Her Excellency and I are honored with the privilege of creating
new awards for the Barony. It is a chance to put our mark on the legacy of the
Baronial court and we are excited to do so. After some discussion we decided
that the award the Barony was lacking was something that recognized people from
outside our borders. People who are not only dedicated to the SCA but also regularly
support the Barony even though they call other lands home. The name of this new
award will be “Companion of the Golden Scale”. We would like to share the
creation of this new award with our Populace by sponsoring a two part contest.
The first part of the contest is Bardic/A&S. We are looking for poems,
songs, or written work that brings to life the “fictional” story behind the
award (more on that below). The second part is the creation of a “token” that
we will hand out to the recipients of this award. The deadline for this contest
is August 20th. People may enter one or both contests. We will display
everything submitted, but we will choose only one (one story and one token) as
the final winners. Each winner’s work will become part of the history of the
Barony.
The story part of the contest: We are looking for poems,
songs, or written work that brings to life the “fictional” story behind the
award. Other forms of creative work are acceptable, but primarily we are looking
for a story we can read/sing/recite. We don’t want to restrict this too much,
but keeping the time required to read/perform the story to under five minutes
or so would be good. The basic inspiration in our mind is as follows. Please
use it as a starting point for your work:
“At some time in the past a traveler not of our lands
wandered into the Barony. This person wandered into the lair of the Ice Dragon
and faced certain death. However this person did something that so inspired the
Ice Dragon that the Dragon plucked a scale from his own body and gifted it to
the traveler. This token was a sign that the person was allowed safe travel in
the land”.
The token part of the contest: This award will not include a
scroll when it is handed out. The recipient is given a token to display. We are
looking for people to design and create the token we will hand out. The token
should be something people can wear (medallion is best) and something that can
be recreated by people other than the designer for later awards. We ask that
the person creates at least one of their tokens to enter into the contest. The
winning token will be the first one we hand out.
We look forward to seeing your work. If there are any
questions please ask us.
Magnus & Miriel
