Three-dimensional Convulsing

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 96 22:54 MET DST


Nick beat me on his way home from Convulsion by a day, but little wonder in that...

3D was great; thanks to all committee members and attendants, and the bar crew and the pizza man.

Best of all was to meet all those people, a good number of them again, others for the first time.

WRT Nick's timetable: Of course Convulsion started already around Friday noon, with most of the punters already arrived. While the way to the pubs felt a bit longer than last time, the local facilities were quite able to cope with most of our needs, and the opening times almost approached continental ones.

The outcome of the Heroquest party wasn't that shocking, really, although after all the preparation people had from the digest I was a bit disappointed that noone joined me in mooning at the red baby doll (which made an excellent ball on Monday morning, re-enacting the ballgame Annilla suffered according to Troll Gods - IMO the real way the Red Moon was/will be taken down, with the dragons only getting the first spark).

SingalongaNick was surprisingly harmonious, although the background music failed to arrive at the back even during the breaks. Personally, I thought that Nick was just getting the tone for the songs, which was generally in a tolerable range.

Nick, are you going to put that song-book onto your web site?

Saturday:
Troll ball was a gory affair between Uz and Dem, once again
(inappropriately) played around noon. Dusk would be a more likely time, but
schedule prevents that, I suppose... The clouds of flour, ably distributed by our Xiola Umbar priestess Claudia (check David Dunham's web page on German RQ-Con for an impression of this most mean mistress troll healer) would have been invisible, though. I wish I had had some private supply of water bombs, though...

Eat at Geo's featured Iron-Stomach Rick Meints and various officials (Lord of Doom, Geo's Bouncer) and among others a surprisingly tasty use of vegemite as junk food when put on sticks. The winning severed fingers looked so real I didn't dare to touch them...

The Tarsh War taught me a lot about cooperation within the Lunar Army... Too bad I couldn't experience (non-Lunar) Tarshite hos(pi)t(al)ity as the spiritual trainer for their new hoplite unit except as the conclusion; I suppose I would have exchanged a culture shock with my new disciples...

Home of the Bold (which was run at the same time) saw another example of Lunar cooperation leading to barbarian success, as far as I was informed. Somehow the freeforms tend to give the Lunars more intrigue than the Sartarites seem to get.

I'd like to exchange memories with the other Tarsh warriors, and to hear about the other freeforms (Once Upon A Time, Space Operette, Mary Celeste). Sometimes I'd have appreciated a split personality to be able to attend to all of the good stuff.

The Sky Dome at Night panel was enlightening. I encourage everybody to nag Nick to complete the program he used to make his slides and make it available as shareware.

The Pub Quiz sadly ended too early, though only just in time to drink up the price at Last Call (I don't see why David Scott called spending so much time on Gloranthan lore "sorry" when it earned the "Whisky Crew" a free drink?). Some of the trivia asked (not just Gloranthan) were really astonishing, and the Gloranthan Secret of Greg's first name was lifted.

Sunday:
started off with too many clashing events, again, but I doubt this can be remedied with over 200 attendants.

Meet Tales collided with some of the most interesting items at the Auction
(like bargain Wyrm's Footnotes), so the somewhat small attendance was no big
wonder. It's a pity that the artwork was auctioned off so late, and after everybody (including myself) had spent his money elsewhere...

In addition to the events described by Nick, the Audience with Griselda session hosted by Oliver Dickinson was tremendous fun. There are several stories waiting in line to be consumed by the public, one-and-a-half of which Oliver read out, along with a collection of interviews of Pavisites on Griselda.

Professional presentation at the Storyteller finals was shared evenly between Mike Cule and MOB, whose special acoustic effects were really
(im)pressing.

So far the official programme, which alone would suffice to make me come again. To meet all these other people besides the official events was as multi-dimensional as the programme itself.

Of special interest to miniature collectors was the range of Glorantha critters presented in the Dining Hall. Beautifully savage Praxians, a squadron of Lunar Sable cavalry, armoured ducks, and a large variety of insect-mounted and infantry trolls, including an Argan Argar trader with caravan beetles. I believe I have their address somewhere in the depths of my luggage, but could anybody else make this available as a public announcement?

BUTS aka Bringing Up To Speed will most likely not get a free run at out-of-print publications put together by a neutral arbiter. While I regret this somehow, on the other hand this might be able to bring about some revised and freshly formulated Glorantha information.

Rather than distributing old material, how about a joint effort to produce a somewhat comprehensive _and short_ introductory text to Glorantha? While the digest FAQ does address a few of the basic problems, I feel a WWW introduction page would help a lot. I have been trying to write a short intro to Glorantha myself, and found myself somewhat obsessed with details, so a committee effort might be able to cut down the length. Or would it do to write out a competition with some rare or out of print material as prize?
(Though I have to think hard on what of my treasures to sponsor myself...)

Ignorance on francophone and otherwise foreign language publications
(excluding German material, which I feel gets discussed here quite well):
lacking the language skill, and copyright questions solved, how about more translations into Tradetalk? The stuff could even be included in future issues of the magazine of the same name (plug alert on). We also should try to get more people without net access involved in our exchanges, or onto web sites, if not into this fold.

I'd have loved to see the profredink pannel. Maybe Nick can hold it on Burg Stahleck next year?

New stuff:
Entekosiad in a revised edition (compared to the Down Under release), several magazines and compendiums which I have been shown but which were already sold out at German RQ Con plus more recent publications; and some products which had been announced had to be delayed due to the extra work-load impinged by the Convention. A few publications were still warm from the printers...

Plus "the usual" almost-unique stuff at the Auction: This time the still unpublished Pamaltela-section of the Glorantha Box (which really wouldn't have fit into that box) by Chaosium, Sandy's Pamaltela Campaign Log, Harmast's Saga and Book of Kings by Greg, complete casts of "Home of the Bold" 3D, "How the West Was One" and "Broken Council", all of which fetched high prices with a minimum of 60 pounds and a high bid of 150 quit (I can't recall for which), about double the price compared to similar items at Convulsion '94. Before I hear any complaints about the limited distribution
(my money went on the Book of Kings), keep in mind that the scarcity of
these items help finance the events, as would have the "crass commercialism" in selling off places in Greg's game which sadly did not come to pass due to a severe loss of voice.

Rumours rating between B and T on the Tales scale have it that AH will publish an Imther supplement and Soldiers of the Red Moon in a near future
(i.e. before next Convulsion, since I hope there will be one in 1998).

I tried to use magnetic tape as audio-memory in some events as well, and might be able to complement some of the panels if tape quality varies. I hope I got MOB's special acoustic effects in the Red Emperor's secret council chambers in a quality that - MOB's (and other voices') ok provided - we could get our first Gloranthan audiotape. Anybody else with private recordings? By any chance of the Singalong or the Lunar Tunes? Anyone in Stereo Dolby Digital Surround? 'fraid not...

Was there anybody with a mag(net)ic memory eye aka videotape that worked? Anybody already got photographs?

Still somewhat worn out,

Joerg


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