Home Questing: The Final Results!!

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Hi all, Janus here and welcome to Home Questing.  Over the past 30 quests, we had 27 different people submit a wide variety of different tasks, involving puzzle solving, rituals, stacking things, and feats of strength to earn a shot at being one of the top 5 participants to get a prize.  And what are those prizes you may ask?

Well, there was a prize pool where each winner could make a choice from.

There was 500 gold gifted by Father Yule himself.

There was 250 gold gifted by the generous Tao.

There was “The blade of variance”

There was “The discarded stone”

There was divinations by Janus on a subject of their choice

And something else that wasn’t selected (so 5th place would have a choice)

So, with those prizes selected, let’s see who won!

In 5th place was Saka with 32 points.  A noteworthy submission of his was his week 1 entry for the most impressive stack:

In 4th place is Kovaks with 37 total points.  A noteworthy entry of hers was her participation in “Everything Janus Says is Wrong”:

   

 In Third Place is Laika en'Naur with 48 points.  A great entry was his edible recreation of bridge battles:

In second place was DelHemar with 247.5 points.  He participated in a vast number of the tasks, so one of the noteworthy ones is his haiku about Chimeron:

And finally, in first place with a whopping 280 points was Cressida, who didn’t miss a single week.  And here is her attempt at a nature based summoning which instantly came to mind when I thought of the tasks she had done:

 

 This is Janus, and I look forward to seeing you in the field.

Home Questing: The Final Task Judging!!

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Hello, and welcome to the last judging of “Home Questing.”  This week, we are doing a retrospective where I asked you to do the best reinterpretation of a previous task.  So, let’s take a look at what people came up with.

First, from Cressida is this touching submission:

For Task 30 we were asked to reinterpret a previous task, so I chose Task 28: “Something you are proud of”. I have decided to reinterpret it as “Someone(s) you are proud of”. Over the past year I have seen people across the Realms accomplish so much and I want to tell you some of things I have been observing that I am so proud of you for. I won’t list names to keep you from feeling too embarrassed, but I do want to list the amazing accomplishments and tell you I see you and I am proud of you!

To everyone who had a baby or raised kids this year, I am proud of you!

To everyone who worked on their physical and/or emotional health this year, I am proud of you!

To everyone who crafted and created this year, I am proud of you!

To everyone who moved this year or started a new job, I am proud of you!

To everyone who continued their education or graduated, I am proud of you!

To everyone who brought a new furry friend into their home, I am proud of you!

To everyone who cleaned and organized this year, I am proud of you!

To everyone who showed kindness and love this year, I am proud of you!

And lastly, to all of us in the Realms because we are still together even after all the unpredictability and the stress, the not knowing and the waiting, and the long months of missing each other. I am proud of all of us and I can’t wait to see you all again soon.

And from Janus, we received this more lighthearted interpretation of a “Pickup line”

“Hey baby, are you a troll, cause you managed to grab and lift that boulder with quite some ease.”

Now, I was planning on contacting judges of the previous tasks to ask them to judge them yet again...but the submissions I received didn’t have traditional judges.  In retrospect, I should have seen this possibility coming, but alas...I didn’t.  So, I’ll have to judge this as fairly as I can by myself.

I can’t do anything but give first place to Cressida for this beautiful submission.  It makes me happy just reading it, and giving anything shy of the full 11 points would be a disgrace.

On the flip side, I can’t do anything but disqualify Janus for reinterpreting “pickup line” as “picking up line”.

So...with that said, I need to confirm with a few people about the prize pool, so I’ll release the final results next week, where we will publicly announce the winners and what they have won.

Home Questing: Task 29 Results!

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Hi all, and welcome to the judging of the penultimate task of Home Questing.  This week, we asked you to draw a self portrait without looking at the paper, and that the funniest would win.  So, let’s see how people are with their eyes closed.

First, from Belle (the racoon) is this:

Second, Cressida took a different approach.  She put on some music and chose colored pencils at random every time she switched features until she ran out of pencils, resulting in this:

And finally, from Janus is this drawing (which is only marginally worse than with his eyes open):

So, for help on this, I asked Indana, who happened to be over helping with dinner.  Take it away Indana!

First place (5 points) is Cressida, because I laughed out loud. Lets just say that I found their eyes on the portrait resembled a different … anatomical … body part. 

Second place (4 points) is Janus because he is an elephant, and that’s great. 

Third place (3 points) is Belle. A very solid entrant. 

Thank you Indana.  Now, for my point of view:

First, as it always happens, Janus is disqualified for using a second sight of some sort.

In 2nd place is Belle (4 points).  It’s actually a really good drawing...possibly better than I could do myself, and while cute, isn’t that funny.

In 1st place is Cressida  (5 points).  The colors add to it, but as I look closer and closer it gets funnier and funnier.  There are two mouths offset from each other.  There might be two eyebrows...or I don’t know what those arches are.  There is either an earring on a cheek, or a rosy cheek on the ear.  It’s perfect!

So, after a point for participation, that brings our totals for the week to:

Cressida: 11 points

Belle: 8 points.

See you next week for our thrilling conclusion.

Home Questing: The Thirtieth Task!!!!!

 by Janus "Christopher" Donnelly

The form to submit your best reinterpretation of a previous task:  https://forms.gle/ZKVXgQaUnA8WeFJS7

If you would prefer to send something to me directly rather than uploading to youtube or some other video hosting site, please email it to techiemikey@gmail.com.

Here are all the view articles for previous tasks: http://viewfromvalehaven.blogspot.com/search/label/Home%20Questing

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Transcript:

Hi all, Janus here and welcome to Home Questing, the Thirtieth Task!  This week is going to be our last week, so in the spirit of that, I am asking you to reinterpret a previous task.  The best reinterpretation wins.  You have until next Friday at noon, and your time starts now.

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Home Questing Task 28: Results!

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Hi all, and welcome to Home Questing.  I wanted something upbeat and wholesome this week, so I asked you to submit something you are proud of.  And I really enjoyed seeing what people were proud of.

The first submission was this award from Belle Vivid:

The second submission I received are these creations from Cressida: 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CmKeiygF25rCRzQr5

Our third great submission from DelHemar is this recognition he received: “my weekly d&d table just finished an almost 2 year campaign,  and when I asked what they were interested in next,  they unanimously agreed they wanted to go back to an experimental system I had developed and run 6 or so years ago. When they started talking about the previous game,  telling our new player who wasn't around to experience our first run in that system about it,  it made me really proud that 4-5 years after that game ended they still remember it so fondly. And they would rather play a new game in my system rather than in d&d.”

Our penultimate submission from Kovaks is one of self improvement: “My Improvements to my mental health over the past 10 years”

And last, but not least is Janus’ physical health, which as he put it “I have successfully exercised every day so far this year, and have traveled by foot a total of 545 miles this year so far.”

Everyone who submitted gets full points this week (10 points plus one point for participation), so I will just post the scores so far:

• Cressida - 258
• DelHemar - 247.5
• Laika en'Naur - 48
• Kovaks - 37
• Saka - 32
• Aeston, Areni, and Gwen - 26.5
• Iawen - 20
• Belle Vivid - 20
• Bart - 19
• Orion - 13
• Keras - 13
• Tuilli - 11
• Vawn - 10
• Syruss - 10
• Jerrick Jerrickson - 10
• Luc-Dubois Coupant - 9
• Osa - 8
• Axel - 7
• Rita - 7
• Kwido - 6
• J'reth - 5
• Nalydros - 5
• Rosetta - 5
• Sagart Hawkshade - 5
• Tarun Ul-Sikar - 5
• Thayet - 5
• Vanduke - 4
• King Alexander Cecil - 2.5
• Jace - 2
• Kara Nithisdottir - 1.5
• Thoril - 1.5

See you next week!

Home Questing: Task 29!

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Here is the form for your funniest self portrait:

https://forms.gle/mbGUzvwBchtsLZWX7

If you would prefer to send something to me directly rather than uploading to youtube or some other video hosting site, please email it to techiemikey@gmail.com.

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Transcript:

Hi all, Janus here and welcome to home questing.  This week I’m going to ask you to draw a self portrait without looking at the paper.  The funniest self portrait wins.  You have until next friday at noon, and your time starts now.

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Home Questing 27th Task - Results!

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Hi all, Janus here and welcome to Home Questing, the 27th task.  I asked people to submit their best blanket/pillow fort and I definitely got some.  So, let’s take a look.

First from Cressida, in her own words “because I miss camping out under the stars, I decided to create a fort dedicated to them.”

Next, from Janus is this utilitarian fort:

I was unable to grab a partner to help judge this week, but I think I can just do this well on my own.  So take it away Janus!

In first place is Cressida (5 points).  This was a very well designed blanket fort!  If I came across it on a quest, it could very well imagine having some tea with people studying the stars in it.  And it is roomy enough to sleep in as well!  Full points!

In second pace is Janus (4 points).  Unfortunately, it appears to be less “fort shaped” and more “blankets set up in such a manner that they could reasonably be a roof.”  Also, what are “New England Triots?”  I would put this lower, but I can’t.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to do this Janus.  Now for my judging:

In first place is Cressida (5 points).  The theming is very excellent with all of the stars involved.  The lighting creates great ambiance and the panda is adorable.

Disqualified is Janus.  He decided to be his own guest, and this is his punishment.

After a point for participation, that leaves us with Cressida with 11 points.

See you next week!

Home Questing: The 28th Task

 

Here is the form for what you are most proud of.

https://forms.gle/XTtxq2aEyWRQu74QA 

If you would prefer to send something to me directly rather than uploading to youtube or some other video hosting site, please email it to techiemikey@gmail.com.

Transcript:

Hi all, Janus here and welcome to home questing.  This week I’m doing a non-judged task.  All you have to do is submit something you are proud of, and well...you’ll get the full points.  You have until Friday at noon, and your time starts now.

Home Questing: Task 26 Results

by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Welcome to the Twenty Sixth Installment of Home Questing.  This week, I asked you to make the most impressive nature-based summoning circle.  Four intrepid adventurers took turns making their summoning circles, so let’s take a look at how they did, shall we?

First, from newcomer Belle Vivid is this circle with many friends involved: 

Next, from Cressida is this entry from HGSC:

DelHemar took a different approach to a nature-based summoning circle

And finally, from Janus is this piece of nature:

So, as a guest judge, I was wondering who would be best to judge this, but I was having a problem figuring it out.  And then, it came to me: a nature spirit would be ideal, and I had accidentally summoned one already...so...take it away...nature spirit.

HI.  I’M FIRE.  AND JANUS’S WASN’T A CIRCLE, SO LAST PLACE!

I’m Earth.  And I.  Put Into.  Third Place (3 points). DelHemar’s Circle.  It Looks. Like It.  Would Lure.  In Something.  Even From.  Else Where.  But It.  Might Catch. A Fae.  More Than.  Summon. One.

i’m water and i feel that the wide variety of animals and offerings by belle are most impressive, and as such she get’s second place(4 points).  also, you can see a relative of mine in the photo.

I’mAirAndOhMySelfCressida’sInFirstPlace(5points)!Thevalues!TheGoal!TheElements!AndButterflies!EverythingIWanted!

Thank you, and I release you from your bonds.  What, you were just hanging out and I didn’t summon you?  Fine then...stay if you wish.  From my side of things, here is how I view it.

As always, Janus seems to got himself disqualified again.  He knows what he has done.

In third place (3 points) is DelHemar.  While the circle would likely work well, it isn’t that impressive beyond being made well on a technical sense.  I did like the bit of temptation in the middle of the circle though

In second place (4 points) is Belle.  The circle itself is large and the many components come together to make a very impressive circle.  I noticed that in addition to the various animals there were also a number of temptations for various natural beings to lure them in.

In first place (5 points) is Cressida.  This submission really lured me in with the amount of work that was put into it, and if you haven’t watched it yet, scroll up and enjoy.  It was impressive in how the circle was laid down, which is often just as important as the circle itself.

Now, after a point for participation, that leaves us with

Cressida: 11 points

Belle Vivid: 9 points

DelHemar: 7 points

And for the running totals, here we are:

DelHemar - 236.5

Cressida - 236

Laika en'Naur - 48

Saka - 32

Aeston, Areni, and Gwen - 26.5

Kovaks - 26

Iawen - 20

Bart - 19

Orion - 13

Keras - 13

Tuilli - 11

Vawn- 10

Syruss - 10

Jerrick Jerrickson - 10

Luc-Dubois Coupant - 9

Belle Vivid - 9

Osa - 8

Axel - 7

Rita - 7

Kwido - 6

J'reth - 5

Nalydros - 5

Rosetta - 5

Sagart Hawkshade - 5

Tarun Ul-Sikar - 5

Thayet - 5

Vanduke - 4

King Alexander Cecil - 2.5

Jace - 2

Kara Nithisdottir - 1.5

Thoril - 1.5

See you next week!

Home Questing: The 27th Task

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Here is the form for your more impressive nature-based summoning circle:

https://forms.gle/Fj8NW7D3ohbb9DLNA 

If you would prefer to send something to me directly rather than uploading to youtube or some other video hosting site, please email it to techiemikey@gmail.com.

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Transcript:

Hi all, Janus here and welcome to home questing.  This week I’m going to ask you to make the best pillow and blanket fort. You have until next friday at noon, and your time starts now.

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Home Questing: Task 25

  by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

It has been known that I have made a mistake or two in the past (a major one being that I thought this would be done by now) so I made a game about me being wrong called “Everything Janus Says is Wrong”.  I told our five participants this week various trivia statements which they had to correct beginning with the phrase “um...actually.”  I hope you have fun playing along and watching from home.

The final scores, after a point for participation are:

Kovaks with 11 points

Saka with 10 points

Laika with 9 Points

Cressida with 8 points

And Rita with 7 points

Home Questing: The 26th Task

by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Here is the form for your more impressive nature-based summoning circle: https://forms.gle/2ekq2evS6r7yAWyT6

If you would prefer to send something to me directly rather than uploading to youtube or some other video hosting site, please email it to techiemikey@gmail.com.

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Transcript:

Hi all, Janus here and welcome to home questing.  This week I’m asking you to build the most impressive nature-based summoning circle. You have until next friday at noon, and your time starts now.

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Home Questing Task 24: Results!

 by Janus "Christopher" Donnelly

Hello, and welcome to Home Questing, the 24th task, where I challenged people to make the cutest snowman possible.  And it appears we got some very cute snowmen.  So, let’s take a look.

First, from  Cressida is this well dressed snowman:

Next, from DelHemar is this very nature based snowman:

And finally, from Janus is this (and mostly edible) snowman:

So, looking at this task, I was wondering who would be good at judging what people built, so I asked Kovaks to lend her expertise on the subject.

Take it away Kovaks:

In first place (5 points), I find Janus’ snowman to be the cutest. The toothpicks give a sense of scale and are a nod to the traditional stick arms that most snowpeople have. This is also the snowman with the best face.

Second place (4 points), Cresseda’s snowman. Great use of color for the clothing, although I find cuteness to be  based in facial features, and other than the baby carrot nose, there aren’t an easily identifiable face.

Third place(3 points) is Del’s snowman, which also lacked facial features except for a pair of clove eyes, which are a nice choice but not particularly cute. If the judging criterion was photography and framing of the snowman, then Del would have won.

Thank you so much for that Kovaks.  

From my side of things, I am going to have to disqualify Janus for using chronomancy and submitting a snowman late on time.  Sorry.

In second (4 points) place is DelHemar’s snowman.  The berries definitely add to the nature feel of it, and the (what I believe are) clove eyes are adorable, but not quite as cute as our first place entry.

In first place (5 points) is Cressida.  The body and head were really well crafted and the hat, carrot nose, and scarf really drove the cuteness through the rough.

So including a point for participation that gives us Cressida with 10 points and DelHemar with 8 points.

And that leads us to our overall scores so far:

DelHemar - 229.5

Cressida - 217

Laika en'Naur - 39

Aeston, Areni, and Gwen - 26.5

Saka - 22

Iawen - 20

Bart - 19

Kovaks - 15

Orion - 13

Keras - 13

Tuilli - 11

Vawn - 10

Syruss - 10

Jerrick Jerrickson - 10

Luc-Dubois Coupant - 9

Osa - 8

Axel - 7

Kwido - 6

J'reth - 5

Nalydros - 5

Rosetta - 5

Sagart Hawkshade - 5

Tarun Ul-Sikar = 5

Thayet - 5

Vanduke - 4

King Alexander Cecil - 2.5

Jace - 2

Kara Nithisdottir - 1.5

Thoril - 1.5

See you next week for the next challenge!

Home Questing: No Home Questing this Week

by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

 Hi all,

Things have been keeping me busy this week, so there aren’t results this week, but they will come out soon.  In the meantime though, I am going to ask for some suggestions on tasks you would like to see people do or you would like to participate in.

https://forms.gle/UWbDPCj2R8oEBQvm6

See you next week!

Home Questing: The 25th Task

by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Here is the form for you to enter for trivia:  https://forms.gle/5sWxNahPWRrfc2WC7

If you would prefer to send something to me directly rather than uploading to youtube or some other video hosting site, please email it to techiemikey@gmail.com.

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Transcript:

Hi all, Janus here and welcome to Home questing, the 25th task.  This week I’m asking you to answer some trivia.  You have until Friday at noon to sign up, and your time starts now.

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Home Questing: The 23rd Task - Results!

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Hi everyone!  This week will be a short week because the judging was done by our community on Facebook.  I asked you to provide your funniest pick up lines, and boy did you deliver.

Starting in 5th place with 7 points is from Axel with “Are you Creathorne? Because your borders are endless and protected by machine gun wielding angels.”  

In 4th place, but quickly disqualified is Janus with “Did I just drink love poison, or are you really that beautiful?”  He got disqualified for joking about poisoning people.

In 3rd place, with 9 points is Cressida with “Hey, have you seen the Day Board? Because you’re a snack.”

In 2nd place, with 10 points is DelHemar with “I've got a circle of protection and a circle of healing that say I can keep you up all night. “

And finally, in first place (11 points)  is Tuilli with “If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it... (obnoxiously loud chorus from the rest of the room "HOLD")”

I will see you next week.

Home Questing: The 24th Task!

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Here is the form for you to submit your cutest snowman: https://forms.gle/Pj1fS8ibtUZHP9F8A

If you would prefer to send something to me directly rather than uploading to youtube or some other video hosting site, please email it to techiemikey@gmail.com.

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Transcript:

Hi all, Janus here and welcome to home questing, the twenty fourth task. It’s cold out right now, so I’m going to be quick.  I want you to make the cutest snowman you can.  You have until Friday at noon, and your time starts now.

                                                                    ***************

Home Questing: Task 22 Results

 by Christoper "Janus" Donnelly

Hello and welcome to Home Questing: the twenty second task.  I asked people to make the most delicious looking food they could, so let’s see what we got.

First, from Cressida is a Chicken Pot Pie Crescent Ring she made:

Next from DelHemar are these lemon tarts:

From Aeston, Areni, and Gwen is this classic they made from Feast of Leviathan: 

And finally from Janus is a Fried Egg Overhard on top of a white bread baked by monks:

WIth this in mind, I figured I would be best served by asking a member of the Order of the Spoon to judge these dishes.  So I invited Demetria Highwater to help with this.  Take it away Tria!

******

Happy to help, Janus, though I must say it’s very rude of you to show me food but not feed me food. I’ll be making a note of that. 

Anyway, onto the judging. 

In fourth place (2 points), I sadly have to put the spread from Feast of Leviathan. While it is a charcuterie board, which, as we all know, is the particular form of fae trap that will best ensnare the likes of me, it doesn’t follow the spirit of the rules here. Part of the challenge for the week was to make the delicious-looking food and capture it, and this is just digging up a portrait from over a year ago. That said, it looks maddeningly sublime and had this been a “find a picture of the best thing you ever cooked” contest, it would have won easily. 

In third place (3 points), I’m going to put DelHamar’s lemon tarts. I love the star shape, but the dough itself looks very thick and I would’ve liked a more even and smooth spread on the lemon curd topping. If it’s homemade lemon curd, though, I do want to say great color on it. Very bright.

Second place goes to Eggs a la Janus. At first, it was going to be in third place because it’s rather straightforward, but then I noticed that the egg has everything bagel seasoning on it, and that is madness. So, as the high priestess of Luna, I of course had to give it a boost.

And that leaves (5 points) darling Cressida and her pot pie ring. Wow. Gorgeous even coloring all around, and I am highly impressed by how much of the filling stayed in place despite the intentional slits in the dough. The sections could be a bit more even in size (it looks like crescent roll dough was used, so maybe some just needed more cutting/stretching), but honestly it’s the kind of thing I would be happy to set out at a feast in lieu of a traditional pie course. 

I will now be taking more submissions, directly to my mouth. 

Back to you, dear clansbro. 

******

Thanks Tria.  I’ll see what I can do to get you some food, but it might be a little bit before I can safely deliver it.  Anyway, time for my rankings.

First off, I am going to have to disqualify Janus yet again.  His submission reminded me that he spoiled the answer of “which came first, the chicken or the egg” to me last year, and that still upsets me to this day.

Anyway, in third place (3 points)  is DelHemar and his delicious looking tarts.  I would absolutely be willing to eat all 3 of them there, but there was a slight lack of refinement that could be improved upon to make them look even more delicious.

In second pace (4 points) is Cressida’s Chicken Pot Pie.  It essentially has everything that I love within it.  Carbs?  Check.  A nice amount of sweet fats?  Check.  A few vegetables?  Check.  Looking at it, I can already taste it and am jealous that I didn’t get a bite.

And finally in first place (5 points) is likely to be the most controversial of my selections: The charcuterie board from Leviathan.  I looked back at the wording and they were asked to make a delicious looking food.  And they are the ones who made it.  And I am a priest of Chronos, so linearity is a little fuzzy to me.  And almost most importantly...I ate it, which was as good as it looks.  Sometimes, bribery can get you far with the judges, and in this case it paid off.

So, after the point for participation, that was Cressida with 10 points, Aeston, Areni, and Gwen with 8 and DelHmar with 7.  For our overall scores, this is what we have so far:

Name / Total

DelHemar - 211.5

Cressida - 198

Laika en'Naur - 39

Saka - 22

Iawen - 20

Aeston, Areni, and Gwen - 26.5

Kovaks - 15

Orion - 13

Bart - 19

Vawn - 10

Syruss- 10

Jerrick Jerrickson - 10

Luc-Dubois Coupant - 9

Osa - 8

Keras - 13

Kwido - 6

J'reth - 5

Nalydros - 5

Rosetta - 5

Sagart Hawkshade - 5

Tarun Ul-Sikar - 5

Thayet - 5

Vanduke - 4

King Alexander Cecil - 2.5

Jace - 2

Kara Nithisdottir - 1.5

Thoril - 1.5

See you next week!

Home Questing: Task 23

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly

Here is the form for you to submit your funniest pickup line:  https://forms.gle/uR8CfCycCAEaR7Gm6

If you would prefer to send something to me directly rather than uploading to youtube or some other video hosting site, please email it to techiemikey@gmail.com.

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Transcript:

Hi all, Janus here and welcome to home questing, number twenty three. This week I am asking you to submit your funniest realms based pickup line.  The funniest will win.  You have until next friday at noon, and your time starts now.

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Home Questing: The 21st Task - Results!

 by Christopher "Janus" Donnelly 

Hello, and welcome to Home Questing, the 21st task.  Before our break, I asked you to submit the greatest feat of strength.  

First, from Cressida is this, which I shall post with her own words : “I thought my feat of strength would be lifting and holding this huge full bag over my head, but it turns out the real strength comes in submitting this picture as I don't like myself or my body in this photo and it takes strength to do it anyways and to be genuinely me and try to be proud of myself anyways.”

Next up DelHemar is really using his head (and back for that matter):

Finally from Janus is a different interpretation of a feat of strength:

So, thinking about who I know that is fit and strong, I decided to go with The Chimeronian Warlord: Saka! Take it away Saka:

Thanks Janus!

The competitors for this task provided all of us with an excellent demonstration of the complexities that lie behind the deceptively simple word "strength". Physicality usually comes to mind first, and even within that arena we have all sorts of variety between endurance, pure exertion of force, and myriad ways of combining them. Then we have the complimentary domain of mental strength, which I consider to be considerably more important. Demonstrating compassion, overcoming fears, communicating honestly, pushing through pain, striving for growth, questioning one's own beliefs, developing healthy habits, and consistently loving oneself and others are all incredible feats of mental strength. (As is walking past snack food vendors on market days!)

With all that said, we have before us three submissions vying to be judged the greatest feat of strength: 

Cressida appears to be lifting a large bag with a pillow or two inside, and that alone does not strike me as very impressive. As she notes, however, many of us are our own worst critics. In such cases it takes courage to do the work of acknowledging who we are, including our perceived flaws, and to nevertheless actively go out into the world with a smile on our faces. Cressida has done just that, and as such I'll award her first place and 5 points.

Janus's feat of strength also incorporated physical and mental components. For those of us who aren't Dagger of Blackwood or from even farther north than Creathorne, and thus to whom the measurement of "7.51km" is effectively meaningless, the distance he claims to have run is equivalent to 4 ⅔ miles. That's nothing to shake a stick at - running more than a couple of miles at a time takes either a strong will or something really dangerous right behind you. Your body has to be strong enough to keep moving just as much as your mind must be strong enough to tolerate, appreciate, or ignore the pain. Since Janus seems to have been running in a loop, and his submission says it's the longest he's run to date, I expect he didn't just have a zombie chasing after him. Unfortunately, I don't know much Seer magic and have no way to verify that Janus was actually running in circles. For all I know he was simply trotting on a horse for 40 minutes, so I cannot in good conscience award him any points. Better luck next time, Janus!

And thus it comes to pass that I award DelHemar and his all-too-familiar moving day feat of strength second place and 4 points. He may have beat out Janus even without the disqualification if I knew how long DelHemar held the mattress like that. Mattresses are unwieldy and wicked heavy, and his invitation of back injury to complete this task demonstrates stronger commitment to the competition than I would have brought to the table in his stead. DelHemar, I am very impressed, and will happily seek your assistance the next time I want to rearrange my furniture!

That's it for folks who get Home Questing points from me this week! We each possess a unique combination of proficiencies and challenges, and I have yet to know a person who was not admirably strong in one way or another. Thank you, Cressida, DelHemar, and Janus for showing us some of your strengths!

Thank you Saka!  It’s a shame that you disqualified Janus, because I was pretty sure he cheated with time magic and I was going to disqualify him myself.  Anyway, that leaves us with the two remaining people.

In first place I will give the points to Cressida, who took strength in a direction I did not anticipate.  Sometimes the toughest challenges and toughest critics we face come from within, and the strength that it takes to overcome it is high, so Cressida earns five points.

In a close second though, for more traditionally completing the challenge is DelHemar.  I have moved before, and it takes a lot of effort to manipulate mattresses of that size.  It is an impressive feat of strength, and I hope everything breakable survived.  For this, DelHemar gets 4 points.

So, after the point for participation, our scores for the week are: Cressida with 11 points and DelHemar with 9.  Tune in next week for the next challenge!

P.S. from Saka:

If you have another minute to spare now that you've finished reading Janus' lovely View from Valehaven article, I'd like you to try something even if it might feel a bit silly. Sit down with pen and paper, or simply close your eyes and think: list three of your best strengths, one strength you'd like to develop further, and at least one strength you admire in someone you know. You might be surprised what you come up with, and I'd bet the person you think of would love to hear what you appreciate about their strength!