From Tabletop To Reality (Sort Of)

Some years ago now - in the dim and distant past of something like 2017 - I came across, through Facebook, a Warhammer 40K Live Action Roleplay (LARP) game called DEATH UNTO DARKNESS (DuD). I'd been aware of LARP for a while, and dabbled in a nearby university system a couple of times, but I was a serious novice. This, however, had a lot of hooks that grabbed me and didn't let go - the setting, the idea, and the fact I sort of knew a couple of people involved thanks to a Facebook group or two.

Hold on a minute though - what is LARP? Well, at its heart, it's children's games of make believe, but with a much better budget, more organisation, some rules, and (sometimes) foam swords. In essence, a bunch of people get together in costume at a location and spend a day or a weekend engaged in being someone else. It's like tabletop roleplaying to some degree, but crossed with amateur dramatics, improv theatre, and some running around yelling things like "REND" or "BLAM" at each other.

Anyway, back in 2018, with some thought and some planning, my first proper LARP character was created - Commissar Feliks Flowers! I and my partner P went along to DuD Event 5, I as a player and they as "crew". Crew are the people who provide all the non-player characters, from important plot characters to random mooks and big bad villains. The way DuD works is that typically you play a game and crew the next one, thus enabling the organisers to provide both an opposing force and a player base for everyone. Some people are what is known as perma-crew, and only crew, and some people will only play, and occasionally miss games due to missing out on raffle places (if you crew a game you get a guaranteed player place at the next event, you see).

Feliks Flowers, first iteration (2018)

I had an absolute blast of a time, running around and getting stuck in as best I could. I met some really amazing people and made some good friends and that was it - I was hooked. Flowers existed as a character for a couple of years and I attended a few player-run events as him, but E7, the next mainline event he appeared at, was his last - he was abandoned, near death, on a hostile planet overrun by Chaos forces at the foot of two Black Legion Chaos Space Marines. He survived, but I retired him as a character because by the time this happened it was 2022 and I had started to transition.

Senior Commissar Flowers, final iteration (2022), DuD Event 7

So Flowers passed into the annals of heroism and the surprisingly long list of my roleplaying characters who've died or been retired following various, um, mishaps. But I didn't leave DuD. Oh no. Instead, I got together with a few friends and we created a bunch of Sisters of Battle!

Sister Superior Humility, first iteration (2023), DuD Event 9

And thus was born Sister Superior Humility of the Order of His Sanguine Tears, directly seconded to the Inquisition. She was absolutely not there to do anything subtle, and neither were the others. We burned things we probably shouldn't've, executed people we definitely shouldn't've, and did it all with the total conviction of the faithful zealot. It was GREAT. I should note here that the armour was built for me by Sunrise Propworks and the amazing red robe was made by my friend and fellow Sister of Battle, H, who is an incredible tailor.

Humility is still alive (for now) and I'm looking forwards to taking her to a player event this November where we sit around in a room and take part in, essentially, a series of in-character lectures and briefings as though it was a work meeting. Which it is, except the employer is the Imperial Inquisition and your colleagues are a bunch of killers, murderers, witches, sadists, and computers. They're probably all heretics too, but they have permission from God, so it's ok. 

Just today I put together the base kit for another character in another game that I have been introduced to, GUARDSMEN: Siege of Tarris (no website yet, just a Facebook page). It's having its first run at the end of November, and I'm going to be playing Preacher Katyna Nurhayne, attached to the 404th Cadian Infantry Regiment:

Preacher Nurhayne, base layers (2024)

The base layer is a set of telo mimetico pattern Panzer crew overalls I got almost 20 years ago when I was doing re-enactment, the jackboots are the Finnish ones I picked up for Flowers (and the chainsword has been an intrinsic part of Flowers, Humility, and now Nurhayne), and the preacher's robe is Humility's. I'll be chucking on a load of other bits and pieces as well, of course, and borrowing a set of body armour from the system, so the final look will be much more detailed.

And I've played a variety of other characters and roles over the years since 2018, too, from rebels to spaceship crew and pirate leaders, and even an occultist who made a pact with a demon (this at a now-finished system called A Faint Hope Blossoms, based on the very good horror game Darkest Dungeon).

LARP is a fun and very silly hobby, and it runs the gamut from hideously expensive to under £100 an event (or free or extremely cheap, if you crew) and you will meet all sorts of people - like university lecturers, editors for major publishers, soldiers, artists, zoologists, environmental scientists, crofters, quiz setters, historians, engineers... who all have in common the desire to dress up and make their alter egos extremely unhappy indeed for a weekend.

It's well worth looking into and checking it out, particularly if you like roleplaying games already. I'll leave you with some more photos of me in silly clothes doing silly things throughout the years:

 

Lt Gabriel Rutger-Monforte, Chief of Security, HIMVS Saint Sanguinius - crewing, DuD E6 (2019)

"WARP SUNDERRRRR" - crewing as a warp ghost, DuD Event 6 (2019)

 

Joanna Quen, occultist, A Faint Hope Blossoms (Chislehurst Caves, 2022)

Lady Mildred Stanford, crewing, DuD Event 8 (2023)

A sad ghost servant, doomed to wander around spookily, DuD Event 8 (2023)

Crewing as a Skitarii (front right), DuD Event 10 (2024)

Action shot! Crewing as a Generic Sister Of Battle, DuD Event 10 (2024)

Oh, and finally, a piece of commissioned art of Feliks Flowers and his batman, the abhuman Dust-After-The-Firestorm:

One day I'll get that printed and hung on the wall.