Pirate Mates

This weekend I headed out to do some larping, well basically to give some of my friends Jock and AndyH a go at the hobby without being overwhelmed by lots of strong characters and fighters that would leave them feeling left out.

I asked Julie to write it and gave her a basic brief to aim at beginners, pirates, and include lots of elements that can make larp fun, well it turned out well and the seasoned players I invited also enjoyed themselves. AndyL introduced other plot into the event so should they wish they now have links into the Ascendancy core events to follow up.

I have included a couple of photos below.

After the event Julie and Dave came round for tea where we discussed future stuff, Dave left me a few bits for props including a Cyberman mask to convert into something.

That's my weekend really I have been painting more lizardmen ready for the next battle in frontier as you can see below, they should be complete by next weekend, giving me chance to sort out the players plan for the battle and build some fort walls.

Oh and I got to wear 2 of my hats I've never worn, my sock hat in the photo below and another brown hat I currently have no photo of as my merchant character.

Its me on the left next to Dave.

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My photo of this week is of Media City, BBC's new set of buildings in Manchester, which I recently visited for work, obsolutely no where to park, the builders had rented a multi storey car park nearby for visitors.

And photo looking in the other direction

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My Photo of the week is Jock the Dwarf, a image stretched and coloured to make it more dwarf like.

Before play

and Red Dwarf

Weekend of Chaos

Lots of fighting this weekend as I crewed an AscendancyLRP event, crewing involves lots of waiting around with intermittent bouts of running and falling in the mud, with a bit of rain thrown in.

Saturday was lots of fighting and player malingering while Julie and Gabriel put on beards to play dwarves along with us natural beardies as photo below. My steampunk gun is in the photo as well, freshly made for the event.



I also got to play one of the head nasty bad guys before being dissipated by the players, as you can see by smiling face below, I was evil but not at time of photo, got to wear my furry hat for the 1st time though.



I then turned up with Julie on MidlandMidlifes doorstep to be fed; unfortunately the message had arrived a little late so she had to spread what she had about between all her guests.


Julie made some scarecrow mask as photo below which you can see on her blog about the weekend.



Sunday Jock and Julie left us to be replaced by two newbie’s at crewing, one of them another Andy, far too many Andy’s in my world, and we spent all day painting on black stripes across our wiping them off and painting on red, I think we went through a large box of wet wipes after doing this around 7 or 8 times, with the stripes gradually going a muddy brown colour.



After dinner I spent another evening AndyL and Midland Midlife's along with Sam and Gareth who stayed over for a further night so they could play the table top battle the following day.

By Monday my muscles had become a little stiff from the hills of shining cliff, but I got up 6am to sort out figures for the battle and print off some details of various characters.


The battle itself was attended by a couple of players Phil and ChrisF along with Taya (sorry don’t know her real name) at Chimera who along with AndyL represented the Ascendancy players side, while Sam and Gareth fresh from crew played the nasty Chaos lords side.




The points value ended up totally even after the players did good and they mainly with AndyL's help totally conned the enemy and won a outstanding victory one of the best I’ve seen in long time, the Chaos sides guys will say they had a bit of bad luck and I would agree, but mainly it was the tactics that won the day, all I can say is well done AndyL.








I had to go back to the wood while it was light after that since my sword went missing, I failed to find it which is bit rubbish from a otherwise good time.

Last night I went to pub for yet more Larp stuff as I met Jock and AndyH to go through their characters for the upcoming event they will be playing.

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A large pond in Cromford, Derbyshire.

Steam and websites

Last night I whipped together a website (take a look here) for my brother Robert for his driving school since he's competing against ever growing number of instructor and thinks he needs a web presence to for a younger audience who no longer use the yellow pages, but search the Internet.

Today I needed to make a Steam punk weapon for AscendancyLRP, lots of bits of brass including a candlesticks and the end of curtain rail, along with a fire extinguisher sprayed with brass paint. Yes and just my luck it was dry this morning the minute I popped outside to spray the extinguisher it started raining making the paint bubble, so I had to start again and fume up the house. Hopefully I will get photo while its being carried in costume tomorrow during the game.

I also went to see AndyT holiday cottage just finished, well he was still putting a door handle on, Phil and several others larpers from London will be staying there for 3 nights and it looks smashing, they will be the newly renovated houses first guests.

Two Birthdays and a Battle

This post covers last weekend as well as this, I started to write last weekends blog entry but never got to finish it.

Anyway last weekend we had the battle of Blackrock a table top war-game set in the Ascendancy world, Sam and Jack came to play the good gu...well the players side and old gamer John came to play the same side, I quickly convince him he needed to play the Lizardmen or Saurons and left him to read up his play sheet, while I set up the terrain consisting of some native straw thatched huts and some new Jungle plants scratch built by Mike, Andy's resident helper which gave a good feel of jungle to represent Frontier.

Battle photos

I brought my Lizardmen and beastmen, all my old models since I was saving the new ones for the next battle at Fort William, Sam brought her wood elves and I provided an extra scratch built treeman built a long time ago by my friend AndyH. After that I explained all the complexities of the defending tribal forces to Sam with a rundown of what the players wanted to do, the battle ended up being quite stressful mainly because both Sam and John did not know the rules well enough and I kept changing things with the wind, still luckily for the players it all turned out well in the end, John even said he would come back for next game despite all the Larp special effects I added.

After the battle it was Chinese at Andy and Heathers with Sam and Jak, where we watch some really hypnotic children telly before N and I went to bed. Young Gabe stayed up while we played another game of magic cards, Andy having created 2 new players in Sam and Jak who have now purchased their own cards, unfortunately from their own town not Andy's shop.

Last sunday is a blur; I think I spent most of it on Ascendancy website and forum stuff, but any that was a week ago.

This Saturday was Doug’s 3 decade birthday, so I called for DaveP and we both went to see him at his house in Swindon, where we well fed and entertained.

It was mainly Larp friends, Diane without Liam, Gareth the tall one on high of skittles and orange Fanta, Lotti, Colin, Matt & Sam, not forgetting Doug’s other half Iszy. All sorts of crazy past events and stories where dragged up alongside lots of crazy over the top conversation going off at right angles which made the time fly by, even if personally I did shrink into the background with so many outgoing people, well compared to me anyway.

Iszy provided me with some lemon sherbert tea which was nice, as well as some lovely cakes, although the chocolate birthday cake arrived with Diane.

Today it was my brother Stephen's chance to celebrate his 40th year of existence, I picked up my sister and mother and we went for meal in Cromford, a little restaurant 13 quid for a 3 course meal including wine or soft drinks and coffee, not a bad price, but the food was not very impressive, so I won't personally be recommending it. The restaurant was full mainly with the over 70's, possibly they couldn't taste how overcooked all the veg was or preferred it that way, my mum enjoyed the food and she is of that age.

Stephen, girlfriend and Mum

Birthday boy Stephen and Mum

My other brother Robert with Micheal

During the meal I mentioned Scarthin Books which a few pace's up the road and discovered my mother an avid reader had never heard of it or been, so we took her there and she purchased a pile of new and old travel books. I bought an OS map of North Yorkshire moors for use when on holiday.

With the sun bringing out all and sundry the roads around Matlock and Cromford were heaving with cars and motorbikes so I took a scenic route back testing my knowledge of all the back roads successfully avoiding the jams.

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My photo of the week is stolen from my cousins blog as he tours the world for 6 months, he takes a picture of his orangutan at various location rather than himself.

This is also a recent picture of his, I'm just glad I not the one teasing that croc.