August 25, 2013

Click on the Joining Amtgard link above to learn more about joining our park!

All told, 11 people braved the heat and the insane humidity to gather under Valley of Smoke's majestic green tent this week. The proud warriors gathered to slug it out in various combat situations, and learn a little while they were at it.

But it was also a week of sadness, as the group gathered to bid farewell to our loyal Lord Tungdil Blackforge. Last weekend, he was presented with his Lord title for serving as group monarch for the past year. He returned home to the Valley of Smoke to bid his dearest companions a fond farewell as he sets out on his adventure for college.

Lord Tungdil has been with Valley of Smoke from the very beginning. As the group started out with just a few foam weapons in the Parkersburg High School gymnasium, he was among the first to pick up his weapon. He was the first to create a shield, and used it to dominate his opponents at the time. As the park grew, and became part of the Amtgard kingdom of Crystal Groves, Lord Tungdil stayed with us throughout it all.

Our day started out by setting up our little camp and getting suited up for our first class battle. It was the standard mutual annihilation class game, with magic users and melee fighters alike taking the field for a 25 life pool game. After much sweating and a lot of fun, we retreated to our tent for a water break.

After serving as our sheriff for the past two terms, Lord Tungdil officially stepped down from his position in order to go off to college. But, before he did, Lord Tungdil handed out some well-earned awards in an impromptu awards ceremony. The awards were as follows:

Riken Eclipse - Second Order of the Smith

Lord Tungdil Blackforge - Second Order of the Warrior

Prada Forell - Second Order of the Rose

Henry Greatwing - Second Order of the Owl

Lord Tungdil's award was a surprise even to him. Henry Greatwing took the honor of handing that particular well-deserved award out.

Once we were finished with awards, we took to the field again to play a game that Henry Greatwing brought back with him from the Black Carnival event a few weekends ago. One large bouncy ball in the center of the field, one scoring goal on each side. The concept of the game was simple: take the ball to the other team's goal. Sounds a lot like soccer, but add swords and magic spells and chaos ensues.

The game consisted of a lot of running and a lot of tired players. After one team reached a score of three, we retreated to the shade tent again.

Riken hosted a class, telling everyone present about the Arts & Sciences competition that would be at the upcoming Feast of Dead 2013 Kingdom event. She explained not only what types of entries are welcome, but also how the judges will react and what they will be looking for in entries.

After the class, everyone took the field for a bear pit! All the players surrounded Lord Tungdil Blackforge, and one by one, attacked him in traditional style. When it was all over, everyone attacked him at once. Much laughter was had.

We then played a game of ring the bell, giving everyone another good workout. We caught this one on video, which Riken was kind enough to merge into a single video for us. 

After the end of the game, we finally gave in to the heat and packed it in.  Those who had been to college provided Lord Tungdil with all of the helpful advice that we could, and we sent him on his way to join Ruby Hills, and continue fighting the good fight.

August 18th, 2013

Credits have been entered on the brand spanking new Online Record Keeper. Getting all that paperwork settled there will be a big job!

 Nine took to the rainy field today to mainly sit under the pop up, talk, joke, discuss our Althing agenda, and spar a little in the cold rain. Hagari, Prada, Grainmag, Zamorak, and Seran braved the cold and the wet to spar in the rain a bit, but eventually found our way back to the pop up tent to have a drink of water and talk about the upcoming Feast of the Dead kingdom event. Eventually the rain managed to get all of us off of the field and we quickly packed up to head home and wring our clothes dry.

We want to take a moment to wish Prada a speedy recovery after his ACL surgery, and express our sincere, wholehearted, and in no way sarcastic sentiments about his madu missing from the battlefield during his time off.

Thank you for all of you who made it out regardless of the rain and all of those who wanted to make it out but couldn't for whatever reason. I hope to see more and more people out there on the field every week, and I can't wait until next week!

Until then, yours truly,
Hagari

August 11, 2013

On midreign, Hagari was voted in as our new Prime Minister!

11 gathered at the Valley today with a total of 9 on the field. We started off with a simple class annihilation with a life pool of 20. Several madu stabs, entangles, and arrows later, we took a water break and gathered around Riken as she recounted to all of us the tale of "The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces" as an introduction to this years Feast of the Dead theme. 

 Then we went for another class annihilation and another water break before setting the field up for a variant on ring the bell. Two teams were positioned on either side of the bridge that spanned over a fiery chasm with impenetrable flames, with the goal being to ring the bell of the other team that was located on the other side of the bridge. After a best 3 out of 5 match, everyone sat in the shade, discussed different matters, got some water, and decided to wrap things up for the day!

Notes: After a surprise weapon check, two of the park's loaner swords were discovered to be in need of repair, but until then, we still have plenty of other loaners to lend out.

Thank you to everyone who came out and contributed to the mass amount of fun had by all! I hope to see everyone and even more next week!

August 4, 2013 - Midreign!

Thirteen showed up today and many pictures were taken (thanks to the return of our favorite photographer!)

As it was a special day, the middle of our reign, it was a time for celebration and different activities than normal.

We started with a class life pool game, where everyone got a good warm up, and then we jumped into the tournament.

Prada ran the four bracket tournament, with classes in single short sword, Florentine, sword and board, and an open category. Meanwhile, Riken ran a neat archery and spell ball/thrown tournament. She had park trinkets to give as prizes to three winners. The prizes were chosen at random by the winners of each category.

Zwik won the archery tournament and received a Teleportation trinket.
Henry Greatwing won the single short bracket and received a Teleportation trinket.
Tungdil won the spellball/throwie tournament and declined to take the trinket due to it only being of use in our park and he is leaving for Ruby Hills and college. So he chose to give his trinket to one of our newbies, Adahay- who now has a Shadow Step trinket.

After the tournaments we had one more class battle (life pool) and then started on the quest.

Riken opened up a box that contained the deed to the Valley of Smoke... unfortunately a necromancer had stolen it and left a taunting note. Immediately his power possessed two of our park members: Henry and Prada. They fell to the ground screaming or lunged at the sheriff before vanishing.

The heroes found a map leading them up one of the paths, where they encountered Henry and combat ensued - but he was fortified with dark magic (Ancestral Armor of many points). After wounding him, he teleported away and the heroes faced Prada. Eventually he teleported away as well and they found a chest. With it, a map leading them to the second area.

On the way to this second area, they found Henry and Prada seemingly dead on the road. They quickly arose and a fight continued... but

they teleported away again. Next they found them at the entrance to a tower backed up by a possessed Zwik. This wizard put Void Touched on Prada and many people were killed, lives stolen, guts stabbed with a madu. Zwik teleported to the tower and Prada and Henry vanished.

At this point Zwik was forced to face them alone and fought bravely - but fell and vanished. At this point the heroes saw a three headed Hydra rising from their training field at the bottom of the hill. Three heads, long necks, and magic kept the heroes busy but they killed all three heads at the same moment and slew the Hydra.

The pieces of the deed were reunited and all was well with the shire again! The three members of the park who had been mind controlled and had created such a stir awoke from the Hydra's remains, wondering when the quest was going to get underway!

 The day ended with court being held under the shade tent. During this time, the tournament awards were handed out, and the regular awards were issued, some in the form of hand written and drawn scrolls created by Riken.