Eldarlands LARP is a concept that had been in my head for quite some time. I discovered LARPing when I was fourteen years old and loved it so much my entire life has been shaped by it. My best friends I found while LARPing. My writing career has been greatly influenced by the numerous adventures I’ve undertaken while LARPing.  And I firmly believe my life would have probably ended in my teenage years if I’d never discovered it.

When I moved to Arkansas, I searched high and low for any local group involved with anything nerdy. I found a photography club, and a small art community, but nothing that spoke to me.

After several months of looking, and not finding anything within an hour’s drive in any direction, I decided if I wanted a social circle of like-minded individuals, I’d have to build it myself.

I could have easily picked any number of existing games and started a chapter. It wouldn’t have been any more difficult than what I chose to do. In fact, in many ways it would have been easier. But I didn’t want to risk some random person showing up one day and declaring we couldn’t do something for some imaginary reason.

It’s for that reason, more than any other, that I sat down and wrote the Eldarlands LARP Player’s Handbook. I used my near twenty-five years of experience in LARPing, along with my familiarity with multiple games and gaming styles to write what I felt was a good balance. I designed the game for heavy combat as well as intense role play. It has room for noncombatants, and those who want to do nothing else. 

Like everything there were/are some kinks to work out. Now that the game has been thoroughly play tested for a couple years and most of the issues have been identified, I’m currently gearing up to write a second edition to fix the known issues. But over all, it seems to be an enjoyable experience for those who have joined us.

For obvious reasons, more players are desired. Hypothetically speaking, it’s much easier to regulate a game with twenty players than it is a group of five. Twenty people will instinctively break into smaller groups and form allegiances. They’ll make enemies with other groups and find ways to interact with each other, requiring minimal effort on the Story Marshal’s part. A single group of five requires heavy direction from a Story Marshal as they have few outside threats to contend with.

In all, I consider this endeavor a success. We’re still growing and welcoming of all new players. We have a fair number of regulars who show up every week. And we have those who are less frequent but still swing by from time to time.

With the opening of the new gaming store in Highland, I’m hopeful we’ll continue to get new players of all ages to fill our ranks and learn about LARPing.

There are many, after all, who don’t understand what it is we do. The same can be said about table-top role playing, though with groups like Critical Role and all the attention us nerds get in main stream media these days, much of the confusion and dare I say, stigma surrounding table-top gaming has gone away. That’s not necessarily the case for LARPers.

May people consider us those weird people who dress up in funny outfits and beat each other with padded sticks.

That’s mostly true. We do dress up. And we do beat each other with boffer weapons (Foam covered core such as PVC pipe of graphite rod that resembles a weapon). 

It’s the other accusations we tend to have issue with. Those pushed heavily in the late seventies and early eighties. 

We’re not a cult. We don’t practice satanic rituals or any of that nonsense. We have complete and total understanding of reality. This isn’t one of those cases where we don’t know what we’re doing.

We’re playing make believe. Simple as that. And yes, on occasion, we may pretend to perform some ritual if the story calls for it, but it’s not real in any way shape or form.

It’s a game we’re playing – Interactive story telling. That’s all we are. We’re storytellers. Only instead of focusing on the telling part, we dress as our characters and interact with each other to build the story.

If we need to fight, we fight. We have strict combat rules and even stricter weapon regulations to prevent injuries.

In the end, our aim is to have fun. We dress up and pretend to be a hero (or sometimes a villain), while interacting with others doing to same to form a cohesive story that we all have a part in.

I hope this has provided an ample view into what Eldarlands LARP is and what we’re about.

If you have any questions feel free to email me. Or if you want to swing by and see what we do for yourself, we meet at Cedar Valley Park in Cherokee Village, AR pretty much every Sunday at 2pm.

I hope to see you there.

Levi Samuel
Founder, Writer, & Nerd