Feb 2014 Event Highlights!

Man, this is going to be a treatise - please humor me.

I am going to retrieve some ancient memories. It is hard to believe that it has been just over a year since Alex and I first showed up to discover what KR was all about. In January of 2013, we had dinner at Panera bread in Sparta and I remember that we were both nervous. Alex declined the chocolate chip cookie I bought (for those of you who know him you know that is a sign of severe anxiety) and I tried to be the chill mom, but I totally faked it at the time -- I really wondered what we were walking into. At 6 pm we showed up at Sac and we literally were no more than 3 feet into the Inn before we were greeted by folks who seemed to know we would be arriving - I think Paul S. and a few others, and James took the time out of what I now know is a very busy time pre lay-on time to show us to some bunks he had saved for us in the Inn. I remember walking around the camp before lay-on, helping fix the Kalendonia statehouse door and just being amazed by what we saw, the size of the camp and how beautiful it was. We spent the weekend NPC'ing and James J. was the Monster Marshall for our first shift, and he worked his a** off trying to keep us engaged (which isn't always easy with new players, especially when one is an 11 year old green headband). Renee and some others were in our room in the Inn that night, and I distinctly remember Alex waking me up about 3 am and saying, "Mommy, I think someone was just assassinated and the guy jumped out our window." (it was Rudolph IIRC). We left after feast (only because Alex was falling asleep over dinner) but were completely hooked. It was so cold, much colder than this weekend, and I thought the camp was absolutely beautiful and peaceful and that I would be happy to drive to Sac just to have an hour to walk down to the lake in the quiet of the snow and pines and enjoy the solitude.

Fast forward 13 months to this weekend.

Alex and I arrived early on Saturday and I had a good morning visiting with people in the Inn, learning some lessons, and catching up on the happenings in Travance. Love the scholar table! Back in November I spent a very large proportion of my "extra 40 build" on CP, and I promised myself that Faila would try to use them up each period, so I spent a lot of time smithing things. I like smithing -- it is kind of quietly sociable (Faila thanks Kun, Edmund, and John Smith) and I took advantage of Edmund's forge that was in the Inn and Failas's new personal forge and didn't even visit the Baronial Armory once this event.

I had a lot of fun on the new player mod - despite Faila having a number of limbs rotted and withered (puncture armor and shatter weapon are not a lot of good against worms and moldy oozing slimy things). Hurray for a few of Nosterion's incinerate scrolls - very helpful. I ended up very cold and wet after the new player "falling in the snow" mod, and was happy to hang out in the Inn and craft after that. It is cool that I can now send Alex out on Tower mod and skip it myself and know my 12 year old is safe and having fun (the stinker came back with socketed items )!

As a mom, I like feeding people, so I enjoyed sharing brownies, veggies, and beverages, and having a chance to meet new and younger players, find out what they want out of KR, etc. . I hope you will all come back and join the KR game again soon! Faila was happy to meet Keavy and some others IG and it is very fun that she is now actually pretty useful as a smith. Matt, thanks for the awesome new hammer!

Helping in the kitchen is my retreat when I start to feel overwhelmed with RPing Faila, not to mention I always have a good time, so I was happy to serve feast and help with clean up. Note to new players -- if you haven't figured this out already, if you help in the kitchen in the early morning you will get coffee more quickly!

And then a super-fun time NPCing main mod. Playing Ma-Fisher was a kick in the pants. All I can say is, "catfish noodling." Apologies for Ma-Fisher's coughing fit in the Inn. I think because Jen W. is the only person I know from my OOG past, she is the one person who I just start to totally crack up when I see, especially if I am being silly. I was happy to learn that the IG light clergy didn't lie to Ma-Fisher about the where-abouts of her daughter

NPC'ing main-mod. I went in as a "ready to fight to the death" defender of King Donovan, but one who would follow commands and act rationally. Wanting to defend our new home but not being irrational about attacking others was so hard. - So many well intentioned heroes! Early on word came from my King that I should "act peaceably," which was incredibly difficult - I really wanted to fight - I was so angry! I kept looking for excuses to pull a sword and never really had one!. Walking around camp for 2 hours (minus a short OOG stop in Alisandria to get warm) on "patrol" was enlightening. I loved my yelling argument with Keavy , and the fact that I was able to talk many Travancian heroes out of taking me to the dungeon ("your Baroness told us we would not be harmed, would you violate her word?" "A party, really? and would I be able to leave if I wished?"). But my favorite was the entire "the King of Kormyre must be dead. We have had word that those who worship the dark Pantheon are now walking openly among honest folk. We know he would never allow that, so he must be dead!" That lead to some incredibly excellent RP and few PC's had a decent response to that!

Kudos to Chris M. - , when I finally ended up getting to see you as my IG liege I was ready to follow you to the death - you were compassionate, , charismatic, and commanding. I have to say that the entire "Dungeon Party" scenario (Travancian "Hotel California" hmmm. . . ) has only re-confirmed that the Heroes of Travance need to be very very careful as they risk appearing arrogant and full of hubris to other peoples!

Okay, I better stop gushing. But thanks to everyone who made this weekend so much fun! There is just no better way to spend a few days.

For the past couple of events, I've had a problem with my nose that often made my face look scrunched, like I was about to punch someone or sneeze, or both. Thankfully, I seem to be recovering from whatever it is, which meant I was finally able to focus on the roleplay instead of my facial expression. During the event, I felt more in-character than I ever have before. This event was also the first time in which I had my own sword. When I brought it to Logistics, they gave me the response I thought they would, considering the sword was rather hard. They told me to be careful with it, which I was. I pull my swings anyway if only because I've been on the receiving end of some hard blows.

Nalick attended his first Light Mass since becoming an Andorran. After it was over, there was a brief moment of proselytizing, and it worked!

Jack Dimms reading a poem in front of everyone at Feast, then embracing Gaia at Light Mass, was a treat. I had faith in ya, Jack, and I still do.

There was a great lesson in instilling confidence by Grimkjell, who involved the Baroness.

Even though I'm not a scholar, I thoroughly enjoyed the Scholar's table. Just being there and seeing everyone make heads or tails of the information related to the plot, and chiming in when I could. I definitely love it from an IG as well as OOG perspective.

Main Mod! With regard to Nalick's faith as an Andorran, his profession as a Cavalier, and his morality, having the Baroness advise everyone that we were prohibited from killing anyone in the Castle, was wonderful. Restraint is one thing Travance sorely lacks and it was a refreshing sight to see.

Nalick's love life came into focus. Sitting in the Inn by myself, I wrote a paragraph before being approached by Gin Yuki and asked what I was working on. "Nothing!" I replied while quickly shutting my journal -- which was probably the least subtle thing I could have done. He snatched the journal and proceeded to find the letter, before asking me about the particular recipient.

The next day, I bumped into Mother Remi at the bar and asked if she knew where the would-be recipient was at that moment. She didn't, but wanted to know why I was asking. That's when I tripped hard over the word 'platonic' and let the Kiterian out of the bag. Mother Remi then asked if I had read her article in the Chronicle ("Challenges of Love") -- I did and loved it. What fortunate timing for her article to be published.

I did finally deliver the letter Sunday afternoon, which if you ask about it in-game, I will swear up and down that there was absolutely nothing romantic in it whatsoever.

Overall a great event, despite the cold and the snow. Here's hoping March is warm, in more ways than one.

In all my time of attending KR, I have never done as much or had as much fun as I did this past game. I want to thank Chris, Kirsten, Tim, John, Alisia, Luis, Walter, Damien, Connor, Damian, Mars, Garrett, Ric, Cody, and everyone else (I'm probably forgetting a few ) for making this event memorable.

Can't wait for march!

Things that we learned on JR's cave-collapsing mod:

• 80% of clockwork explosive kegs are 100% effective at exploding Gogginses.
• There is a 90% chance of correlation between the events "rumble rumble rumble" and "get all your limbs rotted off."
• You snooze, you ooze.

Easily one of the most enjoyable mods in which I've ever had the pleasure of participating. Chaos, explosions, and loot raining from the ceiling (literally) coupled with some surprisingly resourceful subterranean nasties (who totally kicked our asses, by the way) made for a fun and exciting Saturday afternoon. It seemed like everyone involved left with a smile on their face, a gem in their pocket, and a disfigured stump where one of their limbs used to be.

Getting to have tea with Dragoons. I don't even care that our plan didn't work; it was just awesome to get you folks together and get you chatting about all that amazing Dragoon lore that's floating around. Big thanks to everyone who came along to help out in any capacity - expect more "Wild Sorcery" soon.

Chasing Swyft around outside the inn on Sunday morning as a recently exorcised demonic host. Well done for being a sport and managing to run away from all those Tsunamis I totally didn't have.

The mad mechanical marvels that fall out of James Jones' head. I really wish that more people than just Ben and I had been around to hear you describing your horrible death device - you're a creative genius, in a slightly worrying way.

Can we just take a moment and appreciate how amazing Main Mod was. Admittedly, it helped that Saturday night was utterly beautiful, but the whole concept of having different rooms with different scenarios was excellent - I think I described it to someone as being "like a two-hour RP theme park." Can't begin to fathom the amount of planning, thought, and organization that must have gone into putting the whole thing together, but please please please do something like it again soon. Please. Thankyou.

A brief chance to talk shop with Danny McKraegar and Edmund on Saturday night. Without writing too much, it was a fun little moment, and I'm grateful that you thought to call me over for it.

Justin's new Londwyn continues to be very awesome most if not all of the time. Seriously, this guy. This. Guy.

Chatting with Aleister at the scholar's table. I wish I'd been more awake at that point, but it was nonetheless oddly refreshing to be on the receiving end of a stream of incomprehensible pseudoscience for a change. Freakin' loved all the maps and diagrams you pulled out for the occasion!

Getting a rare chance to help out with a little piece of the weekend plot. I've heard it said that larps can only be properly enjoyed by fully involving oneself in the action; whether or not that's true, it was certainly very enjoyable to be involved in something a bit bigger (and with more background story) than my normal crafting regimen. Clockwork awesomeness for all!

Okay, that's got to be enough things for one post - there were loads more notably fun times over the weekend (like being invisible with Lois, and getting high with Gwynedd, and throwing Kevin into the snow in his PJs, and playing cricket with Josh's ooze) but basically, yes, it was a really great and awesome event. Hoorah!

Didn't get to do much with anything relating to plot or mods or npcs so I made my own fun!

Clove cook outs! Thanks everyone who showed up, even the npcs that wanted to jack my food and shelter (very entertaining)

Sleeping outside! Besides frozen boots in the moring and getting out of a warm sleeping bag it is very nice being in the peaceful woods at night.

Cook out #2! Got bored around noon saturday and grabbed up another group to cook over an open fire again, this time while it was still snowing.

Hassling Jack Dimms (thanks for being a champ oog and not taking anything personally, I swear im not that big a jerk oog, you are awesome!)

This event was awesome despite the bitter cold and waist deep snow.

Friday:
Before lay on, managing to get Conor's car out of the snow was a hassle but thankfully Louis and others pitched in to help. Thanks so much.

Werewolves! Werewolves everywhere! Also had to crawl through waist deep snow to drag out Dominic's limbless body.

And of course, saving more normal wolves haha

LM shift shenanigans as always, plus a quick check run in the morning.

Saturday:
Receiving two bottles of ale from Faila that tasted sooooo good.

Chaos warrior talk with Ava, Hellock, and curious Rostavella. Keavy has strong views on being a chaos warrior, and she made sure that Rostavella knew. It was fun discussing the path, and also learning how similar Hellock and Keavy actually are. Also, having Keavy drink a whole bottle of ale during the discussion lead to more intense emotions as it continued. Lots of fun.

Trying to learn Instinct but being interrupted by grim guardians. Finally being able to wail on some NPCs felt good after having to leave early last event and not getting to swing once. Even more interesting having to trudge through deep snow to do so haha.

Then the instinct lesson. Ricochet arrow to the eye! Instant lesson ender haha

Then a commune with nature lesson- Finally! Keavy can hopefully start looking for some answers about herself!

Snowball fight!!!

Fixing the fire and roasting mushrooms with Sindarion and others, mmmm.

(My mind is blanking on some other things that I'm sure I'm forgetting..)
Getting my armor fixed by Faila

Feast!

Main Mod:
Before main mod, I had to wait for my boots and things to dry for about an hour in front of the fire in the statehouse x_x
Main mod was pretty sweet.
Its probably the first time I've been at MM where I didn't have to kill anything. I was with the group who went to talk to the Cavalier healer. (name escapes me) and although slightly nerve-wracking at first, it turned out that he was a great guy to talk and hang out with.

Also, Jen's old lady Tilly. Oh my god. I love you.

More mingling with the Cavalier later we get back to Travance. Early sleep time for me, after some Kaladonian chit chat before bed haha.
Sunday:
Lazy and relaxing chats in Kaladonia again.
Last minute Rend Limb Lesson! Hopefully to be revisited. I didn't get to hack off Sir Tellinghast's arm like I wanted to, so maybe I can practice on him next time haha

Can't wait for next event and for the next Heroic lists to come out!!