September 2014 Event Hightlights!

STORYTIME WITH JEN AND MATT CALO.


Also, Horuss. Holy crap I loved playing Horuss.

My 3 hours at game on Friday night may be a short-timer record. It is never fun to leave early, but it was a massive bummer to leave this month - I really wanted to see what was going to happen.

Fun stuff in a few hours:

• Just getting to catch up with friends before lay-on and especially giving Leslie a hug knowing I would go nowhere near her drow IG.
• Meeting some fantastic new (and kind of new) players, hearing about their PCs, and their enthusiasm.
• Telling a group of new players during check in about John's awesomeness when he introduced himself (while made up as Atrus) to my daughter during WITL, and then having this voice from behind the group of new players say . . . "are you talking about me?"
• Faila having nearly the same reaction when yelling to a group of people that Belechand had been dropped on the Inn and reporting on his injuries, only to have someone yell back, "yeah, he is standing right here telling us about it" or something to that effect. Duh - guess I need glasses.
• Working with Edmund to craft the all-important chest, and having the dawning realization as Faila worked and overheard snippets of conversation about just what was going to go in said chest.
• Having that realization confirmed and the RP after. So many thoughts that could not be acted upon.
• Ilana's new head and excitement about the possibilities. Reconsidering the possibilities and plans due to a gift.
• Said gift -- super cool OOG - thank you Geoff!. IG a much more complicated reaction (damn Gideon).
• A very quick glance into the new space under the barn - really amazing looking!

Hope for the chance to catch up some more during the festival this weekend. Kudos to Gene and all of the marshals and staff for a job well done.

My character's first death from sacrificing himself to find the next red heart and the reactions of the people who saw or found out just after it happened. Romeo, Tori, Jason, Ben, Nate and Mom you guys were awesome and it was a very interesting experience thanks so much for making it as great as it was!

Also Maverick mod was AWESOME! Just ask JR and Bill!

Friday:

Food and discussion at the Mage's Guild. Cracking awful jokes with Lidius.

Gaian Mass. I always enjoy Caldor's sermons. This time, we had a four-legged friend in attendance. Caldor and Moon's conversation was hilarious and enlightening. I appreciated Jack Dimms' contribution as well, although he contributed more than he intended to.

Having a drink at the Blackbird, despite having to duck. A nice chat with Gin Ginny and Rosette.

Nalick the bartender. I volunteered for the late-night shift down at the Bloody Stump and it was my first time tending bar in any of the bars in Travance. At first it was going well, and then a third of the town came in for a visit. One burger for her, two drinks for him, he's still waiting on his drink, it's too dark to see what coin this is. Thalia, despite you not being there, I have so much more respect for you!

Jonas Kane even stopped in for a drink, except he ordered off the menu. He ordered something I hadn't heard of before, a "William Montgomery," so I whipped up something and nervously handed it to him. He liked it. Success!

Back to feeling overwhelmed. Special thanks to Squire DeMontfort III for manning the grill.

This moment with Ser Cypher:
"Nalick, how do you make a lemondrop?"
"You let go of it."

Saturday
I head down to the Monastery for confession with Angeliana. I won't get into the specifics here, but no bloodshed was involved. While I'm in no rush to go back, I love that there is an outlet for getting something off your chest.

I hurry to the Inn. Not only did I get there in time for lunch, but I got there in time to receive a lunch that someone paid for in advance!
Lunch with Genevieve. Sigh... This was me putting my foot in my mouth, followed by a hamburger, and then my foot again. Of course, it didn't help that Gilthu came over to bestow an "Inviolate Form" on me with a wink.

Eevie receiving her new weapon. I bumped into Captain Magnus at just the right minute to be able to witness the surprise. Then I hung out. Talking a bit, blushing a lot, having some fruit.

Jack. Dimms. Dane, I love ya, brother. Awesome performance and I'm so very proud of you.

More wandering until it was time for the Mage's Guild meeting. The meeting came to an end and all of us, save Ginny, venture through a portal. The only reason I went, was because I wanted to try to stop them from taking the heart. But, before I knew it, there was a knife against an elderly man's chest and I turned away. Travance...

Main mod! This is one of my favorites ever. The lightning across the sky, the flashes making it look like daylight, and the thunder, the shield-pounding. It was amazing imagery.

Chatting with Eevie in the Inn, which is always fun and I'm going to start carrying a dictionary in my pouch for such occasions. Slowly but surely, the table filled up with her friends. A poem I wrote was read aloud, to my IG and OOG chagrin. Philadin gave me step-by-step instructions, of which I apparently skipped a few, and if I perform the next step, I may be trapped in another plane of existence.

One of my NPC roles was an on-the-fly thing thought up a couple minutes before we were sent out, by a fellow NPC. He asked what happened to all of the dead bodies in the Inn. That turned into Logistics sending us out as employees of Jonas Kane. We cleaned up the Inn and got into some heated arguments. Travance will be reaping the consequences next moon.

Sunday

There's an Ostcliff meeting around 11. Everyone slowly trickles in. We hear footsteps outside and someone asks who's coming. I go over to the door, which doesn't go all the way to the roof, and look over it. "Ahh, it's Dr. Maxwell and Rane." I get some laughs. And people still think I'm a hobbit.

Late afternoon, I asked Tari to teach me the skill "Protect Item." Morwenne walks over and agrees to act as a distraction. She's racing around the table, talking at a million-miles-per-hour and cracking me up. Eventually the lesson concludes and I chat with Tari for a bit. My interactions with her are always fun and I look forward to more.

The scene could not have been better when the Count handed over Bloodtide to Jack. Vultures started circling overhead. I don't remember who originally pointed them out, but it was perfect timing.

See you all at the next Feast, maybe sooner!

Friday:
Flamenado in Honor's Peak! Don't touch the sides, though!
Silversmithing lessons and running on instinct. Lupta's hidden instincts to do what he's forgotten are showing through to more and more people.

Saturday:
The struggle to bring Gin-Yuki back was insane. His dragging me around nearly caused a panic, as more and more people decided to mess around in the spirit realm to figure out why we weren't trying to be more immediate with it. Also, finding out why the Red Heart was going to come from where it did, and needing to keep quiet about it... Ack.
Selendrian Ambassador: Zach showing up and informing us about the thing was made especially interesting when I thought about my sisters and really really really needing to get them involved.
Black Heart mod. When I was one of only two or three people not aware of what to expect, I was concerned... but the reality of the situation was oh so much worse. Needing to dissect an abusive mother while her children are desperately trying to rescue her... ugh. At least I was able to give her a decent burial, even if I did get called a hippie for doing it

NPC:
Probably the most restful shift I've been on. A moment of panic when the guard misconstrued "That is not my key!" and almost lost that character his life, but we got it done.

Sunday:
Getting to pal around and do magic! I really don't use spackets very much, though. That's what I really need to practice. Also, to my teaching student... I hope whaling on you like that wasn't too painful.for you... but I do also hope that the lesson really made an impact!

Oooh, boy...

The game started off with a bang for both Angeliana and me, after we received our “messages” from Atrus. Traveling to find him where he had to do his penance to Glomm was a trying task for two empathic healers. The closer we got, the worse it was and when we did finally reach him, it was staggering. Aaaand we found him nailed to a freaking tree.

Much screaming.

Serious props to John for having the cajones to do this. Wowie. I'm thankful it was as dark as it was or we probably would have been even more horrified, lol. Props to Alice too, for keeping it together when he got in her face. I didn't do quite as well when it was my turn... Holy crap, was that scary! He can describe horrible things much too well and it's much worse when it's up close and personal!

Angeliana's presence gave me courage, though, and we both managed to pull through, after much discussion and a lot of arguing and grumbling about gods and the like. Eventually we convinced him to come back with us.

Madness in the monastery! Everyone pressing all of the charges! CHAOS! That was the theme of Friday night.

Dispelling crazy rumors that Atrus killed Angeliana and Angeliana killed Atrus, what the hell, guys! lol

Early morning theological debates with Jed, Morgan and Aria... and certainly not having the popular opinion. The shenanigans between Jed and Morgan with the candles were priceless. And I just loved Aria's sass!

Getting brave enough around Jed to yell at him for nailing Atrus to a tree.

Finding Jonas on Friday night, what a delightful surprise! Telling him I renamed Travance to Crazy Town and that he was elected Mayor. He seemed very pleased by this!

Running into Kit like five times each day and deciding we would form Team Kitkat! We are fast friends, now!

Enjoying time with Trent, Lukas and our neighbors over in Drega'Mire where we were all tenting.

Gypsy Kris! Awesome to hang with everyone, many laughs, such comfortable folks to be around! I hear more gypsy parties are in store and I can't wait!

Trying hard to diffuse a fight with the gnolls and their halfling thief captive whom they wanted to eat at our campfire. Reason and logic didn't work, unfortunately, and they had to be dispatched when they attacked.

I missed some of the implications that lead to main mod, and apparently ignorance is bliss. Found out later and felt pretty bad I participated in the fight at all, though being in the skirmish group was fun as hell!

HAMMER TIME. Oh... the LAUGHS! (Sorry Pluvious, but it was just so darn funny!)

Trying to keep both Jed and myself underneath Oren's shield when the cold rain started coming down and having to do all the work because Jed declared himself a pretty princess.

Butt Horns... (Don't ask.)

The fight in the rain was pretty awesome. It was a little daunting being out in the field with only four other people and dodging Big Bads while making sure my group stayed up. Thanks to latent defenses I never dropped, but I did get shield bashed, which made Edwin panic, and throw me into the triage area and yell at me to stay there.

“Edwin, I was assigned to that group, I need to keep them alive!”
“I saw you fighting!”
“I was blocking!”

lol.

Hangout time with Kit and Jed in the cozy shack while we waited out the rain was fun times.
Because of the weather we were sure that nothing was going to be out. So we continued our conversations and then I saw Jed's eyes go wide as he went silent and Kit turned slowly in her chair saying “uhhhh...” so I turned around and there right behind us was some green elemental looking thing (Brad) that had seemed to have silently materialized out of nowhere.

I screamed. Couldn't help it. I could NOT process his being there, as we didn't hear him at all, no one saw him come in and all this after Jed had just told us how much things were not getting in. But there was a ward on the door they didn't see so they had to go back out. We DIED laughing. OOG Judge said he thought for sure that it was a real ghost, because it seemed so impossible for him to be there like that. That was ROUGH, Brad! You got us all good! Lol!


Lots of great rp on Sunday. Loved talking Ronin with Silverbow. The story for his choice of the path was so sad and intense. I love that Ronin is not just a standard code but a personal one. Really can't wait to have another discussion about that, especially after what happened with Blood Tithe...

Parry Lessons with Edwin! Loved it, and also thank-you Charlie, as always, for looking out for Swyft so much! Sorry I made you nervous at main mod.

Lucien's mass... well delivered, meaningful and potent for the current situation. Swyft is garnering so much respect for this character. He was so fiercely devoted during the spiritual crises on Friday night; that was some phenomenal rp! Thank-you for the meaningful lesson, too!

Great event, with great people and probably the most laughs I've had at Knight Realms in one weekend, yet! Made new friends, getting some serious character development and learning so much about others folks. So enjoyable, thank-you everyone!