July Event Highlights

1. One of my top highlights, not just of this past event but most of them over the last year, was an OOG epiphany that put the lie to my long-held belief that my opinions didn't matter or weren't important enough. Therefore, I shouldn't speak or get involved, and I always went along with it, and it would affect my roleplay. But now I know I've been wrong and wished it hit me sooner.

2. All of the nervous energy created because of all the new players, both PCs and full-time NPCs. Looking into the Barn on Friday night and seeing it packed. Making a bunch of new friends.

3. Hearing everyone share their favorite memories of the Baroness. I wish more people showed up, but it was quite enjoyable. Thank you for hosting us and for the delicious spread. "This food was provided with love; I wouldn't want that love to go to waste."

4. Heeding the advice of Nadine/Mother Remi, going on a very early-morning jaunt over to Alisandria to watch the fog roll across the water and the sunrise.

5. Selling goods on behalf of the White Lotus. FINALLY. Short-lived, but I did sell some things.

6. Heart-to-heart with Squire/Doctor/Mister James and Sir Pluvious.

7. Angeliana sacrificing her own vision to cure the blindness of a young girl named Cally. Then witnessing Cally experience the world around her. Followed by general silliness with Cally and her friend Frank until late into the night. It was almost sunrise. Jen, I loved your NPC,your arguments with various townsmembers and the overall roleplay. Incredible.

8. Drinking a whole bottle of ale by myself and acting accordingly. Much fun. I need more drunken roleplay in my life.

9. Nalick had the second-most awkward conversation he's ever had. The first was last month and with the same Sylph. She enjoyed the poem that I read to her, but the ensuing whatever-you-want-to-call-it that followed was a flop. Rattling off a list of her abilities, she offered to use Silence on me. After a bit I said, "You know what? Maybe you should silence me." For the next five minutes, I was a silent Bard. I love how people reacted.

10. Wine and conversation with Swyft

11. Looking around during main mod and realizing that, yep, these are all NPCs.

12. Feast. That meal was delicious and I owe the cooks a hug for more than one reason.

13. New bards! I count at least four bards I hadn't seen before and I'm excited and thankful.

14. The new bard who played her violin at feast. You're awesome.

15. Maja and Eralyn singing together on Friday night. Tori and Goose, you two are wonderful.

I may have forgotten a few things, but I'll see you all again soon.

Just limped into the office...It was a good weekend.
Before I begin, I want to give a massive thank you to the kitchen staff, I truly appreciate all of you, as should everybody.

Now...Let's write up some highlights, eh?
My Friday night consisted of bar service of which I'm sure that a lot of people appreciated. Man, I didn't think it would be so tough to clean up, sweep and dry mop the bar at 3:30 in the morning...You would think people would be...Elsewhere.

Saturday had me up early. I had a nice relaxing walk and did some berry picking. Sébastien? Berry picking? Yes. And they was tasty.
Afterwards, I was eager to go on a mod into the rift but was cut back due to paperwork. Ah well.
My NPC shift was 2-6 and had me as a psionist and a possessed Celt. That's it. NPC duty flew by for me this event. Psionics are nice and all...But that mod convinced me that it's not my forté...So...Thanks..? And as for the possessed punch-throwing Celt? Let's just say that I almost suplexed Kanas Wisperwood and was killed by a lightning strike from one of our newer friend-os. (Great job). Re-spawn and get dropped into submission only to be taken by Grim. You feel awesome when your NPC gets thrown into cell zero by Grim.

Feast was mellow for Sébastien. I waited very patiently for food and then sat alone to eat where it was nice a peaceful...Away from the bards
I didn't attend Main mod. I stayed back and spent most of that time RPing with Clytie. It was a relaxing and fun experience and neither of us got killed. Good talks, May. Good talks.

On to Sunday morning where I finally enter combat as my PC. And I made sure to go nuts with it too because I really needed to get in some combat. I pulled of some leaping strikes and snake bites. It was just another day with your friendly neighborhood chiropractor. (Destroy ALL the spines!) Oh, and Kit...You're welcome.
Kraken mod? I didn't fight much but it was fun to watch Excellent job, everyone.

I enjoyed my weekend and I hope everyone had a great time as well.
I want to thank the kitchen staff and all of our full time NPCs. Thank you guys for all of your hard work and dedication. I for one truly appreciate it.
Have a great and safe "vacation" until your next events, my friends and until next we meet, Au Revoir!

HOLY CRAP, I HAD A BLAST!

Merciless slaughter is always fun, then I find out they were picking and choosing their targets, and I had to respect that and stopped slaughtering the Iron Raptors.

Necromancer off!

NPCs on my shift, you guys were the best. Seriously, the best.

Confusion on main mod, leading to the reveal of the legit horde of undead awed me.
-Losing a contact didn't stop me.
-Neither did being put into crit twice.
-Nearly got Litany'd, jumped the gun on that I guess.
-Finally got Bellock down, scrambling to find Bloodtide as he apparently dropped it, and cofirming I found the right weapon when my hand started bleeding.... forever
--Trying to wield it, realizing I never could, passing it to my left to the only one who could

Still have a red hand.

Holy crap I don't have blood anymore, that's weird.

Turtle.

Having spoken to the Bard in question, I think what she played was a Viola, not a violin. Just thought I'd pass that along.

This was probably my most intense rp sort of event, and likely my favorite to date!

I entered the game leading a grotesquely blind Atrus, making good on my promise to grant him protection during the whole Mage's Guild Proclamation debacle. His appearance certainly didn't make it easy!

I was really nervous about how people were going to receive it, and it certainly raised many an eyebrow and earned me more than a few concerned lectures. The most severe being Grimkjell's!

(I learned later though, that it was because he really cares, because when I was soul harvested and there was no one nearby to get me out of crit, he was nearly sobbing, screaming for Rowan to keep me tethered! It was really touching! Thank-you for your excellent rp, Grim!)

Angeliana was amazing in her calm, assertive defiance of the Angel of Valos' reasoning to kill Atrus or to rile up the others enough to kill him. Things got pretty heated and sides started forming. Aldric looked so sad and tried so gently to get me away from Atrus, that it was killing me inside! At one point I truly though that Quan Liu was going to try to strike him down which made me sad beyond compare, but Angeliana and I put ourselves in the way, trying to explain about the value of patience and redemption and Goodness... There were a lot of feels going around, and I saw some wet eyes. (Mine included!) Really, some intense role play all around, guys. AWESOME scene. Could barely have scripted it better.

The Angel came around again and called Atrus out from where we were in the kitchen with some folks. Angeliana stood in the doorway in front of him again and yelled reason and logic at the Angel, but I guess he was done listening. He body blocked (I think) her aside and struck at Atrus, upon which his wings kind of... blew up.

That moment said a lot...

Trying to intervene with the Atrus and Lucien “honor combat” plans near the armory was difficult. This was mostly because I couldn't stay there for any long period of time to make sure no one hit the ground for too long, because there kept being screams for help in opposite directions. I told them both, very sternly, that if I found someone dead, I was going to do something awful to whoever did it. I wore myself thin trying to be in so many places at once, and each time I growled “I MEAN IT”s as I ran past them. Fortunately for all, they just talked, calmly and too quietly for me to hear most of the time. They talked for a very long time, but no one lifted a weapon, and that made me happy and approve of Lucien much more.

Also, I learned something really important about Jed, this event.

Main mod with a blind man was certainly not a good idea since we had to go up the Totem Pole trail to get where they wanted us. I ran poor John into so many tree limbs that we were both in hysterics at the end of it. I'm so sorry, dude!

Then I ran into a golem. Like, literally. Hooray observational skills! Thank-you, Charlie, for that Displacement buff!

Later on, after the madness of Main Mod, Nalick took Swyft on a date, explaining that he had a gypsy hex or something of the sort that made him have to ask a number of ladies out on dates. So I happily obliged, as he is just a darling little fellow, and we chatted over wine and laughed and went on a “romantic” stroll through the woods to escort Amizar and Illyrian to their respective sleeping quarters.

Everyone was so tired from staying up so late Friday that a lot of us called it a night fairly early (via Larp time, anyway.) I got a solid five hours on Saturday night as opposed to the two on Friday! But before I did, I got to go to bed with the knowledge that Magnus approves of what Swyft is doing, and that's really the only opinion she cares about in this situation! (Unfortunately found this out OOG, though, so I can't have Swyft acting too giddy in game about it, lol.)

Sunday morning was a usual blast, starting out with taking the morning stroll with Jonas to wake everyone up before the monsters did. However, there were just so many people on the camp that we didn't get to wake up a single person! Jonas was quite disappointed with it.

Dat Kraken battle, though.
Dat ETERNAL Kraken battle.

I was jealous, kind of. I wanted to be in the lake too, it was nice and cool and beckoning. I thought it was a great mod, what a cool concept! Too many of us got almost-drowned too often, though. Some of us pulled some sweet moves dodging noodle-tentacles. Most of us, did not, however. Haha.
Getting caught on the back dock between two people wielding noodles was distressing. Back to drowning I went, haha.

As usual, great event, everyone always makes it wonderful. This one, in particular, was full of intense RP and I regret none of it! I had a seriously great time with everyone I had the pleasure of interacting with, good AND evil! Thank-you all!

Thank you to Craig O. who came Thursday morning and helped me set up various parts of the camp I was allowed to ahead of time! The help was appreciated and hanging out was fun. Glad you are back on the east coast!

Special thanks to everyone near logistics Friday night who put up with my freaking out about my cat escaping. Thank you to everyone who helped me look for him and especially thank you to Aaron B who stuck with me all night and finally helped me catch him after many ridiculous hours filled with scratches and bee stings.

All the new players where awesome! There was also a very large group of new players who NPCd! It was great having so many NPCs on every shift, and it will be great to see many of them as characters in the near future! I was blown away by all of you!

Feast was fantastic and delicious as always! Thank you to everyone who busts their hump in the Kitchen! With the intense heat and the normal chaos of an event, it is sometimes a stressful task, but all the hard work is no doubt appreciated by the entire game who benefits greatly from the service. Everyone would do well to remember that these people help out of the kindness of their hearts and their love for the community; praise and satisfaction of success is the only true rewards they earn from it.

Coming back in as the Count to once again take control of the town was difficult, only because doing so, means you need to make an impression on day one of the take over. I held many large meetings Saturday night, and made some sweeping and dramatic changes. All of these where carefully weighed in my mind, and will lead to what I believe will be a more satisfying environment in many different areas. Trust me when I say it will all turn out just fine, I promise!

I was blown away at both the randomness and appropriateness of Gideon and Ardens decision to give up their magic. This was completely one hundred percent, un-staged, but somehow worked out hugely appropriate for where their futures where headed. Congrats to the new Guild Mistress!

I was busy setting up for my meetings, but I have heard that main mod went great! Thank you for everyone involved, including the great make-up job for Bellock and also the awesome spider costume created by Joe H.

Thank you Katie and Jeff for running an engaging sea monster battle Sunday morning! Thanks to Goose for some interesting RP and direction for the Clergy! Thanks to Damien for helping me bring the new order as the Counts right hand Sir Victor. Thanks to Tori and Goose for creating what I was told was an awesome scene right after lay-on, both visually and audibly. Thank you to Mike S. for coming out just to help the players with their items Friday night and Sat Morning.

Thank you to Steve O for running a successful weekend plot!

There are likely a dozen other “thank you’s” that im missing right now as well as other fabulous highlights, however I need to get to camp to start work for the week. Thank you all for being an active and great part of this community!