I am in awe of my friends.
I am in awe of every single person who said that they would come and sit in Williamson Park, in costume for an afternoon purely so I could let my sister play a game we used to play when we were kids.
Thankyou Transcendental Freeze for being Blue and also becoming Queen of a game I devised when I was six. Thankyou Weasel for proposing with such grace to Transcendental Freeze (I need to write a game where she isn’t proposed to) and also for teaching the party how to wield swords safely. Thankyou FJ for sitting next to a box labelled with the Honorary Bitch’s name which had a recorded message inside shouting about being trapped and singing ’99 green bottles’. Thankyou Archie for letting me know you were going to be unwell, but mostly for letting me make you Coin Witch in honour of all the numismatists I make you play. Thankyou Last Cup of Tea for turning up even though you were ill and coming up with your own riddle. Thankyou M-i-L for wearing awesome makeup and having an invisible basilisk and unicorn and probably other things too. Thankyou Fire Witch for telling small children about me and causing me to think I was going mad! Thankyou Bilbo for doing so much more running about Williamson Park than I thought you would. Thankyou Gold Dwarf, for standing there, looking epic and having so much less to do in the end than I expected! Thankyou Nordic Lady for carrying round refreshments and for taking photos. Thankyou Ex-Gardnerian for essentially being another ref and also for performing marriage ceremonies at the drop of a hat. Thankyou Pixie for hanging around just because. Thankyou Jozeph for being a great Psychiatrist and I’m sorry we had to cut your bit short! Thankyou Gentleman Jez for getting them to chant Rune Names, and they REALLY did go for it! Thankyou Mew for being ill and coming anyway, and also for plotting the downfall of Hogwarts. Thankyou Blue Cat for being an AWESOME SEA WITCH and for being epically piratical! Thankyou Goat for ROCKING in the land of the Witches. Thankyou Cornish Bloke for having a skull to talk to and adding to the feel of The Post Office.
So, me and The Princess used to play this game, we called it Witches. I devised it first when I was six, played it regularly until I was fourteen, the last official game before today was played when I was eighteen (bear in mind she’s younger than me!) Basically it involved me running around the garden being various different witches and setting my sister quests (and people wonder why I’m a natural GM). The Princess requested another game for her birthday and this weekend was me finally delivering that game.
With not quite twenty of my friends.
I have awesome friends. Ill to varying degrees they came and sat on their own in crazy costumes around Williamson Park. This meant that when The Princess and The Elf came around they felt like they were in a huge world filled with Witches. Which The Princess said was just how the garden used to feel during games of Witches when we were kids.
I have very awesome friends, the main witch in any game of Witches was always Sweetie Witch, she’d be the first witch you’d meet, usually. I was playing her today, it meant that when I thought I heard childish voices on the wind calling ‘Sweetie Witch’ I thought I’d spent a bit too much time on this game and was going a bit mental.
Turns out I wasn’t.
The Fire Pixie, who was playing Fire Witch had been bumped into by a group of eight year olds. She’d explained what was going on, to the extent that these eight year olds knew that Sweetie Witch was wandering around the Park. They bumped into Fauna, Witchkeeper of magical animals just after Sweetie Witch had delivered lollies, they had their photos taken with Blue Fairy Witch. I heard them on the wind. The voices of eight year olds squealing for Sweetie Witch. The main character of a game I played when I was eight…my sister doesn’t feel this as epically as me, she’s played Witches for a good chunk of her life (it’s twenty-one years old scarily enough, older than some of todays players) and it’s just this game to her, of course eight year olds know about it. For me, I invented this, in fact, this is probably one of the earliest things I, well I would say wrote but before today I don’t think it ever hit paper. There are random people out there who know about Sweetie Witch now and I’m happy, just, feeling wierd about it.
The Ex-Gardnerian, Cornish Bloke and The Pixie made The Post Office a real place, the way The Princess was just talking about ‘The Post Office’, I love it when a place in a game just becomes that place.
Jozeph was awesome, hanging out being crazy with a dragon on his shoulder. So was Sea-Witch, and swapping sea-weed for the hair of a virgin.
I crept passed FJ a number of times today sat next to a box with The Honorary Bitch’s voice coming out of it, because he had been running a marathan today he’d pre-recorded himself onto MP3 and also onto my phone to say he’d been captured and trapped in a cardboard box. It just looked so fine, and at the end when The Princess and Sweetie Witch’s Daughter took him on with their swords it was brilliant!
The proposal to me I found creepy. But then we knew that was going to happen.
The Postal Dwarf had married Blue Fairy Witch and her swordmaster (most romantic fantasy pic ever on facebook) by the time Briar Witch (the nasty witch I was playing) had come with her Champion to get married. The Gold Dwarf blocked my way looking awesome with his axe. So I shouted that I would be back/get them next time and stalked off.
Everyone was so amazing and so willing to sit in the cold and do very little.
They also persuaded me to do it again. There will be more for the witches to do next time.