Olympian Masquerade What: Olympian Masquerade: Masks! Music! Necromancy! Marmalade! Who: MPC guests (incld. NPC!Byestro members and Winged Sandals crew) Where: Hotel Imperial When: Saturday, October 21, 1888: afternoon to evening Rating: TBD
"...the dance formed amid the splendid crowd which arranged itself symmetrically to make room for it; the whirl of the waltz distended the robes like the skirts of whirling dervishes, and the rapid motion lengthened out the strings of diamonds and the swords of gold and silver in serpentine gleams like flashes of lightning; and the little gloved hands resting on the epaulettes of the waltzers looked like white camellias in vases of massive gold." ~ Theophile Gautier
Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Olympian Masquerade!
Hotel Imperial attendants usher all arrivals inside after a cursory check of names. Throughout the course of the evening nobody is turned away.
There’s a cloakroom is available downstairs for the ladies, with a few “dryads” ready to assist them, and a hat-room, similarly staffed with obliging satyrs, is prepped for gentlemen. All ladies attending are presented with a scented paper butterfly upon arrival.
The hotel’s expansive ballroom has been additionally embellished with large canvases of Greek and Roman myths. A large band of coiffed “shepherds” presides over an ebony-dark oak floor. The balls opens with a quadrille, followed by a waltz. Throughout the fete, the dances provided include quadrilles, waltzes, galops, a polka, and, as a nod to the Russian guests, a mazourka.
The refreshment-room is set up on the same floor as the ballroom, along with a tea and coffee room under the maintenance of two helpful “Nereids”. The food is arranged on long buffets with the servants standing behind, to prevent a vast deal of pushing about. The liquid refreshments include tea, lemonade, the unavoidable negus, pomegranate punch, hot chocolate, and dark Russian kvas. To ensure the mood of the evening, there are also many “spirited” desserts: champagne jelly, claret punch, peach and raspberry cordial respectively, frozen milk punch, iced wine and cherry soup, rum souffle. Sweet cravings are appeased with marmalade mille-feuille, candied rose leaves, dates Alexandrine, sweet "Roman toast", peaches cooked with cumin, crisp'd almonds, and stuffed dates fried in honey. In terms of more fortifying fuel, the buffet offers: sweetbreads à la royal, duck à la mode, beef olives, florendine of rabbits, hare soup, house lamb, ham, seasoned eggs, sweetbreads à la creme (served in paper “cornucopia” cases), partridges on toast, carrots with cumin sauce, green peas (with maitre d’hotel butter), vegetable marrows, artichoke potage.
For the gastronomically daring there’s a special Underworld menu of black-bordered plates featuring turtle soup, rye Russian “black bread”, black olives from Turkey, caviare, mullet botargo, black pudding from Frankfurt, game served with sauces the color of licorice and boot-polish, truffle purées, chocolate creams, plum puddings, black grape jellies, pomegranates and dark-fleshed cherries. The Lethe drinks include ebony cups of coffee or black-tinted glasses of walnut cordial, stout, and more kvas
Nothing upon the tables requires carving; the fowls are already cut up and held together by ribbons. Everything that could be conveniently iced, is.
(Ice cream is especially abundant.)
One of the most anticipated entertainments is the Midnight Waltz; an exhilarating dance conducted in “twilight” through the use of magic lanterns and reflective confetti. At the conclusion of the waltz, MPC’s Captain Curtis and Byestro’s Captain Petrotavich will announce the date of the Boreas race: December 8th. Other notable distractions are a fortune-telling “Delphi oracle”, a brief ballet a la russe, a miniature perfume fountain, a garden paper “temple” to Artemis, and a small gallery of Greek antiquities (including some “living” statues).
The Guests/Costumes Zipporah Bakst - Athena Archie Curtis - Odysseus Bedelia Linden - Psyche Leah Allen - Aphrodite Lou Parkinson - Hermes Una Nicnevin - Fortuna Maggie Swinton - Aurora Mac - Apollo Severina Kalderash - Medusa Miss Shiverthorn/Velathra Featherbite - Scylla Dex Kessinger - Poseidon Bertram Eden - Orpheus Arabella Ward - Circe Adrien Green - Charon Cassius Darcy Corbet - Gaius Cassius Longinus Gabriel Allen - Narcissus Colwyn Driscoll - Dionysus Lucien Swinton - Erebus Keira Adams - Echo OOC: Please let me know if your costume is missing from the list.