I started out trying to put these in chronological order, but eff it, it’s all over!
* I so enjoyed the additions to the setting for the event: Giant Thanks to whoever took the time to make all those little glowing eyes props and seed the dark trail to Greenwood Circle with them! They made an already spooky walk even so much more delightful for the season. Please know how much our neighborhood appreciated your efforts!
* Everyone's jack-o-lanterns were also such a beautiful touch in the dark night. Tiatar always has its front porch decorated in such a lovely fashion, and their collection of wall-mounted jack-o-lanterns were both a delight, and apparently very useful later on. The Scions’ jack-o-lantern farm was not only gorgeous, but a certain pumpkin brought a great deal of delight to the neighborhood especially after a certain overtired knight may have wandered off with it… I thanked you guys IC for the gift of the Rivervale jack-o-lantern. I’d like to reiterate our thanks OOC. Someone obviously put a very great deal of careful work into meticulously carving the Rivervale crest into a pumpkin. That was truly a thoughtful gift, and we want you to know how much we loved it, and we appreciate your gesture and artistry!
* While I’m talking about pretty stuff: ZOMG! THE MASQUERADE COSTUMES! Wow, Alliance – way to raise the bar!
* How amazing is Tiatar (with help from Warchester) for running the masquerade for us every year? So much work goes into that party, and it’s such a delightful event. I loved it last year, and looked forward to it all this year, and it was even more wonderful! Thank you, Juliet, Ray, Kat, Porch, B, Zach, JJ, Jenny, Val, Brandon, John, Cory, and any other Tiatarans I may have inadvertently left off this list. You guys rock for that gift to all of us!
* Miguel, thank you for the court dance lessons! I would definitely be interested in an outside-game lesson to rehearse for something like that at a future fancy-dress-up occasion. Thanks for bringing some SCA elegance and historicity into our game; it was definitely enriched for it!
* Nightmare Realm fight on Friday night was excellent! Kudos to whoever was in charge of pacing the monster waves – you did great! We were pressed when appropriate, and as the fight dragged on and people got tired OOG, you appropriately lifted the pressure a bit. NPCs were obvious in their care to fight slowly and safely given the darkness conditions. All of the NPCs went out of their way to keep the roleplay levels high, even late in the fight when they must’ve been exhausted. Extra thanks to whoever did the NPC briefings and coaching to come up with those moves – great job! That fight was scary and exhausting, and a great use of low budget tricks to set excellent atmosphere in the game.
* Lots of good moments with PCs handling their nightmare triggers throughout the weekend. Mac McCammon Fawkes was cracking me up with the consistency of his, “Fire elementals?! What? Where??” freakout all weekend long. Zach Brooks and I kept trading places talking each other down from the ledge. Amy and I quietly humming, “Good King Wenceslas” during the Walk of the Dead because it was the only song I could come up with off the top of my head to take our minds off scary nightmares. Zak and Kendrick finding Dame Katherine corner huddling and murmuring, “I’malright…I’malright…I’malright,” during Sunday afternoon’s fight, and being my handlers through the nightmare fear. Just lots of small moments for good actions between characters with those.
* Speaking of Zak, how bad *** is that guy for being the first one to wake up in High Town (Greenwood Circle) during the Nightmare Cabin Raids Saturday night, and run around like
William Dawes (that was for you, Amy) shouting in everyone’s windows to wake up?
* Who is the utterly creepy female NPC who kept singing the nursery rhymes and doing the utterly sinister childlike laughter? GO EFF YOURSELF! (By which I mean… great job! You really set the stage beautifully with your acting!)
* David leading the Saturday night Nightmare Cabin Raids: EVENT. MADE. Great encounter! Loved the fear! Paced beautifully, statted beautifully, handled expertly, fought safely in near total darkness with frightened, still-half-asleep PCs. Textbook Quantico LARP cabin raid activity! Rivervale stayed up for another hour pumped up on adrenaline, talking about how cool that was. We loved it!
* Witnessing a cabin raid fight that gave rise to the opportunity for Brooke, Panax, Connor, and Darius to be heroes that was so interesting that I loved just being an OOG witness to it even though my character was Slept at the time!
* Being fey-cursed to occasionally slip into babytalk now and then, being razzed for it (I’m looking at you, Squire Torin and Sir Eldred!), and various ways to get around it – Thanks, Squire Ri for helping out there! (“Who’s got a boyfriend with a Silence item? Who does? I do! Yes, I do! Who’s got the best Silence item ever?”) The very best part of that experience, however, was being under the effects of a Silence spell to spare me the indignation of the babytalk for a few short minutes – and having this fantastic philosophical discussion with Squire Frank about the nature of Evil, with me having to communicate mostly in pantomime, with occasional written notes. I loved how seriously Frank took the conversation, just moving in stride, and keeping his mind on the content, not the communication. That was beautiful!
* On the topic of the Nature of Evil, great Chivalry School on Sunday morning! We had about 16 people, and a really impassioned discussion on this topic. I like the new, more casual discussion forum format. Really glad Deacon was in on that one – He and Connor Rinaldi in particular really brought some great comments and new perspective into the discussion.
* Getting to officiate over the Alis-Andrew the Bard honor duel. Great roleplay from all involved, and way to sell the hits and the fall, Sam Lewis! I loved seeing Little Bear get healed, and rise up with a giant ****-eating grin to embrace his opponent after a great fight! That’s the way to do it!
* Every single moment involving Sam Lewis (Little Bear)! (“**** yes!”)
* Getting to stand up at Phineas’ trial and make a William Wallace speech about our character as a people, and how our actions define us.
* Failing to come up with a similarly inspirational speech to bail out the Duchess in the Nightmare Realm, being just bereft of the requisite heart to inspire someone else in that terrible moment.
* Rolling a 1 on celebrating Kate & Osborne’s anniversary toast at the masquerade by pouring my root beer into his strawberry ale, thinking he was asking me to help refill his cup instead of just holding up drinks so we both could toast to the past year!
* Meddling in a certain other potential couple’s affairs by instructing some sneaky pirate about the appropriate way to ask a noblewoman for permission to court her.
* A certain private girltalk with Tab. Nuff said!
* Discovering Dame Arikaya out on the front porch of her cabin, doing rune castings early in the morning. I usually get up and do yoga first thing in the morning as Dame Katherine. Makes me wonder how many other characters have amusing early morning rituals that most other people don’t usually get to see.
* Getting to meet King Sebastian Coldstone, founder of our kingdom, and the author of the original Code of Man which became the Code of Chivalry. That was like getting to go to Disneyworld for Dame Katherine, an honor of unimaginable joy!
*…Immediately smashed by being literally face-to-face with the ghost of Dame Katherine’s mother, thus finding out that she’s died her final death! That was a drop from pure elation to soul-crushing horror in a single moment. Thank you, Jenn, and Jesse, for all of that! The roleplay from everyone else around me throughout that next hour, and the weekend thereafter was so impressive, from the small and sometimes silent gestures to soft words and a few grand speeches (Chris Fiene!). I thanked him in person, but I have to give a shout out to John Siadak’s roleplay always for being so inclusive in the opportunities he provides to others with his choice of character actions and words.
* All the potential stemming from the Cave of Chivalry revelation, and many discussions about it thereafter among the squires and nobility.
* Oh. My. God. Our squires effin ROCK! I wish you could all have seen the look on my face when I was speaking with the Duchess on Sunday morning, and Wolsey-- EDIT: No, no, I've been corrected, it was Noah -- comes out with this 25-step detailed plan that the squires have already come up with to divide the tasks in investigating Dame Beverly’s murder. I had no idea you guys had come up with so many ideas, or already done so much to organize yourselves. I like to think that I’m ever aware of how efficient you guys are, and I was taken aback in pleasant surprise by the impressiveness of your creativity and plans!... Sidenote: I love story elements which allow this kind of inclusiveness and collective action! The death of a character’s parent is obviously a cool roleplay opportunity for the grieving PC, but it’s usually just personal. Way to go for the squires and many others (noble and common) to jump in to pick up storyline threads, and let us make this a roleplay opportunity for the lot of us!
* “Largarde, if you’d like to get rid of this mark, I’d like to invite you attend the School of Chivalry discussions, and then I’ll teach you how I alphabetize my socks….”
* Graham to Wolf’s NPC: “Oh, you’re from the BARONY OF EPYXIA, you say?”
* The new squires’ oaths for Ri and Graham – each so different, and so beautiful and appropriate for the characters involved! I loved getting to witness those.
* FINALLY getting to see the red belt put on Kendrick!!! That was a beautiful moment pulled together after the end of game in our cabin, but everyone snapped back into character totally for it – and Brooke Blaine with the orange food! Loved the two oathswearing ceremonies we had this weekend, welcoming Connor into the court formally, and how deeply he considered the Baron’s gift so that he might always have something to give others – and watching Kendrick swear the greater oath of a squire, and everything that supports that character choice behind it. RIVERVALE!!!
* Sunday’s closing battle – wow! The escape out of that fight, being on an island totally surrounded by NPCs, cut off from the portal and the rest of the PCs, no healers among us, fighting back-to-back, getting to use a healing item that Sir Egil just gave me to save his life, using a Slay (which I never use) to take out Alex who managed to roleplay while giving me an excellent fight!, using an Endow trying to get Brom’s dead body, fighting for every step, WOW! Talk about high adrenaline! That was one of my two favorite fights of the whole Acarthia campaign so far. That was excellent, I LOVED it!
* Having experienced SO MANY awesome moments this weekend that I know I’m forgetting to list easily half of them in this already long list!
Trace Moriarty