Hello all,
August seems like a long way off but planning for Queen of Hearts is well underway for our exceptional staff of marshals and contributors. This year Rhiassa has teemed up with the Kingdom of Chimeron, inviting them to put their own unique touches on this historic event series.
One of their suggestions was the importance of publishing all of the crafting and performance rubrics well ahead of the event so that entrants to those tournaments can have a greater understanding of how to best score points. So that's what you'll see below.
First, however, I'd like to announce this year's Ace's Categories.
Ace of Spades - Champion Ace
Ace of Hearts - Mage Ace
Ace of Diamonds - Bard Ace
Ace of Clubs - Ranger Ace
Some reminders of how we structure the Aces Tournament (from last year's Queen of Hearts website)
Aces is a 4-person "Champion" team. The four Aces are each trying to earn their own points while also helping one another earn points through various fights and competitions.
The Aces tournament is in three parts:
War Maneuver Showcases: Most Aces will be able to fight with their teams in most of the war maneuvers most of the time. In some cases, before the war maneuver takes place, all Aces will be called out to the center of the field and compete 4 on 4 (or less if some Aces are called away for something individual). These 4 on 4 fights are meant to be, in a sense, miniature versions of the war maneuver about to be fought. Although all available Aces will be fighting in these fights, there will be a random and rotating system that determines which Ace suit(s) the points will be applied towards.
Ace Individual Challenges: These competitions involve the two aces of the same suit competing against each other in combat and in other challenges that specifically relate to the theme of their Ace suit as listed above.
Ace Group Challenges: Some Ace competitions will involve multiple Aces from your team working together against the Aces from the other team in things such as multi-person combat or other challenges.
Now moving on to the non-com rubrics. The categories for this year were announced several weeks ago, but these rubrics will show you how those categories and overall these fit into the scoring that we will use. First, a review of the categories that we announced at the beginning of March:
Performance Competition:
A partner dance
Crafting Categories:
The theme for this year is “The four seasons”. Each of the four traditional seasons (summer, autumn, winter, spring) must be represented across the four of your team’s crafting entries. How you interpret these themes is up to the crafters on your team.
- Foamsmith Competition: a hand-and-a-half blunt weapon with a special emphasis on being “otherworldly”.
- Armourer Competition: a set of pauldrons with a special emphasis on being made of mixed media (at least three).
- Garb Competition: a doublet with sleeves with a special emphasis on being reversible.
- Artificer Competition: a source of light with a special emphasis on the incorporation of movement.
