Hey everyone! First of all, I'd like to apologize profusely for my lack of post last weekend as well as this. I, unfortunately, haven't been especially inspired lately, so writing enough posts to have a good buffer has been difficult for me. Plus I was on a two week vacation to go visit my family and go running around whacking friends old and new with foam swords. Today, I'll be talking about the foam sword whacking.
So, as I've mentioned in a previous post, I'm part of a LARPing group that plays under the rules system for Amtgard. As I have yet to get in touch with my local group, visits home usually include getting myself to every Amtgard meetup possible. This trip around though, I was lucky enough to come during a much larger Amtgard event that includes the whole area as opposed to just my regular group: Feast of Mars. I had never been to an Amtgard event, but my sister had been to Feast of Mars a few years in a row, so between her and my other friends, I was able to get an idea of what it would be like. However, Feast of Mars was way more fun than anything I could have anticipated.
First of all, let me tell you a bit about the event itself before getting into details. Feast of Mars is a two day weekend event, but folks typically show up Thursday (if they can get off work) and leave Sunday morning. Due to the location, everyone brings a tent or similar camping shelter to sleep in at night and meals are provided as part of the event fee. This doesn't stop folks from making their own food over a campfire if they so choose though. Throughout the course of Friday and Saturday, there are a variety of games that players can earn points during that contribute to whether or not they get a prize at the end of the event. (Prizes are donated by attendees and there were a lot, so a good number of people got prizes at the end of things.) I was not present during Friday's games, so I do not know what they were, but Saturday's games were the main focal point of the event (that and getting drunk throughout the day for most people). The theme of the games (as suggested by the name of the event) is based off of Roman coliseums and as such the main players were considered to be slaves. Saturdays games began with group ditches (one fighter or group of fighters against another) out of which the slave traders would select fighters that would then be auctioned off to the slave owners. After being selected, players then grab a tabard in the correct color for their team and tell their name (character name, not real one) to a book keeper. After all the people who want to play in the games have been chosen, the teams get together in their team's pavilion for a briefing by their new owners as well as being selected for the various games. Some games had all players participate while others just had two or three players. A couple of examples are the Meatgrinder and Drawn and Quartered. In Meatgrinder, all players participate. One of the reeves (who proctor the game and make sure there isn't foul play) shouts out random numbers from one to 15 (the max number of slaves in this year's games). When a slave's number is called, they grab their weaponry of choice and go out onto the field to fight any other players on the field. This continues until all numbers are called. There can be multiple slaves from the same team on the field at once as the goal is merely to eliminate the other team's players. In Drawn and Quartered, two teams go up against each other with two players each. Both team's players must have one hand on a wooden handle that is attached to their teammate's wooden handle by a bit of rope. If one player lets go, their team loses and if both players from a team die they lose. There were a number of other games (I can't remember all their names) and once they were all finished, everyone went to go fight some more in ditches, shower, or just hang out and chat until dinner was served. During dinner, a suckling pig was brought out and presented to the king before the top fighters and teams were announced and prizes were chosen. After dinner, there was a bardic circle, more ditching, s'mores, games, and pretty much whatever people chose to do. In the morning, it was packup time as well as time for goodbyes and starting the countdown to the next Feast of Mars.
Now that I've gone over the logistics, let me tell you about my personal experience. My sister, her boyfriend, and I all left later than originally anticipated, got lost, and showed up super late at night (I didn't check my phone for the time). Fortunately, there were still people awake and they kindly offered to help us with tent setup and chatted with us for a bit before the three of us headed to sleep. And then my brain decided I was still on East coast time and woke me up at 8 in the morning. Which coincidentally was about the time they called breakfast, so I got my groggy self up to eat before the games. Which were pretty darn fun. I spent a lot of the day running around, passing notes for my owner, grabbing stuff, and occasionally shouting war cries and leaping into the fray. Then walking out because I was most definitely dead (I have pictures confirming this). After the games were all done, I ended up seeing a friend get a new belt from the family he's under (knighty stuff or summit (unsure of the rules on this stuff)), took a shower, put on my corset (finally got an underbust!) and proceeded to eat a lot more than I expected to be able to with a corset on and laced somewhat snugly. After dinner, I ended up following a new friend and discovered I happened to end up at the same fire pit they decided to do a bardic circle at. I ended up singing a song I learned from my mom years ago called The Queen of Air and Darkness as well as Fallout Boy's Lullaby and enjoyed hearing all of the talented singers and instrument players. After things were dying down at the bardic circle, I went in search of a friend and found him and several others playing a game called Angry Germans. Which I ended up being boss at. To quickly describe the game, you have two people, blindfolded, each with a slightly weighted sack who have to keep one hand on a leather ottoman (or box or whatever you have) and take turns asking each other if they can hit each other with their sacks in funny accents, then make an attempt to hit the other person with their sack after receiving permission. Whoever gets hit three times loses. And my sister happened to be in the group, so I got to go against her and beat her too. XD
Overall, I had a really fun time and hope to go again next year if I can. :)
Check out my facebook: facebook.com/CelesteChoCho
Peruse my wares (New items up!): animelolitacouture.storenvy.com
Let's face it, my Twitter is very dead: @animlolicouture
No comments:
Post a Comment