Purveyor of fine herbs and rare powders....

Well I can summarise my weekend as being a great one. I did a load of role-playing, achieved things and ended up with more of shiny coins at the end of the event than I did at the start. The cold I has developed on the run up to the event disappeared after the first days play.

I guess I'd better start on the bad points so I don't come across as too much of a fan boy. There where a few administration issues with my character in terms of getting hold of lammies I should of had. The queues for the excellent catering where also quite long (not surprising considering they where feeding several hundred people in a room smaller than my current office). However all in all with GOD and catering I suspect I queued for around 2-3 hours, which considering it was a 3 day event was pretty good.

The weather was OK although in typical bank holiday mode it didn't get pleasant until the Monday as we where packing up. My new tent is big enough to stand up in when changing which was great and much appreciated by Katy. I should of brought a few more blankets though as the evenings where quite cold. My understanding of physics failed me

in understanding why despite sleeping on a double air bed covered with a blanket all the heat still drained away from underneath us. Next time I'm in the tend I'll bring the caramats to lay underneath the bed for additional insulation.

I took several decisions about how I was going to play the game this time. The first one was not to play with the same people as last year. This is not because they all smell or some other OOC reason but more because I felt playing with a new group would would be a good way to role-play with new people. It also helped enforce my second decision which was to play a more active character than href=http://www.bennee.com/~alex/perivale.jpg>Perivale (much as I enjoyed playing him at Omega). Although the character description of Danny may sound like a license to engage in general debauchery I was pretty well behaved. Of course being a "dealer" to the great and the good gave me a chance to wonder around the site talking to lots of different people setting up deals. Maelstrom being a player led system means you get more out of it the more you get out there and do stuff rather than

wait for thing to happen. Of course I did visit some people I already knew including partaking of the excellent hospitality of the clan Anaguma tea tent where the other half was playing a most hospitable host (as well as seeing people like Jo and the others).

One of the high points for me was the money in the system. To start with they where pys-repped by actual solid metal coins - minted in several different styles. They where minted in several styles because there where at least 3 currencies in effect. This made trade interesting and involved me spending a few hours working out conversion tables for various substances I was selling. However

nothing beats the feeling of being handed a pile of nice clanking metal coins for the deal you've just completed on. I finished the weekend with more coins than I started with which is nice :-)

All in all it was a most excellent weekend. I know this to be the case because I was never bored and didn't think about work until getting into work this morning. The ability to get away from it all and spend a weekend doing something completely different and absorbing is one of the reasons I enjoy the hobby so much. And the event I've just attended reminded me that when its good it can be really good!