Hey everyone,
I wanted to go over the plan for the Winter event. It’s going to be really different, so it’s worth working through this together.
First of all, I want to mention that the scheduling for this event came so close to the wire that staff basically decided at our Fall plot meeting to assume we weren’t having an event. So lots of major plot points and story conclusions, etc were pushed to our Spring event. It’s not ideal, it’s not the normal way we like to tell stories across the year, but it’s what made sense, and we didn’t have time to undo all those decisions when we ended up with a site. So, a lot of times, Winter is our event where we have big finales, etc - this is not going to be like that. This will be a building event for Spring. It will be what it will be, thank you for understanding. It’s an odd year.
Some of the other changes you will see: no component walk. The trails on this campsite are full of brambles and awful, so we’re not going to put you on them. We will take all the same components we would normally put on a component walk and make them available in mods and fights, etc. It’ll be a loot-tastic weekend. But also, a no-brambles-everywhere weekend.
You’re also going to see different plots. This event will not take place on Port Katherine. In-game, Captain Bolton and her pirates have smuggled out the citizens to meet with Queen Katherine’s forces on a secret island where she is regrouping and preparing to take back Kithira. That means that a lot of plots that are native to Port Katherine - e.g. fae stuff, blood worms, etc - won’t be at this game. Many NPCs you are used to won’t be there. Some will be. It depends on whether they’re truly “townspeople” or not and would come with. This is a cool opportunity for us to run some different plots with some different emphasis - we hope you’ll like what we have instead.
Second, the plan for this event is this: we’ll be running from 10am Saturday morning to 10pm Saturday night. You are allowed and encouraged to spend the night Friday and Saturday nights, but we plan to only do setup Friday night and cleanup Sunday morning. If we get done with setup early on Friday, we’ll start check-in so you can enjoy your bgs, but we’ll also run it Saturday morning. Same thing with checkout - it’ll run Saturday night for those who need to go, but everyone else should plan to do it Sunday with cleanup. We plan to serve all the normal meals - breakfast, lunch, dinner, breakfast, though the breakfasts will be out of game, something of our thank-you for helping out with setup and cleanup.
We’ll have some oog hangouts around a fire Friday and Saturday night. If you’re spending the night, we’d love to hang out with you and have a nice chill evening on the Cape. You are welcome to continue in-game scenes during this time away from the oog campfire, but staff will not be playing NPCs and there will be no plot.
Third, speaking of chill, IT’S GONNA BE COLD. Like, 40 degrees at night and 50 during the day cold. On the ocean. With a breeze. Check your kit. Do you have more layers than normal? Now is the time to get some. Plan to be cold and plan to work with that.
There is a big industrial heater in the tavern to keep it warm in there. We’ll have it on. There’s also a fireplace. We’re going to see if it works such that it won’t put any smoke in the building, but we have several players with asthma, so if it even begins to be a problem, we won’t have a fire. The bar for this will be low. I will consider the fire to be a fortunate surprise, and you should too. Anyway, the heater and the fireplace in the tavern are the only heating units for the entire camp. Bring extra bedding. Bring extra layers. STAY WARM.
But this also brings up:
Fourth, our Covid policies will remain the same, which means, unless something changes drastically, masks will still be required inside. However, there will be limited space outside the tavern for seating and - as mentioned - it’s going to be COLD. The risks of hypothermia are butting up against the risk of Covid, and we have to figure this out. So, we’ll have seating indoors for food. Take your mask off only when eating and put it back on as soon as you are done. Try your best to not congregate too tightly with masks off. If you are uncomfortable and would like to eat outside in the cold, we’ll have a small number of tables out there. Just make sure to balance your needs for warmth as well.
Fifth, this site does not really have a real staff center. We’re going to do our best to make it work with a two-building system, which means you may see staffers walking back and forth between those buildings. We’ll do our best to keep this non-obtrusive, but bear with us. It’s going to be less-than-ideal for us, too.
But also, this means we won’t have a “window” for you to come to during game. We’ll work out what to do about non-standard surgeries and let the surgeons know, but this means I will probably need to process your merchant lots after game - during checkout or during bgs. There are other similar bgs. We’ll be flexible about a lot of things.
This is going to be an odd event. Nobody wanted Camp Middlesex to give us only one weekend because of construction, and no one wanted to get a new camp at the last minute. The Board tried very very hard to get us this site, and I’m pretty grateful that we get to spend an additional day above what I expected in the Pan Aetherium. But it won’t be a normal game, and we shouldn’t pretend it will be. We’re all going to have to work together and offer some understanding to make it work. I have no doubts that everything is going to go well - I have the greatest staff and player community a Game Director could ever ask for.
Brian Misamore
Game Director, Port Katherine