926 replies to this topic

[Preston]

 

Good game everyone!   Playing as a SK was a crazy stressful experience...

 

I'll post more thoughts after TW updates the narrative. I'd really like to see everyone's night actions, too!

 

-Preston

[Chaplain of death]

.game over then yeah?

[The Warrior]

Vote Count
 

Mazuurek (2): Preston, D34THBR1NG3R

D34THBR1NG3R (0): Mazuurek

Preston (0):

 

No Lynch (0):

Not voting:

With 3 alive it takes 2 to lynch.
Deadline is 12:00pm CST on Saturday, October 1st.

[The Warrior]

Professor Dumbledore (Mazuurek), a Hogwarts Cop, has been sent away on day 8.

 

With Dumbledore now removed from the school, Harry was afraid that things were only going to get worse. Harry and Ron decided that they needed to speak to Moaning Myrtle as soon as possible.

 

The next morning they left the Common Room and made their way to Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom before class. They had almost reached the bathroom when Madam Pince appeared. "Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, you should not be wandering the corridors without being accompanied by a teacher." Harry quickly fabricated a story that they were on their way to visit Hermione in the hospital wing. Madam Pince understood their desire to see their friend so she agreed to accompany them to the hospital. In order to sell their story to Madam Pince, they walked over to Hermione's bed and pulled up a couple chairs to sit next to her.

 

As they sat there looking at Hermione, Harry notices something that he hadn't before. Hermione's left hand was clenched in a fist and it appeared that she was holding a crumbled piece of paper. Harry carefully pried the paper out of Hermione's hand and flattened it out. It appeared to be a page that had been torn out of a library book.

 

"Of course!" Harry said as he showed Ron the page. "The monster in the Chamber of Secrets must be a basilisk. That explains why I could hear it and nobody else could. It says that basilisks can live for hundreds of years and spiders flee before it because it is their mortal enemy. This also says that one glance into it's eyes will kill. The only thing that the Basilisk fears is the crow of the rooster because it is fatal to it. That explains why Hagrid kept finding dead roosters."

 

"Then why has anyone died this time?" Ron wondered.

 

Harry looked up from the page and noticed his reflection in the window. "Because nobody did look directly at it," he said. "The night that Mrs. Norris was petrified the hallway had been flooded. She probably saw the snake in the water's reflection. Justin must have saw the snake through Peeves. Peeves couldn't die again because he was already a ghost. Colin saw it through the lens of his camera. And Hermione... Hermione had the mirror next to her! She figured it out and was using the mirror to look around corners in case she came across the basilisk."

 

"But how would something that big safely get around the school without anyone else noticing it?"

 

"Hermione has answered that too," Harry said as he pointed at a handwritten note on the margin of the page: "PIPES".

 

"You mean it's been using the plumbing?" Ron said as he gulped.

 

"Well done Hermione," Harry said he he gently patted her arm.

 

Harry and Ron stood up and hurried out of the hospital wing while Madam Pince was talking to one of the healers. They quickly made their way back toward Myrtle's Bathroom. They had almost reached the lavatory when an announcement magically amplified around Hogwarts: "All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room immediately."

 

They weren't far from the staff room at that point so they detoured momentarily to the staff room to listen to find out what was going on. Snape had just entered the room, as the door was closing behind him, Harry caught it gently and held it open a crack. Harry and Ron quietly listened to what was going on inside. "The worst has happened. A student has been taken by the monster right into the Chamber itself. There was another message discovered on the wall: "Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever."

 

"Who was it?" one of the professors asked.

 

"Ginny Weasley."

 

Ron's heart sank and he and Harry exchanged looks of sorrow. They knew that they had to act quickly. They ran to Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom and found her inside floating over one of the toilets.

 

"Hello, Myrtle," Harry said. "I was wondering if you could tell us.. how you died?"

 

"Nobody has ever asked me that before," she said as she perked up a little bit. She had wanted to tell her story for a long time. "I was hiding in the bathroom and crying because Olive Hornby had made fun of my glasses. A boy entered the bathroom and I heard him speaking a strange language. So I opened my stall and was going to tell the boy to go away. And then I saw a great big pair of yellow eyes over there." Myrtle pointed toward the sinks. "And I died."

 

Harry and Ron walked over to the sinks and carefully examined them. After a minute of examination Harry found what appeared to be a small snake on one of the spouts. "This must be it, but how do you open it"

 

"Say something in Parseltongue," Ron suggested.

 

Harry had never purposefully spoken Parseltongue. Each time it happened he was facing a live serpent and it happened naturally. After a couple of attempts to envision the small snake as a real serpent he managed to say "open" in Parseltongue. The sink shifted and opened up a hole revealing a large pipe under the bathroom floor. Harry lowered himself into the pipe first and slid deep down under the castle. A moment later Ron followed him.

 

They landed in a dark tunnel. "Lumos" Harry muttered. The light from his wand illuminated the tunnel enough that they could see that they were walking on small animal bones. They continued anyway. After walking a ways up the passage they came to a terrifying sight. A large snake skin was blocking their progress. It was still too dark to see an easy way around the snake skin so Ron drew his wand as well and said "Lumos". Ron's wand backfired and a loud bang rocked the chamber. The blast rattled the cave above them and it started to rumble as a landslide of large boulders began to fall. Harry dove forward out of the way while Ron dove backwards. The blast caused a small cave in and Harry and Ron were now separated by a wall of large rock. Ron urged Harry to go on forward while he would try to shift the rock enough to open a hole for him to climb back through.

 

Harry continued on. He had to find Ginny. Harry could see some dim light up ahead. He continued forward until he came to a large iron vault door in the face of the rock. The door had two large serpents carved into it. Harry stepped up to the door and focused on the snakes. "Open" he said in Parseltongue. The snakes slithered around the circular vault door and the door swung open revealing a large chamber.

 

The chamber was lit by several large stone torches that emanated green flames. Several large serpentine statues stood along a walkway that traversed a dark pool of water. Directly ahead of Harry was an enormous stone face carved into the wall of the chamber. He cautiously moved forward. He was ready to close his eyes at the first sign of movement if he had to. On the floor in front of the stone face of Salazar Slytherin was Ginny Weasley. Harry sprinted over to her and knelt down next to her. Ginny's body was freezing but she was still breathing.

 

"Wake up Ginny. Please wake up," Harry pleaded.

 

"She won't wake," a voice spoke behind Harry. He turned around. A tall, dark haired boy was leaning against a nearby pillar watching Harry. "She's alive, but only just."

 

"Tom Riddle?" Harry asked. "But how?"

 

"I am a merely a memory preserved in the pages of a diary for the last 50 years," he said as he held up his black diary.

 

"We have to get her out of here," Harry said motioning towards Ginny. "There's a basilisk."

 

"It won't come unless it's called," Riddle said as he bent down to pick up Harry's wand lying on the chamber floor. "I have been waiting for the chance to speak with you. Young Ginny here has been writing in my diary for months. Telling me all of her secrets. As Miss Weasley poured more of herself out to me, I started to become stronger and started feeding her a few secrets of my own." She has been most useful as she killed those roosters, painted the messages on the wall and then helping to set the basilisk on those students. At one point she began to realize that these things were happening during periods of time where she had lost her memory. She tried to toss my diary away in the lavatory. And who should find my diary next? The one person that I have been dying to meet. You, Mr. Potter. Before I really got the chance to know you, Miss Granger discovered what was happening and stole the diary back to protect you from me. I knew that you would do anything to protect your friends. So i forced Miss Weasley to write her own goodbye on the wall and brought her down here to await your arrival."

 

"But why did you want to meet me?"

 

"I had to meet the boy who lived. I had to know how you managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time."

 

"Voldemort?" Harry asked. "What do you care about Voldemort? Voldemort was after your time."

 

A slight smile crossed Riddle's face. "Voldemort is my past, present, and future." Riddle raised Harry's wand and flicked it through the air as if he was writing.

 

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

 

He flicked the wand again and the letters re-arranged themselves in the air.

 

I AM LORD

VOLDEMORT

 

"You aren't the greatest wizard of all time. Albus Dumbledore is the greatest wizard of all time!"

 

As Harry spoke, an eerie, spine-tingling music filled the chamber. Fawkes the Phoenix swooped into the Chamber carrying something in his talons. He flew over Harry and dropped the Sorting Hat next to him. Riddle began to scoff at the great reinforcements that Dumbledore sent to Harry. Harry didn't care. The presence of the Phoenix was comforting to him. He was no longer alone.

 

Harry told Riddle that he had survived Voldemort's attacks because his common muggle-born mother had died to save him. Riddle was pleased to hear that it was nothing more than "lucky chance" that saved him. "You may have survived the first time, but you will not be so lucky again."

 

Riddle turned toward the giant stone face and spoke in Parseltongue. "ATTACK" was the order that Riddle gave. There was movement inside the statue's mouth and the basilisk slowly emerged. Harry turned around and started running. "Kill him!" Riddle hissed. The basilisk quickly slithered after Harry. Harry was almost to the chamber door when he slipped on the wet stone floor and fell. The basilisk closed quickly on him and prepared to strike. As the basilisk cocked its great head back, Fawkes swooped in and attacked. He pecked out both of the basilisk's eyes before taking flight once more. Harry, who had been squinting slightly through his eyelids, saw that the basilisk has been blinded. The serpent thrashed violently, it was clearly in pain.

 

Harry seized the opportunity to pull himself up and he ran back toward the Sorting Hat. He jammed the hat onto his head and pleaded for help. Something hard hit him on the top of the head. Harry pulled the hat off to reveal a silver long sword. Riddle called to the basilisk once again and told it to attack. The serpent lunged at Harry. A searing pain shot down Harry's right arm as the basilisk sunk a long poisonous fang into his shoulder. With his left hand, Harry thrust the sword into the soft palate of the serpent's mouth. The serpent writhed in pain as it slithered back into the mouth of the statue.

 

Harry pulled the fang out of his shoulder. The pain was almost too much to bear. He dropped to his knees and doubled over. Riddle stood nearby laughing. "The basilisk venom works quickly, doesn't it? You will and Ginny will both be dead shortly and I will be restored to full health. So long Harry Potter," he sneered.

 

Fawkes flew over and landed next to Harry. "Thank you, Fawkes. You were brilliant. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough." Fawkes moves closer to Harry and bent his head over Harry's open wound. The Phoenix began to shed tears on Harry's behalf. The tears fell into Harry's wound. The wound magically began to close right before Harry's eyes and he could no longer feel the venom pulsing through his veins. "Of course! Phoenixes tears have healing powers," Harry remembered. Fawkes spread his wings and flew over to Riddle's Diary. He flew it back to Harry and dropped it on the floor next to him.

 

"What are you doing?" Riddle exclaimed as panic crossed over his face. Harry stared directly into Riddle's eyes, raised the basilisk fang, and thrust it into the heart of the diary. Ink started pouring from the book's pages and Riddle began to scream as he disappeared.

 

A moment later, Ginny stirred on the other side of the chamber and she sat up. Harry ran over to her and Ginny started crying uncontrollably as she apologized to Harry for everything. Harry comforted her and together they made their way out of the chamber. They walked back to the stone wall that now had a hole large enough for them to climb back through thanks to Ron. Ron throws his arms around Ginny and gives her a big hug. Fawkes motioned to Harry to take hold of his leg and he flew the three of them out of the tunnel.

 

They arrived at Professor McGonagall's office covered in blood, dirt, and grime. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were there with Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall. The Weasleys pulled Ginny into a huge embrace. Harry placed the Sorting Hat, the ruby encrusted sword, and Riddle's Diary on the desk as he explained to them all what happened. Professor Dumbledore sent Ginny to the hospital wing accompanied by her family. Then he turned to Professor McGonagall and said "You know Minerva, I think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to go alert the kitchen?" Professor McGonagall left leaving Dumbledore and Harry in the office.

 

Harry finally admitted what had been bothering him. "Riddle said that I'm like him. Strange likenesses."

 

"The night that Voldemort tried to kill you, i believe he left you with some of his skills," Dumbledore responded. "The fact that you chose to be in Gryffindor, makes you very different from Voldemort. In fact, only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that sword out of that hat." Dumbledore picked up the sword and handed it back to Harry. Harry saw it properly for the first time. The name Godric Gryffindor was engraved on the blade.

 

McGonagall's office door burst open and Lucius Malfoy walked in, a look of fury on his face. Dobby stumbled in behind him. "Dobby?" Harry asked as Dobby shrunk away from Malfoy's glaze.

 

"Why have you come back?!" Malfoy demanded of Dumbledore.

 

"The other eleven governors contacted me today. They seem to think that I was the best man for the job after all. Very strange tales they told me too.. Several of them seemed to think that you had threatened to curse their families if they didn't agree to suspend me in the first place."

 

Lucius Malfoy grew pale with rage. Dumbledore ignored him and picked up Riddle's Diary off of the desk. "It's a good things that Mr. Potter came across this diary as well, otherwise poor Ginny might have taken the blame all herself. Imagine the effect on Arthur Weasley and his Muggle protection Act, if his own daughter was discovered attacking and killing muggle-borns."

 

Harry looked down at Dobby who was pointing at the diary and then at Lucius Malfoy. Harry realized what Dobby was saying. It had been Lucius Malfoy who had slipped Riddle's Diary into Ginny's cauldron in Diagon Alley over the summer.

 

Professor Dumbledore admitted that he could not prove anything but warned Lucius not to try anything like that again. Lucius' face turned red as he turned around and stormed out of the office.

 

"Professor Dumbledore, can I have this?" Harry asked as he picked up the diary. Dumbledore nodded and Harry jogged out of the office after Mr. Malfoy. Harry took off one of his grimy socks and stuck it inside the diary. He ran after Mr. Malfoy and told him that he had something of his. Harry handed the diary to Mr. Malfoy who turned it over in his hands and opened it to reveal Harry's sock. He took Harry's sock out of the book and threw it to the floor at Dobby's feet.

 

"You'll meet the same sticky end as your parents one of these days, Harry Potter. They were meddlesome fools too." Lucius turned to walk away again and ordered Dobby to follow him but Dobby didn't move.

 

"Master has provided Dobby with clothes. Dobby is free!"

 

Fury returned to Lucius' face as he realized that Harry had tricked him. He drew his wand and pointed it at Harry but Dobby stepped in between them and Malfoy was blasted backwards. Dobby wept and thanked Harry for freeing him before he disappeared with a loud crack.

 

The feast that evening was fantastic. All of the petrified people had been revived, Lucius Malfoy had been relieved as a school governor, Riddle was gone, and the Chamber of Secrets would never terrorize the school again.

 

 

 

Even though Harry survives, the basilisk, was successful in removing all of it's opposition. Preston (the Basilisk), a Serial Killer, has won the game!

[Rafay]

Bad setup. It was anti town from the inception. Too many anti town roles. Even though we played well but it wasn't our game to win.

[The Warrior]

A few quick mod notes from the game:

 

• Rhizoctonia was the MVP for the first half of the game. When he managed to correctly investigate Canik and get him lynched and then followed it up with Vig killing CoD at night, he left the town in excellent shape for the rest of the game. I thought for sure that Rhizo had won the game for the town.
• Kevin's suggestion to discuss the flavor narrative was immediately written off by the majority of you as a distraction by a possible scum. I actually thought is was a worthwhile suggestion at the time. He suggested this before anyone considered the possibility of a serial killer's presence in the game. The town may have considered the possibility of a serial killer sooner if you had taken Kevin's suggestion.
• Preston played an outstanding game. There's no other way to put it. He is the overall MVP of this one. Preston's role actually had a couple modifiers. He was actually an Even Night, 1-Shot Bulletproof Serial Killer with Investigation Immunity. His modifiers were given to him because the odds were stacked against him from the beginning in such a large game, even more so since the scum team had three reasonably powerful roles.
• My intention in giving him an even-night modifier was to try and throw a wrench into the game to cause confusion on night 2 when there was a second kill all of a sudden. However, Preston wisely did not even use his available night kill on night 2. He saved his first kill until night 4. Doing so allowed him to go deeper into the game before the idea of a SK was ever even discussed.

[Wolfpacks]

I was robbed, lol

[The Warrior]

Bad setup. It was anti town from the inception. Too many anti town roles. Even though we played well but it wasn't our game to win.

Anti-town? In what way?

 

The usual town:scum ratio was present. With 18 players, there were essentially 5 scum (including the SK). That means that 27% of the players were anti-town.

 

The scum team had three powerful roles (Ninja, 3-shot Role Cop, and 1-Shot Strongman). Two of the three were limited by x-shot abilities.

 

The scum was countered by 5 town power roles (Cop, Watcher, Tracker, Cop, and JOAT). All the town would have had to do was get lucky by choosing to lynch Samus (Ninja) early on and then the scum would have had to make all of their kills out in the open where the trackers/watchers would have been able to see them. The town Cop and JOAT both managed to investigate scum as well. Rhizo (JOAT) investigated Canik on night two and pushed for his lynch on day 3 and Mazuurek actually managed to find CoD was scum on night 3. The only reason that didn't help much was because Rhizo killed CoD the same night with his Vig ability.

 

The serial killer had to be powered because otherwise he stood no chance. I limited his power though by giving him the even-night modifier. He was 1-shot bulletproof but he was not lynch proof. He could have been lynched when people suspected him.

 

The game ultimately came down to 2 townies trying to decide who to lynch, the other townie or the anti-townie. I think that the game played out perfectly. The fact that the game came down to three remaining players indicates that the game was not unbalanced.

[Wolfpacks]

Oh yeah when's the next one buddy

[The Warrior]

Oh yeah when's the next one buddy

Signups are open now!

[Ali bin Turban]

Don't listen to Rafay. It was a good game. TW, I'll go ahead and say it was your best game so far.

 

But tell me, how did Finster got killed when SK was allowed to kill on even night only?

 

Also show us scumlogs

[The Warrior]

When all of the scum were eliminated I dropped the even-night designation for the serial killer.

[Rhizoctonia]

Why?

[Preston]

At least in this version of the story the Snake still lives...! I was wondering how TW was going to work that out.

I'm still really interested to see all the night actions and the scum's quicktopic, but now I can talk a little more about my thoughts from the game - in semi chronological order:

* When I got my role PM, I was originally surprised by the even-night modifier - I thought that meant I was going to be at a huge disadvantage as a SK; that once I started killing people would be searching for me and I could only retaliate every OTHER night. Turns out to not have been so bad... but also because we got lucky removing scum along the way.

* Despite my role I largely played exactly as I would if I were town - this very nearly got me into DEEP trouble though when first Lyner and then KevinH drew my attention, and then I was skeptical of Rhizo's JoAT claim! There was a little irony when I had to defend myself after Rhizo died by saying that even if I was wrong, I'd just been searching for scum - because I really had been.

* After Kevin's roleclaim was Night 2. I knew I couldn't just kill him because a doctor could still be in play, and I *HEAVILY* suspected that he was going to track me that night after I had been the main critic of his the day before - turns out I was right, which made it a little strange to comment the next day that his tracking me was intended to force me to confirm his role.

* On Night 4 it was safe to take out Kevin because the doctor was gone, and unless there was another 'motion' role in play, he was the only one who could have seen me in action. It was strange - the first few posts of the day after didn't even talk about the fact two kills had occurred; I think I was the first to actually comment on it. I'd thought it would have made a bigger splash than that!

* Night 5 was the first night after I'd "revealed" myself - scum would get a kill and I wouldn't. Which is why their picking Ali over Mazu stood out so much - it was them and not me, and they were looking for me instead of the known cop. It's ironic actually - the only scum left at that point was KH, and the cop COULD have found him. That led me to the mistaken conclusion that the scum MUST have a godfather too...

* Picking out KH was a really tense bit of scumhunting; serious kudos for a very plausible fake claim, if you had left out the 1-shot to your backup I might have fully bought it.

* Going into Night 6, I was convinced there was STILL a Scum Godfather in the game - and that they were looking for me while I was looking for them. I was considering Lego and Finster, but I picked SM that night because 1) she was the other investigated person who could have been godfather and hence have ignored Mazu, and 2) even after Mazu's investigation of me she kept trying to find a way put me on her suspect list it felt like; I didn't see her being on my side the next day no matter what.

* When SM turned up town and the ONLY kill on night 6, I was convinced that the remaining scum had actually targeted ME that night and used up my one-shot bulletproof: meaning they knew who I was, and if I didn't find scum THAT DAY I was done for. This theory was reinforced because AFTER Night 6, TW posted in my role PM that I could now target people every night - I thought that happened because my bulletproof had been used up and he was giving me a chance to retaliate the following night.

* On Day 7 I had my theoretical scum godfather list narrowed to Lego or Finster; I could have easily seen Finster as a playing-it-safe Godfather, but when Lego posted again and HEAVILY singled me out that triggered me thinking that he was scum and knew from the prior night that he'd tried to kill me and failed. When Lego flipped town, I basically thought "Crap, it was Finster - good game" and picked Finster for my N7 kill; maybe we'd take each other out and give it to town, and if I somehow survived I *knew* Finster would be hard to get on my side - even against D34TH.

* But instead of my expected game over I saw Day 8 with Mazu, D34TH and I left. Mazu made the decision of how to go easy with his "coin flip" vote... and D34TH had expressed suspicion of Mazu on previous days. So I crossed my fingers and doubled down on the idea that Mazu really could have been scum - and wouldnt even have needed to be a godfather to explain the second kill. It was a little scary how well that argument held together, you just needed to accept that maybe we didn't have an actual cop after all.

... So yeah, that's longer than I intended but it's largely my thoughts as I went through the game!

-Preston

[Preston]

Addendum:

In terms of game balance, now that I know the full list of roles I dont think it was unbalanced at all.

Anti-town: Scum Goon, Scum Strongman, Scum Ninja, Scum Role Cop, SK
Town: Cop, Doctor, Tracker, Watcher, JoAT

5 roles per side, and only one of the anti-town roles was investigation immune - I basically got the 'godfather' quality instead of the scum having one.

The utility of the town's tracker/watcher roles was significantly increased this game because there were more anti-town targets they could have found - strongman, role cop, SK. They could also have mixed up their JoAT though; I was surprised to see that as town.

[Chaplain of death]

I think the game was balanced alright, but investigation immune serial killers have a pretty good chance of making it a long way. Their only real concern is random suspicion or night kill by scum, which he had 1-shot bullet proof for anyway.

Don't get me wrong, preston played it beautifully, but he also had a lot going for him in my opinion.

Also, for future reference, i would have neen suspicious of rhizos claim no matter what. It ended up being real but the circumstances and lack of evidence were petty suspicious. Hopefully people learn that they can't take every role claim at face value

[Preston]

Agreed, I think I said that once or twice during the game - several townies simply accepted whatever roleclaim they were fed, immediately backing off and supporting that person as though they were instantly proven town. You *really* need to be skeptical of every role that is not yet /proven/ by something outside of their say-so or taking credit for something, and doubly so if that claim could easily be faked.

[SeaBeeGipson]

It was a good game though. Ill save TW the trouble and add the Scum Chat Link.
https://www.quicktopic.com/52/H/E89mqer7MjjPj

Hope im allowed to do that and I did it right. Just trying to save TW the trouble

You'll notice before I joined, they had Preston pegged pretty early. The investigation immunity threw everyone off. Good game though Preston, I doubt I could've pulled that off.

[Sister Midnight]

Going into Night 6, I was convinced there was STILL a Scum Godfather in the game - and that they were looking for me while I was looking for them. I was considering Lego and Finster, but I picked SM that night because 1) she was the other investigated person who could have been godfather and hence have ignored Mazu, and 2) even after Mazu's investigation of me she kept trying to find a way put me on her suspect list it felt like; I didn't see her being on my side the next day no matter what.

Killing me was a wise move. I had a strong vibe on you, and as I said, the only reason I wasn't going after you was that you had passed investigation. If you had killed someone else I might well have pushed hard that you were a GF. I do think that making you immune to all investigation made your role a little too powerful, but that is an arguable opinion. Big props to you for pulling it off, Preston!

[The Warrior]

Preston was not immune to all investigation. The watcher and tracker roles could have caught him.