Quad War 2011

[jamesq]

This was the best Quad War I've ever been to. It certainly removed the "meh" taste left in my mouth after A/T War, and fulfilled a lot of the promise of Dragonslayer.

othelianna and I left fairly early on Thursday and had a pleasant drive up to the site, arriving around three in the afternoon. we found halfdane866 and hislittlekitty at the northern fringe of Seawolf Bay and set up camp with them, taking numerous rest breaks to take advantage of the good company and beer.

I brought both of my tents. One was designated for the three-five people I was expecting to show up without camping gear. Only one person took advantage of it initially. Had I known, my packing would have been less stressful.

Thursday was one of my designated drinking days. Long-time readers know that I've got a problem with depression, especially at events like Quad War - this is often a case of triggering events, high expectations and the long-term depressive effects of alcohol. Preparation was the key - I know that alcohol can be a problem, and since I'm not going to teetotal, I planned on only drinking on alternate nights. Since The Grotto party was going to be one of those nights, Thursday was going to be the other. Was I successful? I did, in fact, only drink on Thursday and Saturday. However, there are other things that can set me off. More on that later.

A storm blew through the site that evening and left everything damp and cool, which was nice.

Friday saw a brief trek into Wainwright for supplies. I also participated in the Populous Shoot, giving 5 of 6 arrows to Prince Aiden. Later I watched Wench Wars, which is always fun. Avacal has some talented wenches.

Also on Friday, I met Armonn, a visitor from Northshield who was traveling with haasiophis, an offhand comment that he would be quizzed on people's identities when he was being introduced to a table full of people led to him introducing everyone at the table to everyone else at the table. Throughout the event we would see him riffing on this - "X, have you met my good friend Y?" I'm inordinately proud of starting that. Later I was talking to othelianna (who had not met Armonn yet) about it. "You should totally walk up to the guy and start talking to him like you've met - I'll point him out to you." Later we did just that, to humorous effect, which led to him and Rosie hanging out for several chunks of the event.

Saturday I spent the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon running the archery range, which I had volunteered for. I set Osric to run the line a few times since he's getting close to qualifying for his junior Target Archery Marshall-ate. Also chatted with a lot of the Cold Keep archers, meeting some and getting to know others better. I like that bunch a lot. They seemed to like me too, which is cool, especially since I Robin-Hooded one of their arrows in competition at A/T War, which led to some teasing.

Unfortunately, I touched the edge of heat stroke. I was going strong until about 1:30, and then exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks. I pounded back two liters of water, had a couple ibuprofen and took a nap for an hour, which seemed to nip it in the bud.

Waking up I grabbed some supper and then went to see hislittlekitty's marriage to Hrothgar. It was a sweet ceremony with some well thought out vows. I especially like this one (paraphrasing, since I didn't write the exact quote at the time dammit): "I'll help you become the person you want to be when all you can see is the person you're not."

I cried a little.

Also, I had too much cake, but I couldn't help myself, it was delicious.

The Investiture of the Prince and Princess occurred and the call of the noobs yielded an unheard of 87 people!

I started my drinking back at the Seawolf/Montengarde encampment. There was a mini-court put on by our beloved Baron and Baroness, which included a challenge from Dovershire against House Fine Lame. Mostly funny, but it could have been better if they'd given the Fine Lames a bit more warning, instead of just yanking them into court and expecting them to be good sports. Shit like that has the potential to go spectacularly wrong, but thankfully the Fine Lames aren't as neurotic as I am, so it was received mostly in the spirit it was intended. I look forward to the monthly challenges, and made some suggestions to HE Beothuk on a good final challenge. If he uses it I will laugh and laugh!

Strangely, by the weird geography used in court and my proximity to falashad's house, I'm now a Fine Lame. Not really - the dress code would kill me.

Later I went to watch Lost Viking Court. This was more Fraternity Froshing with a patina of court tradition painted over it. I had mixed feelings about it at the time, mostly because I wouldn't put up with how they treat their thralls (pledges) for longer then about two seconds. But then I'm not a thrall, and the thralls must think the shit and abuse is worth it. Also they made one of the thralls do something spectacularly dangerous (like life-threateningly dangerous), but I was told later that he was under constant supervision, which alleviates my concerns somewhat.

Of course, despite my issues, Lost Viking Court was pretty damn funny and full of suBtext.

After that I went to the Grotto for a few hours. It was pretty fun, I managed to catch up with quite a few people (among them, wee_megan). I also got my exercise by trying to get danceintheabyss back to her tent - twice.

Sunday was the Iron Arrow Challenge and the Principality Archery Championship. The former I arrived in the nick of time and managed to shoot awesomely! I also had a lot of fun at it. Sadly, Viscount (formerly Prince) Aiden's team did not prevail, but I'm happy that my shooting kept them to a draw. Seriously, each team of six did five timed ends and it ended up a tie.

I can only conclude from this that Avacal archers never lose, so if you pit them against each other, they shoot to a stand-still.

Sadly, the Principality Archery Championship sucked. We have two champions of the sword, why the hell can't we have two champions of arrow?

I shot... OK on the target shoots - certainly not enough to win, though I might have knocked another fellow's arrow out of the bulls-eye when I Robin-Hooded it, preventing him becoming Iron Arrow.

Then we sat in the blazing sun while we one-by-one used unfamiliar combat equipment to race through the castle. Fun if you know what the fuck you're doing - not so much if you don't. While I waited the topic once again turned to the pros and cons of assorted branches. Leading to a bit of deja vu with Prince Toryn:

"Montengarde is the fun barony," I say.
"Then what is Borealis," asks Toryn?
"We've been through this already at Estrella."
"We did? Was I drunk?"
"I don't know - do you turn into a chatterbox when you're drunk?"
Princess Eva and three other people simultaneously respond, "Yes he does!"
"You were drunk."

Finally it was my turn. I sucked really really badly. And then a friend gives me a "good effort, good effort", which along with the heat and bad placing sent me spiraling down for a nice hour of depression. I fucked off away from civilized people for awhile to try and nap it off. Unfortunately, when it's 37C out, napping in a tent is out of the question. I think I laid there for an hour thinking "I'm dying - this heat will literally kill me", but I had no energy to do anything about it and just stayed put. When the tunnel-vision and seeing-stars started I crawled out of the tent, dunked my head in the (formerly) ice water in my cooler, grabbed a drink and sat under halfdane866's Bedouin and slowly recovered.

"This heat is messing me up - I should just go sit in the car with the air-conditioning on full-blast for awhile."
"so do that."
"That's a waste of fuel - I can't justify it unless I had a reason to go for a drive."

We sat there for a few more minutes.

"Fuck it, I'm going for ice cream."
"I'm in", said Rosie.

45 minutes to the Dairy Queen in LLoydminster and 45 minutes back kept me from stabbing others or myself. It was still stinking hot when I got back but at least I had gotten past the worst of it, depression averted by an hour and a half of Rosie's company in a nice cool car with a Scor Blizzard.

Selected other ladies had ice cream delivered to them; And my motives weren't entirely ulterior!

Other highlights of the evening include a truly bawdy song by Berelis, hearing the tale of Kwan Jinn's political marriage to Anabelle Hastings, uniting the warring houses of the Mad Spaniards and the Huscarles. Now if only we can heal the schism between Dovershire and the Fine Lames so easily. Is Pier Francesco of age yet? And who would we marry him to?

I was all prepared to hang out at assorted fires that night, but a wrath-of-god prairie thunderstorm rolled through the site, bringing a lot of wind and a fabulous light show, but little moisture (a small mercy). I was in my tent when it started and hearing others rushing around keeping tents from breaking apart. What else could I do but go out and help? We had to deliberately collapse some tents to keep their poles from snapping. Others came down all on their own. Faelin managed to clock himself with a frying pan. We knew his sense of humour was intact when he said "For a minute there I thought I was still with my ex-wife".

That extra tent I brought? Ended up sheltering one lady who's tent had collapsed. The assorted parties around the site? Mostly cancelled, though I think there was still a party going on at Dante's. I'm mildly annoyed that I didn't get to Pirate Palooza, but not too too annoyed as I was still having a lot of fun at the time!

Next morning I got up surprisingly early (6:30) and wandered down to Tosh's for breakfast. After eating I went back to camp and started tearing things down for the trip back home. Assorted ladies helped me along the way, including completely packing down the second tent without me having to help! That shaved about an hour off my time and I'm grateful for that.

As usual, tearing down at Quad War comes with numerous pleasant interruptions from good friends saying their goodbyes. I eventually got the car packed (surprising the ladies who didn't know what my pack-fu skills are like) and we took off to the Highway Traffic Cafe in Wainwright for the after-meal. We met some people there and others joined us, showing that this tradition is growing each year. I like that since it's a decent little restaurant. Good food, good friends, good gossip - what's not to like?

The ride home was largely uneventful. We stopped in Killam for ice cream (and I hid a note in the urinal that has been broken for the last three years running, just to see if it will be there next year), stopped in Hanna to keep from falling asleep and wended our way through Drumheller just to look at the Bentonite.

Since it's all the rage to GBU an event, I'll do so here even though you can figure out what I liked by reading the narrative.

Good:

• Traveling with othelianna.
  
• Hanging out with danceintheabyss.
  
• The Grotto party.
  
• Camping with the Seawolves and Montengarde.
  
• Assorted mini-courts.
  
• Drinking my face off with Monte Sidro.
  
• My good friend Armonn.
  
• Not having to prepare any of my own meals.

Bad:

• Heat stroke on Saturday afternoon.
  
• Shooting like ass in the Championship.

Ugly:

• A thankfully brief encounter with depression.
  
• 37C on Sunday afternoon. God Daaaaaaamn!

Best. Quad War. Ever.

Next year, more of what I did that was fun, less depression, and let's try to break 750 people. I think we can do it if we really push on Northshield, Artemesia and our own fringers.

Comments

[ishansonofbrand.livejournal.com]

As a Proud, if not delinquent, member of House Fine Lame, I can say that a little notice before hand would have been nice but not required.

We just pray that this challenge goes better then the last. We showed up all prepared and no opponent. It was sad. It can/will be a lot of fun, as long as the jovial spirit of the competition is kept. It is not whether you win or lose, but how silly you can dress your opponent.

Wayne/Cormac.

[whackychick.livejournal.com]

When in doubt, you could always fight amongst yourselves...

[ishansonofbrand.livejournal.com]

I think there is quite enough of that already. Besides, fighting amongst ourselves isn't as satisfying.

[cat-cetera.livejournal.com]

LOL - thank you for including the details about HFL, since none of my official house brothers or sisters have seen fit so far to let me know that this has happened. In fact, I thought my provisional acceptance to join Dovershire was still good. Pier Francesco is almost of age; he has been in the SCA for sixteen years, but I think he might disappoint any potential wife who was hoping for a real man.

[othelianna.livejournal.com]

Haha. From what I saw, your household was taken largely by surprise, and even after court, were all: "Sooo...you wanna play tiddlywinks, or something?"

[haasiophis.livejournal.com]

I'll be doing my part to drag locals down!

[jamesq]

I love this comment because it sounds so much more subversive if you don't know the context!