Ramblings of a beardy sandle-wearer

07:28 pm

Back to work next week, and I'm looking at buying a house down that thar London way. I need to commute to canary wharf most days (and my personal commuting limit is about 30-45 mins either way), but I also need good access to the midlands and Northampton by car, for all those LARP events. Stamp duty is terrible about 250k, which is about the limit at which I'll get a good mortage anyhow. So, putting this all together and applying a liberal sprinkling of mapumental internet sorcery suggests the following areas...

1. Woodford
   
2. Walthamstow
   
3. Stratford
   
4. Edmonton

03:46 pm

Which of you buggers lives in Cambridge?

I'm down there this week to relieve old glories, if you fancy meeting up for a drink / meal.

05:22 pm

Oh dear, I haven't posted here for an age.

01:45 am - Jackal event, 7-9 Nov, still room for more!

Greetings, all.

As I hope you all know, we are running our Campaign event ("Ancient Secrets I") this weekend (7-9th Nov) at Candleston camp site (Bridgend, South wales).

There's still room to play or monster if you haven't already booked...

• Here's the a link to the event pack - this includes directions to the site, information on time-in, IC briefings, the caterer's menu, and other details.
  
• If you plan to come, and haven't already booked, it'd be handy if you could drop us a email or give us a ring in advance to let us know that you're coming, and whether you would like a meal ticket.
  
• The booking list is available online here.
  
• If you've booked, you should have received a confirmation email by now.
  
• If you have pre-booked and have not received your confirmation, please get in touch with us at bookings (at) jackalfaction.com as quickly as possible.
  
• Your character details have been sent to you in your confirmation email. Please check they are correct, especially your OS skills and your ancestor information. We will be printing character cards on Tuesday night, so please get in contact before then if something needs to be changed.
  
• The event is catered by the Banqueting Club (the folk who did food at our punt event)
  
• We will be running a fully licensed bar with alcholic and soft drinks available.

• To play: £45
  
• Player meal ticket: £20 (food for the weekend)
  
• To monster: free
  
• Monster meal ticket: £15 (discounted)

04:15 pm - GEF!

Well, that was tiring. Didn't feel very keen beforehand, can't really say I enjoyed the event overall, but have somehow come out awesomely keen and enthused to do cool stuff to/for the faction.

Hot: Almost getting locced by Dave Young's Chaos Thing + Snowy's reaction.
Not: Too much queueing, administrivia, fun-killing.
Hot: Jackals players really getting their teeth into stuff.
Not: Weather killing roleplay in the evenings and on monday.
Hot: Retaining the pub quiz title.
Not: Don't think the big linear went as well as it ought to have done.

Jackals... please tell me how it went, did you like the encounters we did, what worked well, what didn't, etc?

PS: Next jackal campaign event is Nov 7-9 @ Candlestone! Block your diary now!

04:10 pm - Jackals event prep!

Return packs have gone out via email to players.
Monsters should be receiving theirs shortly.

Shout out if you haven't received one!

Oh, yes - still room for pay on gate players and more monsters!

Edit: Here's a link to the return pack.

We are still open for new players ('pay-on-gate') and monsters - just turn up and pay when you arrive. If you can print out and fill in a copy of the booking form and bring it with you, that's even better. All bunk spaces went a long time ago, but we have crash space indoors, and plenty of room for people who wish to camp.

Players - £40 to play, meal ticket £20 extra
Monsters - free to crew, meal tickets £15 (discounted)

Please give us a ring ASAP if you want a meal ticket and have any special dietary requirements.

10:06 pm - Jackals faction campaign event - 15-17 Feb!

Happy new year, all!

The next Jackals campaign event is due to be held on the 15th-17th of Feb, at the Quarries camp site, near Milton Keynes (MK19 7JA). Anyone friendly to the faction is welcome to play, and more crew are always welcome!

Full event details here!

All bunk spaces have now been allocated, but we still have plenty of nice warm indoor crash space available, so don't let that put you off booking.

The event is fully catered by the wonderful Banqueting Club - you may have sampled their fayre at recent Bears, Unicorns or Dragons events! For £17.50 (need to pre-book this), you'll get two IC evening meals (friday and saturday), IC lunch on saturday, and two breakfasts (saturday and sunday). There will also be some late night '1am-warmers' to keep you going.

We are also going to be running a cash Bar, serving a range of beers, ciders and soft drinks.

The deadline for discounted £30 player pre-booking is the 13th Jan - payments must be received by then to qualify. After that, it's £40 to play the event.

All who wish to crew are welcome, there is of course no charge, and all crew who pre-book are entitled to purchase a meal ticket at the discounted price of £10.

You can book online and pay with Paypal, or make use of the paper booking form. If you book online and opt to pay by cheque, or send your booking form in by post, please do ensure payment reaches us by the 13th Jan in order to qualify for the early booking discount.

Our website has further details on the faction and the event, and we have also set up discussion forums for the faction and friends.

All the best,
Jackals Faction Command Team

11:23 pm - I Am Sorry...

Green things, beware. The EPIC BATTLE has begun, to answer the ancient question - GREEN OR BROWN?

BROWN REAVER now stalks the world (in offical laminated form), and HUNGERS. His priesthood is born, his avatar has been chosen.

How long before GREEN REAVER also manifests?


(PS: I am sorry for starting this!)

11:18 pm - Locko update!

Old jackal command tent: fallen over, but complete and intact.

New jackal command tent: severe pole and joint damage, canvas mostly okay (a few rips) - not salvagable without considerable work.

Lee's OOC tent: fine, but a bit musty.

Faculty tent: fine.

El's painted Bank tent: frame is fine, canvas has been taken down, couldn't find it to inspect it, but suspect it will be usable.

Tides tent - collapsed, centrepole totally broken, but Seth has managed to jury-rip a repair and it's standing again. No sign of any damage to the stuff inside.

See you all at the moot!

-Ed

11:30 pm - Rollercoaster ride!

Sounds as though Locko Park has suffered massive damage, and our nice new tent has been blown half way across site. I'm heading off tomorrow evening to inspect the situation.

Viper types - will check on your tents for you too, and rescue anything that needs rescuing.

Being an NPC has been totally crazy these past few days, but things are looking good, we can build on what's happened. Still enthused. Still keen. Looking forwards to a chance to chill with the Vipers, do cool rituals, do some trade, and of course, chew the cud with my faction. Not to mention some ganking!

Stay cool, folks.

12:49 pm - Earthquakes!

Belatedly stolen from some guy...

URGENT - KENT EARTHQUAKE APPEAL

At 08:15 on Saturday 28th April an earthquake measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale hit Kent, UK, causing untold disruption and distress - many were woken well before their Giro arrived.

By far the biggest damage, was that caused by staff at Shepherd Neame brewery dropping half a dozen bottles of Spitfire.

Several priceless collections of mementos from the Balearics and Spanish Costas were damaged.

Three areas of historic and scientifically significant litter were disturbed.

Thousands are confused and bewildered, trying to come to terms with the fact that something interesting has happened in Kent.

One resident, Donna-Marie Dutton, a 17 year old mother-of-three said:
"It was such a shock, little Chantal-Leanne came running into my bedroom crying. My youngest two, Tyler-Morgan and Megan-Storm slept through it. I was still shaking when I went to Netto."

Apparently though, looting did carry on as normal.

The British Red Cross have so far managed to ship 4000 crates of Cider to the area, to help the stricken masses.

Rescue workers are still searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal belongings including benefit books and jewellery from Elizabeth Duke at Argos.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

£2 buys cobnuts & cider for a family of four.
£10 can take a family to Maidstone for the day, where children can play on an unspoiled open landfill site, among the national collection of stinging nettles.
22p buys a Biro for filling in a spurious compensation claim

PLEASE ACT NOW!

Simply email us by return with your credit card details and we'll do the rest!

If you prefer to donate cash, there are collection points available at your local branches of Argos, Iceland and Clinton Cards.

06:39 pm - Books

Inspired by other people's posts, I thought I'd list some books that I like, and some that I don't, in the hope that some of You Out There can recommend new stuff for me to read.

Three books that I don't like: House Harkonnen, House Atreides, House Corino - the new 'Dune' books written by people who aren't Frank Herbert - shite prose, shite plotting, and a terrible tendancy to re-use everything single thing that Frank Herbert ever came up with in the original series. On the other hand, the Dune books that Frank did write are pretty amazing.

...and now for some ones I do...

Guy Gavriel Kay's "Sarantine Mosaic" diptych ("Sailing to Sarantium", and "Lord of Emperors"), and also "The Lions of Al-Rassan". Delicious prose, in the historical fantasy genre - the Moors, the Byzantine empire under Justinian, all good. Famous for having been trusted to edit Tolkien's posthumously published work.

Robin Hobb's "Assassin Trilogy" ("Assassin's Apprentice", "Royal Assassin", "Assassin's Quest", if I recall correctly). Emotionally stunted royal bastard child trained up as an assassin against a background of Great Events. This is a definite one to read. There's a secord trilogy, "The Liveship Traders", set in the same world - it's nowhere near as good, and only worth reading for the sake of understanding the third trilogy, "The Tawny Man", which carries on from the first trilogy.

Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" (four books, published as two volumes under the masterworks label) - far future dying earth in which society has regressed and technology has effectively become magic. Written from the perspective of an accolyte of the torturers' / executioners' guild. Again, fine prose, and an excellent story. There's a fifth book, "The Book of the New Urth" which is compulsary reading for those who like the main four.

Jack Vance's "Dying Earth", collection of stories is excellent.

Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" - a dark and twisted carnival comes to small-town America.

Jack Williamson's "Darker Than You Think" - werewolves and shapechangers under a modern setting in NOVEL's NOT CRAP SHOCKER.

For good SF, rather than high fantasy, I like Kate Wilhelm's "Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang" - civilisation dies back, should one cling to its remains or embrace the wilderness?

Michael Moorcock's Melnibonae books are pretty good, also. Especially if you imagine Lex and Taffdan playing the characters.

Roger Zelany's "The Chronicles of Amber" - just the first five books, you can get them in a single volume, also very highly recommended. The second set of five books seemed a little less well written, not really up to the tight standards of the first.

-Ed

09:54 am - Jackals, woo.

Finally, I'm an official High Imperial Despot Emir Vizier Sheikh member of LT staff. I think I'll celebrate by running an event. Next weekend... come on, all you slackers who haven't yet sent me your booking forms... Details here.

Jackal event, 20-22nd April, Walesby, BE THERE!

Now time to make a list of all the stuff we've forgotten about. If only I could remember it. Glowsticks, where's a good place to buy glowsticks?

08:06 pm - So, Harts event.

Pretty wierd event, but fun.

Very low combat monster turn-out, which meant quite a quiet event with lots of tanking demons in small doses, with occasional doses of vengeance zombies. Spend first two days being some kind of scouty lay-to-restin' sheikh-in-disguise, then it all went tits-up on sunday when most of the nails squad started feeling a bit odd and ended up trying to murder our friends and hosts. Narrowly avoiding getting locced on the floor, thanks to our mates realising what was going on and jumping in.

The IC atmosphere was a bit odd at times, but the good company (taffdan, albevan, mymindcrime, indykid, Big Dave, Big Dave's accent, Neil, amongst others) made it all cool.

Plus we played IC "I have never", and watched Al reduce a lady to a state of nasal vomiting through the medium of puffing.

05:12 pm - Jackal event!

The next jackal event will be held at Walesby, on the 20-22nd April.

Event Information

Venue:

Walesby Scout Camp, Notts. (NG22 9NG) - the same place as the parliament event earlier this year.

Cost:

£30 before 10th April, £40 thereafter or on gate.

Accommodation:

Camping

Catering:

Self-catering.

Times:

Time-in runs 10pm Friday 17th to 2am Saturday, 10am Saturday to 2am Sunday, and 10am to 2pm Sunday. Event control will open from 6pm on Friday.

Crew Bookings:

Monster crew bookings will receive free crash space, hot and cold drinks and snacks.

Player eligibility:

Campaign event (moderate combat, moderate threat) for members of the Jackals faction and guests.

Here's the Booking Form - if you need a paper copy or need the file emailing to you, or have any queries, please email jackalfaction (AT) googlemail (DOT) com.

Hope to see you there,
Ed

12:07 am - Unicorns event!

Right, looks like I'm going to turn up to the Meldir's party along with the Von-Becks and some other acquaintances, should be all good.

Who else is coming?

11:57 am - Time to start one of these things.

Jackals parliament: Great!

My first event getting involved 'behind the scenes' although Dave, Hoppy, Lee, Martyn and Matt did all the hard work. The LT support (Kate, Mark, Taz, and Dave Y) was great. Lots of good stuff went on, and player feedback seems to be that there was always something to hold their interest. Didn't have time to talk to all the people IC that I wanted to after my promotion, for which I apologise, there are just so many cool keeners and great roleplayers in our faction and our allies. I think there's a lot of potential in the new IC organisational structure - can't wait to see how it develops.