WWJ IX: Psychotic Penguins: The Crossing of Helcaraxë

[Nogrod]

“The Noldor came at last far in to the north of Arda; and they saw the first teeth of the ice that floated in the sea, and knew that they were drawing nigh to the Helcaraxë. For between the land of Aman that in the north curved eastward, and the east-shores of Endor (which is Middle-earth) that bore westward, there was a narrow strait, through which the chill waters of the Encircling Sea and the waves of Belegaer flowed together, and there were vast fogs and mists of deathly cold and the sea-stream were filled with clashing hills of ice and the grinding of ice deep-sunken. Such was the Helcaraxë, and there none yet had dared to tread save the Valar only and Ungoliant.”

“The fire of their hearts was young, and led by Fingolfin and his sons, and by Finrod and Galadriel, they dared to pass to the bitterest North; and finding no other way they wandered at last the terror of the Helcaraxë and the cruel hills of ice. Few of the deeds of the Noldor thereafter surpassed that desperate crossing in hardihood or woe. There Elenwë the wife of Turgon was lost, and many others perished also…”

- The Crossing of Helcaraxë as told by J.R.R. Tolkien in “The Silmarillion”

The snowy blizzard was filling their eyes and mouths, forcing them to lean on each other, bending down to resist the onpouring snow. The icy desert cracked and hummed beneath their feet making their misery and anguish even harder to endure. There was only the wind, and the blinding snow and ice all around them.

Elenwë was making her way with her husband Turgon’s household. They were fighting against the storm of frost like all the others. There were no lords or servants here. There was just the Noldor united against the might and the ill-will of the Helcaraxë.

First Elenwë thought she had only imagined it. She thought she heard a faint crack as she took a step. She glanced at her young daughter, Idril, and saw the same fear in her eyes. Others were having similar expressions. Elenwë knew she was not the only one who had noticed the cracking. “Stay calm! Walk carefully, but swiftly. The ice seems more solid over there near Fingon’s host. Let’s try to get there”, Lord Turgon shouted to his household. His words were muffled in the snowy wind.

Cautiosly, the company started to move again. Suddenly a huge gap opened beneath their feet. The grey sea bursted out with a huge roar, splitting a small group of Elves from the others. Many were screaming as they saw their kinsmen fall into the storming water. Elenwë and a couple of other Elves had barely avoided falling to the gap which was now separating them from the host. They were on an ice floe. It started to move.

Many were taken by the grey waters. Idril and Turgon were both with the main host. Elenwë cried out from the floe. Turgon bellowed desperately and was calling others to help in any way they could. Aredhel picked a great elven rope from her package and tried to hurl it to the ones on the floe. It fell short. The rope drifted on the grey waves separating the unfortunate ones from their kin. Galadriel and Finrod Felagund were watching in horror the things unraveling. “I have a bad feeling about this. That was no accident”, Finrod called to his sister Galadriel over the gusting winds.

- The Crossing of Helcaraxë as told by Sinlómien and Nogwë in “The Lost Histories of the Noldor”

[Thinlómien]

The players:
3 werepenguins
1 cobbler
1 seer
1 ranger
1 logical hunter
8 ordinary elves

Werepenguins:
Each Night they choose an elf to kill. The werepenguins may PM with each other during the Night phases. No PMing during the Day. One of them must PM the kill to Nogrod, hopefully one hour before the deadline at least, so that the narration can be in time (we will be flexible with this as there might be timezone problems, but would hope the wp:s could sent their kills in time). The werepenguins win when there are as many wps left as there are villagers – then they are just happy to devour the remaining elves.

Cobbler:
Is an ordinary elf who just wants the penguins to win (affected by them on their journey? ). S/he will play as an ordo, but wins only if the penguins win. In this game, the cobbler will be seen as the cobbler by the seer when dreamed of, but counted as an ordo in the tallies.

Seer:
Each Night chooses an elf to dream of. The elf’s role will be revealed to the seer. The seer PMs her/his dream choices to Nogrod each night. The seer is on the ordinary elves’ side and wins if the werepenguins are defeated.

Ranger:
Each Night the ranger chooses an elf to protect. The chosen elf can’t be killed by the penguins that Night; the ranger protects him/her. The ranger plays on the ordinary elves’ side and wins if the werepenguins are defeated. The ranger can’t pick the same elf to protect for two Nights in a row.

Logical Hunter:
Picks an elf to hunt whenever s/he wishes to; s/he can change her/his pick whenever s/he wants to. The following rules apply to hunter kills. If the hunter has picked a werepenguin and is killed during the Night, s/he will take the picked wp with her. If the hunter is lynched, her pick will go with her if s/he has voted for the hunter on that particular Day. So the hunter only takes with her/him
a) picked penguins at Night
b) her voters at Day.
The hunter should feel free to reconsider her/his pick at anytime during the game. S/he is not tied to the one pick/Night –rule and s/he doesn’t have to change her pick Nightly. The logical hunter is on the ordinary elves’ side and wins if the werepenguins are defeated.

Ordinary Elves aka Ordinary Villagers:
Have no special activities to perform and win if the werepenguins are defeated.


Miscellaneous Rules:

- The Days and the Nights last 24 hours

- The deadline is 10 PM GMT

- The roles will be revealed upon death

- Everyone has a choice of retracting her/his vote once each Day

- There will be no double-lynches

- If there's a tie, the player reaching the highest vote first is lynched

- There will be no clues in the narrations

- The dead players can’t post on the thread

- No player can use PMs to verify anything they say

- Editing is only allowed to correct spelling/grammar mistakes, to go back and bold/italicize something etc. or to mark cross-posts

- All players must be in the Invisible Mode

- The werepenguins are the only players allowed to PM with each other during the game, but only during the Night phases

- All discussion about RL hindrances etc. should take place in the TiGJ-thread, which we hope all the players would check frequently

- The votes should be cast as follows:

++ Nogrod

(on a separate line, bolded, ++ in the beginning when voting, or -- when retracting a vote)

- Players who don’t post or fail to vote in two days in a row will be removed from the game


All gifted/wp picks will be PMd to Nogrod
All urgent matters/questions please PM to both Nogrod and Thinlómien (basicly we’re working on the same computer and will be logged in as one or the other)

All narrations are written in co-operation so all comments (positive and negative) to both of us, please.

THIS POST IS 13 MINUTES LATE FROM THE ACTUAL HOUR OF THE DEADLINE. 24 hours to Day1.

[Thinlómien]

The ice-floe drifted for a couple of days on the unknown seas. But on the third day of floating the Elves marked something weird in the horizon. There was a flock of strange birds they had never seen before coming towards them. They were elegant in their black and white, incarnations of true beauty. The Elves looked at them in astonishment: those magnificent creatures didn’t fly on air like other birds, but flew in the water swimming with the grace the Elves had never thought possible.

The gallant birds, penguins - as the Men of the later ages called them, but to which the elves had no word for - surrounded the floe and quacked amiably. Those gentle creatures took the floe and started carrying it to a new direction. The Elves were astonished, but let the birds do what they were doing. There was no better choice at the moment. No one dared to touch these magnificient animals whose origin was unknown to them.

As the evening was drawing to a close they noticed an island in the horizon. The penguins were steering the floe determinedly towards it. The island was small, but there was a major building in the middle of it, all lit up and shining for miles away. Eventually they got to the shore as the stars were just starting to glow. The penguins rushed around them and the Elves showed their gratefulness by patting them on the head, stroking, and even hugging them. A few cries were heard since the penguins rewarded some overfriendliness with a sharp peck, but generally the scene was very warm. The penguins started pointing towards the palace in the middle of the island. The Elves thanked their odd guides once more and started to climb the hill to the palace waiting for them up there.

The doors were open. Warm candle light from the great chandeliers welcomed them to an extensive assembly hall. There was no sign of any living creature to be seen. The Master or the Mistress of the house seemed not to be present, but there was an abundant meal set ready for eighteen in the Great Hall to their left. The starving Elves didn’t hesitate, but hurried to the table with passion. All the main courses, fruits and delicacies one could imagine were laid ready: a whole deer filled with pheasants, whole roasted piglets with apples in their mouths, lamb tagine with apricots in a huge bowl, several smoked salmons, shark’s fin soup and turtle broth, steamed artichokes with fennel, tomatoes and beans with ginger, cream and cheese gratinated cauliflower, ostrichs’ tongues, quail’s eggs, frog legs, goose liver, sturgeon caviar, ants in honey, pineapple with mint and caster sugar, prunes and plumes, grapes and kiwi fruits, coconuts, tiramisu, saffron-spiced rice pudding, halva, apple pie with vanilla sauce, truffles, hazelnut brownies... And there was no shortage on beverages either: the finest wines and champagnes, meads and ales of various sorts, freshly squeezed fruit juices, cold spring water and numerous teas flavoured with all imaginable herbs.

“But where is Lady Elenwë?” Valier, the chambermaid, asked in the middle of the meal. All the party had been concentrating on filling their stomachs and no one had noticed that their mistress was gone.

“I saw her in, and my Lady surely entered the house” said Roa_Aoife, Elenwë’s personal guard, “but I haven’t seen her since I saw the meal.”

The others were quite overtaken by the news and started to grow restless. No one could accuse Roa though. They had all been lured by the meal.

“We must find her!” Macalaure, Lord Turgon’s nephew proclaimed.

“We must find who?” asked Dimwë the half-wit, Elenwë’s second cousin.

“She hasn’t used her pot” Kitanna dropped in, looking worried.

“Not here. Master not here” called a strange croaking voice from above them. Everyone tried to spot the speaker. “Look there, it’s a parrot!” shouted Boromir88, the Mouth of Turgon. They glanced up to see the green bird swinging on a perch high, near the roof. There was a moment of silence. “Rooms upstairs. Good night!” The parrot took to its wings and disappeared through the open roof window.

They were all filled and tired and confused. “I think noble ladies know when to get some sleep as well as we simpler ones” said Naria, the goat herder. “Right. Let’s go to sleep” agreed Encaitare, the standard-bearer. The elves were too weary and tired to mind the peculiarity of the situation. They decided to think about it the next day.

There were bedrooms available on the second floor, all made ready to sleep in. They snuggled up in the soft cushions and luxurious linens.

Instantly they all fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Little did they know of what would ensue...


Players
Valier - Elenwe's personal chamber maid
Diamond18 - Dimwë the half-wit second cousin of Elenwë
Naria - Family's goat herder
Macalaure - Turgon's nephew and part-time-repentant kinslayer
Lalaith - Aredhel's tutoress
Firefoot- Aredhel's friend
Jenny - An Embroiderer, lost, not related
Roa - Elenwë's personal guard
phantom - Ecthelion's hotheaded nephew and personal squire
Boromir - The Mouth of Turgon
spawn - animals' dung cleaning specialist
Kitanna - servant who empties and cleans chamber pots
Encaitare - A standard-bearer
Anguirel - Lalwende's semi-canonical lutenist and Findis's demi-canonical flautist
Eonwe - Turgon's herald


NIGHT 1 begins now.

Werepenguins PM at will to make your plans until the start of the Day1.
Seer pick your dream and PM it to Nogrod.
Hunter, you may PM Nogrod your choice whenever you wish.

[Nogrod]

It was over midnight and two werepenguins were already assembled in the basement.
“So, we must get rid of the two singer-songwriters tonight”, the Chinstrap said.
“Easy job, I daresay”, answered the Rockhopper.
“Where’s the Emperor, by the way?” asked the Chinstrap.
“Probably taking care of ‘matters of the state’”, the Rockhopper grinned.
“To state the matter, the Emperor’s busy”, chuckled the Chinstrap.
“With the current state of the affairs, I’m not wondering that” the Rockhopper commented.
They both bursted up in laughter.

“The idea was not to wake the whole party with that foolish chuckling of yours” a dry voice interrupted as the Emperor emerged from the shadows.
“Yes, boss” the two smaller penguins agreed.
“Let’s get to the bussiness now. And no tomfoolery, I warn you”, the Emperor said.

Quietly the three took the Bomb and left.

-----------------------------

Instead of sweet birds singing, the elves were waken up by an explosion. They hurried out from their rooms to the place where Thinlómien’s and Nogrod’s rooms should have been, but they saw Nothing.

Actually seeing Nothing for the first time in one’s life is quite a mind-boggling experience. It was most weird, nothing they would have imagined Nothingness to be. It was there in front of their eyes but then, it wasn’t. The two rooms were missing, the doors to them were missing, the ceilings were missing, the beds were missing, the pillows were missing and both Thinlómien and Nogrod were missing too. Everything was missing but Nothing.

There was no trace of Lady Elenwë either.

“There’s nothing there” said dancing spawn of ungoliant, the animals’ dung cleaning specialist.
“Obviously” answered Eonwe, the herald, wryly.
“Except Nothing, of course” snapped in Anguirel, Lalwendë's semi-canonical lutenist and Findis's demi-canonical flautist.
“Did you hear the bang?” asked Firefoot, Aredhel’s friend.
“Yes, it was a Big Bang” answered Lalaith, Aredhel’s tutoress.
“A mighty darn huge Big Bang” put in the phantom, Ecthelion's hotheaded nephew and personal squire.
“Yeah... Hey look! There’s a note on the floor!” called JennyHallu, a lost embroiderer. She picked the note and read it out aloud:

“The Big Bang: Nothing may give birth to something, but that something may end up being Nothing.”

“Breakfast. Downstairs. Breakfast downstairs”, croaked the voice of the green parrot they had encountered last night.

-----------------------------

~ The Dead ~
Nogrod - a troubadour, singer – mod blowed up in the Big Bang on Night1
Thinlómien - a troubadour, harpist – mod blowed up in the Big Bang on Night1

~ The Living ~
Anguirel - Lalwende's semi-canonical lutenist and Findis's demi-canonical flautist
Boromir88 - The Mouth of Turgon
dancing spawn of ungoliant - animals' dung cleaning specialist
Diamond18 - Dimwë the half-wit second cousin of Elenwë
Encaitare - A standard-bearer
Eonwe - Turgon's herald
Firefoot- Aredhel's friend
JennyHallu - An Embroiderer, lost, not related
Kitanna - servant who empties and cleans chamber pots
Lalaith - Aredhel's tutoress
Macalaure - Turgon's nephew and part-time-repentant kinslayer
Naria - Family's goat herder
the phantom - Ecthelion's hotheaded nephew and personal squire
Roa_Aoife - Elenwë's personal guard
Valier - Elenwe's personal chamber maid

Day1 has now begun.

Penguins stop PMing.
Everybody start discussing.

[the phantom]

I knew those beastly little birds were no good the minute I laid eyes on them! I wanted to beat them off the ice, but noooo... you all said "Oh, they're cute, don't hurt them" and "They're just pulling us to safety."

Well, does it look like we're safe now? Ha! The flightless fiends haven't brought us to safety, they've brought us to death. And what's worse, they're making a sport of it, killing us slowly and prolonging the misery.

Birds that can't fly- that is just plain perverse! They are obviously Melkor's handiwork. Only he would do something so ridiculous.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a look around- mainly I'll be looking for those black and white evil-doers. If I find one, I'm going to make a meal out of it, whether you think it's cute or not!

[Roa_Aoife]

Cats, Ducks, Orcs, and now Penguins... what's next? I'm almost afraid to ask.

I have failed in my duty to protect the Lady Elenwe, and I am greatly shamed for it. I will try to regain my honor by taking revenge on the beasts who harmed my mistress. Now, then, how to catch them?

I'm not one for theory making- I'm better at analysis, but I have nothing really to analyze at the moment. It seems this game will be nice and straight forward, aside from the cobbler. About said cobbler- lynching the cobbler would be no great loss to us earlier in the game when there are many of us. My greatest concern is that the cobbler, rather than getting him/herself lynched, will survive, and lead the village astray, (such as the case of Saucepanman during the attack of the Wereducks.) That said, we should be very careful concerning theories and reasoning, and look very closely for faulty logic or baseless assumptions, especially if someone keeps stating a theory as fact.

Like Big Bangs, etc...

EDIT: Elenwe, not Eonwe- but you have to admit, it's an easy mistake when you're rushed.

[Encaitare]

As usual, I'm writing my post as I catch up on what's happened. And as I mentioned in the WWJ thread, 10 PM GMT doesn't work out so well for me (as it is 6 PM EST), hence my latecoming. RL circumstances cause me to have to vote now or never.

Now for my observations...

Phantom is his usual outspoken self, which is great when he's an ordo... because as much as I hate to admit it, he usually has some pretty good ideas. His suggestion in post #20:

Originally Posted by tp

I would recommend that everyone drop a hint of innocence about a fellow villager or two in the following days as if you were the Seer and had dreamed that person innocent. That should make it easier for the Seer to hide.

makes me feel like he is innocent. Then again, he is an experienced player and knows how to bluff well.

Originally Posted by Macalaure

Giving seerish hints while not being seer and being as reasonable as possible doesn't mix to me.

Even though Phantom uses the phrase "as if you were the Seer" doesn't mean that every suggestion that someone is innocent means you're behaving in a Seer-ish manner. Above, I just said that I think the phantom is innocent, but that is based on what he has said thus far rather than me trying to fake the WPs out.

Voting at present:
Eonwe: 1 (Anguirel)

It looks as though I really didn't miss much in the past 21 hours... most of today's discussion does seem to be "Werewolf 101," as it's being called. I'm going to reread the discussion and cast my vote in about half an hour.

EDIT: Cross-posted with Diamond.

[Encaitare]

My suspicions upon rereading the thread:
- Lalaith, because I feel that a detailed post analysis so early looks like the person is trying a bit too hard to appear helpful.
- Spawn, for singling out Anguirel when it doesn't seem as though he's any more suspicious than anyone else.

I would like to remind everyone, especially those who are suspicious of people because they are quiet, that more posts does not equal more likely to be innocent! Some of the best werecreatures have been very vocal, outspoken players. Yes, silence from players is frustrating because it gives the others less to work with. But unfortunately, we all have RL to deal with... like me, right now. I therefore cast my vote for

++ LALAITH

Probably wrong, but it's as good a guess as I can make at this point.

Current voting:
Eonwe: 1 (Anguirel)
Lalaith: 1 (Encaitare)

[Encaitare]

Jenny still doesn't sit right with me. She voted for the phantom, whom we now know to be innocent, then retracted in favor of Roa, whom I also believe is innocent. And finally she voted for Mac on Day 2, and I feel Mac is innocent. You could call it differences of opinion, but I don't like it. Also, there is this:

Originally Posted by Jenny, Post #126

Way to go, guys. I'd have helped, but I already used my retractable.

Why does she reiterate this? It seems like the kind of thing that doesn't have to be said, and something that often gives werecreatures away is repeating certain points in the attempt to make themselves look innocent.

Originally Posted by Jenny, Post #155

No offense to your test, TP, but Boro certainly didn't expect to get killed yesterday, and it just seemed that he emphasized and re-emphasized Mac's newbieness and innocence.

TP and I have also said that Mac is innocent, and neither of us are WPs.

Roa has said that she is going to do an analysis of Jenny. It is very likely that Jenny will be receiving my vote, but I'm going to wait for this analysis in case Roa picks up something I've missed.