Byzantium's Twilight [Concluded]

[LazyMcCrow]

Curses. If I'd spent more time lynching Ottomans and less time sitting on 'em - I might have survived. Good luck town!

[[MAFIA] Silvio]

Vote: Mickey

You give me a suspicious feeling...

[[MAFIA] Emilio]

Vote: Angelo

[[MAFIA] Furio]

Vote: Silvio

[[MAFIA] Richie]

Vote: Vinny

[[MAFIA] Giuseppe]

Lots of discussion going on here, eh?
Vote: Sunny.
No lurking.

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

Vote: Luigi

[[MAFIA] Giuseppe]

Sorry, that's Vote: Sonny.

[[MAFIA] Tony]

vote: Mickey

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Vote: Sonny

[[MAFIA] Junior]

Third on the bandwagon... Vote: Bugsy

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Junior;2053418559']Third on the bandwagon... Vote: Bugsy
Ellipses + using obsolete scum-hunting techniques = Unvote, Vote: Junior

Besides, I was only the second person to vote for Sonny.

[[MAFIA] Anne]

Vote: Richie

[[MAFIA] Junior]

Ah it seems that I counted Guiseppe's vote twice, my mistake Bugsy unvote but is my reason any better than the reason (or lack thereof) that others have given for their votes. We need to pressure people into explaining their votes.

So would everyone kindly give some explanation?

[GeneralHankerchief]

I'm not really pleased by the general lack of inactivity going on right now. Voting has been extended for 24 hours, I suggest you use it. :stare:

[[MAFIA] Furio]

I'm not really pleased by the general lack of inactivity going on right now. Voting has been extended for 24 hours, I suggest you use it. :stare:

Wouldn't a lack of inactivity constitute the presence of activity?

Do you want us be more inactive?

:clown:

[GeneralHankerchief]

Furio;2053418613']Wouldn't a lack of inactivity constitute the presence of activity?

Do you want us be more inactive?

:clown:

I neither confirm nor deny my error made in the previous post that I am not going to edit for amusement's sake now. :laugh4:

You know what I mean, though. :viking:

[[MAFIA] Maria]

All right fine! I can't take the constant hounding, endless pressure from Mickey, and my near-death tie experiences anymore. I might as well just admit it.

I am Maria, and I'm guilty. Guilty I tells you!

It all started when I was a schoolgirl, and I wanted to get the Barbie Funtime Island Vacation playset, which has a three-story mansion with working elevator and comes complete with an active volcano and fleeing natives, but my parents wouldn't buy me one, so I walked into a Toyz-R-Us and I took it right off the shelf, and walked out the front door with it. Ever since then I've had a taste for danger, and a flagrant disregard for the law. Soon after that, I was snatching purses from the other kids' Barbies, and making my getaway with a stolen Barbie Corvette. I was living a neon pink dream, and soon, every one of the closets in my stolen Vacation house was filled with purloined Barbie merchandise. When Ken arrived in his police officer outfit I knew what I had to do... I pried off his little plastic head and buried it in Fluffy's litter box, and dumped Ken's torso into a bathtub filled with lime. I fed the limbs to the dog, a piece at a time, by putting them inside snausages, laughing maniacally as I did it.

After that, I had an insatiable taste for murder. Soon, I was sneaking into other kid's houses and ripping the heads off their Barbie dolls, and tossing them in garbage disposals, but I needed to get rid of the bodies and I was fresh out of bathtubs filled with lime, so I started hiding the bodies in my own mattress at home. Little did my parents know, as they sat on my bed reading me bedtime stories, that beneath their upper-lower-middle class butts there lay a mass grave, a hidden monument to my dangerous insanity. I joined the mafia not for wealth or prestige, but for the opportunity to continue killing, and adding to my collection of dead bodies. Only this time, they decompose.

It's a fair cop. Well spotted, Mickey mouse. You caught the Barbie bandit.

[[MAFIA] Maria]

Vote: Angelo

Because I need to add more bodies to my collection.

[[MAFIA] Mickey]

Aha! I knew it, Maria you murdering mayhem-making monster!

Incidentally, in regards to that little decomposition problem you're having I've found that the best solution is good old fashioned tar. Don't buy into these fancy modern products; they're just ripping you off, and provide a means for the police to trace you.

[[MAFIA] Maria]

Unvote, vote: Sonny actually.

You see, I no longer smell the familiar scent of a woman coming off of Sonny. No, I'm afraid Sonny smells like rancid unwashed Ottoman scum.

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

Oh I seem to be in the lead to be killed. How disappointing.

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

Unvote, vote: Sonny actually.

You see, I no longer smell the familiar scent of a woman coming off of Sonny. No, I'm afraid Sonny smells like rancid unwashed Ottoman scum.
Curious. You remember that Renata inhabited this character in Mafia whatever it was.

Unvote; Vote: Maria

So what does that have to do anything besides lynch the lurker?

Is this why I am being killed for? Alright then. You all know I'm not a particular fan of lurkers myself. But this is unintentional lurking, most of it. I purposely refrained out of the tiebreakers. But I understand.

Good day town.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Voting closed.

[GeneralHankerchief]

And voting re-opened! We have a three-way tie between Maria, Mickey, and Sonny. What I'm going to do this time is lock the voting on all other players; it's still a 2-2-2 tie but if you move your vote (for instance, if it's on, say, Angelo) it has to be on one of those three.

You guys really like spreading 'em out, I see. :laugh4:

Voting will close at 14:00 US Eastern (GMT-5) tomorrow.

[[MAFIA] Mickey]

People of Istanbul Byzantium! Now is your chance to kill a traitor and safeguard your homes, your families and your lives - lynch the turncloak, Barbie-murdering Maria!



Please don't hurt me

[[MAFIA] Fat Tony]

Vote: Maria too much of a distraction

[[MAFIA] Vinny]

Vote:Maria

[[MAFIA] Maria]

You people are silly if you believe I'd let myself be tied for the vote, unnecessarily, three days in a row, as mafia.

What kind of pills are you taking, and do they start with an "s"? You deserve your fate and I won't be doing further scumhunting.

[[MAFIA] Mickey]

Maria;2053418979']You people are silly if you believe I'd let myself be tied for the vote, unnecessarily, three days in a row, as mafia.

What kind of pills are you taking, and do they start with an "s"? You deserve your fate and I won't be doing further scumhunting.

Could you pass the wine, please?

[[MAFIA] Maria]

Mickey;2053418982']Could you pass the wine, please?

WIFOM: The last refuge of the voter with no ideas. Relax mafia, it's going to be a smooth ride from here on out.

[[MAFIA] Fat Tony]

Maria;2053418985']WIFOM: The last refuge of the voter with no ideas. Relax mafia, it's going to be a smooth ride from here on out.

Care to enlighten how you have made it difficult for the mafia so far?

[[MAFIA] Richie]

Vote: Mickey

[[MAFIA] Emilio]

Vote: Sonny

[[MAFIA] Angelo]

Vote: Mickey The reason is somewhere among his earlier posts but I don't want to search for it now.

[[MAFIA] Little Leo]

vote:Mickey

[GeneralHankerchief]

Voting closed.

[[MAFIA] Mickey]

I really should stop acting so 'out there' in these games - something about the anonymous accounts makes me much less reserved than usual.

[GeneralHankerchief]

This one was a bear to decide, apologies to all involved.

Constantinople, 1453
Day 4

It was another day of voting amongst the soldiers, and the result was once again nothing that even remotely resembled consensus. The vote, after several long hours of discussion, was once again split three ways, with each lucky contestant receiving a measly two votes. The Captain of the Guard, not really looking forward to the third straight extended day of discussions, decided to eschew the usual rule of wiping all votes and having a runoff round, instead ruling in favor of keeping votes where they were but if you moved your vote it would have to be to one of the three with the most votes: Maria, Mickey, or Sonny.

This strategy seemed to be working without a hitch, as two guards who had previously been silent finally piped in and placed their votes on Maria. However, after that, things started getting complicated. Maria, making an agitated defense of herself, managed to sway a couple of voters over to her side. Three more guards, convinced by her words, stuffed "Mickey" votes into the Captain's box. In addition, one did so for Sonny. By the close of voting, it looked like Maria would survive by the skin of her teeth yet again and that her perpetual accuser Mickey would be the day's lynch.

The Captain of the Guard, however, had other ideas. It became clear early on in his tallying that something was wrong. A frown crossed his face, and after he read the last of the votes he was deep in thought for a while [OOC: the reason why it took so long between closing the votes and this writeup to appear] . "The tally is wrong," he finally announced. "We have three duplicate votes."

Everyone looked confused. The Captain, sighing, explained further. "By the rules I established on the first day of voting, you may only vote for one person to be lynched. In other words, if you change your vote during the day, you must specifically unvote a person before voting for your new target. Today, three people did not do that. Now, I realize that there may have been some confusion due to my tiebreaker procedure... but rules are rules. I did specifically say that I was not wiping previous votes and that if you 'changed your vote', which implies that the traditional 'unvote' mechanism still applies. Therefore, the three votes I am throwing out leave Mickey with two fewer votes and Sonny with one fewer vote... leaving Maria with the most votes."

Maria looked like she was going to protest, but realized the futility of it all. She had been on the chopping block for three days. It was pretty clear that people wanted her dead, regardless of whether or not they thought that she was actually an Ottoman sleeper agent. She remembered the people's reasoning for voting her today. "Too much of a distraction," they had said. Those were the words of people who did not care for such concepts as guilt or innocence.

"Fine, then," Maria, also known as Askthepizzaguy said, "Get on with it. You people are going to get what you deserve anyway. To those who still have some fight left in them, I suggest spending the next few days going back to the places that you love best in this city. Pretty soon, you're never going to see them again." Those were her final words.

It is now Night 4! The phase will last for 24 hours.

Day 4 tally:
Maria: 4 (Mickey, Sonny, Fat Tony, Vinny) :skull:
Mickey: 3 (Silvio, Tony, Little Leo) (Not counted: Richie, Angelo)
Sonny: 2 (Giuseppe, Maria) (Not counted: Emilio)
Fat Tony: 1 (Angelo)
Angelo: 1 (Emilio)
Silvio: 1 (Furio)
Vinny: 1 (Richie)
Junior: 1 (Bugsy)
Richie: 1 (Anne)

Didn't vote: 3 (Luigi, Junior, Vito)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (17)
Luigi
Furio
Angelo
Tony
Anne
Silvio
Giuseppe
Little Leo
Fat Tony
Vinny
Mickey
Bugsy
Emilio
Junior
Vito
Richie
Sonny

Killed:
Chickenman (Cjreynol)
Vincent (Subotan)
Fredo (rickinator9)
Claudia (Double A)
Big George (DaveShack)
Bertha (LazyMcCrow)

Executed:
Paulie (Csargo)
Scarface (issaikhaan)
Fingers (Diamondeye)
Maria (Askthepizzaguy)

Player list:
Subotan
Zack
Montmorency
Arjos
The King
Captain Blackadder
LazyMcCrow
Ishmael
Double A
scottishranger
Chaotix
Askthepizzaguy
classical_hero
Visorslash
landlubber
God Emperor
edse
atheotes
Cjreynol
DaveShack
Diamondeye
autolycus
issaikhaan
Riedquat
BSmith
Csargo
rickinator9

[[MAFIA] Richie]

Well the extended rounds already bored me quite a bit, but bureaucracy?!?!
And after so many annoying extensions, that nullified the previous votes, while this one didn't...

*Draws a bullseye on his chest* Kill me now, this has gone too far...

[DaveShack]

I think our host made the best of a nearly impossible situation by handling it this way. It does make sense according to what was actually posted. A little ugly, but more sensible than the alternatives.

[Montmorency]

Hi, Mickey.

[[MAFIA] Mickey]

Hi, Mickey.

*Waves to Montmorency with one hand, whilst wiping the egg off his face with the other*

[GeneralHankerchief]

Yeah, my other alternatives were take the incorrect votes in good faith or have yet another extension. So, either disregard the rules or slow this game to a crawl. None of them were good options, but this outcome was the least objectionable to me from a host's standpoint.

-edit- Also, you guys try to come up with creative tiebreaking solutions when the three people in the lead have two votes each. :laugh4:

[[MAFIA] Furio]

Wait, Maria was ATPG?

I totally didn't expect that!

[Askthepizzaguy]

Remember in Star Wars: Fall of the Order, where my postgame talked about the futility of failwagons? This is the other extreme, and futility abounds.

[[MAFIA] Vinny]

Furio;2053419258']Wait, Maria was ATPG?

I totally didn't expect that!

It sounded like someone was trying to copy him, but it actually was him. So only ATPG can do ATPG.

[[MAFIA] Mickey]

Vinny;2053419388']It sounded like someone was trying to copy him, but it actually was him. So only ATPG can do ATPG.

Well, him and Reenk.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Constantinople, 1453
Night 4

One of the places that was still busy in this near-decrepit city at all hours of the night was the great Forum of Constantine. Situated in the Imperial district - to the East, near the Bosphorus - the Forum was more or less immune to the silent and gradual degeneration that had gone on in the city around it over the past couple of centuries. Here, at least, the old ways still held sway. Here, at least, people did not forgot what this city once was.

The Forum, ovular in shape, had been present since the days of Emperor Constantine I over 1,000 years ago when he reestablished the city as Nova Roma. It was surrounded by beauty, the entire forum being flanked by numerous antique statues representing the true glory days of old. Many of them were from the classical, Pagan period of Roman and Greek history, normally a no-no in Constantine's presence, but they were still allowed to stand. What the statues represented - glory, victory, greatness - far outweighed the religion of the sculptees.

The statues were gone now, having been melted down in that disastrous Fourth Crusade, but the Forum's centerpiece remained. The Column of Constantine, still standing proud and majestic, even after having weathered earthquakes and fires.


https://i.imgur.com/6df3m.jpg

At the top of the Column, there had once been a statue of the city's founder represented as Apollo and holding an orb which was said to contain fragments of the True Cross, a brilliant bridging of the gap between Rome's two great religions. At the foot of the column contained a shrine that held relics plundered from all across the Classical world: Jesus's "fishes and loaves" baskets, fragments from the crosses of the two thieves crucified along with Him, and the beyond-ancient Palladium: the small wooden statue of Athena that, as legend held, would protect the city it was held in from capture. Its history stretched back from Rome to Troy itself, where it was prophesied that the city would only fall after Odysseus and Diomedes had removed it from Troy's boundaries.

Now, though, the Palladium was lost, and Vito was wondering what that meant for Constantinople. The city and its inhabitants had always been superstitious, trusting in its icons to protect it. Vito knew that it would only be a matter of time before the really sacred, the truly important symbols would come out and be paraded around the city in hopes of delivering it from its Ottoman besiegers. A legendary good-luck charm from the days of Homer would certainly not hurt in this instance.

In the Forum, Vito felt safe, protected. Tonight was his off night. People still inhabited the forum. He would be safe in public places. Still, there was no sense in letting his guard slip entirely. Vito still checked all quadrants, searching for people that looked out-of-place, or, more importantly, soldiers that looked familiar. By chance, he happened to glance up at the Column. For a moment, he was taken aback.

The original statue of Constantine as Apollo had returned! Vito, unbelieving, rubbed his eyes. He looked back up. The statue was still there. It was undoubtedly Constantine, dressed in his Apollo garb, looking regal, holding out the Orb. Transfixed to the spot, Vito could do nothing but stare. This had to be a sign. It would be a good one, right? Surely the reappearance of a lost statue, but one so symbolic of the city's old glory days couldn't be a bad open, right? Vito could only look up and gape.

Endlessly pondering over the meaning of this reappearance, Vito's life ended that way when the "statue" dropped the Orb (a rock of the densest material he could find) straight on Vito's openmouthed face. The statue remained motionless until the Forum eventually emptied out, at which point he climbed down the Column.

Back at camp, on the other side of the city, Fat Tony was on patrol near the walls. His job was to meticulously view the Ottomans nearby and report any signs of unusual movement. Surely the Sultan had to be getting tired of the siege and would attack soon. If this was to be the case, it would be Fat Tony's duty to make sure the Byzantines were as ready as they could be.

Fat Tony took his job very seriously. In difficult times, men usually either shrunk from the spotlight or rose to the occasion. Fat Tony was of the latter quality. The siege of the city was treating him well. He took to his duties with gusto and was singlehandedly responsible for pulling off a minorly successful sortie some weeks back. The Captain had made it known that if they survived the affair intact, Fat Tony was in line for a promotion or two. Fat Tony didn't care, though. He just wanted to see this city through safely.

He stared unblinkingly out at the Ottomans for hours, not letting his discomfort get the best of him. For this was his task for the night, and he would see it through no matter what.

Unfortunately, Fat Tony's devotion to the task at hand and only the task at hand got the better of him in the end. It made it quite easy for his attacker to slip around the camp undetected, find a blind spot, and shoot Fat Tony in the back of the neck with his crossbow.

The next day, the Captain of the Guard sighed as he finished taking roll.

"Well men," he said, "that's another two down. Vito, better known as Captain Blackadder, and Fat Tony, also known as atheotes, are no longer with us. They're still killing two a night, men. They're mocking us. They don't think we can do anything about them, and frankly, I think they're right. We have got to step it up if we want to see this city through to the end. Otherwise, the Sultan won't even need to bleed out his troops. He'll just walk right in and take the city. We've got to make a stand, here."

Everyone looked ashamed, chagrined, embarrassed. But there was nothing any of them could do except start the voting once again.

It is now Day 5! Voting will last for 24 hours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (15)
Luigi
Furio
Angelo
Tony
Anne
Silvio
Giuseppe
Little Leo
Vinny
Mickey
Bugsy
Emilio
Junior
Richie
Sonny

Killed:
Chickenman (Cjreynol)
Vincent (Subotan)
Fredo (rickinator9)
Claudia (Double A)
Big George (DaveShack)
Bertha (LazyMcCrow)
Vito (Captain Blackadder)
Fat Tony (atheotes)

Executed:
Paulie (Csargo)
Scarface (issaikhaan)
Fingers (Diamondeye)
Maria (Askthepizzaguy)

Player list:
Subotan
Zack
Montmorency
Arjos
The King
Captain Blackadder
LazyMcCrow
Ishmael
Double A
scottishranger
Chaotix
Askthepizzaguy
classical_hero
Visorslash
landlubber
God Emperor
edse
atheotes
Cjreynol
DaveShack
Diamondeye
autolycus
issaikhaan
Riedquat
BSmith
Csargo
rickinator9

[[MAFIA] Silvio]

Vote: Mickey

Your posts are suspicious the whole game...

After what happened the day before you should be lynched...

[[MAFIA] Mickey]

Silvio;2053419520']Vote: Mickey

Your posts are suspicious the whole game...

After what happened the day before you should be lynched...

I'd like to point out that it's not my fault that people voted incorrectly. Unless you're referring to the fact that I kickstarted the Maria lynch, to which I reply that I genuinely thought she was acting oddly, and that townies don't get it right every time.

To be honest, I was going to vote Fat Tony today, but seeing as he was obviously innocent I've got nothing. I'll vote:abstain for the interim, until a reasonable case on somebody comes along.

[[MAFIA] Furio]

Mickey;2053419535']I'd like to point out that it's not my fault that people voted incorrectly. Unless you're referring to the fact that I kickstarted the Maria lynch, to which I reply that I genuinely thought she was acting oddly, and that townies don't get it right every time.

To be honest, I was going to vote Fat Tony today, but seeing as he was obviously innocent I've got nothing. I'll vote:abstain for the interim, until a reasonable case on somebody comes along.

Stop trying to redirect attention away from yourself.

Everything bad that has happened in this game is your fault!

Vote: Mickey

[[MAFIA] Mickey]

Meh. Playing in three simultaneous games was getting distracting, anyway. I should probably stick to two in the future.

[[MAFIA] Giuseppe]

Abstain? Halfway through the game?
Vote: Mickey.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Giuseppe;2053419541']Abstain? Halfway through the game?
Vote: Mickey.

Bah.

[[MAFIA] Vinny]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4CyNvEfWoE

If you say you are in too many games we should eliminate you from this one. vote:Mickey

[[MAFIA] Anne]

Reasonable case? Vote: Mickey

[[MAFIA] Little Leo]

I think some more attention should be paid to the other person in our three-way tie. Vote: Sonny

[[MAFIA] Richie]

Vote: Vinny

Jumping from the Maria wagon to Mickey's one...
Must be cosy sitting in 'em wagons!

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Richie;2053419697']Vote: Vinny

Jumping from the Maria wagon to Mickey's one...
Must be cosy sitting in 'em wagons!

Vote: Richie

For misspelling "cozy".

[GeneralHankerchief]

Voting closed.

[[MAFIA] Richie]

Bugsy;2053419763']For misspelling "cozy".

Meh, across the pond up is down, left is right :clown:

[GeneralHankerchief]

Constantinople, 1453
Day 5

At last, consensus. (somewhere across time and space, GH sighed with relief.)

All of the guards seemed grateful that there would not be another tie vote, another extension, another series of votes spread off over a dozen candidates, another last-second change in the execution because the Captain of the Guard realized that some of the votes were improperly placed.

What would happen today would be a near-unified finishing of business. A cleaning up of affairs, to start fresh. Yes, while Maria was gone, she had departed under dubious circumstances. Her chief accuser, Mickey, still stood, living. There were several factors going against Mickey on this day. First of all, he had been proven incorrect about Maria's guilt by way of the two deaths revealed this morning. There were still two Ottoman sleeper agents out there, despite all of his protestations that Maria had to be one of them. Second of all, he had come extremely close to dying only the previous day, and as a matter of fact would most likely *have* gotten the chop were it not for the Captain's diligence in upholding the rules. Third of all, and perhaps most ominously for all the guards, nobody seemed willing to do the legwork to present an alternative target.

And so the choice was Mickey. Mickey, by a landslide. Nobody else got more than one vote. Mickey himself seemed to see the writing on the wall very early, abstaining early on in the day and not bothering to change his vote in a measure of desperation. No, Mickey knew what was coming for him. And he seemed to make peace with it.

"I've lived in and around this city for 38 years," he told the guards as the Captain walked up and prepared to behead him. "She's seen some tough times, boys. Let's hope she's around long enough for some people to tell our story when explaining her resilience. Best of luck to you all. Whether it be from above or below, I'll be watching."

And that was it. The Captain swung his sword, and Mickey, also known as Ishmael, would say no more. Now, the unspoken fear amongst the living guards - aside from the usual one of them dying in the night, of course - was that they no longer had an easy scapegoat for the next day's execution. They had used them all up. Now there was truly nowhere to hide.

It is now Night 5! This phase will last 24 hours, or at whatever point I can log on tomorrow evening and write the kill(s) up.

Day 5 tally:
Mickey: 5 (Silvio, Furio, Vinny, Giuseppe, Anne) :skull:
Sonny: 1 (Little Leo)
Vinny: 1 (Richie)
Richie: 1 (Bugsy)

Abstained: 1 (Mickey)
Didn't vote: 6 (Luigi, Furio, Tony, Angelo, Junior, Emilio)

WARNING: Wrath of God may be in effect next round. Vote, or else.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (14)
Luigi
Furio
Angelo
Tony
Anne
Silvio
Giuseppe
Little Leo
Vinny
Bugsy
Emilio
Junior
Richie
Sonny

Killed:
Chickenman (Cjreynol)
Vincent (Subotan)
Fredo (rickinator9)
Claudia (Double A)
Big George (DaveShack)
Bertha (LazyMcCrow)
Vito (Captain Blackadder)
Fat Tony (atheotes)

Executed:
Paulie (Csargo)
Scarface (issaikhaan)
Fingers (Diamondeye)
Maria (Askthepizzaguy)
Mickey (Ishmael)

Player list:
Subotan
Zack
Montmorency
Arjos
The King
Captain Blackadder
LazyMcCrow
Ishmael
Double A
scottishranger
Chaotix
Askthepizzaguy
classical_hero
Visorslash
landlubber
God Emperor
edse
atheotes
Cjreynol
DaveShack
Diamondeye
autolycus
issaikhaan
Riedquat
BSmith
Csargo
rickinator9

[Ishmael]

A lynch write-up where I go out honourably is all I've ever asked for (well, that and not being lynched in the first place). Thanks GH!

[[MAFIA] Vinny]

Richie;2053419697']Vote: Vinny

Jumping from the Maria wagon to Mickey's one...
Must be cosy sitting in 'em wagons!

I voted for Maria before it was cool, then I went onto someone else. Mickey did state he was in too many games, so this was a mercy killing, of sorts.

[[MAFIA] Luigi]

Right, I have been rather inactive in this game, but apparently I am still alive. I will go through the game thread later today and see if I can come up with something clever .

[GeneralHankerchief]

Constantinople, 1453
Night 5

Giuseppe looked out at the Golden Horn, dismayed about what he saw.

The city of Constantinople could best be described as a physical triangle, pointing east. The western side, obviously, was open to land, being the direction that the Ottomans came from and being the direction that had the walls. The southern side faced the Bosphorus, that little strip of water that separated Europe from Asia. To the north though, there was the Golden Horn. And the Golden Horn was a big reason why Constantinople was still standing.

The Golden Horn provided for a strong natural harbor for the city. It was sheltered from attacks in all directions but one. It provided for a strong, nearly impregnable natural barrier on yet another side of the city which allowed defenders to concentrate on the west. Even navies probably could not get by because of the Great Chain, the boom that stretched from Constantinople to the bordering Genoese colony to the north, Galata. As long as the Golden Horn was held, the city still had a chance.

Giuseppe looked out at the Ottoman-held Golden Horn, dismayed about what he saw.

The Sultan had tried for a direct attack on the place, and had failed miserably. However, he was crafty and armed with a seemingly infinite amount of both resources and manpower. A person possessing these two qualities would usually succeed at anything he set his mind to, and Mehmet II was no exception. In this case, he had solved the problem by simply bypassing the Great Chain entirely, building a land bridge beyond it, allowing his troops greater movement and completely neutralizing the protections offered on that side of the city. Now, the Byzantine defenders, already few and stretched thin, had to worry about an entirely new direction of attack. Their problems kept mounting.

Out on the Golden Horn tonight, all was quiet, and for this Giuseppe was thankful. There would be no diversionary attacks tonight, no attacks which sapped manpower and effort. Giuseppe was all set to turn around and head back to camp when he noticed a strange glistening on the water below. It was a cloudy night outside. There was absolutely nothing natural that could make the water do that.

Giuseppe turned around, and found himself face-to-face with a very large, very shiny shield. "Just to get your attention," its wielder said, and he knocked Giuseppe out cold. As Giuseppe was unconscious, his attacker tied him down to a large piece of brick that was probably part of an important building in a previous life, just another sign of the city's decay. He woke right as he hit the water, tied to the brick. Giuseppe spent the last minutes of his life examining the Golden Horn from an entirely different view.

Later that day, the Captain of the Guard took roll call and found that only one was missing this morning.

"All right men," he said, "the only casualty of the night was Giuseppe, also known as landlubber. Whether this was success on our part or lax efforts on the Ottomans' parts remains to be seen, but let us all hope that it is the former. Keep your spirits up, men!

It is now Day 6! Voting will last for 26 hours.

WARNING: Inactive voters may be subject to the Wrath of God this phase.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (13)
Luigi
Furio
Angelo
Tony
Anne
Silvio
Little Leo
Vinny
Bugsy
Emilio
Junior
Richie
Sonny

Killed:
Chickenman (Cjreynol)
Vincent (Subotan)
Fredo (rickinator9)
Claudia (Double A)
Big George (DaveShack)
Bertha (LazyMcCrow)
Vito (Captain Blackadder)
Fat Tony (atheotes)
Giuseppe (landlubber)

Executed:
Paulie (Csargo)
Scarface (issaikhaan)
Fingers (Diamondeye)
Maria (Askthepizzaguy)
Mickey (Ishmael)

Player list:
Subotan
Zack
Montmorency
Arjos
The King
Captain Blackadder
LazyMcCrow
Ishmael
Double A
scottishranger
Chaotix
Askthepizzaguy
classical_hero
Visorslash
landlubber
God Emperor
edse
atheotes
Cjreynol
DaveShack
Diamondeye
autolycus
issaikhaan
Riedquat
BSmith
Csargo
rickinator9

[Ishmael]

Hey! Mafia, that's just nasty.

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

Vote: Bugsy

Creepy bugger.

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Sonny;2053420115']Vote: Bugsy

Creepy bugger.
Vote: Sonny

Buggy creeper.

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

Oh My God You're Stupid.

But srs. You are scumbag.

[[MAFIA] Vinny]

Either we got a mafia with the last vote, or one forgot to send in their vote. I need to think about this more to make a rational decision.

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

What? There are only two possible answers to that.

Unless you mean about the vote?

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Sonny;2053420118']Oh My God You're Stupid.
You forgot the comma after "My".

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

And I'll have you know Mother always said her Bugsy was very smart!

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Bugsy thinks Sonny is being rude and hurtful because he's jealous of Bugsy's superior intellect and analyzing skills. Mama Bugsy always said jealousy was never a reason for rudeness. She also said not to trust men with names as manly as "Sonny". Or maybe it was to never trust women with names as feminine as "Sonny". Bugsy can't remember, and unfortunately Mama Bugsy isn't around anymore (may she rest in peace) to ask.

[[MAFIA] Little Leo]

Vinny;2053420119']Either we got a mafia with the last vote, or one forgot to send in their vote. I need to think about this more to make a rational decision.
So if we taking voting as an indicator of activity, if we didn't get a Turk, the logical suspects are Furio, Tony, Angelo, and Emilio, because they voted the previous day, but not yesterday.

I'll start with a vote: Furio, but hopefully I'll have time do to more analysis later.

[Montmorency]

Hi.

[[MAFIA] Angelo]

Vote: Richie

Silvio, Furio, Vinny and Anne can be seen as innocent if we assume we got a mafia yesterday.

[[MAFIA] Junior]

What about Angelo?

Vote: Angelo

[[MAFIA] Silvio]

Vote: Emilio

He is most suspicious right now...

I doubt the Mafia deliberately made one kill...

What advantage would that be? Sticking to double kills would make an auto-win in only 3 rounds...

[[MAFIA] Furio]

Vote: Abstain

Been sick, need rest, catch up later.

[[MAFIA] Richie]

Vote: Junior

[[MAFIA] Emilio]

Silvio;2053420272']Vote: Emilio

He is most suspicious right now...

I doubt the Mafia deliberately made one kill...

What advantage would that be? Sticking to double kills would make an auto-win in only 3 rounds...

Really? Why?

In the same time..

Vote: Sonny

[[MAFIA] Silvio]

All your votes are either joke-y or they have no reasons...

[[MAFIA] Anne]

Well I'm completely clueless myself...

Vote: Richie

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Unvote, Vote: Anne

[[MAFIA] Little Leo]

unvote, vote: Emilio I think our captain will have an aneurysm if we have no one with more than one vote.

[[MAFIA] Tony]

vote: Emilio.

[[MAFIA] Vinny]

Here is a list of the current players alive and how many posts they have.

Luigi - 5
Furio - 11
Angelo - 8
Tony - 11
Anne - 11
Silvio - 12
Little Leo - 8
Vinny - 14
Bugsy - 18
Emilio - 8
Junior - 10
Richie - 14
Sonny - 8

I am thinking that those under 9 are a good target for our lynch, since they could be lurking for victory, or the alternative is that the mafioso is not lurking so that would put those above 11 as potential suspects, but I am more inclined to go after a low person for the moment. Emilio fits that category, so he does look like a good lynch tonight. Vote:Emilio

[GeneralHankerchief]

Sorry folks, got a bit distracted last night.

Voting closed.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Constantinople, 1453
Day 6

After the previous day's execution of Mickey, nobody had anywhere to hide. That was the common wisdom, that was what was implied. Everyone knew they had a realistic chance of being named as the lynch, and immediately during the day's voting that seemed to be the case as the votes were once again spread out very thinly and evenly over a majority of the guards that still lived. At one point seven people were tied for the lead with one vote each.

At this, the Captain of the Guard was starting to sweat, not wanting to go through another long and harrowing tiebreaking process, especially since there was still actual soldiering to be done in the besieged city. But, at last, there perhaps seemed to be actual detective work getting done. Some of the guards made well-reasoned if not short cases against other guards, cases that actually had logical merit aside from the really nondescript reasoning that had dominated much of the previous voting. The guards picked up on this and followed it without much comment, but hey, at least it may have been a start.

The target of their wrath today was Emilio, who was judged to not have said much in previous discussions in order to perhaps not keep much attention on himself. Emilio, sticking to character, was similarly soft-spoken in his defense which ultimately did not to the slightest to save him from the lynch. And so, at the close of the day, there was once again consensus as the Captain of the Guard came out and prepared once more to decapitate one of the men who had served under him for over a decade.

"Any last words, soldier?"

But Emilio, also known as The King, was once again silent, just shaking his head sadly. The observant among the guards noticed his hands shaking before the deed was done.

The Captain looked out amongst the remaining guards, prepared to make another speech. But he noticed somebody missing among the crowd. Once their numbers had been whittled down so much, it was very easy to be noticed for your absence. It was again proven right that now there was nobody to hide. Where was the missing guard?

Luigi had wandered off, confused. Actually, he had spent much of the past week in a state of confusion. He was confused about what was happening in the city, and more to the point, confused about what was happening to the fellow guards in his outfit. Due to this general confusion, he really hadn't bothered to vote very often during the meetings or even speak, for that matter. But now, something else topped this. Luigi was confused about where he was.

Luigi stumbled around the decaying city, thinking the abandoned buildings were actually tents in his camp. There were many such buildings like this around the city. They had started appearing en masse ever since the Venetian sack of the place in 1204, really the source of the problems that robbed Constantinople of much of its wealth and splendor. The Byzantines had reconquered the place some decades later and did their best to restore the city, but money was often tight and priority went to the city walls for obvious reasons. As the Ottomans gained more and more formerly-Byzantine territory, the money and resources became fewer and fewer and all hope of restoring these buildings was nonexistent for the foreseeable future. They were abandoned, waiting for nature to slowly reclaim them.

The result of this meant the buildings had become highly dangerous. Roving gangs used them as their hideouts. You never knew if there were poisonous creatures hiding in the high weeds. And of course, there were loose rocks. So many loose rocks.

The most conspicuous of these loose rocks was a gigantic boulder perched perilously on top of a two-story building that seemed to have no possible purpose other than to one day fall off and crush someone who was walking by. Nobody in the city, not even its historians who spent their lives examining every single aspect of the City of Constantine, could say how it had gotten there or what its original purpose was. The government, while not taking the boulder down, had at least taken the trouble to erect large, unmistakable signs at each end of the street the boulder's building was located on. These signs read, in large print, "DO NOT ENTER. UNSTABLE ROCK." For the illiterate, very graphic drawings of what would happen if you did not heed the sign's warnings accompanied the words.

Confused as always, Luigi, also known as God Emperor, did not even notice the signs' existence as he stumbled down the street in question. What happened next was inevitable, and perhaps it would be kindest to say only that the boulder finally fulfilled its purpose.

It is now Night 6! This phase will last for 24 hours.

Day 6 tally:
Emilio: 4 (Silvio, Little Leo, Tony, Vinny) :skull:
Richie: 2 (Angelo, Anne)
Bugsy: 1 (Sonny)
Sonny: 1 (Emilio)
Angelo: 1 (Junior)
Junior: 1 (Richie)
Anne: 1 (Sonny)

Abstained: 1 (Furio)
Didn't vote: 1 (Luigi)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (11)
Furio
Angelo
Tony
Anne
Silvio
Little Leo
Vinny
Bugsy
Junior
Richie
Sonny

Wrath of God:
Luigi (God Emperor)

Killed:
Chickenman (Cjreynol)
Vincent (Subotan)
Fredo (rickinator9)
Claudia (Double A)
Big George (DaveShack)
Bertha (LazyMcCrow)
Vito (Captain Blackadder)
Fat Tony (atheotes)
Giuseppe (landlubber)

Executed:
Paulie (Csargo)
Scarface (issaikhaan)
Fingers (Diamondeye)
Maria (Askthepizzaguy)
Mickey (Ishmael)
Emilio (The King)

Player list:
Subotan
Zack
Montmorency
Arjos
The King
Captain Blackadder
LazyMcCrow
Ishmael
Double A
scottishranger
Chaotix
Askthepizzaguy
classical_hero
Visorslash
landlubber
God Emperor
edse
atheotes
Cjreynol
DaveShack
Diamondeye
autolycus
issaikhaan
Riedquat
BSmith
Csargo
rickinator9

[[MAFIA] Furio]

Poor Luigi...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wc3kwv0Ddw

[Askthepizzaguy]

Ma Maria!

[GeneralHankerchief]

Constantinople, 1453
Night 6

In the center of the Imperial district was the Augustaion. Like many of the old fora in the city, this large square contained lots of open space and was flanked by important buildings, including the Hagia Sophia and the old Imperial Palace (the current Basileus's residence was at the Blachernae, much closer to the western walls). The Augustaion also contained a large column, this one named after the city's greatest emperor of all, Justinian. Topping the column was an absolutely massive equestrian statue of the emperor himself.

Richie stood on the balcony of a building overlooking the Augustaion, imagining how it would have looked in the days of old.


https://i.imgur.com/vEG3U.jpg

The statue itself, able to be seen from the Bosphorus and possibly even Asia, was pointed east. This was no accident. Justinian, the city's greatest emperor, was mounted and ready to take on all comers from that direction, which had always been the home of Constantinople's greatest enemies. The Sassanids, the various Caliphates, the Ottomans, all had come from the east. Justinian's arm was held out wide, as if noting that he was master of all those lands. But now, things were wrong. The Byzantines held nothing. The Ottomans had swung around. They had nearly swallowed the entire Balkan peninsula. They were camped out to the west of the city. Justinian would be of no help.

The city had always loved prophecy, perhaps to the point of unhealthy obsession. Justinian used to hold an apple in one of his arms. This apple, more so than even the palladium of old, was Constantinople's great protector. So long as Justinian held the apple, the city would not fall. The apple had fallen off his hand some decades prior. It was another blow to the city's psyche, another drop in the well that seemed to signify doom. Prophecies upon prophecies seemed to signify that the city's end was approaching. All the citizens had to believe in now was one that said that the enemy armies would only penetrate so far as one of the city's old columns before a great angel swept down from above and drove the invaders clear back to the east, possibly Babylon. The problem is, nobody was sure which column it was. Perhaps it was Justinian's. Possibly it was Constantine's. The prophecies that would save the city were few and muddled. The prophecies that doomed it were numerous and clear. Every day there were more bad omens.

Another omen that Richie was familiar with was purely a practical one. The Augustaion was empty. Entirely, utterly empty. None of Constantinople's denizens, even in the wealthy, still-splendid part of the city, had any confidence that they would be delivered. They were all battening down the hatches in their own homes. Perhaps looking for secret places to hide. Perhaps looking to flee. Preparing for the worst. The Augustaion was left to the ghosts. Justinian stood alone.

"Not alone," Richie whispered. "Some still stand." He had been deep in thought. These were his first words, really his first movements, in over an hour.

"Not enough," a voice hissed, and Richie turned around, startled. "You'd think that with an entirely empty city square, it would make it a lot harder for me to sneak up on you," the voice continued. A hand was clamped over Richie's mouth. "The problem with all you soldiers is that you spend too much time philosophizing, too much time figuring out what it all means. It means the city is going to fall. No more, no less. Ironically, if you were all doing your jobs and not thinking so much about it, you'd have a much better chance of stopping it."

His monologue done, the Ottoman sleeper agent slit his man's throat, leaving Richie to bleed out on the balcony. Some drops of blood eventually leaked onto the square.

Tony was on duty that night, making his way through the abandoned sections of the city. The Captain of the Guard had gotten the idea from Luigi's untimely death yesterday that Constantinople could be a virtual minefield for any attacking army that made it past the walls. If there was one giant boulder that seemed to be resting precariously on top of a building for no reason, there may be more. Tony's job tonight was to scout out sections of the city and look for more incredibly dangerous spots like that. The idea was, if the Ottoman attack was too overwhelming and if there wasn't a general rout, everybody would execute a coordinated retreat down the routes with the most hazards. Perhaps they could lure the Ottomans down the same routes, kill several of them using the environment, and then use the confusion to make a stand. Hey, it was a long shot, but it was better than nothing.

The only problem was that Tony was doing it at night. He wasn't quite sure what the Captain was thinking with this, as night made his task that much harder and more dangerous. Doing this during the day would have been far more effective, but of course everyone's time was set aside for that thanks to the voting. Did the Captain not trust him? Was this his way of sending him off on a suicide mission? Tony tried not to think about it, instead sticking to his task.

Glancing up, he saw the silhouette of what appeared to be - could it be? - another boulder perched on top of a building. Tony needed a better look, and also needed to map it out for the Captain later. He lit a torch and looked up again to confirm that it was a boulder.

Leaning on the boulder was a man, casually aiming a crossbow right at Tony. Even in the darkness, Tony could tell that he was smiling. Tony desperately tried to put the torch out and escape under the cover of renewed darkness, but took far too much time. A second later, he slumped to the ground, a bolt sticking through his neck.

That morning, the Captain of the Guard took roll call. Everybody reacted with shock when they heard that two people were missing. Both Richie, also known as Arjos, and Tony, better known as BSmith, were gone.

"All right men," the Captain said, trying to restore order. "Obviously we have been played. There are still two Ottoman agents out there. This means nothing. All it's done is revealed their hand and all they did was give us a free day trying to find out who they are with their hesitation yesterday. It is of the utmost importance that we get this right. We're already down to single digits!

He left them to voting.

It is now Day 7! Voting will last for 24 hours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (9)
Furio
Angelo
Anne
Silvio
Little Leo
Vinny
Bugsy
Junior
Sonny

Wrath of God:
Luigi (God Emperor)

Killed:
Chickenman (Cjreynol)
Vincent (Subotan)
Fredo (rickinator9)
Claudia (Double A)
Big George (DaveShack)
Bertha (LazyMcCrow)
Vito (Captain Blackadder)
Fat Tony (atheotes)
Giuseppe (landlubber)
Richie (Arjos)
Tony (BSmith)

Executed:
Paulie (Csargo)
Scarface (issaikhaan)
Fingers (Diamondeye)
Maria (Askthepizzaguy)
Mickey (Ishmael)
Emilio (The King)

Player list:
Subotan
Zack
Montmorency
Arjos
The King
Captain Blackadder
LazyMcCrow
Ishmael
Double A
scottishranger
Chaotix
Askthepizzaguy
classical_hero
Visorslash
landlubber
God Emperor
edse
atheotes
Cjreynol
DaveShack
Diamondeye
autolycus
issaikhaan
Riedquat
BSmith
Csargo
rickinator9

[Montmorency]

Tony is dead, his name should be replaced with "Anne" in the Living list.

[GeneralHankerchief]

One of these days I'm going to go a full game without screwing up the playing list once. Thanks for the catch. :embarassed:

[[MAFIA] Furio]

Hmm...

Vote: Junior

[[MAFIA] Anne]

Vote: Bugsy

[[MAFIA] Little Leo]

Now that we know Mickey was innocent, Angelo's post from yesterday feels to me like the Turk who forgot to kill trying to seem helpful and push suspicion away from the inactives. Vote: Angelo

[[MAFIA] Angelo]

Little Leo;2053421113']Now that we know Mickey was innocent, Angelo's post from yesterday feels to me like the Turk who forgot to kill trying to seem helpful and push suspicion away from the inactives. Vote: Angelo

And now you look like the mafia who forgot to send his order two nights ago and uses an innocent townies conclusion to keep suspision away from himself. Vote: Little Leo

[[MAFIA] Furio]

Angelo;2053421117']And now you look like the mafia who forgot to send his order two nights ago and uses an innocent townies conclusion to keep suspision away from himself. Vote: Little Leo

"Innocent townie" is redundant.

Are you a guilty townie?

Unvote, Vote: Angelo

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Vote: Furio

Everything he does seems forced; just doesn't seem genuine.

[[MAFIA] Silvio]

So I was wrong...

I have nothin'. :S

Vote: Abstain

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Silvio;2053421305']So I was wrong...
Oh boo hoo. Get over it.


I have nothin'. :S

Vote: Abstain
Unacceptable at this point in the game. Abstaining does not contribute to the town cause in any way, shape, or form; all it does is allow you to remain unaccountable for a vote today. Unvote, Vote: Silvio

[GeneralHankerchief]

Voting closed.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Constantinople, 1453
Day 7

Nine were left. Nine out of twenty-seven, a full two-thirds of their number gone. They were in single digits now, nine, truly counting down the days just the same as Constantinople was counting down the days to its end. Eighteen down, nine to go, and then the gates would open and all would change. Constantinople would end. Nobody but the Sultan knew what would begin in its place. But all moved on, and at this point it was a mere formality, waiting on only how and when it would take place. But really, it was less than that. They never had twenty-seven soldiers, not with two of them being Ottoman agents designed to destroy them. No, they really only had twenty-five from the start.

Not much to defend the last and greatest city of the medieval world.

And yet, still they were, trying. Perhaps a bit demoralized, but any person would be too if they had to go through what these guards were going through. This was all they knew. They had heard about life under Ottoman control. Truth be told, it didn't sound too bad. The Sultan was about as tolerant of an overlord as one could hope for in these times. Lord knew that they were prosperous. But still, it was unknown. Different. Alien. It was a departure from the only life they had ever known. They had come to love life under the Byzantine Empire, warts and all. And they were prepared to die to defend it.

The problem was, they weren't defending it very *well*. They were now a week in with the voting and still the two Ottoman attackers remained, wreaking havoc and sewing discontent. Nobody trusted anybody else. Those who contributed their opinions were ignored, or treated with suspicion. They had truly made it every man for himself, and this breaking of camaraderie was probably the Ottomans' greatest victory.

Angelo today was an example of this. He actually reacted to events. Somebody had made a vote, and he commented on it. He put himself out there, in other words. But, unfortunately for him, this move did nothing but draw the interest of one more voter, who naturally questioned his motives and his detective work, and promptly moved his vote over to him. After that, there was some more voting, but none of it had any remote effect on the outcome. Angelo would be lynched with a grand total of two votes against him.

Was he a misguided defender of Byzantium and all it stood for, or a true deep cover agent who had sworn his loyalty to the Sultan a long time ago who had failed in his ultimate mission? Time would tell, but in the end, Angelo, also known as edse, no longer mattered. Constantinople, with its tapestry of stories stretching back over a thousand years, was done with him. The city still had a story to tell, at least for one more day.

It is now Night 7! This phase will last for 24 hours.

Day 7 tally:
Angelo: 2 (Little Leo, Furio) :skull:
Silvio: 1 (Bugsy)
Bugsy: 1 (Anne)
Little Leo: 1 (Angelo)

Abstained: 1 (Silvio)
Didn't vote: 3 (Vinny, Junior, Sonny)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (8)
Furio
Anne
Silvio
Little Leo
Vinny
Bugsy
Junior
Sonny

Wrath of God:
Luigi (God Emperor)

Killed:
Chickenman (Cjreynol)
Vincent (Subotan)
Fredo (rickinator9)
Claudia (Double A)
Big George (DaveShack)
Bertha (LazyMcCrow)
Vito (Captain Blackadder)
Fat Tony (atheotes)
Giuseppe (landlubber)
Richie (Arjos)
Tony (BSmith)

Executed:
Paulie (Csargo)
Scarface (issaikhaan)
Fingers (Diamondeye)
Maria (Askthepizzaguy)
Mickey (Ishmael)
Emilio (The King)
Angelo (edse)

Player list:
Subotan
Zack
Montmorency
Arjos
The King
Captain Blackadder
LazyMcCrow
Ishmael
Double A
scottishranger
Chaotix
Askthepizzaguy
classical_hero
Visorslash
landlubber
God Emperor
edse
atheotes
Cjreynol
DaveShack
Diamondeye
autolycus
issaikhaan
Riedquat
BSmith
Csargo
rickinator9

[GeneralHankerchief]

Constantinople, 1453
Night 8

Anne was on the city's edge tonight, facing the water. Instead of looking at the Golden Horn to the north or the part of the Bosphorus that was Constantinople's eastern border, though, Anne was to the south. She was on duty tonight, looking and searching for any sign that the West was coming.

Ever since the Council of Florence a generation ago, the Byzantines had seen the writing on the wall in regards to their fate and the Ottomans. They had appealed, officially, for aid, promising reconciliation with the Catholic Church. The Pope and the various Italian factions were noncommittal. They wanted to see progress, they wanted to see actual reunification. The religious unrest in the city was not a welcoming sign to them. Some of the Italians also wanted to see something else before they committed to the city's rescue: opportunity for a profit. These factions had seen the winds of change on the horizon. Even if Byzantium did survive, what then? What would they do? Trade with one decaying city, at the expense of the greatest empire in the East? No, for the Italians, concerns of trade outweighed even concerns of religion.

Nonetheless, a ship had been sent out, scanning the horizon for any sign of a Papal, Venetian, Genoese, or otherwise fleet that would save the city and provide needed assistance. And it was Anne's job to search for the ship. Or the fleet. It was a fool's hope that anything would come across the horizon like in the tales of old, but a fool's hope was better than no hope.

No, Constantinople would be left to its own devices. Three ships had already come, about a month ago, and defeated the Ottoman blockade in a spectacular display of seamanship. It had buoyed Byzantine spirits and left the Sultan embarrassed, but that was all the help that was coming. The West would be silent in this matter. Constantinople was on its own.

Anne blinked and rubbed her eyes. This work was not particularly rewarding. In the morning she knew she would get little sleep, first helping to repair the wall and then engaging in the voting. Of course. That. The other threat.

Ships. A fool's hope was distracting her, distracting her from the true threat. Anne whipped around in fear, and found - ugh. Somehow she wasn't surprised.

Anne had enough time to pass a smirk across her face before her attacker stabbed her in the gut and tossed her off the edge and into the water below. The water remained undisturbed throughout the night, another night without help coming from the West.

The next day, the Captain of the Guard gathered the remaining soldiers and completed roll call. Everyone noticed that only one was missing this morning. The Captain, however, did not take this as a positive or a negative sign, instead remaining neutral. "All right soldiers," he said, "Today's only victim is Anne, also known as Riedquat. The Ottomans have fooled us once before with disguising their numbers, so I would not read too much into this. However, until there are no kills, we are never truly safe."

It is now Day 7! Voting will last for 24 hours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (7)
Furio
Silvio
Little Leo
Vinny
Bugsy
Junior
Sonny

Wrath of God:
Luigi (God Emperor)

Killed:
Chickenman (Cjreynol)
Vincent (Subotan)
Fredo (rickinator9)
Claudia (Double A)
Big George (DaveShack)
Bertha (LazyMcCrow)
Vito (Captain Blackadder)
Fat Tony (atheotes)
Giuseppe (landlubber)
Richie (Arjos)
Tony (BSmith)
Anne (Riedquat)

Executed:
Paulie (Csargo)
Scarface (issaikhaan)
Fingers (Diamondeye)
Maria (Askthepizzaguy)
Mickey (Ishmael)
Emilio (The King)
Angelo (edse)

Player list:
Subotan
Zack
Montmorency
Arjos
The King
Captain Blackadder
LazyMcCrow
Ishmael
Double A
scottishranger
Chaotix
Askthepizzaguy
classical_hero
Visorslash
landlubber
God Emperor
edse
atheotes
Cjreynol
DaveShack
Diamondeye
autolycus
issaikhaan
Riedquat
BSmith
Csargo
rickinator9

[Riedquat]

Good luck town, you all will need it! :)

[[MAFIA] Furio]

This is funny.

I keep waiting thinking, "maybe someone else will show up to vote".

And then no matter how long I wait, it doesn't happen.

So assuming maybe only one or two other people show up by the end, I have a pretty strong influence on the lynch.

Problem is, everyone looks exactly the same to me since no one is posting.

Vote: Bugsy

If Angelo really was mafia, then Bugsy is his scum partner and was trying to protect him last phase.

[[MAFIA] Silvio]

Abstaining does not contribute to the town cause in any way, shape, or form; all it does is allow you to remain unaccountable for a vote today.

I doubt Bugsy could be the Mafia, it doesn't sound like Monty...

Angelo should be scum, or otherwise it means they gave themself 2 extra lynches to survive!

It probably is a lurker from the three..

Vote: Sonny

[[MAFIA] Little Leo]

I think Angelo was scum, but with seven of us left, if he wasn't, this is our last shot. (7-1-2=4, 2 mafia, we lose). Therefore, today I think we have to assume Angelo was innocent. In that case, I think at least one of the four of us actives has to be scum. Silvio's abstain was a really gutsy move for a mafia, so I think he's clean. That leaves Furio and Bugsy for me. I feel like Bugsy took the easy out, voting the abstainer with time winding down, so I will vote: Bugsy.

[[MAFIA] Furio]

How do we know Monty's the mafia?

EDIT: Just noticed, GH: atheotes is still alive in the player list even though he died as Fat Tony.

[Montmorency]

I'm not, dude.

[[MAFIA] Junior]

If we finally got some mafia last turn then it was probably one of the inactives from earlier that is now coming out to try and keep their chances alive. Just looking at the last vote (sorry I keep a busy schedule during the week so I missed the last vote, didnt get home till late) it could be Sonny or Vinny.

Im inclined to vote Vinny

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

Eh, your analysis sounds off to me.

Vote: Little Leo

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Sonny;2053422039']Eh, your analysis sounds off to me.

Vote: Little Leo

Eh, your analysis sounds off to me.

Vote: Sonny

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

What analysis? :laugh4:

[[MAFIA] Bugsy]

Little Leo;2053421974']I feel like Bugsy took the easy out, voting the abstainer with time winding down, so I will vote: Bugsy.

I feel like Little Leo took the easy out, lurking the whole game, so I will Unvote, Vote: Little Leo.

[[MAFIA] Vinny]

I have no idea whom I should vote for. I just don't have the will to work it out right now. Little Leo must go according to some unknown reason.

[[MAFIA] Sonny]

Unvote; Vote: Vinny

[[MAFIA] Furio]

Vinny;2053422141']I have no idea whom I should vote for. I just don't have the will to work it out right now. Little Leo must go according to some unknown reason.

I hope you're aware that everyone knows who's alive, and everybody who's alive has been around long enough to know what a legal vote looks like. That is not it.

Unvote, Vote: Vinny

[GeneralHankerchief]

Voting closed.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Constantinople, 1453
Day 8

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With only seven of them left, all the guards huddled around a single campfire as they were doing their deliberations. There was no distance between them, no personal space. Everything was exposed.

For once, there were no no-shows. Everyone present knew the stakes, both for them and for the city. Everyone took part. People even did some detective work and made quality assumptions. Time would tell if said assumptions were correct or fatal, but the fact that they were being made was heartening to see nonetheless.

Perhaps due to the increased quality of the deliberations, the voting went back and forth that day, with a couple of separate targets being in the lead at various points. However, near sundown, the event that would shape the day happened. Vinny, who had been quiet for most of the day, finally announced that he couldn't make sense of it all and haphazardly threw out Little Leo's name, not even doing it properly. This quickly led to murmurs of shock and outrage among the rest of the group. Surely, he knew the stakes, right? Surely, he knew better than this?

That was Vinny's final word on the matter, despite the pestering. And really, that ended all discussion for the day. Such an egregious "vote" could have only one consequences. About half the guards quickly moved their votes onto Vinny. And then, it was done. The Captain of the Guard walked over and quickly beheaded Vinny, also known as classical_hero, following it up with an address to the rest of the group.

"And so, there are six of us left. If there are still two Ottomans left, then we're probably all dead. If there's one left, then we still have work to do. And if that was the last Ottoman, the only thing we have to worry about is 80,000 more of them beyond those walls. Have a good sleep!"

It is now Night 8! This phase will last for 24 hours. Probably.

Day 8 tally:
Vinny: 3 (Junior, Sonny, Furio) :skull:
Bugsy: 1 (Little Leo)
Sonny: 1 (Silvio)
Little Leo: 1 (Bugsy) (improper vote from Vinny not counted)

Abstained: 1 (Vinny) (by way of improperly-formatted vote)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (6)
Furio
Silvio
Little Leo
Bugsy
Junior
Sonny

Wrath of God:
Luigi (God Emperor)

Killed:
Chickenman (Cjreynol)
Vincent (Subotan)
Fredo (rickinator9)
Claudia (Double A)
Big George (DaveShack)
Bertha (LazyMcCrow)
Vito (Captain Blackadder)
Fat Tony (atheotes)
Giuseppe (landlubber)
Richie (Arjos)
Tony (BSmith)
Anne (Riedquat)

Executed:
Paulie (Csargo)
Scarface (issaikhaan)
Fingers (Diamondeye)
Maria (Askthepizzaguy)
Mickey (Ishmael)
Emilio (The King)
Angelo (edse)
Vinny (classical_hero)

Player list:
Subotan
Zack
Montmorency
Arjos
The King
Captain Blackadder
LazyMcCrow
Ishmael
Double A
scottishranger
Chaotix
Askthepizzaguy
classical_hero
Visorslash
landlubber
God Emperor
edse
atheotes
Cjreynol
DaveShack
Diamondeye
autolycus
issaikhaan
Riedquat
BSmith
Csargo
rickinator9

[[MAFIA] Little Leo]

Well, are we still fighting or is it over?

[GeneralHankerchief]

Sorry, weekends aren't really the best time for me, as you've probably seen from the delays for the past three weekends. :laugh4: I'll get it up by tonight.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Constantinople, 1453
Night 8

With only six people still alive at the camp, the Captain of the Guard suspended all nightly duties until further notice. He had seen eight days of voting, with mixed results. Eight, in the words of a pop culture program that would air on half a millennium later on a medium which the Captain couldn't even fathom, was enough. It was time to take matters into his own hands. Banking on the fact that his men had gotten one lynch right, he split his soldiers into three groups of two each. The buddy system, that tried-and-true method of accountability, was now in effect. The groups were Sonny and Silvio, Bugsy and Furio, and Junior and Little Leo.

The Captain was aware that the fate of his unit, and potentially that of the entire city, rested on one terrible assumption. But he was taking a chance. If he was right, this would end today and the city still had a shot. If he was wrong... well, at the very least, nobody would live long enough to chew him out for it.

Bugsy and Furio were sharing a tent for the night. They were managing to stay awake through both paranoia and the fact that they did have a small fire going in the tent. Both of them kept watch to make sure that the fire didn't go out and also that it didn't get too big and burn the entire thing down. It was enough of a task to keep them occupied. There was little conversation. That distracted them too much. If there was anything to be going on outside - murders, a possible Ottoman attack - they would be able to hear it.

Bugsy was poking the fire when all of a sudden, a crossbow bolt whizzed through the tent's opening, breaking the stick in half and striking Bugsy in the knee. Bugsy cried out in pain, outside causing his attacker to cringe. However, Bugsy's next move, entirely driven on instinct, was to clutch his wounded knee and fall forward... straight into the fire. It was at this point where the real screaming began.

Junior considered his options for a moment. He had seconds before the rest of the camp, by now all awake from Bugsy's screaming, would be on him. "Screw it," he finally decided, and rushed into the tent. After over a week of stealthy kills, brute force would be the last thing that these soldiers were expecting. The strategy paid off. Ignoring the incapacitated Bugsy, Junior headed straight for Furio, also known as Chaotix. Using his greater momentum, he wrestled Furio to the ground, quickly took out his sword, and stabbed him in the throat.

Over Bugsy's continued screams, Junior somehow managed to hear footsteps. He rushed outside and - yep - saw that Sonny and Silvio had arrived. Without another word, he took his sword out and began dueling the two of them, using his expert skill to handle their superior numbers.

At the same time, Little Leo snuck in Bugsy's tent while the others were distracted. "Can't forget the most important part about this," he muttered to himself. Little Leo first put Bugsy, also known as Zack, out of his misery and then searched the two corpses. He was about to give up and join his partner in the sword fight outside when - eureka! After eight extremely tense days, they had found it! The key to one of the gates of Constantinople!

Little Leo sprinted outside the tent and yelled something in Turkish to his partner, who immediately started backpedaling away from Sonny and Silvio. Little Leo reached into his pocket and took out something small and spherical, tossing it at the two remaining Byzantine guards' feet. The ball exploded, creating a plume of smoke. Sonny and Silvio stopped in their tracks, coughing madly and unable to see. Little Leo and Junior hightailed it for the city's gate. The only thing in their path was now the Captain of the Guard, who stood, ready to defend his city to the death. However, the two Ottoman deep cover agents were in no mood for a fight. All they did was bowl him over on their mad path to the city's outskirts.

The Captain got back to his feet quickly, but enough distance had been put between him and the Ottomans that he knew a pursuit would be futile. He stood at attention, staring at the gate, softly cursing to themselves. Little Leo, also known as autolycus, and Junior, better known as scottishranger, had gotten away.

Sonny, who also went by Visorslash, and Silvio, commonly known as Montmorency, rushed up to the Captain, finally recovered from the smoke bomb. "Orders?" they breathlessly asked.

The Captain was in full commanding mood. "Sonny, alert the Basileus and Giustiniani. Silvio, rouse any and all units you can find manning the walls. The Ottomans are coming, with priority on the Charisian Gate, which they have acquired the key to. We have only minutes before they come." The two sprinted off in opposite directions, leaving the Captain to stare out at the enemy's campfires. After everything, his unit had utterly failed. There were still the two Ottoman saboteurs, after eight cycles of killings and lynchings, and the only thing that was accomplished was that his unit was decimated and the key to the Charisian Gate was lost.

The Captain eventually walked over to the gate, prepared to die in the defense of his city.

Thirty-seven minutes later, he did just that.


https://i.imgur.com/6vjwZ.jpg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Survived: (2)
Little Leo (autolycus)
Junior (scottishranger)

Overwhelmed in Ottoman assault:
Sonny (Visorslash)
Silvio (Montmorency)

Wrath of God:
Luigi (God Emperor)

Killed:
Chickenman (Cjreynol)
Vincent (Subotan)
Fredo (rickinator9)
Claudia (Double A)
Big George (DaveShack)
Bertha (LazyMcCrow)
Vito (Captain Blackadder)
Fat Tony (atheotes)
Giuseppe (landlubber)
Richie (Arjos)
Tony (BSmith)
Anne (Riedquat)
Bugsy (Zack)
Furio (Chaotix)

Executed:
Paulie (Csargo)
Scarface (issaikhaan)
Fingers (Diamondeye)
Maria (Askthepizzaguy)
Mickey (Ishmael)
Emilio (The King)
Angelo (edse)
Vinny (classical_hero)

Player list:
Subotan
Zack
Montmorency
Arjos
The King
Captain Blackadder
LazyMcCrow
Ishmael
Double A
scottishranger
Chaotix
Askthepizzaguy
classical_hero
Visorslash
landlubber
God Emperor
edse
atheotes
Cjreynol
DaveShack
Diamondeye
autolycus
issaikhaan
Riedquat
BSmith
Csargo
rickinator9

Final result:

TOTAL OTTOMAN VICTORY :charge:

Congrats to our two Ottomans, autolycus and scottishranger for a flawless game, and to the rest of the player base for their interest and effort. I won't have a full commentary as normal for this game (the low levels of activity don't really justify one of my 5,000-word diatribes, sorry folks :laugh4:), but I will have several points to make once I get some sleep. Hope everyone enjoyed the story.

[Ishmael]

Congrats to the Mafia, well played!

[LazyMcCrow]

Thanks to you General (not least for swiftly deleting my posts from the wrong account on more than one occasion!) and 'grats to the Ottomans. As a relative newcomer to the site, I found the 'meta'ish aspect of the anonymous accounts to be an odd addition that added nothing for me - given that the theme clashed. (If we had all had anonymous accounts which were Byzantine guards I would have loved it!) I can see how they may well have been an excellent addition for those of you who know each others styles well. For me it was just confusing :) GG all look forward to the next one.

[Montmorency]

Ha, lurker victory! Had I been scum, I would have won. :mellow:

Special thanks go to Arjos for allowing me to survive this long.

[Arjos]

Special thanks go to Arjos for allowing me to survive this long.

Those emoticons and punctuation are very powerful, but with great power comes great responsibility XD

Still I actually started to vote for lukers near the end, but everyone gets so focused on the people making a ruckus :P

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Good game GH! Just as always I enjoyed those write-ups! :bow:

[rickinator9]

Good game, except for the fact that I was killed before I could be of any significance.

[Chaotix]

Well played, scottishranger and autolycus. You were hidden as bodies in a nondescript crowd. :bow:

[autolycus]

The last day was really nerve-racking for me, because if I'd been innocent, I totally would have accused you, chaotix, since you were the other one who had voted for Angelo, figuring one of you two was scum. But playing an accusation against the most active player was a bad idea as scum.

To the early dead: Stay active. As confirmed innocents, even without a vote, you can have a major impact on the game. If I'd had a mad horde of Christian ghosts running around calling for random people's heads, it would have made my life much more difficult.

[edse]

Angelo;2053421117']And now you look like the mafia who forgot to send his order two nights ago and uses an innocent townies conclusion to keep suspision away from himself. Vote: Little Leo

Was I correct here autolycus? Bugsy was my other suspect, I hadn't really thought about Junior.

[rickinator9]

The last day was really nerve-racking for me, because if I'd been innocent, I totally would have accused you, chaotix, since you were the other one who had voted for Angelo, figuring one of you two was scum. But playing an accusation against the most active player was a bad idea as scum.

To the early dead: Stay active. As confirmed innocents, even without a vote, you can have a major impact on the game. If I'd had a mad horde of Christian ghosts running around calling for random people's heads, it would have made my life much more difficult.

I was active. I voted every time and even posted misc posts and still I ended up in a grave the second night.

[GeneralHankerchief]

All right, as promised, here are my general thoughts on the game.

- First of all, I've now hosted two Large vanilla mafia games that have used the anonymous accounts. Both of them have ended up as Total Mafia Victories. Obviously, with the small sample size, it's impossible to determine the exact reason for this, but it's still a disturbing trend. It also tells me a few things about the current Mafia trends and our player base's strengths and weaknesses.

- I'll echo autolycus's statement about the dead players needing to stay active. The reason why auto and scotty sailed through the game basically unscathed was inactivity, no question about it. Nobody was really doing much posting, which made it difficult for anyone to do any analysis, which made it difficult for people to respond to said analysis, all in all creating this weird feedback loop of inactivity. In vanilla games, analysis is everything, and here, there was nothing to analyze. The townies were essentially resorted to throwing blindfolded darts, with predictable results.

- How could the dead have changed this up? Well, every single round in which there were two kills, auto and scotty were basically thumbing it in the town's faces that there were still two Ottomans alive. This meant that every single dead person was innocent. That's a lot of trusted voices out there to be heard, and if they made an accusation on anyone, people would actually have to defend themselves rather than simply shoving it back in the accuser's face, which happened more than once in this game. From those defenses come good analysis, as people can scrutinize them and see if they hold up to closer examination. This is what caused so many eventual townie victories in my old Mafia games (plus Godfather 3).

- I know you all are sick of me saying this by now (especially the old-timers) but screw it - it's my game, I'm going to harp on it again. :laugh4: I think this game has really exposed people's crushing reliance on the network system. Vanilla games by definition remove all possibility of the networks, as everybody who is not mafia is operating on the exact same base of information. I removed that convenient little safety net, and to put it mildly, you all got skunked. Everyone who thinks they're a good townie is going to have to work a little more on their townie cred after this game.

- By extension, this proves that the mafia games we had back in my day were superior. You know what I'm talking about, the ones before the rise of the networks and the modern era of the Gameroom, where people with good roles, the people "in the know" can take advantage of flawed balance of things and contact their buddies or the people they know to be innocent, and then the balance of power is shifted from a two-way battle (mafia vs. town) to a three-way battle (mafia vs. in-the-know people vs. the poor souls who aren't in-the-know and thus become the sacrificial lambs) and the game instantly comes down to whether or not the mafia manages to infiltrate the network successfully, no real detective work required. Back in my day we didn't have any of that, you know we didn't! Instead, aspiring detectives had to walk uphill to school both ways in the snow, and we were lucky if the journey was under two miles! Back in my day, if you were a mafioso, you had to watch every single solitary thing you said in the thread, since there were a full dozen hypercompetent investigators hanging on to everything you wrote because that was the only thing they *could* analyze! Back in my day, there were no rambunctious kids playing on my immaculately-manicured lawn! Go back inside and take your pills, GH, everyone's sick of your grandstanding and pining for the simpler days of yore.

- My final thought is that while the game ultimately ended up a little disappointing for me (under 400 posts in this day and age is laughable, and speaks to the levels of inactivity we had), I did enjoy writing the kill and execution descriptions. Just about every little fact I put in about Constantinople is correct, and I hope you all learned something and enjoyed the setting as much as I did. I have an undergraduate thesis about this topic due in a little over two months, and I'll admit that fleshing out the city a little bit has helped bring Constantinople to life for me.

Thanks for playing everyone, and I hope to see you all next time. :bow:

[Zack]

Bugsy;2053422054']I feel like Little Leo took the easy out, lurking the whole game, so I will Unvote, Vote: Little Leo.

Boom.

[autolycus]

Was I correct here autolycus? Bugsy was my other suspect, I hadn't really thought about Junior.
Nope, scottishranger wasn't on the entire night that we missed that kill. I did intentionally avoid killing you the previous night because I had that case planned :).

[LazyMcCrow]

- My final thought is that while the game ultimately ended up a little disappointing for me (under 400 posts in this day and age is laughable, and speaks to the levels of inactivity we had), I did enjoy writing the kill and execution descriptions. Just about every little fact I put in about Constantinople is correct, and I hope you all learned something and enjoyed the setting as much as I did. I have an undergraduate thesis about this topic due in a little over two months, and I'll admit that fleshing out the city a little bit has helped bring Constantinople to life for me.


I'll take criticism of inactivity due to my deadness on the chin and try to do better next time. Just wanted to say thanks again as I realised I didn't comment on exactly what you mention above - I found the write-ups both entertaining and educational: well done :)

[[MAFIA] Bertha]

Ooh! - I'm still Bertha!