Okay, yeah, I haven't posted here in what, four months? It's been busy, so we'll go through the update pretty quick, and get into the now.
We're into our second reign, and I've stepped down as the regent, Tanis stepped up. We've had out first visitors from out of town, and they were awesome. The level of play at our park has really stepped up. We've gotten another experienced player in our group, and we've spawned a park in Sheridan. We're a demo away from a park in Miles City, too. I've officially started playing Kitsune, and I love it. It's a lovely level of abuse that can be countered if only folks would think about it.
Today... awesome. There was a lot of intense action, and since it's the first day of really good weather we've had in about five months, there were tons of folks out. We got interviewed for the newspaper, and answered more than one curious observer. And we broke at least one weapon. Why is that awesome? Okay, in the first six months of play, we didn't break anything. Vlad did, but not because we were playing hard, because he was a dirtbag with no respect for property. Coronation, and weapons break or blow out in abundance. Since then, and our rapid improvement in ability, cores break, weapons blow, and it's not because someone's trying to knock people out, but because we're sharper and faster. That's good.
I'm exhausted. Ring the Bell is a pretty fast paced and tactical game when you only have 4 people to a side, and being one of the ones who can walk through a hailstorm, I did a lot of the point running for my team. In a mask. I need to cut larger breath holes in that sucker. So much to do, so little time. Numbers - 4.5 hours, 11 people
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Monday, November 24, 2008
Midreign!
November 22nd, a day that ought to be recorded in the books as an example of how to blunder through an event. I'm actually quite happy with the event as a whole, but we, the leadership, made quite a few glaring errors.
The first : We didn't actually know where the event was to be held until the night before. Thus, it was a matter of phone calls in the evening hours to find out who could make it, who needed rides, and so on. Even with the information out, we still weren't sure of how many would make it.
The second : Inadequate preparations for the event itself. I was sewing sashes all morning, after picking up a few of the set-up crew. The setting up was a cobble job, haybales and tarps and fence posts. Not a proper shelter.
The third : No bracket sheets for the tournaments, no coherent understanding of the quest. Had we only been there to ditch for hours, everything would have been fine, but there were better things in motion that, sadly, did not come off smoothly.
The fourth : The quest itself. Two glaring problems. The first is that the good guys were not aware that they had a relic on their side. We had to resort to deus ex machina without any good reason to do so. The other and perhaps more important was the lack of anyone actually reeving. Noncombatants got swung at, the call to HOLD was ignored, and things in general were not well managed.
I'm disappointed, but not really surprised. None of us have done such things before, we're still in the learning process. Which is why I'm going to push for a meeting or three to plan the next event well in advance. We need to have things figured out well ahead of time.
On a personal note, the half tournament we finished gave me thoughts, that I may want to reconsider the path of a Warrior. I'm just flat out not learning the tricks, and I fear I'm past the point where I'll become more agile. It's time to look into alternative means of delivering death on the field. I'll stick Warrior a little longer, to get the level in it, but I think for the next little while I'll be learning to sling spells while fighting. I have an idea for a florentine wizard that might give me an edge in the battlegames.
Next weekend will see us finishing the tournament, and hopefully with someone local the winner. I mean no disrespect to Zarble, but he's not yet one of 'ours' and it would hurt to see him win our first tournament.
The numbers : 7 hours (including feast), 16 in attendance. Them's nearly Barony numbers, right there!
The first : We didn't actually know where the event was to be held until the night before. Thus, it was a matter of phone calls in the evening hours to find out who could make it, who needed rides, and so on. Even with the information out, we still weren't sure of how many would make it.
The second : Inadequate preparations for the event itself. I was sewing sashes all morning, after picking up a few of the set-up crew. The setting up was a cobble job, haybales and tarps and fence posts. Not a proper shelter.
The third : No bracket sheets for the tournaments, no coherent understanding of the quest. Had we only been there to ditch for hours, everything would have been fine, but there were better things in motion that, sadly, did not come off smoothly.
The fourth : The quest itself. Two glaring problems. The first is that the good guys were not aware that they had a relic on their side. We had to resort to deus ex machina without any good reason to do so. The other and perhaps more important was the lack of anyone actually reeving. Noncombatants got swung at, the call to HOLD was ignored, and things in general were not well managed.
I'm disappointed, but not really surprised. None of us have done such things before, we're still in the learning process. Which is why I'm going to push for a meeting or three to plan the next event well in advance. We need to have things figured out well ahead of time.
On a personal note, the half tournament we finished gave me thoughts, that I may want to reconsider the path of a Warrior. I'm just flat out not learning the tricks, and I fear I'm past the point where I'll become more agile. It's time to look into alternative means of delivering death on the field. I'll stick Warrior a little longer, to get the level in it, but I think for the next little while I'll be learning to sling spells while fighting. I have an idea for a florentine wizard that might give me an edge in the battlegames.
Next weekend will see us finishing the tournament, and hopefully with someone local the winner. I mean no disrespect to Zarble, but he's not yet one of 'ours' and it would hurt to see him win our first tournament.
The numbers : 7 hours (including feast), 16 in attendance. Them's nearly Barony numbers, right there!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
An auspicious beginning
Did I say beginning? Yes, I did.
But didn't we open the park in August? Yes, we did.
There may be some confusion. Allow me to dispel it. While we did start meeting in August, and have been coming together since then, today we started the story of our shire. It's not enough to just have duels, ditching and battle games, the shire itself needs a story, a framework to build quests around. In our case, it was a fierce assault on a goblin stockade by three of our number.
Tanis (a novice wizard), Vladimir (a novice warrior), and Loup (playing as a healer) were tasked to steal a relic from the goblins, a skull that miraculously allowed dead goblins to spring back to life without any difficulty. The goblins (played by myself, Phil, Jurgen, Sam, Nate, and Jamie) put up a terrific fight, but in the end the heroes prevailed though it was not a complete victory. One goblin escaped, to tell his masters of the attack.
The roleplaying for the most part was fantastic, especially from Sam. For such a young kid, he has shown, every time he comes, that he's very much a part of the group, a part of the team, and willing to give in to the game. Trying to hide from a charging Loup behind a twig was priceless!
There was some confusion as to how some spells worked, so next week I would like to get everyone on the same page, especially with a bigger, badder monster coming into the game. Next weekend's midreign festivities will be ceremoniously interrupted by the Dark Lord (played by Phil).
The numbers... 4 hours, 11 in attendance, one new imported player.
But didn't we open the park in August? Yes, we did.
There may be some confusion. Allow me to dispel it. While we did start meeting in August, and have been coming together since then, today we started the story of our shire. It's not enough to just have duels, ditching and battle games, the shire itself needs a story, a framework to build quests around. In our case, it was a fierce assault on a goblin stockade by three of our number.
Tanis (a novice wizard), Vladimir (a novice warrior), and Loup (playing as a healer) were tasked to steal a relic from the goblins, a skull that miraculously allowed dead goblins to spring back to life without any difficulty. The goblins (played by myself, Phil, Jurgen, Sam, Nate, and Jamie) put up a terrific fight, but in the end the heroes prevailed though it was not a complete victory. One goblin escaped, to tell his masters of the attack.
The roleplaying for the most part was fantastic, especially from Sam. For such a young kid, he has shown, every time he comes, that he's very much a part of the group, a part of the team, and willing to give in to the game. Trying to hide from a charging Loup behind a twig was priceless!
There was some confusion as to how some spells worked, so next week I would like to get everyone on the same page, especially with a bigger, badder monster coming into the game. Next weekend's midreign festivities will be ceremoniously interrupted by the Dark Lord (played by Phil).
The numbers... 4 hours, 11 in attendance, one new imported player.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Introductions, and dramatis personae
Greetings and salutations,
I am Talaisan, tsa Tetha Sarn, and I am currently the regent of Skystone Shire, a freehold of Amtgard. We're a new park, just started this past August. Here I'm just going to be putting some numbers out, telling the story of us, growing from now to whatever we turn out to be. My tour as regent may only last until February, but I think I'll be scribe for the Shire a long time from now.
I mentioned in the title that I'd introduce some of the major characters in this little story. Let's start with me, just for simplicity. I'm the son of two Army folks, both of them far too smart for their own good. My father retired from the Army when I was 16, and moved the lot of us to Montana. That was 10 years ago. Since then I've joined and left the Navy, fallen in and out with the SCA, and returned to Montana to start college. I have no idea what I'm actually studying.
In the midst of that, not too long after we moved, I met my wife, Kyra. It took me quite a while to marry her, really, but we've been hitched for approaching three years now. She's a die-hard pirate, played more with the SCA than I ever did, and is almost done studying to be an English and theater teacher. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, she's the prime minister (paper monkey) of Skystone.
Probably the person who really deserves the credit for the grand experiment that is Skystone, Lord Squire Loup deNoir is still something of a blank spot for me. I know that he's only 20, that he's been part of Amtgard for a very long time for one so young, and that he aspires to knighthood, royalty, and legal drinking age. Oh, and perhaps finishing a theater degree.
Jurgen lives with Kyra and I, our boarder. Sadly, he'll shortly be taking a year long vacation to some hot sandy place where we'll worry a lot about him and many other such things. He won't be a player in this story after the New Year.
The only other one I feel the need to mention is Phil. Phil's a high school kid, a drama geek, and took to Amtgard fighting like an otter to water. I have never seen someone in all my life just slot into something like that, as though it were a perfectly worn in glove that he'd just never tried on before. As he fills out and grows up, he's going to become something special, truly special. I aim to make sure it's a good kind of special.
I suppose I'll draw to a close with this. Past weekends numbers were 3.5 hours, 11 in attendance, no minor or major injuries. One new soul.
Not bad for a group barely 3 months old.
Farewell and good night,
Talaisan, tsa Tetha Sarn, Regent of Skystone
I am Talaisan, tsa Tetha Sarn, and I am currently the regent of Skystone Shire, a freehold of Amtgard. We're a new park, just started this past August. Here I'm just going to be putting some numbers out, telling the story of us, growing from now to whatever we turn out to be. My tour as regent may only last until February, but I think I'll be scribe for the Shire a long time from now.
I mentioned in the title that I'd introduce some of the major characters in this little story. Let's start with me, just for simplicity. I'm the son of two Army folks, both of them far too smart for their own good. My father retired from the Army when I was 16, and moved the lot of us to Montana. That was 10 years ago. Since then I've joined and left the Navy, fallen in and out with the SCA, and returned to Montana to start college. I have no idea what I'm actually studying.
In the midst of that, not too long after we moved, I met my wife, Kyra. It took me quite a while to marry her, really, but we've been hitched for approaching three years now. She's a die-hard pirate, played more with the SCA than I ever did, and is almost done studying to be an English and theater teacher. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, she's the prime minister (paper monkey) of Skystone.
Probably the person who really deserves the credit for the grand experiment that is Skystone, Lord Squire Loup deNoir is still something of a blank spot for me. I know that he's only 20, that he's been part of Amtgard for a very long time for one so young, and that he aspires to knighthood, royalty, and legal drinking age. Oh, and perhaps finishing a theater degree.
Jurgen lives with Kyra and I, our boarder. Sadly, he'll shortly be taking a year long vacation to some hot sandy place where we'll worry a lot about him and many other such things. He won't be a player in this story after the New Year.
The only other one I feel the need to mention is Phil. Phil's a high school kid, a drama geek, and took to Amtgard fighting like an otter to water. I have never seen someone in all my life just slot into something like that, as though it were a perfectly worn in glove that he'd just never tried on before. As he fills out and grows up, he's going to become something special, truly special. I aim to make sure it's a good kind of special.
I suppose I'll draw to a close with this. Past weekends numbers were 3.5 hours, 11 in attendance, no minor or major injuries. One new soul.
Not bad for a group barely 3 months old.
Farewell and good night,
Talaisan, tsa Tetha Sarn, Regent of Skystone
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