As the rain hammered down to the point where I had to put the wipers on max and slow down to 50mph to be able to see enough to drive, I began to wonder if camping was really the right choice for this weekend. I consoled myself with the thought that if it was really horrific I could just leave everything in the car and drive home to sleep. It was only an hour away. Or would be, if I wasn't having to drive at 50mph.
But by the time I arrived at the Grange, the weather had cleared. I pitched the tent, assembled my bed, then went and hung around the player area to meet people. A bit nerve wracking, since the only person I already knew was Leah, but fortunately this game is full of lovely people - even if one of them did make a joke about LT that's so old it was old when I started playing LT twelve years ago.
I was there for Macabre, a Renaissance horror LARP, set in a kingdom ravaged by war and the black plague. At the time of the game, however, there are much worse things to worry about than mere war and pestilence.
Into costume. I was worried by my ongoing failure to find the kind of dress I was imagining (something Landsknecht-esque), despite a fair amount of shopping at the LT summer events, but looking at the event photos reassured me that I could get away with something a bit more 'generic peasant'. So my actual kit was cannibalised from three other costumes with only the white surcoat as a new piece I picked up second hand. I think it worked, and I was warm, although I think a less blingy cloak would have looked better. I own two other cloaks, but the fleece one I wear at LT didn't seem to fit, and the proper medieval wool one I already know is too big and heavy for prolonged wear. So I went with the shiny cloak as the best option.
I'd decided to play a leper with impaired vision, and I'd been wondering how to phys-rep that. I considered contact lenses, but the idea of putting anything in my eyes worries me a bit, so I decided on the simpler option of veiling my eyes. This would have the additional benefit of being easy to remove if I needed better sight. I looked up some medieval head wraps, and settled on one that looked comfortable, was historically in keeping with the setting, and could be slightly modified to cover my eyes.
This proved to have a number of benefits:
1. Stuck my hair in a plait on Friday, left it in all weekend, zero effort hair and still clean when I got back.
2. Kept my head warm.
3. Made me look different, which helps me get IC.
4. Visual reminder for other players that this character can't see well.
5. Blurred writing to the point where I couldn't read it, making it a whole lot easier to ignore any writing I encountered.
And despite appearances, I could see reasonably well through the veil, especially in daylight - the only time I had to lift it up was at mealtimes (I needed to see my dinner) and when walking back through the woods after it got dark (I needed to see the ground). I think some of the players may have underestimated how well I could get around unassisted. Or maybe they were just roleplaying being really helpful?
Into the game itself. Macabre avoids the usual larp problem of new people having no idea what's going on by making every character an amnesiac, so nobody knows what's going on. The existing players know that new people will walk in knowing maybe their name and a couple of basic things about the setting, and they behaved accordingly, attempting to fill in the new players about what was going on in the world. In this game, being unable to remember the names of the people you spend all your time with and what happened two days ago is more of a feature than a bug.
Each character starts out with some hazy memories. I had two interesting ones and one kind of horrifying one. I was wondering how to bring them up, but both of the first two got triggered by events in game, giving me the perfect opportunity. As it turned out, one of the interesting memories turned out to be far more horrifying than I could have imagined, and my character is now attempting to come to terms with the things she's done in the past.
What impressed me most is how seamlessly my character's memories slotted into the existing story. It's like the organiser knew right from the start that my character would be joining the game at event 9, despite the fact I didn't get my character done until a few days before the event. I don't know how he does it, but it was an incredible experience.
I didn't know what I was looking for in this larp, but apparently I found it.
Two things really add to the immersion of this game: the build, and the food. In addition to the usual marquee, a set of temporary buildings are constructed for the event, to create key areas like the lab, the shrine and the leech pool. The set dressing is superb (if in this case a little soggy, thanks to the aforementioned deluge). All meals are held in character, and are a strong focal point for the characters. Meals are a great time to hold an important discussion, since we're all sat down at the table together, and nobody is going to be moving very much for some time after the giant piles of food that emerge from the kitchen at regular intervals. The cloister appears to be operating on a two day week, consisting of Friday and Pieday.
I was not ready for Pieday.
My only regret is that I didn't join this game until its ninth event. This game isn't for everyone, but it's absolutely for me. 10/10, would sob into a flesh golem's shoulder again.
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