Hots and nots!

[almostdeadnoddy]

Awesome event again!

HOTS:

Reckoning! > the League ring curse, Pavel, the dignitary and taking orders for next season.
The mobile curse machine aka curse club aka the college of cursing…
Getting to give back to the game by player ref’in on the field, hope it helped take the pressure off.
Seeing the dignitary the next day > just business.
Making money and mana from uptime jobs.
Casting the “anti crime” ritual on Sarvos with Verushkan friends.
The card game Looking forward to seeing the final product.
Being in the League, such good role-play going on all over the camp.
Starting to build up a reputation in character.

NOTS:

Not noticing the chandelier when going into a cursing with a big staff. Knocking in the ensuing tumble, feeling like a tit for not seeing it before I went in. Hot wax on the face was interesting. In future no staves in tents for this kind of thing when it’s dark for sure. Apologies to anyone in there.

[sballuk]

I’m an old Maelstrom player but this was my first Empire, so a HUGE thank you to Felix’s Watch for being so welcoming! It gave me a chance to learn the game, and I had a much better handle on the character by the end of the weekend.

HOT:

Getting more and more monosyllabic when others become giddy, leading to someone making a crazily animated suggestion for what to do in a dangerous ritual and me greeting it with a deadpan and dour “…No.” This is likely to happen a lot.

Announcement by a candidate for the Throne that they’d secure a homeland for the Imperial Orcs. Widespread celebration and applause, except for me and other Highguard very obviously not moving or smiling at all with our arms crossed and hoods up, radiating disapproval. Loved it.

Trying to work out how much I’m allowed to react to someone in the tent losing their temper and shouting
“…with his FILTHY BRIAR GIRLFRIEND!"
Decided to go with poise.

The costume and themed tent items in the various Chapters. Really impressive and immersive. Haven’t seen this much dedication in a long time.

Slowly realising that everyone who had a True Liao vision returned traumatised and crying for the rest of the festival. And then being told it’s very important to try and get one. Uh huh.

Losing count of the number of ways that doing a ritual at the Regio at this particular moment was a really bad idea. Doing it anyway.

The ingenuity and energy from players in finding ways to bring children into the game, Virtue badges, etc, all of which was deeply great.

Showers worked fine, may have saved my life.
Food was very easy to get on site, and there was some frankly amazing IC food as well.

NOT:

Only minor stuff, apart from the *******, , ~~ weather.

Wands and especially Rods physreps very hard to find at any of the traders.

Not being allowed to respond to work emails today with only a Highguard disdain and general call for heightened Vigilance.

[Iulian]

• Plot! Like, all of the plot I ran across was excellent. Including but not limited to:
  ++ Whispering Drey turning up and being all appealing and adorable and butter wouldn’t melt in their mouth and what d’you mean, atrocities and mass murder.
  ++ Arhallogen wrongfooting me ONCE AGAIN by suddenly at random being reasonable and listening to my requests - excellent performance from the Herald there, really sold ‘I am a giant spider’ by having black widow markings drawn on his face and moving like one
  +± At this point I’m not sure that I’d know what to do with Iulian’s evenings if I wasn’t sitting in the Hall of Worlds waiting for an expected herald that then didn’t show - at least I had a good time doing so
  ++ Llofir herald turning up and going ‘LLOFIR IS ANGRY WITH EMPIRE’ - excellent performance, nice mess that the Empire is in there, and it’s all. my. fault. (ssshhhhh)
  +++ Casting the biggest Spring magic the Empire has got out so far, and getting to throw a pronouncement of doom
  ++++ “For the third time, do you understand and do you consent?” - “For the third time, I do” - pronounce doom - “So, what the hell was that?” - facepalm
  ++++ Nick giving us an exactly perfect side-effect (‘the vacuum seals are royally buggered and you need new ones, and that burnt out your Web of Celestial Attunement’)
  +++ Finding out ten minutes after we’d cast that (a) it wasn’t as simple as that (b) we targeted the worst possible army
  +± Confused by Llofir’s demands on an OOC level, but I’ll be emailing that in, it wasn’t worth taking it up with the herald
  ++ Spending basically my group’s entire income on avoiding wrath and likely getting nothing from it apart from cursed, but them’s the breaks
  +++ Walking up to the Archmage of Winter and asking him to curse me so that I could spin this thing right
  ++++ Literally five minutes later him charging up to me and asking me what the hell I was doing, and I say basically ‘what I told you I was going to do, in words, not your fault if you thought I was apologising for having done it rather than apologising for being about to do it’
  +++++ But we didn’t get to do the thing despite being told the thing was wrong, agreeing and apologising for even trying. Cha + Etiquette roll succeeded, but not critically
  ++ OMG the physrepping on the Green Mother heralds, and I suddenly get a great feel of what the NPC who wrote the wiki page about what we know of the Green Mother was on about - describes them as ‘beautiful’ when what they are, objectively, is horrifying bark covered tree monsters
  ++ Briar rights activists, and hopefully giving them a dead hero to take and run with as an example
  ++ Mira, and the way the Irra Harrah plot has continued to avoid me without denigrating or insulting my position, and would totally have talked to me if I was there
  +++ Excellent, excellent solution to the problem that there’s no way the Empire would fund awesome projects for a tiny group of people
  ++ The winter curse, and standing right in it, and then people thinking Iulian was going crazy because he’d bitten through his lip, and people not taking yes for an answer. Giving a speech and then being bundled off into the regio, and nobody realising that the curse was absolutely fine and no problem and all that they had done is shoved Iulian into a cage designed to set him off and then poked him with sticks until he started chewing the scenery
  +++ Having an audience for that scenery chewing - Chiara being awesome at me - I’m sure one of you guys had hero points, and I hope you will agree that that counted as a training montage for buying them myself!
  +++ Seriously, who gets to do emotional character development in front of an audience of that many people? That was amazing!
• Singing to a herald of Lashonar for the sheer hell of it
• Makeup job working so well
• Ceri, Joe, Bryony, Jessie, Isobel, Dave, Kirsty, Martin, Jennifer, Michelle, too many others to name, you guys continue to be awesome. Interpersonal moments and little moments and big moments and all kinds of win and I didn’t want it to end.
• “Tag. You are IT.”
  ++ Being told I was mental by Isca.
  +++ to be fair, I am

[CogGirl]

Copied from the book of many faces, so may not be the most coherent thing, but hey!

TL;DR version: Kyrop’s Leash had an awesome first event, even with our tragic losses on Saturday. Many thanks to everyone who gave us recommendations on where to go and what to see. Fest Larp bug well and truly caught, huzzah.

HOTS:

• Saturday’s weather
• The sheer scale of Anvil, and the distinct character of each camp. It hit us in ways we really didn’t expect, coming from small local systems; having someone die, and the rest of the world continue, was a lovely sort of poignant
• Being taken under the wing of the Blackwatch, both ooc and ic. You’re a fabulous bunch and the Leash look forward very much to our continued adventures
• The Wittal Tree and the taking on of unfinished skeins. Shevek, you were wonderful
• Taking to the field for the first time in ages, and at a scale we’d never experienced before. Fortunately the Blackwatch again looked out for us poor n00bs, and it turns out Andy has sharp eyes and a loud voice and we love him for it
• Leif (Christopher) making his name during said battle, and being told by others that his skein would be fixed that evening. As a group of Frayed this was a Massive Deal and all kinds of glorious
• The roleplay that came off the back of the disasterous skirmish when we lost both Leif and Minkai (Andy). The pub-crawl in honour of Leif, heading to the Applewood to let them know he wasn’t shunning them and to the Brazen Paradour to complement his favourite barmaid one last time was particularly lovely, and finding out that the money made from the Drinks On Leif had gone to the hospital as promised made me good-tearful
• Monstering! Being nasty orcs was a lot more fun than I was expecting, being used to systems where we’re disposable mooks for the players to steamroller. Fighting intelligently, having a clear command structure, and roleplaying with each other was Glorious. Special shout-outs to the rest of Team Evil, the healer in the bloody apron who kept picking me up (particular love for the moment when you decided both my kneecaps had ended up on the wrong side of my legs. Ouch ouch ouch) and the anatomy lesson at the battle’s end (“The spleen is very hard to find, but fortunately for us this is a traitor orc so it’s a nice bright yellow!”)
• The bars. OH SO MANY BARS.
• The children! Having them wandering around really made Anvil feel like a real place. Special shout-outs for the enterprising Academy students who sold us friendship bracelets and the Brass Coast boy Artorio (?) who was very charming when we visited the campfire late at night, telling me about his scorpion shield and his plans for international diplomacy when he becomes emperor
• Gifts from the lovely herald of Lashanar (?)! Being mistaken for heralds ourselves, firstly when Andy was wearing my skull-helm (a call of “What the fuck is that?” from the first people we met IC is the best entrance we could have made, I suspect) and secondly when we naga were lounging around the Brass Coast!
• ‘Helping’ the situation in the Brass Coast by suggesting we knew some 'markers who’d happily ‘pre-emptively defend’ them against Highguard if necessary
• The fudge shop, and the beautiful cambion ladies with the delicious chocolates and gingerbread
• Curry Knights pancakes.

NOTS:

• The Muddening
• Leif and Minkai dying. SUCH FEEL. MANY SADDEN. WOW.
• Realising once the initial grief had worn off that I’d lost my friendship bracelet in said disasterous skirmish. Damned Thule, wasn’t taking my brother, my bestie and my banner enough?
• Being a little overwhelmed by the scale, and spending a lot of time wandering around orienting myself, so I didn’t get as much roleplay done as I’d have liked, really much more tourism and spectating. The amount of Stormcrow stuff I got done outside of wrangling the Leash can be summed up as “Naff All”. Ah well. I’ll rectify that next time

MISCELLANEOUS:

• I leant out my beloved fox axe to an orc on the Saturday evening, so he could go beat up some Summer Realm beasties, but between monstering and remembering to eat didn’t manage to catch up with him to get it back, so if anyone can point them in my direction so I can get the axe back next event that would be lovely

[Kingreaper]

+++ My second audience with an Eternal, the first where I actually managed to speak.
++ Artisan list being appreciated (including by said eternal)

• Boon being promised

• Boon not turning up… yet

++ Arguing the merits of buying from slavers.

• Including the merits of buying slaves from slavers.

• Finding someone who has the precise opposite opinion on which of those two is a good thing

• Getting to talk about the death of my faraden family several times (yay for backstory)
  ++ Being Freeborn

• Talking about the Skarsind situation a lot

• Failing to catch any of the Barrens/Skarsind related plot directly

+/- Overhearing someone getting killed, and not having the Courage (nor the weaponry) to do anything about it.

• The only audible part being the “executing” call, so I was a little torn as to whether I was even IC aware (but other’s started reacting so I followed their lead)
  ++ The fallout from that murder is going to be interesting

++ Longest day being cloudy but not rainy
– Taking leaky tent down in the rain

• Mud buildup on the final day
  – OC illnesses and other problems caused/exacerbated by weather

[spineyrequiem]

HOTS

• Saturday’s weather. Oh, it was lovely.
• Getting an excellent introduction to LARP. It really was rather pleasant wandering around with everyone in character. Also, knowing that what I did had wider consequences. Helped that people were so welcoming, too.
• Someone offering to help me out with my business, as well as assuring me of its legality.
• Getting repeatedly rescued from the brink of death by various healers. Especially entertaining was the sheer variety of methods used, I had at least three used on me in the first battle…
• The time I spent in the hospital after fighting.
• People joining in on the songs I wrote (or rather, re-wrote). It does show a wonderful attitude amongst the players that they’re willing to go with what a total stranger is singing.
• Chatting to people in the pub, especially when I was working as barman. Learnt a lot about the world and, I think, made some friends.
• Pit fighting with one of the orcs. I don’t who you are, and I may have tortured you to death the next morning, but you’re an excellent show fighter and I want to buy you a drink. And possibly fight you again. I’ll make sure to lose this time.
• Then fighting a Wintermark woman over a wolf mask. OK, I got beaten quite soundly, but it was fun and I think fairly entertaining to watch. The free massage afterwards was nice too. I want to buy you a drink too.
• Monstering as Navarr villagers (ish) against the Navarr and Brass Coast. While it’s a bit cruel, I did enjoy watching their bafflement increase as we refused to negotiate, took pot shots at them and accused them of trying to turn us into husks. Healing people up when they went down was also great, people dealt remarkably well with me rubbing grass and dried earth on them then wafting them up with a feather. My personal highlight has to be the moment when a few players got a bit too close and so we decided to sally forth. With one hit, one working hand and one purpose I charged out, practically unarmoured, at a girl in full plate with a shield and sword, waving my axe and screaming. She backed off. We won that battle, which I don’t think we were meant to, but ah well…
• Reading the part of Tilda in part 2 of ‘The Sweetness in Cider’. Bad erotica read in thick Mummerset accents is always entertaining.
• Monstering as a Druj torturer, recently promoted to doctor, in the Sunday battle. I think “Let’s see about them toesies!” became my catchphrase for that morning. I’d also say that few things are more entertaining than hacking away at someone while a bumblebee distributes traumatic wounds like candy. Victims/patients (I wasn’t particularly discriminating) all reacted brilliantly, wish I’d stuck with one rather than wandering around because I’m told they got steadily more entertaining as the torture progressed (apparently one girl died screaming how she was going to meet her lost love and singing a Dawnish battle song). Shame the ogres kept eating them just when it was getting fun…
• Spending the end of the event having a bad pun session in the pub. Particularly nice when those who’d promised to come back actually made good on it, I’d honestly been assuming they’d forgotten…

NOTS

• Mud. I wore authentic medieval shoes all event, and though I only slipped over a couple of times it was a close-run thing, and my feet were soaking and covered in mud by the end of the event. Along with half my kit…
• Losing the ribbon for my Butcher’s Bill in the Marcher skirmish. I need to get better at tying knots.
• The number of admiring looks dropping rapidly as the event went on. Next time, I’m booking shower time. And possibly bringing a shaving kit.
• Realising that at least two of the Dawnish we were torturing to death had come round our pub that weekend, and one of them had been a potential good friend . Still, they died well (missing all limbs and singing for one and bleeding from the head while an ogre munched on her guts for the other, from what I could tell)

[LauraH1]

Gosh. Well. Yes. Such event. Such feels. Such… mud.

I’m still trying to process how I feel about everything.

Agnieszka came on the field intending to be, essentially, an R&R character while I got a feel of what I wanted to play after 18 months on the other side of the hedge. The year that followed has knocked me off of my feet. She has become So Much More than I ever intended, and each event I have been more and more pleased with who she is and what she is doing.

Managing to actually get Marad to Anvil, and getting him in a True Liao Vision was the culmination of everything, in a way. I’m still trying to figure out what to do next. The desire to come on Terminal on Sunday was really, really strong; to make this huge upward trajectory finish on my terms.

But I didn’t. I’m going to have to find out what she will do next.

So yes. Such feels.

• Mud. Getting little sleep I can cope with, but Sunday’s rain and the ensuing mud really ruined the entire day for me. Apologies for some of my weaker roleplay interactions of this character.
• I found myself repeatedly slipping to ICish this event. I’m not really sure why it happened but it bugs me. It could well have been tiredness and I apologise again for those people who found me at some of my less good moments.
• Not having the chance to read my spiritual wound card properly or physrep it properly. It’s nobody’s fault, it was just the way it went, but I didn’t really have as much chance as I wanted to really get into that. P.S. If anyone still has the lammy for that I would love to know what was written inside it.

+Marad. Marad, Marad, can you hear us, Marad? What can you see, Marad? Come back to us, Marad. <3
Oh wow. Wow. Thank you, Adam, for being everything we could have hoped for. For providing such a fantastic ending to a year of trying to make this happen. I so hope that Marad is able to take the field in the future, even if he comes to seek revenge.
On that note, Torgus (?), Marad’s husband - well done mate, I think you had a really tough brief and you performed admirably. Holding hands with you and Marad was really intense while we tried to pull him out of it.

+So much feels at the amount of effort and work that people put in trying to save us. Thank you to you all, and thank you to the surprisingly huge amount of people who took the time to seek Aga out and tell her how important she was to them.

+While initially I was OC a little disappointed at a Wisdom anointing that removed a lot of Aga’s emotion (let’s face it, I play Aga to emote) but once I got into it I realised that putting my affairs in order and saying goodbye to people ‘just in case’ while quiet and calm could well be a fun roleplay thing. And so it was.

+TESTIMONY on my soul, yeah yeah yeah . Sorry to OberonMark whom I didn’t really give a great RP experience for, I was aiming for IC Pride but I think it just sounded like I slipped OC. I’ll keep working on that.

+Singing with Ellie in the Hub. I miss you guys, you know. I love Aga, and I love being busypriest, but I miss Dawn singing a LOT.

+The amount of times people came actively searching priests to help them with something. That’s just what I want to happen! More seeking out of priests, please!

+That anointing with the chap in the mask on Saturday. Seriously, that was a wonderful bit of roleplay (although I was OC a little afraid for your teeth when you started trying to tear your mask apart!). I don’t know who you are IC but Aga is Proud to have made a difference to your life. You were fab. And you won’t have known it but you were fantastic practice for the whole True Liao Vision that was going to happen later that day.

-Snapping at someone on Sunday morning for trying to find a priest of Courage to testimony their soul when their own priest was right there. I was out of sorts and I should have been kinder. Sorry about that. I really hope your priest had the Testimony skill and that they got some cool RP out of it though.

+/- Gatekeepers. I love you all, you know? Even when we are disagreeing. The minus is there though because I feel like Aga isn’t contributing much at the moment (and while walking out of the meeting on Saturday was completely the right thing to do, she’s still sad that it was the right thing to do, if that makes sense). There’s still so much to do but Aga is going to get proxies and don’t worry, even if/when she steps down or is revoked she won’t abandon you. She won’t let her replacement burn out the way she is burning.

-Not being able to attend the Varushkan monster slot (because there was no way I was going to miss my Vision, I think that’s a really good reason but I’m still a bit sad). Apparently it was a pretty poor showing from Varushka which is a disappointment.

-Missing the Courage Assembly meeting. It was nobody’s fault but it was frustrating to turn up to an empty tent in Wintermark, and get to Highguard too late as well.

-Spending most of the fight on Saturday simply trying to make sure that my banner didn’t hit anyone in the face. Lesson learnt: don’t take that on the field.

+Virtues Say Do It. I’m sorry, I can’t hear your doubt over my Virtue.

+/- Feeling like the decision to keep Aga alive was driven by lack of time, rather than my real decision (that’s not anyone’s fault, that’s just short event syndrome). On the plus side, boy would I have missed her.

So, yes. Lots of hots, quite a few nots, but overall A+, would come to Empire again.

[Fennius]

Hots:

-Spiral, and getting to be an angry urizen stomping around prophesising doom

• Plan A, the nation goes rogue and takes half the Empire with us. Plan B we go even more rogue and nuke the Grendel from orbit. We’re Menos’ little psychos.

-Speaking of, was told I made a pun worthy of the Eggregore in its terribleness
grin emoticon

-Scrying for fear cultists (apparently we have interesting results
smile emoticon
)

-Chatting some more with the shuttered lantern

-Cale and Thor’s trial

-Getting to be the angriest I’ve been IC as a result of said trial and getting to march around Anvil with my murder face on
smile emoticon

-Curses in conclave!

-Coming up with a ritual called Wrath of the Magpies. Okay the end result meant that I just got given my projection from last season, but I’ll try again with a different intent because the concept is too good not to try and use.

• exhausting all our mana at the last minute (literally), putting massive shrouds on Zenith and Madruga

• This also completes my earliest character goal of putting a huge shroud somewhere we’re not even doing anything just so they can wonder what it is we’re hiding (If we get invaded by everyone on the general principle that we must be doing something dodgy, it’s not my fault!)

• Following on from this, when I told him the magnitudes we did I BROKE THE WARMAGE’S FACE!

Nots:

• The weather, of course

• Tent leakage causing everything to be made of soggyness

• Cale and Thor’s trial. Magistrates ignoring witness statements made me nicely angry IC, which is good, but was OC annoying as well, at least a little. Not to the point of making an actual OC complaint imo, but enough to be miffed about. Farewell Cale, you magnificent bastard.

• Spent pretty much until Saturday evening feeling like I once again hadn’t really managed to DO anything, and had just been standing around near other people doing the cool stuff. Fortunately we then got to do some cool stuff.
  smile emoticon
  Not helped by initially losing a bit of kit, but then helped later by miraculously managing to find it!

[Mark_Wilkin]

HOTS

Failing entirely to notice one of my chapter acting out of character and having the chance to go ‘hang on perhaps I should Insight’. Asher is docked vigilance points.

Failing with my revocation was hard IC, but it gives me another excuse to play politics in HG harder. That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and all that. Lobbying the HG Synod was fun.

Highguard politics over relinquishing Britta’s relics was also excellent hood up srs bsns late on Saturday, first time when that’s really clicked for me. Then marching the entire Highguard Synod into the Hub for a vote and passing it to applause from people there was very pleasing.

Felix’s Watch is made of love as ever, but I missed the folk who weren’t around.

Our camp getting a five star review in the Pledge, we’re going to frame that .

Courage assembly are still super cool, despite them almost voting me out in the Election .

Popping my head into the Seven Mirrors tent for a quick hello and stumbling out at 4am to see light on the horizon .

Helping Catalina with a problem, despite the fact I was her second choice .

Hearing about the results from Igraine, Gabriel and Yale’s True Liao Visions, all of them sound properly awesome, properly revelatory whether on a world or personal level.

Then dealing with the fallout Marrad’s vision, losing a visionary and almost losing a guide too. Thank you to Adam and the fella playing his husband for an amazing experience. Powerful and character defining stuff on all sides.

Standing in the dark with Livia and Espehelo alternating between incoherence and flailing about censored.

Doing an inquisition in Wintermark with a slight edge of “is everything going to kick off?” was fun. That one’s going to run and run.

Seeing sballuk (see above) having fun at his first Empire and hooking up with Felix’s Watch, Chiara has a new partner in crime. NOTHING WILL GO WRONG WITH THIS.

Having a fascinating quiet chat about comparative religion with the Asevean Envoy interrupted by Curse-a-palooza. That was exciting .

Bumping into Clarice and seeing her new face “I…You…WE NEED TO TALK” then getting to have that conversation. Also her all over Naga makeup was amazing .

In a related note having an outraged conversation with a Dawnish fellow in the Mandowla’s about why ‘going Briar’ was not the correct response to feeling a bit tired after a battle was hilarious fun.

Getting my first battlefield command in any larp I’ve played in and bringing all mine home alive (by the skin of their teeth in two cases). Going in thinking we were going to be being roving skirmishers and relief forces, then being flung into a gate attack first off was quite a bracing experience. Then thanks to Mark’s quick thinking us actually being able to carry off getting into the fort was awesome.

Giving Reesha a Courage anointing that let to fabulous life choices, would totally do that again .

Hearing about Felice’s death and just having to sit down for a moment with grief.

Levitia giving me some excellent and hopeful news and generally being the very soul of efficiency organising stuff. Really helped me end the event on a high note. Fun times planned for next event now .

NOTS

Not managing to make our monster slot was

Weather was a little Meh, but it clearing during takedown was very welcome.