Their Excellencies letter to the populace from The Quill April 2003

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Good Tidings and Salutations from Their Excellencies Rodrigo and Khadijah,

We would like to thank the populace of the Barony for responding to the Northshield Kingdom Poll and to especially thank Mistress Rosanore for doing such an excellent job as our local Poll Coordinator.

Once again the second wave of the Midrealm Hood project was outstanding in production. They created 94 more hoods in a 5 hour period with only 6 people which averages out to about 19 minutes per hood. Thanks again to those who have helped with this project. It was truly amazing to see all the red and white hoods in action at Gulf Wars this year, and it will be truly unfathomable to see the massive armies of them at Pennsic this fall.

We appreciate all those that stepped forward to apply for the open positions within the Barony. We will be examining our processes and requesting lots of input to see what can be done in the future to make holding and applying for positions more desirable. Your help in this process will be needed both in giving input and in helping enact what improvements are made. So put on your "thinking caps" and start thinking of what steps can be done to make holding an office within the barony not only desirable, but also an opportunity for individuals to be successful.

At our College of Tor Aerie's event, Don't Drink the Water, we will be holding our Armored Combat Champion Tourney and our Rapier Combat Champion Tourney. We encourage all such combatants to come forward and compete for the honor of being a Champion of the Barony of Nordskogen.

As we have said before, we are taking our Champions very seriously, we plan on honoring them and looking to them as the leaders in their areas. As such we expect our Champions to take their position very seriously. We expect our Champions to plan on attending the following three events; Warlords and Warriers, Nordskogen 12th Night, and Schutzenfest and to make an attempt to attend folk moots when their schedule allows it. We look to our Champions to act as leaders in their communities by teaching and helping others, by holding our honor in trust with actions befitting a Champion, and by wearing the mantel of Champion when competing within their activities (be it tabard, baldric, or favor).

Both the Armored and Rapier Champion Tournaments will have a procession prior to each. Each combatant may be escorted by his/her consort, but that is not a requirement. Each combatant will have a letter of introduction with the combatant's awards, accolades, and accomplishments as a member of our society. This letter of introduction may be read by someone within the combatant's procession or by the attending herald. Please attempt to make this letter of introduction entertaining and complimentary. We expect that all combatants attempt to show their finest appearance both within the procession and on the field.

The format of the Armored Combat Champion Tourney will be a matched style round robin. Each bout will be the best two out of three fights. Each combatant will get to choose a matched style and if there is a third fight a coin will be tossed if no other arrangements have been made. If an opponent does not have authorization to match the requested style the default style will be sword and shield for both combatants unless another matched style can be agreed upon. This format will continue throughout the entire tournament.

The format of the Rapier Combat Champion Tourney will be a modified Swiss 5 round robin, similar to the Defender Rapier Tourney held at Tor Aerie's event last year. Each combatant will cycle through all 5 styles before repeating an advanced style, any style that a combatant does not have authorization for will be fought with a single rapier only. After all 5 styles have been represented, the cycle of 5 styles may begin again in any order. This format will continue throughout the entire tournament.

We look forward to some fabulous fights, honor and dignity being prominent and pronounced, and an opportunity to grace the most skilled combatants in the Barony with the title of Champion!

May sunshine always grace your face so shadow never will.

Rodrigo and Khadijah.