Good gentles, Their Excellencies of Montengarde invite you to Samhain to bear witness to their noble and mighty Bardic Championship! There will be combat archery, heavy fighting, rapier fighting, and a scrumptious dumpling feast! Come join us for a day of revelry and entertainment!
When: November 2, 2024 8:00 AM to 11:00 PM
Where: Abbeydale Community Hall 821 Abbeydale Dr NE, Calgary, AB T2A 6N7
Adult Event Registration: $25
Adult Member Discount Event Registration: $15
Youth Registration (0-17): $0
Feast Details:
But what will we eat you may ask? His Lordship Quon Jien would never let you go hungry – for after a long day of shedding blood (not really, we hate paperwork), sweat, and tears, he will have a Dumpling Feast prepared for all those who wish to be satiated Space is limited but you can reserve your spot by dropping him an email at Cwykwan@gmail.com
But Lo! What about our midday peckishness? His Lordship will have a $5 lunch (Hot Pot Soup) prepared to give might to your second wind. His Lordship can answer the questions you may have about all things eating.
Feast fee (adult) – $15
Feast fee (youth, 12 – 17) – $10
Feast fee (children, 0 – 11) – $0
Event Stewards:
Lady Geneviève Cadieux & Duke Ellias Silver
events@montengarde.org
Greetings! I am your Montengarde champion of heavy, Vladimir, and I will be running the heavy combat tournament at Samhain this year.
This will be a prize tournament. The format will be tracking win/loss with unlimited fights within a time limit, with the winner being the fighter with the most fights. Breaks are encouraged but there will not be a scheduled break. Please respect the lists when you report. This is a sticking point for me and as you may feel a rush to fight as much as you can I will not tolerate drive-by reporting. Make sure the lists are ready for you and you clearly report your number and win or loss. There is a prize for chivalry, and I will be asking the lists for their feedback.
As Samhain is the event where we select our champion of bardic, I will be taking about 15 minutes between introductions and tournament fighting for a fun revival of an old tradition we have in Montengarde: the Tavern Brawl! Though with some modification from how it once was.
The Tavern Brawl is optional, a bardic performance taking place between the group introduction and tournament fighting. Brawl wins are not tracked, there is no prize for winning the brawl, and it has no impact on the heavy tournament so you could consider it a warm up exercise. Bards will be in full heavy armour, helm-on, demi-gauntlets as minimum hand protection, but weapon strikes will be to-the-touch. After all, this isn’t about fighting, it is about performance.
When you brawl, be entertaining! Make banter, and die gloriously. When you die, you must perform for the crowd and get their permission to return to the brawl. A joke, dance, song, it is entirely up to you. My ask to the populous is to be generous and allow them to return to the brawl no matter your opinion of the performance, but don’t worry I do want your opinion. There is a prize is crowd choice, through volume! Cheer for your favourite performance, and win that fighter-bard the prize.
Weapons will be improvised out of foam and should be made to look like things that could be found in a tavern. Please be encouraged to make some! Here are da rules:
- All weapons must be consulted with me ahead of the event. If you are not local or cannot talk to me at fight practice then contact me through Facebook messenger or email matthewcambear@outlook.com. I will not allow weapons that I was not aware of ahead of the event.
- Weapons are to be made out of foam. This can be firm like a yoga block, or flexible like a pool noodle, but if flexible then it needs to have a core covered in minimum 3/8” foam like a youth weapon to prevent whipping. No part of the weapon should be thinner than 1 1/4” so it won’t go inside a helmet grill. The YAC weapon rules are a good place to reference as to what is safe but again see rule 1 and talk to me about it.
- All surfaces except the grip must be made of or covered with foam. Fighting is to-the-touch but I don’t want hard surfaces possibly hitting fingers.
- Weapons should look like an object (like a baguette) and not a weapon (like a dagger). This doesn’t mean knives are forbidden, but if you make a chef knife or a cleaver exaggerate the appearance to make it look like that object and not just a generic dagger.
- Use tape or a cloth sleeve to cover the foam, again like the YAC weapon rules it should cover but not compress. You can colour the tape or cloth with ink marker to help with the object appearance, but do not use paint or attach other material that might come off when fighting. Absolutely no glitter!
- Weapons are to be shared, tossed in a pile for anyone to use.
Please come participate in or watch both the heavy tournament and tavern brawl, I need both fighters and spectators!