Oct 28 2019

Dusk Hollow

For Amtgard this weekend I went to Dusk Hollow (Dallas, OR). It was a cold, but sunny day. I actually got there at a reasonable time, about 12:15. There were several people there already, including Darb and Morath.

Darb and Morath were making spell balls for a kingdom initiative that Darb has instituted as Kingdom Champion. He’s going to be going to parks and administering a practical battle game test, something to test situational knowledge. If you pass you get a spell ball. It’s an nice and interesting way to help raise awareness of the rules. I aided them by holding down the fabric squares from the cold, mighty, wind.

Shortly before 1 Critias, Minerva and the reason I came to Dusk Hollow, Ozzward arrived. After they were done unloading their stuff, which was quite a lot, I pulled Ozzward off to the side to have a chat. I asked him if he wanted to do knightly belt stuff and offered him a man at arms belt.

You might be asking yourself, “Why a man at arms belt and why not a squires belt?” and that’s a good question. I don’t do straight squire belts. I had a bad experience once. The details aren’t important but I once offered a squires belt and it didn’t work out and when I pulled the belt it was hurtful for the other person. Since then I’ve had the policy that I would offer a man at arms belt, with the understanding it’s a trail period, before a squires belt might be offered.

For my squire Indra I actually started him out as a page. I broke a rule in which I said I wouldn’t belt anyone under a year in the game. However there was a certain someone trying to belt him and Indra approached me and asked me to be my squire. I knew the other person wouldn’t be a good fit, I liked Indra and the fact he approached me was amazing. So I told him I wouldn’t have him as my squire, I explained why and offered him a page belt. He took it without complaint. Eventually I raised him to man at arms and then squire. It’s been a good relationship and I’m proud to have him in my knightly family.

I explained why I was offering Ozzward a man at arms belt and I said that he would have to put in work before I would consider a squires belt. Much to my disappointment he didn’t want to give me an answer. He seemed put off and and even said “But I want to be a Sword Knight”. I took the chance to explain that I am actually knowledgeable about fighting, even if I can’t always show it on the field. I know enough to give him a good foundation to grow from and part of the knight relationship is having access to contacts. I can make introductions he would otherwise have to make himself. I also pointed out Indra as an example, he’s my squire, on the sword path and is happy to be belted to me.

Still, he didn’t want to give me an answer. He asked me to give him a week to decide. I said alright. It wasn’t the answer I was was looking for. I was hoping for an excited yes, what I got was a confused maybe. Still, I understood it can be a big decision and I said I would give him the time he requested. I tried not to prod him to much throughout the day but I did a little.

I took the time at the end of the day to talk to him about his fighting. He was holding his shield to low and hunching over. I pointed this out to him. I said “You are fighting like a short person, don’t, you’re tall, fight like a tall person.” Critias laughed and said “That’s what I’ve been telling him!” I also pointed it out when he missed a good opportunity to hook a person’s shield but I didn’t go into a lesson about the situation, not wanting to give him to much for the day.

It turns out that I didn’t have to wait a week, today (Monday) he messaged me and said yes. I gave him his first task, to read The Book of the Five Rings, something I require of all people belted to me. Now to see if he lives up to the potential I see in him. He’s young and seems somewhat driven, so I think he will make it along the path to knighthood, even if it’s not the sword path he desires. He’s currently the regent of Dusk Hollow and wants to be more involved in the community. That means he has some interest in the crown path and the flame path, both paths I’m intimately familiar with.

Ozzward is pretty new, being about a year in, so he has a long way to go but I look forward to the journey. Long term I’m wanting to mitigate burn out, something I know affects a lot of people along the way. I’m not sure how many other knights make an effort to prevent burnout, but I think it’s a good thing to keep in mind when someone is on the long path to knighthood.

Sorry to go off on a tangent but this is pretty big news for me and it was the big announcement I said I might have for this week. I don’t take belted people lightly and I have very few because of it. People might not realize it but I’m harsh and opinionated. I have a standard that I’ve set for myself which I hold fast to, although I’m willing to budge on occasion. For example I asked Ozzward to be in my belted line when my preference is to be approached. I broke a rule I set for myself, further making this a big deal for myself.

If you’re interest in topics related to knighthood I wrote a few articles on it. It’s not all just my opinion, I sought other perspectives as well. Here are three articles that I think would be a good follow up to read. Masterhood and Knighthood, So, You Want to be a Squire? and You’re a Knight, Now What?

On to the rest of the day! Shortly after 1 Ozzward ran a battle game. It was a ring the bell style game. Each team had a shield and the objective was to hit the shield with a melee weapon. Doing so would kill you. After a team had hit the shield a total of five times a point was scored and the round would reset.

The trouble with the game was the balancing. There was a mix of experienced, high level, players and new players. It made for some pretty unbalanced teams. By the time the teams had been tweaked enough one team had 2 points and the other team had none. The reeves then decided they would make the game go from 3 points to 5.

In retrospect it would have been better for them to declare the one side winners, reset the score and start fresh. As it is the game dragged on for a long time with the losing team making up a 3 point spread. I don’t know exactly how long it went on, but it felt very long, well over 40 minutes.

I watched the game and sort of reveed a little. Mostly I stood there cold watching. I left my coat at Indra’s the other week and I didn’t think to bring my new garb coat I bought from Uriel. Luckily Old Man Lee, who I am pretty sure is younger than myself, loaned me a blanket for the day. I stayed nice and toasty warmed.

That was the only battle game for the day but it wasn’t the only event for the day. Ozzward had organized a tunic contest and a sword making class. There were three entrants for the tunic contest, with Donjen being the winner. The sword making class, while organized by Ozzward, was ran by Critias. Almost all of the park participated. I spent the time talking with Darb and Cid while they made more spell balls.

The class took a few hours and afterward people started to drift off home, but the park day didn’t end till after 6. It was a long but fun day. There was food, hot drinks and good company. I managed to get a few rounds of ditching in, but it died shortly after I joined. I have some video of it HERE. I also got some video of Torg, Critias and Ozzward fighting which you can see HERE.

Next week I’m also not going to be able to make it to my home park. I’m thinking I’ll make the drive out to Dusk Hollow again. Hopefully the weather holds and it will be another nice and sunny day. This time I’ll make sure to bring my garb coat.

A little bit about my writing adventures. I’ll be releasing the second issue of Failed Schemes Magazine on Friday (November 1st). It’s all fantasy based writing this time and I think my readers would enjoy it. I’ll be making a separate post talking about it on Friday.

Oct 23 2019

More Quests!

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.

Oct 15 2019

Double Quests

This weekend I doubled up on Amtgard, going to two different parks. On Saturday I went to Mystic Seas (Troutdale, OR) and Sunday I made the trip up to a Northern Lights Kingdom Level Event at Greenwood Keep (Lacey, WA). Both parks were doing quests.

Mystic Seas Monster Bash

Saturday was their monthly BBQ combined with their event, the Mystic Seas Monster Bash. I wouldn’t say their monthly BBQ is something I always go to but it’s certainly on my radar and something I do consider going to each month. It’s hard to pass up free food, it helps the food has been pretty delicious.

I ended up staying up in Beaverton the night before to cut down on my driving, but I stayed up pretty late visiting with Uriel and I was still late to the park, getting there around 1. As I mentioned they were also doing a Monster Bash and not just their monthly BBQ. This involved a monster themed battle games and a monster costume contest.

I had a burger before their first game of the day, which was a quest. The burger was homemade not frozen, it had a good texture and tasted nice. For the quest the players needed to cleanse five locations. They had a NPC priest they could also escort to the locations which could cleanse the locations at a faster rate. Each location had three cones, each one needed to be cleansed. For players it took 30 seconds per cone while the priest could do the same thing for only a 15 second count. Opposing the players was a band of monsters. They spawned at any cone that wasn’t being cleansed.

There wasn’t any losing condition. The quest was just for fun. It took the players about 50 minutes to cleanse all of the areas. I felt the last 15 minutes are so the game was dragging on a bit much. They were trying to cleanse the last area. It took two full waves of PCs to accomplish it. Luckily tempers didn’t flare and everyone had fun but I could see some of exasperation on their faces near the end.

You can see the quest in its entirety on my YouTube Channel. I’ll warn you, there are slow parts where I’m just walking down trails but I tried to get as much of the action as I could. It had to be broken into two parts because my phone can only record 33 minutes at a time. (PART 1 and PART 2) Part 2 might be more interesting, it’s shorter, has more concentrated action and you get to see them winning.

Afterwards I ate a little more food, specifically a pasta salad with red spaghetti. It looked spooky! It had a pleasant mild flavor. I would have liked a bit more sauce though. They held an althing to elect their GMR, which Dovahyol won, and they did the voting for the costume contest. A little child dressed as a fairy won, I didn’t catch her name. Kormac got second place as a minotaur.

I left shortly after the contest. I was there for about 3 hours. They were just setting up another game as I was packing up. I didn’t get a chance to do any fighting. There wasn’t any sparing when I arrived and none between the quest and the next battle game. I would however, get some fighting on Sunday at Greenwood Keep.

Greenwood Keep

I spent the night in Beaverton again, this time at Gustav’s. It cut my drive down about two hours, one hour home on Saturday and one hour back to Beaverton on Sunday. We left at 9:45 and it took us a bit under 3 hours to get to Greenwood Keep. We stopped once at the Exit 42 Chevron to get a pizza pocket, which is the tradition.

There was some fighting when we arrived. Gustav and I joined in on the sparring. After a while we took a break and then a ditch started up I opted to record the fighting. You can find the video HERE. It was a decent sized ditch. The next event was the relic quest. Gustav put on his armor and joined in as a warrior. I chose to follow along as an observer.

The quest was video gamed themed. There was no real objective stated other than killing monsters. It was also a fundraiser. Players started with two lives, signified by cut up index cards. You could get more lives by looting coins from monsters or by buying coins for real life money. There were also various talismans and trinkets for sale for real life money. They raised $143.

The quest was entertaining to watch but also confusing. There was no real objective stated other than killing monsters and no stated way of winning the relics. Many people assumed you would loot them off of the monsters but that didn’t end up being the case. To be honest I never found out how relics were award or which relics were supposed to go out. I also haven’t seen a post about the relics to clarify this. It left many people rather perplexed and some of them a bit salty.

Afterwards there was more fighting. Another ditch started up which you can watch HERE. After a short while I stopped recording and joined in. There were several rounds where I was fighting alongside Devry who was using a pole-arm. We worked together fairly well. It was nice working with a great weapon wielder that knew how to work with a shield man. I rarely died and got several kills. It was a bit of an ego boost.

Eventually they called for another battle game and it killed the ditch. The game actually took a while to set up and a small bearpit started up which turned into a small winners/losers game which you can watch HERE. For the first few minutes you can see Dogboy murdering some folk before he left to join in the battle game as a healer.

Gustav and I ended up watching the battle game. I didn’t hear the game explanation but it looked to be a two team bridge battle where you hold a central point on the bridge for a certain amount of time to score a point. There was some back and forth so the teams seemed even enough. The problem was it was a big battle game with lots of casters so verbals were hard to judge. I think it lead to some players being salty but tempers seemed to be kept pretty well in check. Most complaints I heard were post game.

After the game the fighting picked back up and there was yet another ditch. I chose to fight in it rather than record it. It got be be pretty large, by far the largest of the day. It was a blast. I got in some pretty good fights. I even scored a good shot on Dogboy and he congratulated me. It made me feel pretty good. Positive reinforcement is awesome. I also fought Talius several times and did pretty well, much better than expected.

Gustav and I ended up having to end the ditch early. One reason we journeyed to Greenwood Keep was to pick up some stuff from Heron which was at her apartment. Around 4 she was ready to go. We went with her to Afters at Sheri’s and then we gave her a ride back to her apartment to pick up the stuff. We were on our way back to Oregon around 6:30.

Sunday I fought more than I have in a long time and I was happier with how I did than I have been in a while too. The average level of fighting seems to be higher than the average level of fighting in my own area which only pushed me to perform better. It also helped that I wasn’t fighting the same people I always fight, which could account for some of my success. If that’s the case it might mean my fundamentals aren’t terrible. I also saw a few shots I’ve never seen before, One shot in particular was from Dogboy which was a weird body twisting shot to my shield side hip. It was a new one for me. It was a very good day.

Other Going Ons

I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about a few things other than my weekend. As some people may have noticed I’ve started a Patreon Page. The goal is to give people that like my content a way to financial support me. I have three goals.

The first one is to earn enough money to pay for the website and get rid of the ads. My second goals is to get some extra money to allow me to travel more in the Pacific Northwest. I have a limited income so it makes it hard to travel. I’d like to travel more to give my blog more varied weekly content. The third and largest goal is to get enough money to go to one or two of the big events outside the PNW and to give everyone a chance to read about my experiences and live vicariously through me.

I have three tiers you can donate at, $1, $5 and $15. If you donate at the second or third tier you have the option of getting your name listed on my website as a supporter. I created a new page for just that reason which you can find HERE. At the moment I have 2 supporters at tier one so no one is listed on the page. If you’d like to change that you can donate HERE. I’d really appreciate the support and it’s a good way to let me know that I’m doing something right.

I’ve also been gearing up on my YouTube Channel. It’s just unedited videos but I’m having fun recording them and sharing them. I try to get a varied amount of content. There isn’t much in the way of commentary but at the start of battle games I try to explain the game. Please take a look, subscribe and like some videos. I’ll try to upload something every week I’m out.

I’m also working on a magazine featuring my writing. It’s a second issue and I plan on having it out at the beginning of November. It’s not exactly Amtgard related but I want to expose my writing to everyone I can. This does issue does have some of my Shattered Kingdom writings so there is some Amtgard relation. I’ll talk more about this project with it’s own separate blog post later. It won’t take the place my normal weekly blogs. I put out an issue 3 years ago which you can check out on Amazon HERE if you’d like. It’s a $1.

Next week I actually have a concert I’m going to (The Boobomb Concert in Portland) so my time at Amtgard will be pretty limited. I’ll be going to my local park, Silvermooon (Salem, OR) but I will only be able to stay for an hour or two. I hope to get some video recording done as well as put in some time fighting before I leave.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!