Nov 07 2019

What I’m Up To

I figured I’d make a second blog post this week and talk about what I’ve been up to. There is a lot going on and a lot planned over the next year, both in and out of Amtgard. Well, mostly in Amtgard. I’m first going to talk about what’s been going on with the blog.

The Blog and Platform Content

I’ve been expanding the scope of the blog, first through adding a YouTube Channel, then through adding a Patreon. Both are doing well. I’ve been uploading videos weekly on the YouTube Channel and I’m sitting at 46 subscribers. For Patreon I currently have 4 contributors. I got my first payment this week and I’m excited. A few more people and I won’t be in the negative from paying for the site each month!

I still plan on doing a pins. My artist has been having some troubles lately so she hasn’t been able to work on them, but we both want to do this, so it will happen someday. They will be gnome themed! We’ll have to do a kickstarter to get the funding to have them made though.

Some of you may have noticed that I put up a poll concerning doing a Twitch Ask Me Anything or AMA. So far it has been pretty positive. The poll ends in five days, so I urge you to vote, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to give it a try. I don’t know when the first one will be, but I’m pretty sure it will happen at this point.

I’m also considering putting up an edited intro video for my YouTube Channel, just to give it some more credibility. I’m not sure how the script would go, but I think it might be a good idea.

You might also see some content changes over the next few months as I start merging my various platfofrms. Right now I have four main things I do, Amtgard, write, play video games and photography. A lot of this will play out on my Patreon, but some of the content will find it’s way to this blog.

You’ve already seen me talk about my writing and you’re likely to see more of that, although most of that will be on my Patreon. I am also probably adding video games via twitch and the AMA. The goal is to stream video games and talk about Amtgard. The third thing, photography will probably just take the form of more photos. A lot of the nicer ones will be shared on my Patreon.

My goal is to add as much content to the Patreon as possible to make it worth people paying for. I will continue to add Amtgard stuff as well, I’m not replacing Amtgard content, I’m adding to it. Please check out my Patreon and subscribe. I do add weekly content, aside from this blog. As soon as there is a larger community I intend to add more community features.

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In Amtgard

Next year (2020) I’m running, or helping run not one, not two, but three Amtgard campouts! The first one is Winterbash in January. I was originally only running the tournaments, but I got promoted to a co-runner position to help out Uriel, who is the lead event runner. When promoted I made the crazy decision to keep my tournament running position!

I’m currently planning out the tournaments, We are having an early bird tournament on Thursday, a team tournament on Friday and a normal tournament on Saturday. The early bird is going to be a basic bearpit tournament. I’m going back and forth on the main tournament format for Saturday. I’m deciding between the Warlords Style and the Olympiad Style. I’m leaning towards the Warlords Style just because it’s something I’m familiar with. I’ll need to decide soon.

The one I’m having the most trouble planning is the team tournament. I want to do something different. My goal is to have a a series of mini games rather than just the same game each round. Each round would be a different game, leading into a final timed game. I’m having trouble balancing simplicity with balance. D’gar sent me some feedback and I plan on discussing it with him. I hope to have the games set by the start of December.

The next event I’m working on is Shattered Kingdoms. It’s by far the one I’m the most worried about. Planning on the event is not nearly as far along as I would like. Part of this is my fault, I could be doing more. The other concern is that most of the core team is having life troubles, making it difficult to focus on the event. There is still more than enough time to finish the event, but I don’t like pushing it to the last 6 months. We do have a site, so that isn’t an issue.

So far the premise of this year’s Shattered Kingdoms is kingdom building. Well, not kingdoms exactly, but holdings. Players get to build up a keep and a town in an ancient forest. This is still the land of Onseuk, they are building holdings in the name of the king. The forest is cursed. Unbeknownst to the players last year, they had a chance to break this curse, which would have changed how this next year played out, but they failed to break it.

Even if players aren’t aware of how their actions effect the story of Shattered Kingdoms, they do. I’m not exactly sure how to make it obvious though. I don’t really like the idea of flat out telling them because it can kind of ruin the mystery but maybe I should so people don’t feel like they are just playing in a one track world. I’m not really sure, I’d be open to suggestions.

The third event of the year is Pacific War, also known as Pacwar. This year we are also hosting the national event Olympiad. I’m co-running the event with Ceian. We have a pretty good team so I’m sure we’ll do great.

For people who are unfamiliar with what Olympiad is, it’s a national Arts and Sciences and Warskill event. The goal of the event is to pit the best of the best through out all of Amtgard against all each other. The Northwest hasn’t hosted this event since the early 2000s. It’s a great opportunity for us to shine. I’m looking forward to becoming more well know at the national level.

I’ll be entering Olympiad but I know I won’t win. Still, I hope to do well. I’d really like to know where I rank nationally, I’ll just be entering the Arts and Sciences Competition, not the Warskill contest. I’d also like to be known for running a well run event. It’s also a chance to spread my blog to new people. I’ll probably even have business cards!

In addition to the events I’m working on, there is House Gravy. We have a lot coming up and I’m excited! The next thing we are doing is Winterbash. We are not running it as a House Hold, but several of the lead people are part of House Gravy and it’s a House Gravy Targeted Event. What does that mean? It means that the members of the House are encouraged to volunteer at least 4 hours at the event which counts towards their attendance within the House.

We are also contemplating running a demo at a local anime con in Portland. I’m pretty sure we are going to do it but the poll I created doesn’t end till Monday. Then there is Northern Lights Mid-Reign. We are donating breakfast for the event. The week after that is another House Gravy Targeted Event, Shattered Kingdoms.

That’s a pretty full half of a year, we aren’t sure what, if anything we’ll be doing for the second half but I I hope we find something. We’ve also been growing and are sitting at 16 members, with another two prospective members. I love that we are growing and adding quality people to the House.

Writing and Such

If you’re a loyal reader then you probably already know that I released an issue of Failed Schemes Magazine on Halloween. That was my major focus over the moth of October and I’m excited to have released it. Sales have been somewhat slow but I’m glad some people bought it. I hope you will consider purchasing it. I plan on releasing an issue once a year, more if I can find authors to contribute to it.

I’ve also recently went back to an old piece of writing I did. At one point is was the longest start to a novel I’ve done, sitting around 11k words. Right now I’m just rereading it and editing it along the way. If I think I can write an outline for the rest of the novel then I’ll start adding to it. Rereading it has me excited though so I hope I get inspired to start writing more.

I also finally found a beta reader for a novel I wrote, a person I think will actually finish it, Heldris. I’m excited to get their feedback. We talked and I already believe I’ll get a more favorable review than I thought I would. I’m sure there will be lots of criticisms, but when we had a discussion about the quality of peoples writing she was rather positive when talking about mine. I have so many self doubts about my writing that it was nice to hear.

It would be neat to finally finish my novel. Having someone read it is the next step before a third edit. I still have some scenes I’d like to add but to be honest I haven’t felt the creativity over the last few years to add them. This might be the motivation I needed to do it.

Final Thoughts

I’d really like to thank all my readers. Over the last month I’ve heard a lot of people at the parks I’ve travel to talk to me about my blog and tell me they enjoy reading it. I love hearing that. I don’t get told that very often and it’s hard to tell what people think about my work. Very few people comment when I post so some weeks I feel disheartened.

Since I’ve moved to the website I’ve been able to better judge if my content is being read. I usually get between 20-30 readers a week, which is nice to know. Articles get a larger draw, the most has been 160 in a week. That was for the rticle Is Amtgard a LARP?

I’d love to increase my viewership, but I’m not sure how to do that other than buy ads. If you like my content I’d really like to have some help spreading it around the internet. I’d also love to hear input from my readers about what they would like to see.

Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading about what I have going on in my life!

Nov 04 2019

Wizard and the Peasant

This weekend I went to Dusk Hollow (Dallas, OR). It was reasonably warmer than last weekend but I brought my highwayman coat so I wore it anyways. It kept me pretty toasty. I did eventually take it off to get in some sparring with Critias.

After a bit of sparing and some more people arrived, Ozzward ran a battle game. It was a combination of heavy object and ring the bell. A small sword was placed in the middle which was the heavy object. The goal was to get it to the opposite side of the field and hit the shield marking the opposing team’s base. Once done, you score a point. We played to 3 points. I say we, because I actually played in the game as a Wizard.

I was playing as a spell ball wizard. Our team was winning, scoring the first two points. Then the reeves thought to change up the teams and took Morath from us and put him on the other team. That changed the game and the other team ended up scoring the next three points, winning the game. Once they changed the teams up it wasn’t even close.

I generally had a good time. Because there was a refresh I was able to use Elemental Barrage four times during the game. The first two times I was very effective. The third time not so much and the fourth time I shut down their team before dying but my team managed to not move the object even a foot.

I managed to pull off one combo I was proud of. I first used a fire ball to remove Critias’s shield, then I hit him with a lighting bolt to hold him in place and killed him with Finger of Death. That’s the first time I’ve used a Wizard verbal in v8. I had to make sure the person couldn’t move to do it, but I did it!

The last time I went Elemental Barrage, as I said I shut down the team. I used up nearly all of my balls doing it, it’s the most I’ve ever used. I will be honest, I missed a lot, which is why I ended up dying. The speed of which I threw the balls though was some what impressive. I just need to up my aim game.

In he end I started getting a bit salty, the competitiveness was coming out in me and I was getting frustrated. I realize it’s hard to balance teams when there is such an experience disparity, but it was more balanced before the change. There was more back and forth before scoring a point.

There was a break for a while before the next game. In the mean time Vale showed up, which was a nice treat. The next game was a two man forever game capped at level 2. I wasn’t going to play but eventually I joined in as a peasant, so all I had was my short sword. I ended up doing pretty well. One particular kill was a against Vale. He was using a sword and board, I stabbed once, straight to his right should and killed him. It was my highlight kill for the day.

The day ended with a good amount of ditching. I even managed to work up a sweat. I did alright in the general fighting. Some people that i thought were doing better than me claimed I was the better fighter, I didn’t argue. My baseline might have been better but they were used to fighting certain people that I was having problems with. There is something to say about familiarity.

I did have a bit of a talk wit Ozzward, my new man at arms, about fighting. I gave him the story about my early days when I didn’t know about footwork. I plateaued and when I realized why I had to deconstruct a lot of what I learned and relearn it in a new way. For a year or two while I was consciously working on foot work I was markedly worse, but once it became I habit I was able to progress again and with a better foundation.

For him he has to break a few habits, learning forward, crouching, and keeping his shield low. My plan is to break him of the habit of crouching, leaning and having his shield low and then work on his foot work. He also needs to work on his fighting endurance. I fought a lot longer than he did and I am not in good shape and I don’t have an aspiration of becoming a sword knight. I also look forward too when I introduce him to short sword fighting, something I consider my best style.

I think when I explained my troubles when I was younger and the necessary difficulty I went through to reteach myself, he understood. I hope he gets that it’s going to be a difficult road a head and that he’s prepared to fail before he succeeds. He also ordered the Book of the Five Rings, so I hope after he reads that he starts to understand some of the things I teach him.

I want to ended on a note about my Patreon. The first month has passed and I got my first pay check. After fees it came to $5.39, I’m excited to hit this first mile stone, actual money! Sadly it doesn’t cover the cost of the site, which is $10.99 a month, so I’m not in the positive yet, but I hope I’ll get there some day soon. If you would like to show your support, follow the button below. I’d appreciate it. It’s the best way to let me know that you enjoy the content I provide.

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Oct 31 2019

Failed Schemes Magazine: War of Worldcraft

I promised this a few times on my weekly blog, a post about my writing and here it is! Aside from the blogging I’m also a fiction writer, although I’m not nearly as prolific as my blogging. Three years ago I started a project, Failed Schemes Magazine, a magazine dedicated to the failed schemes of writers; projects that may never have been finished but still had interesting bits of writing, character backgrounds, world lore, and what ever other interesting scraps a writer might have laying around.

I released the first issue three years ago and today I released the second issue, War of Worldcraft.

Why the three years between the two issues? There are a few reasons but the main culprit is depression. I rarely talk about it outside of my friends and I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in any of my blogs, but I’m a big suffer of the Major Depression Disorder.

I’ve been affected by it off an on since high school to varying degrees. After I graduated University in 2013 I was hit with a major episode and I haven’t really recovered. There have been some good periods since then but they were measured in weeks, sometimes months. It’s by far the worst it’s ever been. This year has been better but I’m still not at my best.

My creative writing has greatly suffered over this time and therefore the content for the magazine issues suffered. It’s mostly been discipline that has carried me through my blog posting, something I’m glad I was able to develop. In the future I hope to get other authors to submit writing to round out the issues. I had no intention of making it only my writing.

This current issue, titled War of Worldcraft is centered around world building. In it you’ll find a history of a RPG setting I’ve been working on for years as well as some writing from the Amtgard world of Shattered Kingdoms. Along with the writings you’ll also get background information for each piece, a standard for the magazine. It might give some insight into building worlds yourself. It’s over double the length of the first issue!

I’d great appropriate your patronage. Both issue 1 and 2 are a $1 each.

Issue 1

Issue 2

As always you can also support me by becoming a Patron on Patreon. Tier 2 will get your name on the page and Tier 3 will get you a few sentences, a link to a page and your name. I already have one tier 2 person. Check it the page HERE and if you want to support me, click the link below.

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