Hunting 04: Through Sunday, 7PM

CONCEPT

Well, it's over. As predicted, I didn't have enough time to blog the whole event as it happened. Others have been more successful at keeping up, but I've gone into somewhat more detail.

Again, I have to hurry it along (I'm at work, lunch break) but I'll pick up where I left off.

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS

166. Bring your modestly-equipped 1st edition 8th-level self (one participant per team) and a set of many-sided dice to Uncle Joe’s Coffee Shop at 4:00 PM on Friday. Take note, briefly, of item 18 from Scav Hunt 211, and equip yourself with a scarf and some gloves. [EXP/10 points. Will there be treasures untold? Why, certainly, but only if you’ve come dressed appropriately]

This item was my baby and I'd nurtured it for two years, it having been cut from last year's list. The week leading up to the Hunt I'd been increasingly nervous, because I was afraid I wouldn't have enough time to prepare.

For the few who aren't at all famliar with this, the item references the 1978 edition of Dungeons and Dragons, a role-playing game, that is, a sort of interactive, sophisticated choose-your-own adventure type thing in a fantasy setting. Players create their own characters and participate in events for experience. The wording of the item gave clues as to the setting and nature of the adventure. It also indicated that players were to show up dressed as there characters.

I arrived at Uncle Joe's with three bags of Doritos and pretzels and sat in the back making final preparations. Soon, the players began to arrive, and their costumes were spectacular. Deep hoods and engraven swords, leather pouches, and hoopaks. It was beautiful. The item went startlingly well, also. There was a fair bit of improvisation on everyone's part, as we tried to maneuver between our knowledge of the different editions, and adapt whenever a player had to leave, to return to his or her team.

Yotam, a friend who I normally play with, showed up and threw a rock at the ground, a sign of his jealousy that I would game with anyone else. Whenever a player left, their character abruptly died, which (to my surprise) gave the other players a convenient means of disarming traps. And of course, we immediately encountered the difficulty of not following the "script," by which I mean, taking a course of action that neither the written material nor the DM has anticipated at all.

In the end, we had to split after about four hours, but we exchanged email addresses, and agreed to meet up and finish the adventure later.

INTERRUPTION

I'm going to be more abbreviated, posting the wording of major items, and just a couple comments on their execution.
If you want to hear about these events and items in more detail email me at connor@afterdusk.org, or leave a note, and I'm happy to talk about it.

PARTY

261. There Ain’t No Bash Like A Monster Mash(in’ of the Christ). It has been established that persons who have recently died have been returning to life and committing acts of murder. Well if you can’t cremate them, create them. As the sun sinks into the mists on Friday staring at sundown, your team emerges from its particular Crypt to do battle among the legions of the UnDead. Tonight, after all, will answer many questions. Will the zombies win or the vampires, and which side will Bela fight for? Do functional perimeters vary from manifestation to manifestation? Is PMS really your secret weapon? What are the merits of the all brain diet? Where did all this fog come from? Why does it seem to glow? True, vampires never drink. . . wine. . . but will they drink? Can the children of the night play “The Music of the Night” on a set of steel drums? Have you been to parties that make this look like a fucking summer camp? Why are those psychos exploding? Where did Jack go, anyway? And who stuck that sedative in my schvanstuker? Yes, we’ve always been fuzzy on that good/bad thing, but Hell, morality sucks, so skip Van Helsing and come to this horror show. [' points]

It was cold, but this seemed to be a good thing actually, as for awhile at least, people behaved with a bit more restraint, and kept us from being prematurely shut down.
We gave teams a lot more flexibility with the theme this year, and while the party was less focused, I think this was a strength overall. We got Thriller videos, Ecto-Pucker-Vodka-Coolers, and live Punk music.
There was some stanky-ass nastiness at the very end shutting down, and it was kind of a disgrace to the Hunt and what we represent. While I don't think we claim to be wholesome, I think the judges are definitely not down with stanky-ass nastiness.
Overall: A great success.

SATURDAY

Scav Olympics: Dry Games took awhile, but they were a hit.
Highlights included:
- Calvinball (in which 50 pantsless people ripped apart a pineapple while collecting shoes off the ground).
- The race through flour to find a Swedish fish, which left half the participants looking as though they had been prematurely aged by an amateur acting troupe.
- Zorbing, in which team "gladiators" wheeled about in huge metal balls, sometimes crushing opponents' balls made of cardboard.

Another Seminary Co-Op bag wearing event.
We got the police called us, even though the bags weren't checked.
One team managed to get "SH" (for "Scav Hunt") in lights at the Gleacher Center downtown. It was a little difficult to see, and wouldn't have been apparent to those walking by not looking for it, but the lines were clear, of lights, and spanned four stories. It was definitely wortwhile.

Scav Olynpics: Wet Games
Highlights included:
- Marco Polo, beginning with several dozen people vs. one judge, in a space that gradually got smaller and smaller. They fled like a school of fish before a shark...
- The twelve foot water sucking contest. It was funny to watch.
I would like to note, regarding the photography... I was asked to take pictures of this event. It wasn't my idea to photograph the Furries Swimsuit competition. I did everything I could to keep the pictures tasteful, and gave Evan's camera back to him, telling him to delete any that didn't seem appropriate.
In short: I am not a lecerous perv.

JUDGMENT: SHOWCASE

Better than it's ever been.

The Observatory of the Aughra (props to Shoreland, FIST, and Snell), the TESLA coil (Palevsky and FIST), and the Mojo walker (pretty much everyone who showed us one) were all well-done. While we're often surprised, it's not unusual to have showcase items demonstrate a lot of time and effort with somewhat modest results. This year was exciting.
I won't soon forget Snell's giant Mojo with the stampable legs or the sound of electricity crackling between coke bottles in FISTs tesla coil. One of my favorite parts of the Hunt, for probably the first time.

The sombrero could've been a major catastrophe, something that became a bit of a contentious issues at the very end (don't ask me. I'll never talk!!!). But it worked out very well. We saw several magnificent and fully-functional sombreros that looked poised as well, and some ambitious and well-intentioned, but untimately hazardous engineering experiments.

JUDGMENT

Again, I have to be brief, or I will never get through this.
Every team showed me something incredible.
Max P. spliced together a mix of the Hunt and the Passion of the Christ that had me almost laughing with joy.
The Nonames put together a music video which, while it didn't correspond to an item on the list, perhaps should have.
Snell built their own tiny violin and played it in woeful tones for me.
A close friend from FIST pulled a nail embedded in a block of wood using only his ass.

My personal favorite, culled with great effort from the hundreds of remarkable things I saw yesterday, however, was a road trip item.
One of the objectives of the roadtrip was to respond to the "threat in the East." Yes: Princeton. The culmination of these efforts was to "Give Tannen Green a U of C tattoo." Tannen Green is the Princetons' central quads.
Only Pierce actually completed this item, but they did it with style and drama.
They poured almost 200 pounds of sand into a giant "U of C" emblem facing the main throughway, at 4 PM, in front of tour-groups and passerby. The emblem was clearly legible.
They had provided explanations, citing art work and social justice, but nobody asked.

Did anyone notice?

Did anyone figure it out?

Has Scavenger Hunt succeeded in extending its sphere of influence beyond the thin limits of the Windy City?

Will we soon have visitors from Princeton?

I rub my hands together, and I hope.

And this seems a fitting place to end my account of this years Scavenger Hunt.

~ Connor