A South Florida Kingdom

Hearkening back to my previous post, I mentioned that I prefer smaller kingdoms than we see in Amtgard. Ideally, in my opinion, a kingdom should be no more than 2-3 hours drive from end to end. This would make it easier for most chapter members to attend kingdom events. Thus, I see the tri-county area (Dade, Broward, Palm Beach) as an ideal span for a kingdom. Alas, we don't have one. So what can we do about it?

I hear talk about forming a South Florida Amtgard kingdom. We would need to go through a bunch of hoops to do this. Increase our numbers, become a principality under Neverwinter, and then after a number of years we petition the Circle of Monarchs for admittance. Personally, I just don't see this happening any time soon.

But why should we wait? We can create an independent, cross-gaming kingdom right now. We just need to get the various foam fighting groups in South Florida to join together, come up with an acceptable format, and implement it. The main objective of the kingdom (as I mentioned in my previous post) is to coordinate events and encourage chapters to visit each other.

Having our own kingdom has a number of advantages. We don't need to travel so far for kingdom events. We unite and encourage cooperation among the various local groups. We can develop our own system of awards and titles. We are free to do as we please.

There is one drawback - our awards and titles won't have any meaning outside our kingdom. That's not a problem for me because I don't seek affirmation from a bunch of strangers and don't care if I lose any titles should I move to another kingdom. Some people, however, want to earn nationally recognized titles. Well, there is nothing to preclude them working on another title (e.g. an Amtgard knighthood) while within the South Florida kingdom. I do believe, however, that if we build up a strong kingdom then our titles will carry some weight and people won't care about other awards.

Note that we don't have to call this organization a kingdom. We could call it the South Florida Foam Alliance. The main objective would remain the same - coordinate the disparate tri-county chapters. As its first order of business, I would love to see it reinstate the bi-monthly JUBs (joint unit battles). It's easy to do - let's create a Council consisting of 2 representatives from each South Florida chapter. Set up a Council Facebook page and have the Council elect a President. Then the ball will be rolling.

What are we waiting for?