Good Morning Wonderfolk of the World,

Much love to you and our hope that this message finds you in fine form, fetlock and fettle as we, at RoC, stagger away from a deeply fulfilling event. With luck you have had the best week that you can since we last caught up and an equally gratifying weekend. The sun was shining, the woods were full of magic and we have put on a game that made us feel like the before times were with us again, but more on that in a little while. Let’s do our usual first:

All of the appreciation, thanks and love to not only the people that throw us cash via Patreon and Subs on Twitch but also the frontline emergency service folks that have served us all through the difficult times that we are still experiencing. The cash that we pick up ensures free games and priority booking for these amazing people and also means that we can continue to provide counselling and other community services to people out there that need it. If you are reading this and feel that you are someone that could benefit, do not hesitate to prod us via PM or e-mail and let us know.

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.

This week they were full of Larpers again but these woods, these beautiful, wonderful bits of Forest that we get to say we own served us well. We managed to spend an hour or so clearing a new path and getting some more debris out of what will be new clearings. We have also arranged a meeting with the lady that owns the field that we would hope to walk through to get directly to the site, with that being on Friday so……. 

Woods is looking good.

For once Holly was vaguely satisfied by the work of her Kobold minions and spared the lash, at least on Tuesday, so we have much to report on what has been going on, first off though we get to touch on the event that was “The Lost One”; what was good about it, how Version 12 is playing out and what we took away as storytellers and game runners.

First off, organisationally, the kit was on site on Friday and set-up and prebriefs were all complete by the time the players wandered into the Red Table Area to collect their character packs and receive environmental effects for the day. So by the time site orientation for the new folks was done we were all ready to kick off the brief and get the game running. Given how rusty we had been in the lead up to the last event that felt like a proper win.

We’ll quickly look at Version Twelve long enough to say: The combats that we did were par excellence, they really conveyed what we wanted from 12 and EVERYONE was waxing lyrical about how much more evolved and enjoyable 12 is. From Wound Cards to Backlash to Nestors to Feat Sheets everything was spot on, the game and story flowed and we couldn’t be happier. Except maybe ribbons which we will be switching up to something a touch more noticeable in the days to come.

The Game from the cacophony of crew and storytellers voices to this post: We loved the village of Vaark and being the people that didn’t like Cousin Merman! Favourite bits from the crew were: Watching the players unfold the story of Vaark from stolen swords, to missing food, to long buried daemons to WHO IS COUSIN MERMAN?? Although the bardic play that was impromptuly thrown for us and the dedication shown to Mister Hains dead Father were our standouts

The crew waxed lyrical about the Fae Ambush, apparently it looked like the players expected an easy ride and were somewhat taken aback by the relentless nature of the Haunt Family. Eyeslayer Haunt not the nicest of people but we loved the way that the players recreated the Myth Spoken Steel Blade and dragged themselves back into action when literally everyone but Phillip was on the floor. Combat rolls, heroic defending, inspired words from the weave and battle charges galore were everywhere as the spirit of CODA was realised.

I think last off (Stephen Says that the Kids Puzzles were funny) we will say that the confrontation in Rosepetal Westerfield took the biscuit – Players finally arriving as the ancient Daemon Tian Mad’n rising from the corrupt flesh of the village dispatched the ritualist, also Rosepetal, was EPIC. The charge to get to her side whilst holding back so many zombified crew and the circle to defend her and the Chirurgeon that was trying to save her – Oh your Gods!

But that wasn’t all; realising the Daemon was drawing from the huge mound of flesh, played by the corpse of a Mi Go, all the way over the other side of the village meant that the players broke formation and went for it. Waves of Zombies, Bards singing, Priests of the Kraken sacrificing all, a lone Warrior left to defend the Chirurgeon, a vital effort to overcome the flesh and eventually rescuing Roseptal and meeting Starvakosh, the Gulvikenvay of the Drayal Vork and learning the terrors of Haunt Family and their awful book! Blimey what a finale.

THAT was a proper day in the woods and we are feeling it now for sure, regardless here we are waxing on about it 🙂 Anyways – Moving on.

Holly has already pulled out the “Rod of Kobolds “Workfaster” (Holly says: “No, I haven’t!!!”) and is demanding that we get on with things so let’s show you what we have coming up: 

On the 28th we have a standalone event by Jon Wickenden one of our lead refs and storytellers that is open to all but is a great place to start learning the system and develop new characters into the story. You can find details for that here.

On the 11th and 12th of June we are running our next two dayer at a new Site over Swindon way and you can find out all about the Court of the Fae here.

On top of that we will be transmitting the latest debrief from this week’s game out via YouTube and putting together a plan for a stream that will take you through the new rules updates as well as the format of the games and some QnA time from the system developers and story writers – That may happen this week or next week but we will keep you all in the loop.

We will also be looking at creating a section of the wiki for your diligent efforts with things like Feat Sheets and the knowledge that is stored there as well as your event reports and discovered information. There is a LOT of keen for peeps to be able to get that stuff up and we are happy to oblige. At our weekly meeting we will be talking about that and discussing how players might be able to access and provide information.

Streamwise we will be looking to redo the lost Codafying episodes, sorry about that everyone, which means that we will be taking another run through of the system although that might be an all day Wednesday job, it is hard to say but we will let you know. Regardless we will be doing our first run through of skills and how they work in the game with a little bit of mechanics and a little bit of lore. That will be at 9ish on Wednesday morning for sure.

Last Thursday we Podcasted with Mark Cordory as ever and we discussed how much larping has changed as a game in the last 40 years and we will be back to talk about more of this nonsense this week with a look at how we have seen magic develop and change, how systems have used it and what it was like for us all those years ago. That’s the Rising of Conversation at 10.30 on Thursday Morning.

The teams will be in and around Discord helping out those that need it with character building and game prep. If you need some of this wonderful assistance go and find them and they will see what they can do for you. 

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

The streaming for the International Rescue Comittee with the Chicanery for Ukrainery continues and we appreciate all of the help that you have given them. This week the set up streams go along the following lines.

  • On Monday Morning we will be live with the Monday Morning Meeting from 8.45am BST
  • At around 7pm BST on Monday, Stephen will be picking up Pendragon which is a wonderful experience for all involved 🙂 
  • Tuesday evening has Sam gaming away with more classic funtimes
  • At 9 or so on Wednesday Morning, Stephen will be live to go through some more CODA magic based rules, in the next episode of CODAfying. 
  • Thursday we’ll be starting off with the wonderful Rising of Conversation podcast where Stephen and Mark will be discussing more stories from the over 40 years of larping experience they have between them
  • And to round out the streams for next week, Thursday night will have the usual Chicanery Gaming stream, with Trews and guests

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