My Ifrit Costume - Keeping careful vigil, or poised to pounce?

Guh. After a few solid days of vegging out, I can finally consider myself recovered from the SlarpCon. Recovered being a relative term, of course, because I still sport several burns on my hands from last-minute hot glue gun accidents and I don't think my feet will ever be the same after teetering around in my Shadowrun costume for several hours. (The shoes for my demon costume, despite AH's concerns, were delightfully comfortable.) But, I'm no longer mortally exhausted, and they're just flesh wounds. We larpers are a hearty bunch.

So...SlarpCon...

Harry Potter was quite delightful. There were a few kids there, and it was so much fun to watch how much enthusiasm they had for the game. The set dressing was even better than I had imagined (I really love the little magic store they set up in the other room), and there were some great costumes overall. I threw my costume together at the last minute, but am quite happy with how it turned out. With the top hat and the little curls of hair, I looked (and felt) like I was headed out to do a kid's magic show. (Which, I suppose, was entirely in theme...) I like the simplified system that JBA and AP came up with, but it might have been nice if they'd incorporated a FATE-like way to force a challenge with someone. As it was, if you had great stats, you simply won. If you didn't, well, too bad for you. Not that it ever came up much. I never actually got into a challenge with anyone, and I think I only saw one or two other challenges take place. Everyone seemed to be pretty caught up in just having fun.

Cthulu was a blur. I was a stage hand/various NPCs, so I rather expected that it would be. I really have nothing to base this conclusion on, since all I saw was vague snatches of the game here and there, but I think it turned out pretty good. The beginning of the game was a little disorganized, and I know that several people got lost in the maze that is the Health Sciences building, but things seemed to be running fairly smoothly after a while. I had a wonderful time in my role as Dr. Cheney, the only one to survive the 'explosion' that occurred during the last test. I screamed, I raved and twitched, and generally enjoyed hamming it up. But it was a total shock when one group of players killed her by goading her into a heart attack. Cold. Totally cold. I loved it! I don't know how scary the finale was, but when I emerged as the monster (yes, that's me under there. I'm tied to CK's, err, backside. It was a running joke for the day), we got some screams, so I'm guessing it was pretty good. One thing's for certain, though. Next time someone runs a Cthulu game, I really, really want to play in it.

Mmmm... Nightmare City. I could go on and on.... Suffice it to say that the game rocked every bit as much as I expected it to. I had a wonderful time playing Mary's "pet thingamajiggy" (see - Ifrit). She kept me on leash for the first while, and I growled, sniffed things, and generally got to be feral. And then, as soon as she let me off my leash, I immediately started plotting a way to break myself free of her Bond. Fun! The Trents caught me with surprise plot twist out of left field, when TR's character revealed that he was in love with the Ifrit. I wish I could have seen my face. I'm sure the tusks on my jaw dropped, and I remember saying something to the effect of, "But, but... I'm made of the fires of the Earth!" The fights were well done, and the costumes were spectacular! (And no, I'm not just talking about my crazy-elaborate costume, either. M's costume was freak-tastic.) God, I hope TY runs more of these... Oh, and if anyone else has pics of my Ifrit costume, could you please send them my way? I'd be very sad if that is the only picture that was taken of it.

The costumes were equally as shwanky for Shadowrun. There were some great elves, orcs, and trolls, as well as all-around Matrix-y slickness. Thanks to JBA's gracious help, I actually got to play a character this year (in the past, I ran the Matrix runs in our glow-in-the-dark Matrix set), but I wish this game had come earlier in the weekend, because I was so out of it by Sunday night. I didn't really get a chance to interact with anyone else, partially because I didn't get briefed on my character until halfway through the night, and partly because I was also doing semi-ST stuff to take the burden off of the already far too stressed out Layne. Still, I got to do some dancing, and I had a great time clowning around on stage with WL's Jack Wylde. (WL as The Joker = scary!!!)

Extreme thanks go out to all the folks who helped me with setup for Shadowrun, and even more thanks go out to the folks who stayed after the game to help Layne clean up so that I could drag myself home and get a few hours sleep before work the next morning. You guys are lifesavers. And not the minty ones, either.