By Kieran/Kyra Barry
View From Valehaven
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
Monday, June 15, 2026
Friday, June 12, 2026
Knave of Hearts - Complete Event Information
- Field Battle (Unlimited and QoH Limited)
- Bridge Battle (Unlimited and QoH Limited)
- Folkestone Challenge (Unlimited and QoH Limited)
- Castle Battle (Unlimited and QoH Limited)
- Monster Chess (Special armor and magic rules)
- Hadrian’s Wall (Unlimited)
- Wizard War (Super Duper Unlimited)
- Luck of the Draw (QoH Limited)
- Rock Assault (non-com)
- Grand Teamwork (non-com)
- Challenge Race (non-com)
- Knaves War (QoH Limited)
- Single Short Individual
- Single Short 3-person Squad
- Mixed Florentine - Individual
- Mixed Florentine - 3-person Squad
- Sword and Shield - Individual
- Sword and Shield - 3-person Squad
- Hand and a Half - Individual
- Hand and a Half - 3-person Squad
- Oops all Ranged - Individual
- Oops all Ranged - 3-person Squad
- 5 on 5 Lines
- 5 on 5 Bear Pit
- 5 on 5 Jugging
- Armaments (weapons, shields, armor, thrown spell props)
- Apparel (clothing, cloaks, hats, shoes, etc)
- Artifacts (jewelry, accessories, wands, other spell props, etc)
- Your proposed name for the item. This name must begin with “The Knave’s…”
- The suit of the team you were sorted on to.
- You must NOT put your name on the placard. The goal is for all entries to be anonymous.
- There will be up to three (3) winners from each of the categories for a total of up to (9) winners.
- There is no detailed rubric for judging this competition. The winning entries will be the ones that are the most impressive both visually and in the quality of their construction.
- Each winning entry will earn five (5) points for the team they are on. A team can have more than one winner in the same category.
- The winning entries will become magic items for one calendar year. The staff reserves the right to modify the item’s powers before granting it the status of becoming a magic item.
- All players with Knave Cards
- All players with Spade Cards
- All players with Hearts Cards
- All players with Diamond Cards
- All players with Club Cards
- The first person in the queue that has been assigned that suit or
- The Knave player that is at the front of the line.
Why I Want To Go - Anthologies
From Violets
Hello, wonderful people of the Realms, this is why you should join me in questing at anthologies. One of the reasons I'm so excited to go to this event is the blooming. I'm extremely interested in finding a way of healing or curing it using information gained from ground zero. Something else I'm very excited about is finding out more about the blue blazers. The blue blazers is a group I’ve only heard of once before, and im excited to be able to interact with them, though I have been told they do have a price for asking for their help. Hopefully, no one makes any deals.
On that note of making deals, I have been extremely interested in learning more about the weavers. For those unfamiliar with how the strange magic door and people work, the rough gist of it is that there are titles that hold power. Such as weaver, tricker, and traveler, with these titles you can manipulate and change magic and reality in different ways.
Hope to see you soon- Violet
Margaret here.
I’m really worried about Makhta. The darkness in QTN has gotten worse, to the point where there are rumors that The McKyre is returning to fight the darkness because the darkness is here. I should’ve made fixing Makhta part of the deal for putting Soultaker in charge of the Dreaming, but I didn’t realize the Dream Demons were going to keep the Chimeronian Vampires because it was ‘funny’. But I digress.
Meanwhile, someone from a group called the blue blazers wants help finding the actual name of a door, presumably the door to the Lauralins. Nothing sketchy about that. They are offering to take us to Springs, which is the location of the first known case of The Blooming. I still have a ritual that may be able to cure The Blooming, with the looming question hanging over me of if it’s worth the price. All while a former Villain continues to bet on my successes, and to stack the deck in my favor. So uh. If anyone wants to help with all of this I certainly wouldn’t say no. Because the chess pieces are being assigned, and I don’t want to end up as a pawn.
With Light,
Magus Margaret August, Lightbringer
OOC Note:
I am incredibly excited for Matthew’s first foray as an EH, especially after having to miss their storytellers mod. The teams involved in anthologies are fun, and I trust them to roll with things while managing to turn a free event in the park into one of my most anticipated events so far. Kathy as MM is going to be hilarious, Sky will make us cry, and Matthew will make me want to pull out my hair. All in good fun. Can’t wait to see you there.
~ Bri
From Companion.
As someone who the villain has tried to directly afflict with the blooming finding ground zero is an exciting venture. We may be able to collect clues on how to cure or at least slow the progression of the blooming within hosts. This could help us save countless people as the blooming spreads through the lands, as it was designed to be a magic nature combo curse. It's a pain in the ass to fix after a certain point, but if we can find more information, it may be possible!
There is also the potential to find out more about Midoru, the rune that was supposed to be dead long ago. This rune has recently seen a resurgence, infecting at least two known people, myself and Makhta. During our questing into the plane of lost things, two items were found containing Midoru: a necklace and a wand. As of now, what happened to the necklace is unknown. There is still so much that we don’t know about Midoru. However, what we do know is scary on its own. We know that it never died, and that it has a cult to back it. We know that creatures with it on them have started showing up, and we know that it can spread. I am both excited for and dreading what we may learn during this quest.
I hope to see you there,
LiiCompanion
Thursday, June 11, 2026
What You Missed - The Gilded Lion and Silver Branch Summer Festival V
By: Sawyer "Jericho" Judkins
This past weekend was the second time I had the fortune to attend this Summer Festival, and it was a great time both times.
The day started off simply with greeting friends as they arrived and some light snacks. The weather looked like it promised to hold out and be nice and warm. And warm it was. The first thing that happened was some group tournaments being run! The Grand Melee kicked things off, which was a great time. Following that was time trials against a horde of Kobolds. Unfortunately, I did not get to participate in the other tournaments as I was working on acquiring some spells at that time, but I heard yells of javelins and something about frogs, and it looked like everyone was having a blast.
Soon after that, food came out from the kitchen, and as always, you can expect a great assortment of food from the Rhiassan kitchen. Lunch was loaded hot dogs and piping hot french fries. The perfect thing for a summer festival. There were also an assortment of special drinks both from Rhiassa and Chrysantha as well. I did not get any myself, but I had a few sips of Toothless’ and they were fantastic.Other great food mentions throughout the day would be the fruit and caprese skewers as well as the pretzels with an assortment of dipping sauces. Plus a machine that regularly made fresh popcorn.
The Gambler’s Guild also put on a poker tournament! I sadly did not have the time (or the coin) to participate and lose in it this time around, but I know those that played had a good time. The casino was also open all day allowing people to spend their time and gold with each other if questing was not on their menu for the day.
Throughout the day, there were also occasional appearances of infernal looking goats or something. They would rush in and seem to target someone. I took out a bunch from behind, but they ended up exploding taking me with them that time. Another time there was a couple wolf looking beings that came in asking for a chicken to be taken care of? This is information I heard second hand, so I do not know the validity of it.
Soon after lunch, questing began in earnest. I found myself on the Western Flank while others fended off the efforts of Reapers within a forbidden city. I heard there were a large number of adventurers that took part in it. Alongside that, I believe there was supposed to be some Dino-Jousting, but I am unsure if that happened.
There was a short break before we adventurers once more took to questing in a couple different ways. I heard something about Door Magic and science on one. I ended up getting to deal with some pirates on the other quest a little late, but we managed to find some kind of ore we were looking for, and managed to not lose Ace to some pirates.
After that, I once more headed to the Western Flank while adventurers came to the aid of Arken led by the Fox Spirit to remove a threat that had been hidden from The Mirror while it was active this past winter. A personal thank you from me to everyone that came out to help deal with our problem. While that was going on, I hear that some brave young adventurers ventured once again into a hidden library!
Once questing was wrapped up, we took all our tickets from questing and tournaments and put them into Orion’s Bucket so our names could be pulled to spin a now unrigged wheel to earn gold. Big shout out to the Gambler’s Guild for supplying Aeston with a new wheel, much to his chagrin since there was more than one big winner this year!
Dinner. Dinner was a loaded mashed potato and corn on the cob. You could get it plain, or you could get it loaded with so many tasty bits, like chili, cheese sauce, and broccoli. I am honestly still thinking about that potato almost a week later! It would also be remiss of me not to mention dessert. Fern, as always, supplied an amazing and delicious spread of baked goods. This year there were chocolates, cookies, and meringues. My absolute favorite is still the Earl Gray Cookies.
As the day came to a close, Aeston lost a ton of money to the wheel, and we all packed up and headed on our way after another amazing Summer Festival. To hear that this was the last one is bittersweet, and I look forward to more exciting things in the future.
In service to the Realms,
Jericho Axelthorne
Lord of Arken
Watcher of the Skyless Sea
Squire to the Knights of the Sabble Dragon
Knight of Chaos
What You Missed: Toothless Edition
We went back to the library. We had to paint some stuff to make bad guys happy. I got to throw some Magic Missiles. We had to wrap up some mummies in bandages and then put flowers on them. After dessert, we got to help with Spin The Wheel and it was fun. I got to see a big bolt of lightning. POPCORN!
Toothless
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
What You Missed - Chimeron Questing XXXI: Lights in the Dark
by: Keith "Saegan" Cronin
Out of Character:
I want to get this part out of the way, because I plan to keep the OOC short. What you missed of this event on an out of character level, was a showcase of what a good questing event can be. The event holders and team, through their passion for the game, were able to show off a wide range of talent in combat, craft, a development of deep lore, and rich story. So basically, you missed a great event. Nice work Chimeron.
In Character:
We began our adventure being informed by Professor Mia that her scouts had gone missing, and that we should probably go looking for them. We moved along in the direction of where she’d guided us, and honestly it didn’t take us too long to find them.
Well, I say “them”. We found people that were being held prisoner, and that were claiming to be the scouts. Pretty early on, I decided that they were not to be trusted. One of them had said that Mia was looking for some animals with crystals growing out of their heads which was, to me at least, suspiciously inaccurate.
I did seer magic about it. I’ve been into that recently. People say I’m talking to myself a lot more and seeing things, but I promise it’s not a problem.
So I did seer magic about it, and determined they were in fact part of Harden’s Torch, an organization we believe metaphorically descended from the Wellman. An organization that’s trying to destroy what’s left of the Dragon civilization. I tried to tell the questing party this, but honestly the “scouts” were being so friendly, in typical questing party fashion, we let them follow along with us anyway.
We marched deeper into tunnels, and eventually passed through a waterway that was both treacherous and filled with terrible monsters. I nearly drowned, don’t tell the Royal Guard. Somehow, all my Blackwood companions could simply breathe. Except for Liana, but she’d rather be dead than wet.
We made it through the treacherous wet! Omri using seer magic determined that the true scouts were further ahead. And I finally told Temorse what I knew, and between Omri’s information and my earlier information, he determined we could just kill them. What a breath of fresh air. That’s a drowning pun.
So, they offed the tall not-scout, and the questing party that had become attached to him decided to do seer magic about it, and determined that we were in fact right. We looked for the other scouts, but they’d disappeared. Which, honestly, good on them, probably got to live longer that way.
We moved ahead, and got ambushed by the rest of Harden’s Torch as we came upon a closed room. We got sandwiched between a rock and the hard place, as the Torch rolled a massive boulder at us. Nos saved my life! It took some fighting, but we eventually dispatched the villains.
We got into the room and discovered it was some sort of alchemy lab, filled with secret codes and tricks. People were confused and recklessly trying things, and blowing themselves up with fireballs. I nearly died, but I saved myself with my circle of protection. The trials of that room were challenging; there were so many codes, and ciphers, and solving them all within the time before the fireball fluid blew up in total was quite the feat. But we did manage to succeed.
Escaping the room, we found a winding path that led us to the Foundry.The Foundry, or Foundry 13, was a place where the draconians created gemtech. We found it, and that’s where we decided to rest for the night.
I started the next day off with a bang, well a ritual. I gathered my people to support me, and seanced Daedalus, the leader and founder of the culture we were investigating. I chose him because I’d been successful in seancing him before. While that was occurring, I called on the powers of my lands and people, as well as the magic of prophecy, to sort of recreate him in my mind. A shared passenger if you will. This felt dangerous, but I had the confidence of a hero, and the backing of a large group of fairly powerful people. And in short, it was successful. Daedalus joined my mind space.
I spent the rest of the day, and the next talking with him. So pardon me if I get confused about the rest of the happenings, but my memory was a tad occupied by an extra 400 something years.
While we were talking, he helped me adjust my notes, and explained a great many things about the sciences of his people. The true workings of their gemtech, and on a deeper level, I grew an understanding for his motivation in recreating the heartstones of his people. Powerful stones, part of their culture that connected them, empowered them. I don’t think I could put words to the depth of their meaning, but I could feel the loss. I could feel the rage inside myself toward the humans that destroyed them.
While I was sorting through my notes and feelings, I tried to follow along with the rest of the questing party as they played goblin games, struggled with crabs, and generally had a hard time.
They were rebuilding the forge, finding pieces for it that were missing. Or replenishing its resources which had run dry over the years of disuse. We needed hammers, and schematics, and freakin’ lava. And please don’t let me repeat the horrors of the acid, and the reckless endangerment of children as they ran with jelly orbs that could easily end their lives. Or the lives of the people around them. Separately from that I also heard stories of raunchy crab love, which I think I must’ve been distracted by Daedalus for, because I did not witness.
But anyway, after rerouting lava, avoiding the acid baths, reclaiming golem gem schematics, and making sure we had enough materials, we managed to get the Foundry working again.
Well almost. We were missing the power source. With guidance, we realized there was a power source over yonder, and just needed the means to get there. After careful investigation, we realized we had to recover 4 topaz key cards to get to the source. We discovered the various keycards in various locations, one under a rock, in a room that appeared destroyed by a malfunctioning golem. One we gained by allowing a golem to complete its scans of certain gem creatures. One was in a room similar to the alchemy lab with ciphers the night before. And one within an area guarded by golem enemies. Once we recovered the cards we were able to open the area we needed to to get to the power source.
It was being protected by golems of various types, each with unique powers. We pushed them back through tunnels, until breaking into an open space. But in finality, there were opal golems, to our knowledge the mightiest of the golem kind. They put up a good fight, combining the powers of their brethren with some of their own, but the Realms’ Heroes were successful.
We brought the power source, a massive ruby, back to the Foundry. It was easy enough to hook up, and its power seemed enough to radiate through the entire place. With the forge going we began to make the items we needed: some swords, some shields, and some wands. Before we could complete them however, we triggered something within the forge, and nearly died as everything seemed to go upside down. We found ourselves in a massive cavern, and face to face with a gem encrusted dragon.
If you don’t know, that’s bad.
Many of the other heroes of the Realms fought it. I honestly kind of sat back and asked Daedalus questions. Which might seem out of place, and out of character for me. But knowledge is powerful. And I wanted to know if that dragon was Quig, one of the dragons from the Logs, the partner of Palamos, the dragon we fought the year before.. I didn’t get the answer to that question.
We were then able to return to the foundry, and pick up where we left off, though with many people tired from the day, we also sought rest.
Sunday, we fought. My understanding of Sunday was even more bogged down with thought and mystery. I maintained my connection with Daedalus, which was costly, but not terribly so. But honestly, what confused me more was poor Spencer.
I’m going to sound crazy, if spending my weekend speaking with 400 year old dead dragons isn’t crazy enough, Spencer was talking to mushrooms. The party was fighting. They were fighting a lot. People were dying around us. Spencer had managed to start speaking with intelligent spores that wanted him to convert part of his brain to a crystal form.
Trent would say I got into something. I’m not sure how I would know that I didn’t get into something by accident. Spencer was calling for me because he assumed I’d answer eventually, and everyone looked like mushrooms. Reading that back, you’re not going to believe me that I was fine.
The rest of that conversation doesn’t get much safer for me. So I’m going to skip over it. It was wild.
But as it turned out, the questing party did need to fight some mushroom people. So maybe it was fated.
We ended on a good note though. I sort of glanced over this, for this moment, but as we were traveling through the various locations, we were finding logs from the dragon civilization. We learned many things, it’s how we knew how to use the Foundry. It explained various technologies, like the goblin throne. We learned things. But the last log was of Phina, Daedalus’ daughter, along with some other scientists. Doing a final experiment to recreate a heartstone. And they were successful.
Daedalus got to hear that.
The trials over the weekend were overall successful. My research into the dragons' culture revealed a lot. I learned a lot about the gems. I’m fairly confident I can create my own things with those magics, now. Perhaps with some trial and error. But I have questions. What happened to the scouts? Both the real ones, and the fake ones that escaped? Can we stop Harden’s Torch? Can we cure the crystallization? What the heck happened to Spencer? I can’t wait to return, and find out more!
-Saegan of Blackwood
Tuesday, June 9, 2026
What's it do? What's it do? - Heros for Hire II Edition
Hello to the good people of the Realms!
This week, the Heroes for Hire II staff are coopting “What's it do? What's it do?” to bring you a special event edition! The Wildcard Guild has found copious amounts of blue items and they need your help figuring out what they should do! For anyone who is creative, mischievous, inventive, or anything in between, take a spin at powering up these blue items. Maybe your power will even be found at the Wildcard Guild shop!
Enjoy yourselves, go wild, have a great time, and we look forward to seeing you all on June 19th and 20th!
Nixon Showalter/Jasper Sherwood
On behalf of the Heroes for Hire II Staff
https://www.jotform.com/build/261587650574063

