2021 New England Sport LARP Calendar

What an 18 months this has been. Gluing back the LARP Calendar after such a prolonged absence, the apparent loss of an important camp site, and the continuing pandemic has left a lot of blank spaces in the schedule for 2021. As of this posting we are tracking some 65 extant LARPs in the New England area, some 40 of which haven’t announced a re-launch date (including Magestry, which helps inform the schedule over at Tolgy Wood). We’ve put together what we could but there still many, many blank spaces out there. As an added note of precaution, some of the earliest events (June/July) may still face cancellation or rescheduling, so be sure to check in before showing up to NPC on a random Saturday.

In addition to the Calendar, such as it is, we’ll cast off the departed, incredibly welcome some new games and take a general look around at the state of sites, suppliers, and funding.

Gone but not Forgotten

It seems, from what we can tell, the following games will not be going forward in 2021:

Empire in Flames: EIF, with strong online experiential support from Kaza, folded up in 2020 when, after noting progress towards their permanent site, cited health issues as the reason for the game’s immediate cancellation and deletion of all their online presences. We hope for a possible return in 2022.

INK LARP: A smaller, genre-exploring modern game came to a successful end in 2019 or 2020; I forget which exactly. Unique for their modern mythological take on character creation the game may or may not be continuing a second, invite only incarnation at the Sturbridge Host Hotel which the owners of Witchtowers/Red Rabbits seem to be resurrecting from obscurity with monthly, if not weekly, rentals.

Keystone: The mythical ‘Wild West’ game came to a successful inclusion. There may be a Keystone 2 in the works.

Threshold: Bordering between a Theatre LARP and a Hotel Game, we think this has ended.

Eagle Pass Campsite: The Wales, MA site that acted as home base for Aralis as well as an incubator for numerous small games (and even larger ones, like Blessing) faced closure in 2020 due to COVID collapsing all possible events. Onsite storage spaces were quickly emptied and games have been re-homing ever since. We believe this site will be closed for the foreseeable future. However, there may be some cautiously optimistic hope left…

There are likely other games which were announced in early 2020 that either failed to launch or have been lost to the COVID-related lapse. If anyone has any information on the following games I would be happy to update their status: Arcane Skies, Ashwick Plantation, Attaway, Chronicles, Divine Intervention, Katzia, Oroborous, Trouble at the LARP, Draconis 2 and Utopia Descending New England.

We Have Lift Off

Incredibly, we have a number of new offerings for the late summer/fall of 2021(!). Some of these are games which were looking for get going in 2020 and some are born of the creative explosion fueled by forced seclusion this last year. Events are as follows, we think:

Tales of Valor: Fellowship: The 3rd iteration of the Tales of Valor series will hopefully get off the ground this year.

Fealty: A game of Knighthood and Alignment based on a long running AD&D campaign, featuring opt-in PVP settings and the return of IG nobility, now with the added bonus of no bullying (which plagued ‘NERO’ for so many years).

Cottington Woods 2: The continuation of the Fairy Tale setting (as opposed to the Fairy Tail setting) of the original Cottington Woods campaign, after the conclusion of Tales from the Cotting House.

Everything at Burgundar/The Keep: The only Sport LARP site to actually run some small, locally focused events in late 2020 and (already!) in 2021, this year will see the addition of Starhunter: Origins, a potential fall Renaissance Faire, Age of Twilight, Dark Times, and, amazingly, SwordHaven, from the original creator of such previous epics as Stalker’s Way, Roanoke and the highly regarded eXiles series of games.

Fury of the Deeps: A brand new, and boy, do we mean brand new game for 2021! Constant social media posts, updates and community interaction by this young and enthusiastic staff have contributed to a great buzz about the unveiling of this LARP. The rules appear to be Winged Throne based with a touch of Accelerant thrown in and a dash of Be-Epic so they should be passingly familiar to anyone in the hobby.

Eye of the Lion: Run by the proprietor of Adler Hobby store in New Hampshire; Eye of the Lion is a Christian themed game with major Chronicles of Narnia/LoTR overtones.

Elsewhere: The newest game from Red Rabbits/Witchtowers (wait! they just announced another on their latest podcast!), Elsewhere is hybrid theatre/sport/hotel LARP mythical tarot dreaming…you know, it’s probably easier to just read the design documents.

Zea lot: The newest, newest game from Red Rabbits/Witchtowers, you’ll need to catch their podcast to find out more! But at least we finally have LARPs from A to Z!

World Under Wonder: WUW is…prolific and based in Vermont, which earns them a mention here. They seem to have three settings, although COVID is pushing them to run weekday/discord based events so far. I’m not certain this will evolve into an actual Sport LARP type game, but at least the community finally has an offering on hand in that most forgotten of New England states when it comes to LARPing.

Avarice: New England’s second effort at the Biccoline/European Model for sport LARPing, Avarice has, at least, the dedicated site (Ye Olde Commons) to begin to explore what could, in the following years, be the successful launch of a very large game.

Shiretown Shindig: A Halfling/Hobbit/Bobbit/Fuzzy themed event with no real plot direction to speak of, this event is coming along at just the right time to help heal some of the isolation the community has faced over the past year.

Overnight all Night

On the campsite front there was one rather exciting development this year, as noted below:

Eagle Pass: We already touched on Eagle Pass above.

Ye Olde Commons: YoC has been, leased? acquired? by a combination of interests, from Sanctum World Simulations to LARP Box, and the energy around the site that was put up for outright sale in 2020 has been palpable. Massive capital plans have been announced, well attended work days have been progressing for months, with more to follow, and an overall level of excitement is in the air in Charlton. If the execution can live up to the hype, the Commons is situated to provide a home for generations of LARPers for years to come.

Tolgy Wood: Tolgy seems to have survived COVID with a well received Fundraiser as well as several work days. We are waiting on the Calendar to be set for the remainder of this year which will clear up a lot of blank spots.

Everywhere Else: Luckily, it seems, due to a combination of state and national organizations (Boy Scouts, 4-H and YMCA) being able to financially weather a year without summer camps, all of the New England rental sites “seem” to be fully operational coming in to the fall season and are even hosting overnight summer camps in June and July.

Go Spend Me

There are always ways to support the New England Hobby. If you’ve got a few extra dollars to a few thousand extra dollars you could decide to:

–Donate time, money and anything in between to drive forward the new vision of Ye Olde Commons.

–Contribute to the new Dragon’s Den Campsite Go Fund Me.

–Help Fury of the Deeps to get off the ground with basic costuming and equipment.

–Create an Epic home for LARPing and Fantasy Weddings in Richmond, New Hampshire.

–Become a Patreon of Kaza (and the LARP Girl Adventures) as she documents events both local and international.

–Join the excellent Red Rabbits podcast as they discuss all things LARPing in New England; their Red Rabbits After Dark tier is especially recommended.

–Buy into the LARP Box subscription program or visit their actual storefront to try on an extensive line of gear.

–Visit Made by Hand Leather at any number of upcoming Renaissance Festivals.

–Purchase B3 Imagination’s excellent line of Sport Swords, Arrows, and everything in between.

Exeunt Stage Right; Pursued by Bear

In conclusion, this list is just the first of many which will be updated over the summer in an attempt to capture the re-emergence of New England Sport LARPing. While we do not actively engage or respond on Facebag as we feel it is a terrible forum for public discourse we will update schedules and offer corrections based upon comments made there. In the meantime, try to get out of the House a little more.