Written by: Crystal "Cressida" Welch & Nathan "Aelias" Carr
Dear Realms,
FRIDAY
This was my first time at Tournaments of Blackwood and it was incredible! Friday night was a night of pushing your luck, trying not to laugh, and plenty of games as the Sweaty Owl Carnival, led by Hedda, created a fun atmosphere for drinking and catching up. I myself came ready to participate in as many games as I could sign up for! I started my night by spinning the Wheel of Fate and feeling the ground give way while I desperately clung to the bar (usually that takes a few drinks first, but the wheel expedited the process). While I waited for the effects to wear off, I decided to tackle all that the Carnival had to offer including Temorse’s Tablets, a memory match game where speed was key; Guess the Bones, where I felt a little extra competitive so I attempted to guess the total and the amount per color; and Mini Shot Pong, the hardest game at the Carnival where you had to get the ball in the very small cups before time was up. Once my feet were safely back under me I was recruited for a new Blackwood business venture: Saegan’s Wigs Inc. Turns out, despite having the new King’s name on the business, Saegan didn’t know about this and we were told to covertly style wigs without the King being the wiser. I styled a beautiful formal wig and roped in my friends Evie and Kara to also style some stunning wigs. Later on the King was filled in on his new business and asked to judge the styles (hopefully we will get a full breakdown on all the weekend’s winners soon!).
A quick shout out to some of the competitions I did not get a chance to partake in, but looked like fun: Beer Pits, Blackjack, and Stacked Deck! It looked like a very competitive atmosphere for all three. Also shout out to Omri’s party hat in honor of Blackwood’s 15th Reclamation Day! It was very cool and featured a big sparkly duck and hanging silver celestial bodies.
Throughout the night there were several other competitions running that I did participate in. Stoneface was one of two new competitions, where a group of four competitors read a script aloud while trying not to smile or laugh. My group’s script was all about the King’s furniture going missing and was quite silly! The other group gave a news report about a new creature appearing on Blackwood’s farms. While the room laughed along loudly, the competitors held their composure like professionals. I hope to see the return of this game in the future! The other big head to head competition for the night was Nay, Poxy, Knave, the game of correcting the misinformation before your opponents. The categories were General Realms and History of Blackwood for the two competing groups. For future competitors, remember to buzz in quickly and start your correction with “Nay, Poxy, Knave” or else you may have your correct answer stolen as several of us did.
There was also an Open Mic for Bards, which to no one’s surprise I performed in. We got to enjoy the puppetry stylings of JB, the comedy story telling of Omri, and the beautiful singing of Tulli. I enjoyed telling some improv storytelling where the crowd helped me get to the bottom of the secret tunnels under Voraniss and just what JB has been getting up to down there.
SATURDAY DAY
Waking up bright and early, I was ready for the numerous tournaments that were prepared for us on Saturday. There were many fighting ones and I am not the person to ask about those. But you can hear all about the less fighty ones from me. My first one of the day was Blind Grab Improvised Ritual, where you had two randomly grabbed items, a scenario, and 60 seconds of prep time, before delivering a theatrical filled ritual. My scenario involved a tarot deck, a dagger, and magic quickly draining from the world around me. I only wish I could have seen the other rituals, but it was a packed day and I had to get moving to my next event: the Fishing Derby. Much like the last contest, you had 60 seconds, but in this case you needed to use a fishing rod to retrieve treasure from a well. I managed to break the fishing rod… my bad. I will say I saw some very creative fishing from fellow competitors Swift and Tulli who used the fishing rod, in the fresh two pieces I had split it into, to chopstick the items out of the well. I have a feeling one of them may have won it! I was whisked away from fishing to a very different experience next, Vesper’s Famous Shoot House. I say “famous” because I have been bragged to many times by Orion about just how fun this game is. I was excited to finally try it myself, armed with nothing but a dagger and 3 magic missiles, I was tasked with retrieving a stolen book of Elizah’s, destroying 3 weapons caches, and destroying almost every Kobold that got in my way, with the exception of 1 that I was to take hostage. Turns out, I should leave the shoot house to Orion because I definitely just killed all the Kobolds… oops. I did however recover the book and destroy the weapons caches!
After an exhausting run, I took a quick break before Musical Mugs began. Musical Mugs is Musical Chairs meets Corsican Mug, and it was wild! We were all armed with one full cup of water and a chair circle, a few chairs short of butts in need. I witnessed a chair being snapped in half from the sheer competition as two competitors tried to claim the chair at the same time. I ended up out about middle of the pack and Griffin took it all home in the end with his defensive style paying off. Speaking of Corsican Mug, my final tournament before the dinner break was my first Corsican Mug. I had a lot of fun competing against Jericho as we kicked off the tournament. We were out there for a while, fairly evenly matched, but finally Jericho was victorious. The entire contest was thrilling to spectate as every set chose wrestling over a single short version.
SATURDAY NIGHT
Dinner Break was a fully customizable pasta bar skillfully prepared by Tempest and Elizah! Multiple pastas, sauces, meats, and toppings were available and then heated up on the spot for a quick and delicious dinner. After dinner there was one more competition: The Fated Arena. Now this is one fighting tournament I was willing to compete in. Myself and 12 others volunteered as tribute to enter the arena, a shrinking landscape filled with weapons and supply caches where we were expected to survive traps and each other all in pursuit of being the last victor standing, all with none of the weapons, armor, or magic we usually have available to us. While this took place spectators could place bets on who would win and pay gold to send gifts to their favorite tributes. The arena was an intense experience, dark, lonely, and filled with blood thirsty monsters. With nothing but 3 lives and my wits, I went in with a plan, I found as many people as I could to sponsor me, and with their gifts I was able to make alliances. I may not be the strongest fighter, but I am charismatic as all get out. When the game began I ran as fast as I could away from the pile of weapons in the middle, I knew getting trapped in the center meant death to faster players. I eventually snuck back and found a single weapon still left, a dagger. I stowed my dagger and started investigating magic caches, finding a few potions and luckily a sword, and then a second sword, ya girl was ready to florentine! My sponsors sent me another sword, so I used my spare sword to make my first ally, the clever Evie. The two of us figured our odds were better if we stuck together, harder to sneak up on two people. Then we picked up Swift, whose excellent stealth had allowed him to pick up tons of weapons and potions. The three of us were separated for a bit when I faced my first death of three to a trap: a prey driven werewolf.
When I respawned, I found Evie had made a new alliance friend, Shader. Together we took out the werewolf that had felled me earlier. My sponsors sent me some armor repairs which I gave to my alliance since I had no armor and a tip about not running from werewolves, it was far too late for that tip, but thanks anyways guys! Now Evie had some high rolling sponsor as she was sent: Daekara! We promptly gave him a sword and shield as our alliance now had a human shield to keep the rest of us from losing lives. Just when we were gaining the confidence to start picking off our competitors, the bees came. I have never sprinted as much in my life as I did from those bees. We attempted to fight them, but they were flying too high. We ended up mostly separated, Shader lost a leg and was hopping, so I knew what I had to do, I turned threw the one javelin I had taking out one of the bees and used my swords to keep the rest at bay long enough for Shader to get away and use a potion. My second life went to yet another trap, and this one stung.
My final respawn and I was alone, I knew I needed to find my people. I managed to join up with Shader, Evie/Daekara, and Swift, where we befriended with potions and added the final member of our squad: Eldritch. Now, I know we were stacked, but the Fated Arena was pissed at us and punished us by sending what seemed to be the embodiment of wrath against us. It's hard to know, it was all so sudden and terrifying, the arena screaming at us for joining forces, BUT we would not be deterred…but we would be separated yet again. I ended up in a tight situation between a player and this vicious embodiment of the arena, fortunately Swift had given me a potion that allowed me to poof back to a respawn point safely, I was forced to use it.
Re-entering from respawn yet again, but very alive this time, I found the alliance just as the arena shrank into a small circle. We could see the eyes of all those who remained in addition to ourselves, there were three others who had formed an alliance in addition to ours and we were informed we all were on our final life; it ended here. Daekara was poofed away from us in an instant, turns out the Fated Arena has time limits on gifts that are overpowered. But we were confident, we were a fierce team of 5 strong. We picked off the first guy, then the child with a javelin to the back by Evie. It was the final member who proved to be the most formidable, it took our entire team to take them down as they had managed to find full armor, resist deaths, and other helpful items and potions. During this fight we lost Shader right at the end, then there were four left: Eldritch, Swift, Evie, and myself. Evie, Swift, and I had an agreement, we went down together no matter what. To be fair to Eldritch we made sure his armor and body were healed up before all of us tried to best him in honorable combat. Swift fell first, then myself, leaving Evie who requested no armor and single short only, Eldritch of course honored this request. The fight was incredible and very close, but the winner of the Fated Arena was none other than Eldritch, a well deserved win. I felt pride in my third place finish as I returned to the betting area and learned that I had helped some people win gold that night by doing as well as I did. Though to be honest, my biggest take away: I couldn’t be more proud of our team. They were all incredible and each of us came together from different nations to represent my favorite part of the Realms, how much butt we can kick when we work as one. I will never forget the Fated Arena and my first Blackwoods Tournaments.
Much Love,
Cressida
So the first thing I will say about Tourneys of Blackwood: There was so much to do! What really made this event special was the grand variety of activities, ranging from combat tournaments to Vesper’s shoot house to calligraphy. It was evident the amount of effort that the event staff put in to make sure players of all varieties had plenty to do.
Although I could not make it there Friday night, I heard many good things about the activities, which included a poker tournament, wig styling as well as a riveting game of Nay, Proxy, Knave.
Saturday was the bulk of the tournaments, with individual and group tournaments all contributing to the titles of Slayer, Archmage, and Skald. The atmosphere of the day, while competitive, was also somewhat laid back, allowing us all to have fun.
Sunday, the intrepid adventurers solved many puzzles, ranging from nonograms to colored golems, in order to save Sparrowsong. NPCs did a great job in their roles (Keith as a robo-Sparrow was hilarious), and forced us to think and use our resources to get through the dungeon. Really appreciate the staff recalibrating the quest due to the oppressive heat.
I have to admit, the phrase “Daekara the Archmage” was one that I never expected to hear…
I greatly enjoyed this event, and am looking forward to going back next year.