Moot 1 event report
Quotes may follow later, but for now, it's event report time.
If I can get my head round LJ, for some reason it's hiding what I'm writying right now and so I hope I'm not making too mny mistakes.
Friday
(OOC: We arrived late after a bad journey, to find Iain McNeill kindly offering to help us set up the tent which was hugely appreciated. We later found he had just stopped playing an ancestral manifestation of Celestial - I kinda like the idea that Celestial made a big speech about goodness, nobility and duty, knighted a bunch of people, then went out and helped out people in need).
Sorro and Zachari had both complained of not having any keen, so I had got to work and produced a drink I called Keen: sparkles were a large component, as was sugar syrup, since that gave it the thickness it needed to make the sparkles float. It was remarkably popular, and Rhapsody seemed to start her career as a knight by attempting to stop herself stealing it. Probably fortunately she managed - that was another thing, we’d just missed a Celestial avatar turning up and knighting her and Karen. We also found out that Katja had been killed defending her homestead against something, I didn’t get the details but I was very sad to lose her.
A bunch calling themselves The International Federation of Teutonian Fae, but who were actually demons, turned up and demanded to eviscerate Seraphim for war crimes. Seraphim wasn’t available for evisceration at the time so the point was moot, though some people did try and suggest the Lions arrest and try him instead, mainly in order to keep it away from fae-demon-nutbars, though the calls for it did rather upset Miles. They weren’t very interested though and just attacked us, so with no crime reported we considered the case as officially pointless.
There was a whole lot of discussion and I managed to tick quite a few things off my list (I made a list! When did I turn into the kind of person who makes lists?!?) but I don’t remember anything of world-shattering significance happening, at least not to us. Lenia agreed a final sign off on the attempted murder from the parli which was put on hold to see if the guy had any actual information. There was a stone in the camp which apparently would attract bad guys to come and do rites on it. I suggested putting it under a tent, or the fire pit, or something similar to make it a bit harder to find, but on the whole most people were against the idea. Except the mages’ guild representative, who thought that putting the firepit on top would create some spectacular fireworks, but on the whole it was decided that it was better to just leave it where it was. We met Gaius, a void wibbly who said he’d been created by the Drakken when Karnak united Emmerix and Orst Emmerix. He initially thought Karnak may be his dad, but then toned that down to just midwife. On the whole Karnak is happier about that.
Saturday
Saturday I had completely free to myself. Except of course gate guard first thing and a council meeting since Beron wasn’t there and I needed to talk to the Dragons and there was a muster at 12 and Mayhem’s ritual and I wanted to join the scouts, but that aside my time was my own. So basically added to the things that came up during the day, I was pretty busy.
At the muster I made a pitch to try and persuade people to join the sheriffs. That didn’t seem to get much interest, so I started asking anyone who pattern scanned me at the gate or who made jokes at me about it, and soon numbers were starting to look a bit healthier. Several people even volunteered without being put on the spot.
Council meeting was rather concerning: Lenia explained that there were several problems with the council which she would outline to us later in a written charter and she was going to be supervising council meetings from now on because of this. I’m not sure yet what we do wrong - it seems to be strongly related to the Palmandieb meeting at the parli, so I can’t even assume I wasn’t involved - but hopefully this charter will explain so we can do better. I did feel a bit sorry for Plyers though, since it was only his first day in the job.
I went to the Dragons with Clara, our high ambassador, armed with a note from Meg telling me the name and pronounciation of their high sheriff to see if they wanted any hand in the trial/execution of Corin Draper, a criminal we caught recently who had been intimidating, racketeering and attacking the Dragon refugees a few years ago, and so we’d agreed to make sure he was punished as befits both forms of law. Fortunately that turned out to be death under both our and their systems, so that was pretty straight forward.
Went down to watch Mayhem’s ritual. The ritualist almost immediately called on the power of necromancy and Palmadieb asked me to arrest him. I pointed out that it wasn’t illegal under Lions law for a Viper to do what he wanted to in the marketplace, but I did pay close attention to make sure none of Squad D followed suit. Which they didn’t. Sadly they also didn’t succeed, they awakened Wet and Sticky but not Mayhem.
Miles did a very different kind of ritual, to create a helm of bestial intelligence. It was pretty brave of him, not just because any ritualist is brave, crazy or a bit of both, but also because it'd split the faction so much that not many people wanted to contribute to it, and those that did were a bit nervous from the rumours that they were likely to explode. They didn't (of course), Miles did a ritual that seems to have worked very well, Marinus laughed so hard he couldn't breathe at Webbley's chicken impersonation, and to cut a long story short it worked better than anyone had imagined, let alone anticipated.
The weird stone in the camp got tabarded, surprising very few people, and as Irinaye had declared it to be a“Nublet”, Lancesergent Nublet it was. We found out a bit more about it - it seems it was connected to a minor Tarantula Ancestor called Karath who used to be a handmaiden of Llolth before she got kidnapped and bound into a large stone in the marketplace, and smaller stones in each camp. She’d forgotten who she was through long imprisonment, and so the Tarantulas wanted our help in freeing it. Pretty straightforward and we were glad to help. Karath sent an avatar - a guy, but I guess when you’re forgetting so many other things its not that difficult to forget to check which gender you are - who explained the situation and asked for power and articles of faith to keep it going. So many Lions gave it something they thought would help, be it rage, power, freedom, hope, or the recipe for chocolate martini. We agreed to do a rite to help free it tomorrow, too.
We got word in the evening that there was a major problem with Albion: the King was MIA, the regent likewise, and the attacks on the country were getting insane. Clara and I wanted to go over straight away and Webbley, Moonshadow and two others (sorry, I can’t remember who!) likewise. When we got to the camp there were only half a dozen Harts in sight, but those there were told us they were determined to stick it out and reclaim the land. When we got back to the Lions, there were Harts there looking for somewhere new to live. Information was sketchy and only slowly came together, but it became obvious that Albion was going to be uninhabitable, and as the transport and ritual circles have closed downthen getting people out was going to be tricky. Jericho and Webbley set out to talk to the admirals of all the factions to put together a concerted rescue force.
Then, while most of the faction were out of camp, we got attached by something gribbly. Seriously gribbly. It had a red glowing head and cut through most of the faction like we were paper. Seraphim seemed to be leading a stalwart defence while Ramsey, Beast and others tried to get some help from other factions, but in the end they just seemed to back off after mocking us a bit over how scary they were. I’m happy to testify they were indeed extremely scary.
So scary in fact, that when they caught Webbley and Jericho between camps on their own, they didn’t have a chance. Webbley was saved by the Tarantulas who were able to reach him in time, but when they got to Jericho it was too late. Webbley carried Jericho’s body to the remaining camp to finish their mission to help the Harts, and then they were given an honour guard back to the Lions by the Vipers. Karnak and Tara had already gone to bed (separately, I mean) by the time the news hit: we carried Jericho back to Lantia in the morning and buried him at sea with his guitar and his squid.
Sunday
It turned out the rite the Tarantulas wanted us to do was not just to free the Ancestor, but then to bind her to Llolth, which was rather too close to enslavement for the Lions to be involved. We did the closest we could do to what they asked - a rite to free her, to remind her what she used to be and how loyal she used to feel, and to give her the power to do what she then wanted to about it.
One of the Casino security guys came up asking what Lions law was, and whether they could join. I asked why but I didn’t really follow the explanation, so I just said I’d get a copy over to him, outlined the concept of group law under faction law, and let him run off since he seemed to be in a hurry.
I tried to tell Lenia that this had started but I didn’t do a very good job, since everyone was of course more interested in why this had come up than in what was happening now, which was fair enough but hadn’t occurred to me. I explained that I didn’t know the reasons why this had come up, but I was starting to investigate. Then I explained again. Then I explained to Miles. Then I cracked up and apologised to the next person to get on at me about it that I accepted I had focussed on the wrong thing by trying to solve the problem rather than find out why it arose, I would do it correctly next time but I really needed to finish a sentence at this point. He stormed off. Which is fair enough to be honest, I should have thought to do that and I shouldn’t have been nebby because it’s not an attractive quality, but I was getting rather cranky about not being able to finish what I was saying because I was being called upon to apologise for why I hadn’t finished what I was saying. I don’t know how Rob Norfolk does it, but I’m very glad I’m not covering for the hammer of justice too often.
The end result seemed to be that the Militia had told the Casino they couldn’t be protected in the marketplace because they weren’t a faction or a guild, so that made them fair game. So the Casino were looking to either join or become a faction as their way around this. It sounded like a massive pissing contest so I’m kinda glad not to be closely involved.
Karnak was going down to ritual but in the time between him leaving and me finishing my conversation and heding down after him, we got word that a huge demonic attack was coming in. Since I was meant to be down in the marketplace anyway I volunteered to run down and see if Karnak could come back, or at least hit the demons in the back when he’d finished. I have no idea what was happening with the demons, but there was a huge column of them lined up politely at the gate of the Vipers. They made a concerted and entirely successful effort to freak me out, meaning that I got past, but I wasn’t getting back.
Which was rather frustrating, as Karnak’s ritual was delayed by…. Some time. It turned out to be an hour, so there would have been plenty of time to smack the demon (so to speak) and get back down before it was his turn, but of course he couldn’t know when it would be so he had to just hang around and hope everything was ok. Since I wasn’t going back through the demons once they were getting agitated, I used the opportunity to go join the scout’s guild, something I tried to do a few times last year and never quite succeeded.
It was made a bit easier this time by the fact that there were scouts in attendance, which certainly helped. Karma talked me through it and introduced me to various people and though I had to go after a while make sure Karnak didn’t explode himself, they were the most welcoming guild I’ve ever joined or tried to join.
Karnak didn’t explode. He instead threw open the void gate and invited whatever emerged to play a quiz game for the honour of having their pattern merged with Amy Redman’s, and fortunately he didn’t conjoin her with Tebronia Glory, who ended up being one of the contestants. Ronnie then bopped around for a while till she eventually got too cold and really could do with a hot bath. I sent her back to my place, I figured Meg could look after her fairly well.
Lancesergeant Nublet headed down to the marketplace late in the evening, trying to take Mayhem and some others with it. Apparently this was because the stones were ready for a rite which would need to be done tomorrow, probably during a battle as the bad guy Ancestor would almost certainly turn up to complain. Thus making Lancesergeant Nublet the first PBs man in several years to go down to the marketplace on his own after dark.
This night also ended on a low note, as Winter, a catkin in the faction, was killed while up in the Wolves camp. Not only was she killed, but her pattern seems to have been entirely removed. We have suspicions as to what happened, but as Frax and Libby are the sheriffs investigating (Libby seemed interested, so I deputised her), I’m not going to go into it here.
Monday
I missed the muster last night, but it turns out that one of the Tarantulas had come over and tried to bawl out Lenia for something, I don’t know what but the end result was we weren’t taking the field today. We did another rite to Amnor tro strengthen the Ancestor, I hads a quick bimble around looking for answers and also for ice cream, and then we headed off home.
If I can get my head round LJ, for some reason it's hiding what I'm writying right now and so I hope I'm not making too mny mistakes.
Friday
(OOC: We arrived late after a bad journey, to find Iain McNeill kindly offering to help us set up the tent which was hugely appreciated. We later found he had just stopped playing an ancestral manifestation of Celestial - I kinda like the idea that Celestial made a big speech about goodness, nobility and duty, knighted a bunch of people, then went out and helped out people in need).
Sorro and Zachari had both complained of not having any keen, so I had got to work and produced a drink I called Keen: sparkles were a large component, as was sugar syrup, since that gave it the thickness it needed to make the sparkles float. It was remarkably popular, and Rhapsody seemed to start her career as a knight by attempting to stop herself stealing it. Probably fortunately she managed - that was another thing, we’d just missed a Celestial avatar turning up and knighting her and Karen. We also found out that Katja had been killed defending her homestead against something, I didn’t get the details but I was very sad to lose her.
A bunch calling themselves The International Federation of Teutonian Fae, but who were actually demons, turned up and demanded to eviscerate Seraphim for war crimes. Seraphim wasn’t available for evisceration at the time so the point was moot, though some people did try and suggest the Lions arrest and try him instead, mainly in order to keep it away from fae-demon-nutbars, though the calls for it did rather upset Miles. They weren’t very interested though and just attacked us, so with no crime reported we considered the case as officially pointless.
There was a whole lot of discussion and I managed to tick quite a few things off my list (I made a list! When did I turn into the kind of person who makes lists?!?) but I don’t remember anything of world-shattering significance happening, at least not to us. Lenia agreed a final sign off on the attempted murder from the parli which was put on hold to see if the guy had any actual information. There was a stone in the camp which apparently would attract bad guys to come and do rites on it. I suggested putting it under a tent, or the fire pit, or something similar to make it a bit harder to find, but on the whole most people were against the idea. Except the mages’ guild representative, who thought that putting the firepit on top would create some spectacular fireworks, but on the whole it was decided that it was better to just leave it where it was. We met Gaius, a void wibbly who said he’d been created by the Drakken when Karnak united Emmerix and Orst Emmerix. He initially thought Karnak may be his dad, but then toned that down to just midwife. On the whole Karnak is happier about that.
Saturday
Saturday I had completely free to myself. Except of course gate guard first thing and a council meeting since Beron wasn’t there and I needed to talk to the Dragons and there was a muster at 12 and Mayhem’s ritual and I wanted to join the scouts, but that aside my time was my own. So basically added to the things that came up during the day, I was pretty busy.
At the muster I made a pitch to try and persuade people to join the sheriffs. That didn’t seem to get much interest, so I started asking anyone who pattern scanned me at the gate or who made jokes at me about it, and soon numbers were starting to look a bit healthier. Several people even volunteered without being put on the spot.
Council meeting was rather concerning: Lenia explained that there were several problems with the council which she would outline to us later in a written charter and she was going to be supervising council meetings from now on because of this. I’m not sure yet what we do wrong - it seems to be strongly related to the Palmandieb meeting at the parli, so I can’t even assume I wasn’t involved - but hopefully this charter will explain so we can do better. I did feel a bit sorry for Plyers though, since it was only his first day in the job.
I went to the Dragons with Clara, our high ambassador, armed with a note from Meg telling me the name and pronounciation of their high sheriff to see if they wanted any hand in the trial/execution of Corin Draper, a criminal we caught recently who had been intimidating, racketeering and attacking the Dragon refugees a few years ago, and so we’d agreed to make sure he was punished as befits both forms of law. Fortunately that turned out to be death under both our and their systems, so that was pretty straight forward.
Went down to watch Mayhem’s ritual. The ritualist almost immediately called on the power of necromancy and Palmadieb asked me to arrest him. I pointed out that it wasn’t illegal under Lions law for a Viper to do what he wanted to in the marketplace, but I did pay close attention to make sure none of Squad D followed suit. Which they didn’t. Sadly they also didn’t succeed, they awakened Wet and Sticky but not Mayhem.
Miles did a very different kind of ritual, to create a helm of bestial intelligence. It was pretty brave of him, not just because any ritualist is brave, crazy or a bit of both, but also because it'd split the faction so much that not many people wanted to contribute to it, and those that did were a bit nervous from the rumours that they were likely to explode. They didn't (of course), Miles did a ritual that seems to have worked very well, Marinus laughed so hard he couldn't breathe at Webbley's chicken impersonation, and to cut a long story short it worked better than anyone had imagined, let alone anticipated.
The weird stone in the camp got tabarded, surprising very few people, and as Irinaye had declared it to be a“Nublet”, Lancesergent Nublet it was. We found out a bit more about it - it seems it was connected to a minor Tarantula Ancestor called Karath who used to be a handmaiden of Llolth before she got kidnapped and bound into a large stone in the marketplace, and smaller stones in each camp. She’d forgotten who she was through long imprisonment, and so the Tarantulas wanted our help in freeing it. Pretty straightforward and we were glad to help. Karath sent an avatar - a guy, but I guess when you’re forgetting so many other things its not that difficult to forget to check which gender you are - who explained the situation and asked for power and articles of faith to keep it going. So many Lions gave it something they thought would help, be it rage, power, freedom, hope, or the recipe for chocolate martini. We agreed to do a rite to help free it tomorrow, too.
We got word in the evening that there was a major problem with Albion: the King was MIA, the regent likewise, and the attacks on the country were getting insane. Clara and I wanted to go over straight away and Webbley, Moonshadow and two others (sorry, I can’t remember who!) likewise. When we got to the camp there were only half a dozen Harts in sight, but those there were told us they were determined to stick it out and reclaim the land. When we got back to the Lions, there were Harts there looking for somewhere new to live. Information was sketchy and only slowly came together, but it became obvious that Albion was going to be uninhabitable, and as the transport and ritual circles have closed downthen getting people out was going to be tricky. Jericho and Webbley set out to talk to the admirals of all the factions to put together a concerted rescue force.
Then, while most of the faction were out of camp, we got attached by something gribbly. Seriously gribbly. It had a red glowing head and cut through most of the faction like we were paper. Seraphim seemed to be leading a stalwart defence while Ramsey, Beast and others tried to get some help from other factions, but in the end they just seemed to back off after mocking us a bit over how scary they were. I’m happy to testify they were indeed extremely scary.
So scary in fact, that when they caught Webbley and Jericho between camps on their own, they didn’t have a chance. Webbley was saved by the Tarantulas who were able to reach him in time, but when they got to Jericho it was too late. Webbley carried Jericho’s body to the remaining camp to finish their mission to help the Harts, and then they were given an honour guard back to the Lions by the Vipers. Karnak and Tara had already gone to bed (separately, I mean) by the time the news hit: we carried Jericho back to Lantia in the morning and buried him at sea with his guitar and his squid.
Sunday
It turned out the rite the Tarantulas wanted us to do was not just to free the Ancestor, but then to bind her to Llolth, which was rather too close to enslavement for the Lions to be involved. We did the closest we could do to what they asked - a rite to free her, to remind her what she used to be and how loyal she used to feel, and to give her the power to do what she then wanted to about it.
One of the Casino security guys came up asking what Lions law was, and whether they could join. I asked why but I didn’t really follow the explanation, so I just said I’d get a copy over to him, outlined the concept of group law under faction law, and let him run off since he seemed to be in a hurry.
I tried to tell Lenia that this had started but I didn’t do a very good job, since everyone was of course more interested in why this had come up than in what was happening now, which was fair enough but hadn’t occurred to me. I explained that I didn’t know the reasons why this had come up, but I was starting to investigate. Then I explained again. Then I explained to Miles. Then I cracked up and apologised to the next person to get on at me about it that I accepted I had focussed on the wrong thing by trying to solve the problem rather than find out why it arose, I would do it correctly next time but I really needed to finish a sentence at this point. He stormed off. Which is fair enough to be honest, I should have thought to do that and I shouldn’t have been nebby because it’s not an attractive quality, but I was getting rather cranky about not being able to finish what I was saying because I was being called upon to apologise for why I hadn’t finished what I was saying. I don’t know how Rob Norfolk does it, but I’m very glad I’m not covering for the hammer of justice too often.
The end result seemed to be that the Militia had told the Casino they couldn’t be protected in the marketplace because they weren’t a faction or a guild, so that made them fair game. So the Casino were looking to either join or become a faction as their way around this. It sounded like a massive pissing contest so I’m kinda glad not to be closely involved.
Karnak was going down to ritual but in the time between him leaving and me finishing my conversation and heding down after him, we got word that a huge demonic attack was coming in. Since I was meant to be down in the marketplace anyway I volunteered to run down and see if Karnak could come back, or at least hit the demons in the back when he’d finished. I have no idea what was happening with the demons, but there was a huge column of them lined up politely at the gate of the Vipers. They made a concerted and entirely successful effort to freak me out, meaning that I got past, but I wasn’t getting back.
Which was rather frustrating, as Karnak’s ritual was delayed by…. Some time. It turned out to be an hour, so there would have been plenty of time to smack the demon (so to speak) and get back down before it was his turn, but of course he couldn’t know when it would be so he had to just hang around and hope everything was ok. Since I wasn’t going back through the demons once they were getting agitated, I used the opportunity to go join the scout’s guild, something I tried to do a few times last year and never quite succeeded.
It was made a bit easier this time by the fact that there were scouts in attendance, which certainly helped. Karma talked me through it and introduced me to various people and though I had to go after a while make sure Karnak didn’t explode himself, they were the most welcoming guild I’ve ever joined or tried to join.
Karnak didn’t explode. He instead threw open the void gate and invited whatever emerged to play a quiz game for the honour of having their pattern merged with Amy Redman’s, and fortunately he didn’t conjoin her with Tebronia Glory, who ended up being one of the contestants. Ronnie then bopped around for a while till she eventually got too cold and really could do with a hot bath. I sent her back to my place, I figured Meg could look after her fairly well.
Lancesergeant Nublet headed down to the marketplace late in the evening, trying to take Mayhem and some others with it. Apparently this was because the stones were ready for a rite which would need to be done tomorrow, probably during a battle as the bad guy Ancestor would almost certainly turn up to complain. Thus making Lancesergeant Nublet the first PBs man in several years to go down to the marketplace on his own after dark.
This night also ended on a low note, as Winter, a catkin in the faction, was killed while up in the Wolves camp. Not only was she killed, but her pattern seems to have been entirely removed. We have suspicions as to what happened, but as Frax and Libby are the sheriffs investigating (Libby seemed interested, so I deputised her), I’m not going to go into it here.
Monday
I missed the muster last night, but it turns out that one of the Tarantulas had come over and tried to bawl out Lenia for something, I don’t know what but the end result was we weren’t taking the field today. We did another rite to Amnor tro strengthen the Ancestor, I hads a quick bimble around looking for answers and also for ice cream, and then we headed off home.