The Best LARP Experience Ever!
I just had the most amazing experience of my life. For Christmas this year my husband bought me a trip to Richmond, Virginia to take part in a Harry Potter type LARP, however, they weren't able to use anything Harry Potter, due to copyright laws, so they created their own magical universe. The whole thing took place at Richmond University, which is a castle like college on a beautiful campus that really worked quite well as a Harry Potteresque type setting. They had paths through the woods that were used as the forbidden forest among other things.
At the start of the LARP and before it, I was very nervous. My husband is very outgoing and I am an introvert, so I was very concerned that I would end up on my own and Chris would end up being busy all the time and I would have an awful time, but everything turned out to be better than I could have ever imagined. Day one, we arrived at the campus and got checked in. I was clinging to my husband for dear life as there were tons of people there and my shyness had set in. We somehow ended up being the first ones in line to get in for check in which was nice. We got all checked in and got our Magischola badges and our information packets and then headed off to bring our luggage to our dorm. We found our dorm, which was right next to a nicely decorated common room that had lights, fake candles and lots of random knick knacks to help us feel fully immersed. Once our bags were safely tucked away, we decided to go get some lunch at a restaurant nearby called Toast. The food there was amazing and our waitress was even more amazing. She had multi-colored hair and looked a bit wizardesque. I saw a hornet behind my husband hanging out on the window behind him, so I asked her if there was any way we could get rid of it, and she just grabbed a cup and a menu, captured it, and brought the thing outside. I wanted to give her all the cash we had as a tip, because not only was she already a great waitress, but she got rid of the thing I feared. I don't know of many waiters/waitresses that would do that. I was very thankful. After leaving the restaurant, nicely buzzed by pear cider, we headed back to the campus. Our first meeting was in a chapel where we finally got to meet the organizers Ben and Maury. They spoke to us about a few general rules and welcomed us and such, after that we were split up into groups, the students were split up by their houses and my husband and I joined the faculty group as we were both playing professors.
We all filed into an empty furnitureless room because the first year students had stolen the faculty lounge, already starting the year off on a bad foot stealing our lounge. We proceeded to do some workshops to create our characters a bit more and so that we would have answers to some of the in game concepts and questions. I remember feeling a bit awkward during this part because they expected us to know everything from our character profile, and even though I had read it and was very prepared to teach my classes, I was not remembering the details.
Then, to my surprise, Maury told me to just make it up. And it was a magnificent realization that as long as I could come up with something to say for things, I could handle this kind of game. Once thing I found out in the workshops was that this was far different than any LARP I had played in before. This LARP was about creating a safe, all inclusive place for all players. One of the highlights from the workshops was when we were asked to create 2 positive relationships and 1 negative relationship. So I teamed up with the herbology Professor since I felt that her and I would have the most in common in character since I was teaching elemental magic so we are both very earthy. We spent that entire time chatting, then the guy who was playing the school's Chancellor came over to us and was creating plot with us, he said that 6 years ago something very bad happened at the school that caused them to have to replace several professors and because of that both my character and the herbology professor would have been banned from going into the forbidden forest. He kept asking us, "Why would I be stopping the two of you and no one else from going into the forbidden forest?" So that became a plot point for us to use in game if we wanted. At the end of the workshop, they had us get into character and talk about what our characters wanted from the school year, how they would treat the students, and what our relationship is with the Chancellor.
My Character's name was Professor Aura Brayboy, the Elemental magic Professor and when it was my turn I said that my character just loves everyone and just wants everyone to be happy and taken care of, and that because of the fact that the Chancellor had banned me from going into the forbidden forest and wouldn't tell me why, I felt that there was probably some angst between us, but I'm still very civil.
After the workshops, we were told to go and get into "costume" which for me was just what I was wearing. I decided my character would wear sun dresses because of how hot it was supposed to be all weekend. So really, all I did to get into character was touched up my make up and added a wand to my bag.
The first time we showed up in character we showed up at the college cafeteria where we had a separate room off to the side. We walked in and noticed there were tables up on a stage that were kind of put together so we figured that was the faculty table, which it was. We all got together at the faculty table and ate our food and shortly after that, the chancellor made his announcements and welcomed us to New World Magischola. After dinner, everyone headed to where the house common rooms were and in the same vicinity was a faculty lounge so we went there and started drinking some wine and all the other houses were drinking as well. My husband who was playing Professor Fitzroy, one of the combat and defense professors, decided to go to the house parties and introduce himself to see if he could recruit people for the Cross Wands Dueling Club. His counterpart and fellow Combant and Defense teacher decided to follow. I decided to sit, because I was in pain. I had gotten blisters the day before and it was very painful to walk and stand. So, I stayed put until it was time for my character to go to the "Secret Club" she was the mentor for. It turned out that one of he other professors who was teaching Cryptozology was asked to come and teach the members about how to take down a creature called a Jewa Setan which is basically the same as a dementor from the Harry Potter world. So her and I traveled to the club together.
Sign of the Arrow (Secret Club)
So, this experience got a little bit intense. It was far more intense than I was expecting, and out of character, I almost bowed out. So the leader of the club decided that in order for anyone to gain entrance into the Sign of the Arrow they had to touch a cursed object and tell us what was going through their head as they touched it. This turned into several people re-living their very worst experiences in character over and over again, and some students became possessed by evil beings and such, one or two students passed out, and a few students left and told us we were messed up. There were two fun things that happened there though. The first one was that I was introduced to two amazing actors/role players. One played the character of Isaac Reece and he picked up a cursed object that apparently possessed him with some sort of tentacle creature. He started talking in a weird accent and claiming that he was still human, but everything he said was weird and off and unlike him. After he let go of the object he continued to pretend that the being hadn't left him. (And he even continued to play as if it was still inside of him for the majority of the run, it was amazing!) There was another amazing actor/roleplayer that took a turn with a cursed object, his character name was Beowolf. He did a very good job convincing us that he had gotten possessed temporarily, but the being left his body after he touched the object. I was very impressed. Not so say that everyone one else who went was being a bad actor/roleplayer, it's just that it got so dark, and during all the dark ones where people were re-living bad experiences was when I almost needed to emotionally bow out of the scene, however I stuck it out till the end.
After it was over, I needed to leave the area. After the cryptozoologyst professor had done her lesson on Jewa Setan, I headed out. I was very confused as to how the campus was set up, so I got a little anxious since I didn't know where anyone was. I wasn't sure where my husband was, and I wasn't sure where anyone else was, so I just started to guess which way to go. Luckily, I ran right into my husband's counterpart for magical combat and defense. His in character name was Professor Styles. It was perfect timing too because he was just leaving to head off to the forbidden forest to check on the Chancellor who had supposedly just been bit by some sort of creature. So I told him I'd come with. We found the Chancellor who was luckily sitting alone and we asked him how his arm was, and he said it was fine and that the creature had been caught, and he s showed us a jar with a creature in it. After that, I told the Chancellor about the Sign of the Arrow and how dark it had become and how I didn't feel that I was the best person to be the mentor for the club and that I kind of thought it should maybe be shut down. He felt that I was the perfect person to mentor the club, because as dark as it may get, my sunny and positive demeanor would be a good fit for the club. I never fully agreed with him, but didn't deny it either. After that I brought up the forbidden forest and wanted to know why I was not allowed to enter it, after I had convinced the Chancellor to tell me the story of what happened 6 years ago, and entire group of students emerged from the forbidden forest with the school poltergeist Johnny, he had been fed on by a shadow creature and was weak and they didn't know how to fix it. So myself and Styles bowed out and headed to the common rooms/faculty lounge hoping that we would run into my husband's Character, Fitzroy. We did not, so we ended up just chatting in the faculty lounge out of character for a while. It was fun getting to know him a little bit out of character. Then we decided to head back to the dorms and we went to bed. I was a bit worried as to where my husband was, but I was told by a friend to not worry about him and only worry about myself and what I needed at the time and that really helped. I was able to sleep and not worry about what he was doing. It was actually a crystallizing moment for me and it changed me a bit. So, I slept, I woke up when he came in, but I was able to get right back to sleep which hasn't happened when he and I have been out somewhere together for a long time.
Day 2 (First Day of Classes)
I woke up in the morning sick to my stomach. I was so nervous about my first class, especially since this was the day I planned on really playing up my character's weird side. The plan for the first day of classes was to commune with nature and tree spirits and feel the energy of the trees and the earth. I had originally planned a nature dance for each class, but I only had the guts to do it for the first class and then pretty much skipped it for the last two classes I had for the day. My first class was great! I felt so at home. I wasn't able to play up some of the character concept I had planned which was a spacey, mostly high all the time hippy, but it was easy to be a professor who loved nature and loved her students and loved to teach elemental magic. I fell into it naturally. My first years were so accepting and not one of them made fun of my teachings or anything. They all listened intently and did what I asked. So, we started the class with attendance, then I introduced myself. depending on timing, I would occasionally ask the students to say their names and something interesting about themselves. Then we sat on the ground and felt the energy of the earth while closing our eyes. When we stopped, I asked each student to tell me what they felt if anything. I was so incredibly amazed at their answers. They were all so creative! Then I explained to them how trees can take on our negative energy and hold it for us until we are ready to take it back and are able to deal with it. Trees can hold a lot of negative energy without it affecting us. So I asked each class if there was anyone who felt they needed to be rid of some negative energy. My first years were too afraid to step forward so I volunteered to show them how to do it. I had one class that had a volunteer and he said he felt better after he had given the tree his negative energy. In that same class there was so much talk back and forth about what trees can do and lots of debate, it was awesome! Then in each class we attempted to summon a tree spirit. We were unsuccessful, so I offered for anyone who was interested to join me that evening at 11pm to summon one. Then I had a student who wanted to summon a stone clad to protect us from the shadow creatures that had been attacking the students the night before. So I met up with her after my last class and we summoned a stone clad (A stone creature that is made from a wizard to protect the earth). This was perfect because my character description had mentioned something about how she was transitioning into a stone clad. So I used this to my advantage and decided that while summoning a stone clad, I would start to become one myself. Before I met with the student, I ran to makeup, and had the makeup artist make part of my shoulder look like it was turning to stone and then I put my sports coat over it, so that I could take it off during the transition. It was awesome. We summoned the stone clad (a person showed up wearing a robotic type costume to play the stone clad), They were playing up the the stone clad was mad that we summoned them. It kept saying we needed to make a sacrifice and I stood up and said "I've already started making that sacrifice, see" and showed him my shoulder. He responded and called me by name. "Aura Brayboy, I see that your transition has started, but yet I still cannot help you, I can't stay here, you should know that better than anyone." So then the student sent the Stone Clad back to where he came from. by saying something like "I send you back to from whence you came" very loudly while pounding her wand into the summoning circle. Afterwards I spoke with the student and told her the reason why I was turning into a stone clad was because I was dying and my organs were failing and this was my only hope. She said that she would help me find a way to heal my disease and stop the transition into becoming a Stone clad. I told her, I would appreciate it, but I had seen many healers and had yet to find a cure.
That evening, after dinner, we headed to the teacher's lounge, (only place we could drink alcohol besides the dorms), We hung out there for a while, and I rested my aching feet that were covered in painful blisters. At 10:45, my and one of the other professors headed over to a gazebo which is where we were supposed to be summoning a wood nymph, unfortunately, there was tons of other plot happening that night so all the students were busy, but the wood nymph showed up anyways and two students showed up to enjoy her as well. She was magical. There was a group of students who intercepted us as well and they got to interact with her as well, so all in all it all worked out. Then the professor I was with was kind enough to walk me back to the dorms before heading off to the classrooms to double check that he had what he needed for his classes in the morning. Not knowing where my husband was, I headed to bed, exhausted from a long day of role playing and far too much heat and sun.
