Constant Flux

I attended UPCON 2008, and it was fantastic. MPD (Mage Pen Dragon) expressly forbid me to watch Anime, and dragged me around meeting people until I was brave enough to start wandering around on my own. She eventually won second place in the best roleplayer category. Very cool.

Spotted Larch outside on the grass selling his figurines. When he spotted me, he shouted: “Dude, you’re everywhere!”. Absolutely made my day.

Saw many friendly faces I haven’t seen in years (Kaz, Hendrik, Natalie, Ree, Hendrikie). Kaz was roleplaying and snapping random photos for fun. Hendrik won the best GM award. Natalie’s making custom gear these days: Siy-Grah’s Hoard! Leather books, bracers, chokers (the ones with bells are really popular), chainmail bracelets, dice bags (chainmail or painted), painted t-shirts, painted boxes (012 344 3278 / natalie dot myburgh at gmail dot com). I got a really nifty green dice bag with the Japanese character for “leaf” on it for my D10 dice. Saw Ree on Sunday morning - She’s working for the Auditor General now (But she’s not supposed to talk about it). Hendrikie is now a muso. He looks it too. At least his hair is shorter than it was in Zeplins last time I spotted him.

I finally met some people I’ve only spoken to online (Naas Botha - The famous one, not the rugby player) and I finally found myself a L5R (Legend of the Five Rings) GM: Russel Goldman - A man so dedicated to L5R that he has a scorpion crest tattoo. I also met Donald Mullany who’s been the gaming module writer for UPCON since forever. He was complaining about how he never got to play the modules he wrote anymore, but luckily he got the chance to GM some of his modules on Sunday.

People came from far and wide. MPD came from Durban, Ian came from Cape Town, but Robert actually came all the way from Sweden. He came to play the L5R cardgame, and it sounds like he did really well too.

I think one of the more interesting conversations I had was with Gork, who it turns out is not named after Gort from the movie The Day The Earth Stood Still - So “Klaatu Barada Nikto” didn’t work on him. Instead he was named after Gork - the goblin god of luck from Warhammer. Apparently he’s never lost a game. He complained that when he went to university, people said things like: “Hey Gork, you made it!” and he kept thinking: “Man, this sucks! Nobody knows my real name!”. So if you spot him at the next con (and it’s not hard, really) please remember to call him Jacques.

A big thanks to Brenna (who wore the plastic goblin war chief helmet of authority this year) for a fantastic con. Also a shout-out to Dave at the Aandklas bar for eventually serving us a non-alcoholic drink even though his policy for that night was “I will not serve non-alcoholic drinks from behind this bar tonight because I was supposed to go home at 20:00 and you guys are keeping me up until after 21:00 and I miss my girlfriend.” Please tip him well if you see him.

Next event: ICON 2008!

Any inaccuracies and mistakes are entirely my own fault, and though I will vigorously imply that they are perfectly legitimate due to creative licence at first, I will eventually correct them if you let me know.