Hello Altavia!

We had another wonderfully busy month with lots of events, practices and arts!

We started off with heading north to our cousins in Wintermist to thank Fabia and Ajax as they stepped down and support Shego and Alphonsus as they stepped in to their new role as Baroness and Baron.

Fabia called up a surprised Amabel to become the next Party Baroness, continuing a fun lineage of Baronesses.

The delicious lunch for the Baronage was highlighted by bardic performances filled with heartfelt songs and poems written to honor their consorts who inspired them.

The next week we headed out for Potrero War with members of our populace to join the Kingdom for a fun long weekend of fighting, shooting, camping and celebration.

We had large Altavian encampment, including quite a few people who were joining us for their first war! We were thrilled to have them, and hope they had a fantastic first war experience.

Brianna took Faelin as her Protege in the Altavians encampment, and we are all excited to see them grow and thrive together.

The rapier war field had some fun and creative melee scenarios, including our princess becoming a zombie and working to turn the rest of the fighters.

On the armored field we heard of exciting scenarios, and we were pleased to see one of our newer fighters join the melee field for the first time.

The archery range saw Altavians and archers aplenty, with over 200 archers coming out throughout the war. The growth of the archery community is fantastic to see, and the short range was continuously filled with new archery coming out to learn and try their hand at a bow.

Altavia had a fantastic showing at the novelty shoots and challenges, with one of our new archers, Brian to winning the Balloon pop-ulace novelty shoot. Merlin won the Viking Raid novelty shoot and the 3d target shoot “Kings Hunt”, and Amabel won the novelty shoot “Raising, not Razing a Viking Village” and the Potrero Adult War Championship.

We also got to celebrate two archers who made bowmaster at Potrero: Merlin Wynn (crossbow) and Gideon of Lyondemere (Handbow). This is a huge accomplishment in an archer’s career, and we are incredibly proud of them.

Back at home, our rapier practice has continued to have a great turnout, and our monthly 1st Monday boar pit this month encouraged fighters to bring their best weapons form, which resulted in some fantastic fighting.

Armored practice has had a good turnout lately, with new fighters and returning fighters that haven’t been able to come out recently.
Sir Yari has been continuing to show up to practices and help our fighters, even running a beginning two-weapons class.

We finished up the month with Collegium, which had a ton of class options, and the lunch by Rebecca Robynson and Philip De Will o’Aston was delicious!

We had quite a few Altavians at Collegium who took a wide range of classes from metal etching to period games to rapier classes to back strap weaving and more.

Thank you to everyone who helped run the event, taught classes and made the day a success!

We are looking forward to the next month of events and practices, leading up to Coronation.

In service,
Baroness Amabel
Baron Griffith

Hello Altavia!

We had a wonderful month, of Art, archery, events and classes, ending in our own 42nd baronial anniversary!

Our cousins in Starkhafn and Nordwache stepped up at their Investitures, and we are thrilled to welcome them to the family, and look forward to seeing what the next few years bring.

Our Baron Griffith was able to make it out to Starkhafn to bid farewell to Thomas and Catylyn and gifted them with a lovely boat to join their Navy for their retirement.

We had a lovely arts and sciences night where we received lots of help creating the belt favors to give to our champions in the upcoming year. Thank you to everyone who came out to help, especially Eleanor and who directed us all in the sewing arts, and Merlin who carved and block printed all of the favors with the design.

We had a few Altavians join the demo at Ridgecon, fighting, interacting with the guests and even joining the costume contest!

This month was also a big month for archery, both locally, at our practices with our archers, and the society at large.

We have regularly been running Royal rounds, and getting in IKACs and society seasonal challenges as well. This month, after running 10 archers through the IKAC (Inter-Kingdom Archery Challenge), which is essentially 2 royal rounds + extra speed ends. With these two Royal rounds counting toward each Archer’s official scores, we had two archers achieve their next highest rank, with Joseph du Lapia reaching Yeoman and Baroness Amabel reaching Bowmaster.

Society wide, the Order of the Mark was formally established as the Peerage level order for the ranged weapons order, including archery, thrown weapons, combat archery and siege weapons, and kingdoms were granted the opportunity to name three premiers.

Kahn Valentine and King Brocc named the three CAID premieres at Altavia Anniversary. They named Cecilia deMedici, Teka Turmanov and Nikolaos Phaistios as our first candidates for the Order of the Mark.
We are so excited for them, and look forward to seeing what the future holds.

Altavia anniversary was a fun exciting day full of the celebration of growth, wonderful fighting, many deserving Altavians receiving awards.

We were able to celebrate Sir Liam’s Pelican elevation, Sibylla de Haze’s Laurel vigil, and the start of Felipe de Trujillo’s traveling Pelican vigil.

We also gained new champions:
Rapier: Don Nathaniel Longbow
Cut and Thrust: Maestro Lot Ramirez
Arts and Sciences: THL Caterina Sanzio
Armored Combat: Kennari Liam Ulfsson won, and asked Thorgrim Rygarson, who finaled with him to act as champion, as Liam has moved out of state and will not be around to act as champion.

We sincerely thank everyone who helped the day run smoothly, and those that help us throughout the year, and look forward to the next year and the many events and celebrations to come.

In Service,
Baroness Amabel
Baron Griffith

Hello Altavia!

This was a VERY busy month!

We started off with an exciting double event weekend in Caid.

At Pentathlon on Saturday our very own Sibylla (Tanya Yvette Wilson) was asked to join the Laurels!

On Sunday, Caid Archery Open was held at Woodley Park and ably stewarded by Merlin (Joshua Gore). Achilleous won the Open Handbow Division and Merlin took the Crossbow division.

At practice, our rapier fighters are continuing the new tradition of bringing more structured classes to practice, with Master Niko Phaistos teaching a lesson on gaining constraint. We’re planning on presenting structured classes at least once a month, and look forward to seeing what people have to bring out to teach everyone.

Academia Draconis was a wonderful weekend full of teaching, learning and fighting.
After the afternoon classes on Saturday there were two Pas, for armored and rapier, which were well attended and enjoyed.

There was also an invasion by Griffins, which were rebutted by the spear throwing and combat archery tournaments. The ranged weapon tournaments were great fun, with the hosts creating paper mache Griffins for the combatants to attack. Baroness Amabel and Arnleif Oladottir stepped in, bringing combat arrows and experience to the field, and opened up the field for any who were interested in trying their hand at combat archery.

Baron Niko took first place in the spear throwing, hitting his Griffin with every shot, and Merlin won the combat archery tournament, tearing open the Griffin’s throat and releasing the candy inside to the ravenous hordes (the children).

That evening we were treated to pizza and cider by the wonderful Dreiburgen hosts, while the Torchlight tournament was held, and Baron Griffith was victorious with the most remaining lives and overall wins within the donation tournament!

We all came home, and had a largesse making night, which was incredibly well attended. Thank you to all who came out and helped us make braided belts and mug holders for the incoming barons and baronesses, it is greatly appreciated, and we’re excited to welcome our new cousins soon.

The next weekend we headed out to Al Sahid, for their Anniversary, which was a fun filled day with Easter eggs, Bunny melees and tournaments. Master Niko won to Cut and Thrust, Sir Bjorn took Armored, Mestre Róisín won Rapier, Baroness Amabel won thrown weapons and Gideon won Archery.

Wrapping up the month, we had crown tournament in Angels, and the warm day held lots of fighting for all with a best two out of three double elimination tournament. We are thrilled to have Sir Bjorn Zenthffeer and Mestre Róisín Ni Brian as our next Crown Prince and Princess, and look forward to the next reign with them.

We look forward to the next month, which is filled with tournaments and Anniversaries (including our own)!

In Service to the Dream,
Baroness Amabel Radleigh
Baron Griffith von Bremen

Hello Altavia!

This month started off with the first wars of the season, with both Red Star Rapier War and Phoenix War drawing people out to melees, seeing friends, and enjoying camping.

At Rapier War, his Majesty Brocc had the Consort’s Thrown Weapons tournament, and our very own Merlin Wynn both won the tournament and was chosen to be his Highness’s thrown weapons champion.

The following week at Lyondemere arts and archery, the arts and archery were fantastic! The weather was gorgeous, and we shot all day with novelty targets, balloon melee and Royal rounds.

The semi finals were made up of the 8 winners of each of the previous types of competitions, and Altavia (and our regulars at archery practice) made a great showing: Merlin won Dragons and Monsters, Amabel won Royal Rounds, Gideon tied Geral for first in one of the novelties. Merlin and Geral made it to the finals, which Geral won.

Our soon to be transplant and practice guest Ceallach and Geral made finals for crossbow, with Ceallach winning.

There was also an arts competition with archery as the theme which was well attended, with lots of gorgeous art, featuring paintings, arrows, quivers, bows, block printing and more. Our very own Baroness Amabel won with her tooled leather quiver.

The next weekend was jam packed with Dun Or Anniversary, and Robin Hood.

Dun Or Anniversary had it’s traditional bear pit format, with lots of fighting for all combatants, and our very own Colwyn won the rapier championship.

Robin Hood was the Barony of the Angeles’s archery tournament, with novelty shoots for crossbow and hand bow. The championship was awarded for period handbow, as well as a winner of the day for overall highest score.
Altavia showed exceptionally well, with Merlin winning crossbow, Baroness Amabel winning the period championship, and Achillious of Altavia winning the overall highest score winner of the day.

We’re looking forward to the next busy month, where we will find out who the next Kingdom heirs will be at the upcoming Crown tournament, amongst many other exciting events.

In service to the dream,
Baroness Amabel
Baron Griffith