We had vendors that sold crafts for the smart medieval shopper and this year they added a wooden castle which was utilized for some of the war games.
We also had a good turn out from our own realm. Coach, Ciaran, Jesse, Adrian and myself all made the trip this year. I hope they all had as good a time as I did.
While the vast majority of this years equinox experience was fantastic there was a problem with weapon checks. This year the weapon checker broke my great sword and I believe that he did it on purpose. When the weapon checker was checking my great sword for flex he struck the edge of a wooden shield full swing as hard as he could causing my core to snap with a loud crack. Mind you this is a sword that I have used in many practices, fought a red tournament with, and have had at other events without issue.
I don't understand what the issue is with weapon checks at Equinox but this isn't the first time that they've pissed me off and I am not the only one to complain about it by a long shot. Last year they failed 6 of my arrows. Normally when a weapon is failed they put a sticker on it describing the reason for the failure. In my case I got 6 stickers with "Fuck You." written on them. 3 weeks later I took those same arrows to a different event and they allowed me to use them so I have no idea why the profanity was on there.
My point is this. I spent time and money crafting my equipment and destroying my sword was a real jerk move. I also can't think of a single good reason why someone would write "fuck you" on my failure stickers. That is just totally inappropriate. If my stuff fails I'm fine with that. I've never given a checker grief and it is nice to know what a problem is so that it can be repaired. The "fuck you" stickers could almost make me think this is personal but I can't think of any reason why it would be. I don't know any of the weapon checkers, I've never lived in Tennessee, and I've certainly never done anything to any of them to earn their disdain. So that just makes me think that they have a person doing their checking that is a problem. I'm sure that he must have been unaware that the person who's equipment he just destroyed happens to be the person that writes the news letter for the realm next door. Because that wouldn't be the brightest move. Of course I have to write about it. I really prefer to keep my blog positive but I had to get this off my chest.
I'm not the only person that had their equipment damaged by weapon check either. One of my friends told me that the foam edging of his shield was damaged one year because they used his shield for flex checks and kept smacking the same spot on his shield until it broke down the foam. It was already passed so he went ahead and used it but he still had to repair it when he got home.
Our equipment is just foam wrapped around some kind of core. If it is abused with excessive force or repetitive blows then it will become damaged or broken. I don't care how well it is manufactured. Also just because you have been given a little power is no excuse to be disrespectful and destructive of other people's property. That being said I hope that in the future the officials will take a look at this problem. It is the one bad thing that I have to say about an otherwise extremely well organized and well officiated event.
Coming soon an interview with Angel, the president of Dur Demarion and the organizer of Equinox 2014.
Hope to see you at the next event.
Thorne the mercenary
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