacks are failing.
- They fear that the target is being protected, and are hitting the ones that they think aren't.
- They are actively trying to hit the "other" faction, if there is indeed another faction, and our affairs are a secondary concern to them.

As well as the big one:

- The demons aren't targeting them because the target is an ally, ie. a demon.

The last one is worth keeping in mind as a possibility in any case- and yes, that applies to me as well. We should all be questioning everyone's motives. I do wonder about the motives of people who only see the last as a possibility (ie. high-profile and alive equals demon), and conveniently forget the others. A generous interpretation says that they're just aiming for what they feel are the most likely targets and haven't really thought it through. A less generous interpretation is that they are trying to get others to do their dirty work for them, and trying to create an environment where people are afraid to speak up, lest they be deemed to be "suspicious". I don't want to return to that environment.

Noah, I have to ask a very specific question to you about eigenbom. eigenbom has been caught out saying something that seems very much to have been a complete lie. He has been called on it, multiple times, and has been conveniently away, or dodged the questions, each time. This last time his response was essentially to conveniently come up with a "theory" that I must be a demon (all of a sudden, right at this time!?), saying that I'm a prime target, conveniently forgetting the numerous other possibilities as to why I may not be a good target for the demons. All without offering a single word of explanation of his own actions. We have the rough equivalent of a bloodied sword, a shady character, and when called on it they turn the tables on their accuser, saying "I have always suspected you are the one who truly wielded the sword". I had thought it likely that you'd also want answers, and I was hoping that when you arrived, you would insist eigenbom provide some explanation, and we would have it. But.... nothing. My question is simple, and consists of only a single word: Why?

My hope that you are actually on our side was boosted when you demonstrated you were happy to discuss your thoughts with us, share your motives, and so forth. It took a big jump when you took down a demon for us. But I simply cannot figure out why you seem to be letting this particular matter slide in a manner that seems so casual, when you are otherwise scouring for clues, however small. It feels like a massive piece of the puzzle is missing.