The Gathering
A bit of an interesting Gathering all told, and I’ll continue my current habit of not hotting and notting.
We arrived late afternoon on the Friday to find complications with the IC camping area due to miscommunication it appears. I was also very stressed as I was only 3 hours from ritual H-Hour. Thankfully people out the palace up really quickly and I rushed around doing our paperwork and gathering contributors. I was really surprised that I found that really easy as I’d been expecting them to be reluctant after the moots happenings. It may have helped that 4 of my 7 were new to us I guess.
The ritual went well, I was visibly nervous despite all the prep I’d done and all the feedback I’d got from the script, but once I said the magic words “I seal this circle” things just went well. The contributors reacted to my instructions really well and the audience participation was fantastic, thanks to Stevie for a gift of a heckle and thus a good put down opportunity. I understand that during the summoning part of the ritual there was a growing realisation as to what I was making the contributors do, which was great as I try to write them as you would a screenplay with a slow reveal (maybe too slow as it turned out but hey next time gadget) and then it was over to the Emma and Jenny show. Jenny’s dance moves were incredible, she delivered all that I asked and more, it was easy to pick up and managed to result in the greatest complement we could have received from the watchers…
“You’ve obviously practiced a lot”
Which bearing in mind no run through at all, *Hell yeah* I thought.
Emma also managed to embody the flighty capriciousness of the elemental perfectly, and for someone who’d only had a day of practicing picked up the dance fantastically and taught it well. I guess I ought to thank Chris to since they inflicted it on him all the way down from Durham, sorry Chris ;)
Thanks to Dessie for my cheesy lines after the montage, here’s the full list he provided.
No pain, no gain.
Pain is weakness leaving the body
If the bar's not bending, stop pretending.
Winners don't do potions
Suffer now, and live the rest of your life like a champion
Failing to try is trying to fail
It never gets easier, you just get stronger
You've got three choices. Give up, give in, or give it all you've got
We are born small and weak, we die old and weak, what happens in the middle is up to you.
Train hard, fight easy
Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever
It will never be today again
An ounce of action is better than a tonne of words
Hit the wall, tear it down
If you're going through hell, keep going
Don't do your best, do what it takes
And thanks to Jess for embodying Hengist so well
The rest of the night was spent in the Palace as we socialised there as there was no Cocks. I liked it, having my bed there IC was pretty damn awesome, it was a little cramped but at the end of the day there were a load of us there.
Saturday dawned and there was a result which blew my mind and Jenny’s. Was not expecting that as a lammie. Tariel then proceeded to beat my new record for a Lions ritualist this season with her 9.5 and in due course another uber lammie appeared. Then there was a faction monstering slot and I stayed in camp and grafittied the command tent in a surgical precision raid which took 2 minutes wasn’t noticed for a while and involved walking past an oblivious Illyrio despite appearing to be in the early stages of pregnancy due to 6 banners in my tabard, thanks to Meg, Squish, and Trull for that one.
There were Demons and I may have stitched up Elrood just a tad, though his expression after I answered the question “Since when did Void Lance need permission to hit Demons?” made it doubly worthwhile as did Hengist’s reaction when I told him later. We were apparently the only faction to attack that group and admittedly only did after someone pointed out their demonic qualities to Karnak.
The rest of the day petered out so much that we played I’m thinking of an object for several hours, it was interrupted by a mass poisoning which was so badly reffed it actually brought me to the verge of tears. Thankfully I was jumped on by Toni, Paul, Marianne, Aoife, and Brian and dealt with until I was happy enough to enjoy the rest of the evening, which did involve the ritual to fix Elspeth which I was quite keen to succeed so as to make my Sunday a lot better, it did
There was also some confusion about Polly’s new job, which caused Karnak to lose it at Beren as he’d managed to upset my wife, there was also some nice verbal double teaming with Sid as well. It doesn’t happen enough but those two can have a good synergy. Karnak took Void Lance off duty as he was so fed up with the faction’s military command by the end of the evening and thus there was drinking and plotting. (and a bit of bitching as Karnak and Alan were fairly fed up)
Sunday was peoples day and thus the day of the great “Date Off” proposed by Polly solely to get Meg to show some romance to Sid at the spring campaign and by now somewhat overblown and with Meg taking it very seriously and worried that I’d win, I felt he was missing the point. Karnak deliberately stayed out of uniform and enough people asked and were told why that I feel I succeeded in my evil plotting.
Before peoples day there was kids plot and it wasn’t great to fight, a child is kidnapped and a faction throws everything we can at it and we can’t stop it. It also left me in the awkward place of OC knowing I can’t be involved and IC thinking that I shouldn’t go on my date, I chose the OC option but it grated. There were also more Demons, I controlled one and called it Malachy, I smashed it into the ground and berated it for not staying in shield walls, I may also have broken the monster a bit whilst trying to interrogate it and pretending I understood it’s growling as we chatted about the weather in Norsca this time of year.
So having dropped of my job, I got dressed and took my wife, picnic, ice bucket and polearm, down to the Bards’s guild for step one of the date off. Cosaint had agreed to write a song and WOW!!!! I was nearly crying, and Toni who is more manly than me in that respect wasn’t but I could feel the emotion running through her as I had my arm round her. It is quite simply amazing and I feel so honoured.
We then transported to Loch Tay and picnicked there, my ice bucket worked and we had chilled Champagne, and Viognier. I say chilled the bottles were too cold to touch
We ate, flirted, chatted and drank till about 5 in what was a really beautiful and wonderful afternoon. There was a real sense of perfection about the day, and apart from my sunburn nothing went wrong. (One of the advantages of giving Toni a lift to events, is that I’ve become aware of a lot of her foibles/desires/buttons and thus it wasn’t too tricky to achieve Polly’s)
We returned to the main site and proceeded to go on gate and continue our date there, not very romantic for most people but for those two perfect, we brought a box of wine and tumblers for a fellow guards too. Lenia observed that she’d never seen me so relaxed. The unicorns were being attacked so we went over to help, I demonstrated to one of the attacking high mages that there is a form of distract spell that she wasn’t immune to, as I indulged in about 30 seconds of banter/heckling until Seraphim sneaked up behind her and paggered her into the ground.
We then watched our last ritual and created Cassie as an elemental, there was also a lot of heckling of Jules for a dirty weekend he shouldn’t have had, and that was the end of the date. By this point Meg had finally worked out that we’d all won.
Then OC stuff happened and thanks to Amanda and Hayd for their help. Apologies to Dessie for not letting him help and to Marianne and Paul for any guilt I may have caused. There were more demons and it turns out that I can call strikedown very loud, There was also one poor Demon who was hit by mine, Nazareth’s, Cosaint’s and Vincenzo’s polearms simultaneously, ouch. Nazareth also sicced me on Jericho, as I’d been bitching about him to her and there was a peace deal of sorts, time will tell how it holds.
Monday dawned and there was a shockingly bad fight which the Vipers did their damnedest to make fun, but they were up against both us and the Wolves so it was always going one way. Had an ice cream and went home.
So two bits of total crap, some meh, some good and about 7 hours of OMG!!!!!!
I was pleased to see our rituals improve no end, and that was mainly down to contributors, I knew our ritualists were up for the task, both in skill and willingness but I knew there were issues with the contributors.
I am however a bit fed up with the overkill from staff, it went from Hammer time at the moot to patronising at the Gath very quickly and I have nagging doubts now that we were over marked and over lammied, particularly as yet again there were two stories going around. I know I’ve been told that it’s not true by a lot of people but I am what I am by upbringing and profession.
Thanks go to all the people listed above, but especially to Marianne for putting up with all the stress and crap I put her through pre event and to Toni who just makes Karnak more fun.
We arrived late afternoon on the Friday to find complications with the IC camping area due to miscommunication it appears. I was also very stressed as I was only 3 hours from ritual H-Hour. Thankfully people out the palace up really quickly and I rushed around doing our paperwork and gathering contributors. I was really surprised that I found that really easy as I’d been expecting them to be reluctant after the moots happenings. It may have helped that 4 of my 7 were new to us I guess.
The ritual went well, I was visibly nervous despite all the prep I’d done and all the feedback I’d got from the script, but once I said the magic words “I seal this circle” things just went well. The contributors reacted to my instructions really well and the audience participation was fantastic, thanks to Stevie for a gift of a heckle and thus a good put down opportunity. I understand that during the summoning part of the ritual there was a growing realisation as to what I was making the contributors do, which was great as I try to write them as you would a screenplay with a slow reveal (maybe too slow as it turned out but hey next time gadget) and then it was over to the Emma and Jenny show. Jenny’s dance moves were incredible, she delivered all that I asked and more, it was easy to pick up and managed to result in the greatest complement we could have received from the watchers…
“You’ve obviously practiced a lot”
Which bearing in mind no run through at all, *Hell yeah* I thought.
Emma also managed to embody the flighty capriciousness of the elemental perfectly, and for someone who’d only had a day of practicing picked up the dance fantastically and taught it well. I guess I ought to thank Chris to since they inflicted it on him all the way down from Durham, sorry Chris ;)
Thanks to Dessie for my cheesy lines after the montage, here’s the full list he provided.
No pain, no gain.
Pain is weakness leaving the body
If the bar's not bending, stop pretending.
Winners don't do potions
Suffer now, and live the rest of your life like a champion
Failing to try is trying to fail
It never gets easier, you just get stronger
You've got three choices. Give up, give in, or give it all you've got
We are born small and weak, we die old and weak, what happens in the middle is up to you.
Train hard, fight easy
Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever
It will never be today again
An ounce of action is better than a tonne of words
Hit the wall, tear it down
If you're going through hell, keep going
Don't do your best, do what it takes
And thanks to Jess for embodying Hengist so well
The rest of the night was spent in the Palace as we socialised there as there was no Cocks. I liked it, having my bed there IC was pretty damn awesome, it was a little cramped but at the end of the day there were a load of us there.
Saturday dawned and there was a result which blew my mind and Jenny’s. Was not expecting that as a lammie. Tariel then proceeded to beat my new record for a Lions ritualist this season with her 9.5 and in due course another uber lammie appeared. Then there was a faction monstering slot and I stayed in camp and grafittied the command tent in a surgical precision raid which took 2 minutes wasn’t noticed for a while and involved walking past an oblivious Illyrio despite appearing to be in the early stages of pregnancy due to 6 banners in my tabard, thanks to Meg, Squish, and Trull for that one.
There were Demons and I may have stitched up Elrood just a tad, though his expression after I answered the question “Since when did Void Lance need permission to hit Demons?” made it doubly worthwhile as did Hengist’s reaction when I told him later. We were apparently the only faction to attack that group and admittedly only did after someone pointed out their demonic qualities to Karnak.
The rest of the day petered out so much that we played I’m thinking of an object for several hours, it was interrupted by a mass poisoning which was so badly reffed it actually brought me to the verge of tears. Thankfully I was jumped on by Toni, Paul, Marianne, Aoife, and Brian and dealt with until I was happy enough to enjoy the rest of the evening, which did involve the ritual to fix Elspeth which I was quite keen to succeed so as to make my Sunday a lot better, it did
There was also some confusion about Polly’s new job, which caused Karnak to lose it at Beren as he’d managed to upset my wife, there was also some nice verbal double teaming with Sid as well. It doesn’t happen enough but those two can have a good synergy. Karnak took Void Lance off duty as he was so fed up with the faction’s military command by the end of the evening and thus there was drinking and plotting. (and a bit of bitching as Karnak and Alan were fairly fed up)
Sunday was peoples day and thus the day of the great “Date Off” proposed by Polly solely to get Meg to show some romance to Sid at the spring campaign and by now somewhat overblown and with Meg taking it very seriously and worried that I’d win, I felt he was missing the point. Karnak deliberately stayed out of uniform and enough people asked and were told why that I feel I succeeded in my evil plotting.
Before peoples day there was kids plot and it wasn’t great to fight, a child is kidnapped and a faction throws everything we can at it and we can’t stop it. It also left me in the awkward place of OC knowing I can’t be involved and IC thinking that I shouldn’t go on my date, I chose the OC option but it grated. There were also more Demons, I controlled one and called it Malachy, I smashed it into the ground and berated it for not staying in shield walls, I may also have broken the monster a bit whilst trying to interrogate it and pretending I understood it’s growling as we chatted about the weather in Norsca this time of year.
So having dropped of my job, I got dressed and took my wife, picnic, ice bucket and polearm, down to the Bards’s guild for step one of the date off. Cosaint had agreed to write a song and WOW!!!! I was nearly crying, and Toni who is more manly than me in that respect wasn’t but I could feel the emotion running through her as I had my arm round her. It is quite simply amazing and I feel so honoured.
We then transported to Loch Tay and picnicked there, my ice bucket worked and we had chilled Champagne, and Viognier. I say chilled the bottles were too cold to touch
We ate, flirted, chatted and drank till about 5 in what was a really beautiful and wonderful afternoon. There was a real sense of perfection about the day, and apart from my sunburn nothing went wrong. (One of the advantages of giving Toni a lift to events, is that I’ve become aware of a lot of her foibles/desires/buttons and thus it wasn’t too tricky to achieve Polly’s)
We returned to the main site and proceeded to go on gate and continue our date there, not very romantic for most people but for those two perfect, we brought a box of wine and tumblers for a fellow guards too. Lenia observed that she’d never seen me so relaxed. The unicorns were being attacked so we went over to help, I demonstrated to one of the attacking high mages that there is a form of distract spell that she wasn’t immune to, as I indulged in about 30 seconds of banter/heckling until Seraphim sneaked up behind her and paggered her into the ground.
We then watched our last ritual and created Cassie as an elemental, there was also a lot of heckling of Jules for a dirty weekend he shouldn’t have had, and that was the end of the date. By this point Meg had finally worked out that we’d all won.
Then OC stuff happened and thanks to Amanda and Hayd for their help. Apologies to Dessie for not letting him help and to Marianne and Paul for any guilt I may have caused. There were more demons and it turns out that I can call strikedown very loud, There was also one poor Demon who was hit by mine, Nazareth’s, Cosaint’s and Vincenzo’s polearms simultaneously, ouch. Nazareth also sicced me on Jericho, as I’d been bitching about him to her and there was a peace deal of sorts, time will tell how it holds.
Monday dawned and there was a shockingly bad fight which the Vipers did their damnedest to make fun, but they were up against both us and the Wolves so it was always going one way. Had an ice cream and went home.
So two bits of total crap, some meh, some good and about 7 hours of OMG!!!!!!
I was pleased to see our rituals improve no end, and that was mainly down to contributors, I knew our ritualists were up for the task, both in skill and willingness but I knew there were issues with the contributors.
I am however a bit fed up with the overkill from staff, it went from Hammer time at the moot to patronising at the Gath very quickly and I have nagging doubts now that we were over marked and over lammied, particularly as yet again there were two stories going around. I know I’ve been told that it’s not true by a lot of people but I am what I am by upbringing and profession.
Thanks go to all the people listed above, but especially to Marianne for putting up with all the stress and crap I put her through pre event and to Toni who just makes Karnak more fun.