Guildford fest
Jul. 3rd, 2010 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
king_pellinorLast weekend was spent at Guildford fest, which was excellent fun and gloriously hot.
I went up nice and early, partly because Red Funnel had broken a ferry, so it was 8.30am or about 7pm, and partly as I'd offered to help out with the catering supplies - the organiser of the fest is getting married in a few weeks, and she was starting to get a bit swamped :-)
First stop was Ikea, to get a load of catering equipment for Summerfest, as I thought it would be handy to lend it for this fest. That took rather longer than I expected: not so much in the buying, but more in the repacking the car to try to fit it all in. This actually worked quite nicely, as the heavy plates just squished the various duvets and cloaks and so on, so the level of the load was pretty much the same despite adding a trolley-load of stuff.
Thence up the M3, round the M25, and to the site. Unloaded the car, then set up the tent, a nice big frame one. Laid out the bed - as we're camping again next weekend, I thought I might as well have all the kit for two ready, so I laid out the normal two airbeds to make a king-size, covered with a duvet to lie on, and another to lie under. Very comfy, and very snug for the hottest day of the year so far :-) Then off to Bookers to get the food and drink for the weekend.
On getting back and offloading all the food, I helped set up some other tents and started to get stuck into a couple of drinks, then got into character ready for time in, which was about 7 or 8 or so. I play Sir Robin Adair, a light-hearted carefree happy chappy of a knight, who has somehow found himself the Knight Commander and in charge of the main military might of the country.
The plot was that we'd all been invited by the dwarves of Rockhome to consecrate some shrines: they had a hall with shrines to 4 of the 7 gods, and wanted to complete the set. After a little milling, some minor skirmishes with demons, and people starting to set up shrines, several of us had a vision of a girl in white begging piteously for help and to be saved from the demons. Naturally, Robin being a chivalrous knight, I immediately assembled a party to go and rescue her. Note that we had no idea where she might be, it was getting dark, and all we knew was that the woods were full of demons.
Before we left we had a chat with an ancient Alshanti, a holy creature of Longstor (god of nature), who told us a tale. Once, long ago, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, lived an ancient race of elves who followed Longstor. No one knows who they were, or what they were doing, but as is the way of life they fell into a period of hardship and famine. They asked Longstor for help , but were just told this is the way of things: sometimes life is easy, sometimes hard; some people live, and some die. So they grew disillusioned and turned from him; and then a stranger came among them. He promised them wealth and power if they were to follow him and reject Longstor, which they did, becoming known as the Ostmalorn, the corrupted elves. With his help they grew strong, and warred on neighbouring elves. When they had defeated them, and grown still more powerful, they made war on the men and dwarves too. An alliance was made against them, but even the combined armies of men, elves and dwarves could not stop them. But using magic and trickery, the Ostmalorn and their demon leader were trapped in a fold of the world, locked away where they could do no harm. But magic comes from mortals, and unlike the power of the gods it fades; and the Ostmalorn were now seeking to free themselves; this is where the demons in the woods came from.
Anyway, he didn't know anything useful about where this girl in white might be, but he did know of a glade sacred to Longstor, whose guardian might know a little more. Perhaps we could try there?
So we set off to find the glade, and the girl. Pretty soon we encountered quite a lot of demons and corrupted elves, but we fought through them. And the next lot too. The next lot were rather tougher; the lot after that put nearly all of us down. As I was down to an enchanted sword in the back, and listening to the sounds of battle grow fainter but more frantic, someone started to drag me off. Although I was sure this was Robin dead, in fact the demons took me to the woods, healed my wounds and tied me up; one then changed to look exactly like me, and went off to find out what was going on.
So I, now playing a demon, wandered back to the party to be greeted by the Primate of Crowa (goddess of battle) saying "here you go, take your Grey Blade, blessed sword of Sidhe father of the Gods". This is a little tricky for a demon, who can't really have much to do with such things, and my evasive behaviour led to suspicion, which in turn led to me being hacked to bits. Ho hum.
Back at the kidnapping, I was taken further into the woods to see if a rescue party might come. Good news, one did! Bad news: torn between carrying on to the glade and rescuing me, the party had decided to do both. So only three people came to find me, while the rest went to the glade. Long story short: the demons now had three captives (me, the only other knight at the fest, and the Primate of Crowa), the scout legging it before he got taken. Three shape-shifter demons later, though, the apparently successful rescue party went back to the main party, who by now had found the glade. People were a bit surprised to see us arrive, given that the scout had just been telling them how the demons had been swarming all over us, but a shrug and "we got away" seemed to be enough. So I played it dumb and confused for a bit, got people to explain to me exactly what was going on, then wandered away "to think about it". After a few yards I ran; no-one seemed to notice that I'd gone for a while, and then it was too late.
So Sir Robin spent the night a prisoner of the demons. I manned the bar for a while, then sat up chatting to people until about 5, then decided that it probably wasn't worth using my comfy bed and so stayed up chatting until everyone else started to wake up at 8 or 9, then had a shower.
A rescue mission went out, which managed to find me just in time. It seems the demons, having tortured us all night, had decided to take our souls. They did some ritual round the other knight first (rock, good old rock, nothing beats rock!), and were half-way through doing me when help arrived.
So I was escorted back to the camp, horribly weak and fragile. After seeing the bodies of my slain rescuers taken to the shrines, and apologising to Sidhe for losing his Grey Blade and the soul of his knight, I then spent the afternoon limping around the place trying to be useful. This was really good fun, especially as everyone kept being kind and solicitous and looking after me as I completely over-exerted myself. Simple example: I did a lot of praying at various shrines, and sorrowing over the bodies; every time I opened my eyes, I found a fresh glass of water had been put in front of me :-D
I think the over-exertion and heat exhaustion was all in-character - every time I thought I might actually be overdoing it for real I was able to stand up straight, cut a quick caper, and think clearly, so I'm pretty sure it was just too much Method in my madness :-)
It emerged that what we needed to do was find three parts of a seal, reassemble it, and release the demons from the trap in a controlled manner so they could be destroyed. Simples. I let everyone else do all the finding, and just staggered :-)
At one point I went with the Alshanti to the Longstorian glade, to find that it had been corrupted, so I went to find some Longstorians to fix it. The Alshanti told me I wouldn't be healed of my wounds until I'd been "planted", which confused me mightily - but then everything did at that point :-) Anyway, the culmination of the afternoon was some fight that kicked off, and proceeded to roll slowly forward with an awful lot of people involved. I staggered along behind, directing people, finding reinforcements, giving orders, and clinging on to trees for support, until at last I was escorted back to the camp in a delirium :-)
And so to dinner. Changed out of armour and into a clean shirt and coat, then off for plain dwarven food of pie and mash, followed by pie and ice-cream. I did a brief speech, told people what the plan for the morrow was ("we're going to summon a demon...") and sang (a slightly-modified version of) Follow Me Home, in memory of the fallen, then talked to people for hours and hours and hours. Robin being fairly fragile, and me being a little drunk, this tended to involve earnest discussions about how to make the world safe for people and a certain amount of weeping for those it wasn't safe for. Which was all really good fun and excellent character development :-)
To bed about 5, and up again about 8. It was remarked with a certain amount of envy/disgust that I was rather wasting this bed of mine, which was bigger than some people's entire tents.
I got kitted up for the battle, then went to read some in-character correspondence I'd been given. So I was sitting in a chair under a tree, sipping port and making notes, not thinking that the day had started yet, when I got shot in the back with an enchanted arrow. My second thought, after making sure I didn't spill the port, was that I hadn't actually seen anyone else in character yet, so having been rescued the day before I was going to die rather ignominiously. Fortunately there were some people just arriving, so I was saved. That skirmish led to a gradual escalation into a full-blown battle, though I did pull everyone back to try to organise things a bit.
The battle essentially consisted of guarding the people making and breaking the seal. I found three lieutenants, and told each to gather a clump of people and watch one side of the field. When I added a clump of scouts to run around the general area this seemed to work very well, though at one stage I did have to assure some folk that there was a clump of people who weren't in a clump, so no-one was left out. Half-way through the assault by enormous numbers of demons I was knocked unconscious, and pulled underground. After a third "so this is it I'm going to die" moment, I found that this was the "planting" referred to earlier, and I came back from it refreshed and revived and raring to go - only to find there was a lull in the battle :-(
Then I got knocked out again (for being under a demonic compulsion), and while I was down it all went pear-shaped. A demon managed to break the seal before we had a welcoming committee ready, the demons got out and laid everything waste, and the big bad got away. Then we realised that it was 4 o'clock and we were meant to be off-site at 5, so there wasn't time to follow it up :-(
One good thing: we found the girl in white, who was also released along with the demons. She was very nice: I took her arm and walked her back, offered her a place to stay, and was generally gallant until someone said "Has anyone checked that she's not a demon?". At which point she teleported away and fled... :-)
So, packed up the tent, loaded the car, got all the crockery etc back, took some left-over bar stock for Summerfest, said goodbyes, and left. Stopped for petrol at the first garage I came to, and found I had a flat tyre. I don't know what it is about fests and transport: I had a flat when trying to leave Portsmouth fest last year, and the entire van broke after Summerfest. Anyway, that put me back an hour and a half on the way home, so I wasn't back till 10.
So, a great fun fest. As far as Robin goes it was pretty much a disaster: let a demon loose, lost the Grey Blade, got two people killed in a rescue mission (one of whose souls was taken by demons), got tortured, got fooled by demons several times, was almost completely ineffective in battle (I don't think I actually hit a monster on the Sunday), and got generally broken physically and emotionally. But *I* really enjoyed it :-)
I went up nice and early, partly because Red Funnel had broken a ferry, so it was 8.30am or about 7pm, and partly as I'd offered to help out with the catering supplies - the organiser of the fest is getting married in a few weeks, and she was starting to get a bit swamped :-)
First stop was Ikea, to get a load of catering equipment for Summerfest, as I thought it would be handy to lend it for this fest. That took rather longer than I expected: not so much in the buying, but more in the repacking the car to try to fit it all in. This actually worked quite nicely, as the heavy plates just squished the various duvets and cloaks and so on, so the level of the load was pretty much the same despite adding a trolley-load of stuff.
Thence up the M3, round the M25, and to the site. Unloaded the car, then set up the tent, a nice big frame one. Laid out the bed - as we're camping again next weekend, I thought I might as well have all the kit for two ready, so I laid out the normal two airbeds to make a king-size, covered with a duvet to lie on, and another to lie under. Very comfy, and very snug for the hottest day of the year so far :-) Then off to Bookers to get the food and drink for the weekend.
On getting back and offloading all the food, I helped set up some other tents and started to get stuck into a couple of drinks, then got into character ready for time in, which was about 7 or 8 or so. I play Sir Robin Adair, a light-hearted carefree happy chappy of a knight, who has somehow found himself the Knight Commander and in charge of the main military might of the country.
The plot was that we'd all been invited by the dwarves of Rockhome to consecrate some shrines: they had a hall with shrines to 4 of the 7 gods, and wanted to complete the set. After a little milling, some minor skirmishes with demons, and people starting to set up shrines, several of us had a vision of a girl in white begging piteously for help and to be saved from the demons. Naturally, Robin being a chivalrous knight, I immediately assembled a party to go and rescue her. Note that we had no idea where she might be, it was getting dark, and all we knew was that the woods were full of demons.
Before we left we had a chat with an ancient Alshanti, a holy creature of Longstor (god of nature), who told us a tale. Once, long ago, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, lived an ancient race of elves who followed Longstor. No one knows who they were, or what they were doing, but as is the way of life they fell into a period of hardship and famine. They asked Longstor for help , but were just told this is the way of things: sometimes life is easy, sometimes hard; some people live, and some die. So they grew disillusioned and turned from him; and then a stranger came among them. He promised them wealth and power if they were to follow him and reject Longstor, which they did, becoming known as the Ostmalorn, the corrupted elves. With his help they grew strong, and warred on neighbouring elves. When they had defeated them, and grown still more powerful, they made war on the men and dwarves too. An alliance was made against them, but even the combined armies of men, elves and dwarves could not stop them. But using magic and trickery, the Ostmalorn and their demon leader were trapped in a fold of the world, locked away where they could do no harm. But magic comes from mortals, and unlike the power of the gods it fades; and the Ostmalorn were now seeking to free themselves; this is where the demons in the woods came from.
Anyway, he didn't know anything useful about where this girl in white might be, but he did know of a glade sacred to Longstor, whose guardian might know a little more. Perhaps we could try there?
So we set off to find the glade, and the girl. Pretty soon we encountered quite a lot of demons and corrupted elves, but we fought through them. And the next lot too. The next lot were rather tougher; the lot after that put nearly all of us down. As I was down to an enchanted sword in the back, and listening to the sounds of battle grow fainter but more frantic, someone started to drag me off. Although I was sure this was Robin dead, in fact the demons took me to the woods, healed my wounds and tied me up; one then changed to look exactly like me, and went off to find out what was going on.
So I, now playing a demon, wandered back to the party to be greeted by the Primate of Crowa (goddess of battle) saying "here you go, take your Grey Blade, blessed sword of Sidhe father of the Gods". This is a little tricky for a demon, who can't really have much to do with such things, and my evasive behaviour led to suspicion, which in turn led to me being hacked to bits. Ho hum.
Back at the kidnapping, I was taken further into the woods to see if a rescue party might come. Good news, one did! Bad news: torn between carrying on to the glade and rescuing me, the party had decided to do both. So only three people came to find me, while the rest went to the glade. Long story short: the demons now had three captives (me, the only other knight at the fest, and the Primate of Crowa), the scout legging it before he got taken. Three shape-shifter demons later, though, the apparently successful rescue party went back to the main party, who by now had found the glade. People were a bit surprised to see us arrive, given that the scout had just been telling them how the demons had been swarming all over us, but a shrug and "we got away" seemed to be enough. So I played it dumb and confused for a bit, got people to explain to me exactly what was going on, then wandered away "to think about it". After a few yards I ran; no-one seemed to notice that I'd gone for a while, and then it was too late.
So Sir Robin spent the night a prisoner of the demons. I manned the bar for a while, then sat up chatting to people until about 5, then decided that it probably wasn't worth using my comfy bed and so stayed up chatting until everyone else started to wake up at 8 or 9, then had a shower.
A rescue mission went out, which managed to find me just in time. It seems the demons, having tortured us all night, had decided to take our souls. They did some ritual round the other knight first (rock, good old rock, nothing beats rock!), and were half-way through doing me when help arrived.
So I was escorted back to the camp, horribly weak and fragile. After seeing the bodies of my slain rescuers taken to the shrines, and apologising to Sidhe for losing his Grey Blade and the soul of his knight, I then spent the afternoon limping around the place trying to be useful. This was really good fun, especially as everyone kept being kind and solicitous and looking after me as I completely over-exerted myself. Simple example: I did a lot of praying at various shrines, and sorrowing over the bodies; every time I opened my eyes, I found a fresh glass of water had been put in front of me :-D
I think the over-exertion and heat exhaustion was all in-character - every time I thought I might actually be overdoing it for real I was able to stand up straight, cut a quick caper, and think clearly, so I'm pretty sure it was just too much Method in my madness :-)
It emerged that what we needed to do was find three parts of a seal, reassemble it, and release the demons from the trap in a controlled manner so they could be destroyed. Simples. I let everyone else do all the finding, and just staggered :-)
At one point I went with the Alshanti to the Longstorian glade, to find that it had been corrupted, so I went to find some Longstorians to fix it. The Alshanti told me I wouldn't be healed of my wounds until I'd been "planted", which confused me mightily - but then everything did at that point :-) Anyway, the culmination of the afternoon was some fight that kicked off, and proceeded to roll slowly forward with an awful lot of people involved. I staggered along behind, directing people, finding reinforcements, giving orders, and clinging on to trees for support, until at last I was escorted back to the camp in a delirium :-)
And so to dinner. Changed out of armour and into a clean shirt and coat, then off for plain dwarven food of pie and mash, followed by pie and ice-cream. I did a brief speech, told people what the plan for the morrow was ("we're going to summon a demon...") and sang (a slightly-modified version of) Follow Me Home, in memory of the fallen, then talked to people for hours and hours and hours. Robin being fairly fragile, and me being a little drunk, this tended to involve earnest discussions about how to make the world safe for people and a certain amount of weeping for those it wasn't safe for. Which was all really good fun and excellent character development :-)
To bed about 5, and up again about 8. It was remarked with a certain amount of envy/disgust that I was rather wasting this bed of mine, which was bigger than some people's entire tents.
I got kitted up for the battle, then went to read some in-character correspondence I'd been given. So I was sitting in a chair under a tree, sipping port and making notes, not thinking that the day had started yet, when I got shot in the back with an enchanted arrow. My second thought, after making sure I didn't spill the port, was that I hadn't actually seen anyone else in character yet, so having been rescued the day before I was going to die rather ignominiously. Fortunately there were some people just arriving, so I was saved. That skirmish led to a gradual escalation into a full-blown battle, though I did pull everyone back to try to organise things a bit.
The battle essentially consisted of guarding the people making and breaking the seal. I found three lieutenants, and told each to gather a clump of people and watch one side of the field. When I added a clump of scouts to run around the general area this seemed to work very well, though at one stage I did have to assure some folk that there was a clump of people who weren't in a clump, so no-one was left out. Half-way through the assault by enormous numbers of demons I was knocked unconscious, and pulled underground. After a third "so this is it I'm going to die" moment, I found that this was the "planting" referred to earlier, and I came back from it refreshed and revived and raring to go - only to find there was a lull in the battle :-(
Then I got knocked out again (for being under a demonic compulsion), and while I was down it all went pear-shaped. A demon managed to break the seal before we had a welcoming committee ready, the demons got out and laid everything waste, and the big bad got away. Then we realised that it was 4 o'clock and we were meant to be off-site at 5, so there wasn't time to follow it up :-(
One good thing: we found the girl in white, who was also released along with the demons. She was very nice: I took her arm and walked her back, offered her a place to stay, and was generally gallant until someone said "Has anyone checked that she's not a demon?". At which point she teleported away and fled... :-)
So, packed up the tent, loaded the car, got all the crockery etc back, took some left-over bar stock for Summerfest, said goodbyes, and left. Stopped for petrol at the first garage I came to, and found I had a flat tyre. I don't know what it is about fests and transport: I had a flat when trying to leave Portsmouth fest last year, and the entire van broke after Summerfest. Anyway, that put me back an hour and a half on the way home, so I wasn't back till 10.
So, a great fun fest. As far as Robin goes it was pretty much a disaster: let a demon loose, lost the Grey Blade, got two people killed in a rescue mission (one of whose souls was taken by demons), got tortured, got fooled by demons several times, was almost completely ineffective in battle (I don't think I actually hit a monster on the Sunday), and got generally broken physically and emotionally. But *I* really enjoyed it :-)
