incandescens | sans contrefacon

Back.

Stopover in London went well -- acquired various books, including Peter David's Sir Apropos of Nothing, a Paul Cornell (non Dr Who) that looks interesting, a Peg Kerr based on the seven swan brothers legend whose title I am temporarily blanking on, the Top Ten graphic novel by Alan Moore, a couple of others, and -- the one I'm absolutely delighted by, which I ran across secondhand completely by accident -- a translation of and discussion of some Buddhist writings from the Japanese by Lafcadio Hearn. (For reference, he wrote/translated Kwaidan, and I suspect that many of the people reading this will have seen the film based on four of those stories.) I never realised such a book existed. Cool.

Got up to Reading. Dumped stuff in hotel. Met up with Jo, and had coffee and cake and chat. It's good to hear that she's having a great time. :)

Ambercon UK!

First game (Friday evening) was The Sacred Hunt, run by me. Went very well indeed. Had some excellent players. Though they didn't realise the full extent of Julian's perfidy till afterwards. Heh. It was generally concurred upon that his tragic death (discovered with look of inexpressible horror on his face, cause unknown, presumed heart attack) was clearly nothing to do with them, as they had nothing to do with him, weren't anywhere near at the time, etc. Heh.

Second game (Saturday day), Ten Little Chaosites was brilliant. I was playing. Apparently started off as ten of us (okay, nine, one was already dead) in a room full of strange puzzles. Eventually developed into a real crawl through weirdness, with games of Russian Roulette with Death, playing poker with chips representing our loved ones, struggling through possible futures, etcetera . . . it turned out that we were actually in a mass hallucination during a mass attempt on the Logrus. Of the 7 players, 3 survived. 4 -- didn't. (Part of it was Suhuy testing us for suitable loyalty to the Serpent, Chaos, etc. The figure who kept on turning up throughout turned out to be him. Refusing to bow to the Serpent at the end was a bad move.) I can only note that (a) I survived and the character is now a Logrus master/mistress, (b) that Suhuy really needs to do something about the state of religious education/loyalty in the Courts, given the final results.

Third game: Saturday evening, Murder By Decree, me GMing again. (The title, for the curious, is of a book/film of a Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper story.) A lot of fun. Great players. Some very weird plot twists, many introduced by the players. Amber by Gaslight, the Hellfire Club, steam-powered cars (well, a car) and resulting chase of a carriage containing villains, attempts by Bleys' sheltered innocent seventeen-year-old daughter to sneak into the Hellfire Club, thigh-high red leather boots, Mandor possessing Bleys' daughter's kitten . . . Oh, and the personal perfect end note for me was that one PC recognized the villains (brother and sister) as having been stolen, cough, borrowed from Marini's Rapaces (French graphic novel series). Wonderful to have got them close enough that they were identified. :)

Fourth game: Quantum Leap, me a player. We were told to not reveal which Amberite we truly were. We all then got swapped to another Amberite's body. This happened 3 times during play. I was Fiona. My howl of anguish upon finding that I had practically zilch mental powers while in Gerard's body was apparently audible through the Castle. (Of course, it was Gerard's lungs I was howling with.) Fiona is currently in a good position, as advisor to the new triumvirate of Benedict-Eric-Gerard (partly because I grabbed them while they were discussing what to do about Father's absence and told them to form a triumvirate). However, she is going to skin alive Bleys and Llewella when she catches them. They are currently both absent from the Castle, due to having been identified as behind certain happenings, and having got out while the getting was good. (Fiona's personal grievance involves Bleys-in-Fiona's-body having sex with Llewella-in-Bleys'-body. While Fiona-in-Llewella's-body was walking the Pattern. In the Pattern room. Audibly.)

And then I got the train home.

It was good.

And seeing everyone, and chatting with them, was brilliant.

Oof. Now I collapse. ;)