Freiman's Missive to the populace
Eighteenth Edition
Little Bunny Foo Foo
Unto my brothers and sisters in the Legion of Shadows
come greetings from Freiman the Minstrel
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I must apologize for being out of communication for as long as I have been. I have been here in Bavaria, just living from day to day. I have bought a farm
house here in a little village called Oberbibrach, and converted the barn into a fighting studio.
During the time that I have been gone, I have gone from 173 pounds to 219 pounds. Much of it is muscle, but most of it is fat. Sorry folks, I don’t look like the skinny kid that left to go away to Europe. Also, I want to applaud the lovely Susannah for finally taking my advice and moving this page from the “Official” page to a less official status. This gives us considerably more “elbow room” with which to play. IT NEEDS TO BE NOTED THAT THIS PAGE NO LONGER REPRESENTS THE OFFICIAL POLICY OF THE SHADOW LEGION, HER GRACE, THE SCA, OR (QUITE FRANKY) ANYTHING AT ALL. All the lies I tell are my own responsibility. Don’t blame Her Grace. She didn’t do it. So, please check out the new, vastly improved web-page. New features have been added, such as
The advantage of a forum is that you can post without sending an email to every person on the list. I know that I had to go with a “send no emails” setting because of the sheer volume we produce with the list serve. In addition, it is possible for Non-Legionaires to give the place a quick scan without joining the list serve. There are sections that are set up for general membership, and invite only sections that will be only for Legionaires. OK, without further ado, here is this month’s story. *************************************** Once upon a time, there was a beautiful Legionaire named Jane (name changed) and she had moved from the Mid South to Los Angeles. Needless to say, Jane missed her legion brothers. Folks in the Mid South are the nicest in the world, and when she visited the City of Angels, she was less than happy about the change. She loved her new job, but missed her brothers and sisters. So, when Mom and Dad got a phone call saying that she was coming to Border Raids, we were all excited. One of her Legion Brothers picked her up at the airport, and somebody loaned her a tent. Everything was fine until Saturday morning, when we were all armoring up. Jane pulled an armor bag out of her tent, and started armoring up too. For those who don’t know, the time before a battle, armoring up with your sisters and brothers is a very exciting time. Jane had a rig which was as close to basic ‘Legion issue gear as we have ever had. She had Leather shingle arms with floating elbows and solid leather vams, a leather breastplate, and cuisses with floating knees. She had a great big curved round that pretty much served as a ‘Legion Scutum at the time. She had a short, heavy fishbat of a sword. And a barrel helm with no breathing holes. We were all lying about how tough we were, how many people we were going to kill, and how fierce and dangerous we were. Jane didn’t join in, but we did notice that she had what could only be described as a “Barbie” voice. It was quiet, pitched very high, and quite frankly, cute. Imagine the sight. Their Graces, Baroness Rixa, a whole bunch of big, strapping corn fed southern boys, and Jane, standing there at five feet tall, in her boots and helm. So, because the battle was going to start late, we were blowing off some testosterone by doing pick ups on the side of the field, when we noticed that Jane didn’t look like the rest of us. She wasn’t scrapping and slugging it out with the rest of us. So, Rixa decided that she needed to check Jane out. After a quick armor inspection, she took Jane off, and did a couple of fights. In almost every aspect, Jane didn’t look like a real scary fighter. She was tight, slow and nervous. She didn’t commit well. But WHAM! She had a leg shot that was amazingly hard and incredibly fast. In the blink of an eye, your leg exploded in pain, right above the knee. I mean, it REALLY hurt. Jane explained that the shot was the exact same motion she used with an industrial paper cutter at work. Rixa told her that she needed to throw it whenever she got a chance. I went a played bull for Rixa, and I asked Jane “How long have you been fighting?” “A week.” Jane replied, innocently. So, all the guys wanted to be the big guy that helped the pretty little girl to fight. I went out and said “Let me show you this, you are a little bitty girl and you might want to-” WHAM! Jane hit me in mid sentence with the crusher leg shot. Rixa praised her. Her Grace just laughed at the look on my face, as my eyes teared up.
Then Elgin walked up and said “A good wrap shot will-” WHAM! This time came praise from Her Grace, who was laughing even harder. I have to admit, when it wasn't happening to me, it was funny to watch those big, burley boys get hit with that leg shot. It was like being hit with a sledgehammer.
Peregrine walked out and said “You might want-” WHAM! From a safe distance, His Grace told her “Look, you want to let your opponent’s know that you are a new fighter. Just say “Excuse me, Milord, I am a new fighter, and they will play with your properly.” Of course, with no breathing holes in her barrel helm, and a tiny Barbie voice, all that came out was “Excummmm, I am mmm, mmmph”. It sounded like a care bear trying to talk while trapped in a toybox and wearing a ball gag. Her Grace decided that a five foot nothin, ninety five pound, new fighter probably didn’t need to be in the middle of the shield wall at a major, inter-kingdom war, and took her off to play. Rixa went with her. I think they just wanted to watch a bunch of guys get hit with the WWHAM! leg shot. Any way, we went off to fight the battle, and as luck would have it, I was hit by an arrow walking to the clash of the shield walls, so I guess I got a good view. In the center, the ‘Legion shield wall, backed up by the mighty spearmen of the Grey Niche were duking it out with the Cleftlands arm of the Mighty Middle’s Army. That wasn’t what won the day. What won the day was the the entire left side of the midrealm’s shield wall collapsed. It seems that a very small fighter was walking down the line, stopping with each fighter and saying, in a tiny, Barbie like voice “Exmmmph mmp, my lord, mmmph mm a mmmph, mmrrper.” Her opponent would then lean forward and say “What?” “mmmph me, mmmpyh mphlord, I am mmmph, mmpph, new fighter.” Her opponent would then lean a little closer, until his shield opened up a little bit, and WHAM! Then Jane moved down the line to the next fighter, and Rixa and Her Grace came along behind her with spears, cleaning up her leftovers. True story.
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