In Which The Warlock Runs Himself Ragged...

I swear, WittCon has the tendency to come around at the absolute worst times of the year.

You see, March is not only right in the middle of spring IEP/MFE renewals for my work, but is also the month in which all my weasels at school take their OGT exam. Needless to say, the stress level is a little high, particularly as WittCon nears, and I prep myself to run games like a madman.

Is it any surprise that I typically try to take the day before the Con off of work, as a personal day? Further, is it any real surprise that I didn't get to do so this year?

But, WittCon VI has come and gone, with a mass of great gaming memories for all. I must say, though, the dice were running more chaotic than usual as the weekend went on!

We began the weekend hitting up Rudy's Barbeque in Springfield with El Willy, before shuffling on over to Shouvlin to throw down my latest completed project: WEGS SuperZ. I was honestly pleased to see how well the thing came out--no doubt, running a reskin of an indie game for its creator is a little unnerving, but a great time was had by all. The party crawled sloughed their way through my intro adventure: "The Terrible Island of Doctor Crab-Clops!", slinging Plasma Blasts and Mental Bursts all the way. While I still have quite a few revisions to make--not the least of which being the 5 SuperZ races!--the game was strong and ran quickly around the table.

The day of WittCon, I started off by running the day's D&D Game Day adventure:
A Dark Night in Weeeping Briar for some of the Guild regulars. This was made even more interesting by the appearance of a Witt Torch reporter, requesting to play with us! She may have gotten more than she bargained for with our group, but it seemed like she had a great time, as the players bounced between encounters, generally breaking the game.

The second encounter of the game took place in a mill. Fire damage, naturally, caused bad things to happen. Naturally, with my luck? Natural 1 on the enemies' first attack roll...with a fire attack. The mill explodes in a fireball. I hang my head.
The third encounter involves several tough demons, led by a Mezzodemon. The party, thinking quickly, layers him down with status effects--dazed, blinded, and then Dominated. Naturally, this led to one drowned demon.

Hanging my head and carting off my minis-swag, I headed to my next game, my much anticipated (and filled!) Dark Heresy game: Survival of the Fittest.

I originally envisioned this game as something of a cross between honest-to-God-Emperor Dark Heresy and Paranoia, as the various Acolytes plotted against one another on the war-world Thanatos IV. Nick's Imperial Psyker, though, had other ideas.

Not once, but twice, he caused warp energy to burst out, incinerating himself and the party. The game was over in a matter of an hour, as the party descended into bloodied in-fighting. I laughed, but simultaneously hung my head. All those hours spent building characters and backgrounds...poof. Alack, alack.

By the time the third session came around, I was ready to kick back. And there's no better way for this gamer to relax than with some WEGS. In a matter of minutes, Nordling VI was well on his way to Arkeation.

Some explanation, I suppose, is in order. Ever since my first game of WEGS, I've nearly always run the same character--a Humz Lucky Trickster named Nordling. Nordling's had an unprecedented survival rate. Despite the lethality of WEGS, he's never died...not once! Even facing down the vicious mummy KlattaBarraBoo, he escaped. This time, he managed to weasel his way away from a RingReaver in El Willy's classic "Over the Reaver and Through the Wyrds".

By Sunday, we were all exhausted and ready to relax. Hitting up Jeet India and Bookery with Karl, Lionel, and El Willy was a welcome relaxation. Kudos to El Willy for getting Bookery aboard the WEGS train!

Oi. Stress and all, this whole con experience just makes me want Origins to come all the more! It's looking like another massive experience this year, cats and kittens!