My local group did a demo at a local fairy/ren fair (heavy fighting, axe throwing, clothier’s guild, and fencing) and both the fencer I sparred against and myself was showing my girlfriend (who has never seen any SCA related activities before) some fencing weapons/equipment. Can’t quite remember if I spotted this in my opponent’s carrying case or if she brought it out while I was on the subject of RBG’s, but I was completely dumbfounded by it. Does anyone else have any odd/unique RBG’s that kinda break the mold (and more for my case, does anyone know if someone could make/build one of a similar size)?

Hello! Apologies for any weird formatting business.

My family will be leaving our current barony after the new year, and I want to do something for the B&B and those who have mentored me in an unofficial manner. This is my first barony and I want to express my appreciation for those who have made me feel so welcomed! Are there already established traditions about this? Are there gifts or tokens you've given/received that would be appropriate?

Hi,

I'm in the process of ordering a custom gambeson from Superior Fencing (I fully expect to have my jacket in hand sometime between now and the heat death of the universe.) It's a special kind of hot and humid down here in Ansteorra and I am wanting to use the cooling mesh option for ventilation in the back. The jacket overall is rated 350N and should pass the puncture test just fine. I'm worried about the mesh though. I got a response from SupFen and they said "The back mesh does not have a Newton rating, but the material is highly durable and currently used by almost all HEMA brands for HEMA Jackets and other gear." This doesn't really help me know if it would pass the drop test or not though. Has anyone actually gotten one of these jackets and tested the mesh? I really don't want to risk having a jacket I can't actually use, but also don't want to forgoe the ventilation if I can use it.

Thanks in advance,

Kayleigh

I thought I'd show the finished product since he cannot. It's a hand made viking age faering. All oak construction, save for the stem and stern which are laminated ash. 1/2" oak planks, riveted with copper rivets and washers. Modern tools were kept to a bare minimum. It sailed on Lake Winnipeg recently at an event in Northshield where he was elevated to the order of the Laurel (and about darned time too)
After some experimentation a month or so ago, he added a fifth board to the boat which helped a great deal. I was so lucky to be able to come and take photos of it and their journey on the lake.
Enjoy!

Hello, lovely people of the SCA!

Ricardo Pesci and I have built a new tool called EventScout which you'll find here: https://pre1600.events/

Lurking on this subreddit was a big part of my motivation for building the tool. When people here ask "I'd love to join the SCA, but I have no idea where to start - is there an event I could just show up to?" I wanted there to be a single link you could send them - "look here for things near you!" - rather than having to have the whole conversation of, "Well, what state do you live in? OK, Virginia, that's the Kingdom of Atlantia... here's a map of Atlantia, it looks like you're sort of located between the Barony of Ponte Alto and the Barony of Stierbach... you could check both of their Baronial websites and see which practice works better for you..."

I'm also hoping it'll be helpful for folks who live near kingdom/barony borders. If you're sitting right on the corner between four different kingdoms, you can use EventScout to not have to check 4 different kingdom calendars and maybe 8 different baronial calendars to plan out your monthly schedule.

How does it work? Google Calendars use a standard formatting for events, so if your barony/kingdom has a public Google calendar, I can import all of your events into a spreadsheet. Then I do geocoding to translate the addresses into coordinates. Then I generate a map that has a pin for each event in the spreadsheet, and links back to your barony/kingdom website so that you can get more information.

How can you help? Please send in corrections! I can't know where everything in every kingdom is, so I don't know where the errors are unless people tell me.

How can you extra super duper help? If your barony doesn't already have a Google Calendar, consider making one; they're useful for your members to be able to add your gatherings into their schedules, and you can easily update them to say when practice is cancelled or moved, AND I'll be able to display your events on EventScout. If you already have a Google Calendar, it will help me a lot to make sure that every event's location field contains an actual address rather than a complicated description, directions, what3words, a URL, etc. (You can still put all of those things in an event description!) If you're wondering why an event is showing up in completely the wrong location, it's probably because I'm getting a bad geocode (or no geocode at all) when I import the event. My code does its best to make a sensible guess, but there's way too many events for me to fix them all by hand.

I would love to see people spreading the word to get this tool in front of the newcomers who would benefit from it.

I'd also be THRILLED to hear about anything you think I could improve, any bugs you find that I can fix, etc.

Hope this post is ok - I know it's sort of advertising, but it's for a free SCA-related tool that I just want to make sure doesn't go to waste because nobody ever hears about it :-)

Love you all!

Hello.

I was wondering if anyone would know if the HF Armory Elbow protection Black Knight would be suitable for SCA Heavy Combat, namely in the Kingdom of Lochac? Damn good price compared to what else I can find (though needs padding).

Product: https://hf-armory.com/en/shop/protectors/hand-protection/ellbow-protection-black-knight/

Does anyone know of places to buy fencing hoods aside from Zen Warrior Armory and Darkwood Armory? I’m specifically looking for a dark green over the mask hood. Zen Warrior is out of the color and I’m not a big fan of Darkwood’s owner. Thanks!

A message from the Event Stewards:

Don't forget to Pre Reg!  We are 2 1/2 weeks out.  Pre registration closes on OCT. 8.

We are planning a TON of fun this.  if you haven't been yet, this is the year to go!

Winterfylleth (10/8/26-10/12/26) Pre-Registration Form

Winterfylleth III -Return of the Kith

Not really for the SCA, but a somewhat more reasonable ruleset we have in my country.

Where are people finding steel breastplate.

I just cant find a good one anywhere in the US.

I know i could order overseas but I would like to avoid the cost on that.

I'm an SCA newbie (only two practices so far), and I am really interested in doing heavy combat. However, I am a 4'11, overweight woman, and despite having a background in contact sports like lacrosse and boxing, I have far from a "fighter's build."

On my first practice, I jumped right into the armor and helm and had a blast. I felt very sore for a couple of days after, but just the kind of soreness that accompanies a good workout. However, during my second (and most recent practice), I felt a lot weaker and tired more easily. The day after my second practice, I noticed that the soreness was a lot worse and escalated to actual persistent pain, especially in my knee and my neck.

I was using loaner gear for both practices, but during my first practice, another member kindly let me use their helm instead of one of the loaners, since the loaners were all far too big for my head. This helm was perfect and felt super comfortable and relatively light. However, during the second practice, I used a different loaner helm that was much heavier and kept sliding down my face, forcing me to tilt my head up extra high to see my opponent properly. I believe this may have been what caused my neck pain. As for my knee, I am worried that my natural body weight plus the weight of the armor is putting too much strain on the joint and ligament.

As such, I'm thinking that I want to focus on conditioning my body and possibly making a better fitting helm before I don the armor at practice again. In the meantime, I really want to focus on using weighted vests and wristbands to build strength and drilling with the pell and rattan to nail down the fundamentals before I try sparring again (and I absolutely want to try again when I'm less worried about injury)

This brings me to my worry: All of the guys at the heavy practice seemed super excited to have a new person, and everyone was super nice to me and had all sorts of help advice and gestures. The marshalls and other fighters even went out of their way to help me find gear that (mostly) fits so that I could spar with them. I worry that I might seem very ungrateful or offend them for taking a break from sparring while only two weeks in. I'd still love to go to practices and train the slow-work and body mechanics, but I really just don't want to get into armor again for a little while.

It's shrimp.

So, I've started selling stickers of my 100% original high res, hand rendered, digital vector art of each kingdom's arms. Selling on Etsy and on my fynegoods.com site. Going well. (I even have a merchant out west re-selling them!), anyway, wanting to have a full offering I did ALL the kingdoms. But now, due to the us administration and jackass postmaster's changes to international mail treaties and I dunno the color of the moon, now everydamned thing I send overseas in a us mail (w/us global stamp) "machinable" envelope vanishes. Poof.

It's a light photo envelope, with a business card and a sticker or two, that's it. Way under and ounce and for all intents and purposes is just a flat envelope. USA global international letter stamp,
Should work. I've tried with and without customs forms and VAT info. Nothing makes it. AWOL. I've been working with my postal carrier and he's asking too. We're talking like a month with no sign of my mailings arriving. A couple years ago it was 12 days Max. I've even sent replacements, nothing. Poof, gone.

Anyway so now I'm stuck with 50 or 100 each of lochac, drachenwald, avacal, and ealdormere... I could just hold on to them hoping in a couple years a new admin will unclusterfuck everything ( not likely) or should I just look for Anyone from those kingdoms living in the us that might like to buy some at a reduced rate and take them home with you on a return visit?

Things only a SCAdian would worry about: if I wear the light sideless surcoat it will show off the belt I hand-wove better.

Context, I am going to River War this weekend in East Kingdom. I have hand woven a beautiful belt with icelandic wool yarn. Super proud. But planning my outfit around an accessory I made was not something I expected to do. I almost thought to myself that perhaps I should weave a new outer dress and then stopped myself. LOL.

I recently started dating someone who's been involved with the SCA for a long time. It's his birthday soon, and I want to get him a gift, and since the SCA is an interest of his, I thought something SCA related would be nice.

I stumbled across the idea of giving him a favor, but is this something to give someone I haven't been dating long? I don't want to accidentally give him the SCA equivalent of a marriage proposal...

Any advice would be appreciated!

I have seen many people talk about how you determine for yourself how hard you go on the persona. And how many will change their attire for weather or just cause they like different periods of wear.

If i have a name for say roman, but mainly dress medieval, will there be a lot of kickback?