by Lizzie Stark
First, Frank, Gene, and a whole bunch of other people involved with FishDevil began attending the game. I would ride up with them and stay in a cabin with them, and we’d do a late-night NPC shift together. NPC shift was an education in itself, as one had to learn the rules around picking pockets or throwing fire balls if one was sent out as a wandering rogue or a mage. Lucky for me, the FishDevils absorbed the rules like a sponge absorbs water, and they explained them to me carefully. Their rotating cast of four to eight people constantly joked with one another in-game and out, taking evident pleasure in playing around with their language. Over time, from watching them, I began to figure out which topics were safe for improvisation—I could make up where Portia had been and what she’d been doing between feasts, for example, as long as it didn’t have world-altering implications. I could say that I’d been traveling and had lost my luggage after a roguish mage made off with it, for example, and then that fact would be a true fact about Portia. I couldn’t say that I had saved Travance from a giant spider-demon, or at least, if I did, it would be taken as a joke. The FishDevils also expanded the number of people who could serve as “home base” to me. If I was feeling awkward or out of place, I could find one of them or Edwin or Gideon and hang around for a bit.
The second advance, for me, came in the form of advice from two larpers, Geoff and another Knight Realms player, Brendan O’Hara. Geoff strongly encouraged me to pick up a trade in-game. After learning that I had written my master’s thesis on traditional fermented pickles, the kind preserved with salt, not vinegar, he arranged for an NPC to be sent out to teach me “Trade: picklemonger,” and I began selling homemade pickles in-game. At Market Faire I hawked sauerkraut, kim-chi, salted chilies, pickled lemons, and gingered carrots—which I made at home and then lugged to the game—for in-game money. This transaction, real pickles for fake money, gave me moments of genuine pleasure—like any cook, I enjoy watching other people eat the stuff I’ve made, even if they dislike it. For me, the pleasure in seeing others sample my wares worked the same way as my adrenaline-driven reaction to danger: for a moment, Portia’s pleasure and mine were one and the same, and I was fully in-character. Furthermore, as a Market Faire merchant, I talked to a variety of people as they walked by my quirky booth, picking up gossip and meeting many characters I might otherwise have missed.
The second key piece of advice came from Brendan O’Hara, the new player officer, while we were chatting at DEXCON. I was complaining to him that I never knew what to do in-game and that I was particularly frustrated by my inability to use out-of-game knowledge, which severely restricted the types of small talk I could make. At the time, I was writing news summaries for The Daily Beast, for example, but it’s hard to work knowledge of Berlusconi’s most recent exploits into 1209 Travancean conversation. Brendan told me that my gripe had no merit, that players used their out-of-game knowledge constantly. I just hadn’t figured out how to use it in the correct way. Technically, using out-of-game knowledge in a larp is called meta-gaming. Some meta-gaming is acceptable. For example, if two players are dating out-of-game, their characters may stay together in-game, not because their characters are in love but because it’s convenient and because couples often want to sleep together, especially in the cold mountains. However, such situations are the exception and not the rule. If Gene lists the members of Team Evil during the car ride to camp, it’s not appropriate for Portia to run to the authorities, for example, to report them. But if Portia accidentally overhears one of their dread meetings, if she finds out in-game, the knowledge is considered fair game for her to act on, and any repercussions her actions have will be “canon,” part of the game world. In order to reduce unintentional meta-gaming, sometimes a player asking a question like, “Who killed Magnus?” will receive the answer, “FOIG,” which means “Find out in-game.” When Brendan told me I could use my out-of-game knowledge at Knight Realms, what he meant was that I should use my personal skills and strengths in a way that made sense for my character. A music major might play a bard and sing for everyone during feast. A fencer might play a warrior, and a witty conversationalist might make their character a diplomat. Someone who researched pickles might become a picklemonger. Brendan’s comment helped me think about my strengths as a person. I’m not great at improv, I’m not agile or strong, and I’m not particularly witty, but I’m tenacious, and I’m a writer. I decided to start an in-game newspaper, a periodical called the Travance Chronicle.
The Travance Chronicle changed the game for me. At every weekend event, come snow or heat, I had a purpose, and one that could be fulfilled over and over again—I had a newspaper to fill with Travance’s stories. Writing a paper meant I felt entitled to ask questions of anyone, nobles included. I wrote breaking news (“Queen of the Highlands Curses Residents”), crime stories (“Shantytown Shanker Strikes Again!”), reviews, investigative pieces such as a history of Travance’s magnet for evil, the Inverted Tower, court stories (“Gypsies Charged with Theft, Treason”), obits for fallen characters, and profiles. Everything I wrote in the Travance Chronicle I learned about in-game or by sending in-character messages to other players via the online forum. For example, during one weekend a couple of the FishDevils and their friends went out for an NPC shift, resulting in this Chronicle article.
A FORCED FASHION FAUX PAS
One of the strangest crime waves in this town’s history continued in January, as a band of miscreants subdued at least ten citizens, forced them into dresses, and then magically or psionically coerced the victims to extol the gowns. Victims were forced to say, “I love my new dress,” “Oh, so pretty,” and other similar phrases.
In November, at least four members of town reported similar incidents. None of the victims were robbed or otherwise harmed, and all managed to recover their senses within an hour of the attacks. However, the so-called “Dress-up Bandits” remain at large, with victims unable to agree on what the perpetrators look like, or even how many there are.
There has been no word yet on whether the dresses were of the latest fashion, or last season’s bargain holdovers.
I especially enjoyed writing profiles in a series dubbed “Better Know Your Neighbor” because Travance was filled with colorful and interesting characters, from Dr. Hix, a goblin who moonlighted as a breakfast chef at the inn, occasionally slipping magical potions into his food, to Ming Na, a tea-selling racketeer from the East who chaperoned new players and served as the town’s unofficial employment office. There was Malyc Weavewarden, an effeminate sorcerer of untold power who preferred to sleep on a soft pile of women; Dame Mixolydia Hartwoode, a genteel, British-accented bard with a flair for negotiation and famous for both her fondue and her squire, one Victor Sylus, a silver-tongued Don Juan who always had a ready compliment for the ladies. Zahir ibn Hatim al Nawar, a deeply philosophical Bedouin smith, had an ongoing rivalry with Father Edwin. The talented surgeon Dr. West took too much joy in keeping her patients awake during complicated medical procedures, while the cowardly Dr. Maxwell fled from battle. And of course there was Hamish, a simple-minded Celt played by a FishDeviler, a character who had learned how to count on his fingers thusly: “One, two, many, a lot, many more, second hand one, second hand two….”
As the Chronicle grew, I developed a stable of advertisers and sustainers, from Rudolf von Kreutzdorf’s Alkhemikal Kandies & Apothecarium to Father Edwin and the Church of Valos. Every month I published a vocabulary word, such as perambulate or jejune. Most wonderfully, I gained a columnist, Blade the Ogre, played by Michael Smith, a portly high school physics teacher who had been a larper for several decades and had an affable, easygoing manner that made him popular at any larp he went to. He had spawned the viral “doba” chant, so popular at Double Exposure conventions. At Knight Realms, his primary character, Father Osred, was also a follower of Chronicler and mentored Portia. As his secondary character Blade, Michael painted his skin yellow, sold cigars, and spoke in one-to three-word sentences, no easy feat and one made entertainin
g due to his endless supply of wit. Michael had a unique ability to brighten any scene with his cleverness and his commitment to role-playing. Blade wrote two columns for the Chronicle, one called “Get Edge,” a weather report, the other an advice column called “Me Know.” Here are his first columns.
GET EDGE! LISTEN BLADE! FOR DECEMBER 1209
Weather cold. It snow. Still Cold. Next Feast, me think still cold. Me see you no gloves, you no smart! Me see you no thick clothes, you no smart. Get smart, listen Blade, wear clothes.
ME KNOW
Dear Blade,
Are women good for anything else than being barefoot in the kitchen?
Chauvinist in Green Dell
Green Dell,
Woman good at barefoot many places! Shoes in snow good or you lose woman to snow. Woman good for protect young, smash bad bear who want eat young. Woman good for mother. You want good woman, you get goblinoid woman! She cook, she clean, she strike down enemies good! Me meet some nice other woman too. Maybe you like barefoot woman, you like hobbit girl. Hobbit girl also like cook in kitchen. Me think you like hobbit. Me like kitchen too, but you think outside of kitchen and woman good more!
Blade
Dear Blade,
Why does my father try to ruin my life through booze and dreams? Why does he run off on crazy quests only he can see and leave our family home for days at a time?
Signed,
Worried Son in Kaladonia
Worried Son,
No easy being no father in life. Blade knows. Fathers leave, many reasons, some good, some no good. You grow up good. You learn make family. You learn stay, even if he go. You not father. No let father run life, you run life. Father maybe crazy, Father maybe secret stuff. No matter you! If Father love when here, let Father love. If Father no love, let Father go. You make own life. Booze a sometimes fun. Dreams good if you make true. Tell Father you love Father, tell Father you want him stay, but in end, Father do as Father do and it not about you.
Blade
You buy Father cigar maybe he like cigar, then tell him you buy from Blade, then maybe Father buy cigar.
Aside from the pure joy of reading Blade’s columns, the paper had other benefits; it enmeshed me in Travance politics. I joined the land of Drega’Mire, one of the four main regions of Travance, ruled over by in-game lords, and became its minister of information shortly after. One fine spring day, right after I published a piece about the gypsy Tobar’s recent arrest for besmirching the nobles, I walked, arm in arm, with the sassy Aerin Feist, Drega’Mire’s minister of trade. As we passed the count’s manor and the forge on our way to the inn, I saw Dame Evadne, a knight of Drega’Mire and high inquisitor of the barony, running down the graveled path, unmistakably headed for me. “I’ve got to talk to you right now,” she said, putting an arm about my shoulders and steering Aerin and me away from the crowds that always milled close to the Dragon’s Claw. Evadne said I was going to be brought up on charges of besmirching the nobles. One of the baron’s inquisitors was going to question me about my recent article and its use of anonymous sources, who had suggested that Tobar had a powerful and shady benefactor. I thought the sources had been talking about the Fence, the head of the Thieves’ Guild, but the nobles thought the sources had implied that one of them had shown shady favoritism to Tobar.
To be wanted for besmirchment was exciting—and annoying. On the one hand, the paper was making an impact. James liked it as a role-play tool and printed out copies on fake parchment that were distributed around town. New players knew who I was after reading the electronic version of the paper printed on the Dragon’s Claw Inn “bulletin board.” On the other hand, because I was a writer in real life, any slight toward the paper, be it besmirchment charges or allegations of inaccuracy, cut my real soul like a +20 knife of slicing. If a character wouldn’t talk to me in-game, I felt genuinely angry and upset—and foolish for feeling this way over what was, after all, a game that was supposed to be fun. It took me some time to separate what happened in-game from my real life emotions, and eventually I learned to enjoy the secretive characters—I thought of them as Portia’s nemeses.
Besmirchment charges against the Travance Chronicle were never formally filed, although I received a stern talking-to from the inquisitor. The kerfuffle over anonymous sourcing was only one of the journalistic controversies my in-game paper generated. I reported, wrote, and nearly published an expose on the destruction of the old Druid’s grove—it would have been Portia’s Pentagon Papers—but the twin arguments that to publish such a piece would jeopardize the grove’s security and hinder my ability to get more information out of a select set of nobles persuaded me to stay my hand. I held the story as a cudgel, promising to publish it if more information on Travance’s secret war was not forthcoming.
Despite the Chronicle’s ability to engage me in the game, I ended up feeling mixed about it. While I loved the reaction that it got from the locals, it was hard work to write and report, and sometimes it felt like a chore. I wasn’t escaping my reality in-game, I was simply recreating it. I viewed the paper both as service to the game and a way of being upfront about my out-of-game purposes. Since I couldn’t put in the time to really fact-check stuff for a fake paper, I worried that Portia’s semi-accurate writing would affect the way players viewed me as a journalist. When I posted to the forums about my book contract, I made a point of noting the fact-check-ing differences between the fake and real me. Sometimes I think that playing at my real-life profession inhibited my ability to really create a character, that I identified with Portia too strongly, which hindered my ability to become her because it raised the personal stakes for me. If Portia screwed up, that meant that I had also screwed up.
While I found the weekend plots somewhat predictable, focusing around rituals or finding monsters and killing them, I became deeply fascinated with slow-burning plots that couldn’t be solved in two days, like the mystery of who was overloading Travance’s healing focus with energy and what the result of that would be. I also enjoyed plots that centered around particular players who were trying to accomplish specific goals, such as Dame Mixolydia’s desire to cure a deeply corrupted sorcerer. These plots, which advanced unpredictably and by inches, held my interest because I could not predict the possible outcomes. Apparently, I liked to investigate mysteries.
To me, larp feels more real in the dark. Out in the hills of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, the darkness is tarry, black, and deep, more intense than anything a city-dweller normally experiences. To walk down a path lit only by the moon and hear the trees rustling in the wind, your ears alert for any sound of a hiding enemy, to know that you could be ambushed, ganked (killed, particularly by another player character), or tortured at any moment is the essence of adventure. Boffers suddenly seem a reasonable defense against enemies, invisible spider webs, and quite possibly larper-eating bears. Shadows from flickering candles indoors play across faces, making them seem more dramatic and meaningful than they would in full light. I prefer to larp after dark, ideally in the hookah tent. Zahir ibn Hatim al Nawar, a Bedouin smith, runs the hookah tent, and when the weather is nice he brings a portable outdoor gazebo with mesh sides to events and decorates its walls with blankets. He jokes that it’s one of the safest places in Travance, because its magical door has something called a “zipper” on it, a strange device that requires opposable thumbs in order to open and is therefore impregnable to were-cats, dire wolves, and other malicious woodland creatures. The tent floor is covered with rugs and cushions, which direct a newcomer’s focus to the tent’s centerpiece, a large hookah water pipe made for smoking flavored tobacco. For the price of a few gold (and provided you are of legal smoking age in the state of New Jersey or Pennsylvania) Zahir will give you a mouthpiece tip to use when the hookah hose comes your way. The real reason to come, though, is for the conversation.
My most cherished memories from Knight Realms derive from times spent gathered around this hookah with Zahir, played by a union organizer named Chris
Ayala who was in his mid-thirties, and with the ambitious but retired mage Marcus, played by new player officer Brendan. Over a good hookah, the three of us talked philosophy together, mulling over the nature of truth itself. Zahir was a priest of Brazen, the god of craftsmen and, like Chronicler, a member of the neutral pantheon. Marcus played the skeptic or devil’s advocate, pushing Zahir’s and Portia’s positions through careful questioning. As a Chroniclerite, Portia thought truth was knowable only through the experiences of others and that obtaining the maximum number of experiences brought one closer to it. Zahir, as a craftsman and Brazenite, believed that true knowledge came through practicum, in the doing. If Portia viewed knowledge as the world’s chief good, then for Zahir, it was quality craftsmanship and performing to one’s highest ability. That got us onto the nature of goodness. What about an evil artifact? Marcus asked. Would Zahir seek to preserve such a thing? Yes, he said. If an object was made with true craftsmanship, it was worth preserving for study, no matter if its use was for the sake of evil. From there, prompted by the snow falling around us, we talked about water and its importance to each of our lives.
I was surprised at the philosophical turn that the conversation among the three of us had taken, but what surprised me more was that our talk captured all my attention. In college I had been a philosophy major, and I used to love arguing to no end about truth and goodness and whether women had essential qualities with nearly anyone who would listen. After I completed my education, my desire to debate ended abruptly, much to the disappointment of my debate-loving boyfriend (now husband). It was as if, at the age of twenty-one and after those philosophy classes, I had finally uncovered the philosophical positions that made the most sense to me, and, having done so, having figured out my personal philosophy, I had no more use for debate. Instead of the joyous exercises they had once been, philosophical arguments became dreary and unsolvable to me. At the beginning of a debate, I felt I could foresee the final, petty underpinning assumptions we would end up squabbling over before agreeing to disagree.
