August 2006, Williamsburg, VA
Nothing says "3K OMP" like a group of male mudders (are there any other kind?)
clustered outside of a hotel entrance, some smoking, some flapping, but
generally just disturbing the entire population of a city. Or in the case of
2006, a small town in the middle of Nowhere, Virginia called Williamsburg. This
year, however, the hotel got smart and gave us our very own entire building to
ransack, corralling us mostly away from their other clientele.
The name of the 2006 OMP should have been "Guess the Hotel!". We started off
with reservations at the Clarion Hotel George Washington Inn, and then got moved
somewhere else, and then back to the GWI, and finally ended up at the Best
Western Patrick Henry Inn (notice a common theme of names here?). And this is
where we were to leave our permanent mark for 2006.
Many people arrived Thursday, herding into our conference room/building like the
good sheep that we are, and enjoying the company of the other early-arrivers.
Pistil quickly brought out his cache of board and card games that take hours
(and sometimes days) to complete, and this
year saw the introduction of Hive and Risk: Godstorm along with old favorites
like Axis & Allies, Set, Shogun, Settlers of Catan, Articulate, and of course,
Euchre. The gameplay proceeded well into the wee hours of morning, as usual.
Friday saw the arrival of most of the rest of the attendees, all having found
some way to make the 40 minute drive from the airport to the hotel. There was
much playing of games, and thanks to several people who brought wireless
networking equipment, we were able to get our laptops online in the conference
room. The wireless also allowed Targ and Sorva to set up webcams for those not
fortunate enough to attend to be able to watch the festivities. There was a
projector hooked up to Zion's laptop as well, giving us all the opportunity to
watch Rastafan get on 3K and proceed to try to kill Targ and others several
times by setting a Cupid upon them. Ahhh, good times.
Friday evening, we had the euchre tournament, which ended in a tie between
Bigfoot and Tryst. But in a
tie-breaker match where they were allowed to pick their partner, Bigfoot took
the win.
On Saturday, Riekl hosted the annual Dog Punting contest at 11 AM, which
Kryllith won, and the ever-present Uno Tournament at 1 PM. Waya won the Best of
the Best, and Azazel the Best of the Worst.
At 4 PM Saturday, the conference room was cleared of all but wizards, doors were
locked, and curtains were drawn in order to set up for the Official OMP Event.
Prizes were organized, ticket buckets labeled, bananas stacked (this will be
explained in a moment), and nametags issued. At around 5 PM, people filtered
back into the conference room to find a veritable cornucopia of door prizes,
fruit, and free pizza. Soon afterwards, the Scavenger Hunt was announced and
commenced. Hours later when the scores were finally tabulated (punctuated by an
endless droning of the Lumberjack Song), the winner was the team of Sparkle,
Affeinec, William, and Dreamer.
After the scavenger hunt, a new event was introduced this year: The Marble
Hunt. Chewbacon ran around the conference building like a chicken with its head
cut off, hiding over 100 marbles while everyone else was doing their scavenger
hunting. It was announced that each marble found would equate to 1 free Quest
Point on the mud, with the 2 large marbles worth 25 each. They were placed
mostly in plain sight, ranging anywhere from bushes to payphone coin returns to
light fixtures, but by the time it got started, it was almost too dark to do
this hunt effectively. But despite the darkness, this seemed to be a huge hit
with everyone, and in coming years, the hunt will be held earlier in the day.
Once the madness of the Marble Hunt was finished, the prize raffle began. This
year's pile of prizes was enormous, and grand prizes included swords, Xbox's,
Nintendo's, several GPS units, and various other yummy treats.
Rastafan took home the marbles.
Total Attendance for the official event: 70, including 2 babies.
But all of this pales in comparison to the real Main Event of OMP 2006, Williamsburg: FREE
BANANAS! Whether they were being thrown at a horse in a dark field, or whipped
across a conference room like a boomerang, the enormous stack of free bananas
played a major role in everyone's OMP 2006 experience.
And like the 'Wyoming!' and '558!' of years past, this year brought a new
buzzword to the very specific dialect of OMP inside jokes on 3 Kingdoms:
HUANNY!
noun
1. The long, high-pitched sound made by a horse when a banana is hurled at its
rear-end in a dark pasture.
[From Old Targish huannyen, to huanny, probably of imitative origin.]
Pictures:
Special thanks to all of the players and wizards who worked hard to make this a success. Some people have
continued to contribute even after the event by posting their party pictures for online viewing:
If you have any pictures or stories that you'd like to submit, please email webmaster@3k.org
