#new england larp

[inkylizard]

"my" tavern, finally with enough extra lighting that I could grab some decent shots.

[acediathemelancholy]

Servamp Creation Timeline

It's vague, but here is a guesstimation of when each of the servamps were created by Saint Germain.

Kuro: Sloth is hardest to pin down in terms of a timeline. I have two theories:

Given his human name, "Adam", it was likely after Christianity spread to England. But the setting of his backstory has pre-Norman vibes, so he likely became a servamp between the 7th Century but before 1066. (The big if here is if he was of Anglo-Saxon or Viking origin.)

But some of the legends Kuro is associated with also involve 3rd Century Roman Britain. So as early as the 3rd Century isn't out of the cards, but it would be anachronistic with most of his backstory (the buildings, the dress of all the characters introduced, etc.) The other piece evidence supporting this earlier date is that he seemed confused by Gear's name, which is of Germanic origin. The Anglo-Saxon invasion of England occurred during the 4th-6th centuries. If he lived in the boonies even into the 500s, maybe he could have been a Celtic or Roman British person who was unaware of the Germanic invasions (The latter is unlikely given the Roman aversion to pants). And some of them, especially the upper class, were Christian before the Anglo-Saxons, which could explain his very Christian human name.

Overall, the earliest potential time was 3rd Century Roman Britain to early 11th Century Viking England at the latest.

Hugh: - Algernon and Hugh both have names of Norman/French origin. Algernon was an old man who seemed established in the area. Given the suffix "the Third" and the historical connection between that suffix and the inheritance of land, this was at least two generations past the Norman Conquest of Britain in 1066. The inclusion of the English "The Dark" in his name and Hugh's history of staying in England also support him becoming a servamp in post-Norman England. It likely happened in the 12th Century at the earliest.

Jeje: This is another tough one because of the lack of information. It was most likely prior to the Protestant Reformation given that fits with Freya's creation. So it probably happened somewhere between the 12th Century and 1517. The Black Death and the Crusades are both options that fit within this time period that also give potential reasons for his loss of faith.

When he first met Kuro, he was dressed like someone who was at least a bishop, a high ranking member of the Catholic clergy. But he could have also been a cardinal, as in one of the people who choose the pope. This was the time period of some of the most depraved popes, so there is lots of interesting story potential there. He could be from any country on the western side of the Great Schism.

Freya: Witch trials really kicked off in Europe after the Protestant Reformation, so she probably became a servamp in the 16th Century. She was likely from somewhere in Protestant Europe.

Lawless: Sometime between the 16th-17th Centuries is what makes sense here. I personally headcanon that he was a prince of one of the city states within the Holy Roman Empire, but Denmark is also an option given the setting of Ophelia. I'm leaning towards towards the 16th Century given Ophelia's design and when Ophelia was written.

Ildio: Ildio's timeline is difficult to figure out because the people he was dealing with were larping as people from a much earlier time period. It was probably sometime between the late 16th Century and early 18th Century given the servamps before and after him. He is probably from the somewhere near the Mediterranean.

Lily: The 18th century. Everything from his style of dress to the ideologies he espouses are so 18th Century Europe. Given the aesthetic of both himself and the Aliceins, he is most likely of French origin.

Tsubaki: Early 19th Century. It did not seem like Tsubaki stayed with Saint Germain that long in the grand scheme of things. Kuro said that Gear was interested in cameras around the time he left, and Gear is fascinated with new things. Given that context, Tsubaki was likely created around the 1820s.

It's no wonder Kuro decided to kill Saint Germain given this timeline. Saint Germain's experiments were accelerating. When Kuro made the decision to kill him, Saint Germain had made four servamps in less than three centuries...It looks like he took more time with the first three probably due to the instability, but Germain seemed to have figured it out by Freya and started mass producing them.

[khensaptah]

In her newest WordPress post, @satsekhem writes:

"But the thing is, I am so fucking tired of recreating what might have been done in antiquity. Like, get it if that’s for you. But after more years than I care to admit to, I’ve been doing that and I’ve got to say there is only one reaction from me when I try nowadays [...]

Maybe, let’s not.

I know recreating was fulfilling for me once. But it has long lost its luster for me and I am left with nothing but tarnish now. So, it’s time to stop that shit before I fully give up all this due to the dissatisfaction. My gods seemingly do not want me to bid them a full throated goodbye after years of trying, so. It’s time for something new."

I don't know if I could relate more. I don't think that trying to follow a Kemetic Reconstructionist calendar works for me anymore; I don't know that purely Reconstructionist rites work for me either.

This is the big lesson I have gained from my adventures in Syncretic Crimes. The gods asked me to look at other directions - at druidry and Hellenistic polytheism - not because I was going there but because they knew I could find meaning in other formats and ways of honoring the Divine.

For the first part of my post-House period, my focus has been on making ma'at in the Seen world. My new adventure is to rework my connection to the mystical and Unseen in a way that honors the cycles of the seasons here in New England, not some far off place I may never see. The joy of building a new, more personalized cultus now that I don't have a community to celebrate with.

A lot of my struggle with returning to ritual has been mundane, but a greater part of it has been the question of... What is the point? Reconstructionist work without community, for me, has felt like LARPing. Like playing pretend. And because my spiritual trappings were so wrapped up in Reconstructionism, I felt wrong putting them on.

It felt really freeing to spend some time this week in prayer with my gods, and for Them to say it is okay to try new things, that just as They have grown and changed with the millennia, so can our practices. Being historically informed will always be important to me, but I am looking forward to building Kemetic Humanism, in a unique, 21st Century New Englanders way.

[macmorrighan]

The Furor Over Margaret Murray; or, What's Missing from Wicca?

It always amazes me how the detractors of the Wica like to holler and point to Murray's witch-cult hypothesis as the origins for the Wica/ "Wicca." The History Channel even argued that the origins of the Craft are in Murray's views. (Yet, none of the Wica's detractor's realize that religions change and evolve over time due to social and political pressures!) One shouldn't expect the Wica to resemble and singular religion from antiquity; not even Christianity resembles its historic roots!) Well, if Murray was the great, almighty antecedent for the Craft, then Gardner, Sybil Leek, Robert Cochrane and many others clearly didn't do a very good job replicating her views! (Yet, they all somehow fathomed the same idea as if the Wica was pre-destined to emerge from the Shadows of history!) After all, Gardner and Rosamund Sabine (one of the members of the New Forest Coven) had clearly read Murray's books, yet it left only a vestigial influence on the Craft at best.

What's more, I find it extremely ironic how the detractors of the Wica/ "Wicca" both in and outside the Craft (especially amongst academia) who like to give greater weight to dissimilarities between two ideas, arguments or streams of evidence--as opposed to any similarities between the two--hadn't noticed this!  

One wonders if they have even read Murray properly! Those who seem to be making the most ruckus obviously hadn't read Murray, though they very clearly should. In fact, I'm curious (by show of hands) as to how many Witches and Pagans have actually bought and read a copy of Murray's books, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe and The God of the Witches? 👋 (I'd have also mentioned, The Divine King in England, but even I can't find a copy of that book!) Where, for example, are the High Priest's blue bonnets as a headdress, which Murray was so sure about? There's a LOT of superfluous details within Murray hypothesis that could and should be a part of the Wica/ "Wicca" if Murray had been the influence upon the Craft we are expected to believe; but it isn't.

Therefore, we can no longer be accused of merely LARPing Murray's witch-cult under the pre-text of "religion."

I mean, I don't wanna' be "that guy," but... 😏 But the proverbial "smoking gun" is a letter angrily denouncing Gardner and his witch-cult by Murray, which is in keeping at the archives of Ithell Colquhoun held by the Tate Archives in London.

[kwaggysshardmindemporium]

Feel like rambling, and I haven't talked about LARPing on my Tumblr at all yet. I'd LOVE to gush about my character, but honestly, a lot of what I like about him plays off the setting, both the larger world the game takes place in and the actual in-game space that represents the one specific town we live in.

The LARP I go to is Witchwood in western Massachusetts. The game just celebrated its tenth year of operation at the first spring session of this year. I've been around in this game for 6, so most of its run. If you happen to live in New England, I promise you'll find precious few communities that are more fun and welcoming to be in and if you have ANY interest whatsoever in pretending to be a fantasy person out in the woods 4 times a year you should check it out. Obligatory link: witchwoodroleplaying.com

More below a page break because I have no idea how long this is gonna be but it sure ain't gonna be short.

So, this game has a lot of lore. I'm not going to detail all of it, just a decent surface dive.

The biggest concept is the six Realms. These are reasonably analogous to various planes of being in DnD, but there's exactly six instead of umpteen-million. Imagine a circle or sphere divided into six equal wedge segments, and that's roughly how the cosmos is arranged. The Realms are also heavily color coded.

Evren is basically the Material Plane from DnD and is the most straightforward comparison. It's where the player characters live. It's the realm of growth and REgrowth. Of new things. And the realm of things coming together. Of communities. This isn't unilaterally a good thing. Cliques and hostile factions are still communities, after all. It also contains the Witchwood Tree, for which the game is named. Go back to that circle cut into segments. The Witchwood Tree is a huge fuckoff tree that grows at the center point where the all touch. The tree has one root in each other realm. Yes it's similar to Yggdrasil. Magic of this realm generally takes the form of Druid abilities. Healing, poison, and the like. Evren's associated color is very bright, blinding white. It borders the realms of Reverie and Firmament. Its opposing realm is Void.

Reverie is the realm of thought. The mind. Dreams. Feelings. The things that form what you'd recognize as sapient. Reverie as a place shifts to meet the world's collective expectations of it. It's also the realm of fates and destinies. Of reputations. Everything the people of other realms firmly believe is heightened to the point of absurdity within Reverie, so among us players it has a somewhat deserved reputation as being "the funny realm." On the flipside, it also heightens our fears and darkest thoughts, to the point where the principal enemy that comes from here is Nightmares made manifest. Reverie magic is channeled through casters called Weavers, and in game terms is all about inflicting malicious status effects. Sleep, Silence, etc. Its color is green. It borders Evren and Umbra, and its opposing realm is Vigor.

Umbra is the realm of the spirit. Of the dead. What's left of something after it dies. The undead, both naturally occurring and created, come from Umbral power. It's also one of two places the people of Evren can go to when they die, being stripped of everything except their spirit, which is generally an imitation of what they were in life, with the details fading as people that remember them can no longer do so. Given that travel between realms is both doable and not even particularly hard, this means you can talk to your deceased loved ones if they go to Umbra pretty easily. This act also bolsters the strength of the spirits you talk to, preventing them from fading away for longer. But eventually everything falls away to nothing, lost to history. It's also where the stories of the realms resonate. Umbral magic is channeled through Mystics, and has a general damage focus centered around attacking the spirit, which particularly harms undead. The blunt Death spell is their signature. Umbra stuff is red, it borders Reverie and Void, and its opposing realm is Firmament.

Void is nothing. It's emptiness. It's teeming with strange life. It's everything. Void is, fundamentally, about two things: paradox and never having enough. Creatures of Void are defined by their hunger, ceaseless and unsatisfiable. The power of Void renders anything and everything possible, but using Voidic power is generally hazardous to the health of anything not of Void. This might all make Void sound evil. It's not. It's alien, and it's primal. It is so divorced from the understanding of you and I that trying to apply our morality to what goes on there is foolish. Voidic magic can be harnessed at great sacrifice by Voidmancers, but doing so usually carries insane social stigma and also curses you for life. (Player characters cannot be Voidmancers at character creation. They have to learn it in-game.) Void's color is purple, its neighboring realms are Umbra and Vigor, and its opposing realm is Evren.

Vigor is the realm of action, order, strength, and power. Vigor is almost mechanical in how it operates as a whole. Its beings are made in factories in bulk. Golems are other similar single-minded constructs that simply obey. It's also, curiously, the OTHER place you have the option of going when you die. Instead of your spirit playacting a simulation of who you used to be, all of that is obliterated in favor of repurposing your raw power to fuel Vigor's many forever wars. This option is considered favorable among people who wish for the end of their life to be the actual END. Smash cut to the credits. Vigorish magic can either manifest as martial ability and prowess, or be manipulated directly by runic magic, which simply efficiently recreates existing powers without iterating. Its color is blue, it borders Void and Firmament, and its opposing realm is Reverie.

Lastly going around the wheel, we have Firmament. Firmament is the realm of the elements: fire, water, air, and earth. It's also the source of mana, the raw essence required to do magic. It's denizens are either creatures typifying the element(s) they are associated with (phoenixes, drakes/dragons/imps of various elements etc.), as well as the fae courts constantly infighting over squabbles Evrish folk can never fully understand even as they get roped in on one side or the other. Firmament power is channeled through Wizards. Their color is yellow, they border Evren and Vigor, and their opposing realm is Umbra.

So that's what the cosmology of this place is like. I'll save the ramble about the actual place on the map the players live some other time.

[pojkflata]

I can never thank my great grandmother who died when I was 2 enough for insisting on visiting our American relatives in the 50s. The way I see it she singlehandedly saved a New England family from becoming cringe. Some of them may have reacted to Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons Julafton by naively stating that asking the rich to share with the less fortunate is better than stealing from them but that's better than viking LARPing any day of the week

[oswednesday]

wealthy new englanders love to camp larp i think we should kill them

[lettersfromtheashesgame]

What This Is

Letters From The Ashes is an Epistolary Roleplaying game played through the USPS.

The rough background is that around 200+ years ago something bad happened and society as we know it ceased to be. The characters are all leaders of isolated communities newly connected through the fairly recent Inter-Regional Courier System (IRCS), founded in-universe by a woman named Romena "Letters" Grisham.

The players are all friends of mine from around the New England LARP community (and my mom). It is played entirely through letters sent between players directly via the USPS, though I get a digital copy (photo or copy/paste) of all the mail sent so I can mediate and adjudicate. The players are all trying to wheel and deal with one another to get enough Resources to keep their communities functioning month to month. I send them these resources directly in varying amounts, ensuring that no one is self-sufficient, to require them to talk to each other.

The game is slated to take place over the course of 1 year, though I'm open to both a longer and a shorter game depending on what my players tell me.

Currently, I have 11 people playing, though I'm trying to increase that number to 13. I don't think I want to go much higher than that, but we'll see, I guess.

[gehenna-calling]

17-23 for whoever is on your mind currently :3

i’m playing her tomorrow and the next larp session is next week so let’s get some LYSSA BRAIN on!

(update: this ask took me so long to answer i have since left the larp! jesus christ)

17. they’re crying—what did it take to make them cry?

she is not the type to cry easily; she has a pretty good grip on her outward emotions, and is very good at keeping her usual cheerful exterior up. however, there are some times where she can’t keep it bottled up any longer and the floodgates open - after the death of her close friend gordon and beloved clanmate allister, she cried almost constantly for a few days. got through a lot of bloodstained handkerchiefs there.

18. what dish brings back the best memories for them?

lyssa doesn’t really remember the taste of many foods she enjoyed when she was alive - it’s been so long since she last had them, and many are no longer made in anything like the same way. she does still sometimes prepare food, though, for her tea parties, and laying out a fancy spread of sandwiches with the crusts cut off is something that brings her a lot of joy. nobody has yet told her that her sandwiches are terrible. she can’t really tell when bread is stale any more and keeps ingredients around for far too long

19. what sparks genuine, unadulterated rage in them?

lyssa generally does not “do” anger. it’s an emotion she tends to sidestep and move on from. however, there are certain things that will set her up with a long-lasting grudge, and one of the key ones is taking advantage of someone she’d consider “vulnerable”. other malkavians, people who are similarly downtrodden/not as experienced in the world, she gets very protective of, and will be infuriated by anyone acting against them.

20. what attracts them to someone—platonically and/or romantically, anything counts.

in terms of interest, curiosity - she likes anyone who’s unusual to her, who she can learn new things from. especially people who are somewhat closed off or more of a challenge to approach - that’s part of the fun! when it comes to more long-term friendship/connections - she appreciates someone she can be open with, who she can rely on, but that’s a shrinking pool of people these days.

21. do they have an idea about how they’ll die? do you?

lyssa thinks about death a lot more often these days. she’s lost a lot of her close friends in the last year, and with the second inquisition looming over her domain there’s always the risk of a threat she can’t escape from - no wriggling out, no skipping town, do not pass go. there was a point when an si member infiltrated a camarilla meeting with a bomb and lyssa genuinely thought she would die, but since then things have been a little more hopeful - she’s still cautious, but she’s pretty sure the si won’t get her. that’ll be gehenna! ooc i have no idea where lyssa’s story ends. i’ve stopped playing her, and will need to figure out with the sts where her larp canon ends, but i think her “true” timeline (for me at least) will go somewhat differently.

22. how would they decorate their living space, if they had a chance?

lyssa does have the ability to decorate her own living space and by god it’s a nightmare. hoarder that she is, it’s less “decorated” and more “so full of stuff you can barely see the walls”. she has a very maximalist aesthetic (unsurprisingly) and very eclectic taste, so her clothes, furniture, etc are all from a multitude of different times and places. the more the merrier, and she likes collecting things with a history.

23. in what moment did they consider themselves to be “grown up”?

honestly a good question! lyssa’s mortal childhood is not something i have a lot of development on so far - i have a vague idea of what her upbringing was like (upper class regency england household), i know she has an older sister who she was quite close with. i feel like in that era the “coming of age” process was a lot more formalised, and she probably felt that a lot of her Adult status came from getting engaged and leaving her family to start her own household with her husband - something that was very much expected of her.

[pazodetrasalba]

burg•larp•roof

Dear Caroline:

Well, your LARP is definitely burglarproof now. I've tried the link and it doesn't give you access, but I believe I probably read it sometime, somewhere. Was this not a LARP based in a Hong Kong hotel?

This is a facet of yours, as rpg story-maker, that I would sure have loved to see live. Myself, our gaming community was too small to effectively try this out. My university town once (yes, only once) hosted a Vampire: The Masquerade live session, but I was no longer a student then.

And I am pretty confident I might have enjoyed it. In those times I was also for a time in an amateur theatre company, so I wasn't completely alien to acting out, even in front of a big number of people.

When I think of acting, and larping is a subset of that, I can't help but bring to mind the Puritans in 17th century London closing the theatres under the Cromwellian protectorate, and their generally negative attitude towards plays as 1) lying and 2) frivolous and corrupting. This is a frame of mind that they continued cultivating in your native New England, expanding it in generally to 'literature' and 'fiction'. I can feel some common ground with them in my deeply instinctual loathing of lying - even white lies-, but acting, like playing and fiction, does constitute an exception, as the framing clearly proclaims for all to see that we are in the realm of 'make believe', and we aren't really trying to commit the sin against the Holy Spirit of actually proclaiming The Thing That Is Not. And literary theory has waxed lyrically in many treatises about the virtues of fiction, and how even lies can sometimes tell the truth in a different and deeper way than plain facts.

Quote:

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

Mark Twain

[inkylizard]

Faith symbols for Terres Rising. Top: Don’s, 3D printed and painted. Bottom, mine, assembled from stuff I had.

[operativesurprise]

Hello!

The day you’ve waited for is HERE! Welcome to the Sustainable Collapse Larp Kickstarter is LIVE!

Sustainable Collapse is a new live action roleplaying game in Connecticut, USA, mashing up the genres of fantasy and science fiction, answering the question of what happens when two realities violently collide and merge into a new, unstable world.

The Sustainable Collapse LARP follows the story of the inhabitants of this new world. That’s where you come in.

We need your help to keep telling this story. We’ve drafted a rulebook, written our lore (Check out our lore videos on our website!) and created dozens of cultures from around our world, Mirhanan. All that we need is you- People to join the Sustainable collapse community as backers to make this story a reality.

With a pledge as low as $2, you can help us launch and reach our first live event. If you cannot donate, please share this link so our project reaches far and wide!

For even more information, find us on Facebook or check out our teaser origin videos on Youtube

[sparklyslug]

Plane tickets and hotel room are booked for a job interview, surely THEN they will realize I am just ten rabbits in a wrap dress and not an actual professional human they should hire

[childlikegoblinqueen]

Local LARPing group comes in with boffer weapons and starts talking about some LARP battle. Hunter ends up meeting up with them after work and teaching them a few moves.

He is an ABSOULUTE LEGEND in the New England Live Action Role Play community -- by reputation only.

@unniebeans @rfswitchart

Robin’s Roast! Hunter would make a song by the tip jar that says “Thanks a Latte!”

This is canon.

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

another example of people on twitter just saying shit.

“the Constitution is that of a contractual union, not a nation-state.” -- these aren’t mutually exclusive.

“Open borders are baked into the system” -- this is just simply false. we’ve had pretty restrictive immigration policies since our founding only “opening" very recently. by nature of america being relatively geographically isolated -- only sharing borders with a couple countries -- most immigration was tightly regulated through a handful of port cities.

“to larp as Roman aristocrats on sumptuous plantations” -- they definitely wanted to larp as romans but i don’t think plantations were a necessary part though common enough.

“The Revolution was started by tobacco planters wanting to avoid paying back debts to British merchants” -- again this is just false and no one worth taking seriously would believe this.

“The spirit of the founding involves extravagant tastes for fine wine and gourmet food” -- i mean i wouldn’t say this is wrong. there was definitely a lot of this. but there was also a lot of people who had simple tastes. these two attitudes can coexist.

“construction of palatial villas” -- fair

“running around with black women” -- sure this happened but i don’t really think it was so common as to be integral to the american spirit.

“posting political screeds and personal attacks behind pseudonyms” -- true, a tradition alive and well today.

“It does not involve Puritan ideology or compacts or religion - this was wholly incidental to the Revolution, an event entirely driven by the tobacco economy.” -- once again, simple false and kind of an absurd thing to say. while puritanism had basically become diffuse by the time of the revolution its influences didn’t just disappear. compacts were obviously integral to the american spirit considering our nation was built upon one. and religion was central to most americans, even if america was itself a secular nation. absurd to call a revolution that was centered in massachusetts and new england as a whole being only “incidentally“ influenced by puritanism. and very strange to say that it was driven by the tobacco economy instead. lmao. loyalist sentiment was most prevalent in the south.

“America was founded on greed and conquest, not a cringe ascetic cult that whipped people for celebrating Christmas” -- again, these aren’t mutually exclusive.

[knightwithakay]

hi!!!! I am also in the Boston area and big into faires and swords and armor and you are really cool!! Do you work/perform at any faires? Do you have a “day job”? It’s forever been my wish to be more involved instead of just a guest but I don’t have any good stunt training or time!

hello!!! So, perhaps a letdown, but I very much have a day job :) I’m a data analyst full time and a knight on the weekends, because after some very good theater training I realized that being an actor full-time is too precarious for me to handle! I’ve been a RenFaire actor in the past, but that was more part-time work for fun than anything that really paid the bills. If that’s what you’re interested in though, I really do recommend trying it for a season if it’s feasible, and the barrier to entry as street cast is likely lower than you think! If you’re comfortable acting and improvising, and maybe singing, that’s really what faires are looking for.

that said, there’s a LOT of other stuff in and around the city to get involved with! If you’re interested in sword fighting in particular, there are HEMA and fencing groups and stage combat options, though I’m afraid I don’t have one to recommend. I also know folks in the local SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) which is a great spot not just for combat learnins but also really cool historical craft and content in general.

My particular outlet for knightly shenanigans is mainly LARPing! There’s a whole lot of options in New England, many of which will give you a whole weekend of wearing armor and fighting monsters, and I’ve found a lot of wonderful folks through that community.

So, I hope any of that helps! Mostly the secret I’ve found to doing this stuff is just to remember that no one’s going to stop you from trying new things, and it’s worth feeling silly in the process to discover something that makes you happy.