[There's a door in front of you - the Comms Officer's office. This is where you were told to go. You knock, and after no answer, push the door, it creaking for what feels like an eternity. You step inside and find an abandoned room with nothing in it but cobwebs and a laptop labelled "Tabletop Society Newsletter Sending Machine". It's obvious that the room has not been touched for months. Lights flicker. A cold wind passes through an open window, causing shivers from the back of your neck all the way down to your feet. You hear the patter of rain outside accompanied by the whirring of the laptop. How could this be the right place?
Lightning.
A long, breathless pause.
Lightning.
A figure creeps in through the window, wearing a crooked witch's hat and a soaked purple exec hoodie. They drop a fake zombie arm in the corner of the room, muttering about writing the newsletter, and sit on the floor. They take off their hat and hood.]
Hi! Glad you could make it. Don't mind the cobwebs, I've not been in here for ages. It's Hallowe'ek, so I've spruced up the place a bit with this zombie arm I got from Tesco's. It's very handy to have around, and it didn't cost me an arm and a leg. Anyway, let's get on with it before I make enough puns to lose the entire readership of the newsletter.
Special Events
Tabletop Weekend (10am November 3rd - 10pm November 4th, B2.02)
What's the best way to end Hallowe'ek? With more games, of course! Join us for as long as you'd like to play games from any part of the society. You could play a huge game that you've not had time to during other sessions, or try out a part of the society you've been unable to attend in the past! As always, there'll be exec around during the whole event to teach games and generally be helpful, so come on down even if this is your first event with us. There's now an actual Facebook event too if that's your thing. Finally, parts of the society have been known to run extra special events during tabletop weekends (like Magic cube drafts and the inimitable Bullet Rhino Hero) so keep an eye out on the various Facebook groups (see the bottom of the newsletter for links) and on the website.
What's happening this week?
All your favourite events are happening except with a spooky twist! What a treat (not trick). Since we're all in a Hallowe'en mood, I've provided a six-word horror story for some of the events we're running!
Extremely Normal Wargames (Monday 17:00-22:00, B2.02 Science Concourse)
Wargames is normal this week. Boo. Hiss.
Magic: The Gathering Chaos Draft (Tuesday 18:00 to 22:00, B2.02 Science Concourse)
"Mythic rares bent after riffle shuffle..."
For the Magic Draft this week, we're holding a chaos draft! This means that instead of all of the packs being from one or two sets, they're from whatever sets we can cobble together. It's like we're resurrecting old Magic packs, woo, spooky! As well as the usual Guilds of Ravnica prize packs we also have some Innistrad packs, which I'm informed is a very good set and is more importantly keeping with the theme of Hallowe'ek so I approve. Finally, draft is still £8 this week despite the improved prizes and general chaos. There's a Facebook event if you're feeling social too.
Boo-ard Games (Wednesday 14:00 to 22:00, B2.02 Science Concourse)
"We've lost every game but Monopoly."
It's actually Hallowe'en on Wednesday, so we're pulling out all the stops. We'll have spooky decorations and the scariest games we own - so come join us for Dead of Winter, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Betrayal on the House on the Hill, Arkham Horror and more! And if you're not feeling spooky for some reason we'll still have all our other usual games. Bonus points if you come in costume! Faaaaaccceebboooookkkk.
Creepy Card Games (Thursday 17:00 to 22:00, R3.41 Ramphal Building)
"New banlist! Oh, my deck's worthless..."
Our secretary (full title: Supreme Self-Professed Overlord of Halloween, Demon Summoner Extraordinaire, Expert of Spooky and Ruler of the Undead) Ares is going to be trying out a modified Commander format called Mysteries of Innistrad. They'll need opponents for it though, so come and try it out! Also the Netrunner players will continue to try and perform necromancy on their favourite card game (which seems to be going quite well actually). Maybe the Yu-Gi-Oh players will find something spooky to do too, like all play decks with "Pumpking the King of Ghosts" in them.
Spooky One-Shots (Various)
"Roll death save ...a natural one."
For Hallowe'ek we're running some spooky one-shots. These will be put up on the Events page during the week so keep an eye on that, but we'll try our best to announce any that come up. There'll be a scarier-than-average Timshot, although last week's party seemed to have a pre-Hallowe'ek spook by waiting for the big dragon boss to show up rather than scarpering in the four days that they had to escape.
Also, Ares (Supreme Self-Professed etc etc) is running a spooky D&D one-shot called The House of the Midnight Violet, involving recovering a rare flower from a mysterious island submerged in fog - signups are here! Otherwise if you're part of a campaign already, check with your DM for time/place of that this week, although it might not be running because of Tabletop Weekend.
Whispers In The Dark LARP (Sunday 12:00 to 17:00, starting in OC0.05 Oculus Building)
"One hundred percent chance of rain."
Something ominous brews in the world of Unity... wild beasts, soulless horrors and other monstrosities gather with an unknown purpose. What mysteries await? Come along if you dare to a LARP session that critics (okay, just our LARP Rep Jakub) are calling our most dangerous and nail-biting adventure yet!
What happened last week?
It was a mostly uneventful week four. Callum (our RPG rep) brought in Dinosaur Island, a game about running your own Jurassic Park and it has loads of pink dinosaur minis so is possibly the best game ever. We can go home now, there will be no better game - nothing will ever beat lots of dinosaur minis. Except if you also put submarines in the game somehow. Hmm...
Also, you may have received an email from the SU about focus groups happening on the 13th, 14th and 15th November. Some of our exec went to one recently and found it was a useful forum for communicating our problems to the SU. So if you have any issues you'd like to bring up, this might actually be a forum where they'll be solved.
Umm... I should probably end the newsletter in a spooky way.
Yours spookily,
Finnbar Keating (Communications Officer)
f.keating@warwick.ac.uk
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