Banecroft Barony

Feburary

Diamond Banecroft The Realms found the Lost Gate. Tensions between the kingdom of Chimeron and the kingdom of Verai caused people to come to the gathering, not to save the missing Clan and Tuath Fasach members, nor to recover the missing hearts of the ancient sorceress Marie and her gargoyles, nor to find out what is causing the shadowbeast attacks, but in the hopes of having a war. Chimeron quests for the lost soul of Pol Coville, and finds him, a werewolf once again. Lady Anne and Lady Dee unravelled the secrets of 'the Gold Monkey' (a statue of Torril Wilderkin) and rescued all those that became trapped within the Lost Gate. Banecroft quested, with Cecilia and Gwen penetrating deep into the Lost Gate. Gwen was the only one to meet the Champion in fair combat and won the flaming swords Smaug and Fafnir. Banecroft worked heroically to beat Chimeron to solve the riddles, but were stymied by puzzles requiring knowledge of proper names of people and places they had never met in their relative inexperience. So Banecroft pooled their knowledge with the others, only to find that their efforts had already been surpassed. Diamond attempted to use diplomacy to avert the looming Chimeron-Verai conflict, but failed. Diamond, Cecelia, Cedrik, Loke and Gwen attended.

April

Diamond Banecroft Queen Meg was assasinated and scalped by King Tiathan.

June

Diamond Banecroft Most of the nobles of the Realms were possessed by Nemesis. The Realms failed to banish Nemesis, so he departed to marry Tetch. Pol Coville, insane and twisted, was lost in astral space when the ritual to Banish Nemesis failed. Diamond and Cinnibar were the only nobles not possessed by Nemesis and were forced into leadership roles. This was Diamond's first moment of defy-the-odds heroism when he snatched the time-box from Nemesis's line on Saturday. This was also Diamond and Gwen's first night quests.

July

Diamond Banecroft McKrye recovered the now cursed scalp of Queen Meg. Tiathan left the Realms for points unknown. Groups of monsters fight for the right to become the Nameless One's Avatar. The Orc Clan Kurian won the right to be uplifted by The Nameless One. Two pieces of the Soul Blade were recovered. It was discovered that Karena ShadowRider had been taken prisoner by the Nameless One. This was the introduction of the Savage Beast and Jaymir the Black Unicorn. Diamond met Lady Anne when she had Jaymir raise him. He learned much from her about the Nameless One. This was Cecilia's last event.

August

Diamond Banecroft The Realms stopped a very large band of pirates. Diamond sailed the Muriel there, but his ship was stolen out of port. The Muriel is abandoned later by the pirates, run aground and Diamond salvaged her with help.

Queen Of Hearts I

Diamond Banecroft Gwen in the line vrs drow At the first Queen of Hearts Tournaments and War Maneuvers, we went deep into Hades to save the silver elf - turned Gatekeeper of Hell - Lorien and learn the secret to creating more "Luthrien Blades". We failed and nearly all of the adventurers got very dead. (Diamond and Gwen were among the very few not to be dead. Fenwulf was, however.) They got better, though. The Drow attacked at the end of the day, and were barely defeated. Banecroft fought for Willow's team, with Diamond as a General. This was the beginning of the "Baronial Golden Age". Lady Dee was rescued from Nightshade. Banecroft quested to save Dee but missed the big assault to free her. Veros quested with Banecroft for the first time. Diamond won the goblin hunt tourney, thanks to teamwork from Veros and Gwen. The prize is a magic arrow. Diamond tried to take Sir Gunnar's advice about not killing Faeries, but made a mistake when attacked and failed at this resolution with his first arrow. Diamond and Gwen cleverldekes an error and wasted it.

Attack of the Northern Death Bunnies

Diamond Banecroft We quested in Folkestone to aquire the Book of Girmantusz. Veros joined Banecroft. Gwen earned the Hrothgar award in the troll dungeon. Fenwulf penetrated the spider's lair. Banecroft succeeded at their part of the night quest (helping seal the path to the negative material plane), despite being backstabbed by one of Veros's former companions. Banecroft succeeded at the Gauntlet on Sunday in which the magic arrow proved critical. All but one of the pages of Girmantusz that Banecroft recovered during the weekend are stolen in two different muggings, but the first muggers returned the pages with interest and the second muggers returned the magic arrow. REVISED BY DIAMOND Attack of the Northern Death Bunnies: By day we quested to find the pages of Girmantuz's spellbook. There was a fearsome forest and a deep dungeon. Towards the end of the first day, my crew was at the deepest part of the dungeon... the troll king appeared from a cross-passageway, and while we were embroiled in battle he called to his strongest follower, "Bring me that one!" (pointing at me) Although I slew it the first time, it quickly regenerated and I regained consiousness as the troll king's prisoner. I had company in this misfortune, there was another leader who was also a prisoner. He was most upset because the group he had been snatched from had stumbled upon this room, but seeing the fierceness of the troll king had departed, abandoning him here. I had entered the dungeon with 3 companions. I called to them, but warned it was a trap. Moments later, one of those three, Fennwulf was brought in as a prisoner. She had fallen foul of spiderwebs. Then the second arrived, Gwen. She challenged the Troll King to honorable combat to free the prisoners, but she was defeated. However, her fearlessness so impresssed the Troll king that he allowed her to depart. Then the third of my companions arrived, an new adventurer I have not seen in all the years since. He was clever and stealthy. Seeing him peek in, I engaged the Troll King in coversation to engage his attention and cover the sound of his approach. He slew the Troll king by backstabbing and freed us, we got out just as the troll king regenerated. We were saved from his wrath when Gwen returned, leading a strong party of Chimeroneans to our rescue. Their strength finally cleaned out the dungeon, securing the required pages. * * * That night we sailed through mists to an island where each group quested to close the portal to the negative materiel plane which Zermarks was using to pump up the power of his undead. In this we were sucessfull. * * * The next day the most of the pages were located at the end of a gauntlet of monsters. We were barely successful, apparently our party was the only one to sneak by a powerful sleeping monster rather than taking the opportunity of its sleeping to get the first hit in. At the end of the day, Zermark's army attacked en masse. This was a classic example of the lack of unity that Prince Bob had tried to warn us about. Full half the adventurers cautiously held back while the other half attempted to fight off the enemy army. It was this battle, this defeat, which was intrumental in prompting needed reforms. From this point on, we started working together better and better. It was a real turning point.

The Feast of the Scarlet Wench, Too

Diamond Banecroft Darwin attends his first event