Feeling Sheepish

Groundhog day is very American, I've discovered. There was a brief blurb about it on the news (reminding me of the "holiday") which had everyone in the room furrowing their brows incomprehensibly.  I explained the tradition, which strangely seemed to confuse them more.  For some, the confusion went something like this:

You begin to see the problem.

Well, just a couple of days left and I'll be on that couple-of-days series of flights.  It does become a bit bothersome when one's travel exploits almost always mean trans-oceanic flights.  I always complain about them, but in the end, they usually aren't that big of a deal.

I've had a wonderful two last weeks in New Zealand.  Trond and I went to Wellington for a week for a gaming convention called, "Kapcon."  The ferry ride from Picton to Wellington took about 3 hours.  The way there was against the swells, so it lumbered a long a bit, but the way back was clear and fabulous and we basically surfed the whole way.

The way there

The way back

 It only has about 150 participants, but even so, it was a nice couple of days spent experimenting with new games.  The first one (and most memorable) is called, "Fiasco."  There are very little materials involved in the game.  Everyone sits in a circle at a table and has a piece of scrap paper between each person.  Using dice (an a manual for reading the rolls), you define things (relationships, locations, objects, etc) between each pair of people before the game starts.  The game portion is more like performing mock "scenes" as you try to reach the goals of your defined character.

What made this game particularly hilarious was the theme: Harry Potter.  We decided to be second-generation characters.  I played, "Morag Malfoy" who was a Slytherin, but not evil.  She had daddy issues (well, wouldn't YOU if Draco was YOUR dad???), misplaced affection on a teacher (Trond--I didn't make the rules), and was looking to start a relationship.  I was also a member of a secret society on campus.

One of the most amusing aspects of the game were the three Potter triplets: Barry, Larry, and Elvis.  Even they couldn't keep each other straight, which was doubly funny because they started the game not knowing what had happened to them the previous two weeks.

Barry and I were both members of the secret society which, as it turns out, was trying to abolish the House system by destroying the Sorting Hat.  I also had a crush on Barry.  By the end, my character had pretty much gotten everything she wanted out of the other characters (except she accidentally destroyed a fake sorting hat, so that plan failed).  Trond's professor character turned out to be a werewolf, but hey, so did every other professor in Hogwarts, who then went on a rampage at the end of the story, killing or turning all the other characters.  One big, happy, crazy, werewolf family.

In a similar vein, I played a game written recently by one of the attendees.  It's called "The Silver Kiss of the Magical Twilight of the Full Moon."  You can gather fairly quickly what the parody is.  It was pretty funny, too.  We lived in "Fork, WA"  (That one-fork town?) which was neighbor to "Garden Chair, WA" (not sure where that came from).  Our supernatural problem was dragons.  Garden Chair had demons.  It all culminated in a highly unsuccessful Homecoming Game between the two schools.  I was playing the "human best friend" to the love-struck human obsessed with supernatural-dragon-boy.  Other than losing my cat, Sergeant Snuggles, to one of the demons, I turned out to be pretty awesome.  Turns out my Olympic fencing skills hid a private agenda for dragonslaying.  Sorry best friend! Didn't meant to kill your dragon-boy in an epic battle.  Actually, it turned out okay for my friend, because she ended up being a lesbian anyway and flew off into the sunset with dead dragon boy's female dragon friend....presumably to be eaten.  Just to confuse you further, the human love-struck girl was, in fact, played by a man.

Perhaps the most amusing part of that game was how you receive experience points:  On the table in front of everyone are face-down pieces of paper with "emo" quotes on them.   At any time during your dialogue, you can grab one and incorporate it into what you were saying.  Some examples include: "In life we are doomed to being misunderstood, so why even try?" and "You make my soul bleed a thousand red tears."  I could go on.  After using a quote (I used one to describe the problems I had with my hairdo) you'd get a piece of candy!

I played other, less ridiculous games too, but they aren't as fun to relate.  I played one that had me in a group of ronin (lordless samurai) that had come to a village only to find that it was plagued by demons.  Some pretty crazy stuff happened there and we kept having to roll our dice for sanity levels.  I was a gibbering idiot by the end, but I lived!  It was much more structured and less "story-telling" than the aforementioned two, but that's just because it was a different type of game.  I played another one with Trond that involved a party of fantasy characters investigating the recent stop in communication from a mountain temple.  There was a quasi Pandora's Box incident in that one, involving genies.

The last game I played was Artemis.  I think I've mentioned this before, as I played it during Big Gaming Week.  You basically set up five computers and link them to a big screen TV.  The group simulates a spaceship bridge, much in the same vein as Star Trek.  It was a lot of fun.  I got to play as the Communications Officer ("They refuse to surrender, Captain!") and Science Officer ("Space Station D4 at 182, distance 40.") who talks to the helm and weapons officers.  Lots of fun.  There's usually a guy (or girl) standing to the rear of the computers who acts as captain.  His role is harder than it sounds because he can't see any of the screens but the big one that displays the ship in space.  But as a bonus, he gets to wear a funny hat.

Also while in Wellington, I was able to do some Lord of the Rings geeking.  A tour took me to Mt. Victoria Park along the border of hilly Wellington.  This is where the hobbits find mushrooms and Frodo famously says, "Get off the Road!"  The tree under which the hobbits hide was, in fact, a fake tree that was built HUGE to make the hobbits look small.  Obviously, the tree wasn't there, but the ditch was!

We were taken up into the Hutt valley by our tour guide.  He was actually in The Return of the King.  you know the Oliphants?  The guy that is steering the one that Legolas completely destroys?  Yeah, that was him.  Totally looks like him, too, minus all the crazy make-up of course.  He says, "People say that's Orlando Bloom's scene, but really it's mine."  Turns out a lot of the extras for Peter Jackson films do tour guiding on the side, presumably while they wait for him to film something else.

Todd the tour guide

None of the sets were still at any of the locations, but it was easy to feel the ambiance of say, Rivendell, when tucked into ancient forests in a national park.

Well, I won't bore you with any more details on that score.  After a brief stop off back in Christchurch (and a Mirror Universe Party--many fake mustaches), Trond and I went on a little anniversary interlude to Mt. Cook.  My parents had bought us a night's stay at The Hermitage resort, which provided sweeping views of the nearby mountains, with Mt. Cook as a centerpiece.  We arrived in the evening and enjoyed dinner at the Old Mountaineers Cafe.  The sunset lit up the glacial peaks in pinks and peaches.  So gorgeous! 

Sadly, the sunrise proved to be cloudy, but by the time we checked out, the sky had cleared.  We even went for a walk along one of the many trails in the area.  On our way back to Christchurch, we took a small detour to see the Clay Cliffs:

 The drive back to Christchurch offered one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen:

 Wednesday proved interesting.  Ever heard of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA)?  They are a group of medievalists who take their fairs very seriously.  It's not like your average Renaissance Fair, in that only members/participants/invitees can attend.  Trond and I were cool by association and someone once again provided us with appropriate costumes.  I saw a lot of interesting things that day, including a scribe making ink, a trebuchet being built and used, really impressive archery, pantomime theater, and watched Trond help the blacksmith (actually the same man as the scribe) put together a forge.  Dinner was fantastic and consisted of a whole roasted pig for the main course.

Scribe's toolkit

Lastly, just Saturday morning, we went to a KAOS (Killing As Organized Sport) function that annually mock-battles the Elves, a much older-gentlemen organization made up of a regiment of redcoats.  I was in charge of filming instead of participating.  I enjoyed watching them run around, efficiently whacking away at opponents with foam weapons, or shooting really heavy-duty nerf guns.  As people "died" they would be revived by the "medic teams" running around giving fallen soldiers M&Ms.  In a stroke of brilliance, some of Trond's friends found and assembled semi-large shark balloons which had remote-control tails.  Attached to their heads were, you guessed it, laser beams.  It was almost sad when one of them got deflated.  Other amusing additions to the battle included a chariot with inflatable pool alligators instead of horses and a Shoggoth, which promptly ate Trond, a mad scientist, several redcoats, a Valkyrie, and William Wallace, consuming them into its body an "activating" more grasping limbs.  It is customary that no one wins the battle.  Just a lot of good fun and, for some of us, side-splitting laughter.

A contrastingly calm afternoon followed.  The evening promised my very last party in New Zealand.  It was an uncharacteristic cool, drizzly night, but that didn't stop the party from spilling onto the street.  Many people from the day's battle were present and regaling each other about their numerous, glorious deaths.  I'm going to miss this crowd.

And here we are, the day before we leave, doing laundry and generally packing stuff up.  At the beginning of this trip, it felt like I'd been here for a long time since we were packing our days so full of activities.  Now I feel like it all went by so quickly.  Funny how time perception plays tricks.  This really was a great way to spend two months.  I met a lot of nice and interesting people, saw a LOT more of New Zealand than my previous visit, and had far too much fun making sheep comics.