Hello Wonderfolk of the World,

Blimey! It’s the middle of August, where did the year go? We know we missed a week, it was a bad one for technology and the office Kobolds spent a lot of time repairing kit (not the system artist) but we are back now and all things are good. We have a lot to go over but we’ll start by hoping that this message finds you in fine form, fetlock and fettle and that you had an excellent couple of weeks wherever you were and whatever you were doing. 

Let’s kick off with our usual thanks to all of the Patreons and Subs that have stuck with us so far this year and made life better for a bundle of folks who are benefitting from the counselling service, food and other facilities that The Rising provides. With the coming energy and cost of living crisis facing people these contributions are more and more vital with poverty being, possibly, the largest cause of Mental Health problems.

On top of that we also get to say thank you to the frontline emergency services by offering free tickets and priority bookings to our games. You have always been outstanding and under the current system we will do what we can to support you in any way possible.

Ok – Let’s move onto some updates.

There has been massive upheaval in the real world part of the CODA team and that means different job hours and new times of availability for our teams. That crosses over into all of The Rising so Chicanery and Calodemon are also affected. This means that we have once again moved our weekly meeting and as of next week:

The Monday Morning Meeting will roll out as the new, improved, Sunday Evening Get Together between 7ish and 8ish pm BST on Twitch as all Rising  team members meet up to discuss the plans of the week, the month and generally natter. Feel free to chime in with questions and comments – That’s here on Sunday Evenings. 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, so much has happened! About nine days ago CODA ran its first overnight event in the woods and in the build up to that we have achieved a huge amount on site. The main camp has developed with new seating, a wood stack and all sorts which really add to the environment along with our very own handcart. 

Beyond that Stephen and his team have been clearing out the first area and the low end fence walls are in. These will be grown through to give them solidity for the years to come and above them cordage is going so that canvas can be hauled up and down to change the structure of the areas.

These will create a yurt village which will include a workshop, forge, bar and many other areas that will go on to create the changeable Calodemon village. Doorframes, village  pathways and so forth will spring up to create the first of the site areas that will be used for many events to come.

Alongside this our Sister group; Blackwell Bushcraft, kick off with their first on site event on Tuesday taking a Children’s Only event out and about which you can find here.

This is very exciting…!

So a week or so ago we ran our first ever overnight event from Friday to Sunday in our own woods. Don’t get us wrong we have run thousands of overnight events at various different sites, you could say we are 25 year old hands at it, but this was our first one on our very own land and it was absolutely marvellous.

Years ago ROC, as CODA was once known, used to run one day linears a lot but it moved on from there some time ago and having to move back into that format has been difficult. The concept that we push through the plot through a sequence of encounters and try and pace out a day to the beat of hours in it doesn’t work for us anymore and we have been troubled trying to achieve it.

Running from Friday night onwards was glorious – Holly’s team ran an amazing camp full of DPC’s, plot and politics whilst Jon’s team took the players out on the skits that shaped the world. From silliness around the campfire to politicking and plotting out the world to fighting the aberrations that live in the places between the worlds. It was an outstanding weekend and deeply saddening to leave the world of Vaklam behind and come back to earth.

Massive thanks as ever goes to Holly and her team of wonder: From Stick and Gonge and Matt and Karl for the behind the scenes work, to Stephen and Jon for their excellent plot writing and the crew led by the intrepid Trews for all of their hard work. We all agree that this is the format that makes the game work in the way that we want it to for a standard event and let’s take a quick look at that now:

Friday Arrival – Crew set up and player arrival for time in on Friday evening with a main player camp and the woodland for skits seems to be the way forward – Game around the camp for the evening as we set up the main Saturday stuffs.

Saturday will be the main day and start at around 9.30/10ish and play through until Eightish – Players that are there for the entire weekend just carry on through but we will also allow for tickets that have access to just the Saturday – The plot will be fully accessible, just jump in and play.

Saturday Evening for a mainstream 3 day event will have an 8pm time out and be followed by a campfire weekend debrief and players can either stay over or head home with Sunday being a day of take down and homeward boundness by around 2pm.

So: With all of that in mind: There is a drought – So we are having issues with fires in the woods which we are looking at addressing but that will not be sorted ahead of next weekend. Alongside that we won’t be running anymore one day events this year we will be sticking with the 3 day format which people can jump into for a day if that is all that they can attend.

Our dates for this year are as follows: 

  • Sept 3/4 weekend – Tharinos – This will be a full on Friday to the end of Sunday event and we will clear up on the Monday Morning ourselves.
  • October 1/2 – Weekender
  • October 14/15 – Weekender

At this point we will close the woods and prepare for winter – There will be some dates for events throughout winter but that will be announced after this week is out.

Next year we will kick off in Feb/March time and run one 3 dayer a month. The other bi-monthly slot can be booked for personal one day or two day plot slots or even sanctioned events if people want to run them

Wow – So that’s a load of stuff that we have done!

This week on CODA:

We will be setting up the booking pages for the games and getting ourselves to the end of the year and we will be hammering out the downtime a little more behind the scenes. We are hopeful that we can manage the debrief as a spoken thing for Youtube now that tech is working but the week is very full on.

On a streaming front – Mike and Stephen will be about to do Codafying at around 9am on Tuesday morning and will be talking about the Iron Blood families of the Kuldisar. 

After that LARPing up that Hill returns on Thursday this time with a NEW TIME SLOT of 5pm -6pm so if you want some home time listening come and join Holly, Mark and Stephen for the weekly pod.

Ok – So that is probably us for the week – Thank you for reading! We’ll try not to leave it so long next time.

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