Well, I'm back, safe and sound, but man what a trip!
To start, I was supposed to be the only Issaries rep. there (and me not even an employee!), but on the Monday before the con Greg told me that he'd be there, but it's a secret. A relief for me, as I'm sure you can imagine!
Greg asked me to take some HW to the con, and loaded me down with 5 copies of the box set, 15 of the main rules, 5 of the narrator's book and 10 of Visions - Good thing that customs didn't bother to check the bag!
I arrived in Germany on Thursday and was met by Fabian. Greg and I were driven up to Castle Stahleck in Fabian's little itsy-bitsy car, already stuffed full of convention gear. Once there we met the other Convention staff and Andrew Bean & his wife up from Australia. Dinner was - well, it was, and let's leave it at that. Youth Hostels aren't generally known for their cuisine anyway.
Friday, Greg and I disappeared into town while Fabian and co. escorted the
convention goers to Weisbaden, the next town down-stream. We picked up lunch
(Bratwurst mit Pommes Frittes - Hot dog & french fries - how American!) then
wandered down to the dock and decided to take a boat-ride down stream. We
spent several hours on the river and exploring the kitschy tourist shops in
St. Goar looking for souvenirs for our wives (both of whom have bizarre and
wacky taste in souvenirs...). When we arrived back at Bacharach we still had
several hours to kill, so we went over the Elmal contest entries.
At first we just shrugged off the large number of Polizei as a staging area for the police during the visit by the French president and the German Chancellor. But then a whole cavalcade of motorbikes, black cars, vans and a tour buss came into the car-park nearby and *lots* of security types got out - including the casual-looking group that pulled up on the grass right behind us. Casual-looking in that they didn't wear any sort of uniform (not even the suit, tie and sunglasses of presidential security types), but they were pretty obviously *not* guys to upset! A while later a boat pulled up with the dignitaries, and they were all whisked away to the castle for a feast.
After several hours, we wandered back into town and were picked up by Fabian and Swen. We managed to smuggle Greg into the castle with no-one the wiser, and I joined the party in progress (the dignitaries left behind a full feast - kegs of beer, cases of wine, and lots of food). The evening wore on, and finally we led the party up to the top tower, where we performed the Summoning of Evil, the finale of which was Greg appearing, to the delight of the crowd. We went back down to the castle and had a GTA party, in which Greg was able to field most of the questions (whew!).
Unfortunately, the Summoning seemed to work a little strangely, I ended up with a bout of "Prax-belly" and was up all night worshipping Flush, the goddess of porcelain.
The next day I was sleep-deprived, but at least I wasn't hitting the rest-room every hour. We held several seminars, got to put faces to names that I'd only met on-line, and had a wonderful time. I got to play (as a player! Woohoo!) in Xavier's playtest of the French replacement for the Rising Dark (it looks good!), and on Sunday was able to lend a hand in the Tarsh War as the dope-smoking, cynical, seen-it-all-before shield sergeant of the Lost Sky Peltasts (and we kicked Tarshite butt big time!).
I wasn't able to bid in the auction (no money), but had a wonderful time
(there were only two items that caught my eye anyway).
Monday was a quiet-down day, and we said our goodbyes and Greg & I stayed with Fabian's parents outside of Frankfurt. We had a wonderful time at the Whitsun fair, with much mirth, dead-eye shooting at the shooting booth, and a hilarious German band that played "crowd favorites" - When they started on "Day Dream Believer" Greg and I both lost it. When they started on "Hang On Sloopy" we left.
The only problem on the flight home was that British Airways managed to pulverize a bottle of wine (not just break, not just shatter, but pulverize, I've got glass dust in my bag). Unfortunately, this was the same bag that had my copies of Hero Wars, Narrator, Visions, Glorantha and King of Sartar. They weren't totally destroyed, but close. Ah well, it will be easy to recognize them: if you open a water-damaged book and it smells of wine, it's mine...
Bad luck notwithstanding, it was a wonderful con. The location is beautiful, high above the Rhine, and next year my wife is coming along, if only to help me identify the various birds (there was a hawk I couldn't ID, and I'm not sure if there were ravens as well as crows or not).
Roderick
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