The Kingdom of the Emerald Hills

Greetings to the Emerald Hills

Last year, as mentioned in a previous post in this section of the forum, I tried to run a Amtgard-based LARP tournament. Unfortunately, since rain caused us to close the faire the day of the actual test run, we really didn't have it.

We recently had a Pirate festival down at the Middlefaire site and a brand new idea came to our mind that we are going to, as a test run, add to our Medieval and Magical Fantasy Festival that's going to be held on the weekend of November 6.

We are going to hold a large-scale LARP battle, in the style of what's done during a Civil War re-enactment. The event will be part fighting, and part roleplay/show. We're modeling our LARP battle event after some of the Large-scale One-weekend LARPs that are done over in Europe.

The idea is that we will have two armies, the "Primitives" (Barbarians, Vikings Berserkers, Orcs, etc.) and the "Civilized" (Militia, Villagers, Mercenaries, etc.) and they will be fighting over a mysterious object that each side believes the other side has. Each side does have a leader (For our test run, I am playing the leader of the Primitive army, we don't yet have a leader for the civilized army.)

We are planning on using a combat system similar to Amtgard, but with a few changes, and we are opening this to any person who plays a LARP, regardless of what game they play. [Although we are going to not have a magic system, and will be limiting the number of archers in each army.]

During the day, there will be several scheduled melees that will have the full storyline play out. In between melees, the participants will be able to visit the village and enjoy the events going on during the fantasy festival, and spectators and festival patrons will be able to enter the camps of the two sides and meet with the participants.

This hopefully will be intended as a *international* event, and if it works well, this will turn into it's own weekend on site! We don't have the exact participant cost yet, but are planning on the participant paying for two nights of camping and a simple dinner (and they get admission to the festival free), which would be somewhere around $20 for pre-registerred participants (We're aiming for registration process to begin in September)

I have created a Yahoo group for this event, especially for the development process, the group's address is groups.yahoo.com/group/Middlefaire_LARP

Have a great week!

Clayton Jackson
Assistant Cast Director of Middlefaire

I have a few questions:

When you say the melees will have the story line play out, does that mean the outcomes are pre-determined or that the outcome of the melee will determine the resulting role play?

What are the weapon safety requirements? Are they the same as Amtgard standards or are you allowing weapons from multiple systems?

What modifications will you be making to the combat system?

Thanks for your time.

_________________
Forest Evergreen

Puppet Master of the EH

"Of course you are Forest. You're like the Mr. Burns of EH." - Finn

(insert titles and awards here)

I apologize for the delay, I had thought I had set the forum to send me an email when a response was posted. In answer to your good questions:

The bulk of the storyline is improvisational. We have the basic storyline, and everything else is open to discussion. The outcome of the major melee will not be pre-determined.

Our current idea for a storyline, which we've pretty much finalized at the moment, is that there is a magical item that can allow it's wielder to be able to, without any resistance at all, take over any piece of land they want. (It's almost like the wielder saying "I want this piece of land" and immediately it's theirs, as if it had always been theirs.) Each side thinks the opposing faction leader has the item, which they don't. So, they they are in essence fighting to gain possession of this item, an item that neither side actually has. And in the end of the melee, the winning side will find out that the other faction does not have the item in question.

At the moment, I'm thinking that since the bulk of the games more go along the lines of Amtgard/Dagorhir/Belegarth styles, we're probably going to go with Amtgard style weaponry and weapon safety standards. The main thought process on this is that the Amtgard style weapons are the easiest to create, and less critical if they break. (Example, if you put my double bladed axe, that I use in another game which I bought at Knighthawk Armoury, against someone with a Amtgard style sword, my axe would probably break within a few minutes of combat.). I'm planning on this applying to the main melee field. If a pair of people want to fight in their faction's fight circle using nicer looking weapons (like for example something like my axe), they are welcome to do so but at their own risk of damaging their weapons.

On modifications to the combat system, there are two things we're looking at so far. The first revolves around the faction leaders. The faction leader must have four personal guards during the main melee. While they are alive, the faction leader is in essence immortal. But once the guards are down, that immortality is gone and the leader is vulnerable just like everyone else.

The other thing we're looking at in the combat system, especially along the lines of the primitive army (this will not be as much of an issue for the civilized army) is that armor can be either regular armor or natural armor (based on the character type.). For example, a person playing a barbarian fighter will get armor points based the more armor he/she wears, the more armor points they get. However, for a person playing Berserker (which, until I find any information on female berserkers, is one of the very few male only sub-factions) they will be given armor points based on the concept of the less armor the person wears, the more armor points he gets as to a berserker, the more armor he wears, the more of a burden it becomes. (The main reason for this is that historically, berserkers didn't wear much of anything into battle....we do tone this down a bit requiring at least a loincloth and undergarment.....there will be children there and the last thing we need is a naked berserker running down the battlefield.)

Please be aware that this is pretty much a beta test year for this LARP event. There will probably be many things that will change between now and the event in November and all helpful input will be considered. In fact, I would have to say that there will even be a possibility of a change during the event.

I will be soon working on a website to give the most up to date information on the event.

If anyone has any other questions, feel free to ask! I can also be reached by email at "clayton@terabites.com". [Please put "Middlefaire LARP" in the subject so it will catch my attention from the spam I get.] Theoretically, I have checked the box to notify me if a reply is posted so I can get a much more timely response next time.

Have a great week!

Clayton Jackson
Assistant Cast Director of Middlefaire

I wanted to post with a few updates that developed during a casting call the weekend before last.

The first update deals with the camping situation. We are going to have three camping areas on site, the official primitive army camp which will be in a very nice wooded area, the official civilized army camp which will be closer to the battlefield in a field, and a modern tent camping area open to both factions.

In the two faction camps, we will be requesting more historical looking tents (wedge tents for example). But for those that do not have suitable tents, we will have a modern tent camping area that will be considered *out of game* areas.

We are also coming up with some alternate storyline ideas in the event that all the participants are wanting to be in one faction (which at the moment, most of the interest I've personally seen is for the primitive faction.).

We are also going to be doing some land clearing weekends on the festival site to work on clearing the land in the primitive camp area (very overgrown). Dates have yet to be determined, but I am thinking mid-late August (so the camp area will actually be useable during our renaissance festival in late September.). I'm also thinking with suggesting to the festival director/site owner to give us the opportunity during the land clearing weekends to do a test run of the event so we can fine tune it. [We may also be putting together a week-long event instead, this is in debate at the moment.]

One of the other things we are going to be doing is changing the event layout, schedule-wise. There will still be a main melee battle, but there will only be one on the Sunday afternoon of that weekend. On Saturday, we are going to be running a team based football style game that I'm coming up with, which should prove to be interesting.

Again, I will be happy to answer any questions anyone might have and I will post updates as they become available!

Have a great week!
Clayton Jackson
Assistant Cast Director of Middlefaire

Good afternoon to the Emerald Hills. I have some updates on the "Battle of Peltham Downs"

The first update is that we now have a name for the event, mentioned in the last sentence (The Battle of Peltham Downs). Peltham Downs is the name of a future expansion to the faire in upcoming years.

Next, an update on the camping situation at the site. With the month of August being extremely hot, we decided to not run any land clearing weekends at all during the month. No sense in all the people getting heat stroke! Because of this, it will be unlikely that we will have the primitive army camp location 100% ready for the event. In light of this, we decided that the "primitive camp" will only consist of the social area/fight circle. The benefit of this is that we won't have to enforce any tent camping restrictions like we were going to (everyone will camp in the patron camping area this year and we'll have a "social area/fight circle" zone for each of the two armies. Hopefully, if the event goes as planned and we run it again next year, we'll have both camp areas 100% setup to be suitable for use by the armies.

Next, it took me a while, but I *finally* got the rulebook completed for the event. They can be easily gotten through our yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Middlefaire_LARP, or I can email it to anyone directly (my email is clayton@terabites.com. Put Middlefaire LARP in the subject so it stands out from the spam!). There is also a special rulebook for the primitive army including minimum costuming requirements for the different official sub-factions [So if you plan to be joining our event as a primitive army member, please let me know when you request a rulebook and I'll forward you the Primitive Army guidelines document as well.]

Our storyline has slightly changed. Originally it was going to be a fight over an item that each side thought the other side had (and neither side has the item.). Recently, at a community Bingo night, I won a VERY nice mirror that we are going to use as the item and this time, the civilized army leader will have the item but doesn't know how to use it. The primitive army leader knows how to use it and wants it. One of the sides is going to get the object and the knowledge of how to use it!

We do not currently have a leader for the civilized army, so I will be happy to take any volunteers who would be up for the challenge of doing this. I'd also like to see if anyone from the Emerald Hills (that might be participating in this event) might be able to bring some loaner weapons for any of our participants that may not have suitable weaponry. We are using the Amtgard style of weapons (for durability reasons). I'll see about arranging free (or heavily discounted) registration for the event for that person.

My objective for this event is to have at least 10 people on the primitive army side(we're at 3), and 10 on the civilized army side (we're at 1). If I can get this goal, I'll consider the LARP event a success and we might plan on running it as it's own weekend next year instead of piggybacking it onto an already established event on site.

We also have two new Yahoo groups for the event, specifically for the two faction/armies. Anyone interested in participating in the event are encouraged to come and join either of the two groups, depending on which army you want to be with:

Our Primitive Army's group is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Middlefai ... -Primitive
Our Civilized Army's group is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Middlefai ... -Civilized

Finally, we have our major renaissance festival coming up really soon...Starting in Mid-September with our Pirate weekend on the weekend of the 18th, our Gypsy weekend on the weekend of the 25th and ending with a Celtic Pride themed weekend on the weekend of October 2. On one of those weekends, I'm hoping to videotape a trailer video for the event. It won't be a very professional looking video (since I have a dinky camera), but it will be something. There are six characters in the trailer. The Minotaur Chief (my character), two Berserkers (who will be in a loincloth for the video), whoever we get for the civilized army leader, and two guards (in simple peasant garb). [It might be taped on the Friday afternoon of one of those weekends.]

Those are the updates I have for the event! I'm hoping some of y'all will be participating in the event, which I am hoping will be successful and a LOT of fun!