Mar 05 2020

Shattered Kingdoms 2020

This weekend I drove to Arizona from Oregon, helping my grandparents move. Since I was unable to go to Amgard I thought this would be a good time to talk about Shattered Kingdoms, the Amtgard Role-Play event I run.

What is Shattered Kingdoms?

Shattered Kingdoms is an Amtgard camping event sanctioned by the kingdom of Blackspire. The first event was in June 2015 and has ran every year since then. What sets Shattered Kingdoms apart from other campouts is its structure. It is essentially one long quest. The typical structure each day is a story driven battle game, that leads into open world exploration, ending in another story driven battle game. This structure allows players to explore the main plot, which connects all the elements, as well as several subplots.

Additionally each event is treated like a book set in the world of the Shattered Kingdoms. The books are grouped into four year blocks called Chronicles. Each year is a story that links to the next one. After the fourth year the Chronicle ends and new four year story begins. We are currently in the second book of the second Chronicle.

Another unique aspect of the event is the world that it is situated in. Shattered Kingdoms is an ever evolving world. Lore is added every year and the player’s interactions affect how the world evolves. I’ve been working on a wiki to store all the information for several years now. Later in this blog I will go into some of the lore of the event. You can see the wiki HERE if you’d like to browse through it.

The Lore

Aside from seeing how people interact with the story, my favorite part of Shattered Kingdoms is the lore. I love creating it. Being able to create a world that people are able to interact with is amazing and I’m glad I get the chance to do it.

I really began working on the world in earnest in 2017. Before the lore was basically just the story I wrote for the year and the accompanying subplots. 2017 marks the year that I did a lot of work before the event, setting up and sharing elements of the story before hand.

I was building up a confrontation between the Great Wyrms, semi-deity level dragon and I wanted players to know about them before going into the event. I set up a year system so I could tell some of the history of the Great Wyrms. I wrote about an event in the past where they once warred. All in all, I had a ten page document for players to read through before the event.

After the event in 2017 I started working on next year and decided I needed a different format to have people explore the world of Shattered Kingdoms. In August 2017 I decided to create the wiki we now have and I couldn’t be happier. It’s the perfect vehicle to explore the world.

Over the last few years I’ve continued to add bits of lore to the wiki and not all of it pertains to the next year’s story. Sometimes I’m just inspired to add to the world. Writing the lore does help me explore future story ideas and elements though. The past few months as seem me write quite a few pages of new lore.

One major element I added was the Calendar. It sets up months and days and I’m working on adding holidays. The naming of the months opens me up to future story telling by explaining the origins of the name of the months. I look forward to working on it over the next year.

Along with the creation of the calendar I created a connecting kingdom, the Manconian Empire. with roots dating back to 2017 when I wrote about the Great Wyrms. I really enjoy connecting previous lore to new lore. This then lead me to create the background story for one of the settings legendary heroes, Hadebrand, and the University he started, the Hadebrandian University.

I really look forward to expanding the lore for the setting in the coming years. As of right now I’ve been inspired and have added several pieces, as mentioned. I don’t think that creativity is going anywhere and I’ll be adding more over the next few months.

Previous Years

Shattered Kingdoms has been running for five years now, going into its sixth . I thought it might be a good idea to talk about some of the previous years.

The first four years where situated in the The Tiviana Chronicle. In this chronicle the goddess Tiviana was attempting to merge her plane of existence with the Shattered Kingdoms. This little bit of information wasn’t know to the adventures till the fourth year where they went to her realm, the Fey Wildes, and stopped her from carrying out her plan. You can actually read a summary of all four years on the wiki.

Last year was the first year in The Undying Chronicle called, Onseuk the Forgotten. In that year they stopped an undead threat from overrunning the kingdom of Onseuk. At the end the king gave the adventures leave to set up towns of their own within the borders of the kingdom, in the Veilwood March.

This Year

This year is entitled, The Veilwood March. It takes place less than a year after the events of Onseuk the Forgotten. As mentioned the king has given the adventurers leave to set up towns under the kingdom in the Veilwood March.

I’ve actually devised a system in which the players will actually be able to build up their towns. It’s a mini game within the larger game. To do so they will need to claim land by adventuring out into the world, gathering resources and earning coins to pay for buildings to be built. This will not be as easy as it sounds however, as there are rumors that the forest is cursed. The truth of the forest will unfold as players adventure into its depths.

I’m excited to see how the players interact with the story this time around. It is a bit different that previous years and is more player driven.There is still an unfolding story, but it’s the exploration which will be driving them on.

Conclusions

I think Shattered Kingdoms is a unique event and I hope after reading this post, you think so too. I also hope you enjoy reading through the wiki. I wrote about 85 pages of the content, there are a few player written pages for groups and characters.

Even if you are not able to go to the event, if you are interested, you can follow along with the lore of the event by joining the Facebook group, Shattered Kingdoms.

Feb 25 2020

Dusk Hollow Ditching

Sunday I went to Dusk Hollow (Dallas, OR) for Amtgard. I arrived around 12:30 and the weather couldn’t make up it’s mind. On the drive I went through windy, rainy weather, bright sunshine and dry overcast skies. When I got to the park the weather still hadn’t decided what it was going to do for the day.

It started out sunny but shortly after people started to fight it decided to rain. We moved around some tables and fought under the shelter for a little while while Ozzward set up a battle game.

By the time that the battle game was ready the rain had stopped and the sun had came out again. The battle game was a simple ring the bell game. You just had to reach the other side of the field and hit a shield with a weapon. I have video of the first round you can watch HERE.

After the game it started to rain and we started to ditch in the shelter again but it quickly stopped and the sun came out. I suggested we move it to the field and then we did. The ditch lasted quite a long time which I enjoyed. I went out with single short sword. I wasn’t super effective but I was effective enough to make a difference at times. I don’t think I changed sides once. I was never the first to die.

After the ditch died down I fought with Darb for a bit. He was using a short sword and shield while I was still using my short sword. He certainly won more fights than I did, but I did decent I think, wining maybe a third of the fights. We did that long enough that I fought for a while while breathing heavily. It was a fun work out.

I then got a video of Darb and Critias fighting short sword. This was a follow up to my YouTube’s featured video of them fighting sword and board. Unlike the first video, which was 2 minutes, this one is more like 7. You can view it HERE. There are some good fights and worth a view.

Later Belnieros ran a capture the flag game. By this time the weather had decided on overcast and cold. The game was a best to 3 game. There were two flags, one at each base. To score a point you needed to have both flags at your base. The flags in this case were actually short swords but you couldn’t use them as short swords. You were also fragile while carrying the “flag”. It was a close game ending in a score of 2 to 3. I recorded all five rounds. You can find the first round HERE.

After a break Vale showed up and we played another game of capture the flag. This time I reeved. I don’t remember the score but it was another well balanced game. Vale was playing healer and he was messing up the order of the heal spell incant. That’s when I imparted some wisdom that really clicked for him; the order of the incant is based on medical field basics.. First you stop the blood, then you mend the bones, then you close the wounds. He’d never thought along those lines before.

After the game Vale and I did a first to ten short sword fight. He won, I believe it was 10 to 5 or 6. At the start he was worried he was going to lose but after going for fight to fight, he pulled a head.

That was pretty much the end of the day. There was some visiting afterwards but it was getting dark. We ended up leaving the park a little before 6. It was probably one of the longest days of the season for us.

Next week I will be driving to Arizona so I won’t be able to do the normal weekly blog. I will try to have something posted, probably related to the campout, Shattered Kingdoms but I’m not sure, we’ll see.

If you like my content consider becoming a Patron on Patreon. You can see my Tier 2 and 3 supporters on my Patreon Supporters page as well as find out how to become a Patron yourself.

Feb 17 2020

Silvermoon Weekend

As I mentioned in my last blog I was unsure if I was going to go to Amtgard this last weekend, well I managed to go to SIlvermoon (Aumsville, OR), my home park. It wasn’t a long visit but it was a fun visit. I was there from 1-3:30ish. I would have stayed longer but I had other plans that day.

After arriving and getting in my garb I was immediately asked by Torg to reeve a game and keep score. I of course said yes, despite the rain. Luckily it was only a wet field and not a muddy one so I didn’t have to change my shoes.

The game was pretty straight forward. It was 15 minute long game. The goal was to be the team with the most kills. Each team had a team captain and they were worth two points.

Most of the time I was just keeping score, I had little time to actually reeve, I had to stay at the base to count the deaths. It turned out to be a close game, the score was 21 points to 23. Ceian though it wouldn’t be close because the other team had a rez healer, but his team did a good job keeping her down.The team with healer did win, but as mentioned, only by 2 points.

After the game there was a bit of down time while another game was organized and people geared up. I said my good byes as I thought I would be needing to leave in the middle of their game, but after the game started it turned out my friend wasn’t ready for me to come over so I had some more time to kill.

I spent some time catching up with Ephany, which was nice. I didn’t get much time to talk with her while at Winterbash. She hasn’t been out much since she’s been sick for the last 3 weeks, but luckily she’s feeling much better.

I ended up watching the game that was being played. The goal was to free your captain. They were imprisoned by 4 cones and the team needed to get the 4 cones back to their base to free their captain. Once freed, the captain needed to get to the base, once there, a point was scored. I recorded one round which you can view HERE.

After the battle game there was some more talking. I have been considering doing up a quiz for the Shattered Kingdoms lore, which you can find on the wiki HERE. Only one person responded to that thread where I asked if I should make a quiz so I wasn’t sure if it was worth my time, but Torg thought it was a good idea so it’s something I’ll be working on over the next few weeks.

Eventually a ditch was called, it took a little time to get people to participate but eventually there was a decent amount of people playing. I recorded some of it which you can find HERE.

After recording for a bit it became time to leave. I said my good byes, again, dressed down and headed up to the Portland area.

Next week I’ll probably go to Dusk Hollow (Dallas,OR) on Sunday. I know I won’t be at our Kingdom Elections on the 29th though. I’ll be helping my grandparents move by driving down to Arizona. It’s a 20 hour drive, one I’m not really looking forward to but they need the help so I’m helping.

That week I think i’ll be writing up a post about Shattered Kingdoms. I’ve been working a lot this past week on the lore for Shattered Kingdoms and I’d like an outlet to talk about it. It’s also a good chance to hype up the event.

I’ll talk to you all next weekend!

If you like my content consider becoming a Patron on Patreon. You can see my Tier 2 and 3 supporters on my Patreon Supporters page as well as find out how to become a Patron yourself.