The Barony of Rivenstar is well defended, and taxes tend to be paid on time, too.  This page is dedicated to all our brave lords and ladies and their accomplishments, and will be filled as stories and information are submitted.

BEST SCA AD EVER. This video was created for a Film Editing class by Purdue student Ben Todd, who graciously consented to allow us to publish it here.  The Villain is His Excellency, Sir Pieter van Doorn, and the Hero is Gabriel Carrone (normally a rapier fighter, but apparently he was just too photogenic to overlook).  Because of the casting, we have to constantly work to avoid referring to this as "the Pieter Gabriel video", since doing so conjures up some very strange images involving Claymation.

The very best part, according to Lady Tryphina, is that the Hero doesn't turn into a Marine at the end!  Requires Quicktime to view; you can download the player for free here.  (And yes, the SCA will want me to tell you that this link is to a site over which we don't have any control.)

Moonwulf's Fighting Lineage

Baron Caelan o'Rogallaig graciously granted permission to link to "The Feudal Levy of Duke Moonwulf Starkaadhersson", showing all of Moonwulf's known squires and former squires, and their students, and so on.

Fighting Units, Crews, and Households

Moonwulf's Rangers
Haus Kriegsturm

Siege Weaponry

Video_penguin_fling.MPG (approx. 2 MB) is an eight-second snippet that shows our siege crew doing what they do best - flinging small projectiles with joy and abandon.  In this case, the projectiles are two-inch-high penguins, and are being flung as part of a fundraiser for local charity.  Requires Windows Media Player to view - please notify the webmistress if you have any difficulty downloading or viewing the file.

Siege engine catering crew: (delivered to your door in thirty seconds, or it's someplace else)
Encara of Rivenstar
Ragnar Bloodaxe

The Ballistae "Jafar" and "Andrew"

On the field, while it is possible to find trebuchets and onager-type catapults, the most popular siege weapons seem to be the ones that look like crossbows that have been fed growth hormones.  They fire four-foot-long "bolts" a maximum safe distance of eighty yards.  The vast majority of these weapons are arbalests, whose crossbow arms are essentially giant leaf-springs; the "Jafar" and the "Andrew", on the other hand, are torsion ballistae, which means that their arms operate like catapult arms - the tension on them comes from lots and lots of coiled rope twisted around the base of the arms.

The differences in construction and mechanics give each machine type certain advantages and disadvantages.  Arbalests tend to be more popular, because they can be built quickly and easily (there are even construction templates available for mass production), but they tend to be a bit more difficult to calibrate - depending on the quality of the materials in the leaf-spring, they might end up either under-powered or over-powered.  Jafar and Andrew each took longer to build, and the ropes used in their torsion mechanisms are somewhat susceptible to losing tension in damp weather; on the other hand, the mechanism design provides them with highly adjustable calibration.  If our first test shots are too short or too long, we can "dial in" to the correct safe distance within a matter of minutes, rather than having to retire the machine as unusable.  Furthermore, our engineers used the extra time spent putting them together to carefully machine the trigger mechanisms and sights, making them two of the most accurate machines on the field.

Both ballistae are named in honor of two of the Middle Kingdom's dukes, Jafar al-Safa and Andrew of Seldomrest, both of whom left this world too soon.

Golf Carts

Svenki Magnusson the Varangian (he insisted - apparently the security crew at Pennsic, sleep-deprived and giddy, considers driving the carts to be a sport.  There are rumors of late-night jousting sessions, but so far we can't get Svenki to talk.)

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This is the recognized Web Page for the Barony of Rivenstar of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. The maintainer of this page is THL Arrantxa Idazle Iruñekoa (Heather Bungard Janney). It is not a corporate publication of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. and does not delineate SCA policies. All material herein should be considered under copyright protections according to US law and international treaty, and may not be reused or linked to without the permission of the author, artist, or other copyright owner as designated.  In case of conflict with printed versions of material presented on this page or its links, the dispute will be decided in favor of the printed version.