Last Saturday, the group got together again for another session of Pony Tales.

Those of you who are paying attention may be wondering what happened to Episode 2. Well, there has been another session in between, but I was on vacation at my parents’, so I was not there, and no one else has written up just what happened. Here’s the basics of what I know:

Silver Tuppence got a letter from his crazy uncle, Wooden Nickel. He’s actually a prospector, and was writing about some troubles he’s had with someone trying to run him off his claim. As it turned out, there was a logging concern nearby, that had been getting more and more alarmed about Wooden Nickel’s antics. Especially his habit of leaving caches of (sweating!) dynamite around for convenient future use.

Some time later, Marathon was making his postal rounds, delivering packages. One package had been left for last, as he was familiar with the address. Trot (“Tongs”) Ironhoof’s smithy, which was taking delivery of a new surveying scope for Astra Rose, as he would be doing the final fitting of the mount. It was a little odd that it was being shipped in a barrel… which was a fact not lost on anyone else when Marathon arrived. Astra was there to examine her new instrument, Silver Tuppence was there to inspect it and approve it for official surveying use… and Windshear was there just to watch.

Astra, wondering about the barrel, used her talent, and realized that whatever was in there, it wasn’t a scope. Listening closely, Astra could hear noises in the barrel, but nothing distinct. At this point, Tongs came over and opened up the barrel.

And a swarm of small, cute, colorful creatures flew out of the barrel. Multi-colored small spheres with kind of bug-eyes and small insect wings.

Silver Tuppence recognized them instantly, and was horrified. “Parasprites!” He quickly tried to explain that parasprites are a plague. An agricultural one that is. They are ravenous creatures, that breed fast, and can rapidly wreck an area. The parasprites helpfully proved his point by drinking his tea, and eating all his tea bags. …And there was now an entire barrel full rapidly leaving through the open doors of the smithy.

Thankfully, Silver Tuppence knew just about everything we needed to know, like the fact parasprites are attracted to music. (Thank you, thank you, Silver Tuppence, for making your roll, and allowing us to short-circuit the ‘discovery’ phase of the adventure.) Astra had a small music box with her, that proved to work. The next few minutes were spent rounding up those that were still in the smithy. Which left us the question of what to do with them. There’s no Everfree Forest near Ponyford to drive them to. We eventually… decided to dump them in the forge. At least it was quick. (eeeeeeee… poppoppoppop! Pop!)

An examination of the barrel showed that there was a little bit of straw, and maybe a twig or two left in it. Also, the bill of lading on the barrel confirmed that it should be Astra’s new scope.

In addition to Astra’s small music box, Windshear has an actual gramophone, she brought it to the smithy for some quick (and careful!) modifications. That is, fitting it with a megaphone to try and make it louder. That done, it was tied down in Ironhoof’s cart and everyone went to try and start recovering the parasprites that had escaped into town.

Everyone except Marathon that is. He flew back to the main post office in Gallopston, to find out where this barrel had been shipped in from, where Astra’s new instrument was, and hope that there weren’t barrels full of parasprites being shipped all over Equestria right now.

Rounding up the parasprites of course involved trying to explain to everyone what was going on. Parasprites are actually quite rare, and not well known. The amount of ‘telegraph’ that got played in the town regarding what was going on doesn’t bear thinking about. Mostly, the parasprites hadn’t gotten too far yet, though they did quite a number on the day’s farmer’s market. Still, after about three passes through town, pretty much all of them had been rooted out and disposed of. (eeeeeeee… poppoppoppop! Pop!)

Upon arrival in Gallopston, it was a relief to see that things seemed normal. A quick check by the break room in the post office showed no signs of parasprites (there was still food). Somewhat relieved, Marathon informed the Postmaster about what had happened. This led to a search through the records to find out when the barrel had arrived, and what had happened. It eventually turned out that one of the poor interns had managed to mess up, and while trying to clean it all up had swapped the bill of ladings of two packages. A quick go-through of the records showed that barrel had originally been headed for the Apple Strudel Plantation. (A barrel of parasprites loose in an apple orchard, in the middle of agricultural heartland of the Valley of Heart’s Delight? Doesn’t bear thinking about.) It had originally shipped from Appleloosa.

So, a trip back to Ponyford to explain what was known, and then a trip to Apple Strudel.

Apple Strudel was confused. Braeburn was supposed to be sending him some new apple stock for the orchard, but then a package arrived that obviously wasn’t apples, and then we showed up with a barrel, that was empty…. The plantation had indeed gotten a package, one more more suited to the shipping of a delicate instrument. They were obviously surprised and horrified about the parasprites that had very nearly been shipped straight to them. (And Astra was touchingly united with her new surveying instrument.)

So, next up was a trip to Aaaaaappleloosa! This was a longer trip, needing a couple days or so by train. (It took about that long from Ponyville in the series, and that’s probably closer.)

Once Braeburn was done proudly showing off the town (it is impossible to get his attention until he’s given the five-bit tour), we started asking questions. Braeburn was mystified. They hadn’t sent anything to Apple Strudel, and hadn’t seen anything like our descriptions of parasprites. Certainly, everything in town looked fine, no sign of rampaging parasprites… which would make it unlikely that one had got into a barrel by accident without leaving his cousins behind.

A quick look at the barrel showed that it did have Braeburn’s cutie mark as the logo on the side. But if he didn’t send it… where did it come from? A check at the Appleloosa post office revealed that the barrel had indeed been shipped from there, but not by any local. He was described as a city-slicker, with a reddish coat and yellow mane, and maybe a bit smarmy.

We split into two groups to try and see if we could find this stranger, or at least someone who knew more about him. Marathon and Windshear checked with the station master, who did remember seeing this pony arrive. He arrived about ten days ago, the barrel was shipped about seven days ago… so he had been in town a couple days before that. The station master didn’t know of him leaving, but he may just not have been on duty at the time.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group was checking down at the local saloon (and having some trouble with the saloon doors). After striking out at first, Tongs helped jog the barkeep’s memory, and we finally got a name for this stallion: Silk Smooth. Not only that, but we found out where he was still staying, and that part of the party headed over to the inn.

While on the way back from the train station, Marathon had an idea: he went to check the general store in town. Like most any 19th-century general store, there was a bit of everything, including a fair amount of produce, and a barrel full of apples with Braeburn’s logo on the side. Talking to the proprietoress, Marathon and Windshear found out that a barrel of their apples had gone missing about a week ago. The loss of the apples was bad enough, but the missing barrel was a problem, since it wasn’t theirs. They take delivery of the apples from Braeburn in his barrels, and then return the empty barrels were returned to Braeburn when they took delivery of more apples, so now the store owed him for the barrel as well.

“We… think we know where the barrel is.”

Shortly after that, they were found by the rest of the party, who had registered at the inn, and had managed to take a look at the guest book and see that Silk Smooth was still there, and find out what room he was in.

So, in true adventuring party fashion, we confronted him. Windshear kept an eye out from the top of the building over his window, Marathon was across the street, and everyone else was at the door of his room. Astra could tell that he was in there with her talent, so when there was no answer to the knock on his door, Tongs knocked open (but not off its hinges like the last door he opened…). Silk Smooth backed through the room, to the balcony in front of the advancing party, but was refusing to answer any questions.

Marathon decided to step in, and flew up to the balcony. “Equestria Mail Service—the Postmaster General would like to have a few words about shipping dangerous animals.”

While he was still flabbergasted at that, Windshear flew down: “Freeze! Gallopston Coastal Patrol! (I always wanted to say that!)”

I’d like to think that the Mail Service had him more worried than the Coastal Patrol, but he did break down and confess. Though that might have been more from Astra Mare and Silver Tuppence finding the stash of money he’d been paid.

He had been hired by a rival of the Apple family to wreck or discredit their business in the Valley of Heart’s delight. I’m not sure if the parasprites were his idea or his employer’s. After getting the basics of what we needed, we handed Silk Smooth over to the sheriff. If not for the mix up in shipping, it might have been all too successful. (You know, the idea of parasprites loose in the middle of the Valley of Heart’s Delight does bear thinking upon.) And things pretty much wrapped up with everyone preparing to give their superiors a full report.

The session went pretty well and pretty fast, we actually wrapped up slightly early for the evening. It was great fun, and did a nice job of hooking into a couple bits of the series. Marathon’s going to start thinking of himself as an investigator at this rate though.

The gang all got back together on Saturday night for another round of brightly colored magical ponies.

It was quickly decided that we had three things on the agenda: one more check by the marchioness' estate, a second visit to Midnight, and to check if a pony and a gryphon had taken ship out of Gallopston together. Also, since this was definitely going to take a little longer, Silver Tuppence sent out messages to the Coastal Patrol and the Postal Service explaining that Windshear and Marathon had been called to duty for the Marquess.

Once at the Marchioness' estate we checked around with the guards, the head of the gryphon laborers and Abendstern's room again. The main thing is we were trying to see if we could get a better idea of just how long she had been planning this little... 'trip'. There wasn't a lot to be found, though we did end up finding a well-loved stuffed toy that had been her companion when she was younger.

Next up was finding out just what Midnight knew. We now knew that she knew Abendstern far better than that it had seemed. There was some debate, but the party quickly headed over to her house for a confrontation. While most of the party gathered in front of her cottage, Tongs moved around to check the back door, and Marathon kept an eye out for any activity from above.

We had caught a glimpse of movement at one of the curtains, but she didn't respond when we knocked and called out. As it turned out, the front door was unlocked, and Windshear went in to look for her.

He didn't find her, but he did fall asleep. Trying to confront a unicorn who's magic talent is putting ponies to sleep does have some problems. After a little bit, Astra went in after him. She didn't fall asleep, but did start feeling quite tired, and started kicking over some furniture to try and find Abendstern.

Tongs heard the commotion and, finding the back door was locked, kicked it off its hinges and charged in. Around this time Astra's magical talent finally homed in on Midnight, and found that she was hiding in an armoire. With some effort, Astra moved the armoire out to the front lawn, where Silver Tuppence continued to try to be the voice of reason, and offered Midnight (who was scared out of her wits by this time) some tea.

The terrified filly eventually talked to us. It seems that while she did know Abenstern better than she had first let on, she really was innocent of Abenstern's intentions. Abendstern has been willful and rebellious, but Midnight did not realize that she truly meant to run away from home.

By the time we were done, we'd attracted the attention of the rest of the town, and had to quickly explain to a policepony that were working for the Marquess.

Having done our adventure party duty, we moved on to Gallopston. There we split up to pursue what sources of contacts we had, and, for the less adventurous ones, make sure we were equipped for what could be a long trip.

Astra Rose went down to the Harbormaster's office and studied the boards that give the status of every ship in port. She eventually worked down to about three that might be willing to take a passenger or unskilled help, and make a short unscheduled run. Meanwhile, Tongs had gone to some of his less... savory friends to see if they knew of anything odd going on Nightmare Night.

One name came up in multiple lines of inquiry, Cloud Dancer. It was a small coastal lug, that sailed whenever it had a contract. And it had left late during Nightmare Night, and come back a few hours later. Wherever it had gone it wasn't too far away. We managed to get an interview with the captain, who was not at all happy about getting involved with business of the Marquess. But it was a little late for that. We eventually convinced him to tell us what he'd been doing, which as it turned out was giving a ride to a paying passenger, and a few crates of cargo, who had herself dropped off a little ways down the coast at a small inlet.

After some consulting with each other, we decided to have the Cloud Dancer take us down to where Abendstern had been dropped off. This didn't please the captain either, but we could pay.... And it was far easier than trying to find the exact same inlet on our own.

Once down there, we scouted around a little to try and make sure it seemed to be the right place, and let the Cloud Dancer go on its way.

We found a cloak that had tangled in the brush, which matched what we knew of the one Abenstern had swapped with Midnight. Some examination showed hoofprints leading away from the beach and up the shore of the stream of the inlet. Most of the party followed the trail up the stream while Marathon and Windshear kept an eye out above the tops of the trees lining the stream. While there, we spotted a gryphon flying further inland, past where the trees gave out, who then dropped suddenly down to where a small shack could be seen. We were worried that he might have seen us, but apparently he was just where he wanted to be.

A little while after, the group made it past the trees, and came up to the camp. And indeed there were Abenstern and Little Claw. And a small shack assembled from the planks of crates.

It's the beginning of November, that rickety little thing was not going to survive the winter.

Abenstern and Little Claw were dismayed at being found so soon, but stubbornly determined to stick out their plan of making a go of it themselves.

Silver Tuppence took the lead for this part, as we tried to talk the two youngsters out of their rash and angst/romantic determination. Between the good points of how worried their parents were, how worried their friends were (and yes, we did have to remind them that they had friends that cared about them), and the upcoming winter, we slowly talked them down.

This had been a shorter trek than we had really expected. So, the next thing was getting back to civilization. Windshear managed to get get back to the Cloud Dancer before it got too far. The captain was really unhappy to see us again.

But we got them back safe and sound. They're in trouble, but they'll be fine. There is an actual romantic involvement between the two (which causes a chorus of 'ew' from most ponies), but there's no knowing where it will go.

When things were looking more and more like we'd be heading south into the valley, I had visions of a long wilderness trek to find the pair. Nope, just an hour's trek or so. Much more convenient.

So that was our first adventure. In about a month we'll probably have a second one.

Well... where to start...?

A few months ago, all four of us here became aware of a show that's doing quite well outside it's normal demographic: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  Tom_Clowder in particular has really taken to it, as it's done a lot to help raise his spirits, and he went so far as to write an RPG based on the show, using a trimmed down version of the Open D6 system. Of course, once Pony Tales was done, several of his friends started asking 'so when's the game?'

Of course, he'd done it more as an intellectual exercise, but it's hard to say 'no' when people are coming up with characters on you. So Saturday night, six of us got together to adventure in the Valley of Heart's Delight, a march on the southern edge of Equestria.

I'll admit, I'm the one who wasn't entirely prepared. I like the series, but my mental space has been elsewhere for the past month or two, and inspiration was not striking. Still, I have a basic feel for Marathon, Postal Express pony.

We also had Windshear ( baroncoon) a pegasus who works for the coastal patrol, Astra Rose (Lance) an unicorn surveyor, Trot "Tongs" Ironhoof ( Dustykat) an earth pony mechanic/blacksmith, and Silver Tuppence ( Smudge) the unicorn accountant for the Marquis in charge of the valley.

The story started the morning after Nightmare Night; Abendstern [Evenstar], the youngest daughter of the Marquess had gone to attend a party in nearby Ponyford. That morning, she and her two guards had not been heard from at the Marquis' castle and Silver Tuppence was tasked to find the missing daughter as quickly as possible.

This will be the boring version of the session; we have a group full of quick-witted people, and various silly lines and shared geek-culture references zipped by all night. But, most of them were highly situational, and my mind has retained hardly any of the byplay.

Going down to Ponyford, Tuppence met two ponies who have had dealings with the household before; Astra Mare had been party hopping herself in Ponyford, and Marathon, who was delivering a new surveyor's scope to her (and having been out flying the previous night, he was possibly the only non-hung over adult in the town). Tuppence questioned Astra about the parties last night, but she didn't know much beyond seeing the guards... drinking, possibly heavily.

A quick scouring of the center of town followed. Astra used her magical talent to send materials to manage to locate a piece of one of the guard's armor... up in a tree. With pegasi, and unicorns who can use telekinesis around, there's plenty of ways it could have gotten up there. As I flew around, I noticed that it seemed like the number of gryphons that attended last night's party was perhaps unusually high. The bit dropped, and I checked out the tree again, and there was indeed a gryphon feather there, dyed red.

Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Gallopston (the major town on the coast, and the next stop down the rail line from Ponyford), Windshear and Tongs were having encounters with the missing guards. They didn't know where they were (well, until told), how they got there, or... where Abendstern was. They could remember her meeting up with a unicorn mare, and the two of them buying the guards some drinks... but nothing past that. After some time figuring things out, Windshear and Tongs set out with the guards for Ponyford to figure out just what's going on.

After the two mini-parties met up and started exchanging notes there were a few avenues to explore. It eventually occurred to us to ask, and then the two guards realized that their memories from last night didn't just fade into a drunken haze, but more just <i>stopped</i>. A check at the train station ticket window revealed that somepony matching the description of the mare who joined Abendstern last night had bought a ticket for a couple stops down the line. Cue traveling music.

Tracking her down once we were there took a little effort (Astra kept digging herself in deeper), but we eventually got to where she lived on the outskirts of town. Midnight (as her name turned out to be) was very startled, and a bit scared to see a large group arrive, with the guards in tow. Desperately explaining, "It was just a little prank!" it turned out that that this unicorn's magical talent is good for putting ponies to sleep. She had agreed to help Abendstern get away from her escort for a little while (...which she has been known to do before) by knocking them out, and putting them on the train for Gallopston. Presumably, she was still going to return to the castle on her own the next morning; the last Midnight had seen of her was as she boarded the train to go home, and Abendstern stayed behind in Ponyford... with a griffon named Little Claw that had helped with the plan.

That prompted a trip to the Marchioness' family lands in wine country. Abendstern naturally spends some time there, and it attracts a number of griffon workers in during "Griffon Summer", which in the valley is the period just before Nightmare Night. It turned out that Little Claw was employed there (not very successfully), and is something of a misfit, he hasn't done well at the winery, for a while he was interested in a group of young toughs that celebrate the more belligerent 'warrior past' of the gryphons (who like to dye their feathers with red ochre in imitation of old practices), and Abendstern was one of the few griffons or ponies who spent any time with him.

This led us to the Marquess' castle. Most of the party checked on what Abendstern had been doing, while Marathon and Windshear flew off to check with a nearby Griffon community about Little Claw. He indeed did come from there. He hadn't been home for a little while, but as he'd been working at the winery, that was normal.

Our return to the castle from that trip pretty much ended the night, as a couple of us were already fading fast. But there were a couple last things: checking with the palace staff revealed that Abendstern's friend Midnight had visited her quite often lately. Midnight had given us the impression that they didn't know each other that well.... And a quick check into Abendstern's finances showed that she had been saving a fair amount of her stipend... and that she had recently cleared out her bank account.

In all, we all had a great time, and everyone had something to do. I contributed most to the early part of the session, where I think I asked a couple pertinent questions. Baron and Lance are somewhat stealing the show, but they've got the quick wit for that to happen quite naturally. ^_^

[Repeated from a post on RPG Geek, as I've been meaning to explore the concept here.]

What further accounts we have are fabulous: as that the Hellusians and Oxiones have the countenances and aspect of men, with the bodies and limbs of savage beasts. This, as a thing about which I have no certain information, I shall leave untouched.
—Tacitus, Germania

One of the beliefs in the ancient world was that civilization made the man. Those peoples removed from civilization were not only barbarians, but as they became further removed from the civilized world, they became more savage and alien and bestial, until just past the limits of the known world, the men took on the appearance of beasts.

An idea I've been kicking around since last winter is a fantasy world where 'civilization makes the man' is true—at least in some respect. It's the basis of what I hope to be an upcoming campaign world, and this post is as much to start forcing me into doing something about it as anything else.

The general idea for the setting is a fantasy world taking a lot of cues from Earth around the 6th Century. That is, I want to borrow a lot from history without feeling the need to do a lot of research to get it right. :) Two of the first things I need to do is start coming up with new names for all the historical analogs so they can start taking on their own character, and working out the geography. The part I'm really working with in my head is the equivalent to Western Europe.

No one, not even the scholars of the Empire, know where people come from. 'People' come in all sorts of forms. But it is known that the more 'civilized' a people are, the more they look the same. Moreover, a people that becomes more settled, more advanced, in technology, philosophy, and any of a number of other things, in time begin to look more... 'human', where as less advanced peoples continue to resemble the animals from whence they presumably sprang [which is to say, they're furries].

The Empire was founded by a people who had only recently become 'human' themselves, and early on adopted a citizenship requirements that looked for these traits. As the Empire spread, and the system became entrenched, various peoples were accorded rights within the Empire based on where on a scale of 'human' and 'animal' traits they fall.

The glory days of the Empire are long past, and today many lands are no longer administered directly by the Empire, though various invading tribes maintain the forms of the Empire, even though none of them would have the ius homii [human/ruling rights] under the Empire's rule.

Peoples such as the [Romans] are fully human (though that's only been true for about 800 years), while long-term subjects of the Empire such as the [Gauls] more resemble an anime-style furry—animal ears and tail and little else. Peoples from outside the barbaricum are more traditional furries, with all sorts of mixes with digitigrade legs and long muzzles (which tend to be the first to go), and then all sorts of shadings in between for more transitional peoples. [It is possible that various centaur-like creatures also exist, but I haven't made up my mind on that.]

Well, lived through another Further Confusion. That shouldn't be any kind of challenge, but then we keep getting sick in the middle of it....

Actually, we pretty much all got sick before the con, which should count as good planning, other than the fact that we were still recovering when going into the high-stress environment of the con. For the second year in a row, we hosted Elin at our place during the con, which is fun, we don't see enough of her. We got her at the airport Wednesday night, and pre-con stuff was done while I went to work. -bleh-

Friday was pretty good, Radio Comix did good business, everyone had fun, and... tried to figure their way around the new hotel the con is in. The Fairmont is a bit more plush than I'm used to, with kind of a lobby in front of all the bathroom areas (carpeting, decorations, I thought I'd gone into a regular hotel room for a couple seconds the first time). Still, I think they're not quite used to a convention that packs in this number of people, and the logistics got behind (like trying four different water coolers to find one that still had water). Our panel that night was "Where Does it Come From?", which went very well, though we had a bit more topic drift than usual. Dinner was at the Pita Pit, which I highly recommend.

I stood almost all day Friday, which was a mistake, since my feet and legs are still recovering. So I took it easy the rest of the con, which meant loafing around the computer area keeping up on my reading. Took a look at the various furry prose-publishers around, and wondering if any of them were any good, I realized I needed Fred Patten's reviews. *sigh* Wish you were here Fred.  baroncoon didn't look well to begin with Saturday morning, and looked worse as the day went on, and he drove himself home before he got so bad he couldn't drive. Dinner was at Gordon Biersh—or it should have been,  Smudge and I had appetizers and had to leave Elin and Team Shuffle (the Japanese crew Elin manages for their con appearance here) there to make our panel. Nobody's fault really, but there was a Sharks game that night, so every place in downtown was slammed. The calamari I had was good, and I understand the dinner was excellent. Our panel was a repeat of "Fashion Tales", which went very well. It's a subject that's weaker for me, but I had a few good points to put in.

On Sunday Baron stayed home, and Smudge wasn't doing too well. And she got worse as the day went on. This created a problem, since Dave and I aren't really qualified to drive something as big as the van, which was needed to haul out the Radio Comix stock after the dealer's room finished that night. We got a Smudge a ride home with  CopperCheetah and arranged for a friend to do van driving. After a discussion with  Tom_Clowder, we decided to go on with that night's panel anyway. I wasn't feeling entirely well, but figured I'd least make it through the day. And then Baron showed up! He had been planning on driving in, when Drew showed up with Smudge, and rode in with him instead. I was dubious about this, since he wasn't doing so well, but thankfully he got better as the day went on. The traditional "Coffee, Tea and Memes" panel was a bit slow, thanks to being scheduled opposite of Furry Night Live, which not only drew people away, but caused a line to be going in front of the door to the room, which was probably off-putting. Of course, we're probably one of the few things you can put opposite of it and get anyone at all. Dinner was cookies at the panel (there was a lot to do beforehand). Despite a little confusion, breakdown went well, and Baron drove us home.

I got myself some bookmarks (becoming a habit, but I cycle through them with different books, so the variety is nice), issue one of Scavengers by  Flinters (I followed it on FA, and figured I owed him for the entertainment), The Van Rijn Method (collection of classic SF by Poul Anderson), Black Dogs by Ursula Vernon (I like to get something by the author guest of honor, which I guess is Ursula this year; Sofawolf Press is also a GoH and published the book, and this is one of the few things in their catalog that looked interesting to me), and  MelWhite's latest little prose piece A Servant of the Consortium.

Well, we got through FC 08 without any illness.

Would that it stayed that way. Two roommates are now down with IT.  tom_clowder came down with it (hard) late Monday and is recovering.  Smudge came down with it today.

Now  baroncoon and I were sick in December, and they missed it. I am desperately hoping that they have a version of what we had, and that I'm not about to be miserable....

BackBreaker had it's third annual "Coffee, Tea, and Memes" panel last night at Further Confusion. And I'd say it's the best one yet.

Of course, I was too sick to attend last year, so I'm not an entirely fair judge.

The idea of the panel, for those who don't know, is that we (me,  baroncoon,  Smudge,  Tom_Clowder, and Dr. Fox as moderator) have a panel where coffee, tea, and cookies are provided and we pass around a hat in which the audience puts in ideas for discussion topics. Every 15 minutes the moderator picks a topic out of the hat and checks that it is a valid topic (no current events, religion or sex), and then passes it to us. If we all think we can talk to the subject, we announce the topic and hold forth on it.

Smudge noted a couple years ago, that when we were sitting around the common area of a con, talking about random subjects, we would attract a small crowd of onlookers. And her idea was to formalize it as a con panel, and invite audience participation.

We had a very good audience last night. At peak, we had about 16 people, and they generally stayed the full hour and a half the panel was scheduled for, and many stayed later. We ran about about another hour and half over before things really broke up, and the room was needed for someone else (I'm sure the con scheduled the room to be empty after us with malice aforethought).

The selection of topics we got was very good. There were some where one or another of us didn't think they could talk to the subject, but there wasn't anything automatically out, and nothing where more than one of us was unsure.

We ended up covering "Your favorite furry anime" (different votes from everyone), "whimsical characters in a serious story", "will furries take over the world?" (narf), "which is better as a furry background, hard SF or soft SF?", "equines" (that was a bit freeform), "what would a culture look like if it never had representative art" (damn alien), and a few more I'm not remembering currently.

It was a very good crowd, and a really great panel--and left me far too jazzed too long into the night to get a good night's sleep. Always the sign of a good convention!