Above: Hillary Kruger is fully equipped with two swords and a faintful of spell packets.
Below: (from left) Phil Layman and Joe Bearden play Kobolds, evil goblinoids.
continued from page 9
Celebrating spirit."
We feast on meatballs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies and animal crackers.
A gypsy prince named Buxtehude (Dale Gilliante) offers me an "intoxicated." I say no at first, but he seems offended.
"You don't want intoxicant?" Buxtehude asks sternly.
I grab a clear plastic Solo cup from a nearby pile, and he pours me a glass of green tea from his bottle. He tells me he has traveled here from another land, searching for a white Gryphon who saved his family.
I realize it is after midnight and I have yet to see a lick of battle. Watching the spectacle of character interaction is fascinating, but I know too little and have too few powers to participate in the power trading and political conversing.
Excluding me, 15 players participated in the weekend activities. In more favorable weather, NERO Central usually has around 30 participants. But some LARP events draw in thousands of players.
I look around and realize that I have been sitting in a dark room for more than two hours with people who have not once broken character. To my left sits a 15-year-old boy with horns. To my right sits a middle-aged man dressed as a gypsy prince. As soon as the two begin trading powers, I hear a cry for help outside of the cabin.
Be all that you can't be
Everyone runs outside into the rain, weapons in hand. We go forth to slaughter an eight-legged monster that had attacked one of our companions. This was the first of many battles to come.
in the woods with long red capes, brandishing PVC swords, throwing bean bags at each other and yelling 'lightning bolt', you have reason to be afraid of it because you don't know what it is," says Dr.J. Patrick Williams, sociologist and editor of Gaming as Culture; Essays in Reality, Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games. Williams has extensively researched gaming cultures and fantasy gaming, and says LARPing provokes an unnecessary negative bias.
"Look at the people that paint their faces, or paint letters on their chest and to go topless at sports events." Williams says. "From a certain perspective, that's pretty freaky, but since they're fans of mainstream sports, they're not seen as troubled or deviant."
Flight of the Kobolds
It's 3 p.m. Saturday—the second day of NERO. Last night's activities didn't wind down until around 6 a.m., so the group has gotten a late start. We are on our second adventure of the day, searching for a cave filled with Kobolds—evil, menacing, reptilian gobiloids.
A flock of Kobolds flies out from the woods, quickly approaching us from behind.The mob of crimson-dressed figures is especially alarming when they emerge from the washed-out colors of a winter-struck forest.
I see them first and shout to the rest of my bloodthirsty comrades.
"Look. Running. Red. Things," I yelp heroically.
The men, draped in red cloth, flap their arms and make high-pitched "skwa" sounds, taunting us, encouraging us to attack.
My crew slaughters the Kobolds. We move on, triumphant.
No more than two minutes later; we meet another onslaught of demon birds. I decide to
"If you're stuck in a cubicle all week, on the weekend you get to be the knight in shining armor that slays the dragon and gets the girl, and you don't have to worry about the cover sheet on your TPS report."
Larisa Hines, NERO Central staff member and host of larppodcast.com
Many LARPers are just looking to escape from the routine normality of everyday life.This is summed up in NERO's motto:"Be all that you can't be."
The LARP community has spawned an "annual" LARPy Awards Show (even though there have only been two and they were more than a year apart), LARP magazine, and a LARP museum.All these are testaments to the LARP following.
"If you're stuck in a cubicle all week, on the weekend you get to be the knight in shining armor that slays the dragon and gets the girl, and you don't have to worry about the cover sheet on your TPS report," Hines says. In addition to playing the character of Bearmark, Hines is a NERO Central staff member and host for www.larppodcast.com.
However, it's not always easy to balance one's LARP life with real life. LARPing may sound unusual to people who have never heard of the activity. Hines says that since her boss started asking her to work on Saturdays, she has to choose her wording carefully when explaining why she can't work some weekends."I told him that I volunteer at a camp to teach creative problem solving, team-building skills and conflict resolution." Hines says.
Hines is not alone. LARP is far from accepted in mainstream culture, forcing LARPers to keep their hobby inside the cave.
"If you go to a public place and you see people
All of these assaults are actually brought on by the same group of men. Each time we attack them, they wait awhile, then move farther down the path to attack us again. I find this more frustrating than entertaining. The pests just won't die. The rest of the clan does not seem to mind. We lose a couple of good men to a laughing spell that renders them giddy and useless. One war-torn fighter must be carried back to camp.
Bearmark, who had stayed at camp to prepare lunch, warmly welcomes me back. "How was your adventure?" she asks.
Or at least that's how I'd like to think it went.
And I try to think of the last time that I was outside and wasn't walking to campus, cursing the weather. I try to think of the last time I experienced the unparalleled stress relief of beating the shit out of something. I try and think of the last time I even attempted to grease the rusty wheels of my imagination.
step forward and prove myself. I come upon an especially large one. I swing to the right, but my mace is blocked by a red saber. I swing to the left. Blocked again. The bastard creature strikes and hits me. Fortunately, I am wearing strong armor. I lunge forward, thrusting my mace against the beast's shoulder, knocking off its arm and leaving it to drown in a puddle of its own blood.
"It really wasn't such a bad adventure," I reply.
interesting fact: Of the five presidents who served in the Civil War, Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the only one to be wounded. - www.ipl.org
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