My last day at Amtgard (for now...)

Sunday was my last day at Amtgard before I move out to Illinois. It was also the last day of the current reign period, so we had a coronation, and it was a joint coronation with Bandit Flats East, a park in Delaware. So we had to drive all the way out to Delaware to go to the coronation.

As usual, I ran the kid's quest for the day. My plan was to do a quest based on Greek mythology. The way it was going to work was that there was going to be a series of events where they had to "prove themselves" to the gods in order to get items that would enable them to defeat the evil Minotaur. There were different events based on each god's theme - for example a weapon making tutorial for Hephaestus, an arts and crafts project for Athena, and so on. My original plan was also to spice it up by telling them some of the myths. The problem with this is that most Greek myths are not very kid-friendly, because they involve sex, revenge killing, or both. But I did identify several that were. One that I was planning to use was the story of the contest between Athena and Poseidon. (I think this is a humorous one because it is similar to the modern practice of selling naming rights to sports stadiums, except that they were selling naming rights to a city. In fact there is a Capitol Steps song, a parody of "This Land Is Your Land," that speculates that states will have to begin selling naming rights in order to cover their budget deficits, resulting in states with names like "Okla-Home Depot", "New Texaco", and "North Toyota." Apparently the Greeks had the same idea thousands of years earlier.)

When I got there things did not go out as well as planned. First of all there was a major rainstorm which trapped us in the pavilion. Also, the person who was supposed to help me in the quest, our monarch Perdita, got stuck in traffic and was going to be late. I started the quest anyway, but it was difficult because without an adult to help me, it was hard to get the kids to sit down long enough to listen to the instructions. We finished the arts and crafts and weapon making parts at about 2:00, and we learned that at 4:00 we would have to leave to go to a different site for feast. At about this time I called Perdita to find out where she was. As it turned out she was in Delaware near the park, but got lost because of construction. I gave the phone to someone there who gave her directions. Unfortunately when she got there she was busy with other business and couldn't help in the quest. Fortunately I got someone else to help. Since we were running short on time I had to rush through the rest of the events. I quickly abandoned the idea of telling them the myths when it was clear that after being stuck under the pavilion they just wanted to get up, run around, and fight. At the end, I told them that they had killed the minotaur, and was going to be rewarded with gems, but that robbers had stolen them. I played the robber and when they tried to attack me, I said "you'll never get these gems" and tossed them into a bush as they killed me. What I didn't realize was that the bush had prickly leaves, but fortunately they were able to get the gems out without any cuts. Then I gave them the prizes and let them keep the weapons they had made.

We then went over to feast, which was at a local SPCA office. The only problem with getting there was that only one person knew how to get there, so he had to get out in front an everyone else followed them like a caravan. Of course about half of us had access to GPS (either an in car device or a phone) so if they told us the address we would be able to find it, but they didn't know the address just how to get there. Fortuantely we all arrived without incident. There was a feast and then they gave out awards, of which I received several. There was going to be an auctio nbut it was cancelled due to lack of time and because everyone had to go home.