Reviewing local events is not something that I usually do, especially not events that have already come and gone. But I’ve been on a sabbatical for over a year now, and I need a way to ease myself back into my old groove. Mr. Chapman, the Head Rat, contacted me several times asking if I was interested in RPG-a-Thon, before I finally responded. The scheduling gods smiled upon me, and I was able to attend on Sunday, and stay most of the day. I dug up my “I can save myself” T-shirt and headed out early in the morning, for an adventure in the Lynn Wood.
It was a cozy little event, in the Lynnwood Community League building, with some events happening outdoors. Near the entrance, was a table set up for the charity silent auction, but being on its second day, most of the bidding was beyond my reach. After picking up my event badge, I checked out the vendors’ tables. I met up with local fantasy author J.M. Shaw, and chatted a bit about monsters, magic, and the fact that “spiciness” in books is optional, not required. I bought a copy of her first book, Ascension, which I will add to the top of my TBRPWBRBDS pile. For those who don’t know, that’s “to be read, probably won’t be read, because of Doomscrolling”. Among the local crafters and artists, I would highly recommend Geek Notions for dice bags, dice trays, and enamel pins; HinkyPunk Emporium for fully customized miniatures, dioramas, sculptures, terrain and more; and Tiffany Tate for awesome artwork including spooky kitties and BBMs (Big Beautiful Mermaids).
RPG-a-Thon always helps multiple charitable organizations, and this year they had Crohn’s and Colitis Canada, The Pride Centre of Edmonton, and Stollery Children’s Hospital. But I also met a lovely woman, representing a new organization, Tiny Hearts Can, which spreads information about Congenital Heart Defects in infants, and encourages prenatal testing for early detection and diagnosis. As she told me “your 20 week ultrasound is for more than just finding out the ‘flavour’ of your baby”.
Ascension seemed to be the magic word of the day because I also ended up dipping my toe into the Live Action Role Playing waters with Dark Ascension LARP. Dark Ascension is an Edmonton-based group which hosts events all over central Alberta, from small, story-based quests to full combat tournaments. They have three different factions that you can join. The Admaari Empire is a militaristic army with strong Paladin overtones. Praise Admaari, Praise the Sun! The Kingdom of Baltheria is a more traditional monarchy, with a mix of Lords, Knights, and merchants who balance between keeping a healthy economy and keeping the wilderness at bay. Finally, there is the Viking-inspired Rusgaard, who just want to defend their land, while occasionally fighting among themselves.
For my own experience, I was one of 4 new recruits, following an Admaari Knight in a quest to recover a holy relic from a group of bandits. We each got to choose our own weapons before heading out into the trees just beyond the soccer field. The thing that impressed me the most was the group’s emphasis on safety. We were given strict instructions to avoid head and neck attacks, were told to respect the honour system in terms of damage, and to ask for healing if we lost all 4 of our hitpoints. More importantly, we were shown how to perform the game’s emergency stop procedure, which is a loud repetition of “stop, stop, stop” while going to the ground if possible. Although our team fought off the bandits and recovered the artifact, I did have to invoke Stop, Stop, Stop. I wasn’t taken down by combat, but by the environment. I “fell up” a rather steep hill when we were all on the way back to home base. The LARP team helped me to my feet and even carried my gear until we were all on solid footing. Although I don’t have the time, energy or money to join a full scale LARP campaign, I did have fun.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
Debra wasn’t the only Rat at RPG-a-Thon. Sadly Brent was unable to make it as planned, but Jaymz came out on Saturday and joined me (Dave, aforementioned Head Rat) on a few streams. Yes, a few. The morning started with a box opening.
The fabulous folx at Wizkids gave me a copy of the 2024 Starter Set for Marvel Heroclix, a while back and this was the perfect time to make it happen. Well, that’s not totally true. The perfect time was much sooner then this past weekend. But that aside, it was perfect since I would also have an opportunity to play the game later that day when the Edmonton Heroclix group ran some demos and games. I was actually one of the very early playtesters for Heroclix, but I haven’t been a regular player since those first few sets came out. This was back in the day when each character had multiple versions of each sculpt with a Blue, Yellow, or Red ring around the base to indicate rarity and power level… as was the style at time. The game was still familiar, but I don’t what it is anymore. Alright, no more Grandpa Simpson references. The under-caffeinated box opening went well and I had fun playing later.
Between the Heroclix opening and Heroclix games, Jaymz and I tried out Star Trek Away Missions from Gale Force Nine. He’s been painting some of the expansion figures on our Slinging Paint program, for the past few weeks. But we played with the base Wolf 359 set and quickstart rules. We probably got a few things wrong, but it was a blast and I hope to play more down the road.
Our third stream had to happen a bit later in the day. Regular readers may be familiar with our Looney Saturday series. It was originally planned as bi-monthly reviews of different Pyramid Arcade games, with occasional extras from Looney Labs. To expand on that, I had planned to run a few different games on-stream. Jamez and I played a few games of Martian Chess (one of my favourites) before we had to shut down for weather. Such is the risk of streaming from the great outdoors.
My Sunday was dedicated to playing. I tried out Grant Howitt’s one-page RPG, Goat Crashers, and my first ever game of Call of Cthulhu from the wonderful people at Chaosium. Call of Cthulhu was just one of many games run by Extra Life YEG (in support of the Stollery Children’s Hospital) over the weekend. I even got to accompany Debra on her Dark Ascension adventure.
TheRatHole.ca also sponsored a drop-in games area outside where people could escape the noise and relax with something small. So I got to teach some games like Boop, Shōbu, Rally 7, Pyramids, and more.
I was planning to write this up later in the week, after getting the final numbers for the charities, but since Debra sent me her thoughts, I figured I’d just tack mine on here for now. I want to take a moment to sincerely thank Ivan and RPG-a-Thon for having my team out to the event. This was their first event back after the pandemic, and I call it a complete success. I hope we can return to future events and that RPG-a-Thon continues to grow.
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