From the Frontlines: Autumn War

Autumn War is so named because it takes place in the… um… well, summer, actually. Hey, it’s the SCA, we’re lucky it isn’t in the spring.

First off, the downsides: it was a frustrating drive both ways – in fact a google-predicted ~2.5 hour drive was almost exactly 4 hours each way. A four hour drive is not inherently bad for me, but an expected 2.5 hour drive (OK, I expected 3 hours) that becomes a 4 hour drive is highly annoying. Oh well. Also while helping setup for bardic the second night a spark from the fire burned a hole in my best shirt – fixable, but why did it have to be my best shirt?

Upsides, however, were more numerous, so let’s talk about them.

First off, Methelstede performed two showings of Arlecchino’s Surprise (in which Arlecchino has exactly one line and never appears on stage). In the second showing I provided the sound and visual effects for Ugolino (sp?) from offstage. We also did one showing of Arlecchino and the Cup of Love (the same show we did at June Faire) with me again being Lelio. I think the cast is a little burned out right now and we have no solid plans for future showings, though the general feeling seemed to be that we’d like to do a play again in the not-too-distant future. It is possibly worth noting that both the plays are written by a SCAdian using the characters and style of a set of plays from late-period Italy. The best short description I can come up with is that these plays were a proto-sitcom; the characters remain the same (and never change from episode to episode regardless of what happens) but the situations are different, and there are running gags despite the lack of any continuity of plot (so while Fiorenetta and Capitano are married in Surprise they are not married and never have been in Cup of Love). This presumably made things easier for both the audience, the writers, and the cast, as everyone would know, for example, that Pantalone was an old miser as soon as his name was mentioned.

Second, I created fire. Sure, using modern tools I do that all the time. At Autumn War, however, I created fire using nothing but a piece of flint, a steel striker, a few pieces of charred cloth, and some unraveled rope. This was a common way to start a fire in period (the bow method taught to boy scouts is more primitive and time consuming, and things like pre-made matches or flintlock strikers were too expensive for routine use where they existed at all). You can probably find a video online somewhere, but let me tell you it is harder than it looks. Getting sparks from striking steel on flint is easy. Making charred cloth is easy (though it is also easy to do it wrong). Finding a bird’s nest or a bit of old rope and making the nest is easy. Getting the spark from the steel to catch on the cloth and then blowing at just the right increasing level of force to ignite the nest is VERY HARD. The teacher demonstrated and had a solid flame well under a minute after he started striking (setup took a little longer). None of the three of us in the class came anywhere close to that. We did all manage flame in the end, but my flint had been chipped almost to the point of uselessness. At a guess I spent the better part of ten minutes not counting breaks and went through 20 or so pieces of charred cloth (maybe more). I will stick to modern firestarting methods wherever possible.

Third, I marshaled for some very fun rapier war scenarios. The first had a ‘ship’ (an oval slightly pointed on one end) laid out on the ground. On it were some red pieces of cloth representing fire. Yes, fire. See, these other guys came along and attacked the represented ship but forgot the key sequence of pillage THEN burn. Still, even smoky loot is loot, so they boarded anyway. Meanwhile one of the best fighters in the group was picked to act as The Kraken. The Kraken fought with case (a rapier in each hand), and would go around, tap someone near the edge of the ship, and require them to step off and fight him. If they won they got to go back to the burning ship (yay!). If they lost… well, they were eaten. Stepping on the fire was also counted as a kill. The second scenario was “The Water of Life” – a free-for-all where everyone gets a paper cup with water in it (any amount of water you want). Every time you are killed you must show one of the marshals that you still have enough water to cover the bottom of the cup and you get to go back in – an unlimited number of resurrections as long as you have water. Naturally this leads to people aiming for the cups. This is quite amusing for all involved, and leads to a large number of jokes.

The weather was much better than anticipated over the weekend thanks to a heavy overcast Saturday and Sunday (Friday it was well over 90 and sunny, but I didn’t arrive until Friday evening). Only a few scattered drops of rain fell, and the night time temperatures were some of the warmest I’ve ever seen (it generally gets very cold in a tent at night around here). Methelstede camped with Key Point, who also had Black Company camping with them, and Key Pointe provided breakfast and dinner for a reasonable fee (good food too – omelets to order, duck soup, deep-fried bacon, pasta with ham and cheese…). The inevitable bardic circles suffered a little from the camp setup and the fact that we performed the plays in the evenings just beforehand but they were still fun (“Not the knight with the shiniest armor in all the land, the finest horse in all the world, who has defeated the seven greatest nights in the seven tourneys in the seven kingdoms and slain the dragon!” “Yes I am the knight with the shiniest armor in all the land, the finest horse…”).

Overall it was a good event, but I’m quite glad there isn’t one this weekend!