Guild Convention I (Wales) - By Philip
The Cast
 Loek "The Leak of Justice" Yomar - "I have to pee. Then I will take this sheep over there and show her my wand." |
 Lars "The Bottle" Drizla - "Anybody wants to taste my whisky?" |
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Eppo "The Father" UNGUILDED - "What did I do wrong when Loek was a child?" |
 Pete "The Guide" Greldar - This acre was first used in 1452 by Shawn Llallawarrodd. He then got divorced because of an affair with a sheep which... HEY! Wake up, y'all!!" |
| Adam "The Driver" Damoard - "Loek is faster than me, but heck... once we leave the road... hur hur hur..." |
James "The Pokerface" Calon - "What was the guild disband command again?" |
 Nigel "The Bear" Twopointfour - "Stop hugging me, I am not that cute!!!!!!" |
 Matthew "The Woodman" Plomien - "We can upgrade keep doors to level 10 with the wood I chopped in my garden." |
| Joe "The Girlfriend" UNGUILDED - "Adam, are there any normal people in this Guild?" |
Steve "The Brother" UNGUILDED - "Ye're all nerds." |
 Philip "The Scared" Halbarad - "Please get this beast off me." |
The Story
| It was decided that the Gathering of the first wave of Legends raiding Wales would meet at "Schiphol", the International Airport of Amsterdam. There "The Unfortunate 4" met, tied together in the next 3 days by the bonds of hell: Loek, Eppo, Lars and Philip (Yomar, Yommie's father, Driz and Hal).
The first and of course most important step after picking up Driz from the airport was to pay respect to the honourable Noah (Yom's Son), future Guild Leader and the personification of dual wielding uberness. Driz, Yom and Hal had a nice dinner in a pub that was chosen by Yomar and actually reflects very well the evolution of our charter: the pub was named "All is forbidden", and had forbidden signs from every continent and in every language on the walls. Also the food was great. Since we had to get up early, we went back to Yom's house early... but to no avail. Rumi (Yom's extraordinarily nice wife) and Eppo were still awake and Yom had beer left in the fridge... instead of 22:00 it was 2:30 am when we decided to go to bed, only to get up at 4 am to catch the train through the channel tunnel. |
 ...paying respect to the honourable Noah... |
 ...Greldar spotted us, heavily armed with cans of beer... |
The only one who did sleep actually was Hal (he remained to be the only one getting enough sleep during the raid because of his ability to fall asleep wherever he stands or sits... thanks, German Army!). To cut a long story short, a very scared Yomar brought us safely to Swansea, managing obstacles like "driving on the left side", "roundabouts" and "uh oh, my navigation system lost the signal..."
Once in Wales, it did not take long until Greldar spotted us, heavily armed with cans of beer. We retreated to Pete's place and fought the vicious enemy made up by hop, malt, yeast and water. Damo joined us shortly after that and we did a successful sub-raid on the local "Pizza Hut". Pleased by all the success, Grel decided to lead us to a nice pub in the centre of Swansea, where we learned of the welsh way of saying "Good night and sleep well". The Welsh seem to do it differently: they shout "F-Word YOU!" at each other, throw a pint in each other's face and then leave without saying another word. Unfortunately, we could not adapt this behaviour and were marked as foreigners all the time. Thus ended the Friday....
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| The Saturday saw us waking up early and ready for two keep takes, planned by our great guide Pete, who has to be thanked for the organisation of the whole weekend. His ideas and his planning really turned this convention into a success.
Although breakfast is never really worth mentioning, I need to make an exception this time. In Swansea there is a Café (or Diner) that serves an excellent British breakfast - cheap, good and plenty. "The Uplands Café"... remember the name, it might get important later. After a good breakfast, we met Callon and headed out for our first keep take, the "Oystermouth Castle". This one is located near a tourist village in the Gower which we would explore the whole day. We tried to raid the castle, but unfortunately forgot our rams... Lucky for us, the doors were down and no guards were up, so we could rush to the Keep Lord who hid from us during our stay in the keep. Since the keep was rather old, we decided not to claim it, so we looted all valuable things and headed off to the second keep, in the hopes to open DF for Hibernia. |
 ...Lucky for us, the doors were down and no guards were up... |
 ...we reached Pennard Castle, or what was left of it... |
Driving through the Gower left us foreigners amazed by the beauty of Wales... if you have never been there, board a plane or hop into your car, it is really worth it.
Once we stopped, Yomar's hours of pain started. Being the Eldritch that he is, he wasn't, isn't and probably never will get used to walking more than the distance from his car to the next chair. And here we really (Gosh!) had to go up (Gosh!) and down (Gosh!) hills (Gosh!). Nonetheless, we reached Pennard Castle, or what was left of it. No need to claim this one either. After we cleared the keep of enemies, we proceeded with more important things... getting beer. After reanimating Yomar for a few times, we finally reached a great pub, called the "Beaufort Arms", where we got treated with rich food, cold lager and good company (thanks for the name and the choice, Pete). |
| Two keeps taken, what better reason to celebrate can you have? It was BBQ time at the beach and we finally got more LoC reinforcements: Twopointfour and Plomien. Even other unguilded peeps joined: Steve (Greldar's brother) with two of his friends and Joe, Adam's really nice, beautiful and very funny girlfriend.
We had an awesome evening at the beach, with a campfire, barbecue, Driz running around forcing everybody to taste his bottled skunk pee (actually, it really was a fine tasting smooth whisky... or whiskey? Kill me, not sure). Lots of cans, saucages, burgers, fags and really nice chats later, we were all sure that the peeps behind the toon are even better than we imagined (at least that is what I think, and heck... I am writing this report). |
 ...It was BBQ time at the beach... |
 ...so Hal not only got scared, he was stunned, mezzed, rooted and dotted... |
The sun finally kissed Sunday awake and the Legends met again at the "Uplands Café". Thus the scene was set for Halbarad's final defeat... the Beast... They have normal breakfast... and they have the beast... a plate called "Beat the Beast"... it is served on an iron plate as large as half the table, filled with saucages, eggs, bacon, beans, spaghetti, tomatoes... and if this isn't enough, this is all covered in a coat of fries. It was too much... way too much, especially after the beach BBQ party... so Hal not only got scared, he was stunned, mezzed, rooted and dotted... the beast beated him.
Now the saddest part of Loc Con... the departure... Pete and Adam were sad because of all the mess we left, Lars was sad because his bottle wasn't empty, Hal was sad because he got beaten by the beast, Yomar was sad because not every citizen of Swansea had seen his car and Eppo was sad because he ever agreed to join this raid. Finally the raid departed and "The Unfortunate 4" got back to Leiden 12 hours later. Thus ended the first LoC Con... |
| Personal Note: For me this weekend was a real blast! It was really great to meet all of you and a shame I could not meet more... Special thanks to Pete and Adam who hosted us, to Nigel who treated us with beer, burgers and saucages on the beach, to Matthew who ruined his garden to get enough wood for the fire and another thanks to Pete for the excellent program he organised on Saturday.
To cut it short: mE luB j00 all! |
 ...Yomar was sad not every citizen of Swansea had seen his car... |
