Electric Stele

Esoteric Writings and Reference

The Moon and the Sun cover

Two Stories (The Moon and the Sun review, part 1)

April 19, 2024 /

I will describe two stories. A sort of gritty, low fantasy setting, set mostly around a royal court. Nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 1997, it only recently received a screen adaptation. Featuring primarily a group of siblings, their dead father had a certain great friendship with the King, but by the end of the book, they were no longer in favor with the reigning monarch. Another major character is a clever man with dwarfism, also with family connections to the royal family.  Though he is socially ostracized for his condition and irreverent cynicism, some parties value him for his wise counsel. Also, someone’s brother has joined a particular order, known by their monochrome garb. He is supposed to forsake personal and political loyalties for complete obedience to the holy master of the order, but it didn’t really work out that way.

Yes, indeed, George RR Martin’s A Game of Thrones lost to Vonda McIntyre’s The Moon and the Sun.

I will describe two stories. The main character is a sort of weird woman, ostensibly with the job role of a servant. Her best friend is a man ostracized for his unusual personal proclivity. Also with her is another woman who does a similar job, but suffers from her dark skin the legacy of slavery in this historical setting. The government has captured an ugly humanoid sea monster with magical touch-based healing powers, and it believes that exploiting its body will lead to global political dominance by that state. A sympathetic scientist pleads the authorities to not kill the creature, but they order him to dissect it, anyway. Due to her unusual relationship with sound, the woman lead discovers the sea monster is actually a sea person, and learns to communicate with it. Even without being dissected, it is in failing health due to being confined in a small pool rather than the open sea. Eventually, there is a desperate race to smuggle the sea person to a waterway that will allow it to escape to the sea.

The Shape of Water (2017) was a box office and critical success, winning 4 Academy Awards. The Moon and the Sun’s film adaptation, The King’s Daughter (2022) released to abysmal critical and box office failure after being in development hell for over 20 years. I have not watched it.

In the afterword of the copy of The Moon and the Sun I have access to, Vonda McIntyre describes her story, as a screenplay, as maybe being “too expensive, too difficult to film, too uncommercial, because it stars a woman, and a sea monster, and a male lead rather different from the usual tall and hunky hero.” One imagines that The Moon and the Sun walked so that The Shape of Water could run so that The King’s Daughter could crawl.

Latter Days of the House of Theophania, Ch 2

October 5, 2023 /
~~
The pair rowed their pack-laden boat down the River Elid in the dead of night. They had found the dead assassins’ ship, half sunk in the sea, a short walk from the ruins of Unkah. It had been another day of searching to find the longboat which had been rowed to shore and then set adrift when its owners perished, then another day to portage it across the sounds before they could find a low bank to the waterway. Then 2 days rowing inland, following the trail of the thief. Despite inhabiting the body of an old, frail, shaman, Ophius bones were filled with unholy power, and they pulled the oars longer and harder than Theophania could.
The single blue-lava lantern hoisted at the stern cast long shadows to the far bank of the sandy river. Thia gulped nervously as she spotted first the half-gnawed carcass of some unidentifiable creature, and then the fatbodied crocodile that had apparently caught it. She muttered a swear, then picked up the oars and pushed again.
It would be a long night.
~~

Night had fallen, and the heat fled the desert.

The thief’s hireling had sitting bolt upright for hours. His bind were relatively loose – he had room to turn around, sway, wriggle and writhe, had he really wanted to – the problem was that he had quite a bit too much room. Tall, sturdy trees were rare in this part of the world, and Thia had made do by throwing a rope around a cactus. A poisonous hesporic cactus, with spines 8 inches long and dripping with shiny toxic sludge. The polite thing to do would have been to put up a board behind him, but, again, trees were rare and good lumber was expensive in this part of the world.

The hireling was beginning to shiver. He didn’t like what that did to the buffer of air behind him.

Ten yards away, the queen and the reanimate made camp, watching the captured curmudgeon out of the corner of their eyes. Ophius fed bits of dry brush to a small fire. Thia picked weevils out of their hardtack. Ophius raised an eyebrow. “Too rich for you, your highness?”

Thia made a face. “I’m royalty, not a monk. I don’t need to eat weevils if I don’t want to.” She then bit into a bug-beset biscuit, as if to make a point. “Bleh.” She made another face, picked a weevil out of the remainder, and tossed it into the simmering stew-pot with the others. She stood up, rummaged through some packs, and pulled out a broad, evil-looking knife.

“Fresh meat today!” she called out, and stalked out ominously away from the fire and towards the bound prisoner.

He squirmed uncomfortably.

Thia raised her knife and brought it down savagely, over and over. There was a squeal, a squawk, some tears and wet squelching. Onion and trapped magpie followed the tack into the pot. Thia pointed the bloody knife at the prisoner.

“Imagine what I could do to you with this.” She laughed, and patted him on the head, shoving a weevil-filled square of hard tack into his mouth.
~~

The Paragon Watchlist

October 4, 2023 /

Editors note:
This scathing diatribe was originally published on 9/26/23 in the Rising Winds Circle of Paragons group. It was in response to the growing trend in that group described in the first sentence.

In the last, I don’t know, year or so, people have started using the word “watchlist” to describe people who should be on a list to be watched for nearly being Paragon-level. The problem is that “nearly” spans a broad expanse, and people have used it to mean everything from “they would already be a Paragon if I were Monarch” to “this new person has picked a favorite class”, which is a range that includes just about everybody. For this reason, I am presenting a new, more specific, list of words, based off the respective degrees of separation to Paragon-ness.

1P – Paragon: Absolutely there; no discussion necessary. Already a Paragon-in-waiting for recognition.
2N – Near Peer: One step away, could be proven in the next event. Probably just has one weakness that needs to be improved, or just needs one opportunity to confirm they’re there.
3D – Developing Power: Definitely not there, but has shown consistency and dedication. Every event is a meaningful opportunity to track their progress. Will likely achieve Paragon in an intermediate time frame.
4R – Relevant Player: Relatively novice player. Has established a propensity for the class. Probably in need of guidance. May pursue paragonhood, but has not yet necessarily established dedication.
Now, the point isn’t that you need to be arbitrarily categorizing every single player into one of these groups – and, by all the stars that ever shone, I will weep and wail if you start referring to this as a tier list or using it like an isekai power ranking scheme. The point is to be armed with a vocabulary so you can identify considerations and describe people, when necessary, with words more precise than “watchlist”.
You will also notice that this isn’t a rubric, and doesn’t describe any of the specific characteristics or behaviors that define Paragon-ness. The characteristics of Paragon-ness are for you to decide; this identifies only how you should be comparing the closeness of a person’s actual characteristics and the ideal characteristics of a theoretical Paragon. And stop saying “watchlist”.

Latter Days of the House of Theophania, Ch1

October 3, 2023 /

Ch 1

~~~

The pair stood before the ruins of Unkah.

The walls had long been torn down, and the foundations worn down by aeons of sand and wind. The tombs were now hollow, treasures long stripped, as no guardians remained to protect their offerings. The Sphinxes, charged with duty by old gods, had fled with their charges, when the valley of queens was stripped of their aforementioned, and the people followed the rains. Nor the golems formed from earth and desert clay and imbued with the breath of life by the desert rabbi, which had fallen still and mute, their joints locked with the ever-biting sand until their bodies were worn to dust and carried away by the ever-tearing wind.

It would have been a testament to a great city reclaimed by nature after millennia of uninhabitance, if not for the stench of blood and cloud of flies. They had followed the assassins’ trail here across the sea of sand, and the new lanterns still sitting on vintage plinths like tiny lighthouses confirmed they had made the right guess. The cobalt-blue flames contained therein, bright like the lava of Karuulm and visible even in daylight, confirmed the identity of their quarry. The darts, venom-coated from the fang of a great zul-serpent of the poison waste, littered the ground like playground mulch.

Already dark from the grave, Ophius’s skin was growing even darker after a week in the harsh sun. It was taking a faint purplish cast, like the vintage of deep red wine – evidently some relic of blood blighted by the rite of anastasis that had summoned their spirit back into materium.

“I didn’t have a very long rest.”

Theophania stopped scanning the ruins and looked down at her companion. “Fifteen years. Longer than mortals get.”

Once upon a time, Ophius towered over the girl, and could have picked her up and carried her like a sack over their back. If Ophius was bothered by the fact that she seemed to have sprung up in the blink of an eye, it didn’t show. “When you’ve lived as long as long I have, you’ll wish you had more than fifteen years to sleep. Where did you even get this body?” If Ophius resented the new form they were inhabiting, it showed a little.

“My great-grandfather’s court shaman. Bellerophon the Majestic, holder of the Sacred Mirror of Devirt’Noc, Heir to the Holy Rings of, uh, I don’t remember. I was with you when you had to harvest new flesh after your old burnt out. You were always saying only strong bones could carry your power, not just any meat vessel would do. Thought I’d keep it in the family when I needed you again.” Thia shrugged.

“And why me?”

“Don’t you ever get tired of asking that?”

“Don’t repeat my own words back to me.” Ophius glared.

Thia grinned, impishly. “I took your words to heart. Went home after you died. Reclaimed the throne, like you said I should. Sealed the Dragon-God away, like the fortune-tellers said I must. And no, I wouldn’t really have trusted anyone else to do it, just like you said.”

“And why me? Didn’t trust anyone else? Your cultmates who helped raise me? Your underlings who are back home running the kingdom now?”

Thia exhaled shortly. “Trust? Maybe only when I’m watching them, and in view of the palace. Rely on? A little. He wasn’t working alone. Someone let him to steal what he was looking for, without raising alarm before someone noticed it was missing, and I didn’t have time to try to figure out who. I could trust a stranger, or someone I know for sure wasn’t involved.”

“Because I was dead.”

“Because you were dead.”

~~~

Latter Days of the House of Theophania, Prologue

October 2, 2023 /

Latter Days of the House of Theophania

Prologue

It was a common misconception that the spookiest part of Kingstown was deep in the old catacombs. Surrounded by bones of long dead lords and saints, far from the light of the sun and the open sky, dripping with the blood and dread power of forgotten sorcerers and the arcane artifacts with which they were interred, the dark and closing walls of bone beneath the earth could give a layperson the idea that some grotesque animatronic of bone and dead flesh wielding a rusty iron battle axe could turn around any corner and rip their head off.

They were mistaken.

It was up, at the edge of the woods: a copse beside the Royal Healer-Herbalists’ magic garden, at the bend of the river Mardu. Under the burning light of the sun and the silver light of the full moon. Where the hawk moths fluttered so thick in the air it seemed like you were drowning in a sea of eyes, and the phosphorescence of the blood beetles that carpeted the broad-leaf elephant ears so thick on the ground that it looked like a parade of Fae at the midsummer lantern festival. It was not the loose undead raised by errant necromantic power that threatened, but the wild and untamed Bigfoot, Manticore, and dread beasts of the woods that had lingered since the dawn of time that threatened to step out from behind a tree at any moment. It was the scarecrows and totems, the curse-markers planted every few hundred feet, the silently spoke that it was not just rumors, scary stories for children, imagined unlikely horrors; but real threats, so real that the Shamanic wing of the Palace Guard had sought talismans and fetishes to ward off their predation.

It was here, in the autumn twilight, that the small procession stood. Many masked and hooded figures stood in a circle around a damaged tombstone. The tombstone bore a badly weathered epitath, and all that could be read now was “Carry on my w…”. One figure carried an intricately carved stick, festooned in runes and pentacles, channels of energy, and planted it onto what might have once been a burial cairn. Despite the hard-packed earth and stone, the wood sank in easily without resistance. One carried an ancient, basilisk-jaw-visor helmet, which gleamed beyond what the sinking sun should allow, and placed it atop the post. One carried a deck of prophecy-cards, a set far more ornate than the sort you would expect from a common itinerant fortune-teller separating superstitious villagers from their coin. A gold-inlaid card was drawn, 0 The Fool, and it was wedged behind the plume-holder of the helmet.

Offerings were placed before the helmet: a cooked anglerfish and Karamjan deep-sea octopus, fetched directly from the distant sea and conveyed by fast horses in an ice-chilled chest; two glass flasks, one of a hearty yellow potion, brewed from ingredients taken from the Healer-Herbalists’ garden, and the other a blighted purple ichor, stopped and sealed with lead, drawn from dark pools in the northern wilderness; a twisted bracelet of hemp and brightly-dyed linen, worn and crudely woven as if by an anxious teenager.

The leader of the group, having been muttering continuously while her compatriots prepared the ritual, pushed her hood back. The gold and gems of her crown glimmered in twilight. Queen Theophania, first of her name, chanted to a final crescendo and pointed a ring-studded finger. The stone of the cairn buckled upward in a shower of dust. A hand, then another hand, rose from the dirt, and with a loud crack the very earth split open where the helmet had been placed. The prepared wooden totem had morphed, somehow both slowly and suddenly, and beneath the notice of mortal perception, into a living head, perched atop bony shoulders and emaciated chest of a dark figure that pushed its way out of its tomb.

The naked, androgynous, creature stepped out of the pit, dripping with dirt and worms and all sorts of unwholesome things. It stretched and twisted, as if working actual rust off of abandoned iron machinery, and then spread its arms. One of the cultists stepped forward with a crimson velvet cloak to drape upon it.

The raised being worked its jaws, and rasped out in a grating, wheezing whisper, “….ssss Thiiiaaa…”

Theophania stepped forward and embraced her old companion. “Welcome back Ophius. We have work to do.”

Simple Boffer Tournament Organization

October 1, 2023 /

Simple Tournament Formats

Sometimes you need to run a tournament – I’m looking at you, first-time Champion of a Shire. See my previous article for an broad overview on types of tournaments. Herein, I will explain some relevant basic vocabulary, and then a few strategies for running tournaments that require minimal logistics and planning experience.

 

Vocabulary

Bouts vs Eliminations

A single instance of two fighters hitting each other a bunch is a bout. We usually describe it as “Best X of Y”, e.g. “best 2 out of 3”, meaning, we fight until someone has won twice, and simultaneous kills count as nothing – winner of 2 advances. That is a whole bout. It is normal for most bracket-based tournaments to be best-2-of-3 for most bouts, and best-3-of-5 of final for the final 1 or 2 rounds. An X-elimination format means you must be defeated in X bouts to be eliminated from the entire tournament.

Reeves, Heralds, Marshals, Bean Counters

A Reeve (Amtgard), Herald (Belegarth/Dagorhir), or Marshal (SCA) is a referee who (1) knows the rules, (2) can stand next to a fight and go “no, you got hit there, you died”, and (3) often wears yellow or carries a long striped stick. Those titles are largely interchangeable, though I will often default to Reeve. A bean counter is someone who does not necessarily actually judge fights, but records results of bouts on paper and does addition.

Rings

A ring is a spot where people fight a bout. You probably will not actually mark a ring on the ground, nor have hard boundaries to the fighting zone. It may not even stay in the same place (but it’s helpful if it does). Each ring should have a reeve or set of reeves that control the fight and report the score to the tournament organizer. The number of rings is usually the bottleneck to tournament seed – two rings means twice as many fights as one ring.

Seeding

When it is known that a number of entrants are of high skill, common practice is to strategically place them on a constructed bracket. In other words, they are “seeded” at specific intervals in the list. Places with advanced history may calculate “seed points” based on previous tournament performance, or just consider previous wins at the same annual tournament. Places which can remember scaling awards for fighting prowess (Amtgard) can also simply count the people with the biggest number. Different tournament formats will do different things to seeded players.

Easy Formats

Other common formats, such as Texas Two-Step or Swiss, have logistical or administrative challenges that require significant setup or organizer effort. Traditional brackets are the easiest to administer.

Seeded Single Elimination

Structured brackets function by putting two players in a bout, and one player leaves. Each round eliminates half the players. For this reason, fully structured brackets must be of a power of two size, e.g. 8 or 16 starting slots. A tournament with a different number of entrants (most tournaments) must use  bracket of the next larger size, and fill the remaining slots with “byes”. When an player’s opponent is a bye, the player automatically “wins” and proceeds to the next round. Generally, byes should be assigned either randomly (if the overall seed assignment is random) or to the top seeded players, i.e. treated as if the bye is a lowest seed.

Fully Seeded

Usually, seeding is for placing high-skill players at specified points in a tournament bracket. If all of your players are of a specific known level – which is usually the case during the second stage of a tournament where the first stage creates the seeding – you can seed the entire bracket.

Fully seeded, 8 person bracket

Fully seeded, 8 person bracket

Partially Seeded

Many times, however, you only know that a few players are far ahead of the others. You can partially seed a bracket by placing the few high-skill players as per normal seed rules, then just filling up the rest of the bracket with the rest of the names in no particular order.

8 person bracket, partially seeded with 3 top players

8 person bracket, partially seeded with 3 top players

In this case, 3 of the players were known to be higher skill than the other 5, so they were seeded into the bracket far from each other according to normal seed rules. Then, the other 5 players were arbitrarily assigned seed spots.

Arbitrarily Seeded

If you don’t wish to seed any players by number – either to simply avoid the emotional/administrative labor of ranking players by skill, or because the whole field is of roughly equal skill or simply unknown to you – you can simply fill in all the boxes with names. Even though the seeding is arbitrary and pseudorandom, it is useful because everyone’s names and the bouts are written down from the start. You have created an instructional guide for yourself – just call up the next pair of names when a ring is open. Players can wander off and mingle between fights, and you won’t lose track of who still needs to fight whom.

8 person, arbitrarily seeded bracket with no clear outliers.

8 person, arbitrarily seeded bracket with no clear outliers.

Notice that I filled in the same names in a different pattern than above. It is good to not fill in the names the same way if you are running multiple brackets with the same group of people in one day. It is more interesting for the players to not fight the same people in the same order every time.

Unseeded Single Elimination

You can also opt to not do any seeding at all. Rather than fully diagramming out the progress of the tournament from start to finish, you will virtually create the structure of a bracket in your mind. The advantage of this strategy is that you do not need to do any upfront administration: counting players, drawing a bracket on paper, getting everyone’s names, etc. It also allows you to easily ignore players who leave partway, or choosing exactly who gets a bye in a round. The disadvantage of this format is that it requires you to keep all the players in place, and it is much more difficult to track intermediate results.

Instruct the entrants to stand in a line, and stay in line (the head of the line is in front of the tournament organizer). Simply grab the two players at the front of the line, and send them to the next available ring. Winner goes back to the end of the line. Loser leaves. Repeat until the line is empty. If your tournament requires you to track placements, such as 1st through 3rd, you will need to stop the line when there are 4 people remaining, and explicitly set up, record, and direct the players. Usually, the number of rings will reduce so more reeves can watch the fewer, but more important fights. 

Overhead view of unseeded single bracket. Players A-H (red) are lined up before tournament organizer (green) O, who directs them to one of two rings with reeves (blue) R1 and R2. Bracket below shows the equivalent bracket being approximated by the queue.

Overhead view of unseeded single bracket. Players A-H (red) are lined up before tournament organizer (green) O, who directs them to one of two rings with reeves (blue) R1 and R2. Bracket below shows the equivalent bracket being approximated by the queue.

Essentially, this creates a bracket that goes straight down the line, with byes assigned to players at the end of the line at the end of every round.

Double Elimination

A double-elimination tournament is like a single-elimination tournament except players have to be eliminated twice. The advantage of this is that everybody gets to fight at least twice. The disadvantage is that you now have to organize twice as many fights and think harder half way through. You should construct the actual bracket when running a double-elimination tournament, because there is much more to keep track of than a single-elimination tournament. It is possible, but not recommended, to skip writing it all down by making your players stand in two lines.

In this format, the “winners bracket” (the standard bracket everyone starts in) is accompanied by the “losers bracket”. Losing a bout in the winners bracket sends you to the losers bracket. Losing a bout in the losers bracket sends you out of the tournament. Losing a bout in the later rounds of the winners bracket essentially seeds you forward directly into the later rounds of the losers bracket.

Most of the way through the tournament, you will have your tentative 1st place “no losses” winner of the winners bracket. This person will stand by. Shortly thereafter, you will have your tentative 2nd place “1 loss” winner of the losers bracket (as well as your 3rd and 4th, who were the last people eliminated from the losers bracket). These two people will fight the final round for real first place. The tentative 1st, who has not lost a bout yet, enters this fight “with Advantage”; they must be defeated twice to be knocked down to real 2nd place. Crucially, this means the tentative 2nd may face a player they have already lost to. They are not knocked out despite the previous loss, but have the opportunity to challenge for 1st place by winning two bouts.

Example of double-elimination bracket with 8 starting players. Players who lose in the winners bracket (upper, names in red) are knocked down to the losers bracket (lower, names colored according to round).

Example of double-elimination bracket with 8 starting players. Players who lose in the winners bracket (upper, names in red) are knocked down to the losers bracket (lower, names colored according to round).

Rounds of the winners bracket must be played before the corresponding round of the losers bracket. Losers of round #R of the winners bracket are seeded into round #R of the losers bracket. It is best to alternate rounds – play round 1 of the winners bracket, then round 1 of losers bracket, then round 2 of the winners bracket, then round 2 of the losers bracket…and so forth. This method minimizes the amount of time players must sit around waiting for the losers bracket to start – players eliminated from early rounds of the losers bracket know that they may safely leave.

It is possible to run a double-elimination tournament without writing the brackets out. Similar to an unseeded single-elimination tournament, you must simply have losers of the winners line stand on the other side of the field, forming a losers line. This is not recommended, because it is much easier to make mistakes, requires keeping everyone standing in place, and players must stand around for a long time waiting for the second stage to begin.

Running the Tournament

Now that the theory of simple tournaments has been explained, I will describe the practical steps of running a tournament.

Early Prep (1 week to 1 hour before)

  1. Announce tournament rules and categories (e.g. Facebook post)
  2. Recruit reeves – 2 per ring is ideal (one on each side of the fight), 1 works in a pinch. If there are 8 or fewer entrants, 1 ring is sufficient. Usually, at least 2 rings is ideal. Rarely is it practically useful to have more than 4 rings; the field gets too widespread to manage.

Stage (last hour)

  1. Confirm location is suitable. Clear terrain, or move if necessary. Decide where you will stand, where rings will be, and where players can wait between bouts.
  2. Confirm reeves are ready and willing.
  3. Recruit entrants; put out a notepad and demand players sign up. It is around this time that you need to make a decision on tournament format, if you were holding multiple options depending on the number of players.
  4. Make a firm decision on start time and repeatedly announce it to the crowd. They will forget.

Start (10 minutes before)

  1. Close signups. Count entrants. Draw your bracket and assign seeds, if applicable.
  2. Call fighters to the field. Remind them what the format of the tournament is, and the order of categories, if applicable.
  3. Introduce your reeves; call their names and have them raise their hands. Introduce your rings; say the name and point to the spot. Either way, you need to name locations so when you go “First two fighters, go to Rachel!” or “Alice and Beth, you’re fighting in ring 1!”, they know where you are telling them to go.
  4. Tell them where to stand in line, if applicable.

Repetition

  1. Call the next 2 fighters to the open ring. Repeat if there are multiple open rings.
  2. When no open rings are left, call the next 2 fighters up as “on deck”.
  3. Look at your paper to make sure you’re not missing anything.
  4. When a bout ends, the reeve(s) of that ring should announce the results. “Alice defeats Beth” is the ideal way to do it; “Her” points, “I won” fighter keeps walking, “Alice.”, etc., can all be ambiguous. Explicitly stating the winner and the loser reminds you exactly which bout that was and whose names go where on your paper, or who you need to call upon to give instructions or ask clarifying questions. Record results (on paper or by sending people to the appropriate line).
  5. Repeat from step 1 until the lines are empty or your paper is full. As players run out in the last 2 rounds or so, winners of bouts will be thrown directly into another fight. It would be courteous to give them a short break in between bouts.

Wind down

  1. If that’s the only set, announce results.
  2. If there’s more sets – call a 5 to 10 minute break. Get water, do math, eat a pickle, etc. Announce time and category of next set.
  3. Look at your paper to make sure you’re not missing anything.
  4. Repeat Repetition section.
  5. At the end of the last category, do whatever multi-category victory-point math is necessary to determine overall placements. 4|2|1|0.5 points for 1st|2nd|3rd|4th place would be normal. Announce results. Remember to write it down so you can post it on the internet later.

Amtgard – Introduction to Spell List Theory

September 29, 2023 /

Editors note:
This document was originally written by Battlemasters Twilus Galeheart, Artorius Dragonwrit, and Yorick Ebonmoon, all of the Rising Winds. It was originally published on 4/24/23, under the v8.5.2 Spicy B ruleset. The content of the text is presented here unaltered, except for minor formatting changes.

Introduction To Spell List Theory

Written by: Twilus Galeheart, Artorius Dragonwrit, and Yorick Ebonmoon.

 

This document serves as a guide to help newer players easily understand spell list construction, editing, and the theory behind it. Within, we will go into topics such as: must-have spells for the respective classes, making changes to a list based on your field experiences, common pitfalls to avoid, and so on.

Essentials will be the spells that we determine are good at almost anytime for almost any list. These abilities often have good spell point value and versatility. They are often core identity spells of the class.

Traps are what we will denote as low niche and often not worth adding to the list. Often requires a lot of teamwork or specific scenarios to have good use.  Usually, these will put crunch on your spell list in areas where you are strapped for points with essentials and other more viable spells.

Archetypes are often the power spike to certain spell lists that make abilities even more accessible. Archetypes can often dictate how you build a list and take some of the average spells to the level of essentials. These are often Archetype essentials and things you’ll want to take pending your Archetype.

Basics

How To Make an Effective Spell List: There’s not really a crazy secret to making a good spell list. The main thing you should be looking at to make a good spell list is a set of tools that will work best for the meta you’re playing in. Does your park have a lot of insubstantial? Take insubstantial counters. Does your park use a lot of iceball? Imbue shield, adaptive protection and choose subdual school, and be active with releases. This applies at all levels of play. Take what will give you a good set of counters for your usual opponents with a mix of what you find gives you success. 

 

How To Edit Your List: The key to making a successful list is testing it frequently and making smart changes that give you more of what you need and less of what you don’t. If you find yourself not needing as many of a spell, take some off and take more of a spell you find yourself using frequently. Repeat this every time you run it until it feels optimized and doing what you intended for the list to do. Make sure not to go overboard on too many of one spell, but also sometimes you’ll have to judge not to cut something that you didn’t use if it’s important to have on the list in a decent quantity. Go with your own judgment but this cycle should help you better your lists over time.

 

How To Theme Your List: Going into a list, you want to have an idea of what you want to do, this can be helped by picking an archetype, but doesn’t have to be. If you want to kill people with spells as a wizard per se, you would like to take something like lightning bolt to stop a target, and dragged below to kill a target stopped player. If you want to play a verbal bard that keeps people away from your team, you may want to take awe, shove, terror, and lost, as all of those make space for your team. If you wanted to play a fighty druid with self enchanted armor, you’d want to take avatar of nature, lycanthropy, stoneskin, attuned, poison, and the like. If you wanted to play a heavy support healer, you may want to go warder, take powerful protection enchants, and lots of release and greater release to keep teammates safe. It is important to have these lines of thinking when making a list to keep a consistent theme, and maintain synergy.

Key Terms

Spell point Value: This is an evaluation of what you get in return for your spell point. The value increases based on how much you can use the ability. Per life has higher value over refresh abilities. Chargeable abilities also increase value. 2 uses per point is also a value increase. A high value ability example would be Healer release which is 1 point for 2 uses, per life, charge times 3.

Charged: These are abilities that can be charged to be used again using the charge incantation. Some abilities are already charge x (X) or can be made chargeable using experienced.

Frontline: Frontline refers to playing at the front of the field where you will either pull the attention of the enemies frontline or midfield and be the first involved in attacks or defenses.

Skirmish: Skirmishing is when you have small engagements with small units. Often repeating this process over and over rather than slugging it out on the frontline with constant action.

Utility: This term is used to define spells that have more than one use and prove valuable to have in many different scenarios.

Crowd Control (CC): This is imparting state on enemies to create actions you want to make. Pretty synonymous with most games that have these types of effects.

Flanking: Finding the weak side of a team to break into the backline and cause chaos or death. 

Meta: A term describing what is most often played and winning in a given Park or Kingdom.

Charge and Cancel

Charge incantation and Cancel are two abilities that all caster have access to. Always make sure to learn how to cast both of these abilities and to purchase cancel on your spell list. Cancel costs nothing and should be something you add regardless of if you take enchantments or not. This is often referred to as the “Yorick Principal”. 

Bard

Essentials

Confidence: A core ability already chargeable that gives support to your friends to bring back their chargeable abilities.

Restoration: The value of restoration can be very high. Making this rechargeable with experienced is highly recommended.

Mend: As a more frontline based caster class, mends are very useful for your support and offensive play.

Awe/Lost/Shove: Bard can make great use out of these per life space-making spells, having at least one of these 3 on a list is a must have.

Traps

Agoraphobia: As a 5th level per refresh spell that is of the command school, it has poor spell value and runs out quickly over longer games.

Amplification: This spell requires very specific planning on very specific strategies to be useful, and on your average bard list, it’s not valuable as a niche level 4 per refresh spell.

Song of Visit: This spell is mostly just a worse escape than song of survival, and locks you into an unsafe position. 

Discordia: This ability takes up your enchantment slot preventing you from casting your songs. The payoff of Discordia outside of certain game types is just not high enough despite it being five suppressions for a point. Immunity to command is pretty common and getting stuck with this enchantment on is going to be poor synergy in most builds. 

Combat Caster

Playstyle: This archetype allows you to cast without a free hand, giving you the unique ability to cast while fighting. You should be looking to stack equipment and combat songs to bolster your ability to frontline and skirmish when applicable. 

Spell Synergy:

Equipment: Armor, 1 Point (level 6 and/or level 2): Allows you to soak damage and trade better in melee engagements. While usually spell synergy is about spells and abilities, it is important for bard to take equipment to make certain builds work well. This is one of them.

Song of Interference: This song can save you from powerful spells when surprised in the midst of combat.

Song of Survival: A song that allows you to survive rough melee engagements and escape safely.

Ambulant: This allows you to move while casting, amplifying your ability to cast while fighting.

Swift: Very useful for quick releases or mends to keep you healthy during and in between fights.

Song of Freedom: This song can protect you from a lot of common states applied to people engaging in melee combat, allowing you to apply threat uncontested.

Song of Battle: Gaining armor breaking from this song allows you to go toe-to-toe with every class in melee combat other than warrior.

Mend: A necessity to take on an armored bard list, for self armor repair after close fights. Notably good to experience this spell on longer form games where you’re not always in the front.

Release: Useful to save yourself from a stopped or insubstantial state if caught unaware, or for general use on teammates.

Insult: Great spell to stumble a caster’s thought process and take their attention.

Legend

Playstyle: This archetype provides a playstyle that gives you larger control over the field at large through additional extensions.

Spell Synergy:

Extension: Your main tool on this build, choose key spells that gain extra utility at further ranges.

Insult: Great to use on casters trying to support in the backline to force them to have to target you and need a release from an ally.

Lost: Useful to stop people on far flanks and send them packing.

Dervish

Playstyle: Dervish enables you to run heavy verbal builds with preferably less equipment, to either make space, crowd control, recharge allies, or suppress en masse. Dervish players can truly overtake a field with their voice.

Spell Synergy:

Stun: A great tool for setting up kills on key players, notably good because of the sorcery school.

Lost: Use this to take threats out of a fight or away from an objective.

Terror: Useful to keep specific players far away from your threat range or an objective. Especially useful due to it being a death school spell.

Suppress Aura: A medium length suppression that has a base 50ft range, great for shutting down casters before they make it into their effective range.

Break Concentration: Helpful for those clutch shutdown moments or take intro a melee engagement against another caster.

Awe: This tool is plentiful as a per life space making spell, never bad to have at least one.

Greater Release: An extremely useful tool to save allies at range, stop a fight after death, or elemental barrage. Helpful to grab a good handful of these.

Empower: Slightly more niche, but still a plentiful spell to have for focused recharge support builds.

Shove: A useful per life sorcery spell to keep people away and delay pushes through choke points.

Release: Always pertinent to have a good couple of these to save allies from CC, and getting double from Dervish helps you spend less points for more, or to have a plentiful amount.

Insult: A great tool to use on enemy casters to prevent them from affecting teammates or to force them off of supporting their allies.

 

Druid

Essentials

Stoneform: Without question your best defensive ability for tanking or defending yourself as a support.

Iceball: Can be taken on any list a druid makes and is considered the strongest crowd control ball in our game currently.

Mend: Being able to mend the magic armor you give out, weapons, shields, or armor allies already wear is just a great way to support your team or yourself in the battlefield.

Icy Blast: This is a per life frozen spell that is arguably an auto take on any non-summoner list. There is no better crowd control than Frozen in the meta.

Heat weapon: A key component to verbal casting tools for Druid. Already a chargeable ability and your best tool against monks. 

Traps

Imbue Armor: This ability just doesn’t do enough without a lot of proper planning

Gift of Water: GoW looks cool on paper but has conflicts within it. You get heals, but you have magic armor as well. This is kinda counterintuitive requiring you to take wounds to use the second ability. This Spell is also taking up points from better options at level 4.

Regeneration: At level 3 this ability takes up valuable points away from other key abilities.

Gift of Earth: Just not a very useful enchantment most of the time without proper teamwork. Too many other key abilities at level 2. 

Flame Blade: This ability just eats up so many spell points for what it gives you. Bear Strength and gift of fire at level 3 are more effective 

Resurrect: This is just a major point sink at 5th level that usually just isn’t ever worth the investment.

Summoner

Playstyle: Summoner is a strong enchanted archetype that loses ranged verbals and equipment past level 2. A summoner is looking to enchant and support the team and even has enchantments to apply to themselves. Mending, healing, and releasing become pivotal in supporting your team. 

Spell Synergy:

Naturalize Magic:This is your way of countering other enchanters and with a quick cast and 10 uses for 1 point. The value is insane and can put your team in major enchantment leads.

Ironskin: Magic armor and immunity to flame is very good for making classes like monk or others strong against their counters.

Stoneskin: Magic armor that is ancestral helps counter against balls and arrows.

Lycanthropy: This is a great enchant to give your casters that need to be immune to command. A solid enchant for Wizards and other classes that could use the armor.

Gift of Air: This makes caster classes have a lot of survivability against projectiles and normal weapons.

Golem: This enchant does a lot and can be considered the core of a summoner’s job. Usually used in unison with attuned or essence graft, this ability gives a ton of utility and most importantly makes all the bearer’s enchantments persistent.

Snaring Vines: This ability gives you cc at range without spell balls. This is important in a lot of scenarios especially if trying to help your frontline. Not always an auto take but a notable ability for sure.

Teleport: This can be used to safely position yourself on the battlefield or to move your Golem into hard to access areas to unleash a massive push or flank.

Attuned/Essence Graft: These abilities allow you to stack enchantments into powerful combinations offensively and defensively. They are key components for any summoner.

Poison: This is your only per life enchantment and gives your summoner list some longevity and a burner enchant you can give anyone.

Force Bolt: Underrated offensive capability for summoners to use. Basically thrown arrows.

Avatar of Nature

Playstyle: This archetype allows you to enchant yourself and become a stronger body for martial combat. The important part is making sure you have enough utility spells to go along with your self enchants. Avatars often find themselves helping with flanking attacks or pressuring frontlines with their armor and verbals.

Spell Synergy: 

Lycanthropy: Making yourself immune to command while having magical armor along with shield crushing. Making this enchant useful against casters and fighters alike.

Attuned: This is important for making sure you can have multiple enchants in scenarios where you need utility on top of your armor enchantments.

Poison: This is the enchant that gives you longevity on enchanting yourself in longer games.

Dispel Magic: Dispelling frontline without having to wear an enchantment with Naturalize is key here. Along with being able to add extension or ambulant to the incant to ensure it hits is solid.

Ranger

Playstyle: Ranger is the equipment heavy caster. This also opens up the use of a bow which can really change how you need to position on the field. Rangers will sometimes double up on other archetypes but are versatile enough of one to have their own specified builds.

Spell Synergy: 

Equipment: All your equipment is now free, make sure to purchase your max of all.

Verbals: Many of the verbals in the essentials and other lists are super strong on ranger builds as well. 

Corrosive Mist: Despite this enchantment costing double. In certain formats, the three destroy armor spells you get from this can improve your ability to snipe someone in armor out or stab with a polearm.  Can be useful in other archetypes but sticks out in ranger lists as an almost hunter’s mark like ability.

Healer

Essentials

Heal: The bread and butter of the class, it’s in the namesake and has infinite uses for Healer.

Resurrect: Great value at Charge x5 on a very impactful spell. Bring a teammate back to life? Yes.

Release: Healer’s release is 2/Life Charge x3. Great for saving teammates in sticky situations.

Greater Release: A very powerful and faster ranged release. Great for taking barbarians out of fight after death, wizards out of elemental barrage, or saving teammates from range. It can also remove the cursed state unlike basic Release, which is helpful to guarantee resurrects. Recommended to always experience this spell, as you can get it back through steal life or innate very easily.

Innate: Healer is the only caster with per life innate, making it extremely valuable for getting those good per refresh spells back.

Steal Life Essence: A great tool to recharge your spells, curse the enemy, or quickly heal yourself after a close fight.

Iceball: Immense value, one of the best hard crowd control spells in the game.

Traps

Ambulant: Very low value at a level 5 point and per refresh, healer is the only caster with ambulant as a per refresh spell. Outside of Priest, the points are just more valuable on other key abilities.

Greater Harden: Low value for a level 3 spell point, much better enchantment options available at, below, and above that level.

Greater Heal: You’ll very rarely come into situations where you’ll have a teammate get cursed, be alive, and have it be worth your spell points to take this spell.

Undead Minion: Once you’ve unlocked Greater Undead Minion at level 5, this spell becomes entirely obsolete.

Harden: There are so many other high impact level 1 spells to take that it isn’t worth your spell points.

Blessed Aura & Blessing Against Harm: These spells, while seeming impactful, would only really be useful on a warder build, and there are much better, longer lasting high value enchants at the levels these spells are accessible, so they just aren’t worth your spell points.

Priest

Playstyle: This archetype gives you a lot of rechargeability, specifically on your meta-magics. With this in your build, you are aiming to give quick support and micromanage a lot of chargeable spells to keep allies going in any way possible.

Spell Synergy:

Persistent: This spell is mostly a trap for priest, really only usable on Mass Healing, the Charge x3 aspect doesn’t do anything for you here, not great spell point value.

Ambulant: Priest is where Healer’s Ambulant shines, since it changes it from per refresh to per life. Useful for usage on Heal, Resurrect, Sever Spirit, Summon Dead, and Banish. The added Charge x3 here proves to be very useful.

Swift: Swift is great for quick Heals and Resurrects in clutch scenarios, the added Charge x3 here just makes it up all the more often.

Extension: Useful for Banish and Sever Spirit. The added Charge x3 doesn’t add too much value here.

Heal: It’s free now, so make sure to take it.

Necromancer

Playstyle: This archetype gives you rechargeability on a couple of spells, and allows you to use monks and other low armor + low ability players as cannon fodder to defend or heavily assault a location with numbers advantage. Can also be used as a tool just to have rechargeable Steal Life. 

Spell Synergy:

(Greater) Undead Minion: This allows you to create your cannon fodder. Useful for holding or sieging locations with constant pressure and numbers advantage. Necromancer allows you to have 5 active, instead of the normal 3, making the rechargeability provided here very useful, given you have enough players to enchant.

Steal Life Essence: Amazing spell, especially amplified to Charge x3. You can use it to chain curse a line of dead players by using the Steal Life to recharge itself, or get near infinite recharges given you recharge and find enough dead players. It can even be used to charge back the Greater Undead Minion on the person you’re casting it on. Sometimes it’s worth it to just take Necromancer and this spell for its amazing utility.

Warder

Playstyle: This archetype gives you a bunch of extra protection enchantments to work with, allowing you to bolster the defenses of your team through big high value enchants or many smaller value enchants. It heavily limits your access to crowd control spells however, giving you more of a true support style.

Spell Synergy:

Persistent: Useful for warders because it increases the longevity of your enchantments, not super useful against heavy dispel teams.

Ancestral Armor: A helpful enchant to take on occasion, more niche, very good for stacking on full kit scouts and Anti-Paladin Classes.
Protection From Magic- Great protection against heavy magic teams. Specifically against teams with a lot of spell balls and verbals

Phoenix Tears: Mainly notable here for the extra protection enchantment slot it gives. Be wary that this will make the person you give it to a more likely dispel target while they’re frozen by it.

Greater Resurrect: More valuable on a warder build because it keeps enchants on a resurrected player unlike basic resurrect.

Enlightened Soul: Great protection against teams with a heavy amount of verbal magic as opposed to spell balls.

Protection From Projectiles: Insane value against heavy archer or thrown weapon teams. Throw this on a squishy caster that’s being targeted by archers.

Imbue Shield: Great against teams with a lot of shield crushing effects and spell balls. Comes in at 4/Refresh as a warder too, so very good value.

Circle of Protection: A decent pickup on warder, gives an okay escape spell for you and a few teammates in dire situations. You can banish yourself or allies out of circle of protection for a safe escape.

Adaptive Protection: A nice spell to take a few of, gives specialized protection against problem schools your team may be facing.

Adaptive Blessing: A decent spell to pick up, being per life it has good value. Good to just hand out as extra help for skirmishers facing problem schools.

Blessing Against Wounds: Another good spell to hand out to skirmishers to help them survive melee combat, also quite valuable, being per life. 

Wizard

Essentials

Dispel Magic: You have debatably the most prevalent way of enchant removal in a game where enchantments are very powerful, at Charge x3 on a level 3 ability.

Break Concentration: The ability to remove another player’s casting, even for only 10 seconds, can make a lot of room for your teammates to push forward, or allow you to cast on other players for 10 seconds without the target punishing you.

Release: Not only is Release great at maintaining the health of your team, but is also very effective at maintaining your own personal ability to do your job, by keeping you out of Insubstantial, Lost, Stopped, etc.

Teleport: The offensive and defensive utility of this spell is superb. You can utilize it to throw a heavy hitter into a mob of people for a huge distraction, on yourself to flank, or Swift it on yourself as a method of escape when pressured.

Shove: Being Sorcery school, this ability has the power to make a player on the front line forcibly retreat from you, and is very rarely resisted.
Steal Life Essence- An all around excellent ability, this can allow you to immediately recharge an important ability such as Dispel, recover a lost limb after winning a trade, or can simply curse an opponent to make it so they can’t be resurrected nearly as easily.

Traps

Force Barrier: This may seem like a good escape akin to Druid’s Stoneform at a first glance, but upon further review, this leaves you in a very negative spot without the ability to counterplay, since you have to either rely on a teammate to end your state early, or are subject to whatever the other team may do in the next 30 seconds.

Ravage: The incant is clunky, and Fragile as a state is only loosely usable on many people, as a wounded target is already somebody who would be easier to defeat. The amount you receive may appear delightful, but the usability is very niche and the points are better spent elsewhere.

Destroy Armor: This spell actually is relatively usable, but the trap lies in its price per use- though it provides 2 per purchase, it is only usable per Refresh, and at 4th Level, where you begin to have access to some of the most powerful individual abilities in the Wizard list. 

Greater Mend: The middle-ground between an effective single Mend and the wildly powerful Word of Mending, Greater Mend just doesn’t fit the bill at the strenuous price tag it has, compared to just more Mend.

Planar Grounding: Much like Destroy Armor, the problem keeping Planar Grounding from being strongly usable is its frequency- it is again only a per Refresh ability. It is good, but only usable so many times per game, effectively.

Battlemage

Playstyle: The unique part of all of the Wizard archetypes is that they remove a major and strong portion of your usable and strong abilities, to give you access to an also very strong utility in brute force. With Battlemage, a single purchase of Ambulant makes Ambulant usable an infinite amount of times, but removes your ability to provide amazing Enchantments for support, as well as the incredibly strong CC of spell balls. This is great for maintaining hyper-mobility for the caster always on the go, as you can use Ambulant on literally every verbal you cast, allowing you to chase down skirmishers, continue to move while Teleporting to safety, and even begin casting your support abilities such as Release before you are in range of your target.

Spell Synergy:

Release: Being able to begin casting Release for your Frozen teammate before you are on top of them and continuing to move around them to avoid fire allows you to play far more defensively while maintaining your team’s ability to fight.

Dispel Magic: When you begin to cast Dispel on most targets with valuable enchantments, they often tend to try and avoid it. With your Ambulant being unlimited, you cannot be punished for at least attempting to chase them to complete your spell and remove those pesky Flameblades and Ancestral Armors.

Heat Weapon: Removing melee weapons from the equation can allow you to remove threats without expending spells of a much higher level, and this is certainly relevant while either running at or away from targets.

Shove: Being able to run at somebody and force them to run, or prevent them from chasing you, provides excellent mobile space-making.

Astral Intervention: A secret technique in Battlemage is to casually be casting an Astral Intervention on yourself so you can choose to end it should you need to remove yourself from melee, but it also is a very valuable CC.

Hold Person: If you can keep moving and casting while your opponent can’t chase you, it’s almost as effective for verbals as them being Stunned.

Throw: This spell single-handedly removes a whole player from encounters around them for a long duration of time

Dimensional Rift: Chasing down Teleporters or Blinked Assassins that can’t end their Insub near you and forcing them to die is incredible to remove flankers, and also will remind them to stay away.

Icy Blast & Shatter: Mentioning these two together is important- a whole engine of Sorcery CC and kill spells is wild. It is so difficult to be immune to Sorcery and it is easy for you to remove this immunity, force them to be unable to do anything, and kill them for being in that state.

Wounding: Wounding has many uses amplified by chasedown potential, such as wounding running targets to prevent their speed, removing limbs to prevent combat, or removing the ability to fire arrows for bow users.

Finger of Death: Unlike Warlock or generalist builds, FoD on Battlemage is excellent as a strong threat; you can make people run away by starting to cast at them

Evoker

Playstyle: The sacrifice Evoker makes is, well, all of your verbal versatility, in order to use spell balls at a ludicrous frequency. Evoker does one thing, but it does it very well- you throw spellballs without having to first cast them. This is for both your CC balls, as well as your damage balls. It is notable that due to the nature of how this works, you can even continue to throw your spellballs while you are suppressed; the wording and intent of Elemental Barrage is that you have cast one ability to use spellballs- they are active without actually having been cast.

Spell Synergy:

All Spellballs: Most of your list should be Evoker, Elemental Barrage, and your cavalcade of spell balls. All spell balls become much more useful when you no longer have to incant the ball name. Iceball is powerful CC you can machine gun, and Force Bolts are a barrage of magical beams you can launch en masse. Phase Bolt ignores enchantments and punishes Monks. Sphere is a black void of death.

Innate + Steal Life Essence: Of note: when you die, Elemental Barrage ends, but since you can charge it, you can use SLE to regain your use of Elemental Barrage. Being able to quickly reapply your primary function is pretty nice!

Warlock

Playstyle: Warlock foregoes a huge portion of your utility to power to amplify your abilities as a death machine, and quite literally. Warlocks cannot dispel people, and their only suppression ability is locked behind a somewhat niche spell ball that deals no extra damage. However, their ability to utilize their doubled Flame and Death school verbals is absolutely ludicrous. The natively charged Wounding, the extra Fingers of Death, extra Pyrotechnics and Heat Weapon, etc. Sometimes an ability which is bad elsewise is made very good due to the nature of the amplifier, as well. 

Spell Synergy:

Heat Weapon: The sheer amount of this spell you can have makes this strategy absurd. It’s very strong against any player not immune to Flame and very cost efficient in this archetype. 

Ravage: Despite the clunky incantation, each purchase of this ability on Warlock gives you 4 uses per life. Given the Warlock restrictions, this is a very solid choice if you opt not to take a large amount of spell balls. This also sets up a kill-combo with Wounding.

Dragged Below: While your verbals are limited, your spell balls are not! Being able to Stop opponents with your CC balls, and follow up with your multiplied Death-school kill combo is a great built-in death machine, as well as letting you take advantage of the Stopped state inflicted elsewise, such as Healers or Assassins.

Wounding: Already natively chargeable, Wounding being more usable alongside a viable kill combo and the other uses for wounding opponents gives this far more value.

Pyrotechnics: Being natively 50’, this spell has a huge range. Getting double is more instances where a combat class no longer has their equipment to fight you back, outside of Flameblade. Even a per refresh ability can be made far more usable with the right setup in Warlock, akin to Dervish.

Steal Life Essence: Being able to charge your abilities more or recover your limbs, or simply Curse enemies, is always good. SLE provides much more sustain to you and your team.

Finger of Death: For a maximum of 8 guaranteed deaths if used correctly, doubling your 6th level spells is an absolutely huge win. It’s very simple- more death to the bad team, more win for the good team.

Amtgard Support Casting

September 29, 2023 /

Editors note:
This document was originally written by Battlemaster Twilus Galeheart of the Rising Winds, and was presented as part of a battlegaming class taught at Battlecry 2023, Grand Duchy of Midgard. The text was published on 9/4/23, during the v8.5.3 Saucy ruleset. The content of the text is presented here unaltered, except for minor formatting changes.

Support Casting

Written by: Battlemaster Twilus, and taught in person at Battlecry 2023 alongside Battlemaster Snaps, and Battlemaster Migal

 



Introduction

Becoming the best support you can involves choosing the playstyle that is right for you. If you aren’t a good shot, you may wanna stay away from bow or spellball support builds until you put some time into target practice. If you aren’t the most athletic or good at fighting, you may wanna stay away from flank support builds or midline support builds until you can more consistently come out on top in physically demanding engagements. Choose a style you are most comfortable with and try mastering it to the best of your ability.

Support Basics

Field awareness

  • Timeliness
    • React to your goals in a way that is efficient. Your release and resurrections should cut the times in half at least to be efficient.
    • Use downtime to recharge spells and prepare spellballs.
  • Auditory/visual cues
    • Listen for threatening spells you can either prevent or fix after they resolve.
    • Listen for states being called by allies or enemies.
    • Look for open hands/charged spellballs/enchantment strips.
    • Pay attention to things you can fix or disable within at least 50 feet.
  • Be proactive 
    • Ask allies and enemies what states they are in at all times.
    • Be ready to save allies as soon as you notice them being cast/engaged on.
    • Ask enemies what enchantments they have before every engagement.
    • Ask enemies for their armor values.
    • Ask for the enemy’s active ongoing effects or charged spellballs.

Spell selection

  • Cost effectiveness
    • Use per life spells in situations where per refresh spells would be overkill.
    • Use spellballs in situations where you can get a guaranteed hit vs a ranged spell.
    • Use rechargeable spells in situations where you’ll have downtime after the engagement.
  • Time management/economy
    • Use ranged support in situations where you don’t have time to support with touch spells.
    • Use swift in situations where you don’t have time to get the whole incantation off.
    • Use ambulant in situations where you need to get a touch spell off on someone far away.
    • Use innate to get back a spell that will save someone in a clutch situation to avoid the charge time.

Target priority

  • Immunity/enemy class knowledge
    • Best tip: Know the Rulebook like the back of your hand, knowledge is power!
    • Be aware of common immunities that aren’t default on a class and common on the fields you play on. (ie: AON Druid with lycanthropy is immune to command.)
  • Player skill priority (allied or enemy)
    • Use your disabling spells on the enemy players that are most threatening in a given engagement first.
    • Use your release, heals, resurrects, and mends on the allied players who will be most useful to you in a given engagement first.

List building

  • Have enough tools for the job (spell minimums)
    • When playing a support build, make sure you have enough of a spell for it to be effective on your list (ie: as a support, always have at least 2 releases.)
  • Spell versatility
    • Make sure to have a diverse set of schools of magic on your list so you have enough different tools for the various situations you will encounter, and to avoid common immunities where possible. (ie: don’t stack too many spells of a single school of magic, take both spellballs and verbals where applicable.)
  • Cost effectiveness
    • Take more per life spells in games where you will have short death timers and a nearby respawn.
    • Take more powerful per refresh spells in games where you need strong magic power to win objectives.
    • Take more rechargeable spells and spells you can experience in games that will go longer and have a good amount of recharge downtime.

Playmaking

  • Shot calling
    • Call out people you have applied states on. 
    • Inform allies to take advantage of space you’ve made.
    • Spot out flanks and inform your team of incoming threats.
    • Make your team aware of important information in general, as a support you have the widest view of the field and have time to gather info for the team.
  • Get in there
    • As a support, as long as you don’t put yourself in too much danger, get into melee combat where possible to try and open up shots for your melee fighters and tie up your opponents by forcing them to block or mess with their footwork by putting them between your ally and yourself. 
    • (Trading your life to take limbs or players out and reset your per lifes can be a major boon to helping your team on pushes simply by existing. Never just take a death or have an ally kill you to get your per life abilities back when possible.
  • Morale boosting
    • When your teammates make good plays, help them out and tell them they’re doing a good job, morale boosting is a very underrated part of teamwork.

Class choice

  • Game vs. team composition class selection
    • There’s a big difference between picking your class based on the game type vs. picking the class to fit into a given team composition. It’s important to recognize the difference between picking based off of a game type vs. what a team comp needs. (ie: you may pick a bard with a lot of space control spells for a capture the flag game to defend your flag vs. picking bard to fit into a team comp that needs recharge spells to function for a specific task.)
  • Playstyle selection vs. class selection
    • Picking a class doesn’t necessarily lock you into a playstyle. Oftentimes it’s more so that teams are lacking a playstyle rather than a specific class. You can play a backline support playstyle as any caster and be effective in that role, same goes for midline, flank support, pocket support, and sometimes even off-tanking. You can play the style you want to play in a given game no matter what caster class you choose, in most circumstances.

Positioning

  • Backline
    • Backline positioning is all about supporting your team from the rear and taking spells that help against flanks and provide lots of general support. This is also where a lot of enchanter builds like to position, but not all enchanter builds fit here.
    • Useful spells you should have for this playstyle are releases, mends, heals, and resurrects. Other useful tools include dispel, minor crowd control spells, banish, greater release, and other things to help you deal with small flank skirmishes.
  • Midline
    • Midline positioning is all about being the centerpoint of the team, supporting your frontline and helping them push or hold locations while keeping a watchful eye on your backline and weak points in your line to support at a moment’s notice. This is where a lot of your heavier crowd control builds like to play.
    • Useful spells you should have for this playstyle are a good amount of general support like release, heal, mend, and the like, while making more room for crowd control spells that disrupt and disable the enemy to give your team positional advantage, this style needs to have as diverse of a set of magic schools as possible due to common immunities on frontliners and the likelihood that enemies will be enchanted, also requiring a good source of dispel if your build allows it. Keep your frontliners healthy, assist them in combat and keep your team grounded.
  • Pocket
    • Pocket support is mostly for very specific games where you have a certain player in mind, that you are likely enchanting to make them very powerful. The style can vary depending on caster but you often are tied to their hip and keeping them out of danger and helping them take down targets wherever you may be positioning on the field, either midline or flanks.
    • Useful spells for this style can vary greatly, but you usually want some general support spells along with very focused stuff to help the person you are supporting in specific, as well as specific enchantments for the build idea you are running. It is typically quite open ended, and has room for some more exotic choices.
  • Flank Support
    • Flank support is less niche than pocket, but isn’t the most common build. This style runs on the side with powerful flankers, taking tools that allow you to break through flanks and keep your flankers safe while assisting them in combat.
    • Useful spells for this style are hard crowd control, spells that give your team a quick safety net in one way or another, disrupt enemy fighter’s equipment or positioning, anything to win engagements fast, and most importantly, equipment.
  • Range control
    • Knowing the threat range of your spells and making sure you’ll be able to finish a spell cast at a given range.
    • Casting spells at players outside of range to prevent them from advancing on you without finishing the spell as to not expend it.
    • Making sure you are close enough to allies to save them if you have ranged support to assist. (ie: staying within 20 ft of an ally if you have greater release in case they get crowd controlled.)
  • Life Management/Self Preservation
    • Depending on the support style you are playing, sometimes you need to be less risky than other builds because the threat of you being alive is what is preventing the enemy from spamming a lot of hard crowd control spells and wiping your team. This is especially true for most healer builds. Position safely where necessary.

Class Specific Support Skills

Healer

  • Swift management/Rez management
    • As a healer, you need to make sure you aren’t using swift on your resurrects unless it’s absolutely necessary to, if you use them in situations where it wasn’t required you will often run into situations where the only way you could have gotten a rez off was if it was swift-ed, and you have none left. This is still somewhat true for priests as well but on priest your swift is more limited in scope. Swift responsibly healers.
  • Rezbot Respawn target priority (communication)
    • As a healer, make sure to use your spawn resurrects on other healers and potentially monks first, to aid you in bringing the team back up, and bring people up first who will give your team the most impact when they’re alive.
  • Summon Dead + Rez interaction
    • With summon dead, the summoned target doesn’t stop moving until they reach you no matter how you, the healer, move after it’s been cast. You can use this to summon them and move back and start the rez before they reach you to avoid using swift. Most commonly on a priest, with a more accessible ambulant, you can summon dead and ambulant the rez as they’re following you.
  • Charge micromanagement
    • Healer has a lot of base rechargeable abilities especially as a priest build or a necro build. Make sure you are very commonly abusing downtime to recharge your plethora of rechargeable abilities on healer. But don’t avoid your duties as a healer to charge unless the spell you specifically need it out and needs charged.
  • Necromancer positioning
    • Necromancers need to be very aware of threats on the field and not taking too many risks because when they die, all of their Greater Undead Minion enchantments fall off, make sure to position safely and be wary of ranged projectiles being sent your way.
  • Experienced Greater Release
    • As healer, experiencing greater release is a must, it gives you very consistent and powerful ranged support that you can easily get back with per life innate or per life steal life essence if you’re running priest, as priest will prevent your innate from being used on greater release.

Bard

  • Proactively recharging allies
    • As a battery bard make sure you are constantly asking your allies if they need anything recharged.
  • Tempo
    • Bard is the class that has to rely on making plays to gain tempo the most, which, in shorter terms, is using powerful spells you have a limited amount of early to gain a lead in shorter game types or games with an objective that can end the game early.
  • Spacemaking/Zone Control
    • Bard can use lots of spells that make it easy to manipulate enemy movement. You can use Awe, Terror, Shove, and Lost to make enemies move from a given location to make space for your team and control an area.
  • Looking for opportunity to attack
    • As Bard gets access to worn armor and songs that augment your combat abilities, bard can look for more opportunities to look for engagements for melee combat than other casters when using the build for it.
  • Proper Song use
    • It’s important for a bard to get used to switching between multiple songs quickly, often referred to as “Song Juggling”. (ie: noticing someone is approaching you with an iceball so you turn on song of freedom to tank it, then you notice an archer positioning to shoot you so you quickly switch to song of deflection.)
  • Suppression
    • Since Bard has dervish, you can stack verbals very high, and bard can take the largest stock of suppression if they build for it, which given the right game type can be a very effective build.
  • Sleight of Mind
    • If you find free space on your build, consider picking up sleight of mind, it is an underrated support spell and being able to passively prevent dispel can be very handy.

Druid

  • Enchantment choice/economy
    • When running an enchantment build, make sure to cater to the most useful style of enchantments for the given team and game type. If playing a support summoner, consider taking a balanced set of enchants that include important ones for specific players you know won’t likely lose their enchants easily, and another set that includes some more throwaway enchantments like druid’s poison since it is per life, or even a couple of barkskin.
  • Naturalize Magic
    • As a support druid it is imperative to take naturalize magic because you have access to the most frontloaded set of dispel in the game to restore the balance of the game by burst dispelling several targets in quick succession.
  • Offtank/Distract/Peel/Aggro
    • Avatar of Nature builds are very good at filling a flanker or offtank role and pulling aggression away from your team through trickery with teleport and stoneform. With the added help of magic armor, various crowd control spells, and good melee equipment you can waste several enemies’ time and allow your team to make plays elsewhere.
  • Informed enchanting
    • Make sure to know your allies and give your high value enchants to players that are most likely to get value out of them and can avoid getting dispelled.
  • Bow support
    • A more niche druid build, however you can tie up melee users with your ranged support, break weapons with arrows and force bolts, and support with this more unique style.
  • Mending
    • Druid is the caster that has the most mending tools in the game so it is important to take a good handful when playing support, and even consider experiencing greater mend. When mending armor that needs more than 2 points of damage repaired it is more efficient to use greater mend to repair it.

Wizard

  • Support Hybrid
    • Wizards can very easily fit in a good few support spells into their builds while still having a functional core of a more aggressive build around it, and can often fill multiple roles in a given game.
  • Applying Various States
    • Wizard is the caster that can most consistently and practically apply the most states to enemies so they can take on scenarios in many different ways and should account for that.
  • Immunity Avoidance
    • Wizard has access to a large collection of spells with different schools, and can get around enemy immunities with ease, so be sure to take a diverse set of spells.
  • Toolbox
    • An archetype-less wizard has access to many many tools and is often the best way to play support wizard with a mix of spellballs, verbals, a couple enchantments, and many tools for different scenarios.
  • Most Accessible Dispel
    • Wizard’s dispel is charge x3 by default, which makes it quite easy to get back, and therefore you should take it on any wizard build you can as you will likely be getting called on for dispelling targets a lot of the time, and rightfully so.
  • Equipment Manipulation
    • Wizards have spellballs that destroy equipment, Heat Weapon, Shatter Weapon, Pyrotechnics, and Destroy Armor, which all assist in equipment destruction or disabling. This playstyle can be quite powerful and is known as a “Disruptor” or “Disabler” support style.
  • Player Displacement
    • Wizard is very good at making people move with shoves and throws,as well as astral intervention into banish. Try out a build like this alongside battlemage and you’ll find it to be a very effective support.
  • Void Touched/Enchanter
    • Wizard has a couple of high power enchantments that are worth protecting, and you can play wizard as a pocket support for someone with Void Touched and keep them enchanted by suppressing dispellers.

Scout

  • Heal/Release/Tracking/Dispel
    • A little nod to scouts here, you have a lot of support tools for various situations, and keep in mind you can fill support roles especially on flanks and midline.
    • All of these abilities are extraordinary, which makes them incredibly unique in the fact they can support void touched and pro mag players. This also means they can do so while fighting, as they wont need a free hand.

Advanced Tech

  • Incantation timing/manipulation
    • Changing the pace at which you are casting a spell to throw off an enemy’s timing or doing so to make sure an ally reaches you in time to receive the support of a touch spell.
  • Spell Threat (free shove)
    • Casting a powerful spell at someone with the intention of not finishing it, often causing them to move back, essentially giving you a free shove.
  • Swift Spellballs
    • An underrated use of swift to quickly get out a spellball to dispatch targets who get too close.
  • Greater Release Interactions
    • Preemptively casting greater release on a barbarian before they die and changing the pace of your spell to remove their activated fight after death as soon as possible.
    • Freezing a wizard in elemental barrage with an iceball and greater releasing them but only removing the effect of elemental barrage and keeping them frozen since greater release allows you to leave on states of your choosing.
  • Heal/Rez last line
    • You can convert a heal or rez into the other spell because they are the same incantation until the last line.
  • Insult
    • Insulting an enemy support as a form of your own support to prevent them from casting support spells on their allies.
  • Priest Ambulance
    • Since priest ambulant is so much more plentiful you can use the heal/rez last line trick while moving to run to someone in need, in an anticipatory fashion.
  • Battlemage Positioning Baiting
    • As a battlemage since you never have to stop moving while casting, you can often miss-position yourself as a bait and get enemies to over commit to ruin their positioning and punish them for it.
  • Ambulant Support spells
    • A very underrated use of ambulant, to use it with release as someone is being cast on, especially as a battlemage wizard, to save them just as the enemy spell lands.
  • Insub shenanigans
    • Using your own spells to go voluntarily insubstantial, such as with lost or astral intervention + banish, allows you to use them as off the wall escapes in desperate scenarios.
  • Spellball tech
    • Just a tip to build good spellballs. Make sure they have a good weight and a short tail to make sure they fly true and don’t get pulled by the wind as much.
  • State stacking
    • Comboing either the stopped or stunned state into a different harder crowd control to make things easier to land in scenarios where you are against a nimble opponent you want to disable.
  • Wounding legs or arms to disable
    • As a bow support you can shoot the legs of someone who is running, or the free hand of a caster to prevent a cast. You can also do the same thing as a wizard with wounding.
  • Stun griefing
    • If you stun an armored target, you should ask their armor points and hit them exactly enough times to remove all of their armor, and then leg them. That way they are very damaged and will likely have to take a death at their own discretion, which will force them to lose persistent enchantments.
  • Elemental barrage spellball combos
    • You can use specific orders of spellballs on targets while in elemental barrage to make the most use out of your spellballs. (ie: enemy caster with a shield and no armor should be hit with a lightning bolt or entangle to stop them and then 2 fireballs in a row to make sure their shield is destroyed and then they receive a wounds kill hit)
  • Touch release swift trick
    • When touch releasing an enemy, you can stop casting it after the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd line to begin casting it again but with a swift to throw off their timing.
  • Self shove heart of the swarm
    • While in heart of the swarm, even though you are stopped you can actually shove yourself to move around 20 ft at a time, which can help with repositioning the now mobile respawn.
  • Precasting
    • Casting a spell preemptively before it is needed to finish it right as it is needed, this has many many applications. (ie: casting release behind someone who is being awed to save them from the upcoming forced movement.)
  • Support shielding
    • As a class with resurrect, using your shield to cover the torso of your dead teammate to ensure they don’t immediately die to an arrow after they are brought back to life.
  • Drawstring dagger
    • Crafting a dagger with a drawstring that can attach to your wrist in some fashion so you can drop it while still having it on your person as a sword and dagger caster to free up a hand for casting.
  • Take 0 Costs
    • Always make sure to buy cancel, free heal on healer priest, and all equipment you can as a ranger druid.
Example field layout for a Texas-Two-Step tournament. Artist: Heron Lamana of Northern Lights.

Boffer Tournament Formats – Competitive Amtgard Belegarth and Dagorhir

April 28, 2023 /

Boffer Tournaments

For as long as nerds have been hitting each other with sticks, they have also been competing to see who is the best at stick hitting. Here, I will describe different types of tournaments and some of the words used to describe them. This is not an in-depth guide on how to run a tournament; it is a basic primer on different formats.

Note: typically, Amtgard tournaments will be an individual event of a single format,  consisting of multiple categories, each run back to back. For example, the Single Short, Florentine, Sword and Board, Open, and Great Weapon categories will all be run in sequence, with approximately the same people, and all of them together are considered one whole tournament. Performance in each category will provide a number of “victory points” (4/2/1/0.5 for 1st/2nd/3rd/4th is typical), and the fighter with the most total victory points wins the whole tournament. In Belgarth and Dagorhir, each weapon category is typically considered its own tournament, i.e. first is the Single Blue tournament, then the Florentine tournament, and the Green Tournament, and then the Greatsword (Red, under 66 inches)…and so forth, with each one being distinct.

Vocabulary

First, I shall rigorously define certain terms, so we can be certain that we are all using them the same way.

Bouts vs Eliminations

A single instance of two fighters hitting each other a bunch is a bout. We usually describe it as “Best X of Y”, e.g. “best 2 out of 3”, meaning, we fight until someone has won twice, and simultaneous kills count as nothing – winner of 2 advances. An X-elimination means you must be defeated in X bouts to be eliminated from the entire tournament.

Simul (Simo)

A simultaneous kill, “simul” for short – sometimes pronounced simply as “simo” – is when two fighters hit each other at the exact same time, or so close that we can’t tell the difference. This include shots that are “in time”, i.e. “already in motion”. For most formats, these count as nothing; fighters reset and try again. It is not “SIMO” – a purported backronym for “Shot In MOtion”. Simul is short for simultaneous.

Brackets (Categories)

In the strictest sense, a bracket is the simplest form of tournament structure, where fighters fight, winners advance to the next round, and eventually only 1 person remains. Since many multi-stage tournaments have a final section where the winner is decided with a bracket, or multi-category tournaments have distinct brackets for each weapon type, we often also use “bracket” to mean “category”, in the sense that each category gets its own bracket. For example, question: “How many brackets are there?” – answer: “3 brackets – we’re doing sword-and-board, greatsword, and open, today.”

Open

A type of category – usually denoting one where there are no restrictions on the type and number of weapons allowed. Contrast with “restricted”. Since most tournaments are open to all players, “open” usually does not refer to tournaments with no restriction on entrants.

Restricted

A type of tournament – usually denoting that entrants (not weapons) are restricted to a certain demographic; e.g. non-men (aka Valkyrie tournament), newbies/newcomers (below a certain number of years in game, or level of award for fighting prowess) , etc. Usually, a tournament category for a specific set of weapons is just named for that weapon (e.g. Sword and Board Tournament, Florentine/Two-Stick Tournament), rather than described as “restricted”.

Seeding

When it is known that a number of entrants are of high skill, common practice is to strategically place them on a constructed bracket. In other words, they are “seeded” at specific intervals in the list. Places with advanced history may calculate “seed points” based on previous tournament performance, or just consider previous wins at the same annual tournament. Places which can remember scaling awards for fighting prowess (Amtgard) can also simply count the people with the biggest number. Different tournament formats will do different things to seeded players.

Reeves, Heralds, Marshals, Bean Counters

A Reeve (Amtgard), Herald (Belegarth/Dagorhir), or Marshal (SCA) is a referee who (1) knows the rules, (2) can stand next to a fight and go “no, you got hit there, you died”, and (3) often wears yellow or carries a long striped stick. Those titles are largely interchangeable, though I will often default to Reeve. A bean counter is someone who does not necessarily actually judge fights, but records results of bouts on paper and does addition.

Tournament Formats

Now, I briefly describe different formats of tournaments.

Straight Bracket (Single Elimination, Double Elimination)

The simplest format of tournament is a straight bracket. You gather the names of all the players; put them in a list; then they fight, winners against each other, until one is left.

Tournament Brackets Stock Illustrations – 39 Tournament Brackets Stock Illustrations, Vectors & Clipart - Dreamstime

Simple 4-person single elimination bracket.

For a bracket, bouts should usually be best-2-out-of-3, increasing to 3-out-of-5 for the final.  In a double elimination bracket, you must be knocked out twice to be eliminated. Whomever loses their first bout is sent to the losers’ bracket, where they fight other players whom have already lost once. Players who do not lose for the first time until late in the original bracket are seeded into later rounds of the losers’ bracket. Eventually, you will have your first winner (who has not lost once), and the winner of the losers’ bracket (lost once, and won every bout since). The winner of the losers’ bracket challenges the first winner – and must defeat the latter twice (because it is double elimination). The first winner needs only win 1 bout, which would be the other player’s second elimination, to secure 1st place.

Each bout of a bracket needs only 1 reeve, with a single central organizer to keep track of winners and losers on the bracket. One can run as many simultaneous bouts as there are reeves.

For straight brackets, seeded players are seeded away from each other, so they meet as late as possible. This is to prevent the top fighters from knocking each other out in early bouts, when they should theoretically be able to prove themselves good enough to reach the latest rounds.

Straight brackets are the logistically easiest tournament format to run. You do not even need to actually construct a bracket – just write all the names in a list (or make them all stand in a line), and call them out two at a time, crossing out the loser. Very few tools and foreknowledge is required to run a bracket.

Texas Two-Step, aka Pits-to-Brackets, aka Ironman-to-Brackets

Formerly known as Warlord-style, this format happens over 2 sections: the ironman (aka pits), and the bracket.

The ironman section sees all players sent into a field, with a small number of designated fighting pits, and line(s). At each pit, two players fight a bout of a single kill. The winner stays in the pit (and restores wounds), and the loser returns to the line, and is replaced by a new player. This can be organized with a single line feeding all pits, with an official directing players to pits as space opens up; or with each pit having its own line, and players free to join whichever line they wish. The ironman portion of the format continues for a predetermined time: 8-12 minutes is typical, 15 for sword-and-board; time tends to scale up with number of players. The goal is to simply rack up the greatest number of kills. At the end of time, a predetermined number of players advance to the second stage. Typically, this is the top 8 by total kills – scale this up and down to fit the number of entrants, but always keep it a power of 2 to fit a straight bracket.

Example field layout for a Texas-Two-Step tournament. Artist: Heron Lamana of Northern Lights.

Example field layout for the ironman stage of a Texas Two-Step tournament. Note the 4 pits, and line for each pit. Each pit also has a dedicated bean counter for counting kills. Desk at the bottom for a central mathematician/tournament organizer. Artist: Heron Lamana of the Northern Lights.

When fighters simul in the pit, you have 3 options: (1) let all simuls reset without limit, (2) let the first simul reset, and after that, both fighters are out and the pit gets 2 new fighters, or (3) all simuls are both out and pit gets 2 new fighters. Removing simuls from the pit minimizes the amount of time that specific fighters linger in the pit, allowing other fighters the opportunity to fight more. One can also run an optional “mercy” rule: when a fighter reaches a certain killcount, they are instantly removed from the ironman. Removed fighters are automatically placed at the top of the rankings for the second stage. This mechanic pulls obvious frontrunners out of the pits early, to give other fighters better opportunity to fight.

Each pit typically has 1 reeve and 1 bean counter. Fighters are encouraged to call out their name (or number) after they win a bout, so the bean counter knows whose name to put a tick next to on their paper. The central tournament organizer may act as a reeve or bean counter, or to direct fighters from the single line, or stand somewhere else/walk around organizing in other ways. When time is called (by the central organizer), bouts finish, then the bean counters convene to add up all the kills.

At the beginning of the ironman section, seeded players are typically placed in separate pits. If the number of strong frontrunners is known beforehand, some organizers deliberately have 1 fewer pit than the number of strong fighters, in order to force them to fight each other, and cycle the pits.

Diagram of a blank 8-person seeded single-elimination bracket.

8 person seeded bracket. Numbers on the left indicate seed number – notice 1 and 2 are seeded far away from each other.

The second stage of a Texas Two-Step is the bracket. Take the top players and seed them into a single elimination bracket. See the figure above for a traditional seed structure – the player with the most kills from the first stage is matched against the 8th most, the 4th against the 5th, and so forth. If tiebreaks are necessary, e.g., the top 7 are clear, but 3 players tied for 8th, then sort out your top players before constructing the bracket. For a 2 person tiebreak, this is typically a best-2-of-3. For 3 or more, this can be done as a round-robin. For very large tiebreaks, e.g. 5+, this can be a best-of-1 single elimination, for speed. During the bracket stage, there will typically be 2 reeves per bout. Bouts will be best-2-of-3, and 3-of-5 at least for the final.

For large, multi-category tournaments, such as an Amtgard Weaponmaster, one can immediately run each bracket, or save all brackets for the end. These styles can be referred to as “pits-brackets-pits-brackets”, or “all-pits-all-brackets”, respectively.

Texas Two-Step tournaments require a medium amount of infrastructure, due to the relatively large amount of kill-tracking and addition. However, there is only a small amount of initial setup, since bean counters begin counting only when players win in their pit. One advantage of this format is that since nobody is knocked out of the first round (bout losers just go back in line), players are guaranteed a certain amount of fight opportunity (though a potentially-large proportion of that time is spent waiting in line).

Just Ironman

A Texas Two-Step, Ironman/Pits-to-Brackets is not the same as a tournament just called “Ironman”. An ironman tournament is one that has no bracket stage. In a pure ironman tournament, there is 1 or more pit(s), and the winner is simply the person with the most total kills. Do not refer to a 2 stage, Texas Two-Step, pits into brackets tournament merely as “Ironman”.

 

Round Robin and Swiss

A round robin tournament is one where every player fights every other player. Since everyone fights everyone else and no one is knocked out, no seeding is relevant. However, since the number of bouts required rapidly increases as more players enter, this format is not feasible for large, or even medium, tournaments.

Swiss

A variant of the round robin is the Swiss tournament, popularized by competitive chess. Swiss is like round robin, with no knockouts, however, it is run only over a limited number of rounds (typically 5 or 6, more required for tournaments with more than 32 players). Scores are tracked with points assigned for victory in previous rounds, and players are matched with other players of similar scores – with a bias towards not repeating opponents. If seeded, players with high strength are matched against each other in the first round (when everyone’s score is zero). A Swiss tournament reduces the group to a definite ranking in as few rounds as a single-elimination bracket. Since no one is knocked out, however, players are guaranteed the same amount of fights. Since players who lose earlier bouts can continue to win points in later rounds, it is like a multi-elimination bracket with no strict limit.

Individual bouts in the rounds of a Swiss tournament are typically best-2-of-3, 1 reeve per fight. Typically, the central organizer will not reeve fights, but only record scores and call new matches.

The major advantage of a Swiss tournament is the guaranteed fight time for all entrants, but taking much less overall time than a full round robin. However, Swiss tournaments are mathematically very complex, virtually requiring computer aid. All players must be known beforehand to set up the system, and it is difficult to remove (walk-offs) and impossible to add (walk-ons) players partway through.

Tournament runners may also choose to run a second stage with a single elimination bracket, using the top players from the result of the Swiss rounds. Players will be seeded, in the normal way for brackets, based on their score from the Swiss stage.

Pools

A pools-system is a multi-stage tournament, where a large field of entrants is first divided into a number of small pools. The players of each pool will then fight amongst themselves using a different tournament format, and the top players from each pool will advance to the next stage. Typically, this will be pools of around 8 competing in a best-of-3 round robin, with the top 2 from each pool advancing. For example, 60-100 total players could be separated into 8 pools of 7-13 players each, from which the top 2 of each pool advance into a 16 person double elimination bracket. Seeded players are distributed equally throughout the pools. This system is useful for reducing a very large entrant group into smaller, relatively fast stages – which individually happen more quickly while still giving every player a guaranteed number of fights. Conversely, this is not useful with a small group, since you could simply run the other tournament format directly instead of separating into pools first.

A pools system requires a large amount of initial setup and a medium amount of administration. Each pool should have a dedicated bean counter, who is individually responsible for fewer people than a typical ironman pit. Each pool should have at least 1 on-demand reeve (not necessary for every single bout, but available).

The Real Theophania, vol II ch 8

October 6, 2022 / / 0 Comments

The Real Theophania

vol. II ch. 8

This sprinted across the corridor, landing with a thud next to Ophius, already hunkered down to the next piece of cover – a broken down cart, that maybe held coal or iron ore in years past. Projectiles howled down the shaft, throwing up clouds of black dust in her footsteps.

Ophius was busy aggressively fiddling with magic. One hand dug around the pile of rubble, the other traced a geometrical pattern in the air. The patterns of their fingertips was reflected through the whole room, like the iridescent cobwebs of a giant spider. The strands suddenly coalesced into the image of a massive, holographic centaur storming down the narrow hall. Shouts of warning echoed from the down the passage, followed shortly by clatters of armed and armored men diving for cover. This was followed by shouts of dismay from the men who failed to make it out of the way of the charging beast, followed again by shouts of confused relief as the illusion failed to actually trample them to death.

“Just the distraction I needed.” Ophius, now that the hail of shatterbolts and magic missiles had stopped, reached in with both hands and pulled out a battered bullseye lantern from the rubbish. Instead of a candle holder or oil wick, there was a single, delicately carved copper flower, traces of canary yellow paint still clinging to it in places. “This was a mine,” Ophius began explaining to Thia, “and in the old days, miners carried canaries into the depths with them. The birds were more susceptible to toxic gasses, so if a canary fell unconscious, they would know that bad air was seeping in, and they would need to evacuate the tunnel.”

“Yeah. I know. My father worked the mines.” demured Thia, as if desperate to establish her working class background, despite literally being royalty.

“Your father owned mines. Sometimes he went down to inspect miners.” Ophius toggled some esoteric control on the apparent device. An ominous rumbling began deeper in the mine. “Anyway, when the old Wacites started digging in places without a good bird population, the magi had to come up with a magical solution. They remembered the canaries, though, and used it as standard symbol.” Ophius delivered a jolt of motive forced to the top of the “lantern”, and it sprang to life, humming, glyphs glowing. With an experimental jab or two, massive stone barriers rumbled down from the ceiling, cutting off the enemy, while others retracted from the walls, opening alternate passages.

“This way, princess.”

~~~

“Halt! These tunnels are subject to the authority of the Third Military District of the Subterranean Expeditionary Force! All travelers are subject to search and seizure at the discretion of military patrols! You will immediately stop and submit!” boomed the man with the second most ostentatious uniform.

Thia grimaced. Could they at least have been discovered 2 minutes later, when she wasn’t halfway through wading across this ankle-deep pool of mystery cave juice? Then again, they probably set the patrol right here on purpose.

Ophius, used to disguising their true form, had a deep cowl drawn across the head, and their face was not visible anyway, bathed in shadow as it was. Thia was not so lucky, and her face, striking as it was, drew the attention of the man in the first most ostentatious uniform.

“Now, now, my adjudant, no need to be so dramatic,” he purred, in the most outrageous accent, “I’m sure the fair lady has a perfectly legitimate reason to be traveling through an interdicted zone.”

“Yes, your highness, but we need to search those bags for smuggled goods. We have orders from General Hin-” the adjutant protested.

“Quiet, Mr Myers! I know what General Hindigs were! He gives those orders on my authority! I am Prince of the Fourth Circle, Heir to the Seal of Stone! Lord of the Depths, son of the Great Otorious Theanaopolous von A’ctelios the Third! My orders supercede all other orders-” Thia tuned out the prince’s tantrum. At least she wasn’t going to have to explain away the seven million gold they were smuggling, but she was going to have to deal with being courted by this idiot.

~~~

Thia pretended to take in interest in the decorative crystal acorns on the vanity. Prince von A’ctelios was behind the modesty screen, fixing his hair or his ridiculous velvet doublet or something. He was yammering off about how they would look stunning at the ball tonight, now that Thia had finally acquiesced to accompanying him. Apparently, “Countess Nirva Soryu, who foolishly rejected me” was going to be “absolutely devastated by being outshone by a mere peasant” like Thia. They were going to be “absolutely crushing” tonight.

Thia had only agreed on the condition that her “personal assistant” with a “crippling shyness” and “Venetian Leprosy – it’s non contagious if you let use the ointments, but don’t try to take the robes and mask off” be released from prison, and be let in the attached servant’s quarters.

Thia picked up a heavy crystal acorn and rolled it in her hands. She fiddled with the translucent straps of the scandalously low-cut (and similarly high-cut slit at the bottom) Underdark spidersilk gown she had been provided and asked to wear. In preparation for this soiree, Thia had been bathed by handmaidens like a pampered princess – an annoyance she hadn’t experienced since fleeing the old country. She had already made up her mind what she was going to do to the prince for making her repeat it.

“Everything all right?” he suddenly asked, noticing her lack of reply, as This quietly crept up behind him. Then she loudly slapped him in the back of the head, crushing the crystal acorn against his thick skull. Her captor-suitor passed out cold, crumpled to the floor like a prehistoric megafauna falling into a peat bog.

“I’m royalty, too, you know.” Thia murmured, petulantly, “Princess of these hands. Bitch.”

~~~

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