Unto the Legion of Shadows come greetings from
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Pennsic is a war between the East Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom. It is the longest continually running war in the SCA. It's almost a month long and it's a lot of fun. The loser has to take Pittsburgh.
Rixa made Land Grab for the Legion, and the Lovely Mistress Bronwyn made landgrab for the Kingdom of Meridies. I don't know if anybody made land grab for the Principality of Gleann Abhann, and I believe that the Principality was simply lumped in with the Kingdom. The guys (and beautiful wenches) from Odyssey coffee also made land grab. I don't know what's involved in the land grab process for merchants, but I'll bet it's a pain in the ass. Rixa said that the Odyssians were a fantastic help to her. Especially as she had to spend 3 days sleeping in the parking lot. As we had only one shadow legion pre-registration, we were expecting to go to single campers, and "poach" a spot, but her Royal Highness wanted Her household about her, and thus we ALL went to camp with Her in the Meridian Royal encampment. His Majesty had not expected this, and neither had the pennsic Land-Crat (a hugely important position). In short, we all had to camp on a postage stamp. Rixa had called the Legion set-up process "squat-and-steal" and Mistress Bronwyn (a decent woman, and thus unprepared to deal with Legionaries) just about pulled both their hair out. Mistress Bronwyn was great, and she learned very fast. She discovered that she could gain considerable concessions from the Legion if she began her negotiations by entering camp at seven o'clock in the morning, announcing her presence by banging pots and pans together. We would have given her anything she wanted just to stop banging the pots together. What a woman! We need a couple like that in the Legion. I understand that she also does some art form or something, but being Meridian landcrat, she didn't have any time to actually do any SCA stuff. She really was impressive. Soft as silk when necessary, hard as steel when necessary. If anybody can, get her drunk and pledge her. She was relatively good to us. And I appreciate it. If you see her, tell her thanks. Rixa was, as usual, Amazing. She bartered, bullied, begged, bought and flat out stole enough land for the relatively small Legion encampment. I arrived three days later than expected, having some personal business to attend to in Cleveland, Ohio. I was unable to tell Rixa about this, and she was worried. I got one of those "special Rixa talks" when I got there on Sunday the sixth. Notes: Because most of our fighters were too hung-over to fight, we hired a group of dangerous boyos called Clan Teaglach (pronounced "tea-glock") and a Trimarian fighting Countessa (with entourage), the beautiful Countessa Chelsea. I don't believe that her Highness actually fought at all at the war. Chelsea commanded the forces on the field. Her quotable quote concerning the Teaglach mercenary clan was: "All I had to do was point and it died." The Teaglachs were vicious, well drilled, and aggressive. Her Excellency Chelsea ran into a little problem in Murphy's Woods. We ran into the Teaglach boys (who fought for Altantia in the Woods Battle) and they rolled over our small force. Chelsea's helm was knocked off her head and she was knocked over backwards. Her fanny met a small stump. According to Chelsea, the stump has now "boldly gone where no man has gone before". Later, at the swimmin' hole, her excellency showed us the affected area, and while the worst did not appear to have occurred, we all agreed that the wound (broken skin, nasty, nasty bruises) looked bad enough that we would never look again. The Woods Battle was on Wednesday (great fun). The "Abbey Battle" and the Bridge were on Thursday. The Field Battle and the Mountain Pass Battle were on Friday. I was really, really pissed when I arrived at one afternoon battle to find that Marshalate had decided to hold the Field Battle TWO HOURS EARLY, and not tell anybody they had done it. I had shelled out a considerable amount of time, effort, and money to hire the Teaglach boys for the Field Battle, and I didn't get to fight it. I think that perhaps Pennsic is too important for the East and the Middle to be in charge of it. His Majesty had a hard time with scheduling at this particular war. He missed both opening ceremonies and Great Court. The Herald at Great Court said, "We would like to welcome his Meridian Majesty, and we would have, had he decided to honor us with his presence." I know how the scheduling works in my marriage, and I'll bet His Majesty would have been at both, had Her Majesty been available to help him keep his schedule. I think His Majesty may have expected Her Highness, the lovely Ilissa, to have a smaller personal household. We had an awful storm on Sunday the 6th, which drenched all the "just arriving" folks. There were many, many parties during the week. My personal favorites were the men without pants party, (there was a lot of panting going on, actually) and the "Hell" party.
I had a ball at the Hell party! I started talking in this really stupid accent and behaved incredibly rudely. At one point I spotted Marcus (the household adonis) walking out of the beer line and said Marcus flexed. He has spent a lot of hours in the gym, and the ladies appreciated every minute of it. Those of you who have met Marcus know that he often walks around with a sixteen pound hammer hanging from his belt. The ladies spotted it and immediatly commenced with the "really big tool jokes". Marcus played along like a hero, until somebody reached for his loincloth. Then he got a case of the shys, and the game was over. PLEASE consider pre registering for Pennsic XXX (triple x), even if you are unable to go, you will be doing the legion an immense favor. much more went on at the war, but you will get even more bored...
until we meet again, |