About Awards

This is a page that includes direct quotes from people about history or other in game aspects; these can come in the form of sage advice, rants or humor. Updaters please feel free to add to the pages below but please do not subtract even if you disagree with the info or opinion.

Read more from players in their own words.

About Ladder Awards

Molly Mallone

From the Goldenvale Facebook Group

"1st and 2nd and orders are novice level
3rd and 4th orders are apprentice level
5th and 6th orders are intermediate/journeyman
7th and 8th orders are expert
9th and 10th orders are mastery
and then "master" is a culmination: a super craft, or a festival, or warlord, or whatever."

Brother Fredrik

"I look at it in a very similar way to Molly Mallone:
1-2 is saying to the recipient "You are off to a good start!"
3-4 is saying to the recipient "Yes! You've got the right idea"
5-6 is saying to the recipient "Wow, you have grown beyond the basics"
7-8 is saying to the recipient "OMG, you do such awesome work"
9-10 is saying to the recipient "You have it down. Teach!"
and Masterhood is saying: "You are among the elite. Share your knowledge""

About Smith vs Owl

Hi! Randall here. The answer to this question goes all the way back to the start of Amtgard.

The earliest known online copy of the Burning Lands corpora is hosted on the Emerald Hills' website. In this document, which appears to be from before 1987, many things are defined: Guildmaster of Smiths, the Smith's Guild, Smith credits, and Smith credits being a way to become eligible for Knight of the Flame. The noteworthy thing about that Smith's Guild:

• The Guildmaster of Smiths was chosen by all current smiths, all master reeves, the kingdom monarch, the prime minister, and (this is key) all former kingdom monarchs and prime ministers. That means everyone who had been king, queen, or prime minister?—they got a permanent say. That meant the Smith's Guild was probably a way, devised by those people, to preserve their power after their departure from office.

• The Guildmaster of Smiths was charged with "see[ing] that [the guild's] goals are worked for," which is a vague mandate. Other duties included making sure weapons were safe, etc.

I also found an old Tales of the Burning Lands newsletter where editor Aramithris approved the newsletter as "Smiths Guild Publication (SGP) number twenty two," which is an intriguing declaration indicating that it was somehow important to declare such things. It also tells us that the Smith's Guild did newsletters on official basis. Last, there is a detailed list of all members of the Smith's Guild: Alric, Andralaine, Aramithris, Ghee, Heimdale, M'Deth, Nashomi, Tawnee. Those are some huge names. This is May of 1985, and by this point the following people had been king, queen, or minister: Aramithris, Heimdale, M'Deth, Nashomi, Tawnee... only Alric, Ghee, and Andralaine are extra, and only Gilos and Croth Tralon had been officers but weren't in the guild.

With that information, I peered into Amtgard's first 1000 days, hosted on AmtgardInc.com, and found a proposal in September of 1984 in which a Smith's Guild was suggested and tentatively approved. Two weeks later, the guild was formed, with initial members of Andralaine, Aramithris, Ghee, Nashomi, and Tawnee. It was given basic tenets (unmentioned here) and issued the first "Smith Guild Publication (SGP)," a document on the Weaponmaster Rating System. So... not construction stuff at all! The next week, there was a document on tournaments; the next month, there's one on guild duties; by December, there was one on weapons and armor, followed by a flurry all month long (trivia quizes, masterhood criteria, etc.).

[Edit: I see Glenalth beat me to that item. Good find, sir!]

The purpose of the Smith's Guild at the time was quite obviously to allow the "old guard" to standardize Amtgard governance via publications of a series of documents. The guild was also empowered to maintain control over weapon construction, which you can imagine must have been all over map—imagine weapons that get made in a newbie park totally cut off from Amtgard. That control would give them broad power to dictate day-to-day affairs of the park. These tasks—newsletters, education, etc—were identified not as construction tasks (they didn't MAKE the weapons) but as service tasks, and thus things that contributed to flame knighthood (which was created when the belts were divided into four orders in April 1985.) The knights of the Flame by May 1985 were, erm: Andralaine, Aramithris, Gilos, Joella, Kalibria, Nashomi, Tawnee. Familiar names.

And Owls? The Smith's Guild issued publications in December 1984 defining masterhood for Order of the Owl, which appeared in the 1985 newsletter as being for making armor, weapons, etc. This one also goes all the way back.

So Smith has always been a service award, and intentionally so, because the Smith's Guild as it was created in 1984 was given significant service tasks to perform. Those tasks must have been critical to both standardizing how Amtgard worked and also solidifying the cultural consensus wielded by the members of the Smith's Guild—giving Amtgard consistent and stable governance over the 1980s.

http://www.amtgardinc.com/blpages/1000.html http://www.amtgard-eh.com/.../BL.../TalesBurningLands1.1/ http://www.amtgard-eh.com/.../Burning.../BLDocs/BLCorpora-1/