Thanks for the quick reply!
I found the issue - it is that p2pool doesn't like the max connections setting...
I have it connecting to a local novacoin-qt now with the following novacoin.conf
rpcuser=bitcoinrpc
rpcpassword=IUSESOMETHINGELSE
daemon=1
server=1
[b]# maxconnections=16[/b] <-- hangs p2pool, don't use