LARP LARP LARP...
Especially after seeing the cool wackiness that went on at Procon, I'm really psyched about this Wilson LARP that I will be helping to run next fall.
I have yet to think of a name for it, but that's because I'm picky about names. "The Fate of Jowea" (Jowea being the region in which the game takes place) occurred to me, but it's kind of melodramatic. Something a bit more subtle, I think... I suppose I could reuse "Prayers and Whispers," which was the name of a tabletop I ran that took place in the same region, and which refers to the resurgence of religious magic and sorcery which is one of the features in the setting.
Perhaps I should take a step back for those who are not me.
*Note: I tried to do that thing here where it makes a link to another page, but as I am a newb I'm not sure if it worked. If it didn't, then consider this a 'beginning of digression of game and setting' marker.
This game runs in the setting of a game called Beyonder. Beyonder is a game that I've been testplaying for... for a long time. Actively, I've been building it through many different iterations for about 4 years now. The original game, though, dates back to the early 70s and was created by my dad to run for his college friends (so, in case you were wondering, Gaming seems to be a genetic illness). He broke it out for my brothers and I when I was in fifth grade and we played ever since. Ever evolving, ever changing... Well, the tabletop system is pretty much done now. We're compiling all the changes in the main manual and then one last bout of playtesting in case there are any egregious errors we've missed.
But that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is that I'm using the setting from that game to run a LARP, because it's had decades of work poured into it and is vivid and captivating and interesting.
The basic premise of the setting in the region where the game takes place is that this area was, up until very recently, a de facto protectorate of a large empire. However, this empire was torn apart very recently by the Stillness War -- a war against a nation of undead which a weak and incompetent emperor had allowed to grow inside its own borders. As an aside, Undead in this setting are closer to Aralis undead than anything else. They are bound by a force called Stillness instead of Spirit, and the result is that they have more endurance and live longer, but do not learn or adapt quickly (Stillness not liking change and all that...). Also, Stillness and Spirit have the same sort of relationship as fire and water. Undead are not necessarily evil, per se, but generally the creatures of Stillness and the creatures of Spirit kill each other on sight.
Anyhow, this means that this region of Jowea, made of city states, is now on its own and a power struggle has erupted. The closest to real-world flavor it comes is probably renaissance Italy, what with the merchants and city states, but not an exact match.
Besides the political chaos, the Guilds -- a trans-continental association of gifted transcendents who study the science of the Six Energies which make up the world in order to create supernatural powers for themselves --have also found themselves cut off from this region. The guilds had, centuries ago, waged a war against the sorcerers who wielded magic and were (for various reasons that I won't go into here) anathema to the science of Energetics. They won and sorcery and religious magic has been practiced only underground. But now in Jowea it is cropping up in the open once again, as the guilds are not powerful enough to stop it.
I think that's probably enough backstory for now...
*...and consider this an 'end of digression' marker.
Regardless of the name, though, I'm looking forward to it. I have a really great team working with me and the discussion so far about basic concepts and the like has been really great. It looks like we're going to draw a large crowd of players, too -- a lot of undergrads may push the PC count up to 30 or so, which is great, given that the goal is for this to be a pretty talky LARP. More PCs means more PC-driven plot.
And really, It's just nice to know that all of these organizational and managerial skills I've developed running a company have an actual, practical application in running a LARP. My parents will be so happy when I tell them I haven't been wasting my time after all ;)
I have yet to think of a name for it, but that's because I'm picky about names. "The Fate of Jowea" (Jowea being the region in which the game takes place) occurred to me, but it's kind of melodramatic. Something a bit more subtle, I think... I suppose I could reuse "Prayers and Whispers," which was the name of a tabletop I ran that took place in the same region, and which refers to the resurgence of religious magic and sorcery which is one of the features in the setting.
Perhaps I should take a step back for those who are not me.
*Note: I tried to do that thing here where it makes a link to another page, but as I am a newb I'm not sure if it worked. If it didn't, then consider this a 'beginning of digression of game and setting' marker.
This game runs in the setting of a game called Beyonder. Beyonder is a game that I've been testplaying for... for a long time. Actively, I've been building it through many different iterations for about 4 years now. The original game, though, dates back to the early 70s and was created by my dad to run for his college friends (so, in case you were wondering, Gaming seems to be a genetic illness). He broke it out for my brothers and I when I was in fifth grade and we played ever since. Ever evolving, ever changing... Well, the tabletop system is pretty much done now. We're compiling all the changes in the main manual and then one last bout of playtesting in case there are any egregious errors we've missed.
But that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is that I'm using the setting from that game to run a LARP, because it's had decades of work poured into it and is vivid and captivating and interesting.
The basic premise of the setting in the region where the game takes place is that this area was, up until very recently, a de facto protectorate of a large empire. However, this empire was torn apart very recently by the Stillness War -- a war against a nation of undead which a weak and incompetent emperor had allowed to grow inside its own borders. As an aside, Undead in this setting are closer to Aralis undead than anything else. They are bound by a force called Stillness instead of Spirit, and the result is that they have more endurance and live longer, but do not learn or adapt quickly (Stillness not liking change and all that...). Also, Stillness and Spirit have the same sort of relationship as fire and water. Undead are not necessarily evil, per se, but generally the creatures of Stillness and the creatures of Spirit kill each other on sight.
Anyhow, this means that this region of Jowea, made of city states, is now on its own and a power struggle has erupted. The closest to real-world flavor it comes is probably renaissance Italy, what with the merchants and city states, but not an exact match.
Besides the political chaos, the Guilds -- a trans-continental association of gifted transcendents who study the science of the Six Energies which make up the world in order to create supernatural powers for themselves --have also found themselves cut off from this region. The guilds had, centuries ago, waged a war against the sorcerers who wielded magic and were (for various reasons that I won't go into here) anathema to the science of Energetics. They won and sorcery and religious magic has been practiced only underground. But now in Jowea it is cropping up in the open once again, as the guilds are not powerful enough to stop it.
I think that's probably enough backstory for now...
*...and consider this an 'end of digression' marker.
Regardless of the name, though, I'm looking forward to it. I have a really great team working with me and the discussion so far about basic concepts and the like has been really great. It looks like we're going to draw a large crowd of players, too -- a lot of undergrads may push the PC count up to 30 or so, which is great, given that the goal is for this to be a pretty talky LARP. More PCs means more PC-driven plot.
And really, It's just nice to know that all of these organizational and managerial skills I've developed running a company have an actual, practical application in running a LARP. My parents will be so happy when I tell them I haven't been wasting my time after all ;)