Sorry for being crabby, septimus. This is Lord of the Flies all over again.
As far as the claims on fubbles attacks: I definitely used my emerald ring for the first time yesterDay, for all the good it did. I was told it fired 100hp of Earth-elemental damage at fubbles, but was deflected by an item he holds.
And now Astral is claiming the successful attack on fubbles. Good grief. So we have three attacks, two of which were definitely magic and unsuccessful, one possibly non-magic with a bolt, which was successful. (I say “possibly” because a “bolt” could be a lightning bolt, couldn’t it? Or does it mean something else? What kind of weapon fires a bolt?)
So four claimed attacks and only three listed attacks; of these, there were three claimed magic attacks, and only two listed magic attacks.
Astral seems trustworthy to me. But between Guiri’s “joke” smudge and Gadarene’s creepy silence, I’m now worried about the revived folks and the choices they’ve made. Especially since my suspicion appears to be right about this game being about people’s choices.
That’s why I disagree with glee. I remain convinced that this game is about the corruption of good (or at least neutral) people, whether in search for power or some other motivation. Weedy probably held Phere’s chains to start with, which is why she was Very Evil, but maybe she wasn’t an inherently “bad” person, sort of like… if Luke had chosen the Dark Side in RoTJ; eventually someone usurped her – which seems to be the only explanation for Phere turning against her that makes sense, unless the demon temporarily freed himself – and the usurper was gradually turned more and more Evil. I wonder if that person was PetW, whose weird non-reveal still hasn’t been explained; maybe he held control for such a short time that he didn’t have time to turn completely scummy. Next came Visorslash, and again he was killed by the demon or someone who now had control of Phere. Now Scathach, who didn’t have time to hunt down the demon to do her dirty work because finally we lynched someone before they got the chance. There have certainly been people, at least fictionally, who were turned Evil and angry at the world due to the loss of a loved one. Actually isn’t that Anakin/Darth’s arc in the Star Wars prequels?
So my theory remains that I don’t think there is an official Scum team. I think it’s all individuals who decide to be evil, and thus “scummy.” In fact, didn’t somewhere Pizzaguy say that no one would be corrupted/recruited against his or her will? If so, this backs my theory up IMHO.