Historicon 2019: Snow Queens and Swamp Monsters

So I was able to attend Historicon this year, from Thursday through Sunday, at its new venue, the Lancaster County Convention Center in downtown Lancaster.  The new venue is wonderful!  I was lucky enough to get a room at the attached Marriot.  The view from the floor I stayed on was a bit different from that of the old Host:

I heard several complaints about parking and loading and unloading but as I was staying at the Marriot, I didn't have any problems.

The Games I Ran:

This was the seventh year that Nick and I ran a musical-themed wargame.  This time it was a mash-up of Frozen and Anastasia, called "Let It Go, Rasputin."  I was too busy to take many pictures from the game but I think it was quite the success. 

As in previous years, we both wore iconic costumes during the game.  I must say the looks I got from other gamers as I crossed the game room were priceless. 

This is essentially what the table set-up was:

A first for our musical games, we had two young ladies playing who were given the roles of Anna and Elsa.  As a result, the game was probably not as raucous as in previous years but was still very fun.  "Anna" who despite being only 8, was a really excellent player and won the coveted Wazzi award for best actor.

The other game I ran was the Creatures of Croatoan.  This was part of a series of Elizabethan fantasy/horror games using the Frostgrave/Ghost Archipelago rules.  I had run a game last year about the death of Christopher Marlowe and the search for a lost manuscript of Marlow's Dr. Faustus that could actually open a portal to hell.  This year's game was about the search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

 As with the previous game, this one had the players controlling distinct warbands with different goals.  This shows the two Spanish bands.

 This is Grace O'Malley's Irish pirates

 There were three different tribes of Native Americans: Croatoans, Secotans, and Powhatans

There were about half a dozen English warbands

 Including Sir Edmund Blackadder

 The players had to investigate various sites around the island, while fending off some of the strange creatures there as well as the other warbands.

The players could interact with various markers on the board that would give them clues as to the fate of the Lost Colony as well as encounters

 Things escalated pretty quickly:

Games in Which I Played

 I got a chance to play in a number of games.

The first was Last Kids on Earth, based on a YA novel series, in which a small group of kids try to survive a zombie apocalypse. We proved remarkable lucky and successful with all of our survivors making it back to our tree-house fortress with snacks.  A fun game.

I also played in Zeb Cook's dog-sled race game, a sort of Wacky Racers on Ice.  Another fun game, I was Santa Claus.

A magic sled pulled by 8 tiny reindeer is not as maneuverable as you would think.

I also played in one of the iterations of To Catch a King which was put on by Little Wars TV all weekend.  I usually avoid Napoleonic games as not quite my cup of tea.  However, this game was run by Miles Reidy who's an excellent and funny GM.  In this game, the French had successfully invaded England and the British were attempting to get George III onto a ship to reach safety in the colonies.  

A beautiful board and a fun scenario. I was one of the British players and we had to hold open a road to sea against furious French attacks while trying to get the less than mentally stable King to a Royal Navy ship.

We managed pretty well for a while and the King was about half-way to the sea when the French made a sudden break through and were able to capture him.  Fun and quick moving for a game of this magnitude.

The last game I played in was Howard Whitehouse's Gentleman's War, a visual feast of old-fashion shiny toy soldiers.  Given that I played this on Saturday night, it was a delightful end to the convention that gave a lot of laugh without taxing my exhausted brain too much.

Some Games I spotted:

Have Gun Will Travel - they were using a 1950s era board game as the campaign system. It look like a fun game with a great table.

This was a VSF race game.

Some sort of SciFi

Not sure what some of these games were but the terrain was beautiful

 There seemed to be at least two Pegasus Bridge games that I saw.

The magnificent Battle of Hoth game put on by the HAWKS

Pacific landing game.

The Creatures of Croatoan: A School of Night Adventure for Historicon 2019

This is the table set up for a fantasy/horror game I'll be running at Historicon in July. The game is called The Creatures of Croatoan and is about the search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke in 1590. 

This is a part of a series of games I've planned using the Frostgrave system in a fantasy Elizabethan world. Last year, I had run A Dead Man in Deptford about the aftermath of the killing of playwright Christopher Marlowe. I call the setting The School of Night.

The mat is from Cigar Box Mats. It's not apparent from the pictures but the ground areas are raised using Styrofoam insulation panels I carved to match the pattern on the mat.

Roanoke was the first attempt to establish an English colony in North America.  After a couple of failed attempts, a colony of over 100 men, women, and children was established on the island in 1587.  The first English child born in the New World, Virginia Dare, was the granddaughter of the colony's governor, John White.  White returned to England to arrange a re-supply effort.  Due mainly to the Spanish Armada, the relief fleet did not sail for three years.  When it arrived in 1590, the colony had disappeared.  The only clue was the word "Croatoan," was carved on a tree.  Croatoan was a nearby island and the home of a tribe of friendly Native Americans.  Historically, storms prevented White and the relief fleet from searching Croatoan.  This game postulates that they, and other rival groups, did have time to visit Croatoan but were driven off by the dark forces that had destroyed the colony.

As with the prior School of Night game, each player will control a small group of investigators trying to find clues. Each party will have its own ultimate goal.

 The English relief force will include a certain Puritan hero

 Could that be Virginia Dare?

 Wahunsonacock, war chief of the Powhatans has come to investigate.

As have the Spanish.

These English explorers may need a cunning plan to escape this mess.