True Realm (Spoilers Within)

How about a quick blog about what Michelle, Mike, Jenn and I did this weekend! We took off Thursday night and headed to Marion, IL for an event called "True Realm". We had a fantastic time. Literally. :) True Realm, you see, is a fantasy adventure. It is produced by the people who have been doing "True Dungeon" at Gencon Indianapolis since 2003. It takes table-top fantasy role playing to a new level. Basically, what we did was go to a 40,000 square foot warehouse that had been set up with a full tavern (Totally dry BTW. No alcohol admitted), two full 7 room dungeons, and 2 smaller ones. We did a 4 room and the main 7 room while we were there. The rooms of these dungeons are intricately decorated, full size, and feature combats, puzzles and traps. Each room had a volunteer GM or Game Master, who assisted the 8 member parties in combat and answered questions. There were some truly spectacular animatronic critters, and some excellent live actors. In the first room we were all addressed by a none too polite Drow who essentially gave us our quest. Well, she told us what NOT to do and we did it anyway. :) The puzzles and challenges were both mental and physical, from arranging a series of numbered cards in a proper order based on information printed on plaques all over the room, to arranging a series of pieces into a cube the size of a small car while unable to speak to your teammates. There was also a challenge where you had to shoot a button on the wall across the room with a crossbow. (Which I succeeded in doing thank you very much!) Anyway, I could go on and on about all the things we had to do to make it through our dungeons, but it would be too hard to explain. Let's just say that it was a whole lot of fun. We had four people in our party that we'd never met. Two veterans, and two young newbies. We, ourselves were new, but everyone was very friendly and helpful as far as explaining how things worked and getting us equipped to play. Equipment, by the way is done with tokens. They come with all kinds of equipment printed on them. They represent your weapons, armor, rope, potions, or anything else that may be useful inside. You get 10 with your ticket, but more are available for purchase. There are some people who collect them of course, and they were all about with their suitcases of tokens. I ended up using an "Orcish Flail" token as my weapon, FYI. So that's what we did this past weekend. I would post pictures of the event, but not only was photography inside somewhat discouraged, but the inside was very dark. I could go into the specifics of how combat works, and all of that, but I'll just post a link to the True Dungeon website, and let you peruse there if you like, at your leisure. Perhaps, if you're feeling crazy, you can even drive up to Indy this August, attend Gencon, and run the dungeon yourself! Hopefully they'll have another one next year in Marion as well! Take it from me, this was great time! :) -J