Intercon K

Intercon K ran on March 5, 2011, with seventeen wonderful people happy to visit the strange world Under the Couch!

We realized that we didn't have close-up pictures of the characters from previous runs. This time we remembered to take a picture of nearly everyone. Here are a few. First up is the ant. (Jennifer Eastman-Lawrence)

The next is one of our dust bunnies. (Dorothy Altmiller)

We added Essential, the Multivitamin, because we're just demented that way. (Jim Edwards-Hewitt)

Our kernel of rice went all out. (W. Scott Meeks)

King Max, our Lord of the Fries. (Sam Hariton) Yes, there are many puns in this game. This is just one. You have been warned.

Oneski, the Lego™ 1x1 piece. (Sarah French)

Sporeticus, the Mold. (Seamus Reynolds) We did warn you about the puns.

Vadalia, the Onion Slice. (Susan Giusto) Susan stepped in at the last minute, to give us a wonderfully accented and dramatic character. We write our games so that every character is important, in the middle of their own story. We can't just drop a character because someone can't make it.

On the floor, Sporeticus the Mold (Seamus Reynolds), Shard the piece of glass (the back of Annie Schapira), and Brad the Bent Nail (Charlie McCutcheon), have an intense discussion, as many others look on. What could they have to talk about? (You'd be surprised.)

Every character sheet starts off with a related quote or two. This dust bunny's (Ben Llewellyn) sheet quotes the Book of Common Prayer and the 70's rock group Kansas. The dust bunny took both to heart when launching into a philosophical monologue...

Note the large columns in the room - which were perfect for representing the legs of the couch everyone is underneath at the start of the game!

The other dust bunny (Dorothy Altmiller) has managed to get some of her dust onto King Max's (Sam Hariton) shoulder. If you thought that French Fry was disgusting before, it's just gotten worse.

Lynn Anslow knitted all of our dust bits used in the game, as well as the bags used to hold the bits. It really makes the dust work far better than just using some other LARP mechanic.

It's all dust and politics. Here a dusty Lego™ piece (Sarah French) is considering a political pronouncement from Sporeticus (Seamus Reynolds, facing away from the picture), while (from left to right) Essential the multivitamin in white (Jim Edwards-Hewitt), Emma, the green M&M® (Sarah Judd), Ort, the pretzel remainder (Sarah Lawrence), and the Kernel of rice (W. Scott Meeks) listen in.

Dustpan: the LARP has a very diverse range of characters, including Boogerman, the piece of Snot - and it's not the weirdest character in the game. For some reason, we've had trouble getting people to play the part, with several drops along the way. It's not a bad character; it starts off quoting Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Tre Cool of Green Day, and one more anonymous source. Nevertheless, when we found out that our original Boogerman wasn't going to make it, we were thrilled when we found David (Lichtenstein) wandering the halls of the con. David can do anything, and here he was a fine Boogerman, lecturing back at one of the dust bunnies (Ben Llewellyn), as Oculus (Allan Pendergrast), the contact lens, looks on.

In the background, you can see Brad (Charlie McCutcheon) has clearly been festooned by the dust bunnies.

It's definitely about time we dusted off these characters and this LARP and ran it again.