Rhiassa Presents: Queen of Hearts XXX

Queen of Hearts Tournaments and War Maneuvers is the longest running tournament event in the Realms, having started alongside the founding of Rhiassa. It is the spiritual successor of the Duke of Glendale series of events that stretched back to the very beginning of the Realms. It is Rhiassa's most storied tradition and very much contributes to the core of who we are as a nation.

Queen of Hearts is meant to showcase the very best of what the Realms is. Being the best in combat is certainly one aspect of that and individuals and teams have ample opportunity to fight and display that prowess. Equally important are the other skills and values needed to run a team, crafting, composing, leadership, organization, camaraderie... the list of indispensable abilities needed on a team is a long one.

Assembling a Queen of Hearts team is a task similar in scale to throwing an event. Managing the individuals, assigning roles, coordinating crafting competitions, plotting battlefield strategy... these tasks often begin in the winter time and last throughout the spring and summer. When multiple teams that have all invested that time and energy into themselves all show up on the battlefields on one hot August weekend, that's when we see the very best of what this event can be. We often like to say that Rhiassa doesn't throw Queen of Hearts, we only host it. The whole community throws Queen of Hearts together, and there is no other effort in the entire Realms that is it's like.

We have a long history of throwing Queen of Hearts together, and a long future of it as well.

See you on the field.

All event rules and information can be found on the Rhiassa Website: http://rhiassa.com/qoh/index.html

Hello everyone, I’d like to make a couple programming announcements regarding the upcoming 30th installment of The Queen of Hearts Tournaments and War Maneuvers. First an announcement about Saturday night then one about Sunday morning.

I want to explain our plan for celebrating this notable three decade milestone.

Normally after dinner break you are all accustomed to gathering around the stage for the crafting and presentation tournaments. This year we’ll be structuring our evening a little bit differently.

We’ll be having a party!

We’ll be setting up tables and chairs near the site’s extra-large fire pit and celebrating thirty years of Queen of Hearts with a bonfire, elevated apps brought around by our staff, and a mocktail bar with refreshments for the summer heat!

We’d also like to have a small opening ceremony at the beginning of the party so we’re asking all Queens and True supporters to have a prompt return from dinner break.

What about the non-coms you ask? Well, we’ll still be doing those presentations and performances, they’ll just be happening at the outset of the party as the beginning of the evening’s entertainment! After they are done we’ll also be inviting people up to tell stories they have of past Queen of Hearts, and we know there are a lot of great stories out there so get them ready to share!

And as the evening draws on we hope everyone will take the time to relax around the fire, enjoy the camaraderie of the evening, and help us reflect on the joy we all feel. Not only in having an event reach this milestone, but that we have a community that has endured so long and has so much history for us to be a part of.

On Sunday morning, we will be having a Breakfast fundraiser.

A great many of you know the Dolph family, Dave and Carrie, and you may have seen through social media that they tragically lost their home in a fire. Dave and Carrie both spent decades being invaluable contributors and paragons of service to the Realms community. I do not think its an exaggeration to say that they were instrumental to building this game into what we have today. We’d like to take this opportunity to try and help them out in their time of need.

This fundraiser is being organized by Angie and Jason Grey, and more information will be forthcoming as we put the details together.

So as you crawl out of your tents in the morning or you make your way back to site, skip the Dunkin’ line on Sunday and have breakfast with us to help our longtime friends.