Hello Wonderfolk of the World,

July has risen full of Sunshine and Thunderstorm and the teams have been hard at work in all areas of the Rising sphere! One of today’s tasks is to wish you and excellent Sunday and hope that it finds you in fine form, fetlock and fettle and that you had an excellent week wherever you were and whatever you were doing. Last week we have been working on the site, codafying and much more but, before we talk about that we’ll move onto another Sunday pleasure:

Our Patreons and our Subs support us on a week to week basis as we provide them with content, kit and company which means that we get to do things like: Offer counselling and therapy to anyone that needs it, provide free games and priority booking to frontline emergency services and give food and shelter to people. Without them what we could offer would be much more limited and we are massively grateful for that help.

So with Sunday ticking away we’ll move on to the rest of the weekly message!

The Monday Morning Meeting will roll out between 10 and 11am BST on Twitch as all Rising  team members meet up to discuss the plans of the week, the month and generally natter, hopefully avoiding Stranger Things spoilers. Feel free to chime in with questions and comments – That’s here on Monday Mornings. Have your say, ask questions and help us shape the future of what we are doing together.

Regardless: Each of our Rising sections are covered by our various organisers who you can contact and talk to via our Discord Server or just a straightforward e-mail.

Next weekend is going to be a busy one for the woods for a small number of exciting reasons which we suppose we should outline now 😉

We have the finale of the first season of Relics on Saturday and the story ref is promising a biggy. Stephen and Trews went ahead to the site and planned out the site use and decided that they needed a few extras. So they took saw to tree and cleared out some new areas and built some more paths, especially for the game.

As well as that Holly also had them pack up and take along a new Gazebo frame for the soft structure and packed up and permanently dropped of a safe kitbox on site which gives us even more scope for next week. So the promise there is that we’ll be running something even more special than previously next week and as ever, we can’t wait.

On Sunday next week (July 10th) we have the Tree Surgeons in and we will be taking out some of the dead trees that populate the areas that we haven’t been using. Ahead of this we have cleared the big beech clearing properly and begun clearing the Dogs Mercury away from the main paths. The team also started to build up the Ghost Fence around the outside of the site to properly create a standing and safe deer hedge and good dormouse environment. 

Massive thanks, of course, to the team that turned up to make that happen: Stephen, Holly, Trews, Kayleigh, Matt and of course, Karl – You were all wonderful.

Holly led her team of kobolds through a glorious week of work and wonder over the last seven days and we can honestly say that we are excited by what was achieved and what has been done. There are lots of updates and bits and bobs which may seem small but add up to a whole heap of excellence.

First off next weekend’s event: Stephen was entrusted with building the flagship deep plot story for Phase One of ROC’s return to the woods. Relics has developed in ways that I don’t think anyone saw coming and this next part, which is being labelled as End of Part I is something that he has been working on for the better part of six weeks now. According to Stephen he finished the game a month ago and everything else has just been gravy.

Feat sheets are ready to print and the crew have been being briefed ahead of the game, kit has already been ferried to the site and the costumes for main DPC’s and so forth assembled. But there is so much more than that as our most experienced game runner has wandered the site, making maps and prop plans, developing shopping list and preparing to achieve a finale event the likes of which we haven’t seen for years.

Having done all of this prep he has asked, however, that we close bookings a touch early, although there is only one ticket left at the time of this writing for the player side of things but he is including the crew he is writing around in that. So IF you are intending to play or crew, specifically the latter, please get your booking over the line before Tuesday night so our man in the big ref seat can plan appropriately.

Get your tickets for 9th July 2022

So that’s a lot of big intent statements from us and the ref and gives Jon a lot to live up to in his role as our intro game refs but these have also met with a lot of keen from a lot of new players. Jon’s next offering is coming through in the anticipated “One Better Day” and you can get your early doors bookings in now:

Tickets for One Better Day

Mechanics are the next obvious step and we can point you again at several things that we have managed to get better at this last week, again down to Holly’s good guidance and the hard work of the Kobolds.

Keep checking the webpages! All of the updates are appearing there and we are flagging them as they come up on the new Discord channel and equally at the start of the weekly Codafying episodes that we are running. This week however Holly had the Rules Chef, Stick, and their team really looking into player questions and how we can better facilitate you as players.

The Character Pages, where we look after your plot and endeavour records, were properly updated and systems to keep them that way were begun. Everyone that has played in the new update has been advanced and the Max Buys that people were concerned by are now available via the system when you are doing your spends. You should all start seeing the benefits of those changes now.

The Mighty Mike has also been at it, developing and updating your Backlash, your Nestor upgrades and just generally being the wonder that is Mike. That means that at the next event you should be seeing more and more development for you as we move toward and into Phase Two of the system reboot post Covid. However the following statement is true: 

Stephen is no longer the system head: He is lead plot and facilitating the handover of the changes between the old game and the new one. If you are PM’ing him and relying on him for character updates and rules changes then know that he is just passing it up the chain and you will be better served by talking to the appropriate people. He WILL try to help you but he is mainly focussed on site development, story writing and other such activities.

Finally on the development front: Codafying!

Codafying has been hugely successful in providing updates to the game through the Wednesday night specials and through the weekly focus on the system Lore, Mechanics and people and we have more to announce and extrapolate on with where we are going. Both areas have a different concentration which aid the system and the general development of the community that we are rebuilding

The weekly Codafyings speak to you directly about each page of the Wiki, whether that’s direct game mechanics, species, remnants, areas of the world or the people that run the game. Every time we run one the channel is full of people telling us that this is enlightening information and how they are inspired to build new characters or take current ones in different directions. Very much the concept of New Light through Old Windows which is very much what Version 12 is about.

However we are aware that we lost a number of early episodes and that they need to re-recorded and we will put that down to our own inexperience trying to produce these episodes for you. Secondly we know that we want to get better at running these as Youtube releases after the fact and that is something that we are beginning to prepare for as of this week. We will be looking to have the Youtube Channel up and working with releases as of August and aiming a Patreon special out on a Monthly basis.

Last week’s Codafying was an in depth look at the why of Orcs in CODA and how different they are to so many other iterations of them. This week we will be delving into the world of the Eaolf in general. So that’s weekly Codafying but what about Monthly?

The Monthly Codafying has met with great success and has been our biggest Twitch audience for CODA related material to date. During the show we address our latest mechanics, plot, site and event running updates and then take questions. These are usually pre-prepared questions from our Patreons, Subs and Shining Stars before we take questions from the floor. This format has been excellent and we will be continuing those with Wednesday the 27th of July set for our next QnA. If you fall into any of the pre-prepared question categories feel free to start filling up the Discord channel with them! 

We will finish up with the CODA podcast that features our System Head – Holly Goodall, the System Founder, LARPtronics founder, Site Owner etc etc – Stephen Canfield and of course, the Legendary Mark Cordory! He of the Mark Cordory Creations, Mythlore, Tardis building and other endeavours, fame. Larping Up that Hill is runs every Thursday from 10.30am BST for about an hour and features talks about all things larp.

It is now in its second season, after an impromptu start and now carries with it an actual running order! Special guests, how to guides, long rambling memories that resurface as unusual stories and the promise of a lot of silly being thrown about. Last week, sadly, Mark had come down with Covid so the stream was abandoned but hopefully he will return this week for an episode about Sci Fi costume. 

Dave Oliver, famed for being a cofounder of The Dumnonni Chronicles, a wonderful storyteller, maker of things and just general wonder was supposed to be last week’s guest and he is being rescheduled to another session. Again; if you a Patreon, Sub or Shining Star you can throw up questions for the team in advance and we will make sure that we get to them in specially announced QnAs that will be upcoming on stream.

We will also be recording a Patreon special on a monthly basis with extra special guests from across the world of not only larping but other areas that the team have been a part of. You can find any and all episodes of Codafying on a host of streaming platforms: Anchor, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Audible and Google Podcast under The Rising of Conversation – Your support and subscriptions are appreciated!

Ok – So  that’s the week in a nutshell: It looks like the world may well be a hard place to be in at the moment so with that in mind we will be trying to keep the office manned as much as possible on Discord. If you need people, company, nonsense or an ear please feel free to come and find us. The teams will be in and around Discord helping out those that need and generally listening to froth. If you need some of this wonderful assistance go and find them and they will see what they can do for you. 

You can find us easily enough:

Till the next time we talk: Have a Foxes and Crows week people, we look forward to seeing all of you somewhere in the world whether that be in the woods or on Discord. 

Much Love

Take Care of Each Other

Team RoC