Programme
Friday
Friday Afternoon Social from 4pm
All welcome, even if you are not ticket holders to join us for the Social Friday night: come see what Grand Tribunal all about! We are meeting from 4pm at the Brewhouse pub at the Brewery, Cheltenham where we have both inside and outdoor seating and there will be a bar, soft drinks and a number of food options available for purchase. Opposite the Holiday Inn Hotel.
Brewhouse and Kitchen pub, Cheltenham - Google Maps
From 7pm we will be at Gas Green Community Centre our main venue where we will have a brief opening ceremony then play games, chat, and get to know each other.
Light refreshments (tea, coffee, squash and snacks) will be available free. Feel free to bring something to share!
These events are entirely optional, and timings are just a guide to the earliest time they might happen. Feel free to turn up fashionably late.
It is likely that games will be run on Friday evening, and if you have something you'd like to play just bring it along!
Follow hashtag #gt25uk on Twitter to check the latest updates.
Friday Night Games from 7pm
Friday night is traditionally pretty informal and some people will play boardgames, and others will play rpg sessions. Bring something to offer! Alternatively try our Ars Magica Tournament adventures, the very first of their kind!
- 7pm til 11pm The Ars Magica Tournament Round 1: La Dòna Ploraira (The Weeping Lady). Take a grog and a newly gauntleted magus each and set off to investigate a mystery in the Provençal Tribunal. 5 players per table, 2 go through to next round.
To add a game to the programme please - fill in this form.
Saturday
9:00-22:00 - Gas Green Community Centre, see venue page for details. Please bring a packed lunch. Fish & chip supper can be delivered, optional. The nearby supermarket sells sandwiches - the corner shop now reopened and sells snacks, drinks and sandwiches.
Session A: 9.30am to 12 noon.
Either the Freeform Ars Magica LARP by CJ
OR
Brancalonia - A Heist Most Holy by Kyrie. Brancalonia, a Spaghetti Fantasy RPG using D&D (booo) run by Kyrie (yay?). Your band of knaves must enter the Vaticin City and steal a relic. After all, a dead Saint doesn't need ALL those finger bones, right?
Session B: 1pm till 5pm.
We play games!
- The Last King by Chris Barrett. Ars Magica modified to do dungeon crawling ala D&D
OR
Blood on the Snow for Ars Magica by Andrew Oakley
Pregens available. Suitable for new or experienced players. 1220AD: Over the last few weeks, one of the young novices at St Ninian’s has fallen extremely ill. None of the efforts of the nuns to heal her have succeeded, and they suspect a supernatural cause. One of the nuns, a mystic, had a vision of blood pooling in the snow, and saw St Ninian tell her to call upon “the scholars of strange Arts”. She told of this vision to the abbess, who reached out to an old friend (the scholar Agnes, see Pregenerated Characters), now working in the library of a nearby covenant.
OR
- Musketeers vs. Cthulhu run by Kyrie. When the forces of the Mythos threaten France, who can the King call upon? There can be only one answer. ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL!
OR
- Des temps turbulents Ars Magica adventure run by Karl.
The year is 1297. You’ve overheard the grown-ups talking about massive changes to the social structure. Realpolitik is no longer what it used to be in Good Old France. That doesn’t really tell you anything. After all, you are only 8 years old. But young minds can ponder too. Maybe there is a connection to those deadly brass soldiers who travel about in the fiefdom? They are probably looking for anything that smells of magic and the supernatural. Presumably they were the ones who got rid of Old-Genette-in-the-Forest. She was the one all the adults went to whenever anything serious was bothering them, and then denying her very existence afterwards. (Adults are weird).
Session C: 5pm to 7pm Dinner & Raffle.
This is the convocation, the part where we come together. In the past it has featured chats with Ars Magica Line Editors, meet the Authors panels, much laughter and of course the Charity Raffle. If you can please bring something to donate or buy a few tickets to support good causes.
6pm Zoom Chat with the authors of the Serenissima setting with a hardback Ars Magica add on available! [1]
Session D: 7pm till close.
It is 1867 and Japan straddles two worlds. Tradition and Progress. Peace and War. Magic and Industry. The future is coming, but the old world and its denizens won't go quietly. A disparate band of travellers find themselves at an old inn one rainy spring night, unaware of the horrors that will come to pass before the sun rises again.
OR
- The Great Hunt for Pendragon run by Lloyd Graney. Arthurian adventure! ‘The Adventure of the Great Hunt’ will see the Player-Knights travel back and forth across England to the various locations where Sir Servause le Breuse suggests the desired beasts may be found. Many times, this will see the Player-Knights pursuing various beasts, such as cranes in the fens of Anglia or stags in the nearby forest, on day-long hunts using the given hunting and pursuit rules. However, not every creature can be obtained with as simple a task as a hunt, and the Player-knights have opportunities too to persuade the great and the good of the land to lend them their aid and their beasts. There is even a hunt which will not involve the Player-Knights at all!
OR
- The final of the Tournament will be run here for the winners of the first round.
OR
- A fortress in Livonia by Tom Nowell. Ars Magica adventure. Some Teutonic knights and a magus travel to a fortress in Livonia. Can they survive the season?
Sunday
10:00-18:00 - Gas Green Community Centre, see venue page for details. Sunday may involve re-runs of games that were booked solid on their first run on Saturday too. Please bring a packed lunch or visit local shops. In deference to our hosts no alcohol please in the venue.
10am - 2pm SESSION E
- One PM, Central Standard Time a Timewatch (2nd ed) adventure by CJ. Can our heroes travel through time and save the timeline by ensuring The Beatles break up? Travel back to 1963 and mess with history as we know it!
or
- Children of Avalon Ars Magica by Anna for 2-6 players. Avalon, the fabled isle, is also a leaky sieve where vagrants frequently turn up. Word has spread that no-one is turned away; all are fed and clothed. Junior magi and apprentices must earn their Vis by solving these visitor's problems so they will go home, or at least away! The older magi are all busy being weird. Fortunately the spider infestation does keep away a lot of visitors, but some are truly desperate and you'll have no peace at the Library till they are helped. Pregens or relevant characters acknowledged by a relevant Parens. 1259.
2pm - 6pm SESSION F
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay run by Kyrie. The starter adventure for WFRP sees a band of adventurers framed, imprisoned and press-ganged into the city watch. Between a brewing civil war, murderous gangs and nightmarish monsters, can they live long enough to complete their sentence?
or
- The Church Raiders with Parma Magica; Ars Magica by Anna Your local Bishop or Primarch has asked you to investigate and cease this heresy. Otherwise within six months time they expect to be ordered to hunt down everyone making the sign of the Parma Magica and slay them! Cultists in Lebanon have escalated from robbing graves to desecrating a historic church. Apart from a creepiness probably caused by sinning and a similar robe, two raiders were seen at sunset clearly making the sign of the Parma Magica before digging up that week's burials, and one of them did the same sign outside a church at sunrise. Byo character or pregens 2-6 players. 1260. Players may be at any power level.
or
- Magical Kitties Save Norway! An entirely sensible CJ adventure for Atlas Games Magical Kitties Save The World rpg. May offend Norwegians!
Sunday Evening Social
At 8.30 pm it is traditional for those delegates remaining in Cheltenham to go for a curry, and to go to the pub. Its not compulsory and you can jump on a train home at 6pm and miss nothing, but those who have travelled from other countries often like to stick around!
Monday
For those who are travelling from far away, Andrew is offering to do a guided tour of Gloucester Cathedral and possibly Hereford Cathedral (chained library and Mappa Mundi medieval world map). He can fit 3-4 passengers (plus him driving) in his car. Depart Cheltenham around 10am, return around 1pm if you're just doing Gloucester, or around 6pm if you're also doing Hereford. Contact Andrew Oakley .
