Phew. It's been a crazy weekend. It seems like there's some sort of LARP activity going on almost every weekend down in SoCal right now - I'm loving that, but it's getting a bit overwhelming. Within the last month or so, I've been to three Live Effects events (including my own Veil game), an Eidolon game, and more practices than I care to count. I'd love to summon up the energy to run something around the holidays - perhaps in the Haunted House that Constance and Nick visited - but it's going to be tough.

The Live Effects event this weekend was great. Friday evening was very casual; I honestly enjoyed just spending time with the whole LARP crowd more than anything else. Four people (including two other Andrews - that was fun) crashed at my apartment afterward, which was also amusing. I was actually a bit disappointed we had to get to sleep so early to get back to the LARP the next day - I had hoped to plan a bit for my next event with them and just catch up on things. 

Saturday's game was very dark, and in some respects one of the better Live Effects events. I doubt anyone walked out of that game without a physically or emotionally scarred character - unless the character was already evil or tremendously jaded. So, I suppose Elain and Jared are probably safe. I had actually considered retiring my main character, Salaris (cue gasps) after this event, but with the storyline progression in the game I've reversed my decision. I won't say what exactly triggered it, since there could be people reading this blog that aren't aware of what happened yet, but let's just say that the Wyrd is going to be a little different when everyone returns from Alassiel. 

Big thanks to Ira for running the event and Ben for GMing for my team - I have no idea if you guys read this, but it was a great game.

The Live Effects "Annual Dinner" was amazing. I'd actually say it was better than the games themselves in some respects - I think both Lisa and Carly probably cried at least a little when Ira gave them the rewards for noble status. Carly was still giddy about it when we were driving home afterward - she'll probably be happier for weeks. You did a good thing, Ira. The new rule books and annual booklets are also beautiful; I'm very impressed. The food was good, too. I think I've developed a new fondness for chocolate covered bananas.

I'm already well into planning for my event in January, and it looks like if all my NPCs show up (heh, like that ever happens) I'll have a very solid crew. Constance has offered to help me with costumes, and I'm really excited about that - admittedly, my previous events have had very mish-mosh costuming and it's great to have some more experienced help. I actually have so much planned for this event that there's a good chance I'll have to call for a full day NPC practice at some point. It's going to be difficult to find a day for it around the holidays. 

Well, I'd better get back to that whole "work" thing. Thanks to all the GMs and staff from Eidolon, Campaign, ApocaLARP, and Live Effects for making my year insane.