The “what” is easy: Black Spot Pyracy is a reenactment group that specializes in the Golden Age of Piracy. The group represents a living history of piracy through interaction and education at the Escondido Renaissance Faire. The guild was started on April 14th, 2007, however it's founding members had been active at the Escondido Faire for 6 years prior to that date.
The term "Black Spot" was a literary device created for the book Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is meant to be a pronouncement of guilt, and a threat of death to come. Black Spot Pyracy has adopted it as their mark, and all others should take heed and beware.
The “who” is easy as well: Black Spot Pyracy guild members have numerous years of experience in living history productions in a Renaissance Faire setting, and in the Golden Age of Piracy. Our membership includes scout leaders, elementary school teachers, a public school Library Media Technician, a YMCA staff member, numerous parents and of course, their children. Our target patrons are families with children, but you will find our guild and our encampment hold a little something for everyone. We look forward to meeting you and we hope to make your visit as enjoyable as possible.
But what does Black Spot Pyracy offer to
Escondido Renaissance Faire visitors?
We bring to the faire years of experience playing period characters, historical knowledge, a love for fun and entertainment, and a desire to share knowledge and history in a fun, interactive way. We entertain the Patrons through an interactive guild camp, games, hands on activities, and by working with the other guilds at the Faire.
Our Interactive Camp.
From experience, we have learned that an open and interactive camp is more informative. We bring the Patrons into our world. We do not have a camp that looks like a “museum display” with characters moving about in it. What we do instead is open our camp up with an entrance leading into a “center courtyard” area. This gives the patron an "up close" view of the items we have on display. We have games and active displays including a period cooking display, Pirate Lore, knot and lashing demonstration/lessons, hands on activities, a game area where patrons can learn period games, storytelling, educational signage, etc.
Games
We have a number of “period” board and dice games within our camp for children of all ages to learn to play and enjoy. There are also a variety of games of skill that patron's are invited to try.
Captain of the Day
This is where our “back story” comes into play. The members of Black Spot Pyracy have banded together after leaving behind all previous endeavors. As such, we had no ship, no captain, and decided to go into the mercenary business based out of The Wayward Wench Tavern. At our camp entrance you will find a list of our fictional "services", though we are more than happy to help patrons out with harmless jokes and pranks!
Since we have chosen to have no Captain per se, we choose a “Captain for the Day”. That duty falling to the guild member who lost in the morning’s drawing of straws. The Captain for the Day is also posted at the entrance of our encampment.
Out and About
If you don't find us in our encampment entertaining and educating the public, where else might we be? You may find us at the main gate greeting visitors, roaming the faire entertaining the crowd, joining in the Queen's procession, participating in the battle as mercenaries for hire, shopping at all the wonderful merchant booths, or partaking of the vendor's wide variety of food and drink.
For more information contact:joansy64@hotmail.com