So, many of you were probably aware that there was a Realms event at Arisia this year - "The Mountain Citadel". Some Realmsies attended, and some newbies attended. You could say that I also attended the event (you'd be lying through your teeth, or at the very least, stretching the truth beyond reason, but you could say it). Most of you probably have no idea who I am, and are therefore wondering two very pertinent questions:
1) Who are you?
2) Why are you writing about an event you didn't attend held by people you don't know for a group you're not affiliated with?
Fortunately for you (and, possibly, for me) I can answer both of those questions by paraphrasing something that Pi (Kwido) said to me the night before the event: "I can't make it to the Realms event that Angela wants me to write up a thing for, so you should do it instead. Please? ....Pleeeease?"
Thus began my quest to write a decent blog post while actually doing as little work as possible. Brace yourselves, dear readers, for this account of "stuff that probably happened at the Arisia Realms event while I was chatting with the NPCs who weren't currently doing anything".
The first hour or so was mainly spent teaching the newbies some basic information about the Realms and how combat works - lightest touch, hit locations, being dead. There was a variety of experience levels, from Realms veterans to people who only LARP at Arisia to people who've never done this sort of thing before at all. After the explanation of combat and some practice fighting each other, heroic teacher Becky Baron (Kovacs) fought each player to ensure that they were combat-safe. Soon after that, a handful of goblins appeared at the opposite end of the room, accusing the PCs of stealing magicks and attacking them; the melee became briefly confused as a goblin appeared from behind the party, but it was eventually dealt with. While this all was going on, I was listening to someone whose name I completely failed to catch, for which I apologize, explaining the basic gist of what was going on to people just arriving.
At some point, the fighting near the front of the room becomes sufficiently spread out that those of us who aren't actually actively participating move to the hallway outside to continue a conversation about the various LARPs in the area, complete with helpful descriptions of the premise as well as what they're actually like. The person whose name I don't know kept occasionally disappearing for his "cameos"; during these, I would instead chat with Karen, who was manning the table outside the room in a desperate attempt to prevent random people from walking inside and getting whacked with boffers. Which I guess would have been a bad thing liability-wise, even if they might have deserved it.
Several scene changes later, the PCs had slowly but surely made their way up the mountain, and were attempting to traverse a ridgeline without falling to their deaths (because that would probably have been inconvenient). My unnamed buddy and I had inexplicably gotten onto the subject of Realms events with attendance caps, which mostly seem to consist of feasts or other events with limited materials.
After this point in the plot, I honestly have no real idea what happened. I'm pretty sure the person whose name I never got turned out to be quite an important NPC, and, like, probably evil or something. I had to disappear before that reveal happened, mostly because I was hungry and thirsty and hadn't planned that far ahead.
Anyway, I'm sure the event was super great, and you probably missed a lot of fun, and you definitely missed the chance to add another spell. Which is probably a thing that people like being able to do, or so I hear.