Setting | Tentacles | Making the Majik Happen |
Friday: Early Rising
Saturday: Not So Early
| Sunday: Sleep In | Monday: Did I Sleep?
Thanks & Reflections
Tentacles? Monstrous!
Tentacles Roleplaying Convention, 28th-31st May 2004
I have just returned from a long journey—about as long a journey as a person can make, some 17,417 kilometres (10,825 miles) in each direction. The occasion of my happy pilgrimage was as a guest of the German RuneQuest Society (aka the Chaos Society) for Tentacles Monstrous, their annual roleplaying convention held at Castle Stahleck.
And this, my friends, is the long version.
Bacharach and Castle Stahleck
For those of you who are yet to make the journey, Burg Stahleck is a thirteenth
century castle that sits high above the medieval town of Bacharach ('altar to
Bacchus'—how apt!) on the banks of the Rhine, an hour or so south of Frankfurt.
For three hundred years from 1300, Bacharach was a powerful wine and river transport
town, and Stahleck the home to robber barons, nobles and close kin to the Holy
Roman Emperor. (Indeed, for a few brief years during the Third Crusade, the
castle served as a Germanic capital under the absent Barbarosa's reagent brother).
In the nineteenth century, Victor Hugo described Bacharach as a 'land of fairy
tales, covered with legends and sagas'. The entire region resonates with
myth and history—Roman frontier posts and proud warrior tribesfolk, medieval
Rhine mystics, and the wonder of the sagas, including Lohengrin, Siegfried and
the Rhine maidens. And, if I can slip briefly into Reiseleiter mode,
you also have the majestic vista of the Rhine itself, the picturesque medieval
architecture of the town, and the vibrant green of the surrounding forests and
vineyards. In other words, its just awesome, a wonderful place to drop
a few SAN points with friends.
Did I mention the castle? Burg Stahleck is a fine example of Hohenstaufen castle-building; enduring fire, plague and military assault until being thoroughly worked over by the Thirty Years War, and then razed by the French in 1689. The surviving central structure on the high crest of the hill is surrounded by a crumbling maze of town walls and some sixteen ruined towers. It now serves as a Youth Hostel, hosting hordes of barbarian backpackers, (relatively well-behaved) Schulkinder, and, during Tentacles, the odd Mostali work detail, Fonrit slave market or crazed cabal of cultists and chaos gods.
Bacharach is also renowned for its world-famous kebab shop, a regular place of lunch and late night pilgrimage for Tentacles attendees. Survival-Deutsche for English-speaking convention goers includes, 'Nummer eins, mit sosse und salat, danke!' And for the more adventurous, there is the local-Riesling flavoured gelato.
Tentacles Monstrous
I don't know if roleplayers go to heaven—certain other places offer more in the way of dramatic possibilities, but if there is a roleplaying heaven it must be very much Stahleck during Tentacles. The con offers great company in truly inspiring surroundings, comfortable accommodation, superb organisation from the Tentacles Crew, pure-brewed German beer and a relaxed, convivial atmosphere for great gaming. Oh, and trollball. Did I mention the castle?
The con is truly international in flavour. Despite a majority of German guests, the main language at the convention is English—one of the many courtesies that made me and the other English-speaking guests feel so welcome. At any given con you're likely to find Britons, Americans, Canadian and folk from across Europe, even the odd Aussie. There's a creative, indispensable mix of seasoned veterans and imaginative newbies, and an age range that this year ran from approximate ages one to eighty one.
Now the Tentacles tribe basically consists of three clans, for the convention is dedicated to Glorantha/HeroQuest, to Eternal Champion and to Call of Cthulhu, with approximately equal representation among the one hundred and fifty attendees. This allows for a relaxed and spontaneous approach to each of the three roleplaying streams, with only the larger freeforms requiring pre-booking.
Making the Majik Happen Part I
The level of organisational support and innovation at Tentacles is simple astounding. The InfoShrine was a buzzing, high tech, multi-lingual batcave. From it, the Crew handled game scheduling, accommodation, events, and baffled visitors, not to mention the odd five-metre tentacle and light show. They passed out drinks, beer, inflatable trollball weapons and water bombs. And they had lots of fun doing so.
Beginning this year, attendees were able to collect a photo and video CD of the con as they were leaving. Instant memories! (And I understand that next year's CD will also include goodies such as additional video, game modules and seminar slide shows).
So without further ado, let me name the Crew responsible for making Tentacles happen. A monstrous Tentacles 'Thank You!' to Jerry Kraemer, Sven Fork, Pummel Baumgart, Rooster Hahn, Nadine Roelver, Daniel Stanke, 'Silent' Sven Nolte, Chrissi Frerichs, Matjes Matthias, Simon Stucke, Arwed Vogt, Andreas 'Pittel' Pittelkow, Christian 'Eini' Einsporn, and André Jarosch. And of course, the man behind, above, below and in front of the screen, our chief organiser and gracious host, Fabian Kuechler, who has worked so hard for so long to make Tentacles Monstrous such a resounding success.
There is one other person who deserves particular mention. The impressive publications schedule of the Chaos Society—Tradetalk, Ye Book of Tentacles and many other works—financially supports and makes possible Tentacles. Ingo Tschinke is the dedicated man-with-the-plan who drives the operation, runs the online store, and, in cooperation with folk like Tradetalk editor Andre Jarosch and YBOT editor Fabian, keeps the whole operation afloat. In a very real sense, there would be no Tentacles without Ingo's constant dedicated work.
Making the Majik Happen Part II
For Tentacles Monstrous, the Crew assembled a sterling hero band of guests. Along with myself, there was Sandy Petersen (plus clan!) our COC majestero, the irrepressible Michael 'MOB' OBrien, now living just down the road in Abu Dhabi (turn left at Sun County), Loz Whitaker, eternal champion, talented author/brewer and frenzied Continuum organiser, Simon Bray, Gloranthan eye, freeform genius and publisher, David Dunham, the soft-spoken king of Dragon Pass, the talented Steffen 'Stormbringer' Schuette and Wolfgang 'Mood and Atmosphere' Schiemichen, theatrical genius. All up that's several masteries worth of augmentation and an automatic D20 SAN loss!
Missing Friends
Greg Stafford, Tentacle's guardian deity and resident trickster, was unable to be with us this year, but his spirit was very much present. Greg sent greetings and some new Gloranthan readings from his current home in Mexico, sharing fresh secrets of the Red Goddess. Nick Brooke, our choirmaster extraordinaire, was also unable to attend because of a domestic emergency, and was similarly missed by attendees, if not by the castle's early-retiring neighbours.
There were a few moments of quiet sadness for another missing friend. Lars Stremmler was a Tentacles regular who tragically died during 2003. The Crew posted a photo of Lars in the Infoshrine and featured him in the closing ceremony video.
The Majik Happens
I had a very busy Tentacles - running two very different HeroQuest games, giving three slide seminars on topics Gloranthan, and keeping involved in other events including the storytelling, readings from Greg, and trollball. As such, my view of other events at the con is a little restricted. For this, I apologise. There was just sooo much happening.
Friday: Early Rising
I arrived at Stahleck in the company of some of the Crew a day earlier than most attendees. I arose on Friday several hours before my companions (my time zones were still somewhat out of synch), which gave me an opportunity to explore Bacharach and some surrounding forest walks.
Then came the clan. The great joy of our gatherings is of course meeting friends: old friends, new friends, and—typical of our community—friends that you’ve known and been working and chatting with for years online without having actually met. Tentacles proved to very rewarding for me on all three counts.
The con officially began on Friday evening with the 'Family Reunion'. The very title tells you a good deal about what Tentacles is all about.
After that first gathering and greeting the games began in earnest. Loz Whitaker read from his latest Stormbringer fiction, in which he seemed to be reflecting deeply on recent world events.
My own first event was the Heortling Poetry Slam. We gathered in the weapons hall, and round the circle entertained each other with Gloranthan stories and poems, with the occasional kenning, story game and ribald limerick (Thank you David, it... lingers...)
As it turned out, it was more story than poetry. The tellers ranged from wizened old Gloranthan greybeards to talented newbies, and the stories were uniformly excellent. Red-headed Vinga seemed to loom large in our tales—hardly surprising on reflection—but she shared the hall with impassioned kings and dying corn gods and a few very lucky sheep. The moot decreed that our favoured skald of the evening was Lewis Jardine, who received an Orlanthi storm medallion.
We hope that several stories from the evening will appear in YBOT later this year.
Given the size of the convention, if the story-telling tradition continues (and I hope it does!), it could easily be expanded to feature ghost, Cthulhu and Eternal Champion stories.
Saturday: Not So Early Rising
My Saturday began with the first of three Gloranthan seminars, while outside in the courtyard various chaos gods and insane demon worshippers gathered for Sandy Peterson's 'Evil High Priest' freeform. The stars were right, the costumes were amazing, the game ran at a cracking pace, and the cackling collectives of cthulhoid cultists kept each other and a good number of confused-though-fascinated castle visitors engrossed for several hours.
In these days of the internet, presenting a Gloranthan seminar
can be a challenge. What can you do that isn't better covered by e-mail or list
discussion? In presenting my seminars, I was looking for a balance that would
hold something for both experts and newbies. The answer, I found was to use
lots of graphics, so my rudimentary 3D modelling skills proved very handy during
seminar preparation. Saxons, Orlanthi, gods, weapons and (sigh) helmets filled
my slides. Oh, and a few vingans as well. Just a few.
‘Heroes in Hall – Orlanthi Hero Bands and Anglo-Saxon Comitatus’ looked at Heortling hero bands and the effects they might have on Sartarite society through the lens of historical sources such as Tacitus and Beowulf, focussing on the comitatus or warband. The most scholarly (hah!) of my three presentations, it was basically an opportunity to celebrate the Germanic and Saxon sources for a Gloranthan audience.
[You can download a rich text file of my notes for this seminar here. The file is a 48K zip, and the password is ‘tentacles’.
If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, and have broadband connection, you can download the entire Powerpoint presentation (including the above notes) here. That one is a less modest 13 Meg. Same password.
Or you can stay tuned for the coming article. :)
After a pleasant lunch I took time out for quick language lesson for our youngest attendee. ‘Gedday young Alex Holt, you’re an Aussie born overseas, and you need to learn these vowel sounds real quick before you turn two!’ — see the piccies here.
I then changed mental gears to run some duck bandits in a semi-surreal tag team with MOB, Darren Sims, and a very suspect bunch of usuals for 'Beak No Eval', kindly sponsored by the Ring of HeroQuest Narrators. The game normally runs with an opposing team of Lunar baboons (‘Bad Boon Rising’), though on this occasion one team of gratuitous Gloranthan beasties was more than enough. It was a lot of fun.
Then came the second Gloranthan seminar, ‘Warriors Went To Whitewall’, an overview of the siege of the last Orlanthi city, presented with Gloranthan loremaster Joerg Baumgartner. Whitewall is an epic setting and an epic story, one that has been attracting a lot of attention lately through the WhiteWall discussion group and associated Wiki site. Joerg and I tried to do it all justice. In particular, I enjoyed telling my own version of how the defenders vanquished the Crimson Bat, using a very Greg-ish mix of careful research, studied reflection, and letting new bits surface in the telling.
While Joerg and I summoned the Last Storm and vanquished the Bat, outside a group of Mostali engineers were gathering for ‘The Wonder of the Clanking City’, a freeform by Ingo Tschinke and Helge Reuter. For me, the idea of bringing fifteen Mostali together is positively surreal, and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to play. There were some great costumes and it seemed, no end of suitably mostali moments.
Come sunset, another quick change of mental gear, and it was time to run my first session of ‘Stormhold of Southland’.
Knowing that I would be in a very special location, in preparing for Tentacles I wanted to write something to both reflect and celebrate this. ‘Stormhold’ is set at night upon the walls of WhiteWall, the last free Orlanthi city. Now on the very apex of the hill behind Stahleck there is a viewing platform/battlement that looks down on the castle and the glorious expanse of the Rhine Valley. (You can see a daytime view from the platform here.
This, after sunset, became our sentry walk upon Tarkalor's Gate. The atmosphere upon the battlement was just perfect, with the lit castle below us, skiting clouds, a furtive crescent moon and the chill, silent dark. It wasn't difficult to imagine the besieging Lunar lines set before us: for the distant Rhine provided baleful red globes and parallel lines set bright against the darkness.
In the module, five strangers come together for the lonely starwatch, and in the course of the long and bitter night confront hopes, fears, and memories as well as other, more physical threats. The size of the battlement allowed the sentries to pad their watch just as on the fabled walls, with the brooding silence cut by their soft murmurs and occasional shouts of terror.
Stormhold was an example of what in Australia we call a multiform, a freeform in miniature with a focus on characterisation, emotional intensity and atmosphere. Each running of the module was very different, through that may have something to do with the fact I couldn’t read my notes in the dark. :)
During my first session, one over-enthusiastic sentry took an in-game command over-literally - jumping up onto the parapet, perhaps unaware of the twenty metre drop to the rocks below. Thank you Sean, I really didn't know my pulse could reach a hundred and fifty beats per minute!
Well it’s midnight of a Saturday, so where do you go once your heartbeat is back to relative normal? To the great hall and the Singalong of course! While Nick Brooke couldn’t be with us in body this year, our ritual summoning of his loud and indomitable spirit was a critical success. Led by MOB and Loz, we engaged in enthusiastic, melody-strictly-optional renditions of old favourites like ‘Hero Wars Ga Ga’ and ‘Land of Darra Happa’, as well as a few new songs like ‘Truestone Ploughboy’. What key was that? Who cares!
Sadly, the local police couldn’t be with us this year, and we’ve yet to hear from the neighbours. We finally retired around 2.00 am, having exhausted both the Gloranthan songbook and just about every pop song known. My overwhelming impression from the evening was of some of our German friends’ uncanny ability to both look and sound like certain well-known boy bands. Expect details of the record deal soon.
Sunday: I Sleep In Just A Bit
Sunday morning, and one’s thoughts turn naturally to... Trollball!
2004 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the first live-action trollball game (at Necronomicon in Sydney) and is also Tentacles’ tenth year of play, so it was celebrations all round. Greg Stafford provided us with Mexican decorations for that authentic carnivale atmosphere. The referees were MOB, Joerg and myself, with Claudia Loroff reprising her role as the glamorous Xiola Umbar priestess. In keeping with the latest European fashion, the referees wore blindfolds to prevent mere facts distracting from the metaphysical rightness of our decisions. :)
The game was brisk and professional, played in Ray Harryhausen Dynamation stop motion mode – the only option really when you’re playing on slate. The spectators were literally hanging from the rafters and jeering from the windows, encouraging their champions on with songs and chants and copious waterbombs. Inflatable weapons struck left and right, gigantic referee boots sent offenders flying, and many was the dismembered trollkin and wounded Uzko. Healing flour flew, warriors grunted: it wuz pure poetry. Sadly, random outbreaks of violence and gratuitous attacks on spectators and referees were relatively few. All in all, a great game!
Time to dry off in time for the Group Photo, another Tentacles tradition, and then on to my third and final seminar, A Walk In Far Places, a quick tour of my Gloranthan campaign setting. This seminar consisted largely of Far Place maps (thanks Darran and Wesley) and seemingly endless slides of rain-soaked landscapes and trees. There were a few Odaylans. And one or two vingans.
After lunch it was time for Simon Bray and Martin Hawleys' monumental Harem Nights freeform, set in a Gloranthan locale with a decidedly Arabian Nights feel.
Harem Nights was a spirited paper-chase
with strategic overtones. It took place amidst palaces, temples, sowuks and
harems. There was a bazaar complete with a functioning hookah that burned
aromatic fruit tobacco. The standard of costume and colour was excellent,
and there was much gratuitous chewing of scenery and shawls. Merchants haggled
over slaves and dancers, visiting priestesses plotted revolution, suitors
sought the princess’ hand, and various cults sought deific body parts while
Empires and cities fell at stage left.
Clare Holt has posted a wonderful collection of photos from the freeform that you can see here.
The freeform gave MOB the chance to finally dress in a full bernouse: an act that would have him arrested in his new home. Ian Gorlick's costume might also have got him arrested, just about anywhere really, but for totally different reasons. :) Both, in their way, looked very stylish.
Mere death did not prevent my own character, the prophet Holy Moley, from continuing his spirited engagement with the enemies of Garangordus. (A most holy name, always to be chanted like the Volga Boat Song). After being despatched by one of my numerous enemies midway through our drama, I was eaten, ghosted, exorcised, zombified in a new body, given control of an ocean fleet and finally co-opted as spiritual cannon fodder in the final climactic hero quest.
Sunday night brought the Auction and the Prize Giving, and I ran a final session of Stormhold on the battlements. In the closing ceremony, the Crew showed us a video of con highlights that would be included on the Tentacles CD. We then adjourned to the courtyard to have a drink, swap anecdotes and email addresses, and join in the traditional burning of Daughters of Darkness. A light mist of rain did nothing to diminish our spirits. It was a joyful celebration for the end a great weekend.
Monday – Did I Sleep at All Last Night?
Monday was the day we bid farewell and began our journeys home. My final event for the con was a rescheduled John reads Greg, in which we were able to share some of the latest writings from Glorantha’s chief shaman and prime mover. In the readings (in which I was most ably assisted by David Dunham) Greg shared some revelations on the lives of the Red Goddess—How She Became Her and The Lives of Natha Magna, in part a preview for the Imperial Lunar Handbook II.
We learned more of the previous lives of the Moon Goddess, her many forms and colours, her tragic descent and slow rise. Greg described her final incarnation as Teelo Estara, and how she finally remembered who she was: he told something of her lovers, advisers and enemies. It was a stirring tale and, for me, a moving finale.
I’ve contacted Greg with feedback from the reading, and while some of the material will be covered in the Imperial Lunar Handbook 2, he is also considering making The Lunar Novel available in some form. Stay tuned.
Thanks and Reflections
That was my Tentacles. There were many other games and events that I’ve not even mentioned, but I hope I conveyed something of the spirit of the con. It’s a truly marvellous event.
You should really check out the photos on the Tentacles website.
It was wonderful for me to visit Germany, to have the chance to experience the culture, history and cuisine, and to meet so many new friends. I was especially taken by the history all around me, by the friendliness and courtesy of the people I met, by the practical recycling policies, and of course by the autobahns and their promise of rapid transit to such exotic locales as Koln, Berlin and Ausfart. :)
Finally, a few very personal highlights, seeming small but filled with meaning. Firstly, the sheer overpowering green of the Wald outside Frankfurt, the play of light and shadow amidst the trees, the weight and age of moss and trunk and leaf, the red flash of a squirrel crossing our trail. Secondly, sitting absolutely wrapt in wonder under a three metre model of the Spaceship Discovery as featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Kubrick Exhibition in Frankfurt. That ship, that symbol, means so much to me.
Mostly though, it’s the people, the friends old and new. The friendship and hospitality of my hosts deserves special thanks: Fabian of course, and Herr and Frau Kuechler, and all the Tentacles Crew. My thanks also to Joerg Baumgartner for his seminar support, to Sven Nolte, who so courteously endured my endless mispronunciations and questions, and to Alex Dotor and Timo Euler, who acted as guides. The entire trip will continue to inspire and motivate me for many years to come.
Cheers!
John
