I probably shouldn’t say this but I was pretty unmotivated for Amtgard this weekend, but I still went and not one but two days! My first day was only for two hours, longer than I actually expected to be honest. I went to my local park of Silvermoon (Salem, OR).
Silvermoon
I wasn’t sure I was going to go at all to be honest, I had a concert that evening in Portland with a few friends. I had to meet them pretty far south of Portland so it was going to take most of my day but my friends were running late. I stopped at my local park on the way to meet up with them, figuring it would be a good idea to sign-in, watch some Amtgard, get some videos and do some visiting.
There weren’t to many people there so Ceian decided to run a free for all game. Each person had their own base. The goal was to move a heavy object from the center of the area back to your base to score a point, ending the round. For each round each player had 3 lives and it was instant respawn.
I figured that it would end up that the last person, who was not shattered out, would be the one to score the point but I was wrong. The first two points that were scored there were still people alive. I got the first two rounds on video (First Round HERE, Second Round HERE). There was a pause in the game when more people showed up and they were included. I didn’t record the rest of the game as it started to rain and I went back under the under covered area.
Later in the day they did a two man forever game but with an objective. Teams were supposed to gather 5 cones, create a star and hold the point for 30 seconds. It was an interesting take on the format. Eventually a team did score a point but it took a while. I left shortly after that game but before I did I got some video of Hydra and Ceian sparring, which you can watch HERE if you like.
Obsidian Grove
Sunday I went to Obsidian Grove for the Kingdom Level Event which was an althing and relic quest. The althing was an important one and and also a divisive one, one I wasn’t sure I was going to bring up. I try to keep my blog positive but the subject matter is to important to gloss over. The largest topic was an appeal of the permanent suspension of Hawk from Blackspire events.
The althing was pretty intense. The subject of the suspension was sexual harassment. It ended up going beyond the original complaints with other people speaking up about there negative experiences. There was a strong case built for a long term pattern of behavior. The kingdom sent a very strong message that such behavior wouldn’t be allowed, the final results were 37 vs 3 in favor of upholding the suspension.
After the althing was the relic quest. The premise was that the kingdom’s flying ship had crashed onto a floating island. They needed to repair the ship and remove a curse which was placed on the crew as they landed on the island. They also had to find a way of stopping a mechanical steam dragon from destroying the ship.
The quest was built in such a way that each team of 5 could complete the quest. Relics went out based upon the order in which teams completed the quest. It turned out that in the end every team got a relic or trinket.
Comparing this relic quest with the Northern Lights relic quest from the previous week I think this quest was more successful. While there was less to actually do, there was a solid story with objects that were easily identifiable. It was also clear how the relics were to be won. That being said I still had more fun at the Northern Lights event as a whole.
I was disappointed in the lack of fighting at the Blackspire KLE. The only fighting that happened was a small group of people sparing. I have some video of it HERE. A few people joined in that aren’t in the video. but there weren’t many. There wasn’t a single ditch. It was all very disappointing. After the quest there was another battle game but that was the extent of the actives of the day. That being said we still went until dusk.
As I said at the start of this entry I was unmotivated this weekend in regards to Amtgard. I didn’t actually play in anything. I did follow around the Arcana group during the quest and I took videos, but I didn’t play myself. I am looking forward to next weekend, especially Sunday. Hopefully the day goes as expected and if does I’ll have something of an announcement to make next week. At this point I’m not sure if I’ll be going to my local park on Saturday or if I’ll just be going to Dusk Hollow on Sunday. We shall see.
I do plan on making a special blog post talking more personally about my activities outside of Amtgard. I’m going to be making the move to combine my Amtgard Blog activities with my writing activities. My Patreon is the main focus of those efforts, but I’ll occasionally be using this platform to also talk about my writing.