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Northern Isles Roles (Game 8)


*i

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This is the list of possible roles for Game 8. Only 16 of these will be used. The roles will be chosen as follows:

 

Roles 1-10: Anama Priest, Bound Servant, Darkside Blademaster, Darkside Mage, Dionicio, Domont, Gladwell, Machrone, Micklebur, Shanker.

Role 11: Adventurer or Empire Spy (50% each)

Role 12: Alchemist (25%), Craftmaster Strine (25%), or Oliver (50%)

Roles 13-16: Randomly chosen to be any role not currently used.

 

The magic users are: Aimee, Craftmaster Strine, Darkside Mage, Gladwell, Necromancer, Sacred Item Cultist, Shanker, Vahkos.

 

People who may join the Anama are: Adventurer, Alchemist, Anama Hunter, Dionicio, Fae, Infiltrator, Oliver, Pure Spirit, Ronaldo, Skribbane Addict.

 

People who may join Gladwell are: Adventurer, Anama Hunter, Craftmaster Strine, Dionicio, Fae, Infiltrator, Ronaldo, Sacred Item Cultist, Skribbane Addict, Trickster.

 

The roles, in alphabetical order, are:

 

Adventurer

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Once per game, may steal one item (not an artifact) from the moderator shop. If you kill one of your victory condition targets, you receive a reward of 40 coins.

 

Victory Condition: You must do two of these: Have the Ring of Magery at the end of the game, kill Dionicio, kill Gladwell, kill Darkside Blademaster, kill Machrone, kill Oliver, kill Craftmaster Strine, kill Skribbane Addict.

 

Aimee

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: None

Immune: Most Attacks

 

Abilities: Your target may not perform any actions for 24 hours. You may not directly attack anyone or hold and use items. You can only be killed by the Wand of Death. Anyone else who attacks you will learn your role.

 

Victory: Number of Avernites (including Aimee) that win is at least twice the number of Imperials that win.

 

Alchemist

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Abilities: If you attack, your opponent will always receive the first strike. You know the identify of Shanker at the beginning of the game. You may convert coins into up to two potions per day without duplicates for your shop at half cost. You may only create a knowledge brew once.

 

Victory: Have at least 150 coins or item or artifact equivalent in your inventory or shop. Each player that wins gives you a 10 coin bonus. If Shanker wins, you get a 30 coin bonus.

 

Anama Hunter

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: May target one person per day. Reveals if that person is in the Anama. While attacking someone in the Anama, your skill level is treated as Power. If you kill an Anama member, you will receive a bonus of 20 coins.

 

Victory Condition: Total elimination of the Anama sect. The Anama Priest and all followers must be dead by any means necessary.

 

You may join the Anama to go undercover. You will gain the magic immunity, but your victory condition will be unmodified. Also, you do not count as an Anama member when evaluating anyone's victory conditions.

 

Anama Priest

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: If you are attacked, your skill is power for the duration of the battle. May use one of two abilities: (1) Once per game, may resurrect one person, or (2) remove all status effects from a target.

 

Victory Condition: Gladwell dead AND recruit at least one Anama member by the end of day 2, two by the end of day 4, and three by the end of day 5. Failure to meet a recruiting requirement will cause a random non-Anama member to learn the identity of the Anama Priest.

 

Anama Priest can recruit Anama members who are not mages, servants of Gladwell, or Darkside Loyalists. Anyone who joins the Anama gains immunity to magic. See the rules for specifics. An exact list of roles that can join is given at the top of this thread.

 

Bound Servant

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: Physical

 

Ability: If you attack someone while not under Gladwell's influence, your opponent will always receive the first strike. (1) Investigate a role. You will learn the last action that role did. (2) You may do odd jobs and earn coins: 10 the first time, 15 the second, and 20 every time thereafter.

 

Victory Condition: Gladwell wins or his geas is broken.

 

You are a servant of Gladwell.

 

Craftmaster Strine

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Magic

Immune: None

 

Abilities: You will begin with an artifact. When holding an artifact, may take some of its energy to craft up to two items from the list below without duplicates. Each artifact only has enough energy to be used for this purpose once. May only make the Wand of Death once per game.

 

Item List: Box of Traps, Disruption Crystal, Infiltrator Cloak, Ironskin Balm, Killer Poison, Razordisk, Vulnerability Scroll, Wand of Death.

 

Victory: Trade away at least one item you crafted each day AND have traded these items for at least 80 coins or item equivalent (excluding artifacts) by the end of the game. Failure to do so on a given day will raise the total required items you must trade away at the end of the game by one and the total value you need to trade by 10 coins. You get a 15 coin bonus toward your victory condition for each other magic user that wins at the end of the game.

 

Darkside Blademaster

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical

Immune: Physical

 

Ability: None.

 

Victory Condition: All five of the following must be dead, by any means necessary: Anama Priest, Dionicio, and three other random targets.

 

Darkside Mage

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Magic

Immune: None

 

Ability: May target one person per day. The target is cursed for the next 24 hours. If the target decides to attack anyone, his or her attacks will be unable to harm the opponent. Note the curse only affects when the target attacks, not when the target is being attacked.

 

Victory Condition: All five of the following must be dead, by any means necessary: Anama Priest, Dionicio, and three other random targets.

 

Dionicio

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Once per game, may place traps around a target. Anyone who tries to attack that target in the next 24 hours will be killed. If you kill a Darkside Loyalist by your own hand, you receive a reward of 40 coins.

 

Victory Condition: All Darkside Loyalists (Blademaster, Mage, Domont) dead by any means AND correctly identify, to the moderator, the name and role of every player, living and dead, by the end of the game.

 

Domont

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: At the start of the game, you receive a list of five other players. Two of the five will be your fellow Darkside Loyalists. Once per day (even on the first one) may hire bandits to attack another player. You must correctly identify the role of the player to be attacked. The cost is 30 coins the first time and increases by 15 each time thereafter. The bandits have standard skill, physical attack, no immunity and normally receive the first strike.

 

Victory Condition: All five of the following must be dead, by any means necessary: Anama Priest, Dionicio, and three other random targets.

 

Empire Spy

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Once per game, may identify a target's role. If you are attacked and your opponent would have received the first strike, you have a 25% chance of getting the first strike instead. When you kill someone, you will learn their role. If you kill one of your targets, you will receive a reward of 40 coins.

 

Victory Condition: You must do two of these: Have the Flaming Sword at the end of the game, kill Machrone, kill Darkside Blademaster, kill Gladwell, kill Oliver, kill Alchemist, kill Skribbane Addict.

 

Fae

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: You will never receive the first strike and you may not use any items or artifacts offensively. May assume the identity of any other role (e.g. Fae). You will appear as this role to all information gatherers. Your identity is retained even after death.

 

Victory Condition: Your goal is to trick people into "joining" or trading with you. Anyone who "joins" you, trades with you, or gives you an item ends up dead regardless of skill, immunities, or other effects. Trick at least three people this way.

 

Gladwell

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Power

Attack: Magic

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: You may not attack anyone directly. You may not give away or trade any artifacts that are in your victory condition and these may not be stolen by anyone else. If any of your servants attack you, you will always get the first strike. If one of your servants dies, you will learn about it immediately. You may do one of the following once per day: (1) Compel one of your servants to do any action they could do, or (2) Switch your immunity form magic to physical, or vice versa.

 

Victory Condition: Five randomly generated victory conditions that contain holding two artifacts at the end of the game and three people dead by any means or under your geas.

 

Gladwell can bind other players who are not Anama members or Darkside Loyalists. An exact list of roles that can join is given at the top of this thread.

 

People who join have power skill if Gladwell is alive. However, they have the following penalties: (1) Gladwell can override any ability request with his ability and (2) person gains the victory condition that Gladwell must win or the geas be broken. Note that if Gladwell compels someone to attack, they will normally get the first strike.

 

Infiltrator

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Once per game, may get a free action that does not count towards the 24 hour period. You must specify this in a PM with your action.

 

Victory: Kill three Avernites by your own hand. Dionicio counts as two.

 

Machrone

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None.

 

Ability: You never get the first strike; however, if you are attacked by a non-enemy, you have a 50% chance of escaping. Every day, may ask one yes or no question to the moderator. Once per day, if you answer a question (see victory condition) on the day it is given, you get a 5 coin bonus.

 

Victory Condition: Every day, two questions about the game are given to you (three on the first). You must answer, by PM to the moderator, at least one question every day. Your response is posted publicly by the moderator. You must answer five questions correctly to win. Each incorrect response or failure to submit a question during a day will raise the number of questions you need to answer correctly by one each time never to exceed the total number of questions available. You may answer a question as many times as you like, but only your last answer will count toward your victory.

 

Micklebur

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: (1) Can detect if a target is a magic user or is a servant of Gladwell. (2) Can solicit a donation of 10-30 (random amount) coins.

 

Victory Condition: Anama Priest wins OR Gladwell and all his servants dead.

 

You are an Anama Member.

 

Necromancer

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Magic

Immune: None

 

Ability: Target a dead person, you will learn their role and may gain their ability as a possible action.

 

Victory Condition: Use your ability on two randomly selected roles.

 

Nephil Activist

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: If you attack, your opponent will always receive the first strike. Visit the Fang Clan once per 24 hours with a list of actions. While there, you can do any of the following:

 

* Trade with a Fang Clan trader. He has a randomly generated inventory of three items every day that only you see. The cost is the value of the base value of the item +5 coins.

* Hire the Nephil pathfinder for 40 coins to learn the role of a target.

* Hire the Nephil shaman for 25 coins to offer a blessing towards any player. The blessing gives skill of power for 24 hours.

* Hire the Nephil thief for 25 coins. He steals a random item from a target's inventory (if any) and gives it to you.

* Hire a Nephil assassin for 60 coins. He attacks a target of your choice. Has skill of stealth, physical attack, no immunity, and gets the first strike.

 

The pathfinder, shaman, thief, and assassin can only be hired once per game.

 

Victory: The Darkside Loyalists do not win AND spend at least 100 coins on the Fang Clan.

 

Oliver

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None.

 

Ability: You never get the first strike; however, if you are attacked by a non-enemy, you have a 50% chance of escaping. You may do an unlimited number of trades (involving items from your shop) per day. Each day, you may submit a list of up to three targets. You will see their inventories.

 

Victory Condition: Each day, you must grow your total wealth by 10% (rounded up) of the starting value of your shop. Failure to achieve the goal on a given day will cause the following days to require an additional 10%. You also get a 5 coin bonus for each unique person you have traded with.

 

Oliver will have a shop that will be discussed in the rules. The shop begins with five items. Items in your shop may not be used by you except when defending from attacks. You may move items from your inventory to your shop, but not vice versa.

 

Pure Spirit

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: If you attack, your opponent will always receive the first strike. At the beginning of the game, you know the identity of Dionicio. If someone targets you with the Wand of Death, the person who used it will die instead. Can target one person per day. You will learn that person's faction, if any.

 

Victory: The Darkside Loyalists do not win.

 

Ronaldo

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Can target one person. This target is poisoned and will die within 24 hours if they do not use an antidote.

 

Victory: Kill three Empire citizens by your own hand. The Darkside Blademaster counts as two.

 

Sacred Item Cultist

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Magic

Immune: Poison

 

Ability: If someone targets you with the Wand of Death, the person who used it will die instead. May target an item or artifact. It reveals which role (e.g. Sacred Item Cultist) has the item or artifact. If multiple people have items, will reveal all of them.

 

Victory Condition: At the end of the game, have three randomly chosen artifacts in your possession.

 

Shanker

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Magic

Immune: Physical

 

Ability: If you are attacked, your skill will be power for the duration of the battle. (1) May target you or another person with one of the following statuses: Antimagic, Blessed, Protected, or Resistant, or Shielded. (2) Once per game may permanently change a target's default immunity from none to either Magical or Physical. Note: Can only be used on someone whose default immunity is none.

 

Victory Condition: You will receive a list of five randomly generated characters. All of them must be alive at the end of the game. For each one that is dead, you must hold an artifact at the end of the game.

 

Skribbane Addict

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: While not under the influence of skribbane, you never receive the first strike. May target up to two people and if either or both have skribbane, you will steal it. You are immune to skribbane withdrawl, but you must consume Skribbane at least once by day 3 or you will die.

 

Victory: Kill at least two people.

 

Vahkos

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Power

Attack: Magic

Immune: Poison

 

Ability: You always get the first strike and may attack up to two people per day. You may switch your attack from Magic to Physical or vice versa once per day. Your physical attack bypasses antimagic and you are immune to the antimagic status. You may not use or equip items or artifacts, nor may derive any benefits from having them in your inventory. You magic attack will kill Aimee.

 

Victory: You are the only survivor at the end of the game.

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I like that the Addict now has options for how he pursues his win, instead of just asking everybody he meets for Skribbane. That he needs to kill people will hopefully make him less attractive as a fake role claim. Of course, he's not really much of an addict any more, but nothing is perfect. tongue

 

I'm not sure how the new Domont will turn out, but he's interesting, so I'm eager to give it a try.

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I gave the Addict the requirement he must use Skribbane at least once by the end of day 3 or he dies. This gives him a little more urgency and makes him more addict like.

 

The Addict can kill anyone as part of the victory condition. He 'always' gets the first strike after using Skribbane and his skill is power, so the enemy list thing is irrelevant on his side. He's also easy to kill when not on Skribbane because he never gets the first strike then.

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Hmm. So if Domont gets a role wrong, i.e.

 

SIC BANDITS ON *i AS CRANKY MODERATOR

 

but *i is actually the Benevolent Administrator, wouldn't the conspicuous lack of banditry alert Domont to his mistake? That might not be too bad a problem since it would mean that Domont has wasted an action, I guess.

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There is some ambiguity there. It could mean Domont got the role wrong or the role simply had some status effect that protected him/her. Domont will only receive word of payment, and no further information about what actually happened with respect to the bandits.

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What immediately occurs to me is that the adventurer is one of the few people who has the least trouble getting coins, compared to some roles - and if coins are getting harder to get, surely making the Adventurer able to steal them makes it even less likely that anyone else will ever be able to buy anything.

 

Incidentally, would it make sense to have people get their coins back when they are resurrected? My idea is that the characters have hidden their coins in a stash, which would explain why they aren't taken by their killer, but then they could relocate it if they were resurrected. In the previous game, one of the biggest problems for the Anama was that when Andraste died, she was holding 60+ coins, and then came back with nothing - and by the time they'd scraped together a decent amount of money the game had ended. I'm not sure that this would have too much of an impact on the game, but it seems like a reasonable rule.

 

-E-

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I have another idea:

 

Suppose you were understood to have your coins hidden in some kind of stash, so that your killer wouldn't get your coins. However, once per game (or some acceptable frequency), you could identify a player to tell the location of your stash to (done via *i), thereby giving them your coins in the event of your death.

 

My reason for thinking that's a good rule is that it avoids coins disappearing from the game too quickly, but doesn't let them build up too much either (most roles would never use the ability - in fact, the main reason to use it would be to deter other people from killing you, since someone they don't like would get all your coins)

 

That might be too complicated - do people think they'd use that, if it was available?

 

-E-

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I'm still not a fan of this turning into an inventory management game, but if it is, the market needs to remain solvent. Keeping coins in circulation is important, but I don't think they should be a strong incentive to kill or a disincentive to kill (or an incentive to get allies killed).

 

We could put together several of these ideas: the killer gets half the money and a designated heir gets half. I don't know that this is better, but it's possible. Thoughts?

 

—Alorael, who also thinks at this point it may be necessary for nearly everyone to have a way to get more cash. Items make the game go 'round.

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If you want to discourage the inventory management aspect, just decrease the number of items in the mod shop, or increase the markup, or even both. You could even eliminate the mod shop altogether, but that would be a massive change to the way the game works - possibly a change for the better, but I'm just not sure.

 

-E-

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I'm not keen on powers that have only a percent chance to work in general. The Empire Spy in particular seems limited. The only thing he can do is start killing and possibly hope his defense kicks in (and that he's not attacked by a power role).

 

—Alorael, who doesn't mind the 50% identification on attack because more information is good. The Clover Boots seem like a likely waste of money, though, and the Empire Spy is much more likely to get killed than to get his special first strike. That's not a great deterrent.

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Originally Posted By: Red or Bust
I'm not keen on powers that have only a percent chance to work in general. The Empire Spy in particular seems limited. The only thing he can do is start killing and possibly hope his defense kicks in (and that he's not attacked by a power role).

Normally I agree about randomness, but in this case there's an interesting deterrance aspect. The 25% is high enough that I wouldn't attack the Empire Spy unless it were absolutely necessary or I was immune to physical, but low enough that, if I did attack, I'd probably win. It's less protection than an immunity, but a lot more than you give it credit for.
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I gave the Empire Spy one other nice thing. I also changed Dionicio as well. Feel free to have a look.

 

As far as the randomness, there is an interesting psychology here. While the risk is relatively low, it is not insignificant. This does introduce another risk that some players may not be willing to risk.

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I don't think I like the change to Dionicio. Aren't we mostly in agreement that the DLs are if anything underpowered? Dionicio, by contrast, has a good record. Making Dionicio into an unstoppable killing machine seems like a move in the wrong direction.

 

The Empire Spy looks fine to me now. I'd be happy to get it.

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Strine's victory conditions seem to have an error. Not trading increasing the gold or item requirement, but there is no item requirement for victory.

 

—Alorael, who also still thinks randomness is not a plus. Instead of randomly sending an artifact off into the masses, why not give Strine some input? At the very least it seems reasonable that the artifact not go to his enemies, although there is some amusement in having him get killed by the artifact he just drained.

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Well, giving it to a random party doesn't seem like a good idea. It winds up dropping an artifact into some random person's hands for little reason, and it could wind up screwing over tons of people on nothing more than a stroke of luck.

 

On the other hand, it could be extremely easy for the Craftmaster to just hand it off to an ally and then get it right back.

 

Frankly, I'm partial to the idea of having the artifact destroyed when it's power is used up. As in, removed from the game, never to return (until next game). It'd keep things from getting shifted drastically because someone got lucky, it'd keep it from staying in the Craftmaster's grasp, and it'd also provide incentive to be careful when it comes to handing off artifacts.

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Except that means he'd have to get ahold of all five artifacts, thanks to his victory condition. I suppose having it just lose its power in the Craftmaster's possession would work, though.

 

To be bluntly honest, I'm not to enamored with the changes to the Craftmaster in the first place. It brings the total number of roles with artifacts as a goal up to 6 (3 of which are guaranteed to be in the game, meaning that if the Craftmaster plays, a minimum of 4 roles are after artifacts). And the Craftmaster has to get a bare minimum of three artifacts just to satisfy his goal, and that's assuming he doesn't screw up.

 

But that's just me.

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Keep in mind, the Craftsmaster starts with one artifact, and doesn't need his third one until day 5. If he's still alive by then, he probably has an ally who will simply give him an artifact for free. That means that he only needs to get the second of his three artifacts by trading, which shouldn't be incredibly hard when he has access to such a wide variety of items.

 

Assume that middle artifact costs him two of his crafted items. That leaves four for him to trade away, and 80 coins (minus the mage bonus) to get in return, or 20 coins per item. Not bad, when you consider that he can custom-make a variety of powerful stuff.

 

The biggest downsides are, first, that whoever playes Strine will have to be very active in order to successfully manage such a complicated chain of requirements, and second, that he or she will have to be dangerously open about his/her role. On the other hand, Strine has a powerful crafting ability, and can probably afford to undersell the game's other shops. I think the role is balanced as-is.

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No, my problem isn't that the Craftmaster isn't balanced (and I think it is), but that it's yet another role chasing after artifacts. It winds up pulling the artifacts away from non-artifact-based players, and it adds even more turbulence to already-coveted items. It's possible to wind up with over a third of the players just trying to get an artifact or three just to fulfill their goals.

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Those are good points, but I don't think the Craftmaster is as bad as you make it out to be, for the following reasons:

 

1. He doesn't need to finish the game with his artifacts, he doesn't care which ones he gets, and when he's done he puts them back into circulation, so he's not that big an obstacle to the other artifact-gatherers.

 

2. He creates items which can act as substitutes for the artifacts, minimizing the impact on players who don't have artifact-based win conditions but might want to use artifacts. Also, the random distribution after CMS uses an artifact may actually make it easier for ordinary roles to get artifacts, since they'll be moving around randomly instead of staying in one place.

 

3. He starts out with one artifact, and can probably pick up a second cheaply at the end like I said above, so in the middle game he's unlikely to be all that disruptive.

 

4. The odds against the game having six artifact-seekers are pretty high, but I'd like to see it happen just once. tongue

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The artifact being destroyed is not an option since it would make the game unwinnable. Strine does not actually have to keep the artifacts he collects; he only needs to touch them. This is different from everyone else.

 

I don't see the numerous people who are seeking artifacts. If anything, the last couple games have been kind of uninteresting when it came to that. At the moment, the only other role that absolutely requires artifacts is Gladwell. Shanker will likely need a few and may end up in competition. The Adventurer and Empire Spy can have an artifact, but have other ways of achieving victory. There is the SIC, but he is not required.

 

I did take away the random requirement. The key with the victory condition is that the items in question are only ones that he actually crafted. Why I'm doing this is to encourage him to use his ability and proliferate items to his allies. Also, he has a predisposition to help mages, who need some love now.

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Originally Posted By: *i
I don't see the numerous people who are seeking artifacts. If anything, the last couple games have been kind of uninteresting when it came to that. At the moment, the only other role that absolutely requires artifacts is Gladwell. Shanker will likely need a few and may end up in competition. The Adventurer and Empire Spy can have an artifact, but have other ways of achieving victory. There is the SIC, but he is not required.


I'd think that the Sacred Item Cultist would want to join Gladwell as soon as possible in most games anyway. His existence in a game helps Gladwell more than it hurts him.
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