Review: Feast of the Dead
[09/03/2002] [jewishjedi]Well, here it is, a few days after one of the best Amtgard events that I’ve been to. It had everything you could want in an event: battlegames, roleplay, tourneys, great food, and good friends. What event could this be, you ask? Only the Feast of the Dead run by the Barony of the Crystal Groves. Here’s what I remember from it. We got there Friday around 3-ish and began setting up our tent and unloading the car. There was a little bit of ditching going on, and Lady Angela was busy being interviewed by the local NBC station. After unloading I went about trying to find as many people I knew as possible. I found a lot of old friends already there, and made a few new ones. Next I decided that I wanted a little bit of fighting time, so I headed over to the ditching area. I did a few rounds with my friend Aiden, and shortly after that more people started to get involved (including some great fighters all the way from Canada). We did a few free-for-all rounds, and then broke it up into teams. We probably ditched for an hour and a half. Ditching ended as more and more people started showing up and we all had to get out of the way. We also all started looking for more friends and aiding in setting up their tents. Sometime between 6ish and 7ish soup was on and we all went inside to eat. My girlfriend and I had to put our dog in the car while we ate so she wouldn’t rip our tent to shreds. Thankfully it was nice and cool out and the dog was okay, though a few people asked about her and we were grateful for their care. After soup it was getting dark out, so most of us there started our nighttime drinking and revelry. The ditch-monkeys kept going at it while it was dark out, and someone (I forget his name) got whacked pretty badly in his eye, though by the end of the event he was looking a bit better. The drinking and general mischief carried well into the night, and eventually I found myself asleep in my tent. Sometime too close to 7:30 the evil day-star shined in through my tent wall and awoke me. Groggily I got dressed and stumbled to the building for some warmth and morning munchies. After that I got put on doggie duty and had to clean up after her (ewewew). Some light ditching went on while we waited for the Wardancers to cook up their patented breakfast burritos. After eating, fighting went into full force, and some buzzards were seen circling the camp, which was just a bit on the creepy side. Xolan explained to us the difference in wing shapes between buzzards and hawks. Later I had a conversation with him about dog riding jousting monkeys. Around 11 or so a company flag battle was thrown together. I joined up with the random Amtgarders team. We fought for about 45 minutes before the Amazon slave auction came along and invaded our field. Tristan bought Artemis Widowmaker and made him the fourth Twin Lakes bitch. The Twin Lakes bitch concept goes back two years to when we all pooled our money to buy Henrick and made him wear the Twin Lakes tabbard. When anybody asked where he got such a nice tabbard he was told to respond “I’m Twin Lakes’s bitch”. Special thanks to Artemis for being such a good sport. After the slave auction we finally got around to weapons checking. Garth, Balthizar, Father Roland, and Father Wolfston did the checking, and then passed the checked weapons on to me to mark them. Note: Squire Wolfen has way too many wepaons. After this, things got broken into two groups. Some people went off with Wolfen, Dervish, and me for the class game that we ran. We had about 30 people join up for the living vs. dead battle. The dead team was made up of half undead monsters and half mercs (playing their classes). The game ran very well, and I’d like to thank everyone that joined in. This was one the most fun times I’ve had in Amtgard While we ran the class game the other half of people there went to the last chance Battle for the Cure tourneys. Battle for the Cure was a huge tourney where groups would run a tournament, and then the winner of those tournies came to Feast of the Dead for the final bout. The last chance games were for one last chance to join in the big game. Next came the Final Battle for the Cure. The best of the best fighters were in this game. I saw some great fighting during these fights, and a little bit of bad reeving. Squire Wolfen and Sir Darva squared off against each other in the sword and board portion. There was some furious swinging, Sir Darva called dead. The reeves put their heads together and then check the instant replay (yes they had cameras) and they handed the fight to Darva. Wolfen got a little bit upset with this call, and I for one think it was a very bad call. Cyan took first in the single sword and weapon of choice segments. Man-at-Arms Zoltan took first at Sword and Board. And Squire Lord Kail took first in the Polearm segment. Over-all, Cyan took first place in the Battle for the Cure tourney, with Zoltan taking second and Kail third place. Congratulations to all who took place in the Tournament. After the tourney, we all went and got ready for feast and court. We chained the dog up outside the tent and then went inside for the feast. Lady Page Deltoria gave the presentation to the Cystic Fibroses Foundation and gave them a check for around $3,800. (By the end of the weekend, there ended up being well over $4,000.) Then came the feast. The cooks that they had for this were amazing! This was easily some of the best food I’ve ever had. They then held court. There weren’t many awards given out, but among them were a kingdom-level owl to Garth for the beautiful tabbard he made for Sir Angrist and Man-at-arms Surus being made Squire Surus to Sir Sanchez. During the slave auction, Sir Balthazar and Weazel bought Wolfen, Sanchez, and another guy whose name escapes me. And at court Balthazar and Weazel gave them each some lashings. The look on Wolfen’s face when he got hit was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in Amtgard. After court we all went and got ready for the Elven Court. I went around before the elf court started and passed out all the protective enchantments I could. Bob the hill giant asked to be speaker to the giants (and I think he was given the position). Sir Balthazar gave High Finvara Sir Vasa an elven weapon, and told him that his blood war with someone was going to expand to the elves. Artemis was seen outside the court trying to cause some troubles. The Saracens present chased him down, but he got the better of them due to his stoneskins. The surviving Saracens got Omm to come and resurrect their fallen companion, I fallowed along for magical support just in case. We ran into Artemis on our way back and began to engage him when Wolfen cam running at him in Werewolf form and took care of Artemis. We went back to court where Whysper and another demon were addressing the court, but they disappeared before I found out what was going on. It was later discovered that Weazel’s Great Dane Diamond had gotten out of his tent. We broke up into search parties and went looking for her. She was found shortly thereafter, and Saturday’s drunken debauchery then began. Around 7ish on Sunday the evil day-star got to me again. I did the regular morning stuff and then took my turn at doggy duty. I pulled the car over to the tent to pack up, took down the tent, and made myself ready to depart. Once we were all ready, we went into the building for breakfast and then spent the next hour saying our good-byes. We left around 1ish, and were home by 3. I just wish the weekend hadn’t been so short. Oh well, there’s always next year.
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