Fox Talks/Minas Ithil Tournament IV

Commemorative Tourney in Shanadoah

Greetings Atamara! After receiving a deathblow to our writing budget and a large fire in our printing office, which just happens to be located at the front of a very nasty war, we sort of fell off the map…but fear not my loyal readers, for your trusty tourney paper hath returned! You may now rejoice as we give you the report from Shanadoah. Right then. A grand total of 158 nobles from thirteen of the thirteen realms flocked to Minas’ capital city to bear witness to a passing-of-the-torch ceremony of sorts, honouring the reign of King DeadAngel3 and commemorating the coronation of King Raoul. The city hosted a two-event tourney offering up 700 gold to the first place winners and 150 for second. In the end, Sir Jaime of Talerium bested Sir Tomin of Suville in the sword ring, and Falasan held all the jousting glory as its own Sir Dashem out-lanced fellow Falsani Sir Kido three hits to none in the final round. Well fought by all, and congratulations to the champions!

A Tournament of Music

Before the conversation devolved into a spitting match, tounrey-goers Raziel III of Minas and Raine of Makar entertained us all with a few songs. Full copies can be found on the Insert. Cavalry Song: Sir Raziel "I wanna be in the cavalry if they send me off to war I wanna good steed under me like my forefathers before I wanna good mount when the bugle sounds and I hear the battles' roar I wanna be in the cavalry if they send me off to war Well,I wanna horse in the volunteer force that's riding forth at dawn Please save for me some gallantry that will echo when I'm gone I beg of you sarge let me lead the charge when the battle lines are drawn Lemme at least leave a good hoof beat they'll remember loud and long I'd not a good foot soldier make, I'd be sour and slow at march And I'd be sick on a navy ship, and the sea would leave me parched But I'll be first in line if they'll let me ride, by god, you'll see my starch Lope back o'er the heath with the laurel wreath underneath that vict’ry arch" Viking War Song: Lady Raine (though she doesn’t want to be called Lady…) "Horse ain't no use in battle, might as well ride cattle, I'll smack you off that saddle, with a wooden paddle. Vikings cannot mount, just like we cannot count, too drunk to ride a horse, without any remorse. So swing your lance, and let your ponies dance, we'll pull down your pants, and kick you in the ARSE!!" Cavalry March: Sir Raziel III "Hi ho hi ho, hi ho, down the slopes we go! Lance against flesh and steel, pain and fear we make our enemies feel, trampling our foe as he falls before our might, hi ho hi ho, hi ho! Cavalry is King of the fight!"

The Especially Generous

A list of those who showed off their lavishness and bought us all a round! Dante (10), Tiana, Benjamin, Drake Alexander, Night Hawk, Enzeru, Ealdur, Relkin, Grahm, Brian ------ Sidd, Malcor, Bjorn, Sebastian, Kenshin, Ramil, Elrohir, Lorenzo, Nadroj, Bartho, Sandor, Chisil, Dead Angel WG, Dario, Youshou, Leolouch, Martok, Taryn Our heartfelt thanks to the most generous Dante Raiva of Minas Ithil for his most generous spending! All those in bold are the kind souls who bought us multiple rounds and everybody else from the dashes down decided one was enough (who does that?). Despite the fact that we made our intentions to participate known in a timely fashion we still managed to miss out on a few days of fun. So if your one of those lucky been-there-from-day-one-and-lived-it-up people, and you’re feeling slighted by the Fox Talks ale-tally department, send us your name and we’ll send you a fruit basket as well as a fresh-off-the-desk updated copy with your name included. Happy? You should be, the limes cost us a fortune

Inspiration and Aspirations from the Champions

From Sir Jamie Lannister of Talerium, second-time Champion of the Sword! Words of Advice: As any of the masters of the various Academies will tell you, training can only take you so far. Build yourself a solid base under the tutelage of the masters, but don't forget to get out in the field and test yourself in real combat. Only then can you join the ranks of the masters. Prize Money: The money won will be distributed amongst my realm, the noble knights of Xotaxa and donated to the church of my faith, The Word. I am not one for words, so I will leave you with this: Combat is the ultimate path to glory. Do not ever become discouraged or unfocused in your pursuit of its mastery. Jaime Lannister Nice fellow, huh? Sir Dashem has yet to comment – coming soon! (we hope…)

Nay, It Goes the Other Way I Say

Sorry...we’re really get into the rhyming thing when we can’t come up with quality titles. In any case, Atamarans disagreeing is nothing new. However, we here at Fox talks feel compelled to inform you, our readers, exactly what it is that we like to disagree about so much. So four months down the line when you’re all allies you can laugh about just how silly you all are. Can we print that? Putting technicalities aside for now, the main participants in said verbal duel were Lady Raine, self-proclaimed “Head-buttress of Makar, Sir Turkos of the Barony, Sir Hang of the Barony, Sir Bartho of Carelia, Sir Raziel II of Minas, and Sir Francis, also of Minas. So here are the issues at hand. One side claims the victory in Winwich belongs to the raiding force of the Barony while the other claims that while said raid on Winwich was indeed successful it was the Minas forces who returned shortly thereafter and sent the northern looters packing and claimed victory for their own, in addition side two sites an instance in which the Makarians sent their units to the region in question in lovely bite sized pieces including their General to which side one counters that the General was merely drunk and fell off his horse, hardly a victory for side two. Side two goes on to say that side one is ignoble while side two counters that side one contains a pompous coward and a murderer. Side one retorts that side two’s hands are equally dirty which side two refutes by concluding the killing of peasants and the killing of nobles to be different breeds altogether. Down the line a bit side one accuses side two of feeling a personal hatred towards side one but side two insists that their feeling is actually “aggression”, not hatred. Side one spirals down into in-fighting with an argument over who won what head-butting match resulting in what we in the tally department consider a draw for the two sides

Rumors - Evading the Fate of All Men?

Fox Talks came upon this curious tidbit from an unusual source in the form of a girl about yay tall tagging alongside General Night Hawk of Eston. According to the source, the good General spent a fair amount of time exploring ruins, sifting through texts, translating runes and histories of ancient cultures. Rumor around the tavern has it that Sir Night hawk reportedly said the following - "To be honest, I only know one way to push back death as it comes, but it will not help the already dead, and it is almost non existent everywhere but the Far East. The only miracle magic I've heard of is that which comes at an extremely heavy price." - Oh? Could it be that our dashing northern strategist knows a way to avoid that pesky mortal fate? Of course, you can't believe everything you hear, rumors are only rumors after all.