Monday, August 10, 2020
Friday, August 7, 2020
Home Questing - The Fifteenth Task
Here is the form for you to submit your slogan for the war against the Risen Kingdom: https://forms.gle/VqXB3PG4iDgyzvyG7
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: The Fifteenth Task. This week we are asking you to write the best slogan for the war against the Risen Kingdom. You have until Friday at noon, and your time starts now.
Thursday, August 6, 2020
View Special Edition: Regarding the Emergency EH Meeting
(The following message was sent to the Realms OOC email list earlier today. It has been reposted here with permission from its author.)
Fellow members of the Realms,
On Monday, an emergency EH meeting was called to discuss how to react to the serious issue of the number of legal events that are likely to be thrown for the calendar year 2020. Since then, the required number of EHs have reached out to me to express their support for such a meeting, so I will be organizing one.
From reading posts on Facebook, I've come under the impression that there are many people who are not EHs who would like to have their voices heard on this topic. To that end, I will also be organizing an unofficial meeting open to all players, including event holders. This meeting will not have any binding votes, but it may influence the minds of event holders as they go to the official meeting.
On Monday, I'll be announcing times and (virtual) locations for both meetings. If you have any requests for when they are scheduled, please reach out to me privately before Monday to let me know. While I can't promise to act on everyone's requests, if a lot of people are all busy on the same day, I'll try to avoid that day.
Your Administrative Meeting Organizer,
Pi Fisher
What You Missed: RealmsCraft Questing 2 - A Pond of Ice and Faerie
IC: After action report, Vee Woodson:
This is the second report I have written regarding a quest, bear with me if I start to wander. To start, we were in a tavern. Always a good spot to begin, the tavern. Though this one was a bit odd, in that there were no tables, chairs, or even a bar… It did however, have some unusual features; chief among them being a banner workshop. A good deal of banners were made and put on display, showcasing the abilities of the Realms quite well. More importantly though, was the arena, something I believe every good tavern should have (take note Zarine, they can be multifunctional). Toah, Viktor, Kwido, I, and a surprisingly familiar face from across the sea, Gep, all met up and decided our best set up for our upcoming quest. I had a surprising number of potions on me, to the point that I could not wear my normal heavy armor without breaking them. As such, I was relegated to the role of healer. One healer amongst three fighters and a full mage, not the best set up, but we were determined to make it work. With our plans thus laid, we followed Orion out to the forward camp. Upon arrival, we received our briefing. It was rather… brief, all things considered. The lake was frozen over, and a tunnel had been opened to get underneath. We were being sent down to locate the problem and if possible, fix it.
Upon descending into the tunnels, we quickly found a room of skeletal warriors with weapons in surprisingly good condition. Making quick work of them, we were joined by Larrysaurus who had missed the carriage to camp. Feeling emboldened by the appearance of a second healer, we pressed deeper into the caverns. Reaching the main cavern, we encountered a Fae named Fern. They came over to try and save the fish frozen in the ice and recruited us to aid in this endeavor. Fern promised us Potions of Fishy Freedom and Potions of Gill Generation in exchange for gathering the materials and help in freeing the fish. It was at this point that I noticed Toah was missing and not responding to shouts. With this in mind, Kwido and myself split from the main party in an attempt to find our missing compatriot.
We found a frozen alcove that required us to jump from platform to platform. Any time we missed our jumps, we quickly found ourselves breaking through the ice and submerged in icy water. After more than a few close calls, we found our way into an antechamber with more skeletal warriors. Kwido and I were coaxing them out one by one, taking time to heal up between each fight. Then the archers came into play… their bows set fire to us, and in an attempt to extinguish myself, I made a break for the river. Unfortunately, I did not make it in time and burned into unconsciousness.
This next part was relayed to me after the fact. While Kwido and myself were moving through our athletics competition; our compatriots had found a trader who sold hot rocks. How he found his way down into the caverns, I’m not quite sure. However, those hot rocks proved invaluable as the other party used them to melt the ice covering a crystal in the trader’s cavern. Gep dove into the water and destroyed the crystal, costing him his life. With no healers present, the trader was asked to retrieve his body and keep it safe until one could be procured.
After bringing myself back; Kwido, Larry, and I found another crystal in the cavern that had resulted in my death. After destroying it, we made our way back to the main chamber and proceeded in the same direction as the main group (who had managed to find Toah). In following them, we found the body of Gep and brought him back. He filled us in on our way back to the main cavern, and we found everyone… well, not hale, but alive. After topping up, we found our way to the last sub cavern. There, we navigated a series of floating icebergs over a freezing river and found our way up to the last crystal. When we destroyed it, we had an intense urge to vacate the premises… This urge was further backed up when we reached the main cavern to find it flooding. Thinking quickly, we made a break for our entrance, only to find it had filled in with gravel. Fortunately, there was a smaller tunnel that we used to escape as the water rose. Upon reaching the surface, Orion greeted us and bid us to see the lake as it melted.
We’re still not exactly sure what caused those crystals to form and freeze the lake, but at least it is seemingly back to normal.
OOC:
This was a great fill in, in my opinion, for an actual quest. It brought all the elements you typically find in the Realms; with combat, puzzles, and athletics all being tested and rewarded. Obviously with Covid ruining in person events, this was a fantastic way to bring the Realms into your own house. The design of everything was absolutely fantastic. During the first RealmsCraft event, I was a little concerned when I saw a sparsely decorated tavern… but the rest of the set blew me away. The builders deserve all the credit in the world for what they built and coded, the idea was brilliant, and altogether the atmosphere was perfect. As someone who loves building and designing structures in Minecraft, I found myself repeatedly distracted by the details placed into each area we were in. Altogether, it was an excellently designed and put together quest.
Wednesday, August 5, 2020
View of the Vanfrost - Episode 4
by Nataliya "Shader" Kostenko
Our noble squadron of Ashenmark forces arrived at the Gilded Lion Pavilion to meet with Ulric and Aeston and get the lowdown on what we needed to do with this whole Vanfrost thing. In attendance were Twenaria, Stripes, Grindin, Temorse, Umbra, Raynor, and yours truly. We were informed that the Vanfrost had a tendency to spit people out anywhere it saw fit, and so we’d really have no idea where we might end up after entering. While our brave crew spent a few minutes investigating the portal and pondering in what order to pass through it, I was mostly preoccupied with how alike Aeston and Ulric look. Seriously, has anyone ever noticed that before? If I hadn’t seen them in the same place at the same time this once, I would’ve started to get real suspicious.
Anyway, we jumped through the portal and ended up in a small stone room with a giant statue of a Jotun. Some members of our party examined this towering monument for clues, while others scrambled over some rubble on the other side of the room to discover a horde of hostile lizardfolk. Stop! Lizard Time. Temorse advised patience and tactical maneuvering in fighting the lizards, but being impatient and impulsive I ran in and was gravely wounded quite quickly. I have the infallible support casting of Twenaria, Stripes, and Grindin to thank for pulling me back from the brink of death then and throughout the rest of the excursion.
We put down the lizards eventually and proceeded on through the halls of stone. Everywhere along the way, we found shattered stone tablets which, upon reassembly, displayed pictures of different animals. Between those, the lizards, and the crocodiles that would eventually plague us, the Vanfrost was practically showing us a real-time, interactive nature documentary. Crikey. On our first few attempts we had trouble distinguishing many of these animals’ heads from their derrières but by the end of our time on this journey we were real pros. If you ever need a zoology lesson, don’t hesitate to call Ashenmark.
After several tiles were solved, more lizardfolk slayn, and a few giant snakes dispatched, we reached an interesting room with levers. We were again tested on our animal assembly skills when pulling all the levers in unison trapped half our company in a walled room and the tiles in the hands of the Jotun statues revealed several strange shapes and forms. We were able to rearrange the shapes (into more animal imagery) in the appropriate positions, releasing the other half of our group and revealing the way forward. We didn’t leave the room without claiming some souvenirs first, though: there was a nest of giant snake eggs in the corner of the room. Snake Cult Baby Shower in a few months, anyone? You’re all invited.
Up next, we stood on the edge of some crocodile-infested waters. Some ingenious member of our party (don’t remember who, unfortunately) came up with a perfect plan--wade into the swamp waters carrying the corpses of the lizards we had slain previously. Surely, these crocodiles would prefer to snack on freshly killed, juicy, plump lizards than on a spindly, sinewy adventuring party. For the most part, this assumption was correct and we were able to get through this part of the swamp unscathed. Grindin took an even easier route, throwing the egg he had picked up to a crocodile, and while it worked out for him, I would personally never do that to a future proud citizen of Snake Cult. After clearing the crocs, we ran into (or rather, accidentally stepped on) an enormous lizard: the biggest thing we had encountered yet. Luckily, we quickly discovered its weak spot--a gem on its tail--and Grindin and Stripes weakened it there while Temorse thrust his sword through its brain, dealing the decisive blow.
A couple more animal encounters down the line, both of the trying-to-eat-you kind and the gotta-assemble-it-out-of-tiles kind, we arrived at a great big stone door. The door had on it...wait for it…you guessed it--animals! We had to organize the animal tiles we assembled according to symbols that appeared on them, which turned out to be written like Teng Huanese numerals, adding strokes to increment the number. If I was more cultured I might have known that--and how to spell “Teng Huanese”. However, the more cultured and quick-thinking members of our party were able to organize the animals and deduce the correct order for inserting the tiles into the slots on the door. The door opened to reveal a great big acorn. This may or may not have been what we came here to find, as right after we collected it, we ended up being transported back to Rhiassa. Personally my shiny new snake egg was definitely a better prize, but I’m glad we were all around successful on our Vanfrost mission.
--Shader, Champion of Ashenmark
Our noble squadron of Ashenmark forces arrived at the Gilded Lion Pavilion to meet with Ulric and Aeston and get the lowdown on what we needed to do with this whole Vanfrost thing. In attendance were Twenaria, Stripes, Grindin, Temorse, Umbra, Raynor, and yours truly. We were informed that the Vanfrost had a tendency to spit people out anywhere it saw fit, and so we’d really have no idea where we might end up after entering. While our brave crew spent a few minutes investigating the portal and pondering in what order to pass through it, I was mostly preoccupied with how alike Aeston and Ulric look. Seriously, has anyone ever noticed that before? If I hadn’t seen them in the same place at the same time this once, I would’ve started to get real suspicious.
Anyway, we jumped through the portal and ended up in a small stone room with a giant statue of a Jotun. Some members of our party examined this towering monument for clues, while others scrambled over some rubble on the other side of the room to discover a horde of hostile lizardfolk. Stop! Lizard Time. Temorse advised patience and tactical maneuvering in fighting the lizards, but being impatient and impulsive I ran in and was gravely wounded quite quickly. I have the infallible support casting of Twenaria, Stripes, and Grindin to thank for pulling me back from the brink of death then and throughout the rest of the excursion.
We put down the lizards eventually and proceeded on through the halls of stone. Everywhere along the way, we found shattered stone tablets which, upon reassembly, displayed pictures of different animals. Between those, the lizards, and the crocodiles that would eventually plague us, the Vanfrost was practically showing us a real-time, interactive nature documentary. Crikey. On our first few attempts we had trouble distinguishing many of these animals’ heads from their derrières but by the end of our time on this journey we were real pros. If you ever need a zoology lesson, don’t hesitate to call Ashenmark.
After several tiles were solved, more lizardfolk slayn, and a few giant snakes dispatched, we reached an interesting room with levers. We were again tested on our animal assembly skills when pulling all the levers in unison trapped half our company in a walled room and the tiles in the hands of the Jotun statues revealed several strange shapes and forms. We were able to rearrange the shapes (into more animal imagery) in the appropriate positions, releasing the other half of our group and revealing the way forward. We didn’t leave the room without claiming some souvenirs first, though: there was a nest of giant snake eggs in the corner of the room. Snake Cult Baby Shower in a few months, anyone? You’re all invited.
Up next, we stood on the edge of some crocodile-infested waters. Some ingenious member of our party (don’t remember who, unfortunately) came up with a perfect plan--wade into the swamp waters carrying the corpses of the lizards we had slain previously. Surely, these crocodiles would prefer to snack on freshly killed, juicy, plump lizards than on a spindly, sinewy adventuring party. For the most part, this assumption was correct and we were able to get through this part of the swamp unscathed. Grindin took an even easier route, throwing the egg he had picked up to a crocodile, and while it worked out for him, I would personally never do that to a future proud citizen of Snake Cult. After clearing the crocs, we ran into (or rather, accidentally stepped on) an enormous lizard: the biggest thing we had encountered yet. Luckily, we quickly discovered its weak spot--a gem on its tail--and Grindin and Stripes weakened it there while Temorse thrust his sword through its brain, dealing the decisive blow.
A couple more animal encounters down the line, both of the trying-to-eat-you kind and the gotta-assemble-it-out-of-tiles kind, we arrived at a great big stone door. The door had on it...wait for it…you guessed it--animals! We had to organize the animal tiles we assembled according to symbols that appeared on them, which turned out to be written like Teng Huanese numerals, adding strokes to increment the number. If I was more cultured I might have known that--and how to spell “Teng Huanese”. However, the more cultured and quick-thinking members of our party were able to organize the animals and deduce the correct order for inserting the tiles into the slots on the door. The door opened to reveal a great big acorn. This may or may not have been what we came here to find, as right after we collected it, we ended up being transported back to Rhiassa. Personally my shiny new snake egg was definitely a better prize, but I’m glad we were all around successful on our Vanfrost mission.
--Shader, Champion of Ashenmark
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
Small Pleasures Bracket - Round 1
We all miss going to events, and it might be some time before we can see one another in the ways that we are used to. There are countless things at events that make them a joy to go to. Engaging plots, challenging combat, seeing and role-playing with our friends, the list goes on and on. Besides these big, obvious reasons we love going to events there are a bunch of things that we've dubbed "small pleasures". Little things that just make being at an event all that much better. We've picked sixteen "small pleasures" and we want to see which of them stands above all of the others.
In voting for each of the rounds, think of it this way - if you could only pick one of the two "small pleasures" to be present for the event you are going to, which one would it be?
Here is a look at the bracket, followed by our first round to vote for.
In voting for each of the rounds, think of it this way - if you could only pick one of the two "small pleasures" to be present for the event you are going to, which one would it be?
Here is a look at the bracket, followed by our first round to vote for.
Round 1
Option A: Perfectly mixed "red" drink all day.
Option B: Flush toilets on site.
Vote on Facebook to determine the winner!
Monday, August 3, 2020
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