Founders Circle

Founder’s Circle, Calontir

At Lilies 6 I had the pleasure of reassembling many of the founders of Calontir- those who aided and abetted Geoffri in that seminal 18 months. Missing from the circle was Arwen Antarea. A few others like Humpke and Mamarra, Cire, and my lady Alarba were also missing, folk who stood yet in the wings about the time Geoffri was lost to us, and soon picked up the gauntlet..

I asked them to walk through the creation of the concept and region of Calontir, and how it seemed to them a necessary adjustment of the Middle Kingdom, of which we were a part. Each of these folks has been separately interviewed, and their separate points of view further explored. I particularly recommend reading Geoffri’s own interview done also at the Lilies War.

Crag: This is Crag Duggin for the Calontir Living History Series at Lilies number 6, June 13, 1992. We're here to celebrate and remember some great things. Assembled around with me is Erich Hlodowechssun, Asgeirr Gunnarsson, Elwyn of Fountaingrove...that's not right anymore, is it?

Elwyn: That's right.

Crag: Is that currently right?

Elwyn: That's right.

Crag: Stephen Ironhand, Geoffri of Wareinne and Herr Brumbär von Schwartzburg. I've been writing it too often. As soon as he finishes his potty break, Master Juan will be with us, and Ternon will drift by later.

Geoffri: He's running even later than Stephen.

Crag: So welcome and thank you all. Tell me in the very earliest beginnings what...would y'all tell me about your first meetings between, I guess, Forgotten Sea and Three Rivers. Go back to that point and let's just go from there.

The First Meeting between Forgotten Sea and Three Rivers

Geoffri: This is Geoffri. One of the things that I remember is that in correspondence with Rory O'Tomrair when he sent us the paperwork to fill out, he suggested that we contact Three Rivers. And the phone number, the far speaker number, that he gave me was for Stephen Ironhand. And I remember trying day after day after day after day after day and I finally got Stephen and he responded in the affirmative and very positive and very helpfully, gave us some good information. And then responded by sending... did you come in that first group that came over, Stephen? Or did you send them?

Bear: Was that the fighter practice at the dojo?

Geoffri: The fighter practice at the dojo.

Bear: Yeah, Stephen was there.

Geoffri: OK. I couldn't remember.

Stephen: Yeah, I guess I was. I think I was.

Geoffri: That's years ago. You guys are talking about 16 years ago.

Stephen: It also hard for me to separate the memories of Forgotten Sea from the memories of Fountains, 'cause I've got a picture in my mind of a fighter practice in a dojo and somehow I feel sure that it was Fountains and not Forgotten Sea, but I'm not sure.

Bear: It was both.

Stephen: Oh, maybe if it was both.

Geoffri: At some point, and I think by the time you guys came over the first time, we had begun the amalgamation process.

When Brumbar tested a helmet to destruction

Stephen: OK. So now was that the one where Brumbar tested the helmet to destruction?

Bear: I didn't test it to destruction, I just showed Ternon why he couldn't use chickenwire for an ocular area cover.

Stephen: Right. Is that the one?

Geoffri: Yes.

Stephen: OK, I remember that, and yes, I was there.

Crag: That was in the fall of '76.

Geoffri: That was the fall of '76, AS XI, and I remember, that the overwhelming memory is of the firm positive support that we got from Three Rivers, especially from the group that constituted the officer corps of Three Rivers because they came and they came and they came. They helped their equivalents...

Elwyn: They came so many times that he can't tell which time it was.

Geoffri: He can't tell which time he came. And of course, each time they came they crashed at my house. And it was literally from those early visits that the strong foundation for Forgotten Sea was built and the friendships were formed that eventually became Warenne, because it was that same crew of Stephen and Bear and Arwyn and Dev and William and Robert who came so many times and stayed and we reveled together until...well, those revels didn't start until the other ones were over. But that's my memory of those early days. What do you remember, Bear?

Bear: Oh, I definitely remember that fighter practice. Ternon was so proud of that freon can helm, and I don't know what they had been practicing doing up to that point, but we had Bellwood's chainmail along. There was on a little stage there, and we sat that helm up on the stage against the chainmail so it wouldn't fly off. And I took a sword and went thunk. And this chickenwire he had over this about 2 1/2" wide slit for his eyes just kind of caves in halfway into the helm. His expression was great. Also that's the older gentleman from the Yuzumi clan, was it? The Oriental people that used the dojo?

Elwyn: (unintelligible)

Bear: Yeah. Yeah, him. He was there. Sorry he didn't stay around. But...

Elwyn: Early stuff I keep track of.

Juan: Tape on?

Geoffri: yes.

Juan: It was horrible. It was mindless. It was all Stephen's fault.

Geoffri: And as you can tell, Senor Juan has just joined us.

Juan: That's Don Juan. They just legalized the title. I can use it and you guys have to put up with it.

Geoffri: I can still call you Dev. One of the other names they gave me, in fact there were two names that Rory O'Tomrair gave me. One of them was Stephen. And it just comes to mind that it wasn't Stephen that I ever reached by telephone...

Stephen: Yes, you did. I talked to you on the telephone.

Geoffri: because the other one was this weird guy named Brock Hanke [aka Juan aka Dev?]...

Juan: Yes.

Geoffri: And I would call and they would say, " Who?"

Juan: Yes, you reached me.

Geoffri: And you got a hold of Stephen and then I talked to Stephen.

Juan: Did I ever tell you what I thought of the phone call?

Geoffri: No.

What Juan thought of Geoffri at the very beginning

Juan: 'Cause I told all them. You're going to shoot me. I thought you were an extremely energetic, hyperactive 17 year old D & D gamer.

Geoffri: Close. Only off on one point.

Juan: About 10 years.

Geoffri: Try more than that. Try about 18.

Juan: But that's what I thought. You were so energetic and so enthusiastic and my response was "Oh, my God. What we've got here is a hyperkinetic teenager. He's going to go nuts. He's not going to have any control. He's not going to be an adult. He'll never be able to take charge." Shows what I know.

Stephen: I'd like to interject something because I'm about to leave temporarily to attend a scribes' guild meeting, if I my interject on more or less on the same subject. When Geoffri called me up, Shire of the Fountains was in the process of self-destructing noisily and messily and embarrassingly. And so I get this call ...

Geoffri: Enthusiastically.

Stephen: Yeah, right. Yeah, that too.

Juan: It was putting the shameful light every bad marriage you've ever seen.

Stephen: The self-destruction of the Shire of the Fountains more or less formed a model for a whole bunch of Middle Kingdom rules that came out later, saying don't do things this way, don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other thing. Things to avoid doing to avoid having the same thing happen to you. Anyway, so I get the phone call from Geoffri and I'm having to think really fast, 'cause I'm thinking, well, gee, is this some kind of usurper. No, on the other hand, Shire of the Fountains is on the way down the tubes anyway. And he does tell me that Rory O'Tomrair has given him the official imprimatur, or what ever you want to call that. And then what put the seal on it was when Geoffri told me that mundanely he was a crisis manager at Braniff Airlines. And I thought, "Oh, yes!" (Laughter) I'll be back.

Juan: You didn't tell me that. You told me you played D & D. It's not nearly the same recommendation.

Geoffri: I guess it was the responses that I got from Stephen led me to tell him what I did mundanely for a living. And the responses I got from you...

Juan: You understand. I spent an hour and a half after a baronial officers' meeting begging them not to go to this Forgotten Sea thing, not to get involved in religious politics with this 17 year old D&D gamer as their out man. I begged and pleaded with Arwyn and Stephen not to go. Did Stephen ever say you were a crisis manager at Braniff? Noooooo. He listened to me rant and rave, and said, "Well I think we're going anyway" being Stephen. I was sure it would come to disaster. I knew who Bill Fesselmeyer was, I knew who Joe Cirniglia was, I knew what religious politics are like, and I knew there was a 17 year old D&D gamer that they were counting on to save them.

Geoffri: And to give credit where credit is due, although I had seen something about the SCA in 1968 and been unable to contact them, it was Bill Fesselmeyer who brought me information about the SCA. And resulted in our contacting the SCA. That needs to be told some place.

Juan: Bill Fesselmeyer turned into something wonderful named William Coeur d' Boeuf, but it took him a while.

Crag: There were stages along the way.

Juan: There sure were.

Geoffri: All of us go through stages.

Juan: There were letters along the way. Yes, there were.

Bear: Yeah, I remember those. Stephen would be mighty impressed by anyone who could work, and at least half the time arrive at the proper ETA.

Juan: Anyone who could hold a job that required showing up to work on time impressed Stephen. And he never said this. I mean, I ranted, I pleaded with them for two hours not to get involved in this mess.

Geoffri: Do you mean to tell me you almost shot us down before we started, is that what you've telling me?

Juan: I tried as hard as I...remember when they came for that one...

Geoffri: You have this green and white, gold cord? Remember that?

Juan: Yes.

Geoffri: Give it back.

Crag: The thing is, does that nullify his Pelican?

Juan: When they came down for the first teal, all I knew is that I had talked to you on the phone and that they were counting on you to be the out man between two guys that I knew was intergalactic horrors from sci-fi fandom and something labeled as religious politics. I begged with them not to go. I knew it would come to a disaster. And they came back and said Geoffri of Warenne is roughly 30 and he is like, you know, an adult male with a real job. And I said, "Who?" and they said, "Jeff Keye, the guy who talked to you." And I said, "Who?" There are times when your enthusiasm gets the best of you. 'Cause Stephen never told me what you did for a living.

Elwyn: And you now know you can not tell ages over the phone.

Juan: I've given it up. I never try.

Geoffri: Any time that I sink my teeth in a new project, be it Society, Forgotten Sea or Calontir or whatever, my enthusiasm is usually overwhelming to other people. I mean I set a course, and there's a line from, I believe, Machievelli that says make up your own mind of what is the right thing to do, or set your own course, and let the masses laugh.

Juan: And the masses panicked.

Crag: I know somebody else that lives by that credo.

Juan: Are we talking to Asgeirr here?

Crag: We're talking Asgeirr here, but he's now in the Middle Kingdom.

Asgeirr: That's right.

Juan: No, Asgeirr decides what it is he's going to do and then he drinks beer.

Geoffri: Wassail.

Asgeirr: Seems reasonable.

Juan: When he's drunken enough beer then he becomes enthusiastic.

The First Changlings

Crag: OK. Let's wander into, let me get an account of the first Changlings.

Juan: Uh, oh.

Bear: First Changlings.

Juan: I at least will have a problem, I can't separate them.

Geoffri: The first Changlings that I attended was in an armory.

Bear: No. The first one after Brom came up with the idea, we decided to hold it and it was in a community center owned by the county parks, but it wasn't like community centers they have now. This was about the size of probably three or four of my living rooms. And it had a kitchen off to the side that was like a normal house kitchen. And it was really interesting. We had... that's when Ulrich and his lady were there. She was pregnant at the time. And Arwyn came as her. Arwyn came as a pregnant woman.

Juan: Oh, that was that one. OK. Fine.

Bear: There were three Stephen Ironhands, one with an ice cream bucket helmet on her head that was _______. Sonia of Prague.

Erich: Right. I remember that.

Juan: Sonia of Prague, midwife of Calontir.

Bear: There was gaming and then they had an auction. The men were supposed to make lunches and they auctioned them off to the ladies. And then we had that god-awful original arms of Three Rivers banner up there, the piasa bird. I got a picture of it in the archives at home.

Geoffri: Was it First Changelings or second Changlings that we came across to?

Elwyn: That's the one we were at.

Geoffri: That sounds very much like what we came to, but I thought we went to second Changlings.

Elwyn: That was first Changlings.

Geoffri: That's it.

Crag: I think that's right because what you were telling me yesterday didn't click with my memory at all.

Geoffri: It would come in February of '77, January or February. It was winter.

Crag: February of '77 was Changlings One.

Juan: Was this the one where Robert was made King of Fools? And gave out serfs?

Crag: That was the first time he did that.

Juan: First time he did that. OK. He held a fools' court, Robert did.

Bear: Yes, he did. It was a court of love type thing or something like that.

Geoffri: Which ever Changlings it was that we went to, let be officially known that that Changlings set the tone for my understanding of what the Society was all about, and how to accomplish things in the Society, because that was my first event.

Juan: And you said, "Oh, look. A bunch of 17 year old D&D gamers."

Geoffri: And I kept looking at these people.

Crag: Out of the mind of Brom Blackhand is interpreted the Society. (Brom concieved of the idea of Changelings - ed.)

Juan: People who start with Brom's idea of what the SCA is like usually succeed much better than those who think it is serious.

Geoffri: Well, I mean you asked me last night about how I had the chutzpah to stand up in front of the Crown what at was in effect really my second outside of my own group event and I said, "Why not?"

Juan: Oh, you didn't think it was the Crown. You thought it was somebody coming as the Crown. I see.

Geoffri: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Well no. I mean we went to Nordskogen, remember?

Juan: Yes, I was teasing.

Geoffri: Well, that was only my second ever outside Forgotten Sea, Changlings having been the first one.

Crag: That's when he asked them to make Calontir.

Juan: He didn't think he was talking to the Crown. He thought he was talking to somebody with a hat on.

Geoffri: I knew I was talking to the Prince because I'd watched him take a lot of blows today.

Crag: But I mean, stone cold with no warning to the Crown, in court he says, "Hi. Here's this petition to make this region called Calontir out of your kingdom."

Geoffri: Just to rename, just to rename.

Juan: You didn't even tell him you were going to do it ahead of time?

Geoffri: No, no, no. We talked to Folo first and set it up.

Juan: OK. OK.

Geoffri: We talked to Folo first and set it up. We weren't totally...

Juan: Then you don't win the Kalkin of Doombridge award.

Crag: It was Folo he was talking to.

Juan: That's OK. Folo would have bothered to tell the Crown, 'cause as opposed to Kalkin of Doombridge, who just said can you call me into court and announced he was the Baron of Three Rivers.

Geoffri: This was not a seneschal problem.

Juan: Which is what Kalkin of Doombridge did.

Geoffri: Remember, I had gotten Merowald's map and it said that this whole area was the Great Western Steppes.

Bear: Except for maybe somewhere buried in the back of your brain _______ what your plans might have been.

Geoffri: No, no. It was not buried. It was not buried. But I wasn't talking about it because then I could stand up and with a straight face and say, "We do not have political aspirations."

Bear: Right. At that point you were just shooting to change the name of the area.

Geoffri: Baby steps. Back to baby steps.

Bear: As far as the Crown was concerned.

Juan: He told me last night he had kingdom already in mind and he was swindling all the way.

Geoffri: Oh, yes. Absolutely. I mean you put this in my head. Stephen put this in my head.

Bear: Well, I hope you're happy now. Kingdom holds wars in the middle of heat, deep summers.

Geoffri: Bear, that's your fault. I turned it over to you.

Bear: No, you didn't. You turned it over to her.

Geoffri: I turned it over to you and Elwyn. She was your administrator. You were the one with the big stick.

The founding of Coeur d'Ennui

Crag: I was wondering about the founding of Coeur d'Ennui, how that happened.

Juan: Scenic Coeur d'Ennui.

Geoffri: Fesselmeyer got a job. He worked for the Social Security Administration or something, and he got a job with the railway benefits or railway pension administration or something. And so he transferred to Des Moines. He was already William Coeur de Boeuf at that point, and a member of Forgotten Sea. And he and his lady got up there, and they either found another Society member, I'm not clear on this, or they dragooned another Society member (created one). And that gave them three. And so he established, he said that Des Moines was the most boring place he had ever been in his life and promptly named it Coeur d'Ennui. Now that's what I remember.

Juan: That sounds like Fesselmeyer to me. Their device is a ring of boars or a boar ring.

Geoffri: And I thought it was a very appropriate device. I mean, I'm serious.

Juan: Scenic Coeur d'Ennui.

Geoffri: To me heraldry should have some meaning. And to do the ring of boars for boar ring was very appropriate. That's the kind of thing that heraldry should be.

The first Champion of Calontir tourney

Crag: Later that summer, you had the first Champion of Calontir tourney in Forgotten Sea. Sibling of the Summer Solstice.

Juan: Now wait a minute. Don't call it that, 'cause it wasn't a Champion of Calontir tournament until Brumbär won, right?

Geoffri: It was and it wasn't. Brumbär fought in those days. I used to watch him fight. And he would rest his sword on his shoulder and he would stand there and he would pick off everybody's blows. Pick off everybody's blows with his shield and then sooner or later that right hand would come snaking out and knock somebody up against the side of the head and he'd put the sword back on his shoulder.

Juan: no, you never fought against him. You don't understand what it was like. He didn't sit there and pick them off with his shield. He stuck his shield out there and dared you to run into him. And if you did, he'd sort of go, "Ungh" and you would bounce off. And he had this giant 48" telephone pole. And so you got up to where if you ran up any further, you were going to run under the shield, and you'd swing and it'd pass in front of his helmet. And you knew that you had no choice. You were going to have to impale yourself on the shield to hit him. So while you were impaled on the shield, he'd laminate you one with this giant telephone pole he carried.

Geoffri: But he only threw one blow. I mean it was one blow per fight.

Juan: Well, you only hit him once. If you missed, he'd have to throw two.

Geoffri: So we hold an event in the hottest part of August and everybody is out there. And sweat is pouring off of them, and they're all dying of heat prostration. And Bear after about the fourth round has one drop of sweat on his nose. This is revisionist history.

Crag: He was a god-like being even then.

Geoffri: Even then. And there was never any doubt in my mind. Now there may have been doubt in your mind who was going to win that tourney.

Bear: Hey, now. Erik Ragnarsson had been hitting a lot of tourneys in Calontir and cleaning up.

Juan: Erik Ragnarsson was really good.

Geoffi: He was really good and I was very worried, to be honest with you. These days it makes a much better story.

Bear: And that was a nice, I think it was close to 30 or 40 minutes we fought in that final.

Geoffri: That final round was a killer.

Bear: And we took a break.

Juan: More than we could do.

Bear: And Erik sat there and guzzled about three or four nice cold cokes.

Juan: And came out with no reflexes. Yes. That's how you did it. Ahhhh.

Bear: No, I had taken his leg earlier. I wasn't experienced enough with people down on their knees to...

Geoffri: He never has to throw people down on their knees, he always hit their heads.

Bear: But finally I got him.

Juan: Three or four Cokes. Oh, God.

Goeffri: But officially that was not announced as a Champion of Calontir tourney.

Juan: He's from Würmwald, he was Würmwald's resident bad boy. They guy they didn't like. The one they wouldn't belt, the one they wouldn't' treat decently. And he came to Calontir because we liked him. He was one of the guys who was originally a big friend of Calontir because we treated him much better than his home group and his home kingdom did.

Bear: Erik wasn't too bad.

Juan: No, I thought Erik was a fun guy, but he had apparently made some people in the Middle Kingdom and in Würmwald not just so mad they couldn't see straight, but permanently mad. They could never forgive him. And so he was politically ambitious and he wanted to be knighted, and there was nothing he could do, including fight well and behave well, that was going to get him anywhere. Nothing he could try. He was going to be declared a villain no matter what he did. So he came here where he wasn't a villain.

Bear: I don't think it upset Erik, you know, I think he knew he wouldn't have been made Champion at court that night or feast or where ever we did it. I think what upset him was the bagful of silver dollars that you gave me.

Juan: Yes. Yes. That doubtless upset Erik.

Geoffri: What was there, 25 silver dollars?

Bear: Something like that.

Juan: Twenty-five, I think is the right number.

Geoffri: And they were big silver dollars. They were not the little Susan B Anthony stuff.

Bear: Well, they didn't have those yet.

Juan: Have you still got those or did you spend them?

Geoffri; There haven't been many money prize tourneys, have there?

Near: No.

Geoffri: Well, we had a very limited budget in those days, and we couldn't come up with anything that was really fine enough to give...well, that was our first tourney.

Elwyn: Yeah.

Geoffri: And we couldn't come up with anything that was within our budget that was fine enough to give them , so we gave what was either a leather or a velvet pouch and 25 silver dollars. Chunk. That sounds good.

Bear: It did.

Juan: At the time that was a relatively large amount of money.

Bear: Yeah, it was.

Juan: For us SCA guys, that was serious. You'd done it again, you'd have drawn some (?).

Geoffri: We felt we had drawn the people we wanted to, you know, it was our first local event that wasn't...

Elwyn: It was a good event. It was fun.

Geoffri: That was an outdoor tourney type event. I think we had done some revels in the basement and things like that. We did a couple of those in the basement. Set up tables and we all came and partied at night up of things. That was our first major event. Was that the Sibling of the Summer Solstice?

Eistenfodd

Juan: Did you guys have an Eistenfodd in there?

Geoffri: We had one, I think that the first one was an Eistenfodd and feast in my basement or something like that. But I don't remember exactly.

Elwyn: I don't remember (?)

Juan: I remember a feast in your basement but I remember an Eistenfodd early.

Geoffri: That was when Gwydion was till around.

Juan: Yeah. I have the scrolls from the Eistenfodd.

Geoffri: Then that, yes, we did. There were multiple arts events.

Juan: Yeah, he organized an Eistenfodd and there were four points, there were five points, and four people won the four different points and the last one was basically a run-off point in, of all things, verbal presentation, verbal recitation. And I had this verbal recitation ready to do, and I got up there and I started to crank it out, and I thought, "my God, I'm in fine voice. They can hear me all the way up and down in the hall." And I got in this groove and roared through it and got this applause and won the point. And only after that they told me they'd hidden the microphone under the table. It threw everybody else off, is what happened. I had happened to start at exactly the right volume for the microphone to pick up and fill the hall. Everybody else either started out so low it was hard to hear even with a microphone, or so loud it was painful. And that was basically how I won was that I got lucky.

Geoffri: Pure dumb luck.

Juan: Yeah. Pure dumb luck. I hit the right volume for the stupid microphone and none of us knew there was a microphone there. They didn't tell us that.

Elwyn: Anachronism well hidden.

Juan: Yes. It was blind stupid luck on my part.

Asgeirr: You get a lot of it though.

Juan: What happened to your voice?

The Forgotten Sea Birthday Revel and other early things

Bear: When was the event Willow came up to? I remember that one. It had archery and fighting.

Geoffri: That was an event...

Elwyn: It was at Park College, wasn't it?

Erich: I know what that was.

Geoffri: Yes. That was an event at Park College. But was that the Journey to the Center of the Known World or was that...?

Erich: That was the Forgotten Sea Birthday Revel.

Bear: Yeah. That's it.

Erich: Chirhart's wedding was at that.

Geoffri: OK. That was, did I come back for that?

Bear: You were back for that.

Geoffri: I was back for that. That was '78.

Juan: Like I said, I can't tell Changlings apart.

Erich: Yes, that was November '78.

Geoffri: OK. That would have been...

Erich: I think it was November.

Geoffri: No, it couldn't have been November.

Erich: It seems to me that it was November.

Geoffri: It couldn't have been November because I didn't leave until the 26th of November, so when did Chirhart get married?

Asgeirr: It was November 17th.

Geoffri: I would have been back from England the end of August.

Erich: That sounds right.

Crag: Would that have been when Peregrine ( Northymber) got his Calon Lily?

Elwyn: Yes.

Crag: It was November 18th of 1978.

Juan: Oh, that's the first event for all the GoA level awards then.

Collective: No.

Juan: Second one.

Geoffri: OK, so I came back from Far Isles the end of August of '78 and we did the second Ren Fest in October of '78, and Chirhart got married November 18th of '78 and November 26 I left for Caer Anterth.

Juan: In '78?

Geoffri: In '78.

(Overlying conversations. Can't differentiate who is who. Thyri)

Juan:...seems like it took for ever.

Elwyn: Yes.

Juan: And, you know, the kingdom seems like it took a year and a half:.

Geoffri: Ternon.

Juan: Yes.

Crag: We're talking about old times. Welcome, Ternon, my lord.

The first Renaissance Festival

Bear: That first Renaissance Festival you folks had, remember a lot of Three Rivers fighters came out to help.

Geoffri: Yes.

Bear: Because you only had a handful.

Geoffri: That was October of '77 and the first Renaissance Festival, the Renaissance Festival people had contacted us. And asked us to do the demos and everything, and in exchange we could sell the hats.

Bear: I remember the fighters got bored waiting down in that fighting area. We started, there were so few mundanes there, that we wandered the grounds, a fighter and a marshal, and a fighter and a marshal. And when two fighters met, they'd challenge and fight right there where ever they were. On a bridge, in a walkway, whatever.

Geoffri: Yeah.

Bear: Can't do it now, but back then there weren't enough people to bother it.

Juan: If we waited we never would have gotten any fighting done, so we wandered out. And I remember that it wasn't that you wandered around. If you saw two members of the crowd, you would convene and challenge right in front of them so you would have an audience.

Geoffri: And that was the best weekend of the whole thing because all the other weekends rained out.

Juan: Oh, I didn't remember that.

Geoffri: Yeah.

Juan: I remember doing the challenges like he said.

Geoffri: That was the first one. Every other weekend rained out after the first weekend.

Ternon: And Ton the Traveller (His Majesty Atenveldt) showing up.

Geoffri. Yes. Ton and Elizabeth. This was the first royalty that had come to Forgotten Sea. And Ton was every bit of what I expected royalty to be. This is what my expectations have always, the standard by which I have measured royalty was Ton.

Bear., I don't remember if it was the first or second year, but they got, at Ren Fest there, to auctioning off the fighters. And...

Geoffri. That was the first year.

Bear. None of the mundanes seemed to want to bid. So Stephen went up there and bid. And he bought me. And then he got somebody else who bought Bellwood. And Bellwood and I go out and charge each other across the field, and I stop in front of him and yell, "For Stephen's honor!" and I throw my sword high in the air, drop my shied and let Bellwood kill me dead.

General Laughter.

Juan. Stephen was furious.

Bear. He was. He was.

Juan. He had thought, "Great. I'm going to get a win for..." For Stephen's honor. Yes. Whammo.

Ternon. I'll also get my money's worth out of this.

Bear. We went right into another round though and I one-shotted him.

Juan. But Stephen was just humiliated.

Ternon. That's the historical problem with mercenaries, though.

Geoffri. Should have paid more, right?

Bear. Right.

Geoffri. That was first Ren Fest because we were trying to build interest and so we started auctioning off fighters. That was one of those things we did to try to build the interest because it really was slow that first day.

Ternon. Nowadays that really works, auctioning off fighters. I've had people pay $12-$14 and more for me.

Unknown: Ariel's always good for a lot.

Ternon: Ariel's always good for a lot. You're right.

Breakdown on the way home

Bear: I bet. Which one was it you had to tote me back to Parkville? That was scary enough. Arwyn and I had gone out to the Ren Fest and we were leaving the site heading back to Geoff's place. Just got on the highway, and the Volkswagen Thing just went chug, chug, chug. Wouldn't run any farther.

Juan. Oh, boy.

Bear. Gas pump had gone.

Juan. Oh, great.

Bear. We're sitting on the side of the road. Luckily he still hadn't left. And him and that big old bomb of a car that you had...

Ternon. Yeah, the big old Town and Country station wagon. Everybody sang "Day-O" when I showed up.

Bear. He runs into town and gets a rope. All he can find is this plastic ski rope, purple and yellow or something. And comes back and we make this...the Volkswagen is tied behind your car with many loops around both bumpers, about 3' behind you. And things were fine until we get to that damn hill going down into Parkville where it makes that 90° turn off that hill going...

Geoffri. And it's suddenly a 20 mile limit, too. And policeman sitting there half the time.

Ternon. So much for that.

Bear. And we ended up having to ride back with Stephen and Megan Elizabeth. And Arwyn and Stephen went to sleep and left me with Megan.

Geoffri. Oooh.

Juan. Well, you weren't the only one who got left with Megan at one time or another.

Ternon. Tragedy compounded on tragedy.

The Bailiff structure and discussing a symbol for Calontir (and the origin of the name)

Crag. On the 9th or the 19th of November before the event of the first Forgotten Sea Birthday Party, there was a meeting in the living room discussing the Bailiff structure. Who was there?

Elwyn: Before the first...?

Geoffri: That would have been the Friday night that the Three Rivers people come rolling in. Had you come up yet for that meeting?

Elwyn: I'm trying to get straight which year you're in.

Crag: '77.

Geoffri: The first birthday revel.

Juan: This is when Geoffri sprung on us that we were in fact something called a region and he was in fact something called a Bailiff.

Elwyn. We had it in a community center where Madeleine was living.

Geoffri: But this meeting was at my...

Elwyn: I'm trying to get the Birthday moot in my head.

Geoffri: This was the community center in over east..., well...,

Elwyn: Up there somewhere.

Geoffri. Yeah.

Bear. Where they had the long dragon cake.

Elwyn. Yeah. Yeah. But it was like an apartment complex, big meeting hall kind of thing. That's where the Bailiff got announced, so it had to have been the night before and that must have been the first year.

Geoffri. But were you there for the meeting or had you come up?

Elwyn. I don't think so.

Geoffri. A lot of the Forgotten Sea people that were, like Elwyn, would spend Saturday night at my place, but very seldom were they there on Friday nights. So I would suspect that the people that were there were you, and Stephen and Arwyn and Dev and maybe Bellwood and Robert. You know. The crew that always came in and stayed at my place. There were others sometimes. I mean Erich would come periodically, but we never knew if he was going to come and stay at my place or come and stay someplace else. You know. And so I don't' remember exactly who were there, but those people would have been there.

Juan. I remember being in the living room when this happened.

Geoffri. Tell us about it.

Juan. The funny thing is the Bailiff was very short and very sweet. You said we have this thing and it's called Calontir. And I have this right. It is to call myself a Bailiff.

Geoffri. I don't remember that.

Crag. That's not how Stephen remembers it.

Juan. That's pretty much what I remember.

Geoffri. Because we talked first about which one of several titles we were going to use. And then I made a sincere effort to stick Stephen with the job. And I failed. And I got stuck with the job. Figuratively speaking.

Juan. I remember the conversation, but I'll be honest with you, I don't remember it as being sincere. I remember the whole conversation as being sort of "here are the options. I want to be Bailiff. Here is my chance to foist it off on Stephen, but I know this isn't going to work." I really had the impression from the beginning that you knew how it was going to come out. It may not have been the way you actually wanted it to come out. You may have preferred for it to be Stephen, but my whole vision of the thing listening to you that you knew how this was going to come out.

Geoffri. Do you remember this?

Bear. Not exactly.

Geoffri. Wish Stephen were here.

Bear. Most I remember is sitting there while trying to ignore you people while you were going through heraldry books trying to figure out what to use as the symbol.

Juan. Yes. That is what I remember about it was after this comparatively perfunctory discussion, we then spent hours fighting over the Calontir symbol. That's what I remember doing. That's why I was going to continue to say was the discussion over Bailiff and who was going to be Bailiff and what the title was struck me as being perfunctory and brief. The discussion over the symbol struck me as long and sincere.

Geoffri. May have been brief, but if it was brief, it was because...Stephen...there was no chance of pinning Stephen down. Stephen!

Stephen. I'll be back as soon as I can (from a distance).

The name "Calontir"

Ternon. I do remember a previous conversation to that where we talked about Calontir, the name Calontir.

Geoffri. That was when we were trying to name Forgotten Sea.

Ternon. Yeah. That's right.

Geoffri. And Calontir was the name that I nominated. And Forgotten Sea was brought up, and I believe it was by Gwydion, the poet, and he waxed eloquent about why it should be Forgotten Sea, and...

Ternon. I honestly think that was Dorian and...

Geoffri. You think it was Dorian.

Ternon. And Diane.

Elwyn. I always thought it was Diane.

Ternon. Diane. That's right. And then Gwydion sort of hopped on the bandwagon, said, "Yeah, I like that."

Geoffri. One of the few times the two of them ever agreed.

Ternon. Perhaps the only time.

Geoffri. Dorian and Gwydion. And between them they swayed the populace, and it became Forgotten Sea.

Juan. You mean we could have been in the Kingdom of Forgotten Sea and the Barony of Calontir?

Geoffri. Could have been.

Ternon. Things could have worked out that way.

Bear. Boy, that'd be hard to put into songs.

Ternon. Our history would have been awful, too.

Geoffri. Do you understand, just to back up because the rest of you weren't here when I told Crag this story, that he asked me when Calontir came into being in my mind, and I said, well, there were two events that led to that. One is I failed, I came up with this name, Calontir, that I really liked and no one else did, and so it became the Shire of Forgotten Sea. So I was left with the name. And secondly, I got Merowald's map, and it says, "The Great Western Steppes" or something like that on it. And in my mind "steppes" means "desert" and this was not a desert to me, and somewhere right in there very quickly there was this light bulb dawn over my head "Calontir". And it was just a leap of intuitive, an intuitive leap from there to visualizing what we're sitting in the middle of today. Although I have to admit I never visualized this many of us.

Elwyn. Incredible

Geoffri. It's incredible. And then it became the seneschal-like "OK, I have an idea. How do I sell it to the populace without them running shrieking from the room in terror? And how do I sell it to the Middle Kingdom without them canning us all?"

Juan. One of them turned out to be easy.

Ternon. Yeah The other one turned out to be another story entirely.

The newsletter issue and the population of the region and war sizes

Bear. The newsletter issue.

Crag: Yeah.

Bear. And I remember the article he had in there. And it lists how many people in each group.

Crag. Right.

Bear. And there were 250 people in Calontir.

Geoffri. Of which...there's your answer. There were 250 people in Calontir.

Bear. 30 authorized fighters.

Juan. That was in Calon Scrolls or the Mews or whatever you call it #2 as I recall.

Bear. Was it 2. It might have been 2.

Juan. One, I don't think, I think I had just reports from the officers, and 2 I think I had that long impassioned "Why we should be a principality" plea. I think it was in 2.

Bear. At the same time, we had 30 authorized fighters.

Juan. My first effort at sedition.

Geoffri. Welcome to the club.

Bear. I don't know how many fighters we got now.

Geoffri. Took you a while to come around.

Bear. But I know in talking with the Archer General, we have 600 authorized archers.

Geoffri. 600 authorized archers in the kingdom?

Crag: Authorized archers in our kingdom?

Bear. Now he figured 15 to 20% of that is deadwood that should be culled out, but that takes time. But even so...

Crag. How many people do we have in the kingdom now?

Bear. I have no idea.

Elwyn. How often do they, what do they have to do to maintain the authorization?

Erich. I've got one and I haven't used it in about three years.

Juan. So it's everybody who has ever authorized.

Bear. They're talking about making it a yearly re-up.

Erich. That's probably a good idea.

Bear. You don't have to do anything, just send it in type thing. And that would keep the deadwood out, but still.

Elwyn. You don't have to fight in so many, engage in so many events to maintain it.

Some Pennsic history

Bear. This war we're at [Lilies VI] is bigger then the first Pennsic I went to.

Ternon. Yeah. That's true.

Bear. I went to Pennsic VI. There were five or six hundred people tops.

Ternon. That's right.

Elwyn. I went to Pennsic VII and it dawned on me last night that it was really six.

Crag: Where are we now.

Geoffri. I saw 799 dive in this morning. How many are here, I don't know, but I saw 799 drive in this morning.

Crag. So we're going to come close to 1000 people.

Elwyn. I was 794.

Juan. At Pennsic VI, they did a choose them up with all the fighters. And I think the last chosen number was in the high 80's because there were roughly 160, 170 fighters at Pennsic VI. There are more than 170 fighters here today.

Ternon. There weren't a whole lot more than that at Pennsic VII.

Geoffri. And there are probably more kingdoms represented here than there were at Pennsic VI.

Bear. Yes.

Geoffri. Well, I know that.

Ternon. It's easy to do.

Bear. There were only four kingdoms then.

Geoffri. That's why I know I was safe making the comment.

Juan. Pennsic VI there were probably people from three kingdoms. Pennsic VIII was the one that broke it open. It was the one, if I'm not mistaken that's the right number, it's the one where the East Kingdom actually hired mercenaries from the Kingdom of the West to come to Pennsic. Yes, they actually hired Paul of Bellatrix and a bunch of mercenaries.

Bear. At the time of Pennsic VI, there were only four kingdoms anyway.

Ternon. I've got a picture of Paul at Pennsic VIII. Standing there on the hill looking really impressive. My God. I'm in the presence of a living legend.

Juan. And then they all decided it was fun and kept coming back and that's what made Pennsic.

Geoffri. What it is today.

Juan. Yeah. As opposed to a two-kingdom war.

Geoffri. But back to Calontir.

Elwyn. The site was pretty neat, too.

Juan. Well, yeah. The site was built, was rebuilt to accommodate Pennsic. At least once.

Sprites and Merowald's squiring of Ternon

Crag. Well, let's see. Let's talk about Sprites. Anybody remember Sprites?

Geoffri. Yes.

Ternon. Is that the Sprites where I was squired?

Erich. Yes it was. It was the first Sprites.

Juan. There was more that went into the making of the officers then just Sprites.

Ternon. Wonderful story about my squiring at that event. Merowald I guess had been talking to you about me, 'cause he seemed to have some detailed information.

Geoffri. Aye, that's correct.

Ternon. And so he came up to me after my florentine authorization. And he said, "I've been hearing some interesting things about you. And, well, I've been sort of thinking of taking a squire in this area of the kingdom because I've been sort of making a point of spreading my squires out geographically, and I'd really be interested in squiring you. Is that something you'd be interested in?" As soon as I had gotten my tongue back out of my larynx, I told him yes. And he got this really serious look, this very grave kind of demeanor came over him, which is highly unnatural in Merowald.

Juan. And is always a clue that something was coming.

Ternon. Uh, huh. And he said, "Well, you know, I have only one question to ask you, and while I like you, you seem like a very nice person, if you answer this question wrong, there is simply no way you can be my squire."

Juan. And you didn't even know he was telegraphing, did you?

Ternon. Well, you know, here I am, I'm thinking, "Oh, my God, is it the religion issue again?" And I say, "OK, what's the question?" He said, "Do you have a Norman persona?" and I said, "No, I'm Welsh." He said, "Welcome to the household."

Elwyn. Sylveaston is ... Anglo-Saxon?

Ternon. Well, because of his... yes.

Erich. The name Merowald is Anglo-Saxon.

Ternon. And House de Taahe, Finnvarr's house was Norman, and other allied European sorts of personas. And so I think it was product differentiation that he was seeking there.

Geoffri. And Normans, Vikings gone bad. We don't talk about Normans.

Juan. Hey, you leave my knight out of this.

Choosing the acting officers for the region of Calontir

Crag: Anything interesting about choosing the acting officers, the polling by mail.

Bear. Oh, boy. Was there.

Juan. Yes.

Bear. I though it was done in a fairly fair way. At first they allowed people to be recommended for the office. Then a listing of the various offices and various recommended names was put together and sent out to the various groups where, if I remember, the marshal would vote for the marshal and the herald for the herald and things of that nature. And as it turned out except for the seneschal, everything ended up in Three Rivers. And this didn't sit well with some folks.

Crag. Who?

Juan. A lot of people in Three Rivers. This is something those of you in Three Rivers may not know, but we were all terrified of being the Barony of Northwoods.

Ternon. I remember a phone conversation during that period where you discussed that with me. And it's like I'm really afraid that everybody's going to see this in the wrong light. I remember we chewed the fat extensively.

Geoffri. Didn't we then choose...

Sidebar to explain the Barony of the Northwoods reference

Juan. Can I explain the Barony of the Northwoods on the tape since Crag asked? The Barony of the Northwoods is a barony in the Middle Kingdom.

Crag: Stop to turn the tape over.

TAPE ONE SIDE TWO

Crag. Continue with the Barony of Northwoods.

Juan. Barony of Northwoods was a barony in the Middle Kingdom. The Middle Kingdom was founded officially in Chicago which is the Province of Tre-Girt Sea. But the papers had been filed, actually earlier than the papers filed for the group in Chicago, from a group in East Lansing, Michigan as Northwoods. And the people in Chicago were told, "Oh, we have these leftover papers that were actually filed before yours, but as you have a kingdom up and running, well, what the hey, you've got it. You should go up and visit these guys in East Lansing." And they went up and visited these guys in East Lansing, and realized they weren't going to win any of the next several dozen crowns because the fighters in East Lansing were all much better than theirs. And what happened was as a result...

Crag. Which is still true today as near as I can tell.

Juan. Yeah, nobody ever wins from Chicago. Anyway...

Erich. That's not quite true.

Juan. The end result of this was the Barony of Northwoods had a brief period of paranoia and inferiority complex, and then this great rush of ego, and centralized the Middle Kingdom inside its own borders, and people ended up perceiving it as a little tyranny over its own kingdom. And when we first started...

Crag. That's the Northwoods denizens.

Juan. Yes. When we first started in Three Rivers, our contacts were the Barony of Würmwald which is only two hours away in Champaign, and they were going through the process of trying to establish their identity in the Middle Kingdom against the opposition from people in Northwoods.

Bear. And they had just got a Crown from there, Michael.

Juan. Yes, but they told us these horror stories about the evil, old, conservative, dominant, has-all-the -officers-and-won't-let-them-go Barony of Northwoods, and we were all terrified of turning into that when Calontir got going.

Ternon. Then, of course, not long after that we found, the paradigm shifted to Cleftlands, and we saw that this is just sort of a paradigm of politics in that period of the Middle Kingdoms history.

Sidebar: the early Middle Kingdom knighting system

Juan. Yeah. The Middle Kingdom seems to have gone through that. One of the reasons I think the Middle Kingdom is so conservative about us was that they were a kingdom from the beginning and I think many people who were involved in the early parts of the Middle Kingdom don't think they did a very good job of it because they were so small that they had no sense of proportion, and got messed up. Finnvarr delivers lectures on how bad it is to have a knighting process like they had. For a couple of years, they knighted everybody who won a tournament. The result of which was some extremely bad blow acknowledgment. Because of you could just get through a tournament without getting marshaled out, you were knighted. And to this day, people in the Middle Kingdom have this, this desperate fear of being too easy to give knighthoods. And that's one of the reasons.

Geoffri. It helps some times to understand the rationale behind those things.

Juan. One of the things Finnvarr says about Merowald is the Merowald was the one who really cut a hole in that system. He couldn't get knighted because he took blows. And he was knighted for winning Crown Tourney. It was the first tourney he ever won. And they knighted him on the spot because he won a tourney. It just happened to be Crown. But to do that he had to be much much better than everyone else because they all shrugged shots.

Geoffri. I remember the discussions about the fears of some of the officers being from Three Rivers and it seemed like that we chose, who had volunteered, Rosamund from Coeur d'Ennui, Coeur de Boeuf's wife, as historian for the purpose of spreading the officers a little further around because that was not one of the offices we had elected.

Bear. And it wasn't long after that, that we, through the marshallate pulled out (appointed) Aji na moto as chirurgeon.

Geoffri. Yes.

Juan. I don't know if my memory is bizarre on this. I don't know if we did or didn't elect a historian. I have a memory of being asked not to run for the job. So that there wouldn't be a Three Rivers candidate.

Erich. I remember a historian being on the list of...

Geoffri. Crag would know. He has the ballots.

Juan. What I remember is it being on the ballot and my being asked not to let my name be placed in nomination so that there wouldn't be anyone from Three Rivers to be elected.

Crazy phone bills and dealing with "Dev"

Geoffri. That may be because we had those midnight phone calls. My phone bill in those days was horrendous and it was all to Three Rivers.

Elwyn. I inherited that.

Geoffri. Yes. There were a few to Coeur d'Ennui, but they were nowhere near, because I had to have a conversation with Bear, I had to have a conversation with Arwyn, I had to have a conversation with Stephen, I had to have a conversation with Bellwood, I had to have a conversation with Robert, and I had to have a conversation with Dev last.

Crag. Because if you talked to Dev first before you had already worked it out, he would try to change your mind.

Geoffri. He would try to change my mind anyway, but at this point, it's a little more ossified and I could argue, I had more ammunition with which to argue.

Juan. This is bull.

Crag. This is how I've always had to deal with Dev.

Ternon. Dev would also give you a left hand curve answer, the one you weren't predicting or expecting and the second, my sort of deal, was, I've got my thinking straightened out and all my ducks in a row, so tell me what it is you're going to say anyway, but I'm going to tell you, I've done a lot of thinking and all my ducks are in order.

Geoffri. And I want you to know that on those very rare occasions that Dev came back with the same answer that I already had in mind was amazing.

Crag. Did it give you moments of self-doubt?

Juan. This is all a 6' cow pie. The actual fact was I was the one who wasn't an officer so I got these calls that said, "I have four minutes of phone bill time left, having talked to the officers. You get four minutes."

Geoffri. I never did you like that.

Juan. You're gonna lay one like that, I'm gonna lay one back.

Geoffri. I will say this much. I have the phone bills to prove different, let's phrase it that way, or the canceled checks.

Juan helping Ternon, and an incident with William Coeur de Boeuf

Ternon. Being able to call you on the phone during one period of my history in early Calontir probably kept me from killing one or two people. The fact that you just let me rant and rave and then commiserate with me a little bit.

Juan. You were the only person I know knew who was more intense than I was. And I suspect that what happened was your intensity terrified everyone else, and I was close enough to being that intense about it that I would say, "OK. I can deal with this and everybody else is running for cover." I remember chasing you down the highway.

Ternon. Yep.

Juan. When he was warlord he had called a Witan meeting to deal with yet another William Coeur de Boeuf giant letter from hell, threatening to dissolve Calontir into the morass and sink it beneath Forgotten Sea, underneath the magma.

Geoffri. He didn't get 39¢ worth of at money.

Juan. Yes, once again. And he called this meeting of the Witan, came out of the meeting the first person he saw was 1) his wife who 2) was the treasurer who 3) he had forgotten to invite to the Witan meeting. And off down the highway Ternon took to walk from Ren Fest back to Forgotten Sea.

Ternon. Now there's an interlude that you're not telling there.

Juan. I probably don't know about. All I know is that you were heading up the hill.

Ternon. You were directly involved. I went over after the meeting and had a brief conversation with William Coeur de Boeuf and during the conversation we talked about a certain award that he'd been given, I believe it was the fyrd. And he said, "Well, you guys just gave me that as a bribe for good behavior."

Crag: Ternon's Warlord at this point.

Geoffri. Yes.

Ternon. And I snapped. William's crouching in front of the fire. And I said, "William I want you to say that to me one more time. I want to make sure I heard that correctly." And he said, "You just gave me this award as a bribe for good behavior." And I said, "I want you to say that one more time." And as he was saying it, you stepped between us. (Catching the blow intended for William)

Juan. Oh, did I really?

Ternon. Yeah.

Juan. Boy, that was dumb. I'm glad I forgot I did that.

Ternon. That's probably the only reason I'm not in jail.

Geoffri. Yeah, exactly.

Ternon. And then I said, "Right." And I turned around and that's when I discovered that I had forgotten to invite Ghleanna and everything just sort of snapped. I walked up over him and I...

Geoffri. Whose him?

Ternon. Oh, excuse me. I walked over to Master James of Goetzdowne and I said, "You want to be baronial knight's marshal. Tag. You're it." Took off the circlet and threw it, and then proceeded to start walking home the, what, 12 miles.

Geoffri. The 12 or so miles.

Ternon. Yeah. And then Juan took after me on foot, flat feet and all.

Juan. You understand that Ternon walks roughly as fast as I run. And that he has a great deal more endurance, and a 200 yard head start.

Ternon. He caught me about a mile down the road.

Juan. I'd run and I'd catch up to a 100 yards and I'd run out of gas. Then he'd gain 50. And I'd run and I'd catch the 50 yards and he'd get up to about 75. I caught him on the interstate. All the way out of Ren Fest. All the way up 7, onto the exit onto the interstate before I caught him.

Geoffri. At which point he had to carry you hack to the Ren Fest site?

Juan. No. At which point I had to walk along side him, waiting for him to get to the point where he could acknowledge my presence and start talking. He's walking as fast as I can run.

Ternon. I can't even remember what I was saying. I think I was just ranting incoherently.

Juan. No, you didn't. You said nothing. We went a good half a mile and you said nothing. Then you finally said, "I saw Ghleanna." And I went, "Oh." And you said, "I didn't invite her to the Witan meeting." And I went, "Oh, shit." Which seemed to me like a step up from "oh". And then you didn't say anything for the longest time. And finally you stopped, and you said, "You're beat, aren't you? And I went, "Ah." And he said, "I guess we can start walking back now." So I calmed him down by raw dint of exhaustion. Anaerobic politics here.

Geoffri. The silver tongued fox strikes again.

Ternon. He huffs more elegantly than anyone I know.

Crag. I thought you landed a blow in there.

Ternon. I kicked at William, and I think I may have gotten you in the shin in the process.

Juan. No, no. If you'd gotten me in the shin, I'd never followed you. Never. No chance. Not a prayer. God. I have not moved so far on foot since. At one time.

Ternon. And me with a good light never do so again.

Juan. And you know, the only time it ever occurred to me what a crazy thing I was doing, given my particular body constraints, was when we turned around.

Ternon. And you realized how much further we had to go back.

Juan. That it was exactly the same distance that we'd come.

Ternon. I had regained at least a fraction of my sanity by the time we'd got back there. And by that time I think Ghleanna had found the circlet which I had just taken and pitched as far as I could.

Bear. That explains the pits in this thing, doesn't it? (Bear was granted the Warlord’s circlet in perpetuo when the Region ended by Prince Ternon, and choses to wear it rather than the Viscounty circlet which he is entitled to.)

Ternon. I'm hard on metal in the best of circumstances.

Juan. It would make a difference if you got intense when you were wrong, but in fact one of the things I used as a barometer for what was right and what was wrong in Calontir was when you blew up. When you blew up, something was wrong, and you knew what it was. Even if you couldn't talk about it for six months, you knew what it was and all I had to do was find out.

Crag. Are you saying that Ternon is like one of these thermometers with an open end that occasionally bubbles the mercury out?

Juan. Yes. And when it bubbles the mercury out, you know it's a hundred degrees.

Ternon. I think I was one of those birds that keeps dipping down into the glass of water.

Juan. And when it's full...boom.

Geoffri, Ternon, and Imrael as baron, and another incident with Coeur de Boeuf

Geoffri. You know, I can't remember you ever turning it loose on me.

Ternon. No, no. You know, there was only one time, and I'd be interested in talking about this, where I wasn't angry at you. I was profoundly confused. And that was when we talked about Imrael becoming baron.

Geoffri. You were confused!

Ternon. It wasn't even so much that I had some grand design to be baron because I agreed with what you said in principle, the idea that I would have probably a more extensive and varied SCA career than he would. But I just, at the time I was thinking to myself, "You know, this kid has got his heart in the right place, but with the cast of characters we've got, he will be thrown out of his league at some point." And then you did an awful thing. You asked me to watch out for him.

Juan. Oh, you evil being from hell, you didn't?

Ternon. And I did for several years. Finally as he was leaving Forgotten Sea and moving away, he came up to me and he basically chided me for being so damn nosy and having my nose in his business all the time. And I said, "Now it can be told. Here's the reason why I have been dogging you lo these many years." And I sat down and I told him, and he said, "Oh."

Geoffri. I love that kid.

Ternon. Yeah. He's a good kid. And I think that probably he did a lot of growing up very fast in the process of being baron. The only time that I came to... my confusion turned to doubt in your decision, was during the Forgotten Sea/Coeur d'Ennui nightmare over Ren Fest, because being youthful and exuberant and having a great deal of pride for his barony., when William and William's group of friends started getting up in his face, rather than doing the politic thing and saying, "We may have been wrong. Let me look at the wording of this flyer again and see what it was that you misunderstood," his back bristled. And he stood there being a prototypical mensch, try to out-Coeur de Boeuf Coeur de Boeuf.

Geoffri. Which was difficult to do.

Ternon. And I sat there and I thought, "This is going to be very complex." And it's kind of sad. At an event in the Middle Kingdom, I believe it was in Caer Anterth, I'm pretty sure. It was Ceilidh. William was up there and this was before the whole thing came down. And he showed me this letter that he'd written about the whole problem with payment and the Renaissance Festival. And I said, "William, I think you've got some points here that are valid and need to be argued, and rather than sending this letter, why don't we all just sit down and be grown ups in a room and talk this out?" And he said to me, "I've already sent this letter." And I said, "Uh, oh. Who did you send it to?" Does the name Rory O'Tomrair strike a familiar note?

Juan. Is that the only address you have, William?

Ternon. "Eventually this man will tire of hearing from you, OK?" Which, of course, is pretty much the way it fell out as I remember.

The early trouble with Coeur de Boeuf and how he turned around (with some munchkin beating)

Juan. For those of you who are hearing this history tape and are not sure of the context, before he became William Coeur de Boeuf, God of the Universe, he was Bill Fesselmeyer, SCA and science fiction troublemaker. And his idea of how to cause trouble with Calontir was to perceive, very shrewdly, that many of us in Calontir were interested in such things as becoming a principality, and therefore in such things as pleasing the Middle Kingdom upon whose decision our becoming a principality depended. And so whenever William Fesselmeyer had a dispute with someone involved in Calontir, the first thing he did was send a letter to the seneschal of the Middle Kingdom, knowing that would start with his opponents in a state of panic. And this is a particularly slimy form of blackmail, to be honest, and I'm sure that William eventually ended up regretting it. But we ended up regretting it on roughly a quarterly basis for about two years, and this is just one incident. And when you hear about troubles with William Coeur de Boeuf they almost always go this way: William Coeur de Boeuf got mad at somebody and his opening salvo was to write a letter to Rory O'Tomrair (Middle Kingdom Seneschal), and send it, the next salvo was to show the letter he had already sent to whoever was in charge of Calontir.

Ternon. And it almost always got the exact desired reaction. At least from the people in Calontir. At a kingdom basis, it eventually wound up causing more trouble than it was worth for him and the group.

Juan. Yes. Eventually Rory, 1) got tired of it, 2) understood what the ploy was, and 3) stopped thinking it was funny. As far as I gather, Rory never really took him seriously. He went from funny to annoyed to "Wait, this is causing a problem." But it took him a long time to realize that it was messing us up. It wasn't just some amusing thing we were spacing off as fast as he was.

Crag: When did Coeur de Boeuf clean up his act and become the patron of the northern shires and God-like being he's remembered. I mean I like Coeur de Boeuf, especially the later Coeur de Boeuf. When did that occur?

Juan. About the time he got good enough as a fighter to develop some self respect.

Ternon. Yeah. About the time he discovered spear and switched from bourbon to wine or beer.

Juan. OK.

Ternon. Those two factors I think had sort of an interleaving effect on William. And that he wasn't... his judgment became better and his self respect became infinitely better.

Juan. Yes.

Ternon. And I have a feeling that those two things, and suddenly realizing that he was being viewed as a patriarch from his region of Calontir, I think those, maybe those three influences caused him to..

Juan. He was one of those guys who didn't have any self-respect and so he caused trouble. And I had had that reputation of him before Calontir. He was known in Midwest science fiction fandom as Bill Fesselmeyer, this teen-aged kid that you don't let do anything because he will volunteer to do everything and he will screw it all up and then he'll get obnoxious about it. Which is a very common science fiction fan and everybody know two dozen names that are like this. And he was like that in the SCA until he developed some self respect. And I think he developed some self respect about the time he got legitimately good at something. I'm relatively sure that when he said to Ternon, "You only gave me that award to buy me off politically," that that was his desire for self respect showing. He wanted to be a good fighter. He didn't believe he was. And therefore getting the award which meant a lot to him, was something that was very hard for him to believe, and so he turned it back on you and said, "You didn't mean this. You only did it to buy me off." And then when he found out that we did mean it, and he really was that good and decided for himself, yes, I really am that good, which munchkin beating had a lot to do with. He used to be able to take groups of mediocre or poor fighters in groups of three, take all their legs, call them munchkins, and strut around beating them up. And people put up with this out of him. He was good and he was entertaining at it. And he didn't humiliate his munchkins, and he got some self respect. And I think that was when he started being a much better person, was when he decided he had something to lose.

Ternon. Does everyone here remember the phrase "whirly boeuf"?

Juan. Yes. He had this over the head horizontal moullinet (moul –un--nay) style that was really death to mediocre fighters on their knees because they didn't know how to protect their backs from the inevitable wrap around.

Elwyn. When did all of this with the weapons-styles and the change in type of alcohol, when do you perceive that happening? My perception of Boeuf settling down, I don't remember, and if I looked at the time line there might be something, but I don't remember anything major after Calon Tourney 4 when the whole north-south split thing basically got settled. This is... you know... Rory was here and this is settled. This is going to be the end of it. And it basically was.

Crag: Talk about that Talk about that north-south split.

The north-south split

Juan. I have had no memory for years, so I can't place this in time.

Elwyn. Calon Tourney 4 was the event in Lonely Tower and they [Coeur d'Ennui?] had this reaction to the previous Ren Fest.

James of Goetzdowne. Around 1978

(garbled discussion about whether 1978 or 1980. Concensus was 1980.)

Erich. 1980.

James. I remember fighting Coeur de Boeuf in my mace authorization. That's when I smelled mouse... turds. I didn't really want to be knight marshal of Barony of Forgotten Sea, but somehow or other I won my mace authorization round and they didn't give it to me. They were grooming themselves a knight's marshals is what they were doing. They said, "Hey, look at this guy." I couldn't understand why they didn't give me my authorization. They wanted me to be a little bit better before I took over the job.

Ternon. A lot of horrible devious stuff..

James. Yeah, I thought it was devious.

Ternon. But it was all among friends.

Geoffri. It always has been. I think, that was, has to be consented to.

Ternon. Well, that's an option.

James. I don't think I had much.

Juan. There was a north-south split in roughly 79 or 80.

Elwyn. It was the winter of 79-80.

Juan. Yeah. I don't remember...

Elwyn. It was between Calon Tourney 3 in V'Tavia and Calon Tourney 4 in Lonely Tower.

Juan. I don't remember much about this.

Ternon. If my memory serves me correctly, and my memory is notoriously bad, it was the '79 Ren Fest and he [Coeur de Boeuf] showed me this letter.

Geoffri. That ticked you off.

Ternon. Yea, verily.

Juan. Yea, verily?

Ternon. What, like the next July? So this had been on the boiler for a while and nobody had been taking them seriously, and they were pissed about it.

Crag. This wasn't the Coeur d'Ennui althing?

Ternon. Where this happened?

Crag. Yah.

Ternon. He walked out of the Coeur d'Ennui althing.

Crag. Stormed out.

Ternon. Yeah. But the letter was at the Ceilidh in Caer Anterth.

Geoffri. Which was the summer of 1980.

Ternon. That's the event where James of Goetzdown nearly killed me.

Elwyn. It couldn't be.

Ternon. Totally by accident. Remember that?

Geoffri. They don't do winter events.

Ternon. Remember the woods (?) that was covered in duct tape?

Elwyn. We wouldn't have gone to Crown Tourney in Caer Anterth and Ceilidh in the same couple of months.

Ternon. I had my helmet on and I said, "Hey! Hit me with that." You did.

Geoffri. So the Ceilidh must have been '79.

Erich. I think it actually took a little bit longer than the period between those two Calon Tourneys. I think it was already before the Calon Tourney, before Calon Tourney 3.

Crag: Did Rory come down to Calon Tourney 4?

Erich. Yes.

Elwyn. He was at Calon Tourney 4 in Lonely Tower.

Juan. Who won Calon Tourney 4?

Erich. Chepe.

Juan. OK. Oh, yeah.

Erich. Finals were going into dark.

Juan. Was that the one where he had the finals against you?

Ternon. No.

Erich. No. Humpk was second.

Juan. Oh, right. That was the one in Lonely Tower. Right. Now I remember the tournament. Yes, the long, dreary fight between Chepe and Humpk.

Erich. Yes.

Elwyn. This is... This is the Calon Tourney with the young kinds fighting.

Juan. That's right. He was there. He and Rory came together. They were going to...

Geoffri. Oh, is that the one...

Juan. No, they were there to do something administrative, remember?

Ternon. (?) was his first Calon Tourney.

Erich. Second, second Calon Tourney.

Elwyn. He came with Rory. What were you saying?

Juan. Alen and Rory came together. They were going to do something. They had this progress... what was it? Weren't Alen and Rory coming together to do sort of a combined progress? To hold a big meeting. They were going to hold a big meeting. What was it about?

Ternon. The big meeting?

Juan. Yes.

Ternon. There were actually two meetings. A long meeting about the Coeur d'Ennui-Forgotten Sea problem. Things were straightened out in a very forcible manner and the word "abeyance" was thrown about like snuff at a wake. And then there was a briefer meeting, I believe, that was sort of interrupted by the feast about the subject of Lonely Tower and its problems.

Unknown. That was that night.

Ternon. Yes. Got interrupted by a large extreme screaming match between various people and the argument that was going on...

Juan. Yes. That was when Lonely Tower was in the process of fast disintegration. But it eventually survived. That's what that was about. I remember this now.

Crag. Which they still live with today.

Growing pains of "region" status, principality status

Juan. Yes. But Rory and Alen came down specifically to arbitrate these disputes and I remember that there was considerable worry as to whether this meant that they thought we were incompetent to handle our own problems.

Ternon. That was a chronic worry we had at the time because every time something went above our heads to Rory, we'd have to go hat in hand and said, "Gosh, I wish you hadn't have done that."

Juan. Because as far as I can remember, when we had a region, the only official status the region ever had was that there was somebody called the seneschal of the region of Calontir.

Geoffri. The Deputy Midrealm Seneschal for Calontir.

Juan. OK. But that was the official legal status of Calontir. There was never anything written saying there is this region called Calontir. There was never anything written saying there was anything else.

Geoffri. Rory didn't believe in regions.

Juan. Yeah.

Geoffri. But he was willing to permit there to be deputy officers for multi-state areas to handle administrative functions.

Juan. Did you actually have a warrant, as deputy earl marshal?

Goeffri. Yes. This was the agreement that came. It was at a what they called a Curia meeting. Was at Curia meeting and all of the kingdom officers agreed with Rory to have regional deputies. And that's what came to be the legal basis for Calontir. Because Rory in spite of every sophistry I could come up with, every argument I could come up with, Rory found no legal basis for a region. Yet to be a principality, before you could become a principality you had to have functioning officers at every level. You know. It didn't make sense to me. But I couldn't convince Rory.

Ternon. Do you remember the Curia meeting, Bear, that you and I, Chepe and Arwyn were invited to?

Bear. Oh, yeah.

Ternon. That was a very interesting....

Bear. Somebody's living room, I don't remember where.

Ternon. I think it was a motel room.

Crag. Where was that?

Ternon. Gosh, I can't... Rivenstar maybe? Someplace.

Bear. Crown Tourney there?

Ternon. Yeah. And I remember, the only thing I can really remember was Alisandra del Castlesallice glowering at me through the entire meeting. And this incredible speech that Rory got up and made, mostly for the benefit of Ithriliel and Laurelin, which went something like, as I remember it, "Guys, a lot of people from the Curia, from the Imperium have been asking me, they've been coming up to me and saying things like, gosh, Calontir is really looking a lot like a principality. Why isn't it a principality, Rory?" And he turned to Laurelin and said "And I really, I've never come up with anything sounding like a good answer."

Juan. Good ole Rory.

Ternon. And I thought to myself, this is a good sign. This is a very good sign.

Crag: What was the response?

Ternon. Alisandra then, I believe, said something about the treasurer's office is in a total mess.

Crag. That was true.

Ternon. And, well, yes, but I believe someone else and I can't remember...

Bear. That's OK, we had no money anyhow.

Ternon. Yeah. What I believe the response to that was, and I can't remember who responded, was how does that make them any different than the rest of the Middle Kingdom?

Sidebar: the issue with Alisandra del Castlesallice

Juan. Do you understand about Alisandra?

Elwyn. I've met her.

Juan. OK. No. Alisaundra was a recent countess when the person who was the treasurer of the Middle Kingdom left the office and no one would take it. And she felt the weight of her coronet. And she took the office on a temporary basis until somebody could be found who would take the office. Eight years later, no one had taken the office and she was still temporary treasurer of the Middle Kingdom. The result of which was that Alisandra had come to believe that there was only one evil and that was anything that caused her to do work as a treasurer. And, 2) that she was entitled to do anything she damn well pleased. She'd put in all the service that any 27 people should be expected to do, and she was allowed to do anything she wanted. And you know what? Nobody would tell her no. Because they all agreed that she had done enough work to be allowed to do anything she damn well pleased. And that was Alisandra. And so she had very idiosyncratic opinions and no one would buck her.

Ternon. Are we still in useful ranges talking?

Crag. Yes.

Ternon. OK. I just wanted to be sure this kind of digression is useful to you.

Juan. And she worshipped the ground Cire walked on. As a treasurer.

Crag. Because Idris the Wise was the one who made the mess.

Juan. Yes. Idris made a mess of it.

Bear. Didn't we have someone else?

Juan. Harold.

Geoffri. Hillary.

Bear. Hillary.

Geoffri. Hillary.

Elwyn (?) Hillary.

Juan. Didn't we have Harold before that?

Bear. No, Harold was later.

Juan. OK.

Geoffri. (?) Edward in there.

Juan. But Edward actually knew what he was doing with money. And not only did he turn in wonderful reports, but he had ideas as to how Alisandra could do less work in her job. And Alisandra thought that this meant he should be given a pelican on the spot. My God, somebody who's found a way to give me less work. Quick. Make him a count. Give him a ducal coronet. Don't let him leave.

Geoffri.. I think they said no to that.

Juan. No, she never said it that way. What she said was, "He can have my job." Which was her answer to anybody who showed up confident anywhere near her.

Crag. I could understand why she said that, too.

Juan. Yes.

Geoffri. What else would you like to know?

Juan. Well, he was asking about a north-south split that we never talked about.

Geoffri. I can't talk to that.

Juan. I don't remember anything.

The Northern Arts Consortium

Elwyn. One constructive thing that happened for a while was the... what was it called, the Northern Arts Consortium?

Juan. Yeah, I remember those guys.

Elwyn. Sure. Luciana was in on that at the beginning. It was a functioning thing for a while and the north, they got some identity sense and... I don't know.

Bear. The main north-south split basically was the fact that most the people at that time were in Coeur d'Ennui, and...

Elwyn. Lonely Tower.

Bear. William was still pissed at Forgotten Sea, therefore they didn't travel back and forth. And that was the split.

Elwyn. They used I-80 a lot more and Coeur d'Ennui and Lonely Tower built some bridges to each other.

Bear. And there were complaints about, you know, people never come up to our events, and...

Elwyn. They put this thing together and ran, had some smallish events, arts focus kind of thing, I think, and they upped their self esteem.

Juan. I do remember a complaint once that one of these groups had an event that nobody came to except people from the other group along 80, and that was one of the things that William used in his anger at Forgotten Sea, this we're able to travel along I-80 but apparently I-35 has a giant ditch in it. Which was nonsense, but apparently, probably a snowbound event is what I guess. I-80 was clear there.

Elwyn. They're used to dealing with snow.

Juan. Either that or the way snow goes, 80 was clear and 35 wasn't.

Geoffri. I know we traveled up there a lot. Not as much as we went to Three Rivers or Three Rivers came to us, but it seems like to me we went up there a lot.

Juan. Well, William liked to invent things.

Elwyn. They wanted to feel neglected for a little while.

Ternon. They were feeling neglected. I think they were looking for good rationales as to why they were feeling neglected.

Sidebar: the Twelfth Night when everything froze

Juan. It may have been something like the 12th night after the one from hell. There was this 12th night where the temperature reached -6°.

Crag. Way below 12th Night.

Elwyn. Yes.

Juan. Yeah. Way below 12th Night. Where Brumbär will remember getting to walk to a gas station to buy a liquid can of oil to put in my car. 'Cause the ones we had in there weren't liquid.

Bear. ...Still took half and hour to get it started even with a jump.

Juan. Event after. This guy from Minnesota with permanently mounted jumper cables on his truck and three separate flannel shirts of varying different bigger sizes on him, was tooling around Omaha laughing at people and starting their cars, having a great time saying, "You wimps in Omaha, you don't know anything about cold. I'm from Minnesota." And he managed, in the process, to get our lousy little car from St. Louis started, too.

Bear. We were the only ones from Three Rivers to get out of there that day.

Juan. That's right. Everyone else was frozen in.

Bear. Stephen was there til Tuesday.

Juan. We did not turn off the car until we got to Kansas City.

Ternon. One of my favorite moments in any court I've ever held was at that event.

Juan. Jayce.

Ternon. Well, beyond Jayce. I guess I have...

Juan. That was your favorite moment in any court, we all know. (actually this is during the Principality period, Ternon's reign as prince)

Ternon. OK. Jayce. I'll start with Jayce. Jayce Ravenhair, very beautiful, very voluptuous young woman, was wearing this incredible, incredible décolletage dress, and, well, I was doing court up on this stage that was...

Crag. Don't you love it when that happens?

Ternon. Yes, exactly. It is good to reign.

Juan. It is good to stand on the throne 4' up while women bow to you.

Ternon. So she was really moved by this experience of getting her AoA. And it come to the part of the scroll where "We do reward her for her service to Calontir." And the next work is supposed to be "specifically", but when I said that, she took this little fetching sigh, you know, of deep emotional impression. And I was reading the scroll and so I was looking down at this direct line of sight, and I noticed that she was a natural brunette. And then the next word was "specifically". I remember saying "sisistically". And everyone in the populace pretty much got what had happened.

Juan. Actually when you turned bright purple.

Ternon. Yes, pretty severely for a moment.

Juan. The only time I've ever seen you embarrassed over a woman.

Ternon. Well, you know, what a woman.

Juan. Do you know that Jayce was proud of herself? She said, "I made him embarrassed."

A record number of AoAs at that court

Ternon. She made me blush. That's a rarity. I gave out what I believe may still be a standing record for the number of AoA's awarded in any reign in our history or perhaps any other kingdom's history. I think we gave out 39 that night.

Juan. Yes, in groups of five.

Ternon. Yeah.

Juan. They were called up in groups to get through court.

Ternon. And Isaac de Hugo, I believe it was, was sitting back there in court. And I could hear him because, of course, sound travels well in that direction. And he was getting more and more outraged by the fact that I kept giving out these AoA's, but I had a backlog that was simply staggering of AoA's to give out. And when Moonwulf said, Moonwulf sat me down, digressing somewhat, at an event when he and Takya had just won Crown, and he said, "OK, what awards do you want to be able to give out as prince?" And he suggested peerage level awards. And I...

Juan. ...Not our enemy.

Ternon. And I thought for a moment, for a moment I had a spontaneous visceral event. But once the erection subsided and I started thinking, I thought, well, no, you know, this is a good way to make a lot of powerful enemies even more inimicable. And...

Juan. I still think you were wrong, but that's OK.

Ternon. I said, "OK." Well, then Takya, who was thinking quickly along the same lines, said, "Well, what about Willows and Silver Hammers [sic]?" And I said, "Look. Here's what it is. We have a backlog of AoA recommendations that is staggering. If you would just simply allow me to do AoA's as prince, in the name of the King of the Middle, that would make me very happy and a lot of people who have been patiently waiting around to get an Award of Arms, some of whom had been waiting as long as Elderydd, it would make me very happy." And so he was more than, he was pleased as punch to give me that. So I gave away a whole bunch of awards that first event I could, figuring I could clear up maybe a third of the backlog, or a little more. So Isaac was sitting out there in the populace getting more and more hot under the collar. And I finally heard him say, "That's it. The AoA is now worthless. He has completely devalued the AoA. It no longer means anything." And I turned....

Juan. Isaac never lets you know what he thinks

Ternon. No, he's really so reticent. He's so reticent to tell you what on his mind. And I turned to the herald, 'cause I know that Isaac was a ways down the list and that he was getting his AoA. And I turned to the herald, and I can't remember who was heralding my court, I said...

Elwyn. Liathen )?

Ternon. Could have been Liathen. I said, "Do Isaac next." And so immediately after having made his pronouncement, what for Isaac surely was sotto voce, but for anybody else would have been a fairly good declamatory voice about how the AoA was now worthless and would never be an award again, he was called up to receive his AoA.

Juan. How did he behave?

Ternon. Sheepish is a good word.

Juan. Good. That's the other thing I know about Isaac. He lets you know what's on his mind and when he puts his foot in his mouth he is aware that he has done it.

Ternon. I'll be up in the royal presence as soon as I deal with this foot problem.

Juan. He does do that. He doesn't bluff through it, he doesn't get mad, he just says, OK, I screwed up again.

Elwyn. He's trained in drama or singing or what?

Juan. He has a master's degree in theatre.

Crag. He's laureled in the Middle Kingdom.

Juan. Did he make his laurel?

Crag. Oh, yeah.

Juan. Yes. You understand he was my apprentice and I lost track of him.

Crag. You've lost track of a few through the years.

Juan. No, that's the only apprentice I've lost track of. I kept his, I think he's in Charleston, Illinois somewhere.

Crag. No.

Juan. Then I've really lost track of him. What?

Crag. He's in Flame.

Juan. And he did get his laurel?

Crag. He's in Barony of the Flame, and I'm pretty sure he does.

Juan. Well, if he's in Barony of the Flame, I'll call up the Barony of the Flame and find out. Yeah, he got his Willow. He had troubles in Meridies. Well, this is my apprentice. I'll deal with it off this tape.

The path to kingdom status

Crag. Any other sweet juicy stories about the beginning? What, or thoughts about how you guys had it in mind versus how it's spun out?

Juan. I had it in mind to happen about two years earlier.

Geoffri. I remember Dev...

Juan. It still hasn't done that.

Geoffri. You know, having to, in the many midnight phone calls with Dev, saying patience, patience, patience. It'll get there. And try to get him to subscribe, once he had decided that we were going to do this, it had to be done yesterday. And there was no patience at all. And I remember, without ever telling him that my whole plan was baby-step my way to this thing. You know, I remember trying to get him to slow down just a little bit. Let's don't piss people off when we do it, you know. We can get where we want to go.

Juan. You're giving less credit for experience than I actually have. I will tell you where I got these bright ideas. I was in the Boy Scouts for many years, and eventually I became senior patrol leader, which is roughly the equivalent of seneschal, or is roughly the equivalent of seneschal to the extent to which a 14 year old boy is ever seneschal of anything that has a group of parents as its leader. And there I was in a committee meeting. The committee is the parents, which is to say the Middle Kingdom Curia. And the parents, the committee, asked me who I thought should be the patrol leaders of our eight patrols because the practice at the time was to promote all of the patrol leaders at once into what was called the Eagle Patrol. And then make successor patrol leaders in each of our patrols. And to what was their complete astonishment they told me later, I rattled off my head, going down the patrols, who I thought should be the patrol leader of each one, including in the patrol that I'd quit been the patrol leader of, the person with whom I'd just had a rock throwing fight. And they, among other things, asked me why on earth I wanted Jim. And I said, "Because Jim is desperately frustrated for some self esteem and for some chance to prove himself, and I'm quite sure that he will prove himself and quit behaving like Jim as soon as he gets some authority to exercise. That's what he needs. He needs a chance."

And the committee, completely taken aback by this, installed every single person I recommended. All of them worked out. And I ended up, as a result, with this very very firm belief that the way to tell with ambitious people is to give them a chance to exercise authority. And the way to deal with anything that looks like it has any chance of working is to give it a chance to succeed. And there we were, big enough to be a principality with people holding offices already in place, and I saw absolutely no reason to turn our awards structure and our self control loose to us. I saw no reason not to do this. It looked like nothing more than a collection of patrol leaders again, and that's my personal philosophy of how to manage. And I said to myself, what happens if they make us a principality and we collapse into a little heap? The answer is nothing. They end up with a principality with too few people to be a principality and they fold it. So we can't fail. All we can do is slit our own throats. We can't, in the long run, fail. All we can do is have had this little stupid run as a principality and then go back to recruiting people which is what they want us to do without giving us a chance to prove ourselves.

Ternon. If it's any consolation to you, you weren't on the radical right wing of the "let's just wait until they're good and ready" philosophy. Shadan and Lars were much more...

Juan. Way over there.

Ternon. Yeah.

Crag. Pause to change tape.

TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE

Ternon. You know, pretty much from William for a long time about how things weren't stable and how it was the north versus the south. And 2) a lot of the contacts were OMK (Old Middle Kingdom), and they couldn't see the virtue, that there was any real virtue to what we were doing at the stage we were doing it at. I think as soon as they saw that there were practical purposes and advantages to being a principality, they...

Geoffri. They came around.

Ternon. They, yeah, they were always very much of the "let's wait until the Middle Kingdom..."

Geoffri. I was never in that mode. I was never in "let's wait till the Middle Kingdom's ready". I was, let's set a goal that we know we can make in a short period of time. Achieve that goal, set another goal, achieve that and baby-step our way. I never used the expression, but I mean that's what I was doing. Let's baby step. We can baby-step in high gear, but let's baby-step our way to where we want to be, and that way we do it without pissing anybody off. Middle Kingdom or otherwise. I mean I had been waiting, I mean I was really frustrated. I had been waiting since Nordskogen Crown to get this thing into kingdom mode, and we were still trying to get into regional mode, you know, much less principality, which didn't come along until after we had turned it over to Elwyn as seneschal. I never got to see, all I got to see was the birth. I got to see none of the formative years and the growing up, and the rest of the stuff. And so I was really frustrated. I wanted to see it all. I wanted to be part of it all.

Juan. When you were dealing with me, you were getting two things: one was you were getting me with a practical plan in mind that I had already tried at the age of 14 with 13 year olds, and it had worked. And I was going to be really hard to talk out of believing that the officers of Calontir couldn't handle the job a bunch of 13 year olds could handle. And the other thing that bothered me was that every time we went after a small goal, it would take us roughly 2/3 of the amount of time I though it would take us to get the whole thing if we'd only shoot for it, and then we'd be a quarter of the way there. We'd spend another 2/3 of the time to get another quarter. And another 2/3 of the time to get another quarter and four 2/3 don't make one. What I figured was if we went for the whole damn thing at once, it would take us more time to get any one of the baby steps, we'd get the whole damn thing in a lot less time.

Geoffri. And at the same time, we risked blowing the whole thing, and I think that was...

Juan. I don't think we ever risked blowing the whole thing. I thought that the biggest ally that we had was that if it got big enough and bad enough and mean enough, it'd go upstairs to the Board [of Directors], and that they'd scratch their heads and say, yeah, what's the problem.

Geoffri. And maybe we didn't have enough midnight phone calls, then.

Juan. That's what I thought, why not go for the whole thing and let it end up in the Board.

Geoffri. But you never said that to me.

Juan. I said it to you regularly.

Geoffri. No, not that way. Not that way.

Ternon. I think we also failed to understand the ideological processes that were going on in the Middle Kingdom at the time. We thought that any rational human being, if we took incremental steps in the right direction would say, "These people have taken an awful lot of incremental steps in the right direction, so let's go ahead and give them the authority and the autonomy." And I think when I knew I started really seriously loosing my ticket was when I realized that I was being told two sets of information from the same people. Go ahead and look as much like a principality , and we'll make you a principality. And then what I wasn't being told directly was, gosh this Middle Kingdom entity that we love so much is about to be split up, and it makes our guts churn when we think about this very much, and it really frightens us. And look at these people out in Calontir, they always have troublemakers who come to us with their problems, so obviously they don't have things under control, which is the best of all possible reasons to deny them this. And when I saw that process going on, that's when I started lapsing into serious irrationality, and allowing my limbic system to do things that my frontal lobes...

Juan. I never lapsed into irrationality, I lapsed into a belief that I was going to have to, by force, create enough trouble in Calontir... to get Calontir to create enough trouble to get the damn thing to the Board where it belonged. I'm serious. I was further off the left end than you thought. I gave up very early on the idea of this being solved within the Middle Kingdom. I though that it was going to have to come to a Board fight. So what I was grying to do for most of that time, particularly after you left, was force a Board fight. Which is way over on the left end. And I'm quite sure when I told you that, you didn't believe I meant it just because it's much further over the to left left than you thought even I would go.

Geoffri. Probably.

Juan. But in fact, I was perfectly willing to go that far.

Geoffri. I know I used to, when I would make those midnight phone calls to the officers, and I'd make the midnight phone call to you and you weren't one of the officers, it was because of the respect that I had for your political expertise and for your insights into why people were acting the way they were acting.

Juan. Nah. It was because I would tell you something that nobody else had told you even if you had talked to all of the officers, and one out of 10 of them made sense.

Geoffri. Well, yeah. But that was it. I mean because I have never had the insight into the motivation of people and the why of people, the reason they do things.

Juan. I don't perceive of myself as being good at that. I perceive of Alcynon as being good at that. I perceive of Ternon as being wonderful at that. That's what, when I picked Ternon's brain, it was to find out what people thought like. I don't believe I have any real grasp of what people think like. I believe that I have a grasp of what they will do based on statistical evidence of what they have done. In other words I don't analyze people from a point of view of how does this person think. I analyze people from point of view of what has this person done and what would the same behavior translate into this new situation turn out to be like.

And what I gathered about the people we were dealing with in the Middle Kingdom was that they had always done in the past was make fights over small issues to avoid fighting over big issues and stall in the name of conservatism and bring up tradition as a rationalization point whenever they had no logical reason for what they were doing. They would simply recite tradition like a Hindu mantra. Once I realized that's what I thought they were going to do, what I did was I tried to devise a plan designed to get to win against that behavior.

And I realized that the way to win against that behavior, in a situation where there are superiors, meaning Board, was to expose that behavior for what it was to the Board, and to expose it over an issue big enough that the Board would act, and that the win that we got would be real. And that was why I wanted to conduct the fight that way. I wanted to only fight over the principality. I did not want to fight a succession of never ending baby-steps, which is why I would get frustrated with you and not want to listen to your lectures on patience, because I thought patience was counterproductive and playing into the hands of the people I was having trouble with. I thought that everytime you wanted to take a baby-step, they went, "Oh, boy. Look. We can stall over this. We can't stall nearly as long over as we can stall over the big one, but we can stall over this and then stall over the big one later just as long." And I thought you were playing into their hands. And that was why I had no patience, was that I though what you were doing was counterproductive.

Ternon. I can tell you when I moved from Rousseau to Machiavelli, Brumbear was there the afternoon I did that, actually.

Juan. Actually it's like Rousseau to Lenin. Or maybe Trotsky.

Ternon. Trotsky.

Juan. Trotsky, yeah. You can be Trotsky and I'll be Molitov.

Ringbearer vs Warlord

Ternon. It was Illiton Crown. And I had a pretty ugly kind of frustrating fight with a certain really kind of wonderful human being, but we had an ugly fight. And I came off the field after having an even uglier run-in with Alen and with Duke Andrew. And Brumbar and I walked off into the woods and he got to watch me chew on bark for a while as I remember correctly. And as we were coming back, Alen pulled me aside and said, "I've got something I want to sort of discuss with you. Something I want to show you. And then you can have a serious talk." And so he lead me out to the back of his car and opened up his trunk and pulled out this scroll with my name on it and all sorts of interesting, Baron Rashid did it, with all sorts of interesting illuminations of things, me. Portraits of me doing various things. And it was the first time that I had been acquainted with the concept of "ringbearer". And to be honest, my emotional state at the time was, let's just chuck all this nonsense, shall we. What you're doing here is having an office that will allow you to deny the reality of Warlord, and let's just be honest and talk about this for a minute. And...

Elwyn. You said that to him?

Ternon. No. I thought that very loudly.

Elwyn. Alright.

Ternon. I was thinking that, because you see I was still, I was still in kind of a limbic mode from the unfortunate fight in Crown Tourney.

Juan. But you are sure Alen is not telepathic?

Ternon. Yeah. He isn't the kind of person I would immediately peg for a good telepath.

Juan. Because he would have picked that up if he had.

Ternon. Yeah. And it would have gone downhill. And then, and this may be a moment of perhaps my most severe paranoia, my next response was, I'm really worried about this. If I go with my emotions and say, "Gee, no thank you, but this doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Let's invest the warlord with the kind of authority and responsibility to the Crown that you are investing the ringbearer with." He would then be able to say, "Look at what we did. Look at what we are trying to do. And look at how unreasonable these people from Calontir are."

Juan. You saw the trap sitting there.

Ternon. "When they throw this back in our face." And I thought, you know, if it is not being expressly done as a trap, certainly the possibility for it to become a trap later is very real and very omnipresent. And so I agreed. And I had... I remember all the way back from Illiton Crown, driving back home, just kind of muttering to myself about what this does to the office of Warlord.

Crag. Mind you, you were only the second Warlord, so the tradition of Warlord was not yet all set up.

Ternon. No, and particularly...

Crag. But it was strong in your minds.

Ternon. But not in theirs, not as well established. They did have what I considered to be a legitimate grievance about the Warlord in that we had Warlord and Consort, as opposed to Warlord and Princess, or something that seemed analogous to the...Roman de la Rose philosophy that the Crown of a principality or a kingdom possesses. And I saw that as a weakness right off the bat. And when they said that to me, I was really conscious of that objection. But I thought that was something that would be relatively easily rectified and that what we had created structurally was something, in the Warlord, was something that could smoothly make a transition to the role of Prince.

And so I found that particular thing, the idea of becoming Ringbearer a necessary step backward from where I thought we should be going, and how the Middle Kingdom should be perceiving us. This is not far away from the time where Laurelen pulled me aside and gave me a big pep talk about the way you guys are going to become a principality is by acting and looking like a principality and so it really confused me when all of a sudden Alen had this other radically different sort of sounding idea.

Crag. When did Laurelen say that to you?

Ternon. I know you were going to ask that.

Juan. These historians and their date fetishes.

Ternon. I was standing in a corridor in a building, like an anteroom. And he caught up with me and said that we should talk. So it started off with pleasantries and then worked its way into the idea of principality. He assured me that it was nothing that he was averse to, but that it had to be done in a way that looked good. And that's why I was really so very confused then when this whole thing was suggested.

Elwyn. Do you remember what position Laurelen had when he said it? Was he marshal, king?

Ternon. No, I don't.

Juan. He was always one or the other.

Setting up our award orders

Geoffri. What was the Middle Kingdom's reaction when they found out that Calontir had set up all of the orders, the Cross and the Hammer and the Lily and so on?

Ternon. I believe the phrase I heard was "these cute little awards. These cute little orders."

Juan. That was the one thing for which I never got any negative feedback.

Crag. Why? Because they...

Elwyn. They didn't have any meaning outside of Calontir.

Crag. It was forbidden in the Middle Kingdom. Talymar talks about before he came there being some controversy in which some shires got just totally shot down for having shire award structure, and him being shocked in his first reign to come to Calontir and find every shire in the region full of stuff that was illegal by kingdom law.

Geoffri. Like the Order of the Trident Tree.

Juan. I have no idea why we never got anything for it, but there seemed to be no negative response.

Erich. There were a number of local and household orders and things like that all through the Middle Kingdom.

Juan. There was a small flap, was a small flap in the middle of the process, Alcynon ought to be here to talk about this, when the Middle Kingdom became of the opinion that Robert's creation of the Order of the Calon Lily with its charter and all that nine yards, was tougher to get into than the Order of the Laurel was or should be and thereby was a piece of outrageous effrontery for being a higher level award. And Stephen put an end to that by trotting out all the C & I people that we had in the Order of the Lily, whereupon the Middle Kingdom Order of the Laurel passed them all for Laurels and that was the end of the issue.

Crag. Was that how we got the influx of all those folks right then?

Juan. Yes. Stephen went to an Order of the Laurel meeting in the Middle Kingdom with a whole batch of scrolls and a tape of Gwyneth. And they didn't believe Gwyneth's tape really, but all the scrolls really did the trick. Because they could see them and that's how, and that's how they were all the C & I people and nobody else, because they were the ones with portable evidence.

Crag. Which is why C & I was just such a hit.

Juan. We had good people.

Ternon. And the standard for Laurel level work up and to that point in our parent kingdom had included work with felt tips.

Crag. What's calligraphy and illumination like in the Midrealm now? Pretty good?

Juan. Oh, yeah. Stand up to anybody's. That seems to be partially the result of this Baron Rashid. Baron Rashid seems to have had a lot to do with the quality making a quantum leap. But he's certainly not the only one. But, yeah, by now, there's no difference at all. Through for awhile there, Alcynon and Aelith and even Stephen, not to, and Merowyn, were head and shoulders above anybody in the Middle Kingdom other than people in Calontir. What really happened was there was portable evidence. Stephen could take scrolls. Stephen couldn't take Gwyneth's singing voice.

Crag. (Unintelligible)

Juan. Well, yeah. I still say the main reason for a peer's retreat if to see Gwyneth in a bathing suit.

Ternon. Amen to that fair prayer, say I.

Juan. Hey, there you go. Other than that, forget them.

Lars. So much for chivalry.

Juan. I'm perfectly chivalrous for Gwyneth. I tell her what I think of her in a bathing suit, and she blushes very prettily.

Ternon. Sigh.

Glimglorian

Bear. Have you talked to him about Glimglorian?

Crag. Yes. We talked about Glimglorian.

Lars. Me and my sister and some college kids.

Bear. Coming to our first ever tournament in Three Rivers.

Crag. This is Lars the Fierce that's joined us.

Lars. Do you remember any of that? Us showing up?

Bear. Yeah.

Juan. Lars was...

Lars. We felt really invisible.

Geoffri. Where did you, you took off. You were transferred,

Lars. I went in the summer of '76. I graduated from high school and went up to Iowa.

Juan. Lars, we knew who you were.

Geoffri. And I knew who you were, and I had never met you.

Juan. Peregrine Northumber had told us about you.

Geoffri. I met your three ladies.

Lars. There was one person, somebody in, I don't even know if it was Forgotten Sea, but they were having some sort of meeting. They called me. I got myself lost. You did sword and shield there? I finally found their house late, almost a tank of gas later, and everyone had been gone an hour. But I had some armor, and I put him in the armor, and I did sword and shield on him and don't know if I ever saw him again.

Geoffri. But I very early contacted the three ladies, because by the time I got involved in September, you were gone. September of '76, and I got ahold because one of the phone numbers given me along with Stephen and Dev was these ladies in Ystrad Straddele, and I finally got ahold of them, and I invited them to one of our first revels in my basement, I remember that, and then they, one or more of them went to Nordskogen for Crown Tourney.

Ternon. Tanna and Barb.

Geoffri. Yes. Were the two ladies.

Lars. Mundanely the one who went to Winnipeg was a locksmith. She was the one who came with me to (something) the name I couldn't remember of the four of us that went to the event in Three Rivers.

Bear. Did you fight at that?

Lars. And there was a guy named Miles. We had a freon tank helm that had a breathing hole the size of a quarter. And he, it was angle iron nose and a slit. And he was a heavy smoker, but he was dynamite for about the first two minutes.

Juan. Then he couldn't breathe.

Lars. And then he started to try and suck rocks... he ended up moving to California.

Juan. Bear, you and I knew about him. Peregrine Northumber passed his, your name, back to those of us who were in the Three Rivers Horde. With the reputation this guy's just out of High School and everywhere he goes there's an SCA group. He is Johnny SCAseed. I've known you as Johnny SCAseed since 1975.

Lars. Too good, too good.

Juan. Well, no, now, wait a minute. There's Shadowdale.

Geoffri. By '75.

Lars. I know what you're saying.

Juan. You're not responsible for Shadowdale.

Lars. NO, I went to Barony of Dumnonia's first tournament, but I went as a Jaravellir

Juan. But I know you as Johnny SCAseed in 1975 when you came to the first event. And I said, "Oh, wow. There's Johnny SCAseed.

Bear. I don't think it was one of you, you or Miles, but that tourney...

Juan. Here comes Alcynon.

Bear. Even though I didn't get very far in it, that tournament made me want to keep fighting. 'Cause the first fight I had, I hit a guy in the face hard enough that his helm bloodied his nose. And the blood dripped onto the chainmail. And that just made it so real.

Geoffri. It was real.

Juan. What was that. Oh, goody, I've got to do that. If I'd known that, I'd never have fought you in a practice.

Lars. My chainmail wasn't done until '77. It wasn't me.

Ternon's first fighter practice and the early helms

Ternon. My first fighter practice, very first shot Brumbear throws at me is the sort of proto-type rising snap we were doing at that point in time. And I believed it with a child-like sincerity. Shield down. I believe, lord, I believe. My leg, oh, my leg. So then I was all of a sudden I was staring at the roof of this dojo we were in, and I remember you come over, you stepped up to me and leaned over and grabbed my arm to help me up. And as you were helping me up, you said, "Would you like to learn how to do that?" and I said, "Yes."

Geoffri. And I believe...

Juan. That's a vile recruiting method for fighters, isn't it? Would you like to learn how to do that? Oh, yes.

Lars...Bruises, we've got things that don't leave bruises.

Ternon. He also saved my life. My first freon can helmet, I thought that the natty way of getting over the visibility and breathing problem was just to tack a piece of expanded steel mesh across the face plate.

Unknown: Chickenwire.

Ternon. Yeah. And I though, this'll work. And he takes it and sets it up on this little raised dais, steps back and throws a pretty casual looking shot into the face plate and then has to sort of pry his sword...

Geoffri. Out of what would have been your temple.

Ternon. Yeah. Somewhere deep back in my frontal lobes. And I had really mixed emotion, like "I worked a long time on that helmet," and "that man just saved my life."

Lars. When I started, one of the helms we used, they didn't have chin straps in those days, and we had a freon tank with a completely open bar structure. It was the envy of everyone because they were fighting out of these little triangles that they had like hacked out with hacksaws. And I had this thing and I was fighting Thorbjorn Greysides, and he got my knee, so I'm on my knee. And sure enough, he's been in his basement inventing new things, and this 6'6" man with a 3' axe, did a 360º turn, and I stared. What? Whoomm!

Juan. Oh, look. He's dancing.

Lars. Bars came flat onto my whole face, and I'm lying flat on my back and blood running down, going, "Oh, good. Thorbjorn's been thinking again."

Bear. Saw him last weekend.

Lars. Yeah. I saw him.

Juan. Really. Where?

Lars. Midrealm Crown.

Bear. The Kurultai at Pat's Farm. And Svea's wedding. He was there. Andrew was there.

Juan. Neat.

Bear. Baladur was there.

Juan. Wow. I haven't seen him in ages. He and Andrew were there and they didn't kill each other? Wow.

Ternon. Time heals all wounds.

Juan. I guess.

Lars. Thorbjorn's also, he's turned into a cavalier.

Crag. What?

Lars. He wears lace. He does pokey pokey. He's part of the Midrealm Rapier.

Juan. Oh, not that outfit.

Stephen. I can see it now. Thorbjorn le Grisois.

Lars. This is the new Porthos, you know? I shall pick up your inferior partner and fling him from view. And then I shall seduce you, my lady. And in his own mind, those are the scripts.

First impressions of Ternon and joining House Warenne

Ternon. Can I ask two somewhat similar questions from two very divergent human beings because I have to say I was not very self-aware back in that period of my life. I'd like to ask, and if you have to turn off, if I have to ask these later, tell me. I'd like to really know what A) Stephen first thought of me because our mode of meeting was so unusual. And the same is true for you, Geoff. I'd like to , because once again, we meet under really kind of, both cases, kind of negative circumstance. And at the time I was very aware of the fact that I probably had no good foot to put forward. I was just wondering if your memory goes back that far.

Stephen. I'm trying to remember exactly how we actually...

Ternon. You and Arwyn held a court of inquiry…

Stephen. I'm trying to remember. Did we come to Forgotten Sea, Kansas City to do this?

Ternon. No.

Stephen. Or did you come to visit us?

Ternon. We drove down there and you guys were having some kind of demo that involved a haunted house.

Bear. The haunted house up at Gardenville.

Stephen. Yes, I remember that. You were part of that party. I do remember that.

Ternon. I seem to remember you asking Arwyn a lot of detailed questions trying to verify whether I was simply blowing smoke or not. And I thought, well, OK. I'm probably not coming off as real plausible or credible. I'm probably sounding a bit more like a loony with every sentence.

Stephen. I don't have a lot of detailed memory of that. What I remember was that I liked you and I wanted to believe you and so I was being careful that I wasn't going to get snowed just 'cause I liked you.

Ternon. That's a lot more positive than I remember that experience.

Juan. Yeah, if you thought you were a negative person, I have my doubts.

Geoffri. When I met you, the initial reaction was I liked you. There was some hesitation because of the reputation, it wasn't your reputation because I didn't know specifically who it was in Fountains who was involved in religious conflicts, and didn't know whether it was all of you or some of you or just that this was bullshit or what. But I always held that I care what anyone's beliefs are as long as they don't prosthyletize. And so it didn't put me off or anything, but...I've always been, and this will surprise some people, I'm very slow to get to know people. And I'm very slow to talk to people that I don't know well. And so Elwyn came north and slept at the house. Bear and Stephen and Dev and the whole group came west and slept at the house. And you went home at night, you and Ghleanna went home at night. And it took years, I respected you greatly, but I didn't know you. And it took years for me to get to know you to the point where I said, you belong in Warenne.

Ternon. That makes sense. I can see that.

Geoffri. And there was this respect but there wasn't the level of communication that there needed to be, but would have made our group better if it had been there. But until I sit and we sing and we talk and we share a little mead and things like that, I find it very difficult to open up to people and believe in them, trust them, I don't know what the words are.

Ternon. Yeah, yeah. OK. That makes sense because I really felt like something fundamental had changed when you all invited me into Warenne. Like that somehow, and I guess maybe it was just, I was sort of internalizing it. Maybe I was being more sane because I thought of myself as being out of control in that period and to a great extent still do. I found the SCA and it saved me from a life of extended bar fights.

Geoffri. You know what I hear, and I'm not a good amateur psychologist so take this with a lot of salt, but what I here is that there was a lot of lack of belief in yourself...

Ternon. Yeah.

Geoffri. And therefore you didn't intrude, OK? Or you didn't try to join, OK? And I never put you in the same group, I mean, I mentally never thought of you in the same group with Ansar and some of the other people.

Ternon. But I felt tarred with that same brush when I came I. I was very hesitant, trying to intrude and trying to assert myself because I though, you know, I'm coming into this group from the fragments of this other group, and I'm probably as responsible as anybody for this other group being fragmentary. And certainly on an official level, I'd gotten a great deal of the blame. And it was really tough at first. I'd come because I was really compelled to be in the SCA. It was a really compelling group and the people were really fascinating, and the chance to hit somebody with a stick was very delightful. But I really felt like an outsider for a while.

Geoffri. Let me see if I can express it this way. Bear came to my home and I got to know Bear. And so when I went to St. Louis, I stayed with Bear. But if Bear had never come to Forgotten Sea, then I never would have dreamed of saying, "Bear, can we stay with you?" I would have simply gotten a hotel room or gone home. Because that's the kind, I don't intrude. I'm pushy with people I know, or I'm pushy with people that I don't know and don't care. But when the potential is there, then, no, I'm reticent. And it was amazing because probably I was more open with these people than I have ever been with anyone in my life. Certainly I'm not this open with anybody in my mundane life, or with anybody outside my immediate family in Texas. I can sit and say things to some of the people sitting around this tent that I would never dream of discussing with anyone else. And there are some people with whom, since that time, I feel that, because maybe because they extend themselves to me, I don't know. But I feel almost that same kinship just almost immediately.

Ternon. It's interesting you saying that because one of the things that you have always done since I've first known you is inspire a great deal of loyalty and affection from the people who are close to you. I could have said that is a phenomenon exclusively of the group of people in Forgotten Sea, except you moved up to Caer Anterth and it happened there, too.

Geoffri. Did the same thing there and it wasn't my household there.

Ternon. Yeah, that's true. But that loyalty was still there.

Geoffri. The people that, it was, what was the gal's name that was Myfanwy's friend that moved to Denver...Arissa.

Ternon. Yeah.

Geoffri. Arissa and Myfanwy virtu...almost met me at the airport when I arrived. I mean literally. Here are two ladies that I had met at one event, and they collect me and they take me off. And Ian's there and he welcomes me with open arms. And Dougal welcomes me with open arms. And these people just included me and I became part of them. And I felt at home from the time I arrived with a small group of those people.

Ternon. Well, I think it's interesting because when I first met Myfanwy and then later Corin, it was almost as if I had been asked into their family because I think for a great deal of what you had told them about me, and Myfanwy was almost like a sister and almost on first meeting.

Geoffri. But what most people don't know, even in the household, is that the last member of the household ever to join was Myfanwy at her wedding. And I never publicized that. Because by that point the house was perceived as something political, and the house was perceived as something out for politics, and it never was. That was an offshoot that was unintentional and even undesired. And all it was, in talking to Crag the other night, I said maybe it's just that power draws power. And because we met at my place and we were the active people and we were the shakers and doers then naturally we got the offices. You know. But it was never an attempt to say that you can't have an office because you don't come and join Warenne. That was never there.

Ternon. I'm going to dog a person whose not here for a moment and share something that maybe some of you remember. Do you remember the Changlings when William Coeur de Boeuf came as Vainglory and Gloomshaven?

Geoffri. Yes.

Ternon. With all the strange tokens scotch taped to his chest that were Dorian's household awards being parodied, except for two, which I love. One was a measuring spoon that was the Order of the Laurel and Hardy. And then there was another one, I think it was a Wrigley gum wrapper scotch taped to his chest that was the Order of the Pemmikan. And I laughed until I nearly threw up. We went in a detailed manner across his chest with all of these award parodies. I think I got into that because part of the household, House Warenne's reputation of being political was a reaction from Dorian (?).

Geoffri. Sure it was. But it was also perceived that way outside of Forgotten Sea by people who didn't know. But it really was perceived that way within Forgotten Sea.

Ternon. Yeah.

Geoffri. And that was, there were three of us that first night when we were picking officers who wanted to be herald. To you remember that?

Ternon. I remember that.

Geoffri. And it was Moonraven and Gwydion and me.

(Pause for something.)

Geoffri. Bear, why would you want to kill me?

Bear. Because, I think it was during my second Warlord, we went to a Forgotten Sea event. You took Imrael after feast to go get a picture or something. You had to get for something, a painting or something like that.

Ternon. Hunt for a court, like it was a scroll?

Bear. We had agreed to have baronial court before Warlord court. You guys were gone for an hour and a half.

Geoffri. That's right. That's right.

Bear. And we're sitting there wanting to start court.

Ternon. I remember that.

Bear. Feast was over long ago. Where's Imrael? He's off with Ternon. I want to kill him.

Ternon. That was a big mistake. Sending me to do something like that.

Elwyn. He missed the pictures at my wedding, 'cause he forgot the mead. It's the same.

Ternon. Well, I'm from Forgotten Sea. What can I say? I forget.

END OF TAPE.

ready for web 1/25/98

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