Good Morning Wonderfolk of the World,

We are into April now and the sun is shining, the wind is chill but the flowers are in bloom and the green is creeping back into the trees. We are looking forward to days on the site in the sunshine and running around the woods with swords just like it was the summer of 1997 when all things began. Before we get into all that though it just remains to say that we hope this message finds you in fine form, fetlock and fettle and that you had the best week that you could wherever you were and whatever you were doing.

We have announced our next three dates, the land is coming along and we will be posting events this week. So as we do we will remind the amazing frontline emergency services types that we continue to offer free games and priority bookings to our upcoming games – just prod us via e-mails for details and we’ll sort you out.

We’ll follow that up with a huge thank you to all of our Patreons and the Subs over on Twitch along with all of the contributions from the various teams that are working massively behind the scenes to make everything happen. This lets us continue to provide counselling and other vital factors of life like food and housing to people that need it. If you are one of them drop us an anonymous e-mail or PM and we’ll do what we can to help.

The two main wings of the Rising continue to develop and both the Chaos and the Chicanery side of things have had their paths better defined for them in the last week after their first quarter review. Today we will be looking at the CODA review and where we will be focussing our efforts in the next quarter. There is, as ever, a lot going on and getting back to the woods regularly is the highest of our priorities.

Whilst this message covers the basics we will be on and chatting on Monday Morning between 8.45 and 10am on Twitch as team members meet up to discuss the plans of the week, the month and generally natter. They will even talk to you too if you ask them questions – 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.

So!

The Calodemon Woods!

Our next big day in the woods for a fix up is the 23rd of April when we will be chopping down and then dismembering the unwell trees with TWO surgeons on hand to help out. All of you would be welcomed to come along and also to follow the progress of the Woods over here on Facebook.

The Rising of Calodemon Facebook Page

Build Day Event II

It’s always a good community day in the woods and the landscape is always inspiring. 

Big week last week with a LOT of changes across the board and even more plans for building for better days. We’ll kick off with the really big stuff first although most of you will have seen this news over on Facebook and on Discord!

The Rising of Chaos, our LARP wing of all things Rising is now the sole domain of the one and only Holly Goodall (Bumblebeans if you are Discord affectionados). Her talents in all things writing, organising, creativity and inspiration make her the perfect choice for the role. She has a lot of big plans for both CODA and Discordant Symphony and is keen to kick on with them right now! 

She is keeping her team as follows: Jon and Stephen kick in as lead story, Stick remains as the Rules Chef alongside deputy and husband Gonge, The Mighty Mike ties up a new role as Game Architect (he who bridges the gaps between rules and game) and Trews maintains his role as the man behind Viginti. 

Her first announcement is the dates for the first three CODA games of her tenure those being:

  • Sat the 30th of April
  • Sat the 14th of May
  • Sat the 28th of May

Early this week she will be announcing the events and posting up the booking info and what not. 

We’ll back all of that up by saying that the toilets should be being installed on site during this period which puts us, finally, in the position to be offering two day events and the luxury of camping.

Next up: Website updates are now underway with the following intentions being put forward for implementation by the new Lady of Larp!

A Direct Front Page that deals with all Rising matters from which the Chaos pages will begin with a Declaration of identity including our Mission Statement, where we run events,  a CODA Statement and a Discordant Symphony Statement, a focus on some of our key personnel and all of the many testimonials that people have kindly put forward for us.

CODA will follow up with a better overview of what is going on with: What the Six Duchies was like before the Lockdown Plot, What plot was going on before hand and an overview of Lockdown’s game, The Choice. Then what the Six Duchies are like after the Red Reality and what plot is going on right now.

Because we love a challenge we will also be looking to cement a quarterly online game that deals with, initially, direct Duchy politics as witnessed in the meeting a few weeks ago. Holly is also cleaning up the documents that relate to that meeting and getting the post event stuff prepped for the last game. She is aware that these docs are behind schedule and that’s probably why she is in charge now.

Because we all need something to do with the other hand and because Holly is a harsh task mistress there is also a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. She is looking to instil a different work ethic with the following aspects of organisation being put back into the mix:

  • Weekly plot and Dev meetings again
  • Full respend calendar
  • Discord Updates 
  • Availability schedules for work planning

So that’s a succinct overview of where we are under the new Bumblebeans regime but there are even more things to talk about in this update:

New Projects and Crossover Updates…!

Mark Cordory – The Man the Myth!

For the last couple of Months we have been producing a Podcast for the Chicanery Twitch channel with Mark Cordory and Stephen Canfield. We all know who Mark is and Stephen should be known as the Rising founder. The two have enjoyed a good friendship and working relationship since Stephen’s days as LARPtronics developer for kit when Mark was running Mythlore: Newlands.

This month they are celebrating forty years of LARPing by telling stories of their own on the podcast that meander back through over seventy years of shared experience. So far that has yielded some poignant tales, some terrifying moments and a lot of hilarity. There is more of that to come next week but the two of them are plotting something a little bit more current and LARP related.

CODA is happy to announce that Mark is taking the time to not only revamp our Richard suit, who is in need of some love and attention but we are also in works to design a host of new full body suits for the system. Alongside that there is also a lot of planning for us to throw some monies and people at Mark to kick off their training in his skills and talents, not only to repair our kit to pick up his skills and produce kit for the system in years to come.   

Codafying

Codafying seems to be going well and this week we are producing the first look at the casting briefs over on the Twitch channel. That will be on Wednesday Morning at around 9am BST if you want to tune in and learn about the Lore of some of the magic that the game works around. Equally we will be tinkering with the first of the Codafying episodes to get them up onto the Youtube channel so that they can become a part of the website experience.

Kickstarting Ideas

In a final flourish of new and exciting things Chicanery and Chaos are joining creative forces to produce some bits and bobs for kickstarter after a lot of meetings and exciting chats with creative types at places like EN Publishing. This particular statement is a bit of a first tease and we are hoping to bring you more news on this keen inducing front soon!

Meanwhile over on…

The Chicanery calendar has taken shape and  there are more and more regular streamers  over on the Chicanery Facebook Page

We are SO proud to be a part of what they are doing: Last week they purchased the Humble Bundle for Ukraine which consisted of many games. They are now streaming them for the International Rescue Committee who are not only helping out in Ukraine but all over the world. Please come and give them all of the support that you can on their normal and Chicanery for Ukrainery streams.  

A basic runthrough of the upcoming Chicanery week looks like this:

  • Monday Morning – Chaos Meeting at 8.45  if you want to know what we will be getting up to this week
  • Monday Evening – Kids on Brooms with The Lady of Larp, Bumblebeans.
  • Tuesday Afternoon – Jumpy Gron
  • Tuesday Evening – Games streaming with The Electric Tootaloo
  • Wednesday Morning – Stephen will be Codafying and looking at system related things.
  • Wednesday Night – The Mighty Mike and Tales of Wildemount
  • Thursday Morning – The Rising of Conversation sees Stephen, Mark and guests talk about their exciting lives of larping
  • Thursday Evening – Chicanery for Ukrainery.
  • Friday Night we are back to Beansies Bed Time Stories

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. 

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