BadgerCon - Final Part

[lathany]

BadgerCon was over half way through and those people frantically writing games in their spare time were finished or nearly finished.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning was almost over by the time I got up. Hutaga phoned; triskellian and secretrebel wanted onebyone and I to be over early for the Chrestomanci Castle character briefing.

Chrestomanci Castle was set in the Diana Wynne Jones Chrestomanci worlds and the game itself was about a magic competition for under-16s. The game ran on both Thursday and Friday afternoons, but for convenience I'm going to write about it in one block.

As I said - magic competition. My problem - lack of magic. Mummy was a powerful enchantress and had entered me for the competition on the grounds that her only daughter, Morgana Mabel Talisman, would obviously be a mage. I stumbled through the various early rounds using conjuring tricks (such as rabbits out of hats) and spells given to me by kind friends. However this was the final; meaning that I was in trouble.

The memorable moments of Chrestomanci Castle :

• ealuscerwen playing my "Darling" mother (a.k.a. The Big Bad). She had, apparently, based the character on her mother. I hope never to meet ealuscerwen's mother.


• The meeting of the Amitas - Frances had a character who switched between different versions of herself (each was in a different world). At one point she had to play two of them at once.


• The baby dragon - I hope it gave itself a name.


• The Gryphon-Manticore fight/scrap/merging.


• The moment when John (smiorgan) and Isabel (Amanda) each produced a statue of their problems - each other.


• The realisation that Lazuli (lanfykins) would have to fight a real, full-sized dragon.


• Felix's (zandev's) goblin - it had cursed him many, many times and he used the curses instead of spells.


• Cat (chrestomancy) breaking a window because it was the shortest route between two points.


• The fact that all the children (the players) really suck at chess (dice). (onebyone rolled a 00, the rest of us were allowed to help; nine tries later and 49 was still our lowest roll.)

And all the characters had a.k.a.s. Mine "does it with string" was the one I liked the best.

Thursday evening saw us over in Hutaga playing much, much Bridge. We also listened to the soundtrack of Once More With Feeling several times through before triskellian switched it off. Then we headed back to Hut and sat talking in a bedroom until the final Gold Team IV finished. We then waited for bateleur to add up the scores "Hang on, I've added points for injury rather than subtracting". He eventually decided that my team had won (Hurrah !) although a certain amount of arithmetic checking was definitely required.

Friday

The afternoon marked the second part of Chrestomanci Castle which was occasionally interrupted by calls from Hut. bateleur and frax were trying to book someone for Hut to go for an evening meal and were asking me about nearby restaurants.

That evening we drove off to The Old King's Head Hotel in Broughton and had a really good meal. I ordered "Roasted Vegetables with Garlic and Feta Cheese on a Bed of Leaves and Cous Cous" followed by a chocolate pot (I forget the exact name - but this was the translation). Both were wonderful; and the house white was reasonably drinkable (although not as good as the Orvietto we had back in Hut afterwards).

<whine>
Why does everyone (except lanfykins and, on occasion, ealuscerwen) prefer red wine to white ?
</whine>

A final trip to Hutaga was taken where smiorgan was presented with his cheese (a story for bateleur's LJ) and many BadgerCon photographs were taken.

We then decided to pack; meaning that we sat around gossiping for ages and finally thought about dividing up the remaining food long after midnight.

Saturday

Saturday started far, far too early. We may have got up a good couple of hours after Huta and Hutaga (or so someone claimed), but eight-thirty was still too early after a week of lounging around. We got out with a whole five minutes to spare, discovered that chrestomancy had paid our bill by accident (I owe him nearly six quid for our milk) and then said our goodbyes.

bateleur and I then collected Frances and headed off to Cambridge. Amusingly, every time we stopped at a service station we ran into some of the others. This lightened the six hour drive a little. However, we finally arrived in Cambridge and dropped a sleepy Frances off at the station. bateleur and I then went on to bateleur's parents house for dinner and twin collection. Ryan and Beatrice treated us both to huge smiles and hugs so we agreed to take them home with us.



I think that BadgerCon was the most successful Con by some margin. Consequently it is unlikely to be the last. However chrestomancy had definitely earned himself early retirement from the "making it happen" post and can sit back smugly with his gold medal (or possibly gold banana).

Comments

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Pot au chocolate. Mmmmm.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Well remembered.

Pity the hotel is so far away; at half the distance I would be tempted to go back for another meal on the strength of that alone.

OK - at a fifth of the distance.