What You Missed- KOEF Tournaments by Kai "Luke John" Yang

This past weekend was the annual Knight of the Eternal Flame Tournaments 2015. Now the format for this year was a little different than in the past. As opposed to previous years of regular structured combat and non combat tourneys, at registration each player was given 5 fish. These 5 fish were tokens for players to wager against other players in a variety of challenges. The challenges could be anything the player could think of. Of course there was the plethora of players challenging others to combat and one on one fights. Other challenges included dance offs, singing songs backwards, a two on one arm wrestling match that took way too much time, and many others. Questing was available to those who desired to do so through the Adventurer's Guild posting numerous quests requiring brave and skilled souls. The Huntress Guild also made an appearance showcasing some delectable treats with their Sweets for Swords bake sale.

On a related note, Grimloch had a change in leadership during the event. Their warlord Christopher “Jaha” Marques stepped down and has given the position to Josh “Shandar” Learned. Both of these men ran through the Grimloch gauntlet, fighting some great fights along the way, as a way to formalize the transition. Congratulations Shandar!

That was the first half of the event, the second half was quite different. The players were split into teams of five or six, and each team was guided by a Knight of the Eternal Flame towards a variety of activities.  There was a quest involving helping a kobold finish building a bridge to connect our worlds.  Another was a game of dodge magic missile, similar to dodge ball but with magic missiles instead and the only people who could catch a missile were sorcerer's who already knew the spell. The next activity was an obstacle course where all but one team member was blindfolded and had to navigate a deadly maze using only instructions given by the unblinded teammate. After that was a game of scattergories using only realms trivia and knowledge such as spells, nations, currencies, and many more. Another activity included trying to pass skulls through 3 hoops spaced far apart, all while being stationary and relying on team communication and hand eye coordination of the team members. The last activity was a game of blackjack held by the Blackwood Casino; in it, each team member was given a certain amount of chips and within the time limit had to amass as many more chips as they could.

All in all an intriguing and fun event, though the winners of the team activity tournaments was “Team NO” consisting of Henry “Guilliam” Giasson, Jesse “Mestoph” Gifford,  Andrew “Nimbous” Whitty, Cory “Asharn” Roy, and myself, Joseph/Kai “LukeJohn” Yang. Congratulations to us!