Dec 10 2019

A Bake Sale and a Quest

On Saturday I made an appearance at the Kingdom Level Event at Mystic Seas (Troutdale, OR). I only say an appearance because I showed up rather late and left early. I was mostly in the Portland Area to spend time with friends this weekend. I spent both Friday and Saturday night there. Since I was in the area I figured I should stop by the KLE.

They were hosting a bake sale to raise funds. It was fairly successful, raising $176.50. I bought four little sandwiches made and donated by Minerava. They were made with Hawaiian rolls, meats and some cheese, they were sweet and savory. It was a nice treat to fight back the mid-afternoon hunger.

Considering this was Mid-Reign, there was court, but only a few awards went out. I assume most of the the higher level awards and titles, if there are any, will go out at Winterbash, which is in January. One notable award was Big Mac’s 8th Fighter. This puts him on the Circle of Knights’ Watch List. It’s something of a milestone in a person’s path to knighthood.

After court I spent a good amount of time talking with Kormac about several things. One thing was about The Harbingers, the fighting company we belong to. It’s no secret to say we are in a huge slump. He is taking it upon himself to try and revitalize the company. I admire him for that but it will certainly be an uphill battle. For myself, I will support him but I’m not overly enthusiastic about the endeavor. It’s a symptom of a larger issue when it comes to my enthusiasm for Amtgard as whole. Other topics we talked were battle games; battle game balance and battle game theory in particular. We also discussed what he’d like to run at the next Pacific War.

At this point it was getting dark. I said my goodbyes and head back to my friend’s apartment.

Sunday saw me driving down from Portland to Dusk Hollow (Dallas, OR). I might have skipped this practice if the new players I introduced to the game a few weeks ago hadn’t said they were going to be going. I wanted to make sure I was there to help them if they needed. I’m sure people would have otherwise helped them but I feel a bit responsible for them, plus I’m somewhat living vicariously through them.

It turned out I had a pretty good time. I spent a half an hour or so short sword fighting Ceian and Hyde. I did well. Ceian did better than he did the other weekend, but I think I still pulled out ahead. I made a point to move more. I did a fairly good job moving in and pulling off combos. Fighting Hyde I did fairly well too. I’d say we were more even but I know I surprised him quite a lot.

I am certainly out of shape and it didn’t take long for me to start sweating and having my heart raised. I pushed through being tired and waited till they both wanted a break. It was a nice bit of excersize. My hips hurt the next day..

After fighting we three talked a little bit and I got something of an ego boost. Hyde hadn’t really seen me fight at that level before and Ceian said he didn’t really understand why I was so quick with follow up combos while doing short sword but so slow when doing sword and board. He said that at first it really throws people off. It was very nice to be acknowledge as good in a fighting area. it’s been a while since I’ve had any sort of positive reinforcement in regards to my fighting.

Ozzward ran a few class battle royal games while Darb and Cid set up for a small quest. I sat down and urged Sundown, the new person I invited, to try playing in the quest. She was a bit hesitant but she relented and decided to try her hand at druid. I got her a spell cheat sheet and we made a first level spell list. I let her use my entangle balls and a spell strip.

I ended up reeving the quest. It was fairly simple. There were two phases. The first phase they killed monsters and looted them to finding items to help them overcome an icy curse which was affecting the lands of Dusk Hollow. They then took the items back to Old Man Lee to get identified. The second phase they had to kill the big bad guy and his minions to remove the curse.

They split up the the players into two groups and ran them through it separately. It worked out all right but it left half the park sitting in the under covered area, doing nothing. I helped out Sundown a bit, giving her some advice while she was playing and I think she enjoyed it. She looked a little over whelmed at times though.

We pretty much stayed there till the sun was setting. Most of us ended up going to a local Chinese restaurant for afters, which was fun. I didn’t talk to much but I did ask Darb if anyone was thinking of running for Kingdom Regent next term, I was considering running. The only person he had heard say they were going to run was Bean. I haven’t decided if I am going to run or not, there are a lot of personal factors I have to consider before I can dedicate myself. I plan on decided in January, after Winterbash.

After eating more food than I should have I went home. Next week is Silvermoon’s (Aumsville, OR) coronation, which I plan on attending. I won’t be attending Dusk Hollow next weekend because I’ll be running a Dungeon and Dragon’s game at Gustav’s.

Dec 03 2019

Another Double Weekend

This weekend I went to Silvermoon (Aumsville, OR) and Dusk Hollow (Dallas, OR). I didn’t intend on going to Silvermoon. It mostly depended on when I was going to go to my friend’s house down in Jefferson. He didn’t get a hold of me till late so I decided I would wait for his phone call in Aumsville since it was on the way to his house.

My Time In Silvermoon

I ended up spending several hours in Silvermoon while waiting for my call. When I arrived they were getting ready for a battle game. It was a simple capture the flag battle game. I got some video of it HERE if you’d like to take a look.

This was the first look at the new park. The park is nice enough. I still have qualms about the location. I think the location in Keizer was a better choice for future growth. We’ll see how it goes over next summer. That’s really when we’ll tell if there is growth potential or not.

After the battle game Ceian convinced me to do some short sword sparring. It went pretty well, in my favor. Ceian said he was doing a good job against Torg early, so based off all of their performances today Ceian concluded that himself and Torg were having an off day. I gave the other option that maybe I was just having a good day, Torg was having a bad day and he was having an average day. There is no real way to tell. Ceian was just being his negative self.

Afterwards there was another battle game, something to do with a taco, but I didn’t pay it much attention. I ended up talking with Akryn and Chameleon about feasting and event stuff.

A little after the battle game there was a game of winners and losers which I participated in. I didn’t do to well in that game but it was enjoyable enough. It was a good workout.

The day was getting dark and my friend still hadn’t called me. It turns out Critias was having an Arts and Sciences night and I was invited. The people going to the A&S Night left but I stayed and talked to some people till everyone was ready to leave. I headed to Critias’s house, stopping to get some pizza for everyone. After I bought the pizza my friend called me so I ended up taking the pizza to his house and skipping out on the A&S night.

My Time in Dusk Hollow

I arrived relatively on time. There were a few people already at the park. The weather was against us though, it was slightly raining, although after a little it stopped. That was the only rain we got all day. After a little while longer people showed up but the day was fairly small; there were maybe ten of us.

For the first two hours there was random sparing. I got some fighting in against Critias. He beat me a lot more than I beat him but I got some good kills in. I also focused on making sure I moved more, which he noticed. I think it paid off but my shield arm was still getting pretty tired rather fast. I need to do some weight lifting to overcome that issue.

During this time Ozzward also ordered some pizza to feed us. It was a nice treat, I threw in some money to help pay for it. It was nice to have some warm food.

After food people finally decided we would play a battle game. Ozzward organized 5 rounds of a class battle royal, which went over well enough. I recorded four out of five of them HERE, they are at the end of the playlist. Afterwards we played a game of one man forever.

Basically it’s two man forever, but after you died there was a 30 second respawn. At this point I got out my spell ball wizard kit. I played for two lives, but it was pretty fun. Both lives I had Elemental Barrage and Ward Self, although on the last life I forgot I had Ward Self and called myself dead prematurely. I controlled the field pretty well for those two lives. Hyde was particularly annoyed, although good naturally annoyed.

We ended up all leaving after that particular game. The whole day was pretty short, starting at noon and ending around 3:30. Sadly the new people that I brought the other weekend didn’t make it out. Sundown messaged me later saying they would be out next weekend. That means I’ll be out too, although I didn’t plan to. Next weekend is a Saturday Kingdom Level Event up in Mystic Seas (Troutdale, OR) and that was the only Amtgard I planned on doing next weekend. Oh well. Looks like it will be another double weekend blog.

Nov 25 2019

Unexpected Day

This weekend I ended up going to Amtgard twice. I expected to go to Amtgard on Saturday, but I didn’t expect to go to Amtgard on Sunday. It was, an unexpected day. Originally the plan was to go to Gustav’s house to run a Dungeons and Dragons game. Sadly he was sick so we had to cancel and reschedule.

My Day at Silvermoon

Saturday was a very short day for me. I honestly wouldn’t have gone to Silvermoon (Salem, OR) if it wasn’t for a very important vote, a vote to determine which park we were going to be playing at. I had previously made plans to go to a small get together at a friend’s house.

The vote didn’t go in my favor, the park voted to move the holding out of the Salem/Keizer area to a very small town called Aumsville, about ten minutes out of town. I strongly believe it was the wrong choice for the future of the holding, limiting the population which we could draw new members from. I think in the long term, a year or so, the holding will be greatly diminished.

Still, despite the vote not going my way, the day was alright. It was “Parksgiving”. There was a smoked turkey with sides. It was a good potluck feast. I didn’t actually play Amtgard that day. I was only there till about 2:30. I left as the first battle game of the day was being prepared.

My Day at Dusk Hollow

Sunday was a much better park day for me. I went to Dusk Hollow (Dallas, OR). I got there a bit late, having slept in till 11:30. When I got to the park I was a bit worried, there were less people than usual but it turned out to be okay. After I garbed up and made it to the shelter more people arrived, but it was a smaller day than it had been for the last few weeks.

We started the day with a ditch, in which I participated in. I did horribly. I was slow and lazy. My heart just wasn’t in it. Things improved slightly later in the day but this first ditch didn’t go well for me.

After the ditch was the first battle game of the day. It was a simple kill the captain game. Each time you killed the captain, your team scored a point. we were playing best 3 out of 5. I originally wasn’t going to play in the game but I was goaded into playing to help even up the teams. I played a spell ball wizard.

In the end I had fun playing the game. It was very lopsided though. My team scored three points in a row, winning the game. There was no real back and forth. As for my performance, I did alright as a wizard. I fumbled over the incantation for Ward Self though, which made me feel silly. It’s a pretty simple incantation. My aim was the spell balls slightly improved but I still missed most of my shots.

I did into a spell ball wizard battle with Darb, who was the opposing team’s captain. I dodged one or two spell balls, but if it wasn’t for my Ward Self and Elemental Barrage, I would have lost. At one point I failed to move completely out of the way and a fire ball hit my leg, activating my Ward Self. Not having to say the incantations for spell balls, due to Elemental Barrage, allowed me to fire off more balls. In the end I got Darb with a fireball right to the chest, scoring a point.

After the battle game there was some down time, then we moved into the next game. It was goblin ball. Each team had one goblin character and they were the only person who could move the “ball”, which was actually a dagger. They had to use both hands and walk heel to toe across the field to the opposing team’s base. Once there, they hit a shield and a point was scored.

I didn’t play in the game. I took the chance to head to McDonald’s to get some food, although I mostly wanted something to drink. When I arrived back they were still playing the game. It lasted about long enough for me to finish my lunch.

After the game there was more ditching. I did better in this second round but still not great. I did have a few moments though. I was probably the third best on the field this, although I didn’t feel like it most of the time. I still made a pretty big difference on whichever side I was on though.

The ditch lasted for quite a while but eventually it ended. People were not really motivated enough to play a third battle game. It seemed people were feeling as low as I was feeling that day. We visited for a while but people started to drift away. We were only there for 3 to 4 hours. The last few weekends we were there more like 5 hours.

Unlike previous weeks we actually had an afters. We went to a local sushi place. The food was decent, I didn’t get anything too special though, just gyoza and a veggie sushi roll. I would have liked a bit more rice in my sushi roll, but it was fine. I was satisfied overall. The company was good. 4 of the other 6 people that went with us were people I didn’t really know, so it was a good bonding experience. Sadly I’m bad with names. The other two people, which I did know were Darb and my Man at Arms Ozzward.

While I wasn’t exactly motivated on Sunday, I did enjoy myself and I didn’t want the day to end, but sadly it did. Next weekend I probably won’t be going to my local park. I might have gotten a side job doing some web designing for a friend’s business and I’m spending the day at his place, working on it. I might be able to stop by on my way to his house though. We’ll have to see.

I should be going to Dusk Hollow though. To be honest, I’ve been having more fun at Dusk Hollow than I have been having at my local park of Silvermoon. There is a better balance between battle games and fighting. I also seem to be able to get convinced to play in their battle games more often too.

My Upcoming AMA

If you’ve been paying attention you’ve probably noticed I’ve been putting up polls on my Facebook page about hosting an Ask Me Anything Twitch stream. The first one was to garner interest, which went well, the second one was to pick the game. It was between Destiny 2 and Terraria, Terraria won out.

I plan on doing the AMA on a weekday, but I’m not sure what time I’ll start. I was thinking 7 or 8pm, PST. I plan on putting up another poll to get peoples opinion on the matter. I also need to determine which day of the week. I was thinking about Thursday but I’d like to hear everyone else’s preference. I’m pretty open to other days of the week.

I hope to do the AMA in the next few weeks. I’m mostly waiting on my banner for the Twitch Channel. A friend is designing it for free and they are having a rough time, so I’m not being pushy.

I’ll be honest, I’m pretty nervous about the AMA. I’m not the most talkative person so keeping it entertaining might be hard. Also playing a video game while reading the questions will be difficult. If I had a second person to keep track of the chat while I’m playing the game it would be much easier. In the future that might be possible, but at the moment it isn’t.

I really do hope it’s successful. I’ve streamed a lot of World of Warcraft, to no avail. I think this will be more go over better. I hope I’ve built up an audience of at least a few people for this endeavor. I plan on doing more streaming in the future if there is even moderate engagement.

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