Correction to chapter 1: I’d misunderstood some of what Jarrod had described. “Queen” Lisa trained Jarrod in The Game, not Mid-Realm. Jarrod was trained in The Game and went on to play in Mid Realm. Speaking of Arastorm’s Game (I misspelled that name earlier), I was able to get in touch with the SCA’s Arastorm (Karen Tchipakkan). She described that they started the Game in order to make fighting more accessible. For many years Heavy List fighting in the SCA was the martial activity, but the barriers to entry were higher than we are used to. In her words, this new light combat “allowed people to fight with less strength, less armor, less risk of injury, less expense, all of which were excluding people without money, strength, etc.” She says practices were in her yard and at Tom Cook’s in Weare.
Correction to chapter 2: My first event as a player was officially named “Kiltavia”, the term “the Plague Event” was but a nickname. Additions to chapter 2: Anne Livermore (Lady Anne) and Kate Hubbard started in 1990, The latter in Rwathchleweyn. Kate remembers the Rwathchleweyn Water Wars featuring a floating blow-up dragon with (actual) bikini-clad maidens riding it. Kathy Fey has a picture of this.
Chapter Three: Building a New Society, IC and OOC.
For me and many others, 1992 began with hope. While the details were still being thrashed out, it was now clear that the Realms would not end. I was blissfully unaware of later “new wills” from which Shannon vainly tried to control aspects of the game from outside the game, only to be soundly ignored by those who were still playing, contributing, and forging the game onward.
My next event of the winter of ‘92 was the first event ever run by prominent event holder Randy Gordon (Sir Randal): Crown Tourney. In character, Sir Randal was holding the tourney to knight/present the sword of Kings to a worthy bearer. Much-missed Janna has previously chronicled the back story of the Sword of Kings, perhaps the most famous blade of the 90s. The Chimeron website notes Sir Shane’s knighting. I remember among Shane’s laurels was the “best chest” award. I was distracted: a friend (who had attended Kiltavia) had to leave WPI and transferred to UCONN. This event was at the Horse Arena which has hosted many Realms events since. I thought it a shame they had lost contact with the Realms but were unaware there was an event right there! Turns out I was mistaken, as UCONN has more than one campus. Decades later, the Baronial sloop still bears her character’s name, “Muriel”. But my chief memory was taking up the bow. I’d had a simple fiberglass bow from a yard sale years before I’d heard of the Realms, and here I borrowed a couple of arrows and fell in love with archery.
Crown Tourney: This might be the first Realms picture of Jeffo (left), McKrie (right), and myself (Center) in the Realms. Photographer unknown. My first bow is close at hand.
I met the best archer of that era, Sir Fletch. He could, when wounded in the arm, sit and hold his bow in his feet and aim and fire competently with his remaining arm. Naturally, he won the archery tourney that day. I vowed to strive to eventually beat him in an archery tourney.
The ‘92 spring event season began with “The Third Annual Tournament of Fools”, the last event hosted by the Amazons. The Amazons disappeared afterwards in a common failure mode in that era: key people graduated college. Their swan song was a spring event featuring a court where lots of Chimeron-trained WPI students swore their character’s fealty. In minutes, Chimeron became more than just a significant nation, but rather solidly the most numerous. Peter Brillinger (Meerkcat) was among the many who swore, as well as the nation of Banecroft, myself included. We were eager to be part of the team. Jeff Ogorzalek (usually addressed by his nickname “Jeffo” for obvious reasons) took pictures in the spring of 92 on what I’m told was that site. I can’t remember that event having an outdoor component, but if not, there may have been a different event on that site that spring which I’ve forgotten. In any case, here are some of his pictures:
Sir Shane is first on the left. The blue and black heraldry in the center was that of the mercenary company Eclipse, so I believe that is Sir Alanom facing away.
The Chimeronean timeline dates this era better than my notes, which started in earnest later. There were a lot of things starting in the fresh canvas. It was a time of unparalleled possibilities. And while many of the WPI-trained players hewed to Chimeron, naturally not all did. Most prominent of that latter was Verai. Verai began as a house of healers whose power were proudly derived from a demon, namely Asmodius. Led by Taithan (Kevin Teft) and Cora (Bella Forrister), whose political legerdemain proved to be epic. This was in the era before the “Seed of Life” spell, raises were often a sharply limited resource, and having friendly healers could make the difference between having more fun playing the LARP or lying there under the clouds or stars indefinitely. Having a surplus of raises was very effective in winning friends and influencing people, but that in no way diminishes their personal political skill or charisma.
With Valehaven relegated to history, a lot of other nations also had their genesis. Eagles’s Rook was founded by Sir Gunnar (Steve Johnson) around now. This was also the year that Prince Nigel (Paul Cote), founded Blackwood. Paul had given the Realms a try in ’91, with relevant experience acting in King Richard’s Fair since ‘89. Being the “5th Earl of Blackwood” had then been just a matter of character back story, but 92 is when Paul brought in his Ren Fair friends in join him. They officially founded their nation at “a Chimeron feast at Umass Amherst”. Paul made a historical milestone as the first openly gay Realmsian. At this point in our interview, I incorrectly told him that by my recollection, he had been preceded by Keven Teft by a narrow margin. But checking the notes and putting things in order for this article, I think Paul is right: Kevin wasn’t at Kiltavia, so must have officially started in 92. Any slight chronological edge does not change the social bravery that both their stances took. Although the Realms then were more open than mundane life, the early 90s were far less so than this third decade of the 21st century. If these Realms are now a place where the entire Rainbow of being can be free to openly be their real selves, it may have begun with their examples.
The event season began in earnest. In early July was the “War for Addison”, in which a fey prince invaded the Realms. This was the first time I was at Darkvale, a famous event site distinguished by a cliff face and cool dark forests. I remember the excitement and grimness of Banecroft’s first truly serious action. We lost the battle but the war was won because they key to the event was that the Fey word “Addison” translated to “honor”, and by fighting with honor, the Realms had passed their test. But Darkvale was to remain a fateful site in the Barony’s lore for what was soon to happen.
It was in this crowded spring and summer that we had the first offshoot LARP, “Riz-System” run by John Wrisley as previously alluded to. It was a mirror image of the predecessor LARPS in that It had the same combat system, and players with their histories and nations from the Realms were in no way discouraged. I’ve always considered the Baron’s experiences in those events as much a part of his story as Rwratchlewen is for Eldritch, making it a part of Realms history even if technically it was a separate LARP.
Then things started to go darker. My men were increasingly dissatisfied with our position in Chimeron. The reason being that they felt excluded, and I could not in honesty say I did not share some of their feelings. We understood that we were the new guys and it was our place to do grunt work. Grunt work had to be done and our commitment to teamwork was then as it is now. What we objected to was being seen as good for only grunt work, with no understanding shared in how what we were doing contributed. I might be briefed on what was going on a week after an event, which I would then share with my men. But we hungered to know what was going on at the event, where we might do some good with that knowledge. That early frustration is why I became known for frequently briefing younger adventurers in later years, as well I remembered the craving to know what was going on.’
The problem was compounded because I made a strategic error. I thought the reason we were treated thus was because Chimeron’s inner circle had a poor opinion of our abilities. I instructed my men to act more independently, to avoid seeking help. To demonstrate we could act without hand holding. To prove our worth to them. Of course, this backfired: Chimeron naturally saw this as us pulling away. We were viewed as less reliable, so they trusted us less. It was a vicious circle neither group intended. And then there was the loss of Jamal, Seneshal of Banecroft.
In the Realms, there are three levels of being dead. Combat is swift, decisive, and frequent; so being struck down “dead” is common and quickly remedied with magic. If one wishes a foe to be more permanently done in, one’s character can take a minute to make multiple strikes and “rend” a foe’s dead body. Back then this had more colonialist name from which I am still weaning myself. A body in this “rended” state can be brought back with a rare magic spell which did not always work. If that was not done, a character can be permanently lost, the mechanism for which changed over the years. But Banecroft did not fully understand the process then. At an event I was not at, Jamal was rended (in Darkvale) because (as I was told by my surviving men) he tried to intercede to stop a theft. At the earliest next opportunity, with the aid of the mistress of the healer’s guild to which Jamal was apprenticed, we tried to reverse the rending. What I should have done was ask Chimeron for help, but I hoped to handle the matter ourselves. That was hubris: we failed the quest (co-incidentally, also at Darkvale). Now with Jamal at the brink of permanent death, we made another error. On my part, when Chimeron trained me about death I knew less than I have written above. I only knew that “to rescue a rended character, one could get a quest to try and save them.” A chance use of the singular in those instructions (“a quest”) made me incorrectly think one only got one try at it. I hadn’t even seen a rules Omnibus at that point. For Brian’s part, he felt that we would not be allowed to succeed in rescuing his character, and that thus further attempts were futile. He explained years later that he had learned something in character that the event holder did not yet want known. And so, by a combination of ignorance and despair, Jamal was permanently lost.
The spring of ‘92 was very bad academically for WPI students who were in Realms. For the Barony, it was apocalyptic: not one of us returned to WPI in the fall, although some of continued in Realms. We also had a few new non-WPI members, but these members had not had the benefit of Chimeron training and thus our rift widened. Meanwhile, the most martial member of Verai began training a new crop of adventurers as a martial group named “Doomguard”. With Doomguard, Verai’s armored fist was getting ready for ‘93.
The summer event season was in full swing. According to Kathy Fey, the most memorable plot was the Shadowlord, who wielded the Champion Sword, which was one of the most memorable blades of that era. It had the power to suck victims into the blade. The Shadowlord had atmospheric theme music following him around. He led undead Cauldron-Born minions.
One of the last outdoor events of that year, in October there was a very interesting development. The Mace of Rhomer, very important to the soon to be long-running Zermarks plot, was dug up from where it had been buried (for real) at the same event site at an event months before. Chimeron led the very hush hush and successful effort to retrieve it. An effort in which every Chimeronean was a part of, except the Barony, which had been viewed as unreliable. For me, that was the last straw. If we were to be explicitly excluded from the interesting stuff, a change was necessary. We believed in Chimeronean ideals of teamwork and diplomacy, but the current arrangement was working for neither party. I entered negotiations with Queen Meg for our independence. Fortunately, Queen Meg saw the wisdom that a friendly independent Barony was of more use to her than a resentful vassal, and saw fit to grant our petition, effective the first event of ’93. There were some elements of her court who were less forward seeing and saw our departure as a betrayal, and it took years of Banecroft being a steady friend to Chimeron to eventually win over these last holdouts.
It was at the first event of ’93 which Verai made an amazing diplomatic coup and began its rush from prominence towards its pinnacle. A year dark with in-character conflict, in which the newly isolated Barony was very vulnerable. But that is the story of the next chapter…
