Written by: Dan Diamond
Chapter Two: The fall of Valehaven and nearly the end of the whole Realms LARP
Corrections from chapter one: The Realms did not in fact start in Steve Johnson’s living room (according to him). John Wrisley did not break his arm when the siege tower fell on him, rather he sprained his ankle and torqued his back. In his words, "It was one of those things where six inches one way or the other would have been a different story. There were parts of the tower that would have killed me pretty good. I was caught by the diagonal metal braces that had some flex. Amy Reed, now Amy Wrisley was the EMT on site. So, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me."
1991 was the year everything changed. First, the fall of Valehaven. With little preamble, Prince Bob announced the end of Valehaven. The individual nations were united no more. Prince Bob released his will, a document which specifically precluded any continuing of the principality (and neatly closing off the available Princesses alternatives). Sir Eldritch claims to have held on to the original document for all these decades, and was good enough to make it available for this article:
According to Bob Traynor, the general expectation had been that Prince Bob was going to leave the crown to Princess Meg, as their characters were married. Dis-inhering her was a surprise. It should be noted from this in character account that Sir BS apparently believed the will to be fake. He has a first hand account of this era dredged up from a very early website.
The Glendale Era (1987-1991) was over, but other events continued. No longer in character politically unified, some saw anarchy and some saw a larger society forming. Many missed this shattered unity and a longing for a return to Valehaven’s glory cast a shadow for years which boosted the rise of Verai (see upcoming chapter 3). And there were those who adapted to the new society. In that vein, Meg the fighting barmaid, no longer Princess of Valehaven, organized her friends and followers. Bob Traynor remembers that cold Friday September night at Rrathchllwyn. Queen Vrille of Blackavar had sent Morgil and Lady Anne with orders to support Chimeron’s genesis. That night there was an unusually spectacular northern lights display, which Bob proclaimed (in character as Morgil) was a good omen for Chimeron’s birth. In a small fireside swearing in ceremony, Chimeron was founded and Queen Meg emerged with a small group but big plans. I believe this group IC included the mighty Sir Shane, Lady Cassa, clever Pol Coville, and Angus Coville (nicknamed “Clockwork” for his crafted creations, among which was an early crossbow), and Lady Dee (a bard whose campfire singing was a prominent part of era before regular night quests).
It is here that I enter the story. I came to WPI in 1990, and while I was interested in LARPs, those that I had found had been interactive literature style. I did participate in what I later learned was the legendary first run of Uncle Don’s “The Morning After”, but that’s another story. I’d read Niven’s “Dream Park”, and in the first month of 1991 at the Arisia convention I saw that the LARP group inspired by that book existed, but despite actively seeking one I had not managed to find the LARP for me. The best I could do was the WPI fencing team. Then in the fall of ‘91 my inquiries bore fruit: I heard that there were people doing a LARP fighter practice at nearby Elm Park. So, I sought them out and introduced myself to Chimeron. That was two weeks before they made their presentation to the WPI Science Fiction Society. In this presentation, Kathy Journeay (Queen Meg) spun tales of legends and wonder. Andy Dunphy (Cassa)’s leggy red dress certainly helped; the WPISFS membership were enthusiastically on board, and the large, regular practice at WPI began.
My first event was the first event for many of the WPISFS, in early December the “Plague Event” by Chris Chaney (Pol Coville). Like most new adventurers (then, as now, termed “newbies”) I didn’t have a good grasp of what was going on. There were tourneys, a tiny dungeon crawl, and a plague going around. The high point for me was when I saw utility in a cursed item. There was a noisemaker which if spun would create an eerie sound, which would attract all the monsters to converge and attack. I saw how it worked, and decided it could work for me. No one wanted it, so I got a hold of it and sounded it on the far side of the (tiny) event site from the dungeon. Then as the monsters converged, I dropped the noisemaker and ran around to hastily single handedly loot the temporarily vacant dungeon (a few silver from the bottom of a cauldron of goop). A lot of my best moments in my early adventuring years involved fast running.
After that, my friend Brian Lebel (Jamal) had the idea of founding our own nation, and with our friends became “Banecroft Barony”. In January of ’92, the WPISFS pitched in and we had an unofficial Realms event in the WPI lower Wedge in which we had some tourneys, a modest feast, with Banecroft founded and the first blue tabards issued, the zeroth “Baronial Birthday”. Our first official event as a nation was Tournaments of Chiron. Like many we planned join Chimeron when the others did in the spring, but in this nebulous in between time I was faced with my first political decision. The Amazons were having some sort of serious disagreement with Kugen of Mirkshaw. Seeing our new group, the Amazons appealed to me for aid in their cause. Kugen (OOC, Terry Armstrong) looked and acted like THE Kugen from the “Highlander” movie. I was sympathetic to the Amazon’s plea, but did not offer our swords, and diplomacy prevailed anyway. But that was soon forgotten as something Realms-shattering happened. It was at this event that the shocking news dropped: Shannon announced the end of the Realms! No more game, no more events.
For me, it seemed like this new world full of promise, which took me a year or a lifetime to find, was being capriciously snatched away. Wonder became doubt. Years of legends seemed about to become myth. I asked Queen Meg if this was really the end, and her grim, businesslike reply was, “We won’t let that happen.” Indeed, the movers and shakers of the Realms had a series of meetings to determine how the Realms could or would continue. I know it was a series of meetings because three separate people I interviewed claimed to have hosted the “first Event Holder’s meeting.” I don’t doubt their honesty, and concluded that the process was more gradual than a single meeting and which one of these meetings was official was a judgement call, as the process was refined. The first “meeting of event holders” wasn’t the same as the “First (official) Event Holder’s Council”, as they were in the process of defining the latter. The basic gist they hashed out was the final core principal which makes the Realms what it is: shared ownership of the game. In a sense, the current Realms system began in those meetings of early ’92. What was before was the LARP Shannon created, what was after was the Realms community. It is this community ownership which makes the Realms unique among LARPs. Almost any LARP you can think of has a single event holding team. The Realms has as many event throwing teams as there are people who care about the Realms, and it changes over the decades with only minor rumbling. The Realms of 2024 is really different from the Realms of 1992, but it has continuity and is indisputably the same LARP. In my opinion, the greatest strength of this system is how different the events it can produce. One weekend can be a huge and desperate war, the next a high-profile tournament, the next and intricate role playing story, then the next week an intricate puzzle solving quest, and then a boisterous party. It’s what has kept me playing all these decades rather than getting bored. You never can tell what you will get, and there are little boundaries on an EH or player’s creativity.
Jarrod Marshal and John Wrisley’s accounts agree that one fundamental principal that was forged was that a player has control of their character and an event holder has control of what happens at the event they throw. That meant that an event holder couldn’t make it a fact that Vader was Luke’s father without Luke’s player’s consent. You got to set your own character’s backstory, and no one could rewrite it unless you agreed. Similarly, if a different event holder wanted to have a big activity from their plot happen at a first even holder’s event, they would need the permission of the event holder holding that actual event.
They worked out the definition of an Event Holder (subsequently abbreviated EH), and thus the definition of an official event. They wanted EHs to be the deciding the rules because, as John described it, “if you wanted to change the game, you had to put some work in”. They defined how this group of EHs would vote on the rules, and when. Thus, the Event Holder’s Council (EHC) was formed, which continues to keep the rules of the game a living document to this day. Last but not least, they hashed out the actual rules. Jarrod Marshal (lord Jarrod) wants it noted that Folkestone was key to Pikes being in the game in those first meetings. No doubt everyone had their own pikes to grind, and the rules needed (and got) decades of refinement since. They worked it out, every word in the Omnibus a result of democratic sausage making.
So, why did Shannon drop first Valehaven, then the Realms? Bob Traynor names simple burnout. As any leader of a large Realms nation will tell you, it’s not easy. Being the political leader of the entire Realms must have taken a lot of effort that had to have been difficult to sustain. Add to that running at least two large events a year, it’d be a lot. James Murphy points to creative differences. Shannon understandably had very strong feelings about what would be good for the Realms. As more people became creatively involved in the Realms, the more it changed from his vision. For example, James Murphy remembers that Lance’s (that’s a nickname, Highrider IC and Tim Gilkes OOC) “Path” magic system replaced the “Component” magic Shannon preferred. Steve Matulewitz confirms that Lance and Shannon differed on the rules. Jarrod Marshal points to a romantic breakup as a factor. Another source believed the actual, real and tragic death of the prominent Realms player Nana Prom had hit Shannon particularly hard, but this clashes with Jarrod’s recollection that Nana Prom was part of the EHC shortly before he was lost to us. This could be confused because there were certainly meetings of event holders in the Glendale Era. Randy Gordon at first told me that he “thought everybody knew” why Shannon abdicated IC and OOC, but then when I pointed out everyone else had a different answer than each other, he immediately said, “I’d best keep it under my hat then”, which is the most Sir Randal answer ever. But Randy was right that it doesn’t matter: Shannon Slate took the Realms as far as one man could, unifying several precursor games and establishing several of the fundamental principals that makes the Realms what it is. When he could bear it no farther, a lot of collective bargaining forged something unique to LARPing, and the final collective ownership of the rules both established the last Realms fundamental principals, and also made the Realms immortal: dependent on no one person or even team to keep it going. Distributing the work, when one EH moves on, another steps up. More events are possible, and they are more varied than ever. Of course that means there are lows as well as highs: so, curate your Realms experience for the sort of events which you personally like, but don’t be afraid to try new things because there is some surprisingly good stuff out there.
I could end my history of the Realms there. Everything that follows is in a form a player of 2024 would recognize. But there are some great stories to come, and the loss of Valehaven left a hole many were attempting to fill in different ways. In Chapter three, 1992, the new society was figuring itself out, IC and OOC. What nations would survive, which would set policy? Diplomacy was more complex than ever, and in that storm Banecroft struggled between different winds, and Verai began its meteoric rise. Camelot, I mean Valehaven, had fallen and a golden age was replaced with one that was both gritty but vibrant.
