| Thoughts on DragonCon 2003 |
| So, Labor Day weekend has come and gone, and with it, the last of the major cons I attend during the year. Yow. I'm about ready to be done. But, the end of the con also means that I've got a bunch of pictures, and a few thoughts on the big Atlanta-based con. This was the first year we stayed in the hotel; we've lived in Atlanta the last two times I've been, and that changes things. Not as many pictures before, for one thing. So, without further delay, on we go. I arrived in Atlanta on Thursday, checked in, and promptly worked the rest of the night. So no pics. I did get my badge (my advice remains unchanged from GenCon: Preregister), and that went fairly smoothly. Friday, however.... |
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| Now, I only had one game scheduled for this DragonCon (though I actually ran three; see below). First thing Friday morning, I dragged my ass downstairs to the gaming room to see if any hardcore gamers were hardcorely signed up for my hardcore Dark Ages: Mage game. As it happened, I had a full boat (six players) signed up. Only four of them were there, so another player (the only woman in the picture below right) jumped from someone else's Mage: The Ascension game to join my game. Which, all things considered, I'm OK with. So I really don't have that many Friday pics. Hanneke and Pammit (below left) showed up during my Mage game to say "hi" and I got a shot of Hagrid trudging around the mall looking for a really big milkshake (artistic license mine), but not much else that day. That night, I had dinner with the Wyrd Sisters and with Whitney, and I ran the second of my games at con: Dark Ages: Vampire. Now, why, you may ask, did I get four cool ladies like that in a hotel room and not take any pictures? Answer: Because I bloody forgot. Bite me. |
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| So, the Vampire game ended (eventually), and I went to bed (eventually), and woke up (all too soon). There was a parade outside. Very strange, given that there was a parade at Origins (picture at right). Michael, known to the world as Nephilpal, had been talked into running a game of Exalted: Abyssals early that morning, so we convened in the gaming room, started making characters, got kicked out, re-convened in the Wyrd Sisters' hotel room, finished making characters, and spent the next eight hours playing Exalted. Some pictures below; the quotes are here. |
| Clockwise from top left: Michael, Morgan, Liam, and Sarah (on the bed); the whole group, except you can't see Sarah; Pam the Vampire; a sketch of Sarah's character (click on it for a better look); Morgan's artistry; Morgan herself, blowing bubbles. |
| So, while I was pretty much in the hotel room all day, I also got some pics of strange and beautiful things at the con on Saturday. Have a shifty. |
| Stormtroopers, getting cash. |
| Ben Grimm and Peter Parker. |
| A pirate king! Hurrah! |
| A Cobra soldier. He mistook me for that bald GI Joe guy. |
| Yet another gubernotorial candidate for California. |
| Honestly, if the Richards family were taking a vacation, it makes sense that they'd go to Dragon*Con. |
| So, then there was a costume contest. I did not attend; too many people and so on. I did hook up with some of my old Atlanta crew (briefly), and got a picture of Whitney, Beau, and Sara in their respective costumes (right). Sara won some sort of prize in the Dawn lookalike contest. Go Sara. |
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| Sunday followed Saturday in the same way that...Monday follows Sunday. Yeah. We all hooked up for breakfast, which was a much needed breaking of the fast. (Shit, I'm on a roll here.) Some pictures of breakfasting geeks below. |
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| Anyway, I discovered to my dismay that depsite all the hard work that myself, Lucien Soulban, C. A. Sulieman, and a lot of other folks put into Orpheus, no one was running a demo of the game at Dragon*Con. Well, obviously that wouldn't do, so I made a brief stop-off at the White Wolf booth to visit Becky (my art director) before she had her Portfolio Review (she also took my picture for an upcoming Orpheus book). I also got my traditional picture of Justin being silly. Then, I headed down to the gaming room to run me some ghostly gamin'! |
| The Orpheus game went well, but suffered from a lack of time (and the fact that I had to let people make their own characters, which eats a lot of time). I think, though, that the folks involved were jazzed and might well jump into the game of their own accord. Pictures below, one of the Orpheus group and one of my buddy Brad and his wife Christina.. |
| After the Orpheus game, we made a trek out to Stone Mountain to see the sights. While there, I borrowed Lisa's wig and tried it on. Not entirely sure why. After we got back, we went to dinner at Beni Hana, and I did it again. Pics below. |
| So after dinner, some folks went to a concert. Janet, Sarah, Myranda, Anthony, Heather and I headed back to a hotel room to do dramatic readings of Eternal Hearts. It was just as funny as it sounds. I have no words. If you've read the book, imagine four very dramatically inclined people reading the jucier (squickier, let's be honest) passages. Two pics, one of Heather finishing the cross-stitch she's been working on for me, and one of Janet enthusiastically reading Lucy Taylor's opus. And then we have more strange and beautiful stuff I saw that day. |
| Sara as Teela. |
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| A stormtrooper in a kilt. |
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| The X-Dog. Click for a closer look. |
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| The next day was Monday, which meant it was time to head for home. Heather and I said our goodbyes and took the train to the airport, and flew on back to beautiful, beautiful Cleveland. And that's all I got. As a closing thought, here's Heather with a cow. See you next year! |
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