The Roleplay Workshop

December '03
News Letter

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The News Letter
Monthly updates about Abantey

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Hello All!
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Parent Comments

"The friends our kids know from Becky's programs are a special benefit that we are so thankful for."

"Holidays at Abantey are always a success and a great way for our kids to spend some of their vacation."

“I really enjoy this newsletter, Becky, and particularly enjoyed your comments on violence and how you present the kids with different options. Thanks for keeping the parents informed. When I mention the comments on Alex’s adventure, he lights up and tells me all about it.”

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Program Announcements

T-Shirts are in!
After a horrific problem with our T-shirt vendor, we’ve finally found a new vendor and filled the T-shirt orders from this summer. We have a limited number of extra shirts available, mostly adult mediums. We have 3 styles (Sakeet head, Ninja Monkey and Pirate Monkey) and 3 colors (red, black and gray) available for $15.

If you would like to purchase an Abantey T-shirt, please let me know.
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Scheduling Announcements

There are no after school or home school group meetings from 12/22 - 1/2
Saturday sessions this month will be held on:

SAT1: 12/6 and 12/20
SAT2: 12/13 and 12/27
If you will be unable to attend a session, please let us know ASAP. Sessions will be canceled if not adequately enrolled.

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Upcoming Holiday Sessions

Well, winter break is coming and we have several holiday sessions with space available. Receive a $50 credit when you sign up for 5!

All sessions meet 9 am to 5 pm and cost $50 per day

Monday, 12/22
Tuesday, 12/23
Wednesday, 12/24 (the store will be closing early, but we will be there until 5 pm)
Friday, 12/26
Monday, 12/29
Tuesday, 12/30
Wednesday, 12/31(the store will be closing early, but we will be there until 5 pm)
Friday, 1/2
Monday 1/19

Please remember to enroll early to guarantee your space!
If you have a school holiday on a day that is not listed, we may be able to provide you with an all day session. Please contact Becky (510.654.3582) to enroll for holiday sessions or to set up a special session.
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Liberty’s Column

Dear Abantey Parents,
Thanks to all who provided us with feedback on our last newsletter. Your responses let us know that we are providing the information you want. If that changes, let us know!

Becky answers eloquently another great question this month - keep them coming! Your questions allow Becky to articulate more of her philosophy and the work that goes into the program.

May your holidays be wonderful and spent with those you love.

Best,
Liberty

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Parent Questions/Discussion

How did you come up with the kinds of characters you have? What are they based on? Talk about the different "races(?)" and how they are different. We hear the kids talking about them but really don't know the full story behind them.

Ahh! This is an easy one! When I began creating the world of Abantey, I wanted to have each of the types of people represent some aspect of human nature. I also wanted to tie each aspect to one of the main STATS. In role playing games, characters are defined by their body’s limits (statistics or STATs), their type of knowledge (Class or profession) and their personality. In creating Abantey, I chose to use six STATs: STRength, DEXterity, CONstitution, INTelligence, WISdom and CHArisma.

So, this is how it breaks down:

The Baluud are a type of people (we call them “races” for ease) who embody the aspect of humanity that has an affinity or relationship with nature. The Baluud culture lives simply, in harmony with nature and making as little negative impact as possible. For example, they do not cultivate crops, they only harvest what grows naturally, and although they do eat meat, they eat it very sparingly and the Hunters are the only ones who are allowed to take life. The Hunters follow strict ritual to honor the lives they take and hunt as wolves or lions do - taking only the old, sick and injured animals. The Baluud are a small people (to reduce their impact on the environment), with 2 thumbs and skin, hair and eye colors designed to blend in with their forests. They have high Wisdom and Intelligence and low Strength.

The Feeshan are a type of people who represent our thirst for new experience. The Feeshan culture delights in the search for the new taste, sound, tactile sensation, for meeting new people and going new places. They too live simply and their climate is rich with plant and animal life. The Feeshan are catlike, with fur, claws and prehensile tails. They have very high Charisma and either high Strength or Dexterity. They have good Wisdom, but low Intelligence.

The Plajet are a type of people who look much like we do. They are the aspect of Fun and Laughter. They are a jovial people, much given to story and joke telling. While they may pull practical jokes on others, they also believe that laughter must be shared and never at someone's expense. They have a rich social culture as well as a relatively high level of technology (steam power). The Plajet are very Dexterous and Charismatic, but have very low Wisdom.

The Wa’la are a people bred to endure hardship. Their land is nothing but desert and volcanic mountains. They are lean and can survive on little food and water. With so little, even the simplest things have great significance: sharing water, a good cup of coffee, quiet chanting and the playing of drums, the woven patterns of their robes and belts. The Wa’la (the word means ‘nothing’ in a dialect from the Philippines) have high Constitution, Strength and Dexterity and low Charisma.

The Sakeet are a people who embody honor and strength in combat. They are lizard-like, with thick scaly skin and long, heavy tails. Their culture is steeped in the rituals of personal and family honor. They practice ritual combat on all levels: personal, family and between clans. The rules of combat are complex and serve to ensure that fighting is fair and honorable. There is no honor in fighting someone weaker than yourself and no honor in allowing the weak to be oppressed by the strong. The Sakeet have very high Strength and Constitution, but very low Charisma, so that they can be as intimidating as possible - much like the Maori cultures’ ritual dances to show strength and scare their opponents so that fighting is not necessary.

The last two types of people are not usually ones that the kids can play, they are usually used as opponents or as challenges.

The Ta’as are a people dedicated to intellect. They have little or no social or cultural goals other than to find ways to improve all aspects of their technological lives. They have high Intelligence and Wisdom and low Dexterity.

The Gnihton are shape changers. Their culture is not known, although they figure prominently as villains in the stories of Abantey.

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Session Summaries
Here, we provide you with a synopsis of each group's activities.

Mondays
We have no current enrollment for Mondays. If you would like to start a Monday group (4 students minimum), please let me know. We can enroll up to 12 students on Mondays.

Tuesdays
We have 2 groups on Tuesdays, a group of 5 (ages 12 - 13) run by Becky, and a younger kids group (9-10) run by Greg. We have space for 1 more player at each table.

Greg:
Hilarity continues on Tuesdays Afternoons. Operation: Gumball is ongoing - the end result is still a mystery. Their next step was to break into the Secret Island Headquarters of the Ninja group: The Cumquat Guild. Using skill, and a little bit of luck, they manage to unplug the island right before their escape, slowing down the operations of their enemies. They now have the blueprints to a place called the Candy-Brain Fortress, where it is rumored enough Candy is stored to feed all of Plajet! Could breaking into it, be the enigmatic Operation: Gumball? Perhaps their motives aren't as Good as they originally thought...

Becky:
Well, this group has chosen to begin a new adventure this month. We spent a couple of sessions creating new characters. The characters are all members of a school that trains its members in mental discipline. The characters, some of whom are siblings, have become frustrated with the reclusive and sedate nature of the school and their elders have agreed to let them take employment outside of the school.
The characters have been hired by the mysterious Pak Kil-ja, a heavily robed and cowled person of indeterminate gender (Pak speaks only in a whisper). Pak has a map to a ‘treasure’ and needs a group of adventurers to escort Pak out there and ‘acquire’ the treasure. The group has headed north, into the snow and ice, near the Wall of Gnihton. Plagued by the weather and inexperience with the wilderness, they are finding the task to be harder than they thought!

Wednesdays
We have no current enrollment for Wednesday. If you would like to start a Wednesday group (4 students minimum, 12 maximum), please let me know.

Thursdays
Our Thursday table is full. However, if we get 2 more players we can split into 2 tables. We can enroll up to 12 more students. This month, Alicia Otis-Levins has taken over the group.

Alicia:
As the party travels farther into the rain forest in search of a mysterious item that will help their family succeed in the up coming election, they come across an ominous campsite where they find two dead adventurers and one who is grievously injured. They hurry him to the nearest healer where his life is saved and he wakes from his coma. However, once he can talk, he is able to tell them little more than they already knew. His memory is all but gone so the party has no choice but to continue on there journey with this mysterious man in tow.

Fridays
We have 3 spaces available in our Friday session.

Becky:
Ahhh -- traveling through the wilds of the Land of Sakeet . . . our party has inadvertently stumbled into the nesting area of a pack of very large velociraptors. Unfortunately, the raptors are not happy about this turn of events and have attacked the party in defense of their nest. The group has had a hard time of it. They’ve discovered how dangerous it is to fight alone and are working to build some team work - a good thing, as they will need to be working as a team to finish their mission!

Greg:
The Adventurers aren't far from the Mesmeric Feeshan (the priceless artifact statuette) now! They have just barely escaped the grips of the Black-Market in Bordertown and hired a ship to go after the boat called The Fluffy Kitten. On it, is a Feeshan man named Jacques who stole the statuette. After sailing for three days, what is that on the horizon? The Fluffy Kitten! It's docked on the edge of a cliff... sitting atop it is a most sinister looking castle. What awaits them inside?

Cody and Marcus:
After their would-be burglars bungled the job and fled into the night, the party is left with many questions and few answers about their quarry, the mysterious Sciocco. Fortune smiled on them, though, as the next morning a messenger arrived with a message from Sciocco himself, requesting a meeting. The party ventured back into the slums to find him, but as soon as they were escorted by street urchins into his hideout, two marked Wa'la warriors burst in, attacking Sciocco with expert martial arts, huge long bows, and powerful magic. In the ensuing battle, the party was all knocked unconscious, but woke up to find Sciocco cleaning up and, unbelievably, asking them to work for him! He claimed to have been framed for crimes against the Wa'la, and asked the party to escort him to Sumilon, where he can prove his innocence.

The party agreed to this, deciding to charter a boat to take them there, to leave this afternoon. Perhaps they can learn more about him this way... As they split up (to meet in Ralph's Economy Sushi in a few hours), the party members were intercepted by more of the Wa'la warriors that attacked Sciocco earlier! They were questioned, and the Wa'la "escorted" them to the Wa'la hostel for further questioning about their involvement with this "heinous criminal towards the Wa'la." The priesten told the party that Sciocco had stolen holy items, and that the party must help the Wa'la capture him. Surrounded by mighty warriors, the party had little choice but to agree, and who knows, maybe this would give them favor in the eyes of the Wa'la!

They told the Wa'la where Sciocco will be, and at 1:30 they were at Ralph's Economy Sushi, waiting to meet him. When he came in and sat down, four Wa'la warriors burst in and attacked him! And mere seconds later, four other warriors - rogues, apparently - entered and began attacking both the Wa'la AND Sciocco!

The party's confusion was exacerbated as they heard people speaking to them in their heads - the Wa'la, telling them to grab a staff that was in Sciocco's bag, and someone in their party telling them not to because it was a trap! Three of the Wa'la warriors and two of the rogues had fallen, and the last Wa'la man leapt through the air towards Sciocco. As he was flying through the air, one of the two party members that had been scrambling for Sciocco's bag stumbled, touching the staff it contained. . . . And then everything went black.

Saturday (1st & 3rd)
We currently have two tables. Becky’s table is full with kids ages 12 - 14 year olds. Greg has 2 spaces available at his table of 11 - 12 year olds.

Becky:
The group had a tough battle with the Marked Sakeet Raptor Riders, but were able to defeat them and save some of the farmers. They organized the healing and planned where to proceed after the large battle. They were helped by Tanjun Aska, a person whom two of the party knew from a previous adventure. Tanjun is a member of the Ed’ji - an elite group of warriors and teachers dedicated to world peace and harmony. Tanjun is the sole surviving member of a the Aska clan - a Rogue Sakeet clan created to follow the Code of Honor, but to live in harmony with the other Rogue Culture.

The Aska Clan was destroyed by Ra Tsumbukai Gimon. Once a member of the Aska Clan, and Tanjun’s mother, Ra Tsumbukai now serves Os’Sakeet in his quest to rid the planet of all Rogue Sakeet. The Riders who attacked the Farming outpost were members of Ra Tsumbukai’s legions of Marked Sakeet who, even now, are planning the destruction of all the Rogue Sakeet on the island of Katman.

Tanjun has enlisted the party in her personal quest to save the Rogue Sakeet. When searching the gear from the Riders they defeated, the party found a note detailing attack plans on a small settlement nearby. They agreed to help help Tanjun and set off to warn the nearby settlement.

As they approached the settlement, they were ambushed and taken to the leader of the settlement. He was suspicious of the party intentions and did not believe them. To evaluate their abilities, he requested that they find a way to sabotage his daughter’s relationship, as he didn’t like the man she is seeing. The party succeed in turning a romantic dinner for two into an event that ruined the relationship. Afterward, the daughter discovered that the party had been forced to ruin her relationship. She was furious, but agreed pretend that she was no longer seeing her boyfriend, so that her father would listen to the group. This has created a moral dilemma for the party - the methods they used were not honorable but neither was the task they were given.

However, all of that must be put on the back burner, as a huge force of Marked Sakeet are approaching the settlement!

Greg:
The group is not far from finding the Magic Plajet Bike, before sinister forces use it for evil. They have already put together that their Foe is someone named Bily Bonqa. What kind of evil does he have in have in mind? Can he discover the secrets of the Bike?

Saturday (2nd & 4th)
The 2nd & 4th Saturday of each month has one regular group (full) and 1 to 2 tables of training for our assistant program. Assistants (ages 13 and up) play in advanced games that stress the more difficult aspects of the Abantey game. They are polishing their skills in preparation for assisting with the summer program.

Dominic & Eric (regular group):
After collecting more items for Leon's scavenger hunt, the party grows more and more suspicious, finally drawing the line when asked to break into Zeke's Magic Shop / Zeke's House. Taking their findings to the Guards' guild, the party proceeds to Leon's warehouse to confront him and find out what's really going on. Once inside, however, Leon makes a break for it, but not before throwing a big ominous lever! Standing in Leon's warehouse, now filled with a big rumbling noise, the party anxiously anticipates a new threat...

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Rebecca L. Thomas
Director
(510) 654-3582
The Roleplay Workshop
http://www.roleplay-workshop.com