cellio | interviewed by mikekn

1. How did you first get involved with the SCA? What attracted you to it?

It was the fighting. I was into D&D (only RPG I'd yet played) and sword&sorcery fantasy, and this sounded like that. Historical accuracy and re-creation? Much later... I saw fighting at a college demo, stayed until it ended, showed up at the next practice, got tutored in making carpet armor, and I was off and running. It was several months before I went to an event (hadn't really heard about those), and then I discovered that the SCA does other things too. The next two steady activities I got pulled into were dancing and archery.

2. What is your favorite edition/version of D&D? Why?

I started playing with Basic D&D (that is, the blue book), and have played most of what followed. (I own but have never played the original set with the white books.) Generally, each has improved on what came before. The last (and only recent) campaign I played in (see ralph_dnd started with v3 and switched to 3.5 when it was published. I found that very satisfying, as this was really the first time I felt I could build a character with some depth and well-roundedness. Feats and skills add a lot of richness (hey, almost feels like RuneQuest! :-) ), and the multi-classing felt smooth. Some of the character types seem better thought-out; I always found mages (now wizards) a hassle to play, but the new sorceror class was very comfortable. (It's possible that dual-classing sorceror and paladin was mildly abusive.) I would happily play in this system again (and would explore some other character type if I did).

When I started playing in high school the game was all about the hack-and-slash and collecting loot. Now, what I care about is interesting characters and interesting worlds to play them in. Older editions of D&D didn't support that so well (is that part of what drove me to the earlier style of play?), but the current one does.

3. What is most memorable from your time as EK chronicler?

Hmm, good question. I don't think there's so much one big thing as a bunch of smaller bits, so let me offer some of those:

The single question asked of my by the royalty who chose me: "You're not going to change the format again, are you?" (The people who held the office two times before me had changed to the 8.5x11" format, to much annoyance. Their successors, my predecessors, changed it back.)
Going to lots of events I wouldn't have gone to otherwise, particularly Coronations, and meeting cool people as a result. My friendship with hlinspjalda is a direct result of one of those events.
After the corporation added rules saying that event announcements had to contain (among things) the street address of the site or risk being declared unofficial, getting an event announcement from a rural group with a note something like this: "The site is on an unlabelled dirt road. I asked around to see what people called it but they mostly don't. We decided that since the road runs along the river, it must be River Road. Is that ok?" I published it without comment; what the corporation didn't know wouldn't hurt anyone. :-)
Receiving an article about Lyme Disease from someone -- complete with photocopied deer ticks. I was grateful that he hadn't sent the actual bodies.
The monthly mailing parties, usually with 15-20 people in my house and Roxane personally licking all the first-class stamps. Hey, if a volunteer finds a niche she's happy with, I'm not going to interfere!
Getting together every single month with lefkowitzga in the CS terminal room at CMU to type each issue. At that time only about a third of the submissions came electronically, and this was before I (or most of my local friends) owned computers. But I still had access from having worked at the university, so I'd just log on to two terminals (terminals! like VT100s!), fire up emacs, and type. Ts'vee'a's dedication to this task made a huge difference.
Receiving advice on filing from a kingdom seneschal who should probably remain anonymous: "Every month, stick a piece of paper into the stack with the month and year". My filing still isn't much better than that.

4. What inspired you to build a house for Pennsic?

I love Pennsic; I hate camping. I'd envied Baroness Megan's little house for years but had thought only merchants were allowed to have them (and store them on site). Once I found out that wasn't true, I started scheming. My original plans were actually for something Viking-age; I'm glad I changed my persona before, rather than after, actually building.

5. What kind of cheese on that grilled cheese?

Depends on the bread. If it's rye, I prefer swiss. If it's going to be white bread, American cheese is canonical and suits me fine.

Only a few months ago I encountered, for the first time, a cheese called halloumi. The cheese was grilled but firm enough not to dribble, and then that was put on a toasted bun with other toppings (grilled red peppers and onions, some sort of dressing, lettuce, etc). Yum!

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<<<Receiving an article about Lyme Disease from someone -- complete with photocopied deer ticks.>>>

I edited the newsletter for The Continental Line (national organization of American Revolutionary War reenactors -- Brits are on another team), and one of the reenactors sent me the same thing! Photocopied deer ticks and all! LOL!

interviewed by mikekn

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