Summer Camp 2014 is starting today!

They are already there. The organisers went yesterday, the participants today. Still one day of work and one of waiting before I can join.

I told a few basic things about our camps in general in my last summercamp-post, so won't repeat those now. The camp of this year is called "The Glory of Gondor" and its story is happening in T.A. 2050. We (the five teams of the campers) will be colonists from Minas Tirith, Dol Amroth, Lebennin, Arnor and also some Éothéod sent by King Earnur to the southern region of Eregion to civilise the local people and keep an eye on the evil things around.

I am one of the noble people of Lebennin, and cannot wait to find out the final version of our coat-of-arms: all teams and orders has a secret topic on our online forum to discuss things in advance, but of course, not all participants read the forum, so it is better not to decide every detail there. It was my idea to take the device of the House of Haleth as an example and transform the branches of the tree into the five rivers of Lebennin. Also we tried to use only our team-colours: white, green and gold. But what symbols will they choose in the end? Sun, fish, apple, flower, wheatear? I'm afraid I have to wait until Sunday to find out.

I am not good in geography and never knew much about Lebennin, but this is an advantage of these camp-identities: I did my research and now I will remember that one of our rivers, Gilrain, was named after Nimrodel, who slept on its bank so long that she could not reach Belfalas in time to meet Amroth. Also I found an error even in the (by our society) revised version of the Hungarian translation of The Lord of the Rings: in the sentence about the people of Lebennin, the mention of the "short and swarthy folk among them" is missing, and their sires from the shadow of the hills are said to be the sires of the people of Lebennin in general.

The orders of this year are about dancing, adventures and exploring, cooking and lifestyle, written and oral texts, arts and crafts, and hiking in nature. Actually I would be interested in all of them but dancing and cooking. So I applied for adventures and my secondary choices were the other three left. I was quite late with my application, perhaps that's why I ended up in the order of writers, just like in my very first camp (where my primer choice was the theatre group). Oh, and there is another order for the babies!

Every order has a leader, and every team has two leaders and one hero. The hero is a character from that folk with a background story and a role in the upcoming events (an NPC in role-playing terms, but I think the other organisers also have NPC roles). The story-section was quite active this year, so all team-heros has their own facebook page and some short stories about them were published online or in the upcoming Lassi Laurië. (Something that they, down there in the camp, already can have. Not that it can surprise me a lot, as I read the almost-final version in pdf to find mistakes in time, but I want to have it in my hands, now.) Among the organisers there is also a team to care about the team-leaders. Another for all other programs of the camp. (For example there is a card-game of competition for the individual participants and another game of strategy for the teams, and an article about the development of these games in the Lassi.) And of course the logistics. And the kitchen staff. And the main organisers to care about all these. You can see their pictures in the "camp blog".