Founding member Thax

Thax Theman
a.k.a Odd Ballington

Thax has been a member of some part of the Austin Larp community since 1991, swinging couch foam in the front yard. He has played Amtgard, the High Fantasy Society, and Vampire the Masquerade, and has gone on to co-write and publish his own game system. He also enjoys building costumes and props as well as simple electronic gadgets.

"I'm most attracted to the excitement the Victorians had on a future built on science. The promises of steam power and electricity, those were their new alternative fuels! Today I see steampunk as a movement of rebellion against our polluting stagnant world, the wonders of discovery out of reach of regular people. I thrill at the  revisiting of technologies ignored or underdeveloped. That's what Steampunk is all about for me."

The birth of our Society

On November 26 2011 we(Thax, Vicky and I)visited the 2nd Annual Makers & Bakers Steampunk Christmas Bazaar,After spending some time there browsing the vendors and socializing we decided that ice cream sounded like a great idea. The Society was created in Austin, Texas over ice cream in a locally owned company named Amy's Ice cream. After a brief discussion over our name and mission. We immediately decided on our first adventure. Geocaching. However, due to technical difficulties with our searching device and the weather turning uncomfortable it was a very short lived adventure. I liked to think it was mainly the technical difficulties that stopped us. After all what kind of adventuring society would let something like weather stop them. It turned out for the best. We were visited by some friends from out of town, and were shortly joined by two other friends who we quickly inducted into the Society. I'm sure we will find another time to give Geocaching another chance.