Lloyd von Eaker

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Information
Registered Name: Lloyd Von Eaker Resides: Steppes Status: Inactive Joined SCA: Fall of 1972
Order of Precedence
Lloyd von Eaker
Heraldry
Gules, a rattlesnake coiled lozengy erminois and pean, rattled, armed, langued, and wearing an embattled crown argent.

His Grace, Duke Lloyd von Eaker, OP, Lion of Ansteorra, Defender of the Dream

Previously Known As:
Nickname(s): "For a long time, it was a running joke that my title was Lloyd."
Pronouns: He/Him

Additional Registered Heraldry:

Either the name or the following badge associated it (or both) were registered in March of 1978 (via Atenveldt): Gules, a baton argent, overall a sword, tip fracted, inverted proper.

Offices:

• Local Offices Held
  • Master of Sciences, Barony of Stargate

• Regional Offices Held
  • Knight Marshal of the Principality of Ansteorra

• Kingdom Offices Held
  • 2nd Crown of Ansteorra
  • 4th Seneschals of Ansteorra
  • 5th Earl Marshal of Ansteorra
  • 6th Crown of Ansteorra
  • 8th Earl Marshal of Ansteorra

Persona History:

I am an old Englishman from the 14th Century. Edward is still on the throne (There's ALWAYS an Edward on the throne). I retired from warfare some 20 years ago.

Interests:

• Chivalric Combat: "I didn't care if it was melee, tournament, or a fighter practice. Most of what I did was teach. (I've even stopped a student mid-tournament to give feedback.)"
• Armor-working
• Heraldry - "I probably spent more time doing this than anything else. I enjoyed helping people design their arms, researching the elements. I also did some court heralding." As a joke, he received an award from the College of Heralds, of a garrote with two cast stones marked with a crown hanging from each end. Jonathan and I received it. We were the Militant Arm of the College of Heralds."
• Calligraphy
• Costuming and Costume Research, through every layer down through to the undergarments.
• Research

Timeline of Activity:

• Immediately following the Crown Tournament in which he was declared Heir and Prince, Lloyd went to the print shop where he worked. He made multiple photocopies of the Kingdom Laws, and placed one in his armor bag, his vehicle, and one by every telephone in his home, so that if he was approached with a question, he could refer to the governing source documents directly. He also kept a copy of the weapons code for the state of Texas, and he had the ability to quote Corpora from memory. - Rumor confirmed and additional details provided by Joselyn.

• Attended and fought at the first Gulf War for Francois, who was King of Meridies at the time. "I've got people that will follow me to the gates of Hell, but I need someone who can do something when we get there."

• When he was elevated to Master of Arms, they used the belt of Sir Dennis the Small - and he really wasn't. He weighed over 300lbs and was more than 6 feet tall. It just hung on Lloyd, even when being worn as a baldric. He looked like a child playing with adult's clothes. (The belt was returned later that night - it was just used for the ceremony.)

• When Lloyd was made a Pelican, it was by the command not the invitation of the Crown.

• Pennsic III: A LONG time ago. I had meandered through the south during my college years. I had spent time in several cities in the South, and was traveling up to Pennsic III. While I was on the field there, for one of the first field battles, a knight came up to me, and was commenting on how heavily armed I was. I looked at him, wondering, "What? There's people here with a lot of armor..." "Not for the average fighter," he replied. "Most don't have any." He turned out to be the Steward of the Society at the time. I don't recall his name, but he introduced himself, and then talked about my armor: "You've got greaves, armguards, a kidney belt, a shield, a helm, coif..." All of these things were from me being hit, and not liking it. I had received an injury to my forearm, so I had put vambraces on them. My shins had gotten hit one time, so I started wearing greaves. Master Richard the Short had made it very uncomfortable for me to use the restroom for a while, after striking me in the kidneys. So I had a kidney belt on. While we were discussing it, the scuttlebutt going around the battlefield was, "Wow, there's a guy here with a five piece forged helm!" And we were all looking for him. He'd actually made a great helm out of 16 gauge steel. This was a wonder, at the time, because everyone had a freon can helm, or something similar. That's how much of an impact that thing was - that at Pennsic, where there were over a thousand fighters, there was one guy who had a forged helmet. And this fellow who approached me was shocked that I was wearing leather armor, instead of carpet armor. (Joselyn notes that photographs of the infamous carpet armor do not accurately convey the smell...)

Stories:

• "The thing is, about the Masters of Arms, is a thing that came from Richard the Short. Richard was very religious and was unwilling to swear fealty. I don't recall which particular flavor of religion he was a member of, but they would not swear to anything, as their oath was given to G-d. So they came up with the optional thing of Master at Arms. Years later, when Korwyn Marius Velis Ariannaid was being brought up to be belted - you're always brought up to be a Knight, not to be 'belted' - and of course, that's cultural: different Kingdoms have different traditions and rules, different ways of handling it - But at that time, OUR culture was that you were brought up in the Belted circle to become a Knight. Masters didn't get mentioned. Someone would go and ask you, and you might refuse, and then: tough luck! OR they might come back and ask if you would accept Master. That was a thing that we had promulgated here a lot - that when you are offered Knighthood, you aren't being offered a choice between it and Masterhood. If you wanted to be a Master, you might not get it. I don't remember of a single case where it was done - where if you did refuse Knighthood, you weren't later given Master - but it wasn't guaranteed. One of the things that had occurred was that one of my students, Starhelm, who I have mentioned, wanted to be a Master in Meridies. They refused to belt him - to give him a belt. They said that they were not going to have any Masters in their Kingdom. Why, I won't get into, because the stories are so muddled, I don't know the truth of the matter. But they didn't want a Master at Arms. So Bevin de Frasier (Katherine Kurtz) got involved, and they came up with yet another peerage: The Knights Bachelor of the SCA. There were only two given, and it was never formalized by the Board of Directors. So he was a knight without a chain. That had always rankled with me. That they had treated him like that. When I became a belted fighter, they called me outside to talk, after the major part of the feast was done, and asked me if I would accept Knighthood, and I refused. That threw them for a loop, and so they came back later and asked if I would accept Mastership, but that they really wanted me to accept Knighthood. Richard the Short and I had come to a meeting of the minds a bit on his perspective and what he was talking about, and i felt that Mastership was more appropriate for what I wanted to be. I was also a kid, and I was stupid. I should have just become a knight." ("Oh, that is one other thing that Korwyn got wrong. I am no longer the Premiere Master at Arms. When I had to stop fighting, I resigned my Mastership.")

• In response to Tales of Freana Geardson: "Korwyn Marius Velis Ariannaid has one detail wrong in that tale. Freana and I did talk. I told him he would have to give back his belt, but I would not guarantee that he would get the Mastership. We did not come to an agreement that he would. When he was called up in court, he did not know for sure what was going to happen. That was another layer of the situation that Korwyn was not in on. Every other time I had dealt with someone who changed their position - their title - Jonathan DeLaufyson for example - I told them that if they resigned their knighthood, I would not guarantee that they would receive the baldric. It had to come from and go through the Belted Circle. We weren't just going to willy-nilly let folks go back and forth. It did happen that way in some Kingdoms at that time; people would drop the chain and take a baldric, if there was someone on the Thrones they didn't want to swear fealty to. I thought that was kinda stupid - that if you don't have enough courage to back up your word, that you shouldn't be doing it. So when Freana came up there, we surprised him with the Pelican. And THEN he had to go fight me. But part of the fighting me.. that was to add more to the ceremony of the Mastership. And it also allowed me to personally see if they were good enough to be a Master. I had trouble in the Belted Circle with that, because my set of qualifications to become a belted fighter was a bit higher than most people's. I felt they had to be capable of at least scaring me. But, as Randall von Nordlichwald, our second Prince told me, "Lloyd, that's not very fair to them." So I had to come up with other definitions. With the Masters of Arms, I felt that since they were not serving their Kingdom like a Knight does, that they needed to prove themselves better than a knight. So part of the ceremony was that fight. Since I was the second and the fourth King, it helped create some of the early traditions of our Kingdom - that they had to face a Master of Arms on the field before it would be granted. For two early reigns, the Master of Arms was me.

• At the Belted Circle where Korwyn was brought up, several of the Knights were upset with him for wanting to become a Master. One of the Knights brought up a Duke from the West, one of the Founding members who had agreed to make Richard the Short a Master. It was said that the genie was out of the bottle; that you can't NOT acknowledge a worthy man. And that's where I chose to make Korwyn fight me at the tournament, to get his belt. He got his baldric that day. That was part of the rationale behind that. Most of the Masters at Arms - in Ansteorra, at least, I don't know about outside Ansteorra - had to fight.

• A tale of Orm and Jan: Both of these gentles are good friends of one another, and of mine. We were at an event in Bjornsborg, in a building up on a hill in a rainstorm. And for some reason everything about the schedule had gotten messed up. Everyone was sitting around in this building waiting. I have no earthly recollection as to why, but there we were. I don't know if the Prince and Princess were there, or if we didn't have one yet and this predated us being a Principality. But everyone was bored out of their minds. And someone got up and said, "We've got a bunch of Peers here. Entertain us." So several of them got up and started entertaining people. Jan got up - you've seen Jan, surely - He's a small, little man who looks like a Mongol Hordesman. He is one of the nicest people in the world, and probably one of the most wicked fighters I have ever known. Well, he pulled out a knife, and proceeded to do acrobatics with it. Tossing it up in the air and catching it behind his back. Twirling it around his hands, or his body, over a shoulder, flipping it all around. Nowadays, people would be going completely crazy, because he's doing this in a room full of other people. But: it was incredibly impressive, and no one in that room thought it anything unusual that Jan could do this. Because... he is just... JAN. Beyond a doubt, one of the most capable people that you could know. He gets finished, and sits down. Then Orm steps up. Orm can sometimes walk across a room and not trip. Orm is really unusual - he is ... I won't say a klutz and all, but you just expect the man to trip, even if he doesn't. It just seems like he might. He is very gawky. He gets up, and pulls out this HUGE knife. I was sitting there thinking, "Oh Lord. What is Orm going to do? Is he going to try and out perform Jan?!?!" And he DOES!! At the end, everyone in the room is just astounded! Not only that he could do this feat - but that he outperformed Jan doing it! It was surreal!

• So here's a story of what happens when the SCA meets the mundane: Orm and I were outside a chapel where an event was being held. It was one of the old chapels in Bjornsborg. All of a sudden, a woman from the group comes running up, saying the Guard at the Gate is having trouble. There was some sort of gang at Gate, and there was a fight. So Orm and I ran up there. While we were running, we looked at each other. I realized I was wearing 40lbs of chainmail, and a two foot sword on my hip. He's got on armor as well, and has one of his Viking swords - or it may have been his axe. We get up to the Gate. The guard is over on the side, and there are several people with knives out. There was a gang fight going on, and suddenly, an ambulance came through the parking lot, and drove through the crowd, breaking up the fight. Orm and I were looking at each other, as if to say, "Shucks! We had a chance for excitement, here!" Apparently, from talking to the guard afterwards, the ambulance driver had seen what was going on, and used his vehicle to deliberately break up the fight. But we were ready - looking at them, thinking, "What are you going to do to me with _that_"? (In regards to their weapons)

Populace Provided Information:

Inman MacMoore

Lloyd fought using sword blows not stick shots. If it couldn't be done with a sword, he wouldn't use it and he had focus on his blows. He taught me focus and how to control my power. He was the best teacher I ever had. We loved to fight each other. We could push it to the limit. I know he taught Mikeal (of Monmouthshire) the same things and that is why our fights were so brutal and just plain fun.

Notable Contributions or Accomplishments:

• Twice Crown of Ansteorra
• 10th founding member of Stargate
• Involved with finalizing many of the earliest awards of Ansteorra, submitting them to the College of Heralds.
• Author of the Marshallate laws for the Kingdom
• "One stupid accomplishment that I always thought was interesting ... Now, on the website for the SCA, they list the office of Master of Arts and Science - there is a notation that sometimes those are separated into two separate office. In our first reign, we combined it. After we did so in Ansteorra, they mirrored that at Corporate. Now, I can't prove that they did it because of us, but I always thought it was interesting that they did."

Non-Armigerous Awards and Recognitions:

• The Grand Poobah and Muckety-Muck of Stargate: This one's going to be a rather long and rambling story. I had had a really bad week. And we were going to the tournament and I had decided I was not going to fight. This was a tournament for fun, put on by Robert. He was the autocrat, and basically put the event on for fun. And for some reason, a LOT of people showed up. I was told that the Prince of the Outlands was there. A friend of mine that was a Master of Arms was there - Gunvalt. And Randall von Nordlichwald was there. A LOT of really good fighters. I was just pissed off at the world and didn't want to fight. But then then they called my name to the field. I walked over, and said, "WHAT?!" My wife had gone and gotten all of it done behind my back - had gotten my armor inspected, signed me up for the lyst, and I was told that I was facing someone in the tournament. So I made a decision at that point to allow my opponents to pick whatever weapons they wanted - for both of us. In one bout, I faced great sword, with only a dagger. That was one of the more interesting fights, but I continued to win every round. We got down to the end, and there's this one guy there with this beautiful costume, a huge display on his helmet, and I thought perhaps he was the Prince of the Outlands. Randall had gotten knocked out, several other people had gotten knocked out, the guy in fancy garb had gotten knocked out, and it was just down to me and Gunvalt at the end. Then someone came up to me, and told me that he, Gunvalt, was the Prince of the Outlands! So I decided that he was skilled enough that I was going to fight with my own chosen weapons, of sword and shield. Gunvalt was a BIG man. A left hander. We fought for quite a bit, and neither of us could hit the othe one. I couldn't figure out exactly how he was protecting himself. There's this myth that left handed fighters are better than right handed fighters. Really, what it is, is that left handers fight right handers far more often than right handers fight left handers. Well, I fought more than most people. Not more than Gunvaldt, but a lot of experience fighting left handers. So I realized that the way he was standing, I could see where he was hidden behind his shield by watching his shadow on the ground. So, the next time he closed, I reached over and hit him on the leg - because I could finally tell where he was unprotected. He went down, and I jumped forward, straddled his shield, and hit him right on top of the head, what I thought was a really good blow. He knelt there and looked at me. But he didn't go down. So I hit him again. And he just looked at me. And I hit him again. And then I realized; he couldn't fall over - I was holding him up. And he was going, "But.. I was dead!" And I said, "But you were looking at me!" (Joselyn adds that the hardest part of all that, was carrying the heavy armor box.)

Affiliations:

• Married to Joselyn Allyne Reynard

Mundane Information:

Email: Ducdallas@aol.com

Special Needs:

"Don't come after me with a sword. I might hurt you."