In no particular order...
* Naga mod. I am always a fan of mods that require me/my group to think our way around a situation. This was not a fighting mod. This was a fun, talkind mod, with some sneaking, and some careful words, and some negotiations. I had a lot of fun on it.
* Some of the conversation that spun off of that mod was fantastic. I'm not sure that I have ever seen LeGard at a loss for words before, but the expression on his face at the fire later was so worth exploring Tinder's naivete on certain subjects.
* The three way miscommunication on where I was supposed to be. Tinder does not wander off on her own! Seriously! (But I find the continued roleplay of people exaggerating her supposed propensity for doing so exceptionally humorous).
* Lola the Seawitch. Trace is easily one of the most gregarious, friendly people I know, but it's not often that I actually get the roleplay with her, and I got a fair amount of time with Lola this weekend. I loved this character, and I loved how it really displayed Trace's roleplaying chops - such a different portrayal from Katherine, and it was wodnerful!
* Saturday morning breakfast. I was running late that morning (and the following), so I didn't make it down to the tavern, and I have never been so glad IG. There was some huzz worthy internal agitations over the idea of consuming any part of a sentient creature, even if willingly given.
* TRex battle, the first, not to be confused with the tavern assault that happened later on Saturday. We had a great team for that mod, one that deliberately, and at one point exceptionally rapidly, strategized how to handle our situation, and it was a lot of fun as a result.
* The centipede and TRex battle the second; I honestly had a lot of fun in those fights, even with the number of times I went down in the latter. The gratification of lighting up the TRex with Ice Storms (that used most of those scrolls for me) and seeing LeGard fall out of its bulging stomach was pretty awesome.
* Sneaky mobs hitting Tinder in the back. *peers* You know who you are, and I totally need some shields behind me.
* "Tree-Not-Tree." You also know who you are, and you spawned roleplay that will continue to evolve as the Wylderkin around me started adding this into their vocabulary; snake-not-snake, monkey-not-monkey, fox-not-fox.
* Eating outside of the tavern, to avoid the boisterous monkey culture inside of it, and all of the conversation that followed; Rourk insisting that all was well so long as poo wasn't thrown at his dinner (and later deliberately moving his polearm into his lap), the Dawn Strider Captain joining us, with carefully worded disdain toward the monkey culture, having to remind others who'd been put off by the shenanigans in the tavern that we were the guests, not the other way around, and it wasn't our right to tell the monkeys to behave in 'civilized' fashions.
* Speaking of eating - OMGs, Jack! Those were some of the best fries ever! Never mind the shortbread cookies. I realize, you fed us Americana, but it was awesome!
* The flight from Monkey Island; also, pulling Jesse's baboon-kin onto our ship. Watching the lines form up and fall back while others were clamoring onto ships was epic, and watching Kendrick shake the king's necklace at the monkeys still on the wharf as we were pulling away.
* The deliberate camaraderie of checking on the other ships after we made landfall at the Isle of Light.
* Peat's late night warning; I never sleep well at these events, so when Peat showed up at our door to tell us what had happened to her on the road, I was the most mobile person to answer the door. (I really need to work on my sleep wear, in order to make it up to the task of leaving the warmth of my cabin IC in the late night. I have no idea how Dia wasn't freezing).
* Kraken ink! I have been carrying empty bottles wedged beneath the bark since I heard about this particular event, and it finally came up! Woo hoo! (I'm fairly certain that the other people on Tinder's ship found her squee of excitement reasonably inappropriate; and I was suddenly glad that the Saturday night fight did not eat up my memorized Dragon's Breaths).
Monkey Island:
The plot for this weekend was exceptionally well done all around, but the fantastic roleplay on the part of the NPC players that went into Monkey Island went above and beyond. Y'all got into the physicalization of monkey and ape so exceptionally well while still maintaining a wonderful air of whimsy, and it was non-stop. There was always a monkey somewhere, and monkey events happened around us, that didn't even necessarily include us (the monkeys beating the pails, and getting into little simian fights; the wrestling match, followed by poo flinging). It really made Monkey Island, more than any of our other locales, feel alive as its own distinct from us community, and that was amazing.
Overall Dimness:
This was a thing on Saturday, but you know, it was the most IC thing in the world. There was some obvious thought put into how to handle the setting, including what kind of lighting to give us in what place, and the lack of light given to us in the 'dilapidated building made of bamboo' that happened to be our tavern on Saturday night was amazing. It made light sources important.
Here, I would also like to mention that trapping the PCs on ships so that you would have 30 minutes (to however long) to scene set the rest of the game site for us was amazingly brilliant. Sure, we went 'back to the tavern,' but the tavern was different when we got there, and that was _awesome_.
Glass Cannon Magery:
I experienced this thing during the Saturday night battle that was odd for me. It was one part spell conservation, and one part recognition of a mage's roll in some things. Tinder went into that battle with a fully loaded offensive spell set; she had very little utility on her (which is not usual for Tinder). She walked out of that battle almost completely depleted; she had a few things in her arsenal left (and most of them packed some serious boom) but not many.
For me, the personal strategy of watching for where and when to chuck those damaging spells, and for reserving them in stages dependent on where we are in the fighting was interesting. Mostly because I haven't read any of this in any kind of strategy guide; I've learned it through practical experience and application in the game, and from mentoring conversation between Tinder and Anders, Tinder and Aneira, and all three.
Monkey Idol :
As many of you know, Ray (aka Eldred Morningtide) could not be at this event, an event he had been really looking forward to for a long time. He, Mike as Baron Egel (sp), and Trace as Dame Katherine had been having a wonderful time talking up a variety of things in relation to this event, and Ray decided he wanted to do something special for it. He sent me to game with a gift for Baron Egel and Dame Katherine; Katherine wasn't there, and Baron Egel didn't arrive until into the afternoon on Saturday.
I carried this gift, wrapped up in black cloth and tied to my spell bag until after dinner on Saturday, when I got it up the hill to the Salty Vixen, and Baron Egel.
The sound of Egel's/Mike's laughing (and his expression) when he opened up that bundle and saw what Baron Morningtide felt Baron Egel "absolutely needed" in order to complete the quests of the weekend - that is, a golden monkey idol, wearing a placid expression while flipping the viewer the bird - was epic. (Made all the more personally epic for me in that, less than 20 minutes later, we were fleeing Monkey Island).
In conclusion, the last thing I'd like to say is that I got some amazing actual roleplay this weekend. From the character development angle, it was subtle, and made me noodle over the ways that Tinder's childlikeness filters into game through her overall alienness, while making her at the same time very adult. One moment in particular stands out, where I stopped a conversation by taking someone by the shoulders, shifting them to look at the mountains, and the clouds boiling in over them, all of this wordlessly, and then apologized for my frivolity. The conversation that followed was quiet, and lovely, and one of many particularly immersive moments in the weekend.
Thank you, everyone, who contributed to that - I would name each of you, but, as always, I think the best of roleplay lies in the surprises we don't know about until it shows up right in front of us IG.