I’ll do what I can to keep pace with things until I can get a solution automated.

- Griffin

Hey folks!

While I’m sure the Gods are very angry about me breaking in on your monarch’s line of communication, they’ll just have to deal with it.  It’s possible (even probable) that Baron Kairos will be back sometime tomorrow with his usual line of patter about coming out, fighting, loaner weapons, and  the will of various deities, but meanwhile…

As I’m the one insisting on running a playtest this weekend, it falls to me to distribute information.  While the rules document is already of enormous size, there are a few specific pieces of information you should familiarize yourself with.

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1fmOdxQeJAOA7H5FXZDn3YYWBroGAW_7ZPFLq1P40V-8

First up, you should have a working knowledge of the new States (Cursed, Fragile, Insubstantial, Stuck Suppressed.)

You should learn the rules for charging abilities as well.  Every class except for Warrior and Barbarian is going to want to be able to charge something over the course of the game, and virtually anybody who can will want to.

You should also familiarize yourself with the new armor rules – or at least the “Armor Made Easy” section.

Finally, you should familiarize yourself with the specific rules of any class you intend to play.  I’ve got a couple of games planned – some will be played with your class at your normal level, some will be played with everyone artificially leveled to 6th, so if there’s a class you want to try out under v8 rules, look it over and learn the abilities.  This is particularly important for anybody wanting to use either of the two new magic classes, as these are somewhat more complicated and involve more reading than any of the melee classes.

For anybody planning to play archer, 15 repetitions of “Spawn more Overlords” will should match the syllable count for the new reload incantation.

See you all Saturday!

So far, we have Kairos declared for the office of monarch, and Keluric has declared for local Guildmaster of Reeves.  Two other people have expressed interest in running, but have not mentioned a specific office.  We can probably figure out something on Saturday.

If you need details about what is required to qualify for an office, please refer to the corpora available from http://www.caamtgard.com/docs/index.html.

In addition to the Arts and Sciences tournament and fighting tournament associated with quals, we’ll also have the usual selection of games, fun, sunlight, and so on.

I’d appreciate it if any current Cal Poly students had a word with me on Saturday, as I need to collect a few signatures soon to help out another club on campus.

We’re just going to have to work on what to call Brandon and Brandon.

It is, unfortunately, traditional for us to have an excellent week like this followed by a sudden slump as we travel off to strange events.  This time, the strange event in question is Feast of Mars VII.

This year’s Feast of Mars will be held in the San Lorenzo County Park in King City, CA.  Gate opens on Thursday, September 29th at 2:00 PM.  Anybody on site before that time will likely be forced to carry things from place to place until they’re able to sign in.

There will be an early bird iron man tourney on Thursday evening, but there are no other scheduled events aside from food until Friday morning.  Friday will, as a whole, be filled with awesome battlegames, and Saturday has hours upon hours devoted to the Feast of Mars itself.  On Saturday evening, we’re going to have an epic feast, an equally epic dessert, and a spectacular number of prizes will be distributed.  The whole event is shaping up to be a blast, and I’d love to see you all there.

For details, head over to http://www.feastofmars.com.

We’ll also be having a 6th level day locally.  A $5 donation (which will be sent on to Feed America) will net you 6th level in the class of your choice for the day’s battlegames.  Want to try another class?  That’ll be another $5.  Want to try 6th level monster?  $10, plus the required garb for playing the monster, and a write-up sheet detailing its powers from the Dor Un Avathar or similar supplements.

Also, Leah would like everybody to bring giant piles of sealable rubbermaid-type containers to the field so she can use them to bring SSD’s dessert to Feast of Mars.

Speaking of Feast of Mars, it’s rushing right up on us now.  The festivities will begin a week from Thursday, and run through Sunday, October 2nd.  Tournaments, battlegames, and, of course, the infamous Feast of Mars itself will be keeping us all happily occupied.  Leah will be keeping us fed.  It’ll be awesome, full of win, and similar phrases.  Head over to http://www.feastofmars.com for details!

(All this will, of course, be taking place from 1 to 4 PM at Santa Rosa Park this Saturday, September 17th.)

Sometime in the next couple weeks, we will also be starting up periodic demos at Game Theory on Friday.  Some coordination is needed, as many of our regulars have Friday commitments already, but we’ll work out something soon™.

A more definite date exists for Feast of Mars VII, which will be rocking the house from noon-ish on Thursday, September 29th through Sunday, October 2nd.  Gate will open at 2 PM on Thursday, and we’ll have to be offsite by noon on Sunday, but in the intervening time we’ll have not only the legendary Feast of Mars games, but three additional battlegames and two tournaments.

You should all come – Leah is in charge of food.  It’ll be awesome.  And delicious.

Apparently I need to go get lunch or something so… see you all on the field!

Now that we’re rushing headlong into September, it’s time to start drawing your attention to Feast of Mars.  This year’s Feast of Mars is being run by none other than our very own Deimos, and will be held, once again, at San Lorenzo County Park in King City, CA.  It’s a very short drive north of us, and will be full of approximately 97.79% win and 98.6% awesome by volume.  The event starts on September 29th and runs through October 2nd.  Meals will be provided Friday and Saturday at a minimum.  Details are available at http://www.feastofmars.com.

I’ve got access to the interwebs again, so I can go back to doing that fancy posting thing that I entirely failed to do last week.  This means you all get to get notice of a couple things…

First up, we will be meeting, as usual, from 1 to 4 PM at Santa Rosa Park this upcoming Saturday, August 27th.  There’ll be some fighting and some hanging out, and most likely a couple of knights.

The following Sunday, August 28th, we will be holding a demo down in the Santa Maria area at Waller Park.  The spot we will be using is over by the duck ponds, a short ways down Orcutt Rd. from W. Waller Ln.  From the north, directions are as follows:

1. Head south on US-101 S
2. Take exit 169 for Betteravia Rd
0.2 mi
3. Turn right onto E Betteravia Rd
1.0 mi
4. Turn left onto S Broadway
0.6 mi
5. Continue onto Orcutt Expy
0.5 mi
6. Turn right onto W Waller Ln
95 ft
7. Take the 1st left onto Orcutt Rd
0.3 mi
8. Park along the right side of the road, locate Amtgarders, and commence the usual.

A word of warning about the session after this: A few of our regulars will be at Dragonblade Wars in Nevada on the 20th, and loaner gear availability is up in the air.  If you ever want a hand making your own gear, let one of our veterans know, and they can steer you to the correct person to help you with the job.

The weekend after that, we will be running a demo in Santa Maria on Sunday (the 28th).  Head on down for the usual hijinks, and possibly some new members, or some faces we haven’t seen in a while.

In other news, thanks to our voting populace for their authorization of $150 for a truly epic dessert at Feast of Mars, and for their willingness to defer our place in the Crown Qual rotation.  Thanks also to Leah for stepping up to the plate to run for Prime Minister.  Any other candidates need to declare verbally, and in writing to either Vael or myself on the CAAmtgard boards.