“It was bias, I’m sure of it”.
No. You had people with the same IP ranking exclusively together on a double xp day. If you’re on the same IP, you’re already suspicious. Heck, if you’re on the same IP and not even hanging out together, you’re still going to end up watched.

If your IP wasn’t the same and you just grouped together normally, I doubt you would have been tossed into ROTD. I don’t get what is groundbreaking about the issue of same-IP folks grouping together. Back in my day, when I wanted to even BE ONLINE as the same time as my brother, I’d pray ahead of time with “Hey my brother and I are going to be on at the same time but aren’t going to associate”. Then I’d get an imm’s comment on it, and go ahead from there.

If you’re on the same IP with someone, you should in general avoid any appearance of impropriety. That includes ranking together.

No matter if there are a ton of players or few players, of course we all “know” each other. A given char I meet MIGHT be any number of people who have played chars I’ve liked before. That’s entirely different from the expectation that you can freely enjoy the safety of ranking with your roommate. It doesn’t matter if it’s one ranking session or a million, if you and your roommate are on together, you should avoid the appearance of impropriety.

If I sound less than pleasant on this situation, I admit I’m a bit ticked off. I watched the interaction, and the Immortal was treated terribly despite being insanely patient and reasonable. I don’t like or appreciate that.

“I was told to stay away from the conjurer who I didn’t know”
- Given it looked like a perma, and given the discussion changed from “We don’t know each other” to “We’re roommates”, it was insanely reasonable of the immortal to ask you to just abandon the group altogether.
“an imm didn’t even want to hear me out”
- The imm did hear you out, so did I. The imm was reasonable. Asking you all to find a different group was fine.
“If playing by the rules gets you in trouble…”
- It didn’t. You weren’t denied. You shouldn’t expect to be able to comfortably rank with your roommate.
“Should I just always solo rank”
- You’re being silly. Just don’t rank with your roommate.

If it just so happens that it was entirely by chance that you and your roommate ended up ranking together during double-xp, then okay, you weren’t malicious. But even so I’d STILL ask you to break up your group since you’re on the same IP.

I personally find this entire thing silly. You were ranking with your roommate, and you were asked not to.

You weren’t denied, slayed, or anything other than asked to find different groups. I don't think that's an insane or unreasonable request.

-Ish