Last month we went up north for another RPG retreat. We stayed at an old manor on the biggest mountain range in Portugal. (Thanks for that, Sofia. You’re a life-saver.) The house was beautiful and full of hidden secrets, as all old manors are. And it was cold. So very cold that it was silly.
We spent most of the time in the one den that had a fireplace, where we played and had our meals. In that one room, it was possible to function and think. We played two sessions a day, a long season of PTA and Storming the Wizard’s Tower. (well, at least the first level 🙂 ).
My main problem was going to the kitchen and cook our meals. Having your hands dipped in almost frozen water and then trying to operate a chef’s knife is an adventure on to itself. But it gets very scary, if on top of that you just can’t stop trembling with cold. Never have I wished for an “Endure Elements” spell so hard in my life!
Bedtime was hardly a comfort. Had we known in advance the conditions in the house, we would have prepared with hot-water bottles and the like. But we didn’t know, so changing clothes became an almost unsurpassable challenge. When we finally got ready to go to bed, we almost didn’t want to, because it would be colder inside the sheets than it was outside of them (at least for the first half hour, after which your body heat would make the bed almost, and I do mean almost, comfortable). To make you get the full meaning of how cold it was, let me tell you my husband as a very particular attitude about the cold. And I saw him shiver seriously. So seriously, that at times it seemed he had swallowed a small diesel motor. That was the fun part ;).
With all that, we managed to have fun playing, nonetheless. Although I can tell you that I don’t recommend a long season of PTA to a small group (there were four of us). The filler episodes tend to be too many. Storming the Wizard’s Tower turned out to be a fun game to test. I hope my husband posts his comments on the subject. I’m eager to have the whole game written and ready to play on all levels (kudos for you, Vincent! 🙂 ).
So now, we’re back to our all-year round campaigns and our projects to start some new ones. Let’s see what 2009 has in store for us.