Malor

ca·thar·sis (plural ca·thar·ses), noun: an experience or feeling of spiritual release and purification brought about by an intense emotional experience. In psychology, the process of bringing to the surface repressed emotions, complexes, and feelings in an effort to identify and relieve them, or the result of this process.

So, first up, I made ETC. It was a long day, longer still over the fact that the plan was changed and instead of a morning and afternoon session we had a full day with all the group, and dinner afterwards. Made pics, though, am happy and have my certification. Was very tired but satisfied. The Friday afterwards I felt very... cleansed, for some reason. Slept long and well, packed and picked up Ren & Cora to go to the EE weekend in Parc Loohorst, Center Parcs. We were there as the first group, and the housie was pretty cool. The rest arrived as the afternoon progressed, with brave Olga coming by bicycle. *grin* So we had a weekend of chilling together, dreaming of things to come (such as Extinction), watch decent horror to the absolute worst horror movies, had a traditional pool tussle, grilled food, played midget-golf and had a general good time. It was a good idea to put the weekend after our event-cycle, for it allows for a far more relaxed athmosphere. It thorougly regenerated me.

The week following that was fairly quiet but full of unexpected events. Had a flat tire, a good talk with my dad, a sleepness night, an Eldar vs. Imperial Battlefleet Gothic fight and no Crossfire. Watched all of Dexter, helped deal with a few logistical things for Myriad, cleaned my laptop and those kind of things. It was a weird week, but a good one.

Saturday I went to the Elf Fair, as a visitor for the first time in 5 years (the first in the Archeon and the first in De Haar were the only one's I actually attended as a normal visitor), and I enjoyed myself well. First on the program was Prof. Rotherham offc, with an interesting lecture about dragons in the beautiful Chapel, with Boris Valejo drawing in the background. Also recieved a call that my mother and her partner were on their way as well, so hung around with them a bit, too. Ran into several good friends and had all the time in the world to have a good chat with them, and shopped a bit at a few stands.
The Elf had a very disjointed feel, this year. Science-Fiction and Manga were thrown in the mix, too, and it appears as if the Elf wants to project itself more internationally and as a platform. Was happy with the increased amount of big stands for larpstuff, but a lot of the smaller bookstands that I generally find most of my loot was not present. Costumes were pretty cool, though it is weird to have sci-fi, manga and fantasy mix (I like Spock as much as the next trekkie, but when wearing my Oehoe costume it doesn't feel... right). Only thing I raised a few eyebrows over was the 'crossplay'; had heard of - and admire greatly - cossplay, the act of dressing up as characters from various manga related things. The costumes are hardly larpproof and practical, but sport truly fantastical designs and impossible curves, which I can appriciate as a design challenge (okay, okay, AND severe cuteness factor). Crossplay is basically crossdressing as a manga character; androgynous Japanese can get away with throwing on some cat's ears and a pink mini-dress to look the part, but seriously, guys, a bit more effort for my eyes sake. Thank you. Did drool over the Stargate uniforms, as usual. I wants one.
Loot was dissapointing over the aforemented reasons, only a single computergame: Command & Conquer III - Kane's Wrath, the expansion to C&C III. Guess I am going to have to loot my books somewhere else. All in all, I had good fun at the Elf and spent most of the time socializing and rummaging around; the coin system of previous years had been dumped, leading to more streamlined queues at foodstands, and I had no trouble parking and getting off the carpark again. Good show, at least from the visitor side. A good day, but not over yet.
Lies wanted to catch the final movie of the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, so we went to Amsterdam, first eating at Gauchos, then having icecream desert at the Hagen-Daz, and then catching Doomsday, a movie about a killer virus on the loose in Scotland, forcing the Brits to close Scotland off from the outside world, reducing it to a barbarian state. It was a fun movie with cyberpunk, post-apocalypse and fantasy elements, all with a lot of British humor a la Mad Max, and I had a hoot. We were home around 11.
Sunday I mostly rested and chilled, running a partial Heroic with Jo, JW and Lies, and playing both my new C&C as well as Sins of a Solar Empire, a combination between Battlestar Galactica and Civilization, and its really scratching my itch. Check it out of you like those kinda series / games.

So, that leaves me in the week before the 'Three Weeks of Larp', the larping high-season, so to speak. First up will be Myriad, where I will be assisting Jules as SL and Lorekeeper. Looking forward to the whole new ballgame there, and the fact that it is a whole new playground for me, and the players. There is a lot of experimentation in the mix, though, and it will be interesting what will be concocted.
After coming home on a Sunday to two free days and Queensday before diving into four days of Symbols. With a new set of Alchemical gear, a new costume and a few new accesoires, I am very well prepared. Was able to take my sweet time, this time, without overly stressing, and that really gave me a good boost in planning for my coming Symbols. Having experience with both the Summoning and DF when it comes to 4 day events I know I will have to pace myself, but this being Symbols and a village it should work just fine. If I get really tired I can always go OC for a bit to play Symbols - The Card Game...
After that I have a fairly relaxed week and then Aon with the Schnoodaert family. We are organizing the famous 'Biggenwerp Festival' (pigthrowing) this event, and we hope to have a good turn-out for this day of merriment and alcohol consumption. I have a few parts in the greater whole, and I am looking forward to all of them. It is just a great group to hang in, and my hair will be long enough for my plans by them. Wait and see.

In the background I am also playing around abit with Yoshida Masuo thanks to Ro and Suus passing the Clan a few downtime snippets, and it is fun to keep my character 'warm' this way. With the Summer Vacation creeping closer I really feel like this year, and now things are reaching a stable platform I feel happy. And that is important.

Or: how the toughest one yet came to be.

Preparations started over eights months ago on the next episode on Lex, tentatively code-named "Mooncalled" (T'would be full moon on the Saturdaynight of the projected date). The locationsearch as usual was difficult, but phalar_reign came with the golden tip: the Nivon huizen spread throughout the country. Capacity looked good on a few of the houses, but in the end only one really stood out with our plan for a Malkavian Elysium in mind: Villa Eikhold in Heerlen, so far away in the Netherlands it is practically Germany. But the location was beautiful, really worked with our primary concept and had a slight overcapacity in beds, which is something we always look for. Better yet, we could rent it exclusively, meaning no other people. It had a large main room on the ground floor, with a smaller room directly adjacent with two of those cool sliding doors so it could be sealed off; also it has two larger rooms upstairs for the in-character staff, a multifuntion room in the basement (gym, mostly) and an underground library (which for some reason the Tremere really liked *grin*). Most of our players could sleep in the newer sleeping areas in the back, leaving the entire monumental section of the house, built in 1919, for in-character purposes. So, on a warm summer's day, before the Have A Go Heroes concert in Tilburg, we went to the location and filmed it. The movie itself was shocky and very "Blair Witch", which prompted us to call it the Blair Eikhold Project when showing it to our fellow EE'ers, but after thinking about it carefully we went for it, and started working to bring to life our original plan: to physrep the mental institution that Clan Malkavian holds sway over, both to study interesting cases, to recieve treatment themselves and to patch possible breaches of the First Tradition. Also, one of the major things was overhauling the rulesbook based on the experiences so far, and to include the site information in that, too; the city especially I wanted to hyperdetail.
The rulebook was started in February and the first draft of the cityfile was built two weeks later. Both were ready for proofreading around June, but it took till after the vacation to really kick it into gear, as the entire crew was dealing with a wave of personal things left, right, front and center, which of course takes priority over everything. Still, in the background we kept gathering information and the weekly Lex meetings began again (easy if you live close enough to each other to use porto's to talk to one another *grin*). Slowly it all got shape, aided by the backgrounds of the Malkavians and Kelly's Ghoul character, and in a fit of irony we called the Clinic Arcadia. Ingame it was named after "Et In Arcadia Ego", a classic painting; outgame it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Woonzorgcentrum Arcadia, where I worked in various capacities for four years. It is a well-to-do retirement home which also featured a floor for the insane elderly. One of the things that struck me that there was a sign near the safety door of that department which for all the years I worked there simply said "Toets het huidige jaartal in om de afdeling te verlaten" (trans: please type the current year in the keypad to leave the floor). Funny, a bit; sad, yes.

One of the major factors is that we were dealing with a few very mature topics. I mean, insanity is not an easy topic to discuss, much less play... also, more then a few of my friends have had brushes with the darker parts of our psyche. We were going to have to be careful both for pushing the bounderies too much or making insanity a comedy relief thing. Toughest was that I myself am rather uncomfortable with hospitals; Ren and Cora offered to store a few items at their place (bless them), but I decided to mentally block those silly fears and work with them... I like doctors (have plenty in my group of friends), have no problem with shots, bandages or whatnot. But the buildings themselves feel... dreadful. Latex gloves are something that I really dislike and give me the creeps. Nothing that would make me do silly thinks, but enough to put me on edge. Within EE we discussed the insanity issue, and Olga's expertise was consulted often (when you got a person who studied it, eh...). We decided to push a few boundries, though, and possibly accept a few 'safety word' moments. With that discussed, the final plot started taking shape. After a long think and a few sessions of brainstorming, Lextalionis IV was named "Method to the Madness", after the quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

A few of our regulars would not be present due to good reasons, and their OC absences became IC, worked into the plot to make sure it went smoothly. Patients were written, in most cases just a few basic skeletons to allow the NPC's to give their own input; staff was somewhat more tightly done as they all were Ghoul Vassals of the Malkavians and had existed ingame since Lex I & II despite not having screentime. Three week before the event during the NPC day we threw a lot of info at them, which only became more as the event neared. Counting everything, over 80 pages of new material was thrown at most NPC's, and they all took it and worked with it. Kudos. Intake-forms, psychological evaluations, treatment methods, dayrhythem, medication, the how-to-and-where-to of the Arcadia Clinic... the fiction slowly came to life. We also gave a lot of plot to the NPC's, more then usual. While the theory that NPC reactions work better if you steer them less and treat them more like player characters worked to a certain point, it made NPC's feel up the kreek without a paddle sometimes, which is bad. Luckily most of which dutifully let us know at the end of the event how it was from their angle, and based on that we tweaked our style. While it was a difficult decision, I believe that it worked to our advantadge in the end.
Robert and Dennis (who also plays Lex), two Alternity buddies, were really helping in the physrep department, arranging patient-registration-tags (for around your wrist in the hospital), and Julian came through with a set as well at my request - which earned the Sint Franciscus Gasthuis & the IJsselland Ziekenhuis a spot on my thank-you-list. An old nurse-uniform was arranged for J4, as she was going to play a long-dead nurse, more staff uniforms and labcoats were arranged from various sources, including Cora's old labcoat. We had X-Ray and MRI scan shots, too, and patient files to spread around as well as books. Things were coming together. An old 20 Mhz Oscilator, in working condition, would serve as the physrep for a plot I'd been dreaming up for a while: an ECT machine. After thinking long and hard about how to work it, Judith S. (not playing Jasmijn Rozendoorn for an evening) was kind enough to play the patient, Nico played the doctor and Judith G. played the Nurse, to freak the Tremere a bit and showing them how deep the rabbit hole really was... The new players really made me pretty happy, both with decent characterconcepts and the fact that a lot of current characters gave them hooks and ways to introduce themselves. It made the job of integrating them into the Kindred Society of Dorestad interesting and easy. Two fresh Ghouls, several fresh Kindred introduced by running characters... yes, the setting was doing its work. In the meantime I got a lot of positive responses to the new Codex Dorestad and a few suggestions for improvement (thanks, proofreaders! You know who you are).

With just a few weeks to go things were looking good, despite the fact that the scope of the event was difficult to grasp. Of course, I got sick in the weekend before Lex... Being sick during the prep really through a monkey wrench in my 'last few things'-list, but I arranged as much as possible. Friends are good in such a period, as they have your back, and Thursday I went back to work. I reasoned if I am okay enough to go to location, I am okay enough to go to work. Heh. Yeah. Right. Bloody work-ethic. Thursdaynight was no fun; a lot of people were late and then arranging the logistics is tough... but we were underway and arrived just after 11 in Heerlen, meeting the huiswachten Peter and Wim for the first time. Matthijs was already there and had arranged much, and within an hour I had hit the bed after celebrating that Cora and Rene had signed the contract which finalized their buying their first house together (gratz!).

The next day the fever had come back, but I toughed it out mostly, as we had one more important thing to do: inform the Police. We were playing in a pretty rich residential area, and the last thing you want is either the neighbourhood watch or the police checking the people with guns out. The Police in Heerlen was pretty kewl, though. We showed them the weapons, explained our situation and they noted our information, my I.D. and my phone number, which was with me 24 hours per day. With that done we started finalizing the preps and the first player soon arrived: Yedda. Last preparations were done quickly and the last NPC's briefed. The traffic and NS conspired so that a lot of people were later then expected, but after the cool Jos and Sylvia had fed them we had an IC briefing and we were ready to go... cept one thing. See, my mother had been involved in this Lex' planning, by making a sjawl and hat with in the FC Dorestad colors, the in-character soccer club, which were handed over to the in-character fan: Vincent. That being done, we gave people half an hour to prepare before time-in. Lex had truly started.

( Lextalionis IV - Method to the Madness - Long with pics )

The aftermath
My own condition has worsened during the night, resulting in a fairly high fever, but I needed to keep on my feet for the last few scenes. They being done I promptly went to bed thinking the wonderful sentence "It is done". I had a rough night with fever dreams, but my girl picked me up from the floor and arranged for me to go home worry-free on Sunday. That, however, is a story for next time... It was over, and I am a happy camper. The NPC's did brilliant in all their parts, averaging on a very good roleplaylevel, with peaks that make my mouth water... the players really got into gear with a few plotbits (in the process ignoring plenty more, but hey, so it goes) and I am happy to be able to facilitate a few of the weirder ideas; they stayed in-character and kept the game turning, and that is what it is all about. That is all that we do, really, once the games rolls on: facilitate. As it should be.

... or "Live & Cooking"

What can I say? It was a lot of fun with really kewl people, I had lots of voluntary help in and around my kitchen and we had a brilliant location. Yes, good it was. But, as I usually do with events where I am involved in the organisation, I will duly let the pictures speak for themselves, with thanks to JoJo, Nieske, Tineke and my own girl.

( Under the Cut: Exodus III - Handel & Wandel  )

So, on to building the galleries for Symbols & Dood Spoor (which I promised but haven't gotten around to since those sets came online). Stay tuned!

After a comparively restful week pre-Symbols, strangely enough post Symbols was a lot more hectic. With a little more time now of course, that resulted in LOTS to tell. So here goes. First up was Symbols, of course, and despite the fact I had to work my friends had my back and pretty much prepped everything for me. Getting there was easier said then done. While my friends had picked up the packed cart and gotten it to the grounds, I was working till 16:30 and driving from Zoetermeer to Deventer past some of the busiest traffic-intersections of the country. Luckily I would not be driving alone as I also know that some of the Children of Nature (Gert, Simone and Bas) would be travelling from Leiden and my work was right next to Station Zoetermeer-Oost. Just as I walked out of the building they arrived on the parking, and we loaded the car and went underway.
Till Utrecht it went quite smoothly, but 6 accidents between Zoetermeer and Deventer generated over 20 km of trafficjam, and we decided, wisely, to stop in Soesterberg for food and bathroom. Just past 7 we got back in the car and arrived on the grounds just past 8, quickly unloading and preparing to go in-character. I was pretty moody then, tired and overwhelmed by negative emotions due to the traffic situations (the trip was _really_ too long, depriving me of my lovely chill time to get into character), but the fact that everything was prepared cheered me up fast. After unpacking the car, a quick talk to Jules, reporting to Glok and getting into my costume I was finally ready to go.

( Symbols VI - Moon, pictures will be added as soon as they are online )

The week after was tough in that I had to make a few hard decisions and had a few talks, and it was quite busy. Thursday especially was heavy with the Department meeting concerning us, and it was pretty clear that I cannot start working less which I so direly need; unfortunately that decision is made then. Now, how to break it gently to my collegues... Still, I have two new offers waiting for me, one of which I will probably take. My overworking days are over burning me up. Still, with that decision made creativity flooded back to me and I could finally rebuild a file that has been in bits all over my harddrive for over six months of research and collection notes: building a detailed, living (pun intended) city of over 800.000 people for my dear Kindred & Co to populate. Dorestad is nearly done, my Children of the Night, and it is Thine.
Friday I want lasergaming with my collegues after dinner in Den Draeck, playing two games. Both I ended up first of the entire group, and I managed to even make the Day Top 5 Players, which is a definate first for me; played alongside my boss twice, and we tag-teamed our way through the mazelike warren beneath the Ozebi, scoring good points. Also, Lies joined me for the second game, not doing bad herself and ending just behind me. Never underestimate secondary skills for the Larper Prestige Class...

Saturday I got up frightningly early, packed a smoke machine and several guns, plus a laptop and Dell backpack. After picking up Cora and Rennie we drove to Utrecht to attend Dood Spoor, the experiment by Richard and Onno. After having a difficult time finding it and a more difficult time parking the car we arrived at the RBT headquarters where the players had gathered: René played our Team Leader and Investigator Willem van Laren, JW added necessary muscle and weapons expertise as Weapon Expert Carl van Houten, Karijn was Naomi van Miltenburg - Biometrist, Brian our valued Medic and Forensic Specialist Malcolm Kelly, Cora was Francien Stamhuis, Chemist and Olga our overworked linguist Alexandra "Alex" Justine Amélie van Asperen. I was, somewhat typecasted *evil grin*, Tom "Uffie" van Uffelen, Computer Expert and "Network Security Analyst". Together we formed the "Recherche Bijstandsteam Utrecht" - very roughly translated to CSI Utrecht. We were joined by our overall leader, John's neatly suited charachter Van Dongen, a notorious hardliner boss, but we kinda liked him.

Now, as a note beforehand, Richard and Onno had kept us almost fully in the dark. We only had the initial address in Utrecht, had no clue about the locations and no clue about who would be NPC-ing, or where our day would go; it made it all very, very special, and to experience for once as a player a modern day roleplaying thing... thanks guys!

( Dood Spoor, pictures will be added as soon as they are online )

So that was it.

While there is a lot of spit-and-polish still required for this type of concept and a serious re-evaluation of in-character and out-character logistics, both the NPC's and the SL's really made it happen. Multi-locational high-tech high-end larps which _almost_ could be real, and this I think gave me a bit of the feel of Lex that I miss when I SL. I will echo Richard and Onno saying that I hope that other people will go out of their way to make these kind of larps. And when they do, sign me up.
I happily greeted the NPC's that were present that I had not seen yet, a veritable all-star cast from the many events where I play and though the suspense of disbelief had been very difficult for me, I was happy to have done it. Was also glad to hug my girl again, who I had not seen since the morning when we parked and she went off to the NPC location. After finding all my ammo back and showing the Crime Scene pics it was time to go home, close to two already. Dropped Jolanda of home, dropped Rennie and Cora off and lost consciousness till 11 the next morning.
Watched Stargate Atlantis, picked Rene and Cora up again, picked up Janou and went to Bunik again, a mere three kilometers from the Fort and less then 12 hours later. The NPC day was great, though I can't tell much about it. It was cool to see the characters come to life and the group mixing well. Exodus grew up. However, the less said about that, the better, so I'll stop right there *evil grin* The weekend ended for me after dinner on the couch, watching 4400 and typing a little behind my comp.

My week is going to be nice. Next weekend I am not going to the Moots as it just costs me too much, so I will have a weekend off. Monday I will have Crossfire Open Door Question in WoW, Tuesday Lex Meet, Wednesday EE Meet mainly about Exodus, Thursday dancing with Lies and Friday prolly a quiet night with the Stardust Movie. In the mainwhile I am working on a last few thing for Exodus and Lex and making sure the right peeps have the right info...

I worked late on Monday; my newest colleague has been injured in a traffic accident, and with the usual stoicism my boss and me both went first line and managed to crack quite the dent in the backlog of stuff to do. I typed a file with all my calls in it and how far they were just in case there were questions, and I left late that day. I had to give up on the ritualist meeting with Pasje and Erna for that, but Pasje was great in lifting my worry in working for my stricken co-worker.
Tuesday and Wednesday were not as relaxed as I’d hoped; I had to arrange a lot of stuff and I also took the time to set all my bills and insurance payments right, as I had postponed them till I had time to look at time. It turned out I was paying too much, but it took me a while to get that through the skulls of the company. Still, in the past they had helped me well, so I choose to stick with them and forgive this slight; on the other front I tried to get the information when the insurance would pay the damages from the theft. Anton from the Goblin was a great help there with taxing the blades that were stolen as he let me know that he had assisted Fortis Insurance in a similar capacity.
The Wednesday before the Summoning we had an EE meeting, mostly about the upcoming events and the plot ideas for the various locations. Lex was about to open, and Exodus was (and still is) waiting for the contract for the location to come in as we want to be absolutely sure that everything is settled before we open sign-ups.

On that note: because of the nature of the very nice location of coming Exodus, we are looking for people who are willing to NPC a fairly solid relaxed NPC part for most if not all of the weekend. These parts fall into the ‘farmer, villager, carpenter, village priest, village mage’ category, and are designed to be both fun to play and to provide backdrop for the expanding Exodus world. We are going to handle the NPC’s in a Lex-like style, ie we talk a lot to NPC’s in question beforehand to adapt the role to the likes and dislikes of the people in question. Exodus itself is a low-fantasy environment that is mostly about normal people in abnormal circumstances; fights are scary and rare, and the primary worries for the players are cooking, hunting and having a dry place to sleep. *grin*. It’s the 19th till 21st of October in Wilhelminaoord in Drenthe, and the weekend includes warm food, sleeping indoors and plenty of relaxed roleplaying. If interested, let us know on one of the usual addresses.

( Summoning XI, with a few pics )

Monday till Wednesday were spent sick with fever, but no more vomiting. I spent my time cleaning, chilling and levelling, mostly, and sleeping a lot. A lot of people called, pm'ed and MSN'ed to check up on me, and that made me feel very good. Wednesdaynight I alt-ed a lot with the group and with some tweaking I finally got my teamspeak working properly. It was a lot of fun and it definitively makes my alt a lot more fun to play. Also, I am learning a lot of stuff as I am the most inexperienced player in the group which has also done a lot of raids. I look forward to learning a lot.
Thursday I had my first day at work again, and it wasn’t too bad. I worked hard on the calls I still had open and took up a few HD recoveries. Also took apart, cleaned and upgraded the backupcomputer, which really made my day. It was quiet all day, and I spent it happily grease-monkey-ing with a computer… sometimes it is the simple stuff that makes one really happy. Friday was similar: lots of things to do, but both the phone and the mail were quiet. Doing things in their own pace or doing the same thing for two straight hours was, after the hectic weeks before, a sheer delight.
Fridaynight JW, Rene, Cora, Lies and myself went to the new Harry Potter movie, and I liked it. It cuts a lot of fat of the books, but looked good and told the story; I found it too short, though, to my taste.

Saturday I woke up and watched a bit of Atlantis, waiting for the new Harry Potter book to come in. Just after the afternoon the mailman dropped it off, and Lies and myself started reading. 7 hours and 22 minutes later I was done, also having done my normal things in between. I won’t go for spoilers, but I found it very much worth it. Go read it yourself if you want to know. I spent the rest of the night levelling and dinged 67 after running a quest-line with JW.
Sunday I helped Lies move some of her stuff from Amsterdam to Krimpen, mainly books, DVD’s, fabric and her sewing machine. Leaving her to the rest of Harry Potter I then went to Oegstgeest, to the beautiful house of Gert’s parents “Villa Schnoodaert” to have the groupmeet for the Aon Schnoodaert group. We talked a lot, bbq-ed and made group pictures; it is a fun group and I think I will find my way there very, very easily. I will have to work on a new costume, but I have a new and fresh concept. People who knew the old Xandos Arunson will most likely be surprised, as I want to stay far away from Magic, even Divine; having at one time played one of the most powerful mages of their previous setting I want to studiously avoid any “oh no, here he comes again” sentiments. You will just have to wait and see how Ambrogino Schnoodaert turns out… Kaas drove back with me in the end, and I look forward to playing with him again… on the same side for once. On that note, I look forward to playing with all those people that I have not played with for a long time. Jum.

The coming week will again be fairly relaxed. Monday we played a few games @ Rennie’s and Cora’s, tonight will see the usual Mage campaign. Wednesday will be a quiet day having dinner with my girl, and Thursday I will have a night alone in which I will play WoW. Friday I’ll go chat with Ren & Cora about Lex related affairs.




Meer info op het Lextalionis Forum


On that note, Saturday the 18th of August, from 21:00 - 03:00 in the K-Sjot (Oudegracht 155-157) in Utrecht EE will host a party. Entry fee is 5 euros, and anyone can attend. Lextalionis players have the option of coming in-character, with the location representing a location in the Rack, where they can do a little playing. Spelleiders are available, and NPC’s can be deployed if and when necessary. Other then that, it is a normal party, celebrating a fun summer vacation. Stay tuned.

Also, welcome my dear girlfriend, spacegeest, to the LJ community.

Friday was the Leviathan meet in Schoonhoven, which was good. A lot of plans were made and things were said; clear is that we are standing on a crossroads and that a decision needs to be made, soon. For now, we’re spoiling for a good fight and I am sure that certain people are going to give us one… (insert mwahahaha).

The Yoshida picknick was great. Got there early after picking up NoKey and gave Lenny and Mark a hand setting up the tent and carrying stuff; it was also fun to give the Daimyo a few surprises, which will remain undetailed but were really cool to see *evil grin*. Gijs lent me his Hakama and blades, and Yvonne gave me an Obi, giving me a complete outfit. It was very comforting to slip back into Masuo, something that surprised me; once I got into costume I kinda just rolled into it and feeling the Samurai in no time. Picked up Hans just before time-in, and since his character needed to be introduced I immediately functioned as his guard, too.
As usual the mood was fun, everybody felt good and looked great, and many plans were made. Drachenfest had better be ready… The specially mutated mosquitoes in Uden were having Yoshida for dinner, and they were annoying to me but having their toll on Lies; somewhere Simone got stung by something, too. After that we got food, cleaned up and prepared to leave while others gamed on, dropping Simone & Gert off at Oss-station and driving home to Rotterdam to drop of NoKey. I was a bit miffed, though, that I heard that Gothoord will probably have its last edition soon. It was pretty much the only place of all places that I liked to go out, but hey. There was also a Vampire session that evening, out of its usual rotation due to vacations, but I decided not to attend. I had already given the guys the heads-up that I’d be larping all day making me a definite maybe; the regular session was the next week, anyway, which I would attend. Gave them a call and had a relaxing remaining evening with my lass. Slept long and deep.

The Sunday was good, though the week after that was very, very tough. Monday and Tuesday the helpdesk approached limit-break; computers were breaking a lot and a few external departments were clamouring for unreasonable things. I managed to deflect most and put a lot of things on hold, but they were piling up faster then I could process them, and leaving at the end of the day with work undone irks me to no end. Wednesday and Thursday were slightly easier, but Friday again was very, very hard as we just do not have the capacity to take overflow and handle incidents. I really thought I had left my days as stressed helpdesk-er behind me and moved on the more advanced tasks, but as pressure mounts and projects get paused I have very little choice but to work in any capacity that I can. Hell, even my boss and Sysadmin have been taking calls…

Luckily Wednesday saw the Exodus plotmeet and plan with EE; it started just as a thing for us to support Karijn, but everyone except Sanne and JW attended due to their respective healthreasons (they’re on standing orders to take it easy) and we had a blast of a night plotz0ring and planning the heck out of the next few instalments of Exodus. We’ve also found a dream of a location, one of the type that I did not think exist anymore in this country, especially not in our price range, so we’re really gunning for this one.
Thursday I moved my entire WoD collection downstairs to a new closet; after an evening of work it was all sorted in, and a sight to behold. The only non-WoD books that I allowed in the closet with the WoD’s is my “Biographies of the Blood”, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, “The Buffy Slayer’s Guide”, the “Dummy’s Guide to Vampires” and lastly but not least my Latin – Dutch dictionary. Prrr… jum. Only thing is that I now need more closet space: all my WoD barely fits into one bookcase… So… another one it is to at least house my other roleplay-swag together with my university and science books.

Fridayevening we had another EE thing, with people coming by for the big stockclean for Saturday and crashing @ my place. With the kind assistance of a lot to drink and a lot of laughs we had a great evening just chilling, pitching ideas and having a lot of fun. Karijn had to leave a little early with work so I dropped her of on the station, and I went to bed around 1:30-ish.
Got up the next morning, made breakfast, and started to do the stockclean. Brenda spotted a wasp’s next, which had been built in my old shoe, which we considered rather funny. It was a young nest and Matthijs moved it so we could clean out the shed. After a good afternoon’s work we had the shed cleaned out, threw away a few things, repacked most and washed all the clothing; after soup, bread and much merriment (including some off the cuff further planning of Exodus mischief) the EE gang went home and I prepped for Vampire Live. Had fun playing Marc Bosveldt again; found out that I am currently kicking against an Elder’s influences and doubting whether or not to keep kicking or lay off... Funnily enough we are both working due to a princely edict, and I don’t think I will be ignoring mine. Going head to head against an Elder... ah well... who wants to live forever anyway?
Came home very, very late and curled in besides my girlfriend, after which I slept till 12. Woke up with coffee and proceeded to watch Buffy and do a lot of computering, including working on some EE stuff. That’s pretty much it, really. Lovely day.

As for the rest, I have a decent week looking back at me. Monday I will work my last for now, and spend the rest of the day planning the Summoning. Tuesday and Wednesday will be off with me preparing and helping a few friends get their stuff in order, as usual, and an EE meet. I will go on Thursday after sleeping over @ Lies in Amsterdam and help build everything in the Leviathan camp to make sure that we can go in-character on Friday without too much crap. The week after I have off till Thursday, too, also giving me precious time in my own house with my own stuff.

A quickie update, compared to those before.

I am in a Symbols aftermood, thinking and planning for things ahead. Many questions were raised this weekend, with some answered which led to more questions... Do the ruins at Center hold answers to the past of our race, and is it the restingplace of our Thama? Is the Malkuth the place our Thama created to be alone from the world so he/she/it could mind their own business. What is the agenda of the Thama's, and most importantly, what is the agenda of two Thama's in particular, namely our own and the blue wall Thama? Do the Bearers fit into this somehow, or are they just a radical splintergroup? The theory that they were part of our Thama seems faulty, somehow, because they appear to know less about the Symbol then even us...

Questions, questions. Time for a special, me thinks, although we will have to wait till after Symbols 6 to do it.

In the weekend, both Annelies and myself chilled. Marco dropped by to pick up some Levi stuff, saving me a drive to Uden, and I took full advantadge of a comparatively free weekend. We chilled, WoW-ed, cleaned up stuff and did quite a few fun things, including Charm preparations. We took it immensely easy, though, and did only one social call: visiting my mother for mothersday Sundayafternoon, eating there before returning to home for the planned excursion into WoW.
Sundaynight was pretty intense: Frya the Paladin (Jo), Strongwind the Druid (JW), Merna the Rogue (Lies) and Galadaeros the Mage (me) went into the Sunken Temple, also known and the Tempel of Atal-Hakkar. Between the action, good cooperation and watching each other's backs it was a very good experience, which we all come out of with a nice stack of magic items, gold and XP. Besides, we completed the Instance with only two Rezzes (lag issue, mostly) and no TPK's. Hakkar, the end boss, was taken in an orderly fashion, with JW and Jo tag-team healing / tanking / taking the main dude, and Lies plus myself as Crowd Control team taking down the many adds with occasional peeling off trouble from the main healer and tank.
Edit: translation of the above
Tanking: the main fighter who draws the attention of all the monsters; generally the person who can take the most damage without dying. A bigger issue in WoW then you might think...
Crowd Control: the art and science of dividing, disabling, stunning and/or sheeping an enemy group so that they arrive piecemeal and can be taken without resorting to emergency measures.
Sheeping: the Polymorph spell of turning an enemy into a sheep who then does little more then "Baah" for about 40 seconds. Highly amusing vs other players, too.
Adds: smaller assistants of a larger monster or boss. Generally a lot less powerful, but great in numbers. Necessitate crowd control.

And between killing a green dragon and a prophet, we got the news from Michael that Marianne had given birth to a healthy baby girl named Elana Raya. Congratulations and well-wishes to them both.

While previously we had worked together well, this time we really meshed... and we should for in two weeks, Blackrock Spire beckons. I got all my quests and dinged to 54. With only four more levels to go, Outland beckons, especially since I levelled both my herbalism and my alchemy to the maximum of 300. I slept fairly late as I was really wired still, but it was well-worth it. It has been over 7 years that I had this intense a game experience.

Work is currently fairly slow. Many issues that have been plaguing us for months have been resolved, and nothing remains now but to clear the backlog of calls and problems that have built up in the maintime. I have also been clearning calls massively and the boss is really happy with the way things are going; user happiness is up, too, as the monthly Satisfaction Survey has shown, and that is improving the mood immensely. My personal best is that when I came back from vacation not one but several people let me know that they were glad I was back. A compliment, freely given, is sometimes all one needs for a good day.

This week saw no Tuesdaynight Mage, but I visited Gerard & Marjolein in Schoonhoven. I was planning on playing a game of Battlefleet Gothic, but I could only find a few ships that I had bought, dissasembled, at a rummage sale, so we just ate, had fun, talked and had some more fun. Got home to girl and a quiet night. Wednesday was more of the same, and in the evening we had a good EE Meet, with fun plans and . Especially now that we have been going for a while and are starting to build up a small reserve we think more and more of a few long-term investments such as proper tents and perhaps a cart of our own instead of our regular rental. After that I went to Amsterdam and slept with my girl, something we both appriciated.
12 hours later I woke up with a headache and nausea, which was rather weird for me. But since Lies was having her montly and we have been heavily sharing 'feelings' lately, and the last time I had this was just before the Elf Fair, roughly a month ago... ah well. Don't ask me to explain it, it just is. After getting myself fed and watered (or cafienated) we got underway back to Krimpen with Lies driving. Felt a little better afterwards, did some computering, ate, and went to pick up first Ren & Cora, then JW, then go to Delft to play Vampire. It had been a while, but it was a lot of fun, and it was good hanging with Kaas again. Femke present was just a great bonus.

And then t'was Friday, and since I started this update on Monday I don't think it counts as a 'Quickie' update anymore. But I digress.

The coming weekend will see Charm. A bit bittersweet here and there as it will probably be the last time I will be playing at the Singel. It was actually the location of the second real larp that I played at, and I have been there many times in between, only superceded by the Uden grounds. Charm has always been great in the massive amount of information on the setting and the characters that we generally get, and between a mailconversation with Roland about one of my NPC characters, and a phoneconversation with Arno about another I am very, very much feeling like it. I have been checking costumes, practicing manierisms and considering various thought scenarios based in the scenes I got... hoo yah. All the NPC crew seems to have that bug, as a while back I gave Suus a hand with some preps for her own character, and I am curious as to how she will bring those into play.

Yep, I am feeling like it. W00t.

Warning: long, with pictures.

Fellow LJ' ers:
athiel_draaick as Samantha Aloïse Wijchen, Tremere Fledgeling, Childe to my own character
chili_dragon as Unknown Driver #4, Personal Chauffeur of Antoinette-Louse Berrier
fyrane as Julia Nachtegaal, First as the Ghoul Vassal of Antoinette-Louise Berrier, later as her first Childe.
ghost_musician as Kaleb John Mandeville, Toreador Ancilla
ikhier as Lucia de Jong, Giovanni Fledgeling & Childe to Ricardo Giovanni
janestarz as Michelle Du Croix, Toreador Fledgeling
karijn as "Emilia", Ravnos Ancilla, Security of Laurentia van Haeften
lievonneke as Salimah van Tongeren, happless mortal
lupijn as Jan van Leeuwen, Ghoul Security of Laurentia van Haeften
m1ss_ann_thropy as Isabel Fraser Lovat, Ventrue Ancilla
maglok as Anton Vermeer, Ghoul Security of Laurentia van Haeften
ningyomatsuri as Antoinette-Louise Berrier, Toreador Primogen
nokey as "Ralph", Nosferatu Primogen
saakie as Viyan Meertens, Tremere Ancilla
watzalikzeggen as Laurentia van Haeften, Ventrue Prince of the City
webshark as Tom Hawkshaw, Brujah Primogen

Other blogs:
Matthijs as crew & everybody's favorite Ghoul
Nathreee as Audrey Stark, Malkavian Fledgeling

While the prep-phase was still easier then Lex I, Lex III wasn't a walk in the park. Most things were done the weekend before, including most parts, and you remember my fairly relaxed Wednesday-post, concerning shoes, and not dropping. Heh. Funny, huh, that foreshadowing bit? Thursday I got a call from Kelly that she was sick, and later that day Richard & Tamara also called in sick; Rennie, Cora and me used our traditional "Pre-Lex Storyteller's Eating Together" to replan and work around the parts that had fallen away, and after a lot of phonecalls and some high-speed typing we managed to get that settled. We set up everything for Thursday, and got good to go. I dove into bed almost immediatly, determined of getting a good night's sleep before two days of exhaustion.

( Friday - Day 1 - Of Princes, a Real Lextalionis and Much Ado About Nothing )

( Saturday - Day 2 - Of Hostages, Presentations and Happy Endings )

Sunday & the Aftermath

Sunday I was happy. I had learned alot, stuff had pulled through, people were generally upbeat and happy despite two nights of hard work... yeah, that's Lex. A lot of peeps helped in the cleanup, and, in typical style, after it was all over the Storytellers ate at the Open Haard, chilling, toasting, talking and planning for Lextalionis IV. I kinda fear this never stops... ;-) Also, I miss everyone. I've rarely dipped that much. Monday I was off, luckily, and I could play a litte Exalted. Joske, who had helped but not played at Lex, was there, and Jules too, so we had a lot of fun. Tuesday was spent with the Evolutionaries: some Lex-aftertalk and future planning, and we made a concept debriefing, too. Wednesday I ate @ Monique's & Bas, for some more Lex afterdipping... and I still miss it.

Oh, and one last thing. For those people who wondered where I got all the overly cute World of Darkness Kitty pics strewn accross the OC space: http://www.kittensofdarkness.net/gallery/index.htm

Enjoy.

Well, I can honestly and happily say that the Lextalionis plans are coming along nicely and we plan to have everything done well in time. Most of the characters and briefings were done and sent in the weekend, and everything on top of that is just gravy at the moment. I did my last big thing lastnight, picking up Nerf Guns in Delft, and with that we had everything we needed. w00t!

The players and NPC's are radiating enthousiasm, which is good, and I find myself spending a lot of time on MSN or IRC answering the last few questions or just generally chilling. Also talked with several peeps I hadn't spoken to in a while, so that is good.

All in all, as things go, this is going well (which I say rarely). Now hope that the other shoe does not drop.

Or: damned, everybody looks good enough to eat...

I must say that the preps were fairly smooth, all things considered, especially with first Lex' location-burning-down troubles. Got up at 8, showered, leisurly red the morning paper and started packing the last few things. Rene, Cora, JW and Julian dropped by early, gave me a hand, and around 12 we left my house and started towards the location. Driving there was fairly easy, especially without a massive traffic jam, and we pulled up to the location just before the second car with JW and Jules arrived. We unloaded everything, including Hecate, who had the full Lex database sitting in two seperate partitions on the harddrive. We set everything up and started to get the location into shape... not that much needed to be done. Players started to arrive around 15:00, with the first of the SL's, and the vibe in the room was good from the get-go. Funny point was that Olga, Prince Laurentia van Haeften, assisted in the in-check, to a few player's dismay, and with all the preparations little had to be done in that department either. Served the quick foodings as most peeps weren't in yet, did the first IC briefing and prepared to kick players ingame.

Just to catch all the people off-guard who have been complained about my long LJ-posts, this is a photoblog. Pictures speak loader then words, eh *grin*. I will leave the telling of the the story of Lextalionis to the players and npc's, as I did not see everything, and the fact that there is just too much to tell. Therefore you will find under the cut just a small selection of the pictures of Lextalionis. I do wish to say that I am very, very proud of all the people involved, players, npc's and organizers, for playing solidly and strongly throughout the event. Not only that, but everyone looked great, too, having spent a lot of time and thought on make-up, clothing, masks and accesoires; if anything for me Lextalionis is special for the huge effort everybody puts in to it. Thank you. All of you.

A special honorable mention goes to the assistance of the familymembers. Suus' mother and Karijn's brother assisted with the bar on the first entire night, with my father and his girlfriend assisting with dinner on Saturday. Rene's mother and Suus' mother did the Saturday-bar, too, ensuring a steady supply of 'Vitae' while keeping the all those prsent fed and watered in the more conventional sense. Kudos and thanks.

Fellow LJ' ers:
cryssiewillow as Xynthia Aldridge, travelling Toreador Ancilla
fyrane as Julia Nachtegaal, Ghoul Vassal of Antoinette-Louise Berrier
ghost_musician as Kaleb John Mandeville, Toreador Ancilla
janestarz as Michelle Du Croix, Toreador Fledgeling
karijn as "Emilia", Ravnos Ancilla
lievonneke as Salimah van Tongeren, happless mortal
lupijn as Jan van Leeuwen, ex-happless mortal
m1ss_ann_thropy as Isabel Fraser Lovat, Ventrue Ancilla & ad-interim Keeper of Elysium
maglok as Anton Vermeer, Ghoul Security of Laurentia van Haeften
ningyomatsuri as Antoinette-Louise Berrier, Toreador Primogen
nokey as "Ralph", Nosferatu Primogen
watzalikzeggen as Laurentia van Haeften, Prince of the City
webshark as Tom Hawkshaw, Brujah Primogen

( 'Lextalionis II - Ivory Jubilee' - Long post, loads of pics )

And so Lex II ended with the Prince and the last of the guests leaving and Elizabeth Fournout closing the door to Elysium softly, with Rene standing on one side of the stairs, and me on the other. We looked at each other, Rene silently mouthed "Amen", and we both walked over to the air hockey table. Without words I plugged it in, Rene grabbed the discs, and we played. Harma quietly joined us, and we simply revelled in the moment. Lextalionis II was over, and it had been cool.
The Elysium was quickly cleaned, and by 06:30 on a Sunday morning we left the IC location and moved to the OC one where people were still afterdipping and chilling. I held out for about 20 more minutes, talked a bit with those present and retired to bed with my girlfriend, who had also stayed IC till the end. For the first time in a month sweet oblivion descended on me in which I know that tomorrow would not bring more pressure. I slept like a rock.

... Sunday... 12:32 PM...

System activation.

A few people had already left, logically, but I was happy that most people that left early were picked up by various boyfriends, fathers and mothers, and that almost all those that faced a long drive had wisely decided to stay the night (qv: morning?) to make sure that they were rested enough. Thanks to the Hecate being there and a few USB cables most of the pictures were already on my harddrive and I put my monitor on top of my computer with Phantom of the Opera's "Masquerade" playing to the Lextalionis II Slideshow *grin*. Cleaning up was incredibly relaxed, with a lot of peeps lending a hand, and JW, having driven home to sleep in his own bed due to his back-ache, drove back to the location to help us get the last bits home. At 18:30, after a day of cleaning, afterdipping and sharing good experiences, the last people had been hugged and left, and Rene, Cora, Lies and myself got into the car with contended sighs and drove home. We stopped at the AC Stroe, where we got some good decent food, and laughed at the things we’d seen or heard, filling up the gaps in each other’s experiences, as we’d been running around six ways from Sunday and there was too much going on for any single one of us to keep track of. After that we got back int Kaylee and drove straight home to Krimpen, to the tune's of the "Music of the Succubus Club".

And on the way back, we started plotting for Lextalionis III.

Lex II had ended, and my God, it was a wild ride. I am so incredibly happy with the results, equal parts pride of the players and NPC's, relief at the fact no shoes dropped this Lex and happiness at the fact that EE organisational bit came through really well.

I am tired as heck, sitting on my work with what could well be described as a severe tiredness-hangover, and I have rarely been happier in my life.

Far longer update of the last month, Lex (with 1337 pics) and general life will follow this week.