Wk 2 Dunraven Fair 2024 Recap

The Dragon's Eye summer 2024 season began with a tiny group of detectives and a visit to the Dunraven Fair. This goblin fair is held at special occasions at the sight of Dunraven Castle on the South Wales coast near Southerndown. Our team learned about this site's long history from Iron Age ring fort to Roman fort, to medieval castle, to Victorian hunting lodge, to modern day walled gardens and ruins.

This summer, a special convocation of the fair was held to celebrate the merging of two stars. The fair-goers were excited to welcome Professor Flummery, a famous sorcerer and merchant of the rarest of the rare creatures.

Our detectives were not so excited. They met Professor Flummery, and his darling rabbit, Caisearbhan (Ky-sheer-vawn). He took off with their baby dragons, and a precious seahorse and magical dove. Cai wasn't so certain about that, so she whispered a secret to a certain Mr. M, who sent a letter to a certain detective whose secret identity is safe with us. So the team learned where the Professor was headed: Dunraven Fair.

After the sorcerer's apparent treachery, the team befriended his shadow lion by feeding him conjured zebra meat. The team dubbed him Cupcake (that's "Coop-caw-cuh" said the Shadow Lion.) Out of game, the detectives have declared this cannon, so the name shall remain for future encounters with Professor Flummery.

The dream from Madame Drak guided our team to the Dunraven Castle ruins. They performed some magic to go back in time to the mythical realms of the Raven King and his shadowy underworld palace. He gave them permission to enter the fair and even provided a magical amulet that would deter anyone who sensed the presence of their mortal souls.

This amulet proved very useful against the floating eyeballs that guard the woods surrounding the fair. Their job is to prevent mortals from trying to sneak into the fair. The Eyes did a very poor job on this particular night. They found a few mortals, for sure, but something made their minds stray ... what was that? A sound way over there? I must go investigate ...

The Raven King also gave our brave detectives disguises that would fool even the magical beings at the fair. When they arrived, they blended in beautifully -- I mean, horribly -- with the denizens of the fair. Visit the Dragon's Eye Facebook page for images of their visit.

Out of game, the team made tiny dolls representing their costumes. They are fabulous! We had a lovely fortune teller with golden hair, a pink and lavender fairy dragon, a chic goblin in an outfit that was to die for, a club-wielding goblin that you wouldn't want to upset, and a faceless demon with shadow magic swirling around him. See them close up on Facebook, here.

The detectives created posters to display at the fair, offering a reward for help finding their baby dragons. They visited the merchants and traded artwork for magical artifacts. These artifacts come back to future adventures, powered up for one-time use in each mystery.

Each merchant shared a secret about how to reach Professor Flummery's famous secret booth. How can something be famous and secret at once? That's part of the magic of the Dunraven Fair -- and the Professor's special blend of magic.

Let's just say that our detectives managed to locate this famous secret place. They handled the sticky webs like pros, and made it past the giant spider guarding the way. Finally, they came face to face with their nemesis, Professor Flummery. 

Let me just say that all's well that ends well, as so often happens with our cases. The dragonlings were returned to the detectives, along with the other magical creatures. The detectives had fun choosing a new creature for more trading, this time with the Professor.

Our team had some OOG challenges, but pulled together in the end. It's not easy squeezing an adventure into three days, but we managed. On Friday, four of the team members returned. They made up games for the fair and we played them in the gym.

A special thank you goes to Adam Shaughnessy, visiting Dragonmage. Learn more about him here. He did a wonderful job bringing Professor Flummery, the Shadow Lion and the Spider to life. A very special thanks to Mr. M as well, and to a certain young detective for sharing her story about Mr. M. Thank you to the detectives, for their high courage, their persistence, and their sewing skills, which were put to good use this week!

Let me assure all that "no zebras were harmed in this adventure."

2024 Summer Preparations: Raven King and Moonrabbits

May is a busy time for Dragon's Eye Adventures, as summer mysteries come into better focus. The research through books and Internet shifts to the construction of magical artifacts and characters that the Detectives will meet. Here is a glimpse of two of the projects that are underway.

Dun Raven Fair (Session II) is a four-day adventure taking place from July 1-3 and 5. The detectives will visit a goblin fair in Dun Raven, Wales, to trade for magical artifacts with the merchants at the fair. Here is a link for more information about the story.

Here is the Raven King, who rules over the fair from the ghostly ruin of an old castle. He is a shapeshifting master of all magics and ruler of the twilight realms. Past detectives have met with the Raven King, who is fond of a magical cup of tea.

Our detectives will meet teacup trolls, Tomtes, fairies, goblins, fire-juggling skeletons and all kinds of other magical beings at the fair. We will be making and trading artifacts with the merchants at the fair, so this will be a very special week.

 

 The Moonrabbits (Session IV) is a five-day adventure taking place from July 15-19, 2024. The team will undertake a search for the twelve missing moon daughters of Chinese mythology. Here is a link to that story.

Making twelve main characters takes a bit of work, so I have been making one or two a day. The detectives will make their own Moonrabbit during the week -- so we should have a wonderful shot of all of those chaotic rabbits by the end of our week -- assuming we can get them to hold still for the photo!

The Dragon's Eye Adventures Facebook page will have a few more shots of the Raven King and the Moonrabbits. Visit that here.

Session VI: Hound and Horn -- Recap

Koschei the Deathless as a baby
with the Spirit Pups and Cernunnos' Horn

Our sixth adventure of the 2018 summer season began a year ago, when a group of detectives turned Koschei the Deathless into a baby. A baby needed someone to care for it, so they gave the infant to the nearest immortal they had summoned for help. That immortal was Cernunnos, the Celtic god of the Wild Hunt.

A Russian necromancer in the hands of a Celtic Winter King ... what could go wrong there? Naturally, the action spawned a sequel, which was "Hound and Horn."

This year's program assistant is Oliver Van Soest -- the owner of the Cernunnos amulet that was used last year. With some help from the Raven King, Oliver assembled a team of detectives to investigate what happened to the baby Koschei.

The team started in Wistman's Wood in Devon, England -- a short, stubby wood known for its ties to the Wild Hunt. The woods were full of pesky brambles and adders, and even a couple of ornery dwarves, but the detectives managed to make their way through the challenges.

An encounter with the Hounds of Annwn (the underworld spirit hounds) soon confirmed that the group was on the right track. Cernunnos requested a demonstration of the group's targeting skills before allowing them into his summer home, deep inside an ancient oak tree.

They soon learned that Cernunnos had sent the child into the care of a nurse. A swift roller coaster ride on the backs of spirit hounds led to her home. A squirrel's offer of jewels was turned down, due to suspicions about its character. This may be the first offer of jewels ever turned down--but several of the detectives in the group have had trouble with chaos jewels given by a "friend," so their caution is understandable.

The team turned themselves into bats with squirrel tails--a perfect disguise for entering the cave where the nurse lived. The sleuths proceeded with great caution -- a few among them were convinced that the nurse would turn out to be the Baba Yaga or some other witch who would try to eat them.

The nurse seemed perfectly lovely, taking care of baby Koschei in a cradle. He was playing with spirit hound puppies and his skeleton knights. He was not happy to see the heroes of the Dragon's Eye and tried to warn the nurse, but she could not understand his baby talk.

The team tried to explain why they needed to take Koschei away, but the nurse was reluctant to part with her little ward. She was trying to fatten the little guy up--a challenge, given that he's basically a skeleton with a few scraps of flesh.

When the detectives resorted to trapping the nurse in a serpent trap, everything went awry. They ended up caught. She turned into a blue-skinned hag named Black Annis. She had iron claws strong enough to dig out her own mountain cave, and long, stringy hair and a hideous face. Sure enough, she planned to feast on their bones, and she started to prepare the broth for soup.

Fortunately, the team had a group of detectives hidden in the tunnels, still disguised as bats. A little troll magic turned the broth Black Annis was stirring into a whirlpool. Another spell trapped the witch into a lightning cage and banished her to the nether realms.

In all of the chaos, Koschei the Deathless escaped. He hooked up his little spirit hounds to his cradle and flew off into the sky. He left behind a drawing of his plans. He was headed to Ceridwen's Cauldron, to dip his Skeleton Knights into the cauldron.

Once the detectives escaped their cages, they dove into the whirlpool.

Whirlpools are time and space portals used by trolls to travel around the world from one whirlpool to the next. When you use such clever troll magic, it is wise to tell the whirlpool where you wish to end your little travel. Our detective forgot to do this, which means we had to toss a coin and roll the dice to find out where the detectives would land. We've visited multiple whirlpools in Dragon's Eye Adventures, and no one wanted to revisit Charybdis and Scylla, or the Naruto Whirlpool in Japan.

We ended up at Old Sow in Downeast, Maine. She's a lovely pig with a golden star, friend of dragons. When she heard the detectives' story, she sent them to the Corryverckan Whirlpool off the coast of western Scotland. Two of the detectives had been here, one for "Midcoast Trolls" and the other for "The Winter Queen."

The Summer Queen (Brigit, Brigit and Brigit -- she's a triple goddess) welcomed the detectives into her golden hall of summer. She revealed the mysteries behind Koschei's plan to visit Ceridwen's Cauldron. He wasn't going to the one in Lake Tegid, which gave poetic inspiration. He was headed for the one in the heavens, that brought spirits back to life again in the cycle of life and death and life again.

Brigit, Brigit, Brigit explained Cernunnos' role as the Winter King, otherwise known as the constellation Orion. The Hunter rises at dawn on Samhain, Nov. 1, to take over the night sky during the winter. The Summer King is the Serpent known as Scorpio, who takes over the ruling of the sky at Beltane (May 1). With Koschei the Deathless in the Celtic Realms, the world would have two Winter Kings vs. 1 Summer King, upsetting the balance and bringing Winter year round.

The Cave Bear

The detectives made a plan to disguise themselves as bone creatures worthy of joining the bony army Koschei was trying to gather on his way to Ceridwen's Cauldron. Their plan was to trick him into taking them with him -- and then stopping his master plan to take over the Wild Hunt.

I'm happy to say that their little ruse succeeded. Koschei was overjoyed to find such ruthless villains to join his army. Pictures of the ruthless villains are on the Facebook page.

The final battle was spectacular, with yarnballs flying, healing spells rolling and Koschei ranting about the ruthless army that never showed. The group finally subdued the little tyke (he was tougher than one might imagine). A little kazoo magic summoned the Summer King serpent for help, and a pair of well-crafted glasses hypnotized Koschei into telling the truth about his diabolical plans.

The detectives devised a plan for returning Koschei to the Russian realms of myth. They sent him back to the Isle of Buyan, where his soul is kept underground. They forced him to become a lime on a tiny tree that would grow all summer, keeping him contained until the proper time arrived. He would be released to play his role as a winter king of sorts, maintaining the balance in the Russian realms, but each summer, he would resume his shape as a lime.

Congratulations to the team for a week of funny antics and escapes, and a most unexpected ending. Lime magic is a rarity among the varieties of earth magics. Almost as rare as kazoo magic, which is almost as rare as a ladybug that swells up and squishes the enemy.

Pictures of the adventure are on the Facebook page.