Nov 2014 Highlights.

Firstoff….
Kudos to everyone for a mostly injury-free event. All Y’all need to take a bow.
Secondoff…
Kudos to staff for this month’s journey into the wilds of Travance. Lots of fun was had and no little RP was left undone. Bravo!

On to highlights
Friday Volunteer NPC shift with The Brotherhood of Shadows and their attempt at bloodtide. This was honestly the first time I have seen a proper guard upon that weapon… and it showed. The Death of Kane was a happy thing for the player… though I am not 100% certain its over yet.
PC time…. Coming in to Travance to find the Barracks interior torched and hearing of Birgitta’s heroics in putting it out. That oldsword has no fear…. But then, it was removed last year at this time… True Story.
First Time Phokus Walk, courtesy of a damned Dark Paladin with Litanies of doom. I’m just pleased it took Billingham and Caelvan combined to drop me. The upset friend sitting outside the phokus and the brief talk has lead to some confusion on where one stands… that answer will be had later, I am sure.
More discussions about the state of the lands, patrolling then bed.
Saturdayguard meeting… and then Celt Mod. If someone had told me last month I’d be important for this mod, I’d have laughed at them till I fell over. Suffice it to say, I am still a bit in shock.

Main Mod stuff… It’s a jumble and it was all cool. By section-
Main Mod Prequel- The revelation of the possessed children, Duncan’s seeking his faith’s priest over it and the scaremortal attack. Going full defensive to protect a weaponless Gideon, there was no attempt to fight back, just actually parry… And it went like this- “Nope nope nope nope missed me nope” where each nope was a blocked swing or a side step. This bought time for heavy hitters to come up and deal with the baddie.
Main Mod Scouting mission- lots of fun trying to explain how to move quietly on the road. Happy tosay, most everyone got it.
Mainmod the fight….
-Team Fianna. Nothing could stop us until we got separated… and even then, we were machines.
-midbattle exchange-
NPC at pc: “Deathpoison!”
Me: “Intercept; Immune!” as I placemy sword in the gap between them.
NPC (looks at who said it) “Oh shit!” and runs.

More fighting… I rescue the low levels and get them organied then run into the DeathKnights. Thirty secondsof fighting and a slay got through… Crit time.

Get found by a BloodSpirit (Huronson) and dragged towards a healer- only to have himget cut down.
Get found by someone andafter a moment panic, get rescued at the 3:15 mark of crit.
Get up, get some health and get backto the Fianna…. Only to get dropped once again into crit.

By the damned Death Knights again.

When I finally get found, I am approaching minute 4. Once saved, stand guard with Bran as Angiliana goes about healing.

Just before the end, gettingword that the artifact I carry is about to get ported out- the battle looking lost at this point. Being angry about having to possibly run but knowing it’s the smart thing to do. And having it not be needed.

I STILL don’t know if this was a win or a draw. But the carnage made me think loss…

Post main mod conversation… and a request between clansmen. An epicly wonderful serious conversation between three Celts of stature.

Sunday and the waist- tackling of the Posessed Count before he does a horrible thing. Wonderfully epic scene and I am very surprised I did not die there…

EndGame, Clean Up and the Long Journey Home.

Good times and I so look forward to next month.

one final thank-you though… This is to Jeff McLean for ordering/telling me to go play in Main instead of working it as safety marshal and trying to not let me get pulled out for safety stuff. I still wound up playing medic at one point but its to be expected I guess- I was nearby when the event happened and got grabbed right away.

But it was wonderful to be out there and involved.

Can’t wait for next month!!!

~ Setting up Maralas’s Gaian altar and Angeliana’s Andorran altar next to one another in the Winterdark manor. Not sure if anyone saw, but I thought it made for a very nice calming atmosphere.

~ Being chosen by an Arch Angel of Andorra, having instant knowledge of all ceremonies, hearing much needed words of Andorra through her. Maria thank you for the awesome RP!

~ Forging the Staff of Syrith! Yay for being raised catholic, all those Italian and Latin prayers I had memorized came in handy with Andorra and her holy words thrown in here and there. Great RP here all around and the effects were awesome. Marika and Angeliana holding hands to stand as the Valosians kept getting hurt was awesome. Add battle against a malycite devil outside and two very empathic healers used one another for support. That was cool Sam
~ Bran and Grimkjell: “Don’t worry! It’s our blood.” -_- Zerkers…

~ Labelle vs. Edwin. This was a scene. Keavy’s reaction was well played by Dani, glad I was next to you.

~ Talking to William’s spirit and getting approval to save him with SCIENCE! Finding Dr Lois and thinking that’s a good match. Assisting her then puking when she expertly cracked open his ribs, sucked out the fluids and spit them into a cup… Crystal thanks for the compliment for asking if someone puked for real.

~ Raxas’s winterproof hookah tent. Amazing. Thanks Randy.

~ A fair trade with Atrus. Then very personal and deep RP with Alander and Atrus… way to twist every word Angeliana said John… damn Glomitte.

~ Chats with alternate Klarington and Verril. Voicing concern over meddling with time and gathering powerful weapons. Understanding and accepting their reasoning but worrying. Getting mocked by Klarington about the staff of Syrith, or so it seemed…

~ Offering to stay with Alternate Vim forever along with Godric and Belechand in exchange for Agrrevane and our friends going free. Vim trusting us. All of the turned pcs on that mod… ran out of FP, twice…

~ Watching Morwenne’s heart getting ripped out of her chest by a demon, saving her only to later find out she turned to ashes… shrimp spirit soup? Her persistence to be left alone.

~ Sitting to the Count’s left as per his request for wanting his personal healer with him at all times if possible. Getting the “recipe” for the “alchemical concoction” a man fed him in the kitchen which gave him fantastic amounts of energy.

~ Being uneasy and feeling bad for the oracle during feast. MB, I wanted to come over and hug you then feed you cake.

~ Going to main mod as the Fianna’s healer… cause Seamus and Bran… and they didn’t have a healer… cause derp. Duncan’s “advice” for Angeliana not to go and Bran coming to her defense with how awesome useful she is. That was touching (next day undone by the brothers before wenches comment).

~ Calling “no effect” to all Harvest your souls thrown at me. HUZZAH Soul Warden!

~ Font of Life + Divine Sanctuary = AWESOME when people around you are all in crit and you have already heal life’d them all. Screaming my head off for another healer and backup until I hear the following terrifying words from a masked NPC: “Alice, Entrophic Blast.” Well played… Lucky for us, when I go down, nearest ally heals 50, and that happened to be Therion HEHE

~ Empathy Mastery being the most useful it has possibly been so far. I pulled something like 9 PCs out of crit who had run out of other options due to some silly amount of harvest your souls getting chucked around.

~ Undead Atrus, Therion putting up the focus barrier to instantly ash him. Stuff falling out. Bolton… I see what your handiwork has accomplished…

~ Longest Veil of creation EVER, by like a mile. Fanstastic RP by Atrus, only to find out Angeliana cannot bring herself to pull him through the final veil. Whomp whomp.

~ Best insanity RP witnessed. A++, later trying to have said insanities cured by begging Illana for help only to get her phsycoanalyze willpowered. GRR!

~ Learning a lesson unfinished by Atrus from Lady Angelica. Revelations... Aldric, yes, I know.

~ Confessions. Drinks! More drinks! Someone mentions Angeliana is ‘becoming’ an alcoholic, Bran laughs “She always has been”

Great weekend. Thanks for all the fun KR family, can’t wait until next time.

Well best to start at the beginning.

Lay on and get ready to play henchman for Zatar's insane act of lets get Bloodtide. Finish off being the last man to die I think and go back to logisitics to end up helping out James with working the stereo while he time warps into the inn. Then helped out Luis with playing a mage and died like the filthy peasant I was lol, tag skill? a house cat coulda killed me. Then it was back to the tent, yes that pop up behind the barracks in the holy Hannah cold weather.

Got up to see the wind and say to myself outta game sorry Matt and proceed to get ready to go smith, carrying my chain mail to work which did not see the light of day during game due to too chilly outside and the inn felt like a sauna. But while in said sauna got involved in the arrest of Collin Hayes for assault and theft. That poor lass didn't know when to quit lol and made that event great cause she was really trying to get away and trying to bribe us, threaten us.

And then it's time for tower mod, corpse trees...fun, the group got split in half, we find the trunk and I look at the smith alchemist next to me lets blow it up cause you know, forget magic. Then to be told it looks unhappy burning tree and we get wrecked pretty good and then just as trees start to die the poor wild mage I met inside of logistics gets surprised and burns a surge which causes a ring a fire at 5 ft radius which places me, the barbarian, inside and then que the freak out over the magic wall of fire and the poor girl(wish I was smart enough to get a name) got the yelling of a life time to the point of I think I almost saw tears.

Right after tower mod I grumble bout mages and head back to the armory to repair and just as I'm taking off my armor, the count is walking up to the barracks, he goes in, I take a seat outside to not interrupt. He comes back outside and we exchange words and he notices the incoming wave of baddies saying I best get inside. I go inside to tell Brigita that hey bad things outside and the count out there and grab the nearest weapon(cause you know dingbat I am left mine in the tent) and we go outside to assist and get blown up by a booby trap. Healed up and then go assist the yelling and screaming and discovery of scaremortals. Then back to the barracks for the repairs and out to feast.

Feast was good, helping clean up was fun aswell save for scrubbing burned food on enamel pot.

Main mod I didn't get to go on, just waited at the barracks for the return of friendlies and called it an early night.

Sunday got up to Role Play with Donald and A knight looking guy for shield training, got some pointers and my ass kicked. Role playing Ignore pain training, everyone seemed to enjoy that.

Angrin- Smith and Baronial Guard Initiate

For whatever reason, I was having a really lousy October, and this weekend helped me get rid of some of that funk, so thank-you everyone for that!

-Walking around with the Blood Tide group, though Swyft was appalled simply having to be near it. I got nice and duped by the group that jumped us Friday. The fellow leading it acted as though we knew each other, and I suck at remembering names generally, so I assumed (sigh!) we did and he tried to incapacitate me. But intercept is a thing, fortunately!

-Did a nice slide across gravel on my knees when I lost my footing dealing with some undead. Walking sucked entirely too much for the first chunk of Saturday to do more than sit somewhere...

-Time travel mods-- super cool! Kanas sweet talks swords stuck in trees!

-Lost every argument with Jed so hard that I spent most of the visit with my head on the table. Too bad Zathir was no help, agreeing right along with him! Sigh! Honestly I'm not even sure what we were arguing about by the end of it... but Jed made no secret of his enjoyment of my abysmal defeat.
Next time I'm bringing cue cards. And my OWN peanut gallery.

- Bolton you creepy mad scientist, you! No you may not have my eyes! Don't feed me that “for the greater good and SCIENCE!” nonsense! lol

-NPC shift was pretty great. Getting to be part of Goggins' army with Mecha Grim and Sky Captain Jun … freaking sweet. Our outfits, I must say, were one of my favorite aspects. I hope the players enjoyed the scenario!
P.S. I miss Mr. Goggins!

-Played disease causing dire wolves with Sam and interacting with Druid-Charlie! I had no idea Orophin could befriend animals, but how funny it must have looked with two wolves chilling with him. Until he dropped his sword on me by accident... lol.

-Harsh combat practice with Atrus. Perhaps I should not have said that I bet he couldn't hit me.
I lost. Lol.

-Getting squired by Lady Angelica! Aaahh! There was so much joy in that exchange! I am thrilled, absolutely thrilled!!! So excited for the future!

-Main mod was fantastic! The amount of creepiness just walking through that field was immense. You just knew those people were going to be getting up off those stands any moment...

-Getting to be in the Honor Guard with Zathir, Typhon and Na'ar was super awesome. Kensai powers! Zathir did an amazing job!

-Angeliana was like a superhero in this mod. If it wasn't for her, there would have been many more deaths. She had a circle of people who had been dropped to critical and was keeping them all alive. It was incredible. We both slammed through our healing points that night and panicked most of the mod. Good thing for Ethan!

-Hugging Atrus' soul back into his body in the Phokus! Hehe...

-Spooky exchange in Winterdark with Angeliana, Atrus and Zathir. Phokus walk Atrus is craziER Atrus and by the end of it, he had us convinced that there was something awful outside. Something that frightened HIM, lol.

Then Zathir and I had to go back alone.
After that.
It was bad.
We ran from a tree.

(I wish I was lying.)

-True Distant Heal lessons with Wylla! The best part was that we were attacked during it, so I got to show her how to do it in combat. Fun stuff. Love these lessons, Wylla! You're a fantastic healer.

-Clove stole my badge. He shoved the entire thing in his mouth when Wylla and I tried to retrieve it from him. That's dedication!
(He is so lucky I can't beat him up!)

-Speaking of which, the “I'm Pretty Sure This is a Bad Idea” willpower lesson from Atrus was just as horrifying as I thought it would be. Hell, I should have learned it just for going! Came back in one piece, though. Woohoo! (John, you logic so well, it's frustrating! Lol)

-Watching Edwin's response to a group that was thieving and tried to hold me hostage.

“If you hurt her at all, you will be hanging from five different trees.”

Thank-you, Charlie!

Overall a very fun weekend, filled with memorable experiences and people as always. I'm sure I have missed mention of awesome things, but not on purpose! I appreciate each and every interaction! Thank-you!

-Coming into town with Galen

-Scrambling around town to collect materials and people
-Using the creation of the staff to counter the creation of Bloodtide for its smiths being a failed plan. Ilana just needs to think at Galladel harder.

-Mr. Sterling winding up being the primary smith of the staff "Is someone with my lack of belief going to cause an issue?"
"Just focus on whatever you do have faith in."

-Malyc spirit came back and ate a soul. It should have stuck with the dang healer. I also caught the tail end of this so have no idea what actually happened beforehand.

-Dwarven buddy coming late at night and foreshadowing.

-Trying to go to bed and constantly being interrupted by undead. Then the Galladelian duo run into the Demi-Lich. Alone. And run. We're brave, not stupid.

-Undead Gregory. Not sleeping

-A dinner date to save the Barony

-Meeting Orion McBride, Thunder, and Lightning. The 'witch hunter' mod was happening at the same time and I decided I'm always killing demons, I wanted to do something enjoyable. Good thing. The amount of mind controls was crazy (Ilana might have also pissed off a Fae. Oops)

-Immediately going to the Agravane Mod and risking my brain. Worth it. Also Angeliana trying to hold the sword and Ilana utterly confused because she missed the part where she's okay holding blades now. (I did too)

-Morwenne trying to leave us and Ilana just doing her best to remain calm about it. Them Ethan showing up and tempting him to stay as a person with head scritches.

-Running into Count vs. Town part 2. "I won't destroy it... Just kill her"

-Bloodtide shenanigans. GJ Bele

-May NPC of the month go to the haunt group during main mod? They were utterly amazing. I have no idea what was going on during main mod mostly because I was a resuscitate machine.

-Dark Druid near Xilinthax? Sounds awesome! Not getting back in time to explain why it was a terrible idea to go there. Hearing about the trip afterwards.

-Surprise Arani mod!

-Necromancer hanging out at the Inverted Tower?

-Sleeping through someone trying to get help. I clearly needed it >.o (Still feel awful)

-When Maja appeared, Ilana was so relieved. She said his name any chance she got during the event and pretended it would work like Corsair. Was a bit impressed by how many other people were happy to see him.

-Klarington running away from the problem. Alt Verril being a winner.

-People kind of wanting to stab Ilana when they had Bloodtide. She was amused. Especially when people started trying to guard her.

-Ilana was completely wrong about Elemental Warden (as well as everyone else) and felt a bit dejected. Now the big three need to figure it out together.

Such an epic event to first time pc...Where to begin?

- Arriving late with Cade and not having the connections to stay safely in a group. Told never to go anywhere without company, or bad things will happen. Ignoring said advice (because foolhardy, happy gypsies), and attempting to get to the Bloody Stump by ourselves for a very late night drink. Getting lost in the creepy woods. Running into the Guard and getting Duncan as an escort (safe at last!). Being stopped on a backwoods path by some ragged strangers asking for help. Their complete and efficient murder of Duncan in the blink of an eye. Immediately followed by all four of my limbs being flung in different directions as I get slaughtered. Cade gets away screaming bloody murder, and a large rescue party manages to find us and heal me. Welcome to Travance, where you die horrible deaths within hours of arrival! Couldn't have asked for a more terrifying and entertaining way to set the scene for the rest of the weekend.

- Epic hookah tent with good company and conversations involving teddy bears and skulls that I never imagined having before that moment.

- Mushroom mod with the new players. Cade and myself falling in with Colin and Val. Our ragtag gypsy pirate crew is going to have many strange and dangerous adventures, most of which will be instigated by our own shenanigans and foolhardiness (but wherever the Captain leads, we must follow...and rescue). Can't wait to see where the wind takes us next!

- Inverted tower mod, and having knowledge of traps and dexterous fingers come in handy much sooner in my career than anticipated. "Don't worry guys, I can disarm it!" Trap resets. "Sorry guys, it's still there and I'm all out of tools! Anyone have extras? Oh I was the only one? Alright who wants to jump through!"

- Meeting Alexander and being mentored in the way of Shenanigans.

- Main Mod. Holy Hades Halitosis that was terrifying. Seeing the lights and the field of scarecrows and immediately recognizing that survival was going to be difficult. Mad props to everyone involved in the prep and orchestration! The intensity and scope the whole way was just phenomenal.
- Getting split off from the main group of new players. Val and myself finding ourselves alone in the highest tier of the action. Panicking at our immanent doom. Val's use of Cloak of the Green working until the very last monster. "Sense life! 26 magic! 26 magic! 26 magic! 26 magic! 26 magic!" Val drops and I sprint away."Sorry Val, I'll come back for youuuuuuuuuu!" Reuniting soon after with a healed Val, and finally finding the rest of our group. The overwhelming feelings of relief at that. The Captain's Crew sails on!

-Going back to the caravan with Cade to prep for NPC shift, only to be accosted there by a group of six trolls. The panic on our faces as Cade I look at each other with the realization that our low-levels selves are going to be utterly decimated and there is no one anyone near by to come save us. Cade's epic levels of bs and fighting prowess on display as he draws the leader into the dark for me to Waylay him and hide back in the shadows. Cade dumping the unconscious body on our steps and continuing to bs about our strength. Trolls leaving in great fear and respect of our abilities. Our mini freakouts after that we are still alive and that our plan worked without even having time to create a plan. Andrew, our chemistry is stupid to have been able to pull that off. It's going to be hard to feel more like Kings of the Con than at that moment.

- NPC shift leading to some of the most ridiculous things I've seen yet. Screaming our lungs out for over an hour as kobold elementalists trying to bring winter early (and being told later that we could be heard in literally every land). Dropping two PCs and our increasingly over-the-top attempts to bring attention to them to get them rescued. Very land turning a deaf ear to us even when we moved right in front of a building and blatantly yelled about performing human sacrifices to bring on Winter. "We're literally murdering people right now! Will anyone dare to stop us?" Sorry guys, we tried! I can't wait to hear more about the fallout I'm sure that this craziness caused.

All in all, a brilliant event. To think that it's only going to get better from here makes me giddy!