Sep 23 2019

House Gravy

As I mentioned in my last blog I wouldn’t be going to Amtgard last weekend. I was part of a wedding of a dear friend this last Saturday. With that in mind I still wanted to share a blog about Amtgard so I thought I would take the chance to talk about my Amtgard service household, House Gravy.

Early History

House Gravy started around 2001 with three people Agrajag, Vincent and myself. Our primary function was feasts for the majority of the House’s incarnation. In fact for the majority of the House’s life it was just Vincent and I doing all the work. Agrajag didn’t stay in the game as long as us and we didn’t take on any new members. It was really just a house of two people.

Early in in the 2000s, I don’t remember the exact year, Vincent and I ran a House Gravy campout for Amtgard. By all measures, other than financially, it was a success. I personally lost around $400 on the event, but everyone who went sounded like they really enjoyed it. I it was our first experience running a campout.

Outside of Vincent and I we had no actual crats. We kind of just winged gate. For actual events it was basically just a Norse God themed quest and ditching. The quest went pretty well, It wasn’t my first quest but it was one of the more complicated ones I ran. Then there was food, which I cooked over an open fire pit, it was very rustic. It was either corn on the cob or baked potatoes, I don’t remember which; either way they were cooked in the coals. While the main protean was grilled ham, with a special rub I made myself.

As I said the event was a success, despite being pretty limited, especially by today’s standers. I think part of the success was the people who attended and the good night atmosphere we had. I hate using the term “back in the old days” but it applies here. Back in the old days smaller campouts were more common and this one was one of the last of those experiences. I think it could still work now a days but it’s financially a lot more difficult and I think it would be harder to get people hyped about it.

We tried to do another campout years later but as the day approached it looked like there wasn’t much interest so I cut my losses and canceled the site, saving me from losing a lot more money. Other than this one campout we only focused on feasts.

Vincent and I ran countless feasts over the years as House Gravy, even if people didn’t realize it was a household. Many of the feasts were Kingdom Level Events. One notable summer, the summer of 2015 we ran the main feast at two of the biggest campouts in the northwest, Rosewood and Pacific War. We also did the Thursday feast at the first Shattered Kingdoms, although I did that one without Vincent.

The Revitalization

2015 was the last year we only had two members. At the end of 2015 we decided we would start taking new members and shift our focus from feast events to all service. To boost our numbers I offered all members of the fighting company the Harbingers a one time deal to become full members without having to go through any initiation process. Several of them took me up on the offer and that was the start of the revitalization of House Gravy.

The new focus of the House goes beyond service and also includes learning. We broke service down into five basic areas, or schools. The five schools are Events, Feasts, Games, Leadership and Support. Part of the process to become a Full Member of House Gravy is to focus on one school. There is a teacher, known as Gravy Master, for each school and at one point along the process the Apprentice will need to take one or more tests to prove their mastery in that area.

Along with the focus on learning I wanted to instantiate a new symbolic system to help identify us as a House Hold. Once you become an Apprentice, you get a House Gravy Tabard or tunic. I wanted the tabard or tunic to mean more than just a show of house pride, I wanted it to mean you are on duty. While wearing it, it actually means you are either currently doing your duties and volunteering, or you are showing your willingness to volunteer.

Initiation Process

With the revitalization of House Gravy came a new set of bylaws and an initiation process I’m fairly proud of. There are several tiers of membership, the first is the Roux or Initiate. To become a Roux it takes a simple majority vote of the active full members. At this stage you are mostly proving your willingness to do service and be active in the House.

The second tier is the Gravy Spoon or Apprentice. To get to this tier you must be active, have helped at a certain number House Gravy volunteer projects and passed a unanimous vote of all active Full Members. At this level you are there to learn. The Gravy Spoons choose a school they wish to focus on and the Gravy Master of that school supervises them and helps them learn.

The next tier is the Gravy Boat or Full Member. To become a Gravy Boat the person needs to do a few different things. First they must pass a test related to their school. Secondly they must pass an unanimous vote from the Council of Gravy Masters. Thirdly they must participate in a hazing ritual, however this isn’t the typical hazing ritual, it take the form of a fundraiser.

The first time we did this was for Vincent. While he is now considered a founding member, technically he was our first initiate. We tied him to a tree, filled water balloons full of gravy and had people pay per balloon to throw them at him. It was an effort to raise money for the House. It went poorly and on top of that it gave Vincent a decades long aversion to gravy. We no longer use gravy. Usually it takes the form of a pie in the face auction but ultimately it’s a discussion between the the Initiate Master and the person being initiated. The Gravy Spoon needs to feel comfortable doing the fundraiser activity.

Once the initiation is over the person is now a Gravy Boat and gains voting rights. We are just now getting to the point where people who started as Initiates are becoming Full Members. It’s taken about a year and a half to two years to become a Full Member. That’s mostly due to the frequency that we volunteer for events. If we did more events then the process might be quicker.

In fact the first two people to go through the whole process are going to have their hazing fundraiser next weekend at the Kingdom Level Event in Silvermoon (Salem, OR). We are raising money for Food Fight. Fritz and Darb are going to be pied in the face and become the first two members to go through the whole initiation process. I’m very proud that they stuck with it and have participated so fully in the household.

The fourth and last tier of membership is the Gravy Train. This is reserved for the founding members which are Vincent, Agrajag and Myself. Of the three of us, I’m the only one who is still active.

The Future

With our first wave of new Gravy Boats, I’m excitedly looking towards the future. I have high hopes for the House. While the process is slow I have faith it is the right way to go. The goal is to have a large house full of knowledgeable people to pull from. At the time of this writing we are sitting at only 13 members but I hope it expands in the near future.

I think I set up a good structure to allow the House to achieve it’s goals and to grow. We already have a few people in Northern Lights, but I’d like more. I’d like to expand our service efforts beyond just Blackspire but it requires some extra effort to get our members to travel. I hope to do at least one service project in Northern Lights before next summer.

One project I’d like to tackle is showing which people have focused on which areas. Once the pool of Active Gravy Boats is large enough I’d like to institute a new policy in regards to belt favors. Each member would have a House Gravy belt favor and on that belt favor they would have a patch for each area they are specialized in, very similar to boy-scout merit badges. I think it would be a useful and fun way to identify people. People might event get special badges for doing special projects or services. Maybe if we get a Flame Award, all members that were in the House at the time might get a special badge to denote that. They sky is the limit.

Final Thoughts

I’m very happy with House Gravy and it’s future. We are always on the look out for new initiates. We are looking for people who are honest, trustworthy, hard workers, willing to learn and teach and are dedicated to the goals of the House. Sometimes we will reach out to individuals but we are also happy to have people reach out to us. If you’re interested in joining please reach out, any of our members would be willing to discuss the house with you.

Sep 17 2019

Silvermoon Winter Coronation 2019

The week after Pacific War 2019 was my local park, Silvermoon’s (Salem, OR) coronation. Sadly I arrived late, I had a very late night the night before. I got there at one, just in time to run and reeve a battle game for Ceian.

The game was a simple single life ring the bell game. It was a class battle. People had one life per point and we played to 5 points. I had some trouble balancing the game, I’m not used to balancing such a small game anymore. We only had 9 players for this one.

Overall I think I did alright balancing, I did rebalance once during the middle of the game. I asked Ceian for some advice to how to balance it. I basically just swapped one person. I gave the team with the bow the extra person as per Ceian’s suggestion. In the end the score was 5 to 3.

Afterwards I did a bit of short sword sparring with Ciean. He did a lot better than usual, which is good, he finally started to figure me out. The key was to be a bit less aggressive, slow down and let me make a mistake. It was about even, or maybe the edge should be given to him. It was a bit hard for me to judge. He gave a good break down of the overall fight session afterwards which I appreciated. I don’t often get an analysis of my fights.

We took a short break and then Ceian wanted me to run another game but I didn’t have any good ideas. He came up with the game Recycler. It’s a game I didn’t know how to run so he said he would run it. He told me and I mean TOLD me, to play in the game. Somewhat reluctantly I went to my car to get my wizard gear.

I geared up and then we all lined up for teams and a game explanation. The game had two teams, starting at their base, it was unlimited lives and no spawn time but there was a catch. You had to spawn at one of two spots in the field. You could only spawn if the spot was empty. The goal was for a team to occupy both spots to score a point. We played to 5 points. After that explanation I realized I did know how this game worked, I just hadn’t played it myself.

The game was pretty fun and I didn’t do to badly. I pretty much know my spell ball incants, except for suppression bolt. I accidentally used the suppression aura incant to cast suppression bolt and I was corrected. I knew if sounded a bit funny. I also did a better job of hitting people with my spell balls. I still wasn’t as accurate as I’d like but it takes practice. There was also a bit of tactics in how I used my spell balls this time. I didn’t just grab a ball and cast it. Overall I think there was improvement on my end.

We ended up winning but it was a close game. The other team was using a frustrating tactic of having one member start off dead and running across the field to stand next to the spawn point near us while their team took the spawn point nearest them. Then Galinmorn, playing a battlemage wizard would crowd control whoever we had standing in our spawn and the dead player from the other team would jump in and steal the point. It was a good tactic that was just very frustrating.

There was a ditch after the game but I didn’t join in. The pole to people ration was kind of ridiculous and I didn’t want to get involved. It didn’t last to long as court was called shortly afterwards. There were several awards handed out, you can see a list of them posted on our Dutchy’s Facebook Page here.

Aside from awards we also introduced our new monarchy members. Galinmorn came in as Holder, Blargest became our new Regent, Torg stayed in his position as Champion and Critias took over my place as Guild Master of Reeves. For the first time in a long time I’m not in an office!

A game was called for shortly after court but I was unable to play. I needed to go before the game would finish. I talked with Galinmorn for a while before I eventually packed up and headed out.

Next week I won’t be able to make it to Amtgard, I’m a groomsmen in a wedding on Saturday. I’ll see if I can come up with a reason to make another Amtgard post next weekend, despite not playing Amtgard for that weekend.

Sep 15 2019

Pacific War 2019

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.