The Beast of the East Twin Tournament Scrolls
- Sabine di Sandra
- Jun 1, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 12, 2025
Each reign, there is an unofficial SCA fundraiser for the incoming monarchs of the East. For Ryou and Indrakshi, I offered my services as an unofficial scribe, which was won by Sir Sterling. Though he won a single 5" x 7" scroll, he did not request anything for himself and instead asked for help with the A.S. 60 Beast of the East tournament scrolls. Since I would have happily done one of those for free, I offered instead to do both of them - heavy and rapier - for his bid, at full size.
The scrolls are twins, and the illumination is almost identical aside from the figure atop the skull podium. The words and calligraphy match, aside from a single word ("rattan/rapier in hand"). These were 2 of 5 scrolls of mine that changed hands at Southern Region War Camp A.S 60 (Thaddeus was kind enough to agree to deliver them for me, since I will not be attending Beast of the East).
This set of scrolls really taught me the difficulties of photographing gold gouache on pergamenata. Scanning perg at Staples yields overly yellow photos, and does not portray the shine. My scanner is not big enough for an 11x14" scroll. A phone picture seems to yield the best results of the tools available to me at time of writing, but I still have to choose between getting the shine of the gold and dulling the rest of the photo, or making the gold seem dull. Decisions, decisions. Thankfully, the recipients don't have to worry about that with the originals.
Words by Sabine di Sandra and Sir Sterling De La Rosa
Calligraphy and Illumination by Sabine
Words
Proclaim far and wide the feats and deeds that have been witnessed this glorious day. Valiant combatants of the East converged, displaying their endurance, prowess, and true competitor spirit in the fray. Yet one has risen from the field, rapier/rattan in hand, unyielding and unmatched, to claim the rights to the title of Beast of the East.
With a fury tempered by honor and a roar that echoes through the hills and hearts of the East, let the tales of The Beast be heard across the known world and heeded by all who would dare oppose them. Presented at the Beast of the East Tournament in the Shire of Midland Vale, A.S LX.
Illumination
The instructions from Sterling were open to artistic interpretation. He mentioned rakshasas (which in medieval Hindu scripts were demons and only vaguely animalistic, but which have become more animalistic in the TTRPG worlds of today), skulls, and Ryou’s helmet. Basically, I figured he wanted it to be fierce, and I wanted it to be period and gender-neutral.
It took me days of searching through scrolls to find the inspirations I was looking for, but it ended up with something that he and Thaddeus (the reigning champ at the time of the scrolls' creation) both loved, which was a bit of a relief.
The crowning jewel of these scrolls is the skull podium, which was sourced from page 84 of the "I trionfi" which is an Italian exemplar with a great deal of skulls and bones. I made mine more colorful, to match the illuminated letter.
The Illuminated "P" came from a 1499 Italian choir book.
The combatant atop the podium is based on this 1300s illumination of a fight with a snail. For the rapier fighter, I used rapier 3 from: https://heraldicart.org/rapier/
