Swords of Orlandia III: The Khaz'Radan Prophecy

Anime Festival Orlando, the best anime convention in Florida, will be celebrating it’s tenth year in just two weeks! The convention takes place from July 30th to August 2nd in the Wyndham Orlando Resort on International Drive in Orlando, Florida. There will be lots of fun events, guests, karaoke, panels, and cosplay in addition to a big dance, a dealer’s room and a bunch of other cool stuff. AFO is the most action-packed of anime conventions in Florida in terms of fun. It is great for social anime fans to mingle and celebrate their fandom… and the even the social outcast posers that need somewhere to fit in.

Okay, now that I have sold you on the convention, I want to tell you my role with AFO 10. I am the head of the game staff and lead game designer on Swords of Orlandia III: The Khaz’radan Prophecy. It is the third and final entry into the annual medieval-themed live action game that takes place exclusively at Anime Festival Orlando. Registered convention attendees are welcome to play the game for free and we will have a lot of fun things for you to do.

New Features:

• A new cast of characters to interact with that will guide you on your adventure!
• Dice rolling PVP mechanic that you can use to win other players’ dice to use as experience!
• Epic Weapons that can increase the score of your dice roll.
• Epic Mounts that you can use to re-roll once in PVP battle.
• Translate runic messages that provide information key to your side winning the war
• New quests designed for a group of players to work together
• New Tavern games such as Bolo and Pin the Crown on the Monarch!
• New challenges that can be intense but always fun!
• Earn the rare position as lieutenant so that you can give out quests and represent your army in full pride and glory!
• An achievement system consisting of twenty different achievements that you can unlock throughout the weekend!
• Many fun Orlandia events such as Orlandia’s Got Talent!, Epic Poetry Jam, Battle of Orlandia, the Grand Raven’s Tournament and other opportunities to win experience dice and other items for your adventure.
• New player’s badge to help you keep track of your progress in the game!
• And much more!

So, what is it about?
Swords of Orlandia once told a tale of two royal brothers, Horus and Hesperus, who battled for both the crown of Orlandia and the love of the beautiful and fair Lady Raine. The first game pitted players against each other to help their chosen prince. Prince Horus won the final battle, with Hesperus believed to have been dead. Horus was crowned as king and took Raine’s hand in marriage. Seventeen years later, Hesperus returned to warn Horus’s son Validus to stay away from an insidious man that he had come in contact with and appointed as his sage.

In the events that followed, Horus was killed and Hesperus and Validus battled to get the most sword shards in order to reform the sacred swords Van and Nifl. These sacred swords were believed to bring the king back to life, according to a prophecy spoken by the sage. Validus thought that these swords would bring his father back to life; however, the sage was merely using Validus as a puppet and when he had acquired the sword shards and remade Van and Nifl into a single, ultimate sword, he revealed himself to be the true king of the prophecy! He immediately banished Hesperus to a void realm, killed Queen Raine, and taken both Prince Validus and the kingdom of Orlandia under his control.

A year later, warriors new and old will come back to fight for the new Emperor in his Shadowfowl regime, or against him by joining the Anarch resistance. The Shadowfowl are known to fight dirty, use propaganda, and abuse the weak in order to achieve their goals. The Anarchs, while underpowered in comparison, fight bravely to the bitter end, until Orlandia is free. While glory and honor await the Anarchs if they succeed, the Emperor has promised great wealth and power to those who help crush their rebellion.

How do you play?
When playing Swords of Orlandia III, you will get a game card that will be used to display your game progress. This will include your level, faction joined, your item inventory, and unlocked achievements. The main goal of the game, or rather its purpose, is to get you to enjoy as much of Anime Festival Orlando as possible. As you do this, you will gain experience dice that you can use to do standard PVP battles in the form of dice rolling, or cash in to buy items or level up.

You will meet characters in the game with ranks of general for their respective side, and as one of their soldiers, they will send you on quests around the Raven’s Roost Tavern(the game’s center of activity and bigger than ever!) and throughout the convention. Completing quests, whether solo or as a party with other players, will win you experience dice and other important items. These can be delivery quests, escort quests, ambushing enemy players in the hall and engaging in PVP, getting guest autographs and pictures, or going to various events around the convention. Remember, it’s not just about gaining levels and buying items; we want you all to enjoy AFO as part of your adventure!

There are a lot more quests than the aforementioned, but I don’t have the space to detail them all. In addition to player vs player battles and quests, you can take on challenges of cunning, bravery, or physical ability. These can be trivia contests, pushup contests, padded sword fights(if you’re over 18 and sign a legal waiver), chess, jalapeno eating, and even contests in the Village Arcade(a super awesome videogame room at AFO). There are also on-stage tavern games that deal with archery and tossing objects and other skill-based games. We will also have new contests like our new talent show, Orlandia’s Got Talent! and telling your tales of the weekend in the Epic Poetry Jam.

How do you win?
Good question! In the grand scheme of interacting in the game – by going on quests, doing challenges, playing tavern games and making new friends and rivals – it is all working to something. You will represent either the Anarchs or the Shadowfowl as you play the game. Therefpre, at times – especially as you reach level 3 – you will be given more  important quests and in accomplishing those, you will be rewarded with items like runic messages and glyphs to translate them.

The runic messages you receive may or may not contain information relevant to your side winning the war, but you and your comrades can work on them together to find the truth help lead your side to victory! The side with the most useful messages translated will be able to have the information they need to defeat the other in each key battle and win Orlandia. You can win these by reaching the max level of 3, and by completing important quests or by winning challenges and other tavern events.

Wow, that’s a lot of fun stuff!
Why, thank you! Both the game team and story team for Swords of Orlandia III have worked hard to bring you an excellent live action gaming experience at Anime Festival Orlando. Even if you never played a previous Swords of Orlandia installment or any other live action game, you will be able to jump in and play at your own pace and manage to have a wonderful time. You can either play this in-between your favorite AFO events and stops to the dealers’ room, or you can grind all weekend and get as much of you can out of the game as possible. Swords of Orlandia III is all about how YOU want to have fun at AFO.

So with that, the battle for Orlandia’s future begins on July 31st! Which side will you be on?

Follow the Shadowfowl on Twitter
Follow the Anarchs on Twitter
Read all of the story chapters that lead up to Swords of Orlandia III!