Thursday
My Pacific War adventure started with a drive up to the Portland Airport. I had to pick up a very special guest, Ziana. She is a friend of mine that used to live in Washington but now lives in Texas. She decided to fly up here for PacWar to surprise her company, the Templars. She only told 4 people she was coming and swore us to secrecy. Turns out I was the only one who kept her secret. Still, no one in her company knew she was making it and it was a pretty successful surprise.
We made our way down to Salem, ate lunch, did a little grocery shopping and then headed over to the Barrel and Keg to pick up a keg. That’s right, I got a keg of beer! I didn’t do it on a whim either, PacWar 20 marked Gustav and my 20th anniversary in Amtgard and I wanted to go big. I bought my favorite beer, Paulaner Hefeweizen. After we were finished there we headed to the site, getting there around 4.
I wasn’t camping myself so I had no camp to set up. The only set up I did have was moving my keg to the Templar camp. They were gracious enough to allow me to host my little celebration at their camp. For the next several hours I just hung around and visited with friends.
On way back from visiting the Lion’s Camp I passed gate and found that my mundane friend Steve was just arriving. It was perfectly timed. Steve first came to Amtgard at Shattered Kingdoms. He was the one who did the coin art for Shattered Kingdoms 2019 and was paid by getting a comp ticket to attend. He only stayed one night but really enjoyed the night life and he figured he would make PacWar too, at least for one night.
I helped him sign in at gate, this time he wanted to choose an Amtgard name. One of his nicknames outside of the game is Coach so he decided to play off that and sign in as Co-ach. After signing in I showed him a place near the Templars camp where he could set up. I headed back down the small hill and let him get to it.
Shortly before the early bird tournament Shayden and I cracked up some of his beers and talked. We ended up watching the early bird tournament from his truck. Melee Moses won the tournament. It was mostly a clean tournament, with only a one or two questionable calls on the part of the combatants.
I then made my way over to the White Bear Commissary to get a hot dog. I had pre-purchased a few of them from Blargest the previous month. The hot dog was a pretty good buy, it was a quarter pound dog, came with a drink and it filled me up.
I made my way back to the Templar camp, which was finally starting to take shape and hung out with Co-ach, drank a beer and waited for Gustav to show up so we could crack open the keg. It wasn’t long till he showed up, it was close to 7:30-8. I showed Gustav a spot next to the Templars he could set up and I went and found Ziana so she could tap the keg.
This is where my first adventure really began, Ziana couldn’t tap the keg. The tap just couldn’t fit into the keg. Luckily Savage had reception near the keg and we were able to call up Barrel and Keg and try to figure out what was wrong. After some conversation and a long wait for some pictures to send over text, we confirmed it was the wrong tap. It wasn’t a normal European keg so a normal European tap wouldn’t work. The only solution was to load up the keg and take it back to the company.
Dopplin, a Templar from Arkansas, helped me load it into my car and joined me in the trek back to Salem. I will say this about the Barrel and Keg, their customer service is on point. They immediately admitted it was their fault and tried their best to make it right. Sadly they didn’t own the right tap, as it’s somewhat rare from what they said. What they did do was swap out the keg for Shock Top, refunded me the money for the previous keg and gave me the new keg at cost.
I like Shock Top so it was a decent swap but I was looking forward to drinking my favorite beer throughout the event. The only other alternative beer was Coors Light, so I really was happy to have the option of Shock Top.
The bartender loaded up the keg and we were off to a store for Dopplin to pick up some ciders, then back to the site. The whole trip took about an hour. We unloaded the keg, Ziana tapped it and we poured our first cup. It was foam. We poured our second cup, it too was foam. The foam continued for a while and eventually we gave up. We decided we needed to let the keg settle. I wasn’t able to get a non-foam cup of beer till around 3am.
Luckily Co-ach had my back and he shared his beers with me for the night. Gustav was also generous and shared some of his whisky with me. All three of us spent a good amount of time visiting with the Templars at their camp that night, but eventually I made my way back down to the main building to visit with everyone one else.
The rest of the night is a bit of a blur, I spent time talking to lots of friends I don’t see very often. I hung out with Moses and Coop, two very carefree guys, especially Moses, he’s the best. I spent some time in Kormac’s tavern, The Kilted Dwarf, and had one of his beers. It was pretty packed and people seemed to be having a blast. Co-ach even made his way down and brought me a beer.
Throughout the night I alternated between the Templar camp and the Main Building and the Kilted Dwarf, it’s pretty much where most of the people were hanging out. I was especially glad to get to talk with my good friend D’gar, who I don’t get to see often enough.
Around 3am Shayden and I made it up to the keg and tried to coax some beer out of it. After a few tries we managed to do it and I had my first beer off the keg! Still, it was hard to get anything out of it so we let it settle for the rest of the night.
At 5am Co-ach and I found ourselves sitting, alone, in the Tavern. Everyone else had gone to bed. We had shut down the event. We decided, or rather, I decided it was time to go to bed, Co-ach was ready to keep going. I slept off my drunkenness in my car, woke up, drove home and got some more sleep.
Friday
I woke up Friday with a bit of gut rut, but nothing some food and tums couldn’t cure. Sadly I couldn’t go immediately back to site like I normally would, I needed to work on a Dragon Master entry. I had to bake a cake.
I did try baking the cake on Wednesday but it did not turn out. I took it out to early and the center was very doughy. I had no choice but to bake another one. I didn’t have any time to do it on Thursday because I needed to pick up Zina, so that only left Friday to do it.
I’m not sure why but it took an additional fifteen minutes baking time to get it to bake thoroughly. My oven cooks normally so it was a bit of a surprise. I may have cooked it a little longer than needed, I found out later it was a tad dry, but it’s better to be a tad dry than doughy. I couldn’t frost it till Saturday because you have to let it cool a rather long time.
I was getting ready to head back to site when I found that Uriel’s ride fell through so I said I would drive up to Portland to pick them up. I didn’t want another night without my party buddy. The drive up there wasn’t to bad, but by the time we were heading back to the site we were hitting high traffic time. I decided to take a back road. According to Google it saved over twenty minutes. Still, that wasn’t enough, I was late for a House Gravy meeting.
I got to site at 6:15, fifteen minutes late. Everyone else was scattered to the winds so I gave up trying to do the meeting at PacWar. I opted to try and have the meeting online, it’s a new format and we’ll see how it goes. The meeting thread is open for a week before it’s closed and the meeting is over. It also counts for attendance in regards to active status in the House.
By the time we were on site pretty much all of the game activities were over. After Uriel paid for gate, I went and got my hot dog dinner and we commenced the evening festivities. The keg was giving us a lot less foam and we were able to get some beer out of it. Sadly it seemed there were only three people really drinking from it, Orimis, Uriel and myself. By the end of the night I don’t think we went through more than a quarter of it. Going into Saturday I was worried we wouldn’t be able to finish it.
Co-ach had gone home well before I got to the site so my primary drinking buddy was Uriel and Gustav that night. It was pretty much the same as Thursday night but it didn’t go nearly as late for me and I didn’t drink hard enough to get drunk. I had to make sure I got to site on time to enter the Dragon Master!
Saturday
Saturday I woke up and immediately got dressed and frosted the cake. I printed off some extra entry forms for Uriel, loaded up my entries into the car and headed off to the site. I got there with half an hour to spare.
Sadly I was too late to watch the final match of the Phoenix League game. Ciean spent all summer running a league and the final was at 9am at PacWar. It was between Arcana and Northern Aggression. Sadly Arcana couldn’t field a full team, they only had five team members able to make it, but that was better than they were expecting. I heard Arcana fought well but the win went to Northern Aggression. The winning team had Heron, Drusk, Gen, Devry, D’gar, Gallienus while Arcana had Darb, Critias, Minerva, Cid Wizzard, and Sploob.
For Dragon Master I entered six entries across five categories. One in photography, baking, amtgard legal weapons and shields, fiction writing and two in non-fiction writing. I was cautiously optimistic about my chances in the tournament. This was the first Dragon Master I have entered where it was possible for me to win overall.
I was pretty happy with the outcome of the competition. Ephiny won overall and became the Dragon Master for the next sixths months but I came in second overall. There was some stiff competition so I was surprised I did so well. Not only did I get second place I won two categories, the Food Category and the Construction Category.
The cake that won me the Food Category scored lower than I liked but it still allowed me to win and yes there were other entries. The construction entry was won by my small shield that looks like it was made out of a stone wall.
After I entered Dragon Master I found Gustav and visited with him for a while. He was hurting from all the fighting Friday and wasn’t able to play Saturday. We made the decision that Saturday was day drinking day and we went back to camp to get some booze, he poured a whiskey and coke and I got myself some of my beer. Then we walked back down to the fighting field to wait for jugging.
Much to my surprise my squire Indra showed up! Not only that but my man-at arms, who had quit the game, Brohemious was with him. I never thought I would see him on the field again! We all hung out a bit before jugging started.
Eventually jugging started. I was looking forward to seeing my favorite fighting company, Arcana, participate in the tournament. Sadly they didn’t get passed the first round. They were defeated by one of the Templar teams, 2 to 4, but they played well.
I didn’t end up watching all of jugging. I instead went with Indra, Brohemioius and Morath and played a card game. I really wanted to take the chance to visit with my belted family. I did find out later that the winning team had Matty, Savvanick, Moses, Coop and Miller on it with the alternates being Heron, Justinius and Drusk. The team name was Fast Casual.
Throughout the day I went back and got beers, taking as many of my friends with me to fill up their cups too. I was getting really worried that we wouldn’t finish off the keg and It would be wasted.
I spent the rest of the afternoon visiting and sipping on some beers until it was time for food and court. The food was roasted herb potatoes, chicken and corn on the cob. Sadly the potatoes were not cooked and the corn was cold. The chicken tasted alright but I heard a rumor that some people received raw or undercooked chicken.
Considering the amount of announcements and awards there were, court didn’t go too long. I received my 5th, 6th and 7th Dragon for my writing which I was very happy about. I never thought I would have a path for my Serpent belt, but this lays out a way for me to proceed in the future and I couldn’t be happier.
After the normal awards there was the one big one, the knighting of Lady Green. It was a nice ceremony and not overly long. There wasn’t a buffet line which is probably for the best, it is a hazing ritual that I don’t really support, although I did opt for it at my knighting. I think the default should be no buffet line.
After the knighting I found Dame Green outside the main building and talked with her for a little while before going and getting another beer. I spent the rest of the night visiting again. Uriel and I did a lot more roaming this night and we made our way down the Eclipse camp. Then we hit up the Lion’s camp before making our way back up to the Templar camp.
The rest of the night was general drinking shenanigans, that is until 1 or 2 am, when we decided to take the rest of the keg down to the Tavern. Uriel suggested keg stands and people agreed. Ziana manned the tap and everyone helped hoist up Uriel and he did the first keg stand of the night. That started off a series of people doing keg stands, even Kai did one! After a lot of coaxing and chanting from everyone one I stood up and did one as well. I didn’t do too bad.
3am rolled around and I decided it was time to take a nap. When I woke up around 5:30 I still heard people’s voices but I decided to go home instead. I drove Blargest up to his cabin and went home and slept.
Sunday
Sunday I got up and made it back to site around 10am to pick up my keg. I was happy to find that we managed to finish it off! I got there just in time to say goodbye to a good many of my friends. After my goodbyes I loaded up my keg and headed home to get some more sleep!
I know this was a long blog post but if you got through it I hope you enjoyed it. I also apologize for getting it out later than usual. My next blog will be about the Silvermoon Coronation.