By Malice
If this article seems familiar, that’s because it’s supposed to! Malice covered Rally in the Desert so well last year that there’s not much else to be said about it. We know, however, that we always have new chatters dropping by the site, as well as established members who may be considering the SoA genre for the first time. In that spirit, we’re reprinting our 2016 article, updated with information about this year’s rally!
With as many Sons of Anarchy rooms as we see either popping up or reformatting from week to week on the who-chat, the question always seems to arise: “Why can’t they just all play together?”
The reason why most Sons of Anarchy rooms cannot “all play together” is because there are different areas, and in each of those areas, there are different allies and different enemies. These rooms do not always run canon, because that can be frowned upon, so allies and enemies can come from a number of sources: Fiction, reality, or something created wholly by the mind of room contributors. Each location for a Sons of Anarchy charter also holds different scenery and different challenges, and it is all in what the audience or participants crave. Given that, how could they all be brought together for an event?
The answer: Rally in the Desert. Originally the brainchild of kitten, with the assistance of Nalice and a few others, this concept for a way to bring these rooms together – while still allowing them to have their own locale obscurity – was born.
Rally In The Desert was held in a fictional town in Texas named “Burnout”, which seems apt for a place that is mostly a biker hole; its only real draw and tourist attraction the yearly biker rally. For its inaugural year, this rally was closed off to other biker groups and weekend warriors and left for only the Sons of Anarchy charters to attend. There were no RSVPs – you just came and went as you pleased. The entire event was designed for optimal amount of role-play, as well as to encourage the individuals attending to meet, greet and mingle.
In its second year, Rally In The Desert was opened up a bit more. The founders realize that sometimes rooms close, yet people still have characters that were part of those charters. Thus, RITD2017 widened its approach to include more individuals.
There were traditional biker rally games to be found: A drinking contest – self explanatory for you alcohol aficionados! Bitch fishing – which involves couples [of any gender, for amusement!]. A sausage slathered in mayonnaise is hung on a string that is attached to a structure large enough for a bike to pass underneath. The goal is to get a “full pull”, which means your ‘bitch’ managed to rise up on the back of the bike and suck/remove the entire slippery sausage from the clip fully intact, while you kept the bike steady even with the shifting of weight. There was a burnout competition, which is also known as a peel out or power brake – the practice of keeping a vehicle stationary and spinning its wheels, causing the tires to heat up and smoke due to friction. A chili cook off, which found a surprising winner in a character believed unable to cook anything edible. And of course, what would a biker bash be without a wet t-shirt contest?! We saw women wet tatas, men wet tatas, and a charter prankster ride a water hose! We saw naked butts streaking across the stage, too! All judgements were based on roleplay posts of three to five lines and a dice roll that was the judges score, to make it all even and fair. Boy, were those judges hard to win over, too! There was even a boxing ring set up for those that wanted to air out issues, or just take a jab at being in the ring with a brother. Much fun was to be had!
But not all of this event was fun and games. As with all events, there was some measure of business, even if it was not seen or announced outright. Arrangements for charters to assist other charters, moving plans and transfer plans, talk of ‘corrupted’ charters that may need investigation; all matters of business were conducted between bouts of laughter and rough-housing.
We also had two weddings at this year’s rally, both of them spur of the moment and happy occasions!
From all of this came some forged friendships, some new alliances, new business arrangements, transfers, and establishing replacement and new officers to various charters. All in all, the venture was productive for many charters, including those new seeking members and those established filling holes abandoned by members. In the end, many prizes went out and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun, proving this event a success.
We’re very proud to announce our winners for this year: Charity, Care, Gabby, Covet, kels, Rutger, The Guru, Kaliko, and kitten!
There may be some changes to open things up to other players as well. Ideas are being tossed around, and kitten, the creator, is open to suggestions. If you happen to have any, feel free to PM her on the ReVo forum!