Gen Con 09 Day 3

Saturday, August 18th, 2009
Gorgeous jewelry? Check. Slightly annoying wings that need to be re-done? Check. Hair freshly washed and up? Check. Insane and amazing make-up (including hand-drawn dragon scales) that feels like it needs to be scrapped off by the end of the day? Check and check…
Saturday of Gen Con ladies and gents: the largest of the four days, where the dealer hall is jam packed and the number of nerds swells Indy’s population to amazing numbers.

The Copper Dragon has been a work in progress for a couple of years, ever since Steve made a comment that I looked like the Copper Dragon in the 3.5 Dracinomicon. I’ve even met the artist that did the picture, and even though, technically, Copper’s can’t polymorph into humanoid shapes, I look elegant as hell.

I look especially elegant trying to eat Cinnabon, which is what we had for breakfast. Yummy yummy gooey gooey and didn’t get a drop on the outfit.

We still managed to get to the Hall early so I could pop over to Aradani Designs to get my ears attached (which they will always do for you). They were also selling a Battlestar Galactica Officer’s jacket which, if it hadn’t been $300 (they hand make most of their pieces) I would have bought. While I was getting my ears put on, people came wandering by and watched, which of course led to questions, which in one case led to a sale (one of the reasons they don’t mind putting the ears on you for free). It was also the start of the usual “hey, can I get your picture” which always happens on Saturday. Walking with me on this day can be time consuming and very stop and go.

Steve and I then proceeded to finish up the Hall (we had missed one row on our stroll yesterday) and I found a great button about “Forget the knight in shinning armor, I want elves in tight leather”. Hehehehehe…

We also at this point were trying to find the shrieking Cthullu we had spotted for Willow yesterday, but neither of us could remember which isle it was or which booth. We did eventually find one, but I am sure it was not the place we had originally seen it. I hope she enjoys it after all the trouble we went through.

I also broke down and bought this AMAZING silk scarf from one of the stalls that accented the outfit beautifully. She did this draped thing that made it look very exotic.

We also kept running into people we knew: old bosses, former cast mates, fellow Chicagoans…
During all of this, we kept swinging by two booths: Cloud Kingdom Games, who do amazing riddles, and Dwarven Forge, who do, basically, Lego’s for grown-up gamers. That description is way too basic: these people make amazing pieces that can be constructed into taverns, caves, underground rivers, dungeons, ancient temples, dens of evil priests…and that’s just the “older” stuff, as they do sci-fi sets as well. They are expensive, but they really are artwork and the detail is amazing and can add to a game a lot. There were three sets that Steve was looking at, but as I had an evil plan to get him one for our anniversary, I kept pushing him to only look at the two sets that could be used to build an ancient temple.

We ran into our room mates at some point and went off to the Rio Grande demo room where not only were there board games galore, but there was free food and drink!

I did not stay long when the guys started playing another version of Carcasonne (there are about 20), instead heading off to try and catch the end of Patrick Rothfuss’s talk. They had moved from the Very Important Gamer’s Lounge (who schedules a talk in there…idiot Gen Con) and into the bar in the lobby of the Marriott. I caught the very tail end, but I did get a Flavored Fortune Cookie (not a red one, which were the raunchy ones) he was giving out.
Coming back from that to hook back up with the guys, I watched the Costume Contest Parade. I have to say, the quality this year was not up to the usual standards, but there were some good ones. Steam Punk seems to be making a big surge this year.

The game was just wrapping up when I got back into the room. Of course, I was with Steve long enough to walk up to the Sagamoore Ballroom to get in line for the Players Guide to Ebberron for free and signed by Keith Baker. It was something like the first 50 people, so I was there insanely early and was still not the first in line. I took the opportunity to start reading James Wyatt’s “Dragon War”, the third and final book in the Storm Dragon Trilogy. SO GOOD! It took me a little to remember everything from the previous books, but it started coming back after a bit.
Keith was right on time…in fact he was early, and snapped my picture (dragons are a major part of Eberron, and the costume is very exotic)…but the artist who works on the books was late. Those of us at the front chatted with Keith (who is seriously one of the nicest guys). The artist finally showed up and the line started moving and Keith wrote “Where’s Lei?” in my book. Now, if I hadn’t run off to meet Steve after his seminar, then I would have read that and asked back “I don’t know, you tell me” as he well knows my love of Lei d’Cannith in his Dreaming Dark Trilogy, the sequels to which he has yet to touch.

He needs to be careful. Steve has nearly run him over once…it can happen again…mwuhahahaha…

Anyway, I planted myself outside the room where Steve was in his writers’ seminar and continued to plow through “Dragon War”. I was more than half done by the time they got done. My primary reason for waiting outside the seminar was to catch Steve, but I also wanted James to sign the book. After he did that, we started walking and talking and then my stomach was rumbling and then James asked if he could join us for dinner.

GAHHHHHHHH!!!!!! YES!

Steve’s boss, author of some of my favorite books, works at WOTC, and an all around great guy and he has to ask us if he can come to dinner with us? BAH!

It unfortunately had to be a quick dinner as he had a came to get to (Apocolypse, which we found out later was being run by Monte Cook) so it was off to The Noodle Bowl. Turns out his wife is a red-headed actress who likes Twilight as well…and they live, like, three hours away from Forks…

I think the universe is poking me…

After a quick dinner we scampered off to Jon and Laura’s hotel room for games with them, Lowell, and Nate.

Next to dinner with James, it might have been the best part of the weekend.

With the need for sleep becoming desperate, we wandered back to the hotel where I did some basic backing and then crawled into bed.Side Note: Despite the fact that I broke my previous record of 21 requests for pictures with about 34 today, STILL NO ribbon from the floor costume contest. THAT SUCKS!!!