Malor

The past two Symbols were rushed affairs to me, mainly due to having to work on Friday and never properly de-stress before going in character. Not this time. So much happened that I will try to stick to the highlights and observations (though knowing me that will be too damned long still).

Preparation was fairly easy, with a part being done as early as preparing for Myriad: going through my stacks of physreps and getting out all the various bits and bobbins for Oehoe, as well as getting the Aegolius 2.0 costume (thanks, Helen and wannabe_bitch!). Getting all the luggage together was fairly easy, though I had to replan my pick up runs due to Cora and Rennie joining me (JW did not know if he could get off until the last minute). Also had a snag in my logistical planning as one of the new poles for my big tent was not up to the load and cracked while testing. A backup was found and packed, and just before 12 we all loaded up and left towards the Symbols grounds. I drove there at a leisurly pace, meeting JW again halfway at a gasstation, and we arrived there between 1 and 2, with plenty of time to spare. The tent was set up, sleeping places claimed and friends greeted, after which we raided the local snackbar as we did not know when it would close shop (the First of May being an important holiday). It all turned out that we had plenty of time, so after a good meal it was time to dig up the costumes and go in-character, for this four-day Symbols.

It was hard getting out of the starting block and had a difficult time with a few things, still a throwback to last year's situation at work, but some laptop-assisted downtime and a good chat with the Symbols Orga sorted it, and despite the startup trouble I really got into gear around Saturday Afternoon, staying in my 'flow' till time-out on Sunday, healing people, saving the Sun from extinction, bandaging, making potions and even working on a murder investigation which will likely keep me busy till well into the next Symbols.
Biggest thing on my program was finding a cure for the Changeling problem, or at least a better solution then the Mira-potion, which only works on willing Changelings (so no cure for Changelings who are too far into the change to have any higher brainfunctions left). Had some minor succes, but some kind of auto-regenerating Thama-proporties in the blood managed to baffle my research. Still, blood is the key now, and I intend not to stop for anything (including a death threat, which I duly ignored as I have any ace up my sleeve the size of Kansas).
Noticable this time especially was a more open attitude between the various groups. In the past Nightkin, Changelings and Children of Nature already freely intermingled, assisting each other in problems, patching up their hurt and respecting the various cultural traditions / 'things' that each race had. The Guardians were the odd one out, though, especially the Blackhammers, which had caused some IC/OC friction, but a good open discussion had sorted a lot of things out. While there had been a few individual 'openings' in the first day, it was most pronounced just after dinner on Saturday, when we played in-character tag with pretty much the whole village. I don't know when it started, but with all the problems having pressed on our moods for days you could almost litterally feel the tension draining as we 'frolicked' through the village, replacing the normal long 'after-dinner-dip' (a lot of people have trouble getting back up to IC speed after dinner) with some in-character fun. Incoming wounded soldiers quickly made us coming back to business, but all groups - especially the Blackhammers - have made strides to put aside a lot of the more radical differences and just 'be'.
The village had a fairly happy mood, despite loss of magic, two armies (Venada vs. T'dora) fighting a war nearly, Ixo's and termites, mostly because everybody was determined to live on their lives to the fullest. Was 'veil-holder' at the wedding between Drass and Ina (something the Guardians assure me is a position of honor), was invited to the engagement between Rallin and Ashala and had a lot of general planning fun with trying to get the Sun to mate ("hump already, you're going extinct"). It is this type of play that I really like, because it keeps my character very grounded as just the village alchemist. Personal highlight for me as babysitting a next of eggs of a Changeling, and them hatching, so I had a next of cute hatchlings.
The Changeling group was somewhat debilitated due to the absence of Vaj, Julian having decided to NPC in lieu of PC due to a few snags, but we managed to keep ourselves in the game due to assisting with and reinforcing on several things going on with the other three main groups in the village. Without leadership issues we are a bit more relaxed, but I sincerely hope we can return to some bearer kicking next time with Vaj back in the fray. Did manage to score nicely against the Ixo's, as I had been saving herbs that they dislike for over a year and a half (ever since meeting them in the Land Beyond the Great Bridge, aka the other continent in the Symbols world). We'd been finding eggs and Ixo's all weekend, so we suspected an egg-laying Queen nearby (to the point of me kicking Elana to go find the bloody thing) but it wasn't till it litterally took over the council tent that we could finally hit something, and the seven phials of anti-Ixo stuff were deployed. Score for preparation. In the end they also turned out to have something to do -sideways- with the loss of Magic that our Mages had, but that was a different story where I could do little else then babysit the bottle of mana that the mages gave me for safe keeping. Did manage to burn my hands trying to whip up an emergency truth-serum for Killburn, but at least did not blow myself up.

All in all, a good Symbols. Have an idea for a special now, but will give it time till everybody has rested.

Was home before 10, even after dropping Jules and Mone off home, and after a quick emailcheck plonked down on the couch to watch the last bit of the Matrix II which happened to be on after some random zapping. Watched the end while Lies promptly fell asleep nestled against me, so I took the hint and suggested bed once she woke up. Slept for eight hours. My next week I'll spend in Delft as the school is closed, and I will keep my evenings chill as I prepare for my third week of larp, this time as Ambrogino 'Gino' Schnoodaert, member of the Schnoodaert family at Aon.

Edit: Ugh. Got sick and spent the last day hugging a bucket on the couch. Dunno what happened, but hope to be ready for Aon. Blegh.

So, the first big thing has come and gone: Myriad I. Jules has made his first steps on the road to the SL Prestige Class (though he insists on calling it differently), and Myriad I was a cool thing to start with. The PC's and NPC's had a few very weird things to work with, not to mention the SL's, but that went well. Biggest oepsie was a thing was a lost key, so that was not really a biggie once it was found. It was good being back on the Inca grounds, and saw the new Goblin story, too. Also had a sneak preview at the first few Long Strike's, and ate at the Pannenkoekenbakker. It took a bit for me to find my path as SL here, especially since I am there to support Dennis and Wietse mainly, together with JW, but hanging with my SL buddies is really a lot of fun. With a mix between tried-and-tested crew and several people 'new' at their chosen job it all went well. On to the next one, late August.

Myriad I also marks the end of my 'organisational' season before I return to the ranks of the players till the next big event to come on my way. For the next few months I'll be playing and NPC'ing. Woot.

With that I came to my Summer Planning, long delayed due to planning with my new job, but after planning it is quite clear my summer is shaping up quite nice. Sonsbeek, Drachenfest, Charm and several EE 'specials' are making it a very active summer, combined with a trip to London, too, for some book hunting. A lot of peeps have been asking me on my blog or on the Elf when I was planning to attend Sonsbeek, and after checking my schedule and running through my vacation I will likely attend Game I from June 13th through 15th, and perhaps Game III as well; Lies will be joining me for Game III, but she will miss the first one due to it being dead smack in the middle of her exam period. No idea what I will play yet, but the site is being updated all the time and the forum is up and running so I think I'll get to choose soon. It'll be interesting to see the evolution of the game between the 'sessions', and the production side of the whole thing has started, too. Jum.

The week is fairly quiet, with me doing some patch work at school, but since it is closed next week I will be doing a few jobs for OGD at the Delft HQ. Ate at John & Yasmijn's in Schoonhoven lastnight, but I went home fairly early to put my girl to bed, who, as direct assistant of Julian during Myriad, was quite tired. Played out the campaign mode of the Kane's Wrath expansion and found it quite engaging... though in the end it was a bit lacking. You play as Nod throughout the entire campaign, and it ends with a cliffhanger; both liking well-rounded chapters (cliffhangers are cheap) and being a staunch GDI player I dove into the Skirmish mode and promptly found that playing GDI's Steel Talon subfaction really suits my playing style, far better then the stealthy cloak-and-dagger Noddie tactics. Big Mechs, air superiority and Ion Cannon FTW!
During Queensday I will rummage through the local second hand markets that pop up through the region at that day, cause I love it for finding nice books and cheap larping props, and the rest of the day will be spent packing for the four days of Symbols. Thursday I'll pick Mone up early and go to the grounds to set up my tent for Oehoe, and I plan to be done early so I can give a hand to the crew there, too. The four-day thing is bound to be pretty heavy, so whatever I can do to help I'll do. By the time that is all said and done it will be Sunday again and time for my OGD job in Delft, but that is pretty much a good thing so I can pick up Kaas and Mone's stuff for Aon the weekend after. And once that is all done, it is time for my brother's wedding. Yes, interesting.

The sign-ups for Lex and Exodus are also open, for the Oktober and November events, and that has unofficially also given the start-sign for planning a few 'specials' for situations to play out and things to so. In the next few months I'll be travelling around with my fellow storytellers to check out locations and play out a few small things here and there to set everything up for the fifth Exodus and the sixth Lex allready. Time flies.

Fast posts. Not my style, but once in a while you find something that merits it.

http://www.sonsbeeklive.org

Before you go "another one!?", bear with me. Late last year maglok pinged a few of us to check something out with him, a project that was slated for summer 2008. An artist wanted to do a larp concept and had hired a Danish larp organiser to do it, and they wanted to meet a few of us to discuss their plans, cause it sounded mighty interesting. It was a weird vibe, that afternoon, as I said earlier in this post. Fact remains that our Danish organizer, Bjarke Pedersen has among other things organized Knutepunkt 2007, the closest thing larp has to something like GenCon. His larping accolades include Live Warhammer, larping in a Submarine and a youth larping program on a scale that absolutely boggled us.
The artist, Brody, wanted to do this for the Arnhem festival Sonsbeek 2008, a massive art festival in the park itself, all Summer. The larp is therefore going to be sponsored in both infrastructure, location and resources by the festival itself, providing a support system that larps generally only dream of. That Sunday we met the support crew and the people involved, had a great time and found out that Danish larpers are just as good as most in the 'no shit, there I was...' moments as any Dutchees. We walked away with a weird sort of tingle in our stomachs... something new was afoot.

Our job in all of this: let the Dutch larpers know it exists. Without 'local' support, something like this won't work, and while Bjarke could call in Danish larpers, he wanted Dutchees.

So, here is my salespitch:
- Only this summer.
- Unique location, for just this one time.
- Cheap due to heavy sponsoring.
- They provide partial costumes and full food benefits, with the infrastructure of an entire organisation behind it.
- We can ignore other visitors to the park.
- Nordic style larping in the Netherlands
- Several weekends in the Summer, so multiple chances to attend.
- Unique chance to do something very different and have a lot of fun doing it.

I myself am going to take a long hard look at my Summer's vacation to decide with to do, but I want to attend at least one thing. The chance is just too good to pass up. And just to get it straight: no Dutchee organisers have anything to do with it other then to let people know it exists, including myself. Me, I intend to play there, and claim the Wizard's Tower for myself!

Spread the word.

Lately I've been going through stacks of older larp pics, mostly looking for kewl pics of friends to put on my wall. I also love all the nostalgic feelings and 'no shit, there I was...' moments that come flooding back.

But that is not the subject of this post. It is cool to see an upward turn in things such as costumes and weapons, but that is a fairly natural thing as the hobby itself 'matures' (pun intended). What I do notice is the increasing use of technology and theater experience in larps I attend. Part of this is also due to the increasing level to which technology is integrated in our own lives, but Vortex for instance is no longer unique in having dedicated electrical and special fx people. I hear things being discussed such as 'lighting plans', and people toting around notebooks with maps of the grounds and where all the electrical resources are.
Looking at EE we're toting around several laptops, mix sound and music for certain larps, make vigorous use of desktop publishing programs for physreps and have become quite good with images and video. I'm pretty used (spoiled, one might say) to having internet where-ever we go with EE, and the Symbols grounds have their own wireless network for the sound fx when they are there, too. We've done stuff with lasers, beamers, smokegenerators and several smaller electricals, to the point that we have to be careful not to overload the local electrical net. And we're no exception, nor the forerunner in these things. Symbols makes heavy use of such things, going far beyond what they started with. And ambitions keep growing. Many other larps also heavily use those, especially in the last two years. Lex, being modern age and an extreme example, sees more equipment being dragged to the location then I've ever seen anywhere, mostly due to JW and Simon who want to have their Foresight Security Suite...

Where does it go? What do we think will be used next? Are we talking holographic generators in a few years time? I open the floor.

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.

So. Here we are.

Nutricia wants to keep me longer, offc, with a WinXP migration and Office Move on the planning, but I just don't see it happening. We are so short of staff that the more complex problems become long running issues, with all consequences thereof. We just can't go for the quality that I am used to, and that saddens, angers and demotivates me. Both projects are planned for the next four months, but where we should get the manpower...
Still, they are making a good attempt at keeping me longer by playing it to OGD. The only way that is going to happen is if I can work less, effective immediatly. I have asked this three quarters of a year ago, and I've had it. The next person who asks me if something is wrong or why his or her laptop is late will surely get it. I will simply walk away and quit if I have to.

What is most taxing though, are the friends in my immediate area. Seperately four people who I count among my best friends in the world are having problems of the life-changing type. What little I have left over a long period of workload abuse is for them, not for work; I have spent my last week trying to make their lives a little easier, but next few months might prove daunting nonetheless. I will leave it up to them to let the world know or not, and I will be there for them.

Still, all this has made my mental state precarious. I sleep bad, which is hardly me. I stress majorly over minor things, and small matters can become big in short order as I either seek to avoid them or tackle them in an overly agressive manner.

The next two weekends I will spend at home, mostly going over Lex stuff and trying to catch some sleep. Lets hope it works.

Thank God for chilling @ Mieke & Andrea's Ball, and thank God that Lex is rolling. The NPC day was really cool, topped off a dinner with 12 peeps in Bunnik and a late-night chill-session with Simone and Kaas as the latter was borrowing Kaylee. We gave more information then usual for the Lex NPC's so that they would have a bit more oversight, both due to feedback on that and the rather tough logistical start for Lex IV. With my NPC crew almost fully filled out with people and parts, that is proceeding apace with over two weeks left. Briefings are being finalized and sent and the project we have been working on for over six months is seeing its first major outing: the massive setting update with both the new rulebook being worked in the site and the downloadable Codex Dorestad. A lot still needs to be done, though, but the end is in sight.

Signing of.

During the week I was quite tired, but I managed to make it a good positive week despite the tough circumstances at work. Had a talk with my account manager and he will contact Nutricia to see when I can leave. Holding on for now...

This weekend would have seen Pasje's move, but we all know what happened. I used the time to prep Exodus and the logistics involved, though in the end with some improvising we managed fine. Once there I found a _GREAT_ kitchen (best I've ever had the pleasure to run) and went for cooking again.
Exodus was very cool. Tried a lot of new things, some of which were nice experiments on paper but didn't work in the 'real world', but learned a lot of cool new things; was once more happily surprised by the initiative and support of all participants, player and NPC alike. A longer pic-report, as I always do with events I organize myself, will follow as soon as the pics are online. Was back on Sunday very late and slept like a log till Monday around 10.

Monday was a lot of regenning, waking up easily and chilling till I felt moderately awake. Lies and I went to Stardust, too, in the afternoon, and I'll only say "Captain Shakespeare FTW!", especially with Gino in mind... Had a WoW Scarlet Monastary run with Crossfire after dinner; it was quite busy at the Monastary and the lag was dreadful (due to the WoW Headless Horseman Event), but once we were in we had a run at the Graveyard and the Library which were cakewalks, and then after a Server Restart another Graveyard run just for the heck of it. Our only real challenge lay in the Armory which we got to after obtaining the Scarlet Key in the Library, where the mobs were several levels above us and Glok especially had to take a few heavy hits for the team. I was happy with my respecialisation: I made sure that I could heal as reliably and cheaply as possible before diving into the Healing tree, though I will have to watch my healing for Glok as the monsters kinda dislike me healing the Blue Guy they are trying to pound into the dust...
The final boss was a question of proper tactics and adequate control, followed by a Mage who could go wild with Area of Effect spells after I shielded him. We as a level 34 party managed to take out a level 40 Elite Boss, which is very kewl; of course, we are loaded to the gills with enchants and blue items, combined with a solid tactical plan (Sheep - Sap - Shackle!), but it is kewl to see what we can manage. No deaths this time, though a few close calls where half of Marlix' health was knocked of in the time it took me to cast my heal spell, or where Glok needed a combined Druid / Priest patch heal to outlast the Champion of the Scarlet Crusade.

Tonight will see Alternity as usual, and Wednesday will see the usual now-weekly Lex Meet; the preps for that event are now reaching their final stages, with the NPC day the 4th and the actual event a few weeks later. Thursday and Friday will be quite free, and I am keeping it that way, with also both Saturday and Sunday free so I can work on several Lex - Dorestad things and do a few fun things with my girl. Also, I want to be able to sleep late and laze around a bit. Heh.

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...

Yes, my fourth update in a week's time. Don't worry, it's not gonna be a habit.

At Aon I had parked my car near the tent to pack it efficiently and threw in a few mood CD's, when I realized that Gino did not have one yet. Logical in a fashion as in the past character CD's took an event or two to crystalize. Still, though I have a few good ideas. The tittle is still unclear, though, though the first thing that comes up to me would be "Good Boy", which sends shiverz up MY spine if put in the right context. Suggestions, though, are very, very much welcome, especially from my manifold allies and familymembers.

"Good boy" (tentative title)
Character: Ambrogino "Gino" Schnoodaert
Mood: Brave new world for a brave young lad
Theme: World of possibilities

1. Vangelis – Conquest of Paradise (1492 OST)
   Not specifically Gino, but THE Schoodaert family music and a song that is at the core of our group concept. You might have heard our Capo humming it...


2. Enigma - Principles of Lust
   Both the song itself and its lyrical content are appropriate, especially the male choir combined with the various husky sounds. Might go for a remix, though, because 11 minutes of song will start getting tedious; the Youtube link goes to a vid with some nice visuals.


3. Garbage - Cherry Lips
   Gino's first steps and experiments under the tutolege of the girls


4. Hole - Celebrity Skin
   The slightly less happy side of Gino, well hidden...


5. Moulin Rouge - El Tango de Roxanne
   The reason seems obvious enough: the hommage to our girls, most notably 'aunt' Luci.


6. Therion - Son of the Sun
   A generally upbeat metal & choir song that relfects Gino's attitude towards the world: he is generally a nice guy.


7. A prowler song, preferably single male voice. Thinking of an old C&C or Total Annihilation song


8. Upbeat, new discovery, meeting old friends. Preferably some movie soundtrack.


9. Shania Twain - Man, I Feel Like A Woman!
   The imagery of the song and lyrics say enough. Call it the fashionable Gino.


10. Potential future Gino. Thinking a solid, nice song. No ideas yet, though. Perhaps Senzafine from Lacuna Coil...


11. An 'out'-tro, preferably choir, preferably a bit epic

At the request of maglok: Confessions of a Necromancer

1. Cradle of Filth – At The Gates Of Midian


2. Lacuna Coil – Our Truth (Underworld Evolution OST)


3. Apocalyptica – Somewhere Around Nothing


4. Stream Of Passion – Haunted


5. Lacuna Coil – Heaven's A Lie


6. Chrono Trigger – Schala's Theme (Orchestral)


7. Total Annihilation – Deep Into The War


8. Rob D – Clubbed to Death Kurayamino Mix (The Matrix OST)


9. Children of Bodom – Downfall


10. Nightwish – Ghost Love Score


11. Ayreon – Charm of the Seer


12. Chrono Trigger – To Far Away Times (Orchestral)

Shortie on the state of moi: doing a little better. A spectre that has been hanging over me like a Damocles Blade has been slightly dispelled and things are looking up now my collegue is back from Holiday and I only have to do the work of two people instead of four. I slept long and deep in the weekend, and my Symbols preps are done (I ditched a few advanced plans and just stuck with my original ideas...). Now remains the point of transport, as I do not have the Friday off; I could choose either Aon of Symbols Friday off, and I choose Aon as it was the first time I would play there and that always has extra overhead. Aegolius is like a comfortable old coat I can simply slip into while Gino was getting used to. Just this once I hope that other people can get my tent to the grounds and set it up with assistance from Lies & Julian, and that I arrive around 7 to find my sleeping place arranged, the tent put up and my cloak hanging off its usual peg. God, I am looking forward to it...

(Though next time, I want a new cloak *grin*)

I started my vacation a bit disappointed. Basically with all the things going on lately a lot of people have dutifully told me to take it easy, which left me something cynical, because after due analysis the former only holds true when "taking it easy" doesn't come at the cost of them. Basically, I can take it easy all I want, as long as they don't pay for it. This episode was prompted mostly by my father, who always says that I should take it easy but also wanted his wireless internet to work last week, something that was a bit mutually exclusive with my trip to France *sigh*. Yes, I should plan better and say “no” more to ensure that what I do gets done right, but I sometimes feel a bit double when things just don’t get done; I have trouble letting go. Definitively one of my worse character traits…

But I digress. Tuesday Lies and myself got into my car with the luggage and drove to Paris. Lies took the first leg, driving about a third of the journey in the first leg while I took the rest after a brief stop. Via Breda, Antwerpen and Lille we got on the toll road to C. de Gaulle, where we got into a secondary road and arrived @ Disney close to 4. Incheck was relaxed, and we spent the afternoon unpacking and making the room our own, after which we saw the Buffalo Bill Wild West Dinner Show thing, which Lies booked. After that we simply retired to our room and red a lot.
Then we had the Euro Disney Parc day; Lies and I did pretty much all the kewl coasters and rides, including Pirates, nnd while we were walking through Frontierland we ran into Migs and his girl, making some smalltalk. A small world after all indeed... After that we did tea with Disney Figures, chosen by Lies because it was her true bday and ate in a King Arthur style restaurant in the Disney Village which was architecturally confuzzled between English and German castles. We really took it easy, ate, talked, red, and went to bed fairly early after enjoyed a good hot bath.
The next day we planned to go into the movie park, newly built, and enjoyed that too… except for Crush Coaster, which was the only ride not to have a fastpass system and therefore had around an hour’s waiting time… with the rest of the rides averaging 5 to 10 minutes we decided to skip it. We again enjoyed a leisurely dinner at the end of it all and red a bit in the lounge with the fireplace that the hotel had.
On our last day we did both parks, doing the highlights of them both, and then we started the drive back. We took turns again, and around 20:00 we were back in the Netherlands, rested and enjoying our own town’s decent shoarma. W00t!

The weekend was all about the bday of Lies, and I surprised her Saturday morning with a Wii of her own. I had ordered it nearly two months ago, and it was in pretty quick; not only did I sleep on a Wii for over a month (litterally, under the bed is still the best hiding place ;-) ) but I lived in mortal terror of the day she would announce that she had bought one herself. Luckily I did manage to convince the store manager, whom I know, to let the guarantee start on that particular Saturday so we have the full benefit of it. Guests came and went, filling the house to capacity, though I started to feel worse that day real quick; a cold gripped me and deadened my responses and a lot of my fun in having so many friends around. Still, twas very good and very relaxed, with in the end several spelleiders from several events through the country discussing the merits of flaws of certain ways of plotting... heh.

Still, one present deserves special mention, since it was a set of 4 books, two for Lies and two for me, brought over from the US by 5 friends; all of them White Wolf, all of them autographed... Wow. Honestly, my friends, you could not have made me any happier. It includes the autographs of Justin Achilli, the man behind "Vampire: the Masquarade", and Bill Bridges, whose honors include "Werewolf: the Apocalypse". Kid-in-a-candystory time... A thorough and humbled thank you.

Sunday various familymembers and parents dropped by, and I barely made it through the day... though the Monday I really needed to go to work cause I was the only one. Yep, out of a team of 4, I am the best of what's left. The perk? The biggest office on the grounds. The flaw? Well, I can escalete every call to myself on the second line, and myself on the third line... out of sheer frivolity I have named the call queue's after several of my characters so I can keep them apart *evil grin*. All in all, it is tough and draining me. I stayed sick-ish all week, cancelling and moving a few things, and happy that several other things were moved for me. Aon preps were done my a lot of people, and a few people could help me out, so I was fairly happy. Still, it was really, really tough.

Friday I was happy that I could get off a little sooner, and after calling Kaas awake just after the afternoon we went to my place, where Prima was packed and had the new EE cart hitched up. Yep, after a few events we were able to free up enough funds to buy a small cart for behind a standard car. It should fit most of the stock easily and since I have both most of the stock and a driveway to put it it shall be stored there. The drove was a bit longer then usual because with a cart you are only allowed to drive 80, but we were there in good time, unloaded and prepped as much as possible while we waited for the other group. Picked up my costume in Uden, picked up Micha, ate food with Joost and around 21:00 Kaas, Kelly and myself were ready to reinforce the Schnoodaert Family.
I don’t know if I will write a long Aon report, as a few things are somewhat sensitive in many respects *grin*. Suffice to say that I enjoyed myself due to a good group, good neighbors and wayyyy too many great in-jokes and tongue-in-cheek references, but that a few plot related happenings kind of reminded me of the world we left behind with Enneade, which brought back a few admittedly bitter memories. I have to agree with Glok that we might have outgrown certain types of play and interaction at that level. Still the sheer joy of playing with certain people again and talking to friends that I have not seen way too long really mentally recharged me. I was especially glad that Thursday evening Kaasje arranged a ride with me (originally I would have driven there alone) so I had some company; also a HUGE thanks to the whole Team Schnood for the clean-up: time-out was at three, and before 5 the big tent was down, packed, stocked and carried into the cart. After that we ate with a big group @ the Pannenkoekenbakker, something that I had missed sorely since it had been over a year ago since I played at the Inca terrain, and that was the perfect closing of a good weekend. All in all even with eating, driving the cart home and dropping Kaasje off in Delft I was home before 10.

My coming week will be quite nice: Crossfire WoW, EE and Lex related affairs, cuddling with girlfriend and a movie, followed by a fairly quiet weekend which I intend to keep so that I can properly prepare for Symbols the weekend after. My new boss has arrived today as well, so changes are afoot…

Sna's DF 2007 report
Or: Feeling 'Episch'

Starring:
Roland - Yoshida Kasumi, Daimyo of Clan Yoshida
Suus (ningyomatsuri) - Nanami Koyuki, First Mistress of Yoshida Daimyo & Hime
Mike - Yoshida Shiro, Samurai, Sensei of the Sword & Brother to Yoshida Daimyo
Lenny - Yoshida Jishin, Samurai & Sensei
Nico (nokey) - Yoshida Yasuo, Samurai, Sensei Unarmed Combat & Hatamoto
Erik - Yoshida Toshi, Samurai & Hatamoto
Mark - Yoshida Garou, Samurai
Geert (drahkan) - Yoshida Kaminari, Samurai & Sensei of Kyodo (bow)
Katinka (wannabe_bitch) - Yoshida Yomi, Samurai
Brian - Yoshida Masato, Samurai
Judith (anna_xanaphia) - Yoshida Kodachini, Samurai
Hans - Kitamura Matsuhide, Samurai & Guest of Clan Yoshida
Linda - Sonoda Akemi, Geisha
Annelies (spacegeest) - Yoshida Gina, Maiko Apprentice
Dennis - Yoshida Mogura, Smith & Bannerbearer
Gijs - Sakamoto Kiyoshi, Samurai & Guest of Clan Yoshida
Gert- (dj_fritz) Yoshida Ichero, Samurai
Willem - Sanjuro Yojimbo, Guest of Clan Yoshida
Yvonne (anemoona) - Yoshida Yuri, Miko
Simone (fyrane) - Yoshida Amaya, Miko
Myself - Yoshida Masuo, Samurai & Wannabee Hatamoto
(Kindly forgive me if I mis-spelled stuff or left it incomplete - ping me and I shall correct)




Almost the full Clan Yoshida of Drachenfest 2007 - Closest thing to a good group picture that I have found so far.


( Under the cut: Extended DF report with pics and movies )

And that was it, really. I must say that this was a great vacation, and one that I will cherish for a long time. It was just truly magical... The Yoshida are a good, adult, responsible group that works well, is chill, and gets a lot done both IC and OC. I love it. And to round it all up, there is one of my favorite Haiku's, from the same hand as Mike's faves.


Clouds appear
and bring to men a chance to rest
from looking at the moon.


My dear Yoshida, thank you all for a very special experience.

Ps: does this meet your satisfaction, Mr. nokey-san?

Wednesday Lies and I went to our favorite restaurant and spent a night together. Just... together. Very, very necessary sometimes. Thursday Lies went to Utrecht to meet up with Jolanda, recently returned from vacation, and I went into Azeroth with my alternative character ("Alt", as opposed to "Main", my fire-blasting Mage Galadaeros), the Night Elf Priestess Aisli. We had a good run, with killing a lot of Defias in Moonbrook waiting for the Defias Messenger, who was appearently having tea-and-cookies in the Jangolode Mine judging by the amount of time he took to show. Still, by that time our trio had been joined my Glok's Warrior, and we went to Redridge after the Defias Traitor showed us the entrace to the Deadmines.
Redridge was fun but unexpectedly the first teamworking test: a pull from both our Druid-Tank and Warrior-Tank brought about a dozen Gnolls bearing down on us, but I managed to outheal them... just. Then, near the end, we started geno-ciding the Murloc Village, to which the nefarious Merlies responded by spawning like madmen, making it about 20 minutes of running battles and a lot of the much-hated Merlie-gurgles ( Funn vid, featuring the Murlocs ). In the end, though, we had pulled through and we were very near level 18; I spent about an hour more getting to level 18 once we decided to call it a night, and made loads of cloth stuff to max out my Tailoring and to Disenchant stuff so I could happily Enchant. My Alt does require a lot of sponsoring from my main, who is making gold hand-over-fist with high level quests and Herbalism, but I hope to load my party to the gills with Enchants before we go into the Deadmines come next Wednesday. Once I make lvl 20 I should easily level both my Enchanting and my Tailoring to about 200 with all the cloth and items that I have been saving for a while with my Main to sponsor my lovely Alt, giving the entire party a nice early advantadge when it comes to upper-end stats.
Friday was my last day at work, which I spent cleaning and clearing the Service Desk of accumelated junk; I salvaged a few noteworthy pieces, sorted computers, and made neat piles of the 70+ boxes of Dell that are currently in our installation backlog, and luckily we are finally getting the long-delayed last batch of D620's that have been delayed for a month and a half. Creating order in chaos kinda set my mind at ease again, and typifies my recent change of working plan: I now take smaller bitesize bits and focus on those, doing what I can and leaving what I cannot, instead of being overwhelmed by a lot of stuff at once. I also take very simple jobs that one would consider beneath my caliber, but the easy, swift jobs give me a necessary feel of accomplishment and satisfaction, and they do need doing.
My weekend began with coming home to my love having cooked me dinner (we are more or less trying to take turns at it now) and having food; we had a quiet start of the evening before I went to Ren & Cora for Lextalionis talks. We planned and plotted for the next few events, from the party upwards to Lex V and even few snippers of VI, even; it really got the blood flowing in all of us, pun intended, and I came back to Lies a few hours later with the excited tingle in my underbelly of things to come... and due to the unfortunate cancellation of Pirate D&D due to the DM working I had a free weekend to look forward to.

Sleep claimed my till Saturdaymorning just before 11, horribly late for me, but I woke up relaxed and more or less in a cheery mood (rare when I immediatly wake up). After coffee we went to Spijkenisse, to go to a teashop, but it was full by the time we got there; instead we shopped, and we sinned. We bought a few more packs of Pirates and both expansions to Civilization IV, "Warlords" and "Beyond the Sword". After that we drove to Heenvliet, a small village just past the huge petrochemical plants that border the Port of Rotterdam, and found a virtual oasis. The village itself is the cutest little thing, very quiet and a small medieval-like market square bordered by nice houses, a park and a cafe. We went to the Ruins of Castle Ravensteyn, which is basically in the backyard of the main villa on the square and still the property of the family that owns the villa. The garden is beautiful and the castle itself kind of suddenly appeares in between weeping willows, well kept grass and many varieties of flowers. The moat is still intact, as is the main defensive tower, though the island around it has only small ruins; the history of the place is nice and it has a great feel to it. Strolling around in made my really happy, though the romantic ruin surrounded by the idelic garden ever so slightly reminded us about Fiorne. heh.
Afterwards we ate a late lunch / early dinner at the tiny Restaurant and quietly went home, where we spent the afternoon and early evening grabbing a bite, watching the 4th season of Angel and assembled the fleets from Pirates. My Pirate Faction fleet is the largest at the moment, with three five-masted warships: both versions of the Revenant and the Stoneheart, ably supported by a flotilla of four- and three-masters like the Jaguar Spirit and the Shadow; the British and Spanish fleets are smaller, but equally impressive with the El Acorazado and the HMS Victoria, both very ouchie. I have a small smattering of American, French and Mercenary Ships, too, but they are just fluff, mostly, since I like to play single-nation fleets.
After that we went to see "Fantastic Four: the Rise of the Silver Surfer", and I liked the movie. It wasn't great, as I didn't like the sudden pop-up that Victor von Doom makes, but the character development in the team of four is nice; they were rather obvious about a sequel, though. The worst faux-pass, however, must have been the wedding near the end of the movie: it is in Japanese style, despite the fact that they were in China at the time, and all the guests are wearing Kimono's, with the most beautiful of those of course reserved for Sue Storm. The upper layer of the Kimono is white, though, with a red Kosode - undergarment; now, white is not a very good color if you are Japanese, since Samurai clad in white are off to commit suicide, and red is the traditional color of the Maiko, Geisha in training: NOT something that a bride would wear. Not only is it cultural appropriation, but the Samurai in me was being very nonplussed over the choice... now, I am getting into Yoshida mode, but they could've done a bit more research on that. James Bond got it right, why couldn't they? Still, the sudden Japanese moment was well-timed, as I recieved the Drachenfest tickets. Preparations are pretty much done, and I have the week before DF free so I can do pickups with Linda and Inge for the tent and its various pieces of furniture. My costume is back in full with the Hakama coming in thanks to Simone; the only possible snag is the potential for my new Samurai blades not being done in time, but I plan to make sure that I have a cunning fallback plan so I don't have to face the Orcs unarmed... hehe.
Slept very late again on Sunday after having a great levelling spectacle in WoW in the evening (150.000 XP / hour is a lot) with my main, prepping him for a run through Scholomance, one of the lower level dungeons in the Western Plaguelands. The day itself I spent sorting the DVD collection, sorting books and generally sorting out my house. Just before dinner I installed the Civ Expansions, bought the previous day, and was pleasently surprised to find the Dutch amongst the new civilizations. Wasting no time I booted into a custom game with said Dutch and booked a cultural victory and a space race victory in under 2 hours. Still got it... and these expansions will keep me busy for a while yet to come, especially playing with the Crossfire WoW crew.
JW came by in the evening, and we had a good run of Scholo; it took some adjusting, with just us three, but we had a lot of fun tearing appart necromancers and undead in equal measures, finishing a few long-standing quests for moi. I still have the intention of building on my reputation as an undead-slayer, so this was a nice run for me. Annelies got the lions share of the treasure, and she was happy too with the revenue generated from that. All in all, a good run, and one we hope to repeat fast enough.

And that ended the weekend. Tonight I'll have Vampire, Tuesday Mage as usual, and Wednesday is Crossfire-night. Thursday is all for Lies and me, and Friday will prolly be nice and quiet, being my last working day before DF. Saturday I will go to Castlefest with my girl, with Sunday being nice 'n quiet, too. Last DF preps will begin in earnest then...

Oh man, I'm exited. I got to go Yoshida again!

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.




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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.

As written in my LJ Thursday saw the return of my Dark Ages Vampire Campaign, and it was good. A long standing issue was finally resolved and the party has definatively split in a Transylvanian bit and a Parisian bit... which in that day in Age means that I effectively have two campaigns on my hands. It'll require two new characters for Kaas and Lies to play in that setting, and I will go for vignette storytelling as a format for switching in between. Challenge!

Friday I had work, but we were with a skeleton crew and played Pirates at work while we were waiting for calls to come in. I got home early due to very relaxed road, made dinner, helped girly through her examdip and packed my final things for a weekend at Charm. After food, an episode of Buffy and a packed car we got underway, with Lies driving, to Oosterhout where Charm was being held.

( Charm XII Report - Long, pictures re-added on 25-5 )

After cleaning everything up we drove of the grounds around 16:30, driving behind Ivo with a whole group of cars to a cool restaurant he knew. We had fun with Kelly a bit and a good example why I like internet on my mobile phone, and mostly aftertalked. After a good long dinner with icecream at the end I drove home to see how it would go with my foot and it went okay. Then, however, I was pretty much dead on my feet and after some Buffy, drooling at the Starcraft II animations and checking email I slept deeply and long.

Monday was back to work for me, and in the evening I did some pool, coffee and catching up with a few of my old HBO buddies Pascal, Koert and Boudewijn. Twas good catching up. Tuesdaynight Mage was a great deal of fun with the lads as usual.

Wednesday I will take it easy with my girl. Thursday will see another bout of Vampire, and Friday afternoon I will help Olga drag my tent in her van to go to Uden and shop with JW for a cart for EE. The weekend will be wonderfully relaxed and filled with things such as sleeping late with my girl, bbq-ing meat and visiting interesting places in the country. And possibly see Pirates.

Life is yarrrrr.

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.

Vacation!

Of course, I had to plunk it full of stuff to do, but hey, I'm relaxed now.

Thursday we first had the wedding of Bas & Monique. We had picked a nice gift and after hauling out the suit and neat clothing we both dressed up and got underway, picking up Karijn on the way there @ the Alphen train station. The venue was in a nice park in Alphen, on a beautiful sunny day in a great restaurant... and both bride and groom looked absolutely stunning. The ceremoney was a goosesbump affair, with singing from Monique's sis (what a voice) and a feel that truly suited the newlyweds. While I am going to have to get used to "Monique Arbouw" it was all truly them. Juies & Petra were a bit late due to a botched roadmap, but we linked up and I offered them a drive back. We had dinner with them at the end of it and spent the rest of the evening chilling.
Friday I spent chilling, packing & WoW-ing: we raided Zul'Farrak, and did great. The party dynamic was quite good and we got through without significant troubles; we had to miss Jo's rogue, but two members from JW's Guild joined us and we had a comparitively easy run. I also finally have my horse and racking in a lot of money with selling herbs on AH. After all was said and done I parked my character in Ironforge for a week of rest.
Saturday was the day of the Leviathan-special. Got up, packed, kissed girl goodbye and went to Pasje. On the way to there we talked WoW, and she had quite a few good tips to get a good cashflow and how to keep my herbs up; twas good and too long ago.

( Leviathan Special NPC part:  )

After sleep, breakfast and packing I drove Pasje home, and John also needed a ride, so we drove via Schoonhoven to drop John off, via Krimpen to pick my Vienna stuff up and then via Rotterdam to drop Pasje off. Traffic was heavy on the Ring, though, especially outbound, so I got to my girl in time but tired from the long effort of concentrating. We ate a homecooked meal with Pirates of the Caribean after shopping at the ABC, where I picked up two D&D books, some Mage, Promethean and a few books of light reading pockets like "Webmage" and "Ship of Magic".

Sleep.

Mondaymorning Lies and I got up, dressed, repacked and did a quick jaunt over the fleamarket for Queensday, before going to the Airport via way of Annelies' parents, who'd be minding my car. After that it was a quick jaunt through customs, some readying and waiting till we could board, and a swift one-hour-and-a-bit flight to Vienna.

( Vienna - City of Romance - with more pics )

When we got home Lies' parents were nicely on time, so we went there, picked up Kaylee and drove to Lies' place, for her to repack and to food. We watched a bit more of Pirates and then drove to my place. We chilled, watched Buffy and slept.

Symbols!

While I unfortunately did not have the cargo-capacity for the blue tent I was able to bring a lot for other people. While I normally bring a lot for myself I basically have always forced myself to pack lightly for Oehoe, with his reed suitcase filled with equipment still being his main thing. We loaded op the car, and proceeded to pick up Jules after which we rendez-vous-ed with JW and bested the trafficjams around Utrecht to arrive at the location a little after 5. Got unpacked, distributed stuff, ate at the Snackbar, picking up Martine in the process, and got into character after holding the two minutes silence due to it being the 4th of May in the midst of the IC briefing.

( The Oehoe Diaries - featuring even more pics )

For some reason I felt kinda empty at the end of it... the larpdip hit even before I was of the grounds; I missed my friends while they where still around me. Perhaps it is because I played more introverted this time: I recaptured a lot of the older, far more reserved, Oehoe before the Changeling-crisis, and did not have as much play with many of my friends as I have had the previous Symbols. I was around the Children of Nature & the Nightkin far less this time, did not get a singly whiff of the Sun-Situation ('cept suppy the healing potions), played the "this affects me how?" with the Thama-thing... It was in essence a logical consequence of his totem receding a bit again, but it was... weird. So when I got home I checked my email that had been left there for over a week, played a little WoW and went to bed. Luckily on Monday I was over the missing friends bit and could look back on a very, very, very, very, very good Symbols. The crew deliberately reffed with a light touch this event, and facilitated great: this made internal plot and small things bloom in the village, notching up the in my opinion already strong rp-level.

And then it was back to real life I feel markedly more relaxed and motivated now, and ready for the long haul till the big vacation. I am preparing for Charm (just recieved my NPC parts... hehe) where I am looking forward to NPC'ing, and a quiet upcoming weekend.

Last Tuesday saw the montly EE Meet before the Elf. We did some last coordination but mostly chilled, being done just after 21:00. We had half a mind to go to the new CD presentation by After Forever in the Tivoli (just across the bridge from Olga's house where the meet was held), but with my girl being home we drove to my house and I got into bed early.

The rest of the week consisted of preperations for the Elf and for my upcoming vacation, culminating in going to the Elf Fair on Friday. The coordination of the Fair this year was easier then when ningyomatsuri coordinated it for us last year, at least from my perspective. While very little was arranged by the Elf itself (no stands or tables were being rented out by them, ie. you had to do everything yourself) we did have the option for electrics, which was an improvement. Parking, of course, was still annoying, but we managed mostly, and I had my own parkingspot. Mailcontact was fast and smooth, and I mentioned that to the person that had coordinated everything when she came to check if everything was okay. Unfortunately I found out that she is an intern and will most likely not be there again next year... too bad. Could use more people like that. I took out my new partytent and an improvised table, plus a few chairs and our banners plus physreps. I had also been updating our photobooks and brought those too... amazing to think that we have done two episodes of Exodus, two episodes of Lex and the "Glorie van Altenstadt" between the previous Elf and this one. Fun to see how for we got.
Friday turned out to be really quiet, to the point of my having a bit of a chat with my favorite lecturer, Prof. Rotherham, who was walking around the Elf before it became too busy. There were a few people here and there, but mostly collectors and photographers looking for a piccy to snap for their Saturday editions; we were able to . It was cold, though. My main achievement was giving Xander and steelweaver a hand with getting on the grounds and setting up our own booth. We talked with the EE'ers and promoted to the few larpers and interested folk there were; mainly we socialized with the present larpers, which was great fun. Oh, and Karijn maintains I was flirting with a soldier, but I will say in my defence that I only wanted to know where he got the cool Stargate SG1 patches. At the end of the first day, walking off the grounds around 22:00, with the last remnants of the setting sun backlighting the Castle and chatting with my dear friends I had one of those "I love my life" moments. Jum.
Saturday it was a lot busier and I was happy to see a lot of familiar faces, mainly chryssiewillow, recovering from her surgery. She's up and about again and her neckline now looks absolutely great, so the Mark of the Spelleider (a D10 on a chain I found at the Chessex stand this year, something that we'd been looking for since Lex I) fitted around there quite nicely. She did look a little tired after a day on the Elf, but that is to be expected. Pretty much one of the high points of my weekend. Fun factor later was seeing webshark around, and later nathreee in her Audrey Stark outfit *grin*. Always fun to see bits from a good event walking around.
When I walked to the Chessex stand on Saturday to get more "Mark of Spelleider (tm)" hangers I heard the clamor from the bit Roman vs. Cartage battle, and the music thundering from the speakers, and I was rather surprised. Picture the battle between Rome and Carthago; then, picture the many kewl movies made on the subject of either Rome, Carthago or both (Hannibal, Gladiator, Spartacus, etc, etc, etc). Now, what music would you use? Whoever choose this year's music choose not one of the aforemented movies or any other of the Rome-Cartage-themed movies, but the music from Vangelis "Conquest of Paradise". Do not get me wrong, I love the song; it is on my Flight of the Oehoe CD. BUT it is about the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, not about the second Punic War around 200 before Christ... Mismatch, anyone? So, after hearing the horror stories of the battle, the commentators and the music of Saturday, I did not have the heart to go watch myself. While the marching looked kewl (featuring Keffie & woran) I cannot find myself being happy with the "larp battle"; it is expensive for those attending, doesn't have the greatest and best of materials and does not look too keen on safety. I understand the trouble of controlling the odd hundreds of battlehungry people, and I fervently hope that I am wrong, but each time it is fought I hope I don't hear the sound of an ambulance, especially with this year's wooden floor.
Sunday was more of the same, with better weather, though, and I did do a very enjoyable round of bloodbowl with a load of other larpers hailing from various clubs. With Black Celt woads and "Karantar's Headache", a massive warhammer, I kept the goal safe and let not a single shot pass my vigil defence *grin*. I also attended a Prof. Rotherham lecture in the Chapel on medieval weaponry and met up with more familiar faces; it was very empty, though, on the whole. Many larpers choose not to attend, and many Dutch shops felt the same. Still, on the whole it was very tiring, but rewarding. Caught up with a lot of cool people, shared stories, heard the latest and saw a few events that I might want to attend this year *grin* Sunday I bought myself "Scion: Hero", a new White Wolf game, and a pair of bracers from Harma; I saw the design of them and just could not resist. Of course, with all being said, done and packed, that left us with trying to leave the actual Castle grounds. Last year we had carried everything off the grounds to prevent getting caught in the Elf Fair traffic jam, and we intended to do the same this year. Unfortunately we had loads more with us due to the stand needing to be transported too. I did a first haul with Brenda and Matthijs, dropped them off on the station, got back to the grounds, walked back, and did a last haul with Lies, Ren & Cora. That one was particularly tough, with a load of stuff and us all being exhausted; still, it was more then worth it when we had loaded up the car and drove off the parking lot: while the grounds should have been accessable at 19:45, we had not spotted a single car being allowed by 20:20, near the end of our timeslot. Satisfied but tired we drove back to Krimpen, ate at our favorite Shoarma-place and went to sleep.

The week is looking mighty sweet. Monday I worked, today I work, tomorrow I work my last pre-vacation day, and Thursday we will attend the wedding of Bas & Monique. Friday will be quiet and prepping for Vienna, Saturday and Sunday will see me attending the Levi Special, and Monday we'll fly to Vienna for a week of doing musea and admiring this beautiful city. We will return Thursday evening, repack and then go to Symbols on Friday. Monday I have one last day off, ontbrakking, and then it'll be back to real life for me. I am looking forward to the next week-and-a-half.

For our regular bi-weekly Friday WoW raid JW, Jo, Lies and myself will be tackling Zul'Farrak, reputedly one of the tougher Dungeons, one of the last before large scale raids will get attractive. I hope to have my teamspeak server online then, as we need a tight coordination for that Dungeon. While we are an excellent team, none of us have as yet grown eyes in the backs of our heads, so the ability to issue fast voice commands while nuking the opponent is a plus. In preparation for that I've been steadily levelling (dinged 47 last night) while giving fyrane's char a hand with an undead dragon. Hopefully I will have saved enough to afford my horse by then, as I am the only one in the team that hasn't been able to caugh up the 90 GP's it costs. Being a Alchemist-Mage in WoW is expensive (ingame, at any rate *grin*).

The Levi special is coming up, the first VA thing I am doing since last Summoning. Looking forward to the kewl people that are coming and running around as an NPC under Jeroen and Jasmijn. I feel enthousiastic about it again, and that is a -good- thing. Annelies will not attend, but I will be driving with omnipasje, so I will not drive the long way to 't Harde alone.

My personal Symbols preps are done. I will be bringing more decorations for the main tent, those that fel through due to last Symbol's little car dilemma, and I have added a load of stuff for my little lab. I also asked two Alchemists under me in the Guild to act as my Second's, now that the impending death-thing they both had was solved last Symbols-Special-Weekend. I asked them because they are decent Alchemists, and they are a lot of fun to play with, but I like to ask OC before asking IC in because you do have to like the whole responsibility thing... All in all, I am looking forward to a quieter and more reserved Aegolius then the past two events due to a lot of his problems been -seemingly- solved (stop laughing, maglok!), and as he has solved a bit of the Changeling conundrum it is now easier to keep control. With a little luck, I won't even have to fight.

What a weekend.

During the week I'd steadily grown more and more nervous at the prospect of going to Lands. Last Lands’ my char ‘died’; I cannot reveal the exact circumstances, but it was a player initiated action which caused my to go ‘poof’; basically I ended up in a rules-void. Rules were implemented to preve