Non-BJD-- L5R Kotei Tournament up in Calgary and Saskatoon
March 21-24, Heather V. Kreiter (another artist) and I were asked as guests to a Legend of the Five Rings card game tournament (a Kotei), up in Calgary and Saskatoon, Canada.


The Iron Samurai XP2(the third annual) event is a kind of marathon card game tournament that is flawlessly organized mostly by Diana Nguyen. Not many tournaments can afford to fly out guests. This one also had a Story Team Memeber, Rusty Priske, as a guest. Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) is a collectible card game that sprang up in the wake of Magic, over a dozen years ago. It's probably the longest running CCG aside from Magic and I've been working on art for the game since the original set was released. Every spring there are large organized tournaments called Koteis, which have an impact on the storyline as well as qualify players for the big World/Main Tournament held at GenCon. The Koteis are held all over the US and the world. Many are just 20 or 30 people, others are larger. Calgary's was around 50 or so, I think... Saskatoon's was slightly smaller.

I flew out on the Friday before... a nice direct flight of 3 hours from LAX to Calgary that was a United plane by handled by Air Canada (I have no idea how that worked!). It had those screens behind every seat, which was great. There was a big choice of programs, I watched "Beowulf"--which was kinda freaky since the 3D animation was realistic, but not, and one could recognized the actors. Sadly, the flight ended before the film ended!

Heather Kreiter and I were a bit worried about going through Customs with artwork... Lots of last-minute e-mails flew about right before the trip. But luckily we both had no problem. And thank goodness I remembered that I needed a Passport before leaving for the airport. Of course, I had little to no sleep before I left, packing up prints and stuff at last-minute, so I was pretty dead on arrival. Not a wise start to the marathon weekend! But I do this to myself at every con or tournament, so what's new?

Diana picked me up from the airport... she was running back and forth all day taxing people! That evening we (and about 20 or more others) had a big pre-Kotei dinner at a downtown steak-house. I had Prime Rib, which is always lovely. Heather and I were fading fast, though, and missed the birthday cake celebration for Rusty... Diana very nicely offered to drive us bacl early to her parents' place where we were staying.

We were to leave at 7:30 Saturday morning... so it was an early wake-up, and we were all eager to get to a shower. Several other people were being put up at Diana's parents' house. They served a nice breakfast of fried won-tons (I think) and cake and sliced oranges and tea. And they packed us all up in a van and Diana's car. Everyone had to bring all their stuff since we weren't going to return.

The tournament venue was Ross Glen Great Hall at Mount Royal College, a bit outside of downtown Calgary. We got there early so we made a detour to a nearby Tim Horton's, which seem to be all over the place, selling coffee, doughnuts and sandwiches. As neither Heather nor I had any Canadian money (yet), some of the guys nicely bought everyone coffee (ah, bliss!).

The Hall was a nice new place--very roomy with large windows. Plenty of tables for all the players to sit at and many left over for Heather and I to make an artist island by the door...

Here's my section, with Heather Kreiter's off to the left...


Big tournaments run all day (from 10 am to dinner time, thereabouts), pretty much, with rounds to determine the top 8 by number of wins. There are breaks for lunch (we got a ride to the local Pita Pit--quite satisfying! and a quick run to Tim Horton's again for some doughnuts). Most players are busy during the rounds, but some finish quickly and come round to look at our art or have cards signed or hopefully buy prints or originals. There was also a vendor of cards and supplies.

I like getting cards to sign, since it gives me something to do--and gets people around the table looking at the art! I did pretty well for a 50 person event. It helped that one person bought a $300.00 original (Shiba Tsukune from 1,000 Years of Darkness). I brought a stack of orginals... mostly just for show since few people can afford them. The rest were $15.00 prints in loose-leaf books. I also brought a pad of Bristol paper to do a few quick sketches which I sold off for $5 or $10. I'm not a quick sketcher, so I only was able to do a few of these, but I liked doing my own stuff rather than requests (I so suck at commission work!), and it helped me while away the time. Heather had brought her latest L5R assignment with her and was working on her sketches for that when she wasn't busy selling or chatting.

Back of Heather's head... sitting behind the tables next to mine--


In past years, the unusual back-to-back Koteis had only asked one artist at a time (Drew Baker the first time, Steve Argyle the next year, then us). I was SO happy to have Heather there. We could chat about art and other things when we weren't busy with other stuff.

Here's the room with the players--


Someone went out to get us sandwiches from Tim Horton's for dinner (I had a chicken salad sandwich--quite nice!--and more coffee!). From dinnertime to around midnight top 8 were whittled down to the finalists, who happened to be a Crane player and a Lion player. (L5R has clans to choose from: Crane, Crab, Dragon, Lion, Phoenix, Scorpion, Unicorn, Mantis--and Shadowlands. All have different aspects... most are the great samurai houses of the Empire who specialize in different things like dueling or magic or cavalry or armies or intrigue or court-life, etc. Shadowlands are evil/corrupt.)

Here's the prize table for the various winners--


They awarded prizes to the top 8 and to top of clan and to odds and ends like farthest traveled and top female player (very few females!) and best sportsmanship, etc.

Someone was selling jade pendants (signifying magic and purity) to raise money for a good cause. (They offered some as a gift to us, but we paid for them, of course! And by that time we had Canadian money so all was well.)

By this time, sales were slow and we'd talked to just about everyone... although now and then people would find cards they wanted us to sign. We packed up towards midnight and then there was a bit of waiting around.

OK... here's the crazy thing about this Kotei... It's two events back-to-back, with Calgary on Saturday and Saskatoon on Sunday. Many of the players are from the more populous Calgary, so they rent a bus and it drives all night to get to Saskatoon in the morning for the next tournament. Why we poor artists would go off to Saskatoon and back when there were mostly the same people playing, who knows? The adventure, maybe? The insanity? More probably! Luckily, as guests, we hogged two seats together while all the boys were stuffed into one seat for the over-night trip. We also got the seats at the front, since the bus was notorious for drinking and rowdiness towards the back (where the bathroom was located). Ack!

They had a DVD player on the bus and showed "The Princess Bride" first. I could just about curl up on the very cramped two seats... feeling for those who wished they had two seats, but not badly enough to give mine up! I zipped up my cashmere sweater and used my sheepskin jacket as a pillow. Although exhausted, I still heard most of "The Princess Bride." Luckily, I missed most of "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" that followed! Apparently the rowdiness of past years didn't pan out since most of the bus was asleep after that, too... as we barreled on to Saskatoon all night, arriving early in the morning on Easter Sunday.

The event was held at Maguire's Irish Pub and Brewery, which apparently was open for business... although with only one poor waitress who had to run upstairs to the hall where everyone was playing from the Pub below. It was a pretty cool place upstairs... although the padded seats of the booths to the side looked all too tempting to lie down upon! We didn't though (mostly in fear of going to sleep for hours... and someone had taken a picture of poor Drew Baker sleeping so we were trying to avoid anything so ignominious!).


As we had a bit of time in the morning, we actually had time to borrow the shower of a player from a nearby flat (that was SO helpful!!! Almost felt human after!) and also went to have a lovely sit down breakfast at Grainfields Pancake and Waffle House, a bustling place, in the same strip-mall as the pub. I had waffles with local berries on top with whipped cream that was fantastic!

Back at Maguire's, Heather and I each had a table by the windows where we sat doing much the same as the day before, only a bit less busy. The announcers would occasionally urge players to go over and talk to the lonely artists, though, so we had some distraction now and then. And at one point Heather and I stretched our legs and took a walk over to the drugstore in the strip-mall, stopping at a comic shop that was open along the way (they had Jareth--from Labyrinth--dolls/action figures! Tempting, but I didn't buy anything).

I had pub food (potato skins and perogis) at Maguire's... but due to the poor overworked waitress, didn't get it until late, so it served as dinner as well as lunch. And we'd bought sodas from the drug store to snack on, so it was all good. By midnight and facing the bus ride back to Calgary, I was feeling OK, since I knew what to expect--AND knew that I wouldn't have to be TOO coherent for anything the next day. Yay!

There was a very silly DVD playing that most people booed and hissed at and finally turned off so that everyone could sleep... I woke briefly as the bus driver pulled over to quickly stretch his legs and then start driving again... And seven hours later... we were back in Calgary... only it was snowing!

Heheh... they say So. Californians can't drive in the rain, but it really doesn't rain ALL winter here, while it does snow at least a month or two up in Calgary... and we were seeing cars skidding up on sidewalks! Hmmm!

The driver off-loaded most everyone at Mount Royal College... then he took those staying at Diana's apartment downtown into Calgary, since he was going that way anyway and since we didn't have rides yet as he'd arrived early. A crowd of us crushed into the apartment to wait for the various flights out... and for some of them to continue to play card games against each other. I know I dozed off now and then. Heather and two of the guys had flights out in the early afternoon, so they all piled into a car and left. My flight wasn't until 7:30PM... others had flights at 5 or so and I said it'd be fine with me to go en masse with the second group and just wait about. Which was a good thing really since it turned out that you have to go through Customs before you take the flight and one of the first guys called to say there'd been an hour and a half wait for Customs and that he'd missed his flight (he was waiting to take another in the late evening).

We all walked out for a fantastic lunch at a nearby restaurant (again, nicely comped by the Tournament). Soon after we all packed into a car for the airport. I got through Customs again with no hold-up. 'Had time to grab a coffee and a snack at the airport. Nothing served on the plane these days, unless you buy it...

I got to watch the end of "Beowulf" on the way back, strangely not feeling very sleepy (probably over-tired at that point!)... And watched most of "Elizabeth." Got a Super Shuttle to my sister's Santa Monica house (closer to the airport... I'd parked my car there). She was away with on a spring break trip to Belize with husband and son, so I was there also to feed the cat, the frogs, the turtles and the koi... I think I made a very good pillow for the cat for the next few days as I tried to catch up on my sleep!!!

All in all, it was crazy, but it was fun, and a bit lucrative, and well, you know, we have to do our thing for the team (the company that pays us now and then, and the players who make it possible). I hadn't been asked as a guest anywhere for a while, so it wasn't too horribly strenuous. But it WAS pretty crazy! O____o