@Nuke
*sighs* Your argument here would be sound except for one thing. You didn't take into account how the Emissary of Truth would take this entire thing and his very nature. I have mentioned at the very beginning that Unbound Cards will have their own Agendas and act independently unless influenced by players. They are just like you to some degree involved in the gambits.
Quite simply the Emissary of Truths job is to reveal the truth, to give powerful secrets and arcane powers. You forced it into twisting the truth to a certain degree, the fact alone that you commanded it to do something, alone is enough. But there was the mistake:
disclose the following truths to as many Acterians as it can
That includes allowing it to speak to Kol. And boy did it abuse that privilege. It did fulfill your job and continued right on telling him a whole lot of other things as well...why? Think about it, The first, the second and the house of Acter are involved in this, by telling Kol all kinds of stuff and granting him vision of the godsmoot, it weakened all your combined positions while strengthening those of its own House AND also fulfilling its purpose by showing/telling the truth.
Kol is not omniscient that "bullshit" is what you folks came up with. I never said he was omniscient nor did i give him the power to. He was given a chance to watch the Godsmoot by the Emissary of truth.
It being impossible to draw is bullshit. We had no reason to believe it would not be possible, and I feel we should've been told it wasn't before being fucked over like this.
The Declaration of Draw as it has been mentioned in at least two or three posts above is completely irrelevant by this point. As mentioned before there is only four ways out of a gambit, winning, losing (and conceding), dying or playing salvation. Declaring draw= conceding, especially with Lifeslayer coming in measuring up your goals and basically declaring you all the losers of the gambit.
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@Madman:
hoo boy. The breaking of any oaths and the draw are MINOR ACTIONS this has been mentioned before so often i dont even want to anymore. Their impact on the entire thing is so miniscule that i wonder why we are constantly discussing them. The Major contributing factor why you all got fucked over is escalation and deploying of Lifeslayer.
By using actions where she could not Varalin caused her house to be disqualified from the Gambit and losing and by removing the Acterians from divine influence all houses involved together lost. Because they no longer can gain the worship of the Acterians for the duration of Kols adversity/existence. But more than that by agreeing upon your Oaths, you moved the unified goalposts of the Acterian Gambit for all of you from "achieving sole worship/achieving worship of the Acterians and protecting them" to "maintain teh Status Quo, the Status Quo was not maintained since all your faiths have been locked out, you have been deprived of all influence and the Gambit forcibly closed up by Kol.
Armiles not finding Kol was merely the matter of a Turn, she was not unable to as has ALSO been mentioned repeatedly but nearly took longer than a turn. Which is a decisive difference. There is literally everyone down to the Herald level who could have freed him eventually.
And as mentioned before Kol was accessible by grace of Nuke. Only he did not know that he was fucked over by the Emissary.
Now this being said, your half-dead mortal got the Lifestealer power, not by grace of you, not by grace of Lu or any other God. There is a reason Lifestealer cannot be killed, he is beyond the Divine Hierarchy, he is a mortal giving powers of devastation beyond the control of even the Gods, thats why its extreme escalation beyond even deploying a god, he can only be influenced and imprisoned, killing him at the current state is impossible.
The powers ripped from you were not Kols actions game-mechanically, that is something i did merely for IC-Flavour. The diminishing of your powers happened because all of you lost the various gambits.
I feel like repeating myself but to put it differently: the concep tof escalation in this gambit always causes a measured response. By the use of THREE ACTS into the gambit you increased the escalation level a thousandfold, that leaves only three options open as to how things could escalate further: either all King and Consort cards would be played and the gods would find themselves immediately in a personal confrontation..which made absolutely no sense or the Apocalyptic or Lifestealer would be played. Flip of the Coin it was Lifestealer.
However while Varalins actions was OOCly permissible it was illegal/considered cheating in terms of the Gambit, as such the response was the disqualification of the House of Acter from the Gambit, causing them to lose it.
The other two Houses lost by virtue of Lifestealer.
Losing the Gambit, a gambit which had progressed so far, would have inevitably caused the loser to lose inffluence and thus status among the Houses. In this case everyone lost and Lifestealer won. causing massive diminishment of your houses. Since Lifestealer cannot own the divine power released as such by winning, it was distributed amongst the other Houses. Which merely automatically rose as the others fell, otherwise the House of Torment would stand above the House of Might and Twisting Shadows as well.
((seriously what is it with you people the moment i try to answer, i get ninjaed...this time four posts...
))