Tourney of the Three Ships

I am starting to come out of the post-event co-autocrat exhaustion fog. I must say that this weekend was amazing! For those of you in other areas of the Known World, the Shire of Southkeep ran its first solo event in a long long time. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to co-autocrat with Lord Cian MacCollough. This week I am going to give my usual event breakdown, as well as what I learned through the frenzy of preparation, and the never-ending walking from place to place that was the day of the event itself.

Like lots of great ideas, this one was spawned in a garage with drinks (Pepsi), and two people sitting around. Our fearless leader, THL Petra Malusclava, had just been mentioning in our monthly meeting that the shire needed to start planning an event for the not-too-distant future, since it had been far too long. After the meeting, Cian and I were sitting out in the garage working on whatever woodworking project his fevered mind had at that time, and he looks at me and he says "what about an event that tests all the martial disciplines?" After an hour or so refining the idea, we decided to present it to the shire at the next meeting: a tourney challenging the local groups (shire, barony, canton, etc) to assemble a team with a person for each of the martial styles in society: heavy combat, light combat, and target archery. At the next meeting we were told since we came up with the idea it was on us to run with it. Thus the co-autocrats were born!

Our next step in planning was finding a site, and settling on a date that wasn’t already filled in the Trimarian calendar. For the site, the main difficulty was finding a decent campsite within the borders of Miami-Dade county. Sabine de Saintes was a huge help, she had done recce on most of the sites that came anywhere near our requirements the year before. We decided on Camp Greynolds: the site was a little small, but the price was right and they gave us free reign, more or less. Our dates got shifted around quite a bit initially; we had wanted a fall event to try and avoid the oppressive South Florida heat, but there was just no space in that time frame to run an event that could be well attended. After all was said and done, we booked for the first weekend in February. It was official: we were now barrelling towards an event of our own.

Over the next few weeks, the shire members looked over the tasks that came with the event and divided everything up. Even when presented with a ton of work, the members of the shire didn’t hesitate at all: everyone volunteered to pitch in. Cera Wricht and Sabine de Saintes took over the kitchen. My own Braenna Faelan took on the task of reservation steward. Augustine von Kleve offered his experience in security to be constable. Mildryth Eilesberie and her husband Edward Mandeville offerred to help wherever they were needed. Vikar Bjornsson (The Mouth from the South) gave his services as site herald, and his lady Emma said she would run fighter support to keep everyone going in the heat. Eleanor VanTyne gave her services as a seamstress to help our home team look good. Aldamoureis Ventzke and Robert de Cleftlands put ink to paper and blade to leather to create the prizes for the winners.  All in all every member of the shire offered their services to some portion of the event planning.

The planning was going decently well with only a few issues. We decided to request the presence of TRM Yoan Moon Yang and Jung Mie at our event. To this end, Braenna was tasked with creating an invitation scroll, and Cian a gift box worthy of the Crowns. When the time came to present the gift and invitation, we were lucky enough that a fair bit of the Shire came to the event, and so we were able to show that we have grown strong. Their Majesties were delighted with the gifts, and saddened that only one would be able to make it. After a short discussion, Her Majesty was gracious enough to allow the King to be the one to travel down. Now, this means that in addition to the first event any of us had run, we were running an event that would have royal attendance. No pressure or anything…

The weeks leading up to the event became a blur of phone calls, Facebook posts, and checking in with Cian to make sure that we were both not yet called to the halls of the gods from stress. He was a flurry of sawdust and woodchips as he put his skills to work building crazy thing after crazy thing while the rest of us came up with ways to help the event, including our scoreboard for the heavy tourney. While he was getting physical, I was talking to anyone who had ears trying to promote the event. The rest of the shire was busy working at their tasks, and it seemed like we were on time. It felt a little funny. 

The day of the event arrived and we actually didn’t forget anything! Except to pick up the keys to the campground... Every event needs its own little snafu, no? After several hours of panic, and some hardline negotiations from the Honourable Lady Petra, keys were acquired and set up got started. Gates open, travellers arriving, kitchen fires burning: the Tourney of the Three Ships had begun!

The evening prior involved mostly running around setting and making sure that things were ready for the next day. I was fortunate enough to be able to take some time and speak with his Majesty and attend to his needs. It was important to me that we show our ability to care for important visitors. Cian and I walked the grounds and made our last-minute notes of what was going to go where and how we were going to handle things. I’d like to take an aside and thank Lady Ethine who sat with Braenna at pre-reg way beyond her shift, and helped my lady learn the ins and outs of the job.

The morning came far too quickly. We were up by 6am and off to a running start. From here the day, is a blur of running from one side of the camp to the other, occasionally passing other volunteers,

or Cian shooting off a quick “are you ok? do you need anything?” to get greeted with the same. In all the running around, Edward Mandeville, Augustine von Kleve, and Vikarr Bjornsson stood out the most. Whenever I was running from one task and got waylaid by another, they were always ready to step up and take over on the first one so I could move on. My job would have been damn near impossible without their help.

Our Archery tournament was broken into two stages, a ring shoot where each ring was worth 1pt and grow smaller as the rounds progressed, and a window shoot, three shots at three small windows with a bonus for getting an arrow in each. Cian was good enough to run the range and Alejandro de León offered his assistance as needed. The competitors, from what I heard, were quite happy to see the interesting formats and while it was a little different, they shot very well. The teams represented in archery were Sangre del Sol, Southkeep, and Starhaven.They each shot very well, but it was an individual entrant, Nicole Minnerly, that took the win in archery, with Southkeep scoring the highest of the teams. 

That rapier lyst was next on our schedule, and it was a fierce competition: a grand melee involving challenges and a point for each kill. HRM Yoan Moon Yang was kind enough to assist in the marshalling of the fight. As such, he had the best seat to watch what was going on. For rapier, Sangre del Sol did not have an entrant, but Seamarch did.  When at last the clash of steel on steel had finished, our very own Augustine von Kleve held the top score. Southkeep was in good standing to win the entire tourney, although Starhaven was right behind them with good performances from Kara Arisdottir in archery and Sibilla Daine in rapier.

The heavy tournament was set up as a modified William Marshall tourney. Each fighter would begin the melee with five rings, which would be held by the master of the lyst. Everytime they were killed, they would walk off the field and inform the master of the lyst who had taken their life, and he would remove a ring from their pile and add it to the fighter who defeated them. The melee would run for one hour total, and fighters were allowed to take breaks as they needed. Fighters were also able to give lives to those that had been eliminated, so that they could continue to fight. In an amazing act of courtesy, Sir Subadai give out nine of his own rings to other fighters so that the battle could carry on for more people. It was a hard-fought slugfest throughout the hour with rarely less than 5 fighters on the field. At the end, Sir Jebe had scored the most rings and taken the win in the heavy competition. Seamarch’s representative, Sgt. Daniel von Hessen, and Starhaven’s representative, Jarl Ari Tyrbrandr, tied for second. This gave Starhaven enough points to tie with Southkeep for the overall winner of the day. After a quick discussion with his Majesty, the fighters were told that the tie breaker would be one last fight between the Southkeep heavy fighter, Vikarr Bjornsson, and Jarl Ari. Vikarr fought bravely, but experience and skill trumped size and youth. 

This left us with our victors for the first ever Tourney of the Three Ships: the Shire of Starhaven, Jarl Ari Tyrbrandr, Countess Sibilla Daine, and Kara Arisdottir. Well done! I can’t wait to see them back next year defending their title.

I wish I could speak about the classes that were given in great detail, but with the running around I was unable to see most of the event with the exception of the final bout of the heavy tourney. That being said, I know that we had amazing teachers volunteer from all over our fair Kingdom. They taught classes on such varied topics as beekeeping in period, falconry, carpentry, embroidery, and many more. Our herald’s track of classes had a teacher who had done us the kindness of flying in all the way from Ansteorra: Magistra Emma de Fetherstan. She spent the day surrounded by heralds and would-be heralds sharing her knowledge. Her efforts are appreciated in more ways than I can express in words. 

Our feast was prepared by Lady Cera Wricht and Lady Sabine de Saintes, and they did an amazing job. I was very concerned with feast budget throughout the entire planning time because of horror stories that I had been told. These ladies were on point, they stuck to budget and exceeded all expectations. They gave us four removes that were among the best I have had in all my time going to events. Starting off with a bread plate surrounded by butters molded in different shapes. Each shape was a different butter that had been flavoured in some way, honey, oregano, etc. They were delicious! Add to that the homemade bread and you couldn’t get any better. The second course was roasted pork and a mango and onion chutney accompanied by a fresh salad. Next we were treated to trenchers filled with beef burgundy with a side of macaroni and cheese. The beef burgundy was my favourite part of the meal, I ate so much of it I only had enough room to try one of the three mini desserts that came out as the final remove. The mini desserts were a key lime pie, a blueberry tart, and apple pie.

I would like to, from the bottom of my heart, thank all the people who traveled such far distances to spend the weekend with us, and make this event a success. I would also like to thank everyone for the amazingly kind words that reached our ears from every corner about the staff, the site, and overall how much everyone had a good time. Our goal was to make an event that people would remember and want to attend again and we really felt that we succeeded based on what we were hearing. Thank you again, it was a great time!!

Photography by: Mildryth Eilesberie