I must say that for the past few days I have knocked myself on the head for not noticing FT not claiming he’s a Thane himself. So let’s try to amend myself my analyzing some of the stuff we have heard Today.

The opening message from ? stated:


Let’s assume for now that ?’s edit was truly, as he stated, to give us a surprise later on. Maybe he wanted us to look for Macbeth and then on Day 3 BAM! There he rides in. “Oh Noes, Macbeth is not one of us, who are we then?” Nice setup, but too bad you can see the edits back and too bad two experienced players who would not miss this saw it first...

Anyway, this was followed by FT’s post:


Beet, Artsapat, Stephen, Amys, Yuna all agreed they were one, in that order.
Isaac was the first to respond “Nope *NM*”, followed by FT’s



Isaac responded:


And a little back:


As both FT and Isaac seem to know (or guess) who the other is at this time, I think we need to look for a dual role, leaving the following candidates:
- Malcolm and Donalbain, Duncan’s sons.
- Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff
- Two of the three witches
- Two of the three murderers

Since FT wrote:


..., I am willing to give the Ladies of the play a pass at this time. Also see my opinions on the witches and murderers below. My money is therefore on Isaac and FT being either of Duncan’s sons: Malcolm and Donalbain.

That leaves the other five players. They all claimed they are Thanes, but could easily have been lying.
- I must say I was intrigued by the notion of the Thane of Cawdor, who was killed for treason against the King in the beginning of the play.
- The Lady Macbeth, the Scottish Doctor, The Gentlewoman and Seyton seem unlikely, as they would travel will Macbeth himself, who will be arriving later (as per ?’s old intro).
- Banquo and his son idem.
- We could have Lady Macduff and her son, but that does not make much sense if there are no other Ladies here.
- Siward (and Young Siward) are part of the English nobility, so let’s leave them out. (The English only come into play after Duncan’s sons leave and Malcolm has risen through the ranks in the English army)
- Hecate and the [unnamed] witches make no real sense, and neither do the [unnamed] “Three murderers” to be honest, at the present venue. (Especially if the game is played pre-play.) After all, the players are supposed to interact with each other (in the game world) in order to catch the traitors, even if the whole discussion is OOC.
- The Porter/Messenger is possible, but would be a bit of a stretch in my opinion, seeing the setting, plus the fact that many of the other such roles (“Doctor”, “Gentlewoman”, etc) have been eliminated from my list.

So, my long list of people at this gaming party would be: Duncan (NPC, host), Malcolm, Donalbain, Macduff, Ross, Lennox, Angus, Menteith, Caithness, Thane of Cawdor. Which, come to think of it, is not much longer list than what FT proposed. It does fit (my sense of) logic, and the reveals from FT/Isaac.

Main point: if this is the list, the whole “follow the play to find the traitors” is either moot, or it’s the [unnamed] Thane of Cawdor. As the Thane of Cawdor is unnamed in the play, plus a second of the [named] Thanes is a fellow traitor to be executed pre-play (stretching the whole "let's follow the story as much as we can"-theme), my money is on the first option. First of all, this makes the list 1 name shorter (to 8 names, leaving ? with 1 extra name if more players would have shown up in time) and secondly, it makes a reveal of names possible. It might catch a liar from the first round of Thane-calling, and is not likely going to hurt us.
Isaac suggested a "coded reveal", I have no idea how that works, but please let me hear it. Also, in order to catch anybody, we need to time it all correctly. I'm on Western Europe time (plus, I'm usually online in the mornings for this), but if there's a mechanism, please let me know.

Just another tidbit of info: this site has a list of characters of Macbeth and of the minor, named Thanes in my list, Ross seems to have more of a role than the others. But then again it could be (and probably is) nothing...

We’ve got a little over one week IRL until the Day ends. Show me your analysis, as I did mine, let’s get a vote rolling and let’s bag us some scum!