Saturday at Edmonton’s Pure Speculation Festival

Proving that I’m out of the loop in Edmonton’s geek community, this year’s Pure Speculation Festival almost flew under my radar. I heard about because (take a deep breath, this is the geekiest sentence I’ll ever say in real life) my D&D 4th Edition Dungeon Master texted me Saturday morning inviting me, because he was there with his LARP group. If that didn’t make any sense to you, congratulations! You can probably do a chin up.

The festival was set up with a well attended vendor room, a gaming hall, and three panel rooms running throughout the weekend. The first panel I went to was with fantasy authors Dave Gross and Amber E Scott, regarding their work on the Pathfinder RPG world. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Pathfinder, but I’m leery to learn another campaign setting, as I’m currently working on Star Wars Saga Edition, Dungeons and Dragons 4.0, and Iron Kingdoms. Dave and Amber both did readings from their fantasy novels, which made me want to track down and finish reading the Wheel of Time Series.

After that, local writer Minister Faust moderated a panel on comics. The topic of the conversation was “Should Comics be a vehicle for Social Commentary?” and it was rudely interrupted halfway through when water started leaking from the ceiling. Out of a light bulb casing. And it smelled like sulfur. It was simultaneously hilarious and terrifying.

The highlight of the day was the Costume Contest. Of course, my crappy camera ran out of batteries two minutes in, so I have no decent pictures. My camera is almost four years old, so I really should have see this coming. The only decent picture I have is this one here:




The girl is dressed as Commander Shepard from Mass Effect, and behind her on the left you can barely make out a Turian (also from Mass effect), and the head you see in the bottom left belongs to Taylor Bennet, a celebrity guest judge who had an AMAZING Liara costume (also from Mass Effect).

Mass Effect: Chicks dig it.

There was also this dude:

who was in character during the entire judging process. “Leather made by self. Shoulder armor also, but not best at metalworking. Pants made by female of brood.” Female of brood can be seen in the picture on the far left. Man, LARPers know how to have a good time. He won in his bracket.

I wish I had known about conference more than two hours ahead of time, so I could have explained a lot more detail about the panels. I had a great time and look forward to attending next year. And If anyone was there and has any pictures of the Snake Eyes/Steampunk-pirate-pinup-model dance fight, send 'em my way.