SCA

Warning: Spoiler alert! There are articles here that have yet to be published elsewhere. All content copyrights belong to “True Thomas the Storyteller” (Robert Seutter) and/or the SCA. If you would like to re-publish these articles in your SCA newsletters, magazines, etc. please feel free to contact THL Thomas Whitehart (True) and he’ll be glad to help you.

• ABC-SCA, The SCA Alphabet Primer
• A Shield Wall of One!
• Bad-Bard, Bad-Bard, Whatcha' Gonna Do?
• Born in the SCA
• Crag's Lyst, (April Foolish!)
• The Medieval Diner
• Sunny Valhalla SCA Retirement Home
• Secret Stratagems
• Siege Towers 101
• The Boke of the Dyseases le SCadyian
• The Fyne Art of Combat Brewing
• True’s Glossary of…EVIL!, Version 3.0!
• Happy Hanu-Kwana-Solsti-rismas!
• The Fyne art of Feast Warfare
• SCA Heraldic Zodiac Bling
• Welcome to the New Middle Aged-ness
• The Fyne Art of Picking a Nemesis
• A Visit From Sir Sven A Claus

• Class Handouts

Siege Towers 101

By: THL Thomas Whitehart

One of the interesting things about being in the SCA is the slight tweak we get on reality. Most people would find somebody coming in and buying a crate of duct tape a bit unusual. Likewise, if you saw your neighbor with great boiling vats in their back yard, strenuously hauling away at steaming heavy fabric, or taking turns hitting each other in their helmeted heads, you might think this a bit odd. But in the SCA we take it all for granted. Really, the question for most of us is not “why does that person need all these old plastic pickle barrels” but…”dang, I hope I can trade for one or two.”

This has led me to make some unique observations. Why is it that many people date within the SCA? I think it’s because it saves time. It takes a very special person to understand why you are hammering rivets in the dining room at 2:am, the day before a war. I don’t think most dating services are set up for people who are looking for “that special someone” with an interest in 13th century Arab cartography, and skill with a left-handed schlager. Dating within the SCA, can save a LOT of explanation.

On the other hand, when two eclectic medieval geeks get together, as their various interests combine, it can lead to some surprising combinations. Pretty much everyone I know in the SCA has at least two or three things that they are interested in. For me, it was barding and brewing, and the occasional battle. My lady Inga, is to combat archery, what Willy Wonka is to Candy. And she is a brewer of great repute. So as our two lifestyles collided, she found herself helping me produce bardic events, and I became a pretty good combat archer. On the brewing side, it’s been somewhat surreal, as her style is careful and methodical, and mine tends more towards um…think the Swedish Chef from the muppets. But it has been fun!

And then there’s the siege tower. My girlfriend has one. I joke that she has a “bigger toy than all the boys.” Designed by Master Quinn, this tower stands 14 feet tall, and when fully constructed, weighs in at around 1400lbs. At the time it was made, it was the biggest piece of portable siege equipment in the known world. It probably still is. Now when I say portable, I mean sort of. It takes about 6 to 8 strong people to assemble the sucker, and after it’s built, it takes about the same number to push it around safely. There has been nothing like it before in history of Caid. But whenever you decide to try something new in the SCA, you are in for some learning curves.

In this case, we unveiled the “Tower of Terror” at Estrella a few years ago. At one point, probably as we were pulling into Estrella, my lady turned to me and said “I think we’ll need a tower commander”. I realized that I had just been designated. “Uhm, sweetie, I don’t know much about using a siege tower in battle.” She pointed out that no one alive, did. And so I became the first Seige Tower commander in the history of Caid. Should you want to build and deploy your own siege tower, I offer the following tips:

1. Siege Towers do not have rack and pinion steering. Parallel parking sucks.
2. While it corners poorly, it does straight-ish just fine. And when six big warriors, just chock full of adrenaline get to pushing something, it rolls more than fine. It can do 20, 30 mph, nooo problem.
3. No, sorry guys, we cannot recreate a monster truck rally, where a siege tower crushes a golf cart.
4. No matter how hard you try, you cannot convince your girlfriend to put on the blond braids, and mime Brunhilde as Wagner's “Ride of the Valkryies” plays from the tower, and ride atop it, as we roll it onto the battlefield.
5. Surprisingly, during battle scenarios, when two archers in the tower can shoot down from the tower, thirty archers on the ground can shoot right back! It sounds like this…”LAY ON! (twang. Auugh!-duck!) WHAMP!-WHAMITY!-wamma-wamma-wamma! (I now know what it feels like to be a target at a carnival booth shooting range.)
6. High places attract Marshals. And Nobles, And Photographers. Our tower is the place to be during a big battle. And a romantic place to hang out at night, apparently.
7. The tower creates a shadow. On a sunny day, the shadow on our tower fills full of fighters faster than a cave of bats at dawn. And when you move the tower, you get a lot of “sssss-nasty evil yellow face-sssss!”
8. To kill the tower, all it takes is a couple of shots from the siege weapons, and that’s not much of a challenge, as they always have a clear line of sight. We could try to “bob and weave,” but I don’t think the marshallate would go for it.
9. All a fighter has to do is run up, and touch it with their sword, and say “this siege engine is dead!” This is the medieval equivalent of running up to a tank, and saying “tag- you’re it!” But alas, for the tower crew, without all the fun “squish-squishy-aiieee!!” sounds normally associated with large rolling objects.
10. Siege towers are designed mainly to roll up to enemy castles, and then allow the fighters to assault the parapets. So far, no one has built a parapet for us to assault. We seem to have missed that bit.

So, during the course of the war a great many things were learned, and the tower made a great landmark amongst all the pavilions. Now, being the traditionalist, I realized that now that we had a tower, it was missing something. So, myself and Odie the Incorrigible whipped up a “grail shaped beacon” to guide our “lost” compatriots home at night and put it at the top. Many a poor soul has found their camp, (if not their tent) in the darkness, due to our nocturnal navigational efforts. Now, if I can just convince everyone that it is NOT a margarita glass, and we are NOT Schaudenfreude! But that’s another story.-Slainte!

THL Thomas Whitehart is also known as “True Thomas the Storyteller.” His long suffering Lady Inga (Ingilborg Sigmundardottir) is the Yeoman of House Strongbow, and for questions related to towers, brewing and combat archery-she can be contacted via www.argentlupus.com