If the weather scared you off from attending Ashen Bounty this past weekend, then you missed out on a really great event. Between the high quality questing and (dare I say it) even higher quality food this event was soaked in success. (See what I did there?)
As soon as we arrived to the event site on Saturday, there was content to engage in for those interested parties. A variety of monsters were waiting to be killed and searched for components that could help questers, but was not absolutely necessary to move the plot forward. I really liked that content was available but not required so that those who had spent the night were occupied, and those of us who were just showing up had time to get into garb and check in. It was also a neat to have perks for pre-regging, and it allowed me to earn a few extra spells as a new spellcaster, which was pretty cool.
Having quested in Ashenmark before, I anticipated a lot of neat monsters, fun plot, and cool puzzles. The plot centered around stone golems who had been animated by the sinister Forge seeking to create a world of robot domination. The first encounter was a nice mix of role-playing, puzzle, and combat and a great way to start the quest. After sacrificing spells into blood stones, we were able to move forward. I was ecstatic to see Ashenmark reprise their plant creatures, and spent part of the day carrying around the head of one that had been killed by a brave hero in honor of Nighthawk (who was dutifully cooking in the kitchen).
Ashenmark always impresses me with their interesting mechanics and puzzles. In order to make combat more meaningful to moving the quest forward, doors needed to be unlocked by sacrificing stone fragments, which could be searched off of NPC crunchies. I liked that this made fighters necessary to the quest, as opposed to providing fighters with crunchies just for the sake of having something to kill. Perhaps my favorite scene of the day took place in the library. Books were scattered around, and we needed to search for symbols in the books to have the resident library ghost reveal plot information to us. Some of the symbols ended in curses (the best of which might have been when Bright became petrified of shields), but most gave us the pieces we needed to understand our purpose and how we could accomplish our goals.
With these goals in mind, we managed to convince Forge’s lieutenant Spark to help us find all of the necessary components to complete our quest. This portion of the day quest was filled with interesting puzzles and monsters including a life size minesweeper puzzle and an animal kingdom filled with rampaging rhinos, snakes, and bears. Despite the rain, the content was interesting and exciting. The quest culminated with a fierce battle to protect a ritual that would naturally power the gomes, thus destroying Forge’s hold on them. We waded back victorious (seriously, it was raining that hard).
After an exciting quest people changed into dryer feast clothes, and prepared to feast for what must have been another six hours of continuous hot, delicious food. The kitchen wasn’t equipped to suit the skill level of the staff, and that makes the food that came out that evening even more amazing. When Kelly warns you to pace yourself, she means it. Soups came out first, and I was bad, I didn’t pace myself, I had some of both the butternut squash and corn chowder. They were both awesome. In no particular order, some of the other dishes that you missed at this feast included turkey legs, grilled chicken, bacon macaroni and cheese, pot roast, roasted vegetables, and shepherd’s pie. When I say you missed them, I mean it. If you have never had the pleasure of eating what comes of Kelly and her staff’s kitchen, you are really missing out. Although it was getting really late, I knew I couldn’t leave without dessert, and I was not disappointed by fried cookie dough wontons and the most adorable chocolate acorns I’ve ever seen.
If you have never made your way to Ashen Bounty before, I highly recommend that you attend in the future. They work hard to provide a great experience for players, and I am grateful that I had the pleasure of playing again this year. Kudos to the event staff for another fabulous event.