The Court of Camelot is reborn throughout the ages with all its fractured bonds. The year 2023 calls it together once more through dreams, mysterious invitations, and the whisper of hidden memories.

You’ve grown up in the modern era with the indescribable sense of something missing, a feeling of not quite fitting in the here-and-now. But then your past life as a figure of Arthurian legend began to creep into your present life: as mannerisms, intrusive memories, nightmares, and shifts of personality.

Recently, you received a curious invitation that resonated with your past self in a way which only made sense if they knew.

The reincarnated Court gathers to reinforce the bonds of loyalty, promises, and family… and to offer, for the first time in all these lifetimes, the possibility of forgetting.

Will you take up the mantle of the past or shed it for a quieter life? Is it possible to mend the old wounds between comrades-in-arms, star-crossed lovers, and sorcerers, or is King Arthur’s Court ever fated for destruction?

Themes include:
Memory (gained, lost, and its impact on identity)
Belonging, kinship, and competing loyalties
Relationship rupture and repair
Past trauma (from battle, betrayal, abuse)
Faith, belief, and skepticism
Destiny vs choice
Costuming
Highly flexible! Anything from medieval fantasy to modern street clothes. Some characters might try to dress the part of their past lives for this event, whereas others might choose to show up in their modern daily clothing. Players can indicate a costuming complexity preference in the casting form.

Logistics
There will be 30-60 minutes of pre-game workshops establishing interpersonal connections and light mechanics, 2-2.5 hours of play, and 30-60 minutes for epilogue, derole/debrief, and wiggle room.

Mask policy subject to change based on conditions as we get closer to the event.

Note: Arthurian literature is a giant pile of fanfiction building on itself, written over the course of centuries. Characterization of Arthurian past lives in game may differ from the legends you’re familiar with due to the many different versions of the character in the literature.

For those curious about source material, this larp draws heavily on the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chrétien de Troyes, the Lancelot-Grail Cycle / Vulgate, Prose Tristan, Perlesvaus, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, among others.

Participant communications
Players will receive a casting form to indicate character and theme preferences. Modern character gender, sexuality, etc may not match past life character gender, sexuality, etc and preferences for that can be indicated in casting form. Character roles will be cast and distributed before the convention.

Players will receive 4-8 page documents that include a modern character, as well as the past life Arthurian character, pre-existing relationships, and questions for players to consider for character building.

You do not need to be overly familiar with Arthuriana to play, though it may enhance your experience. Optional suggested readings relevant to your character will be provided on your sheet.

Content warnings
This larp may contain:

Depictions of bigotry (in backstories, canon-typical gender dynamics and homophobia; in modern times, not as often but the historical backstory experience may come up in conversation)
Depictions of abuse (canonical, in backstory, may show up between characters in game if players have negotiated it)
Descriptions of violence (canonical and canon-typical in backstories)
Content involving rape (canonical, in backstory, opt-out available)
Character histories may include canon-typical Christian themes, which may or may not play into modern character portrayals. Modern character histories may contain themes of faith and belief (in religion, magic, folklore, legend, and mythology).

The Court of Camelot is reborn throughout the ages, lifetime after lifetime with all its fractured bonds. Now it gathers once more, drawn together by dreams, invitations, and the whisper of hidden memories.

You’ve always had the indescribable sense of something missing, a feeling of not quite fitting into the modern era. But then––strange dreams of battles, castles, and sorcery invaded your sleep. Intrusive personality shifts and uncharacteristic behavior disrupted your relationships. Foreign emotions and impossible memories from a bygone age of knights and noble ladies interrupted your ordinary life. And somehow, those memories bore an odd resemblance to the legends of Camelot and King Arthur’s knights of the Round Table.

Recently, a curious invitation arrived—one that only made sense if the sender knew. It’s uncanny enough to provide a glimmer of hope that you don’t have to keep living like this: disoriented, unsettled, haunted.

The Court gathers each lifetime to make a choice: renew their age-old bonds and memories, or forget and return to a quiet life.

Will you take up the mantle of the past or shed it for a quieter eternity? Is it possible to mend the old wounds between comrades-in-arms, star-crossed lovers, and sorcerers, or is King Arthur’s Court ever fated for tragedy?

Themes include:

Belonging, kinship, and competing loyalties
Relationship rupture and repair
Past trauma (from battle, betrayal, abuse)
Grief, loss, and mourning
Destiny vs choice
Faith, belief, and skepticism
Memory (gained, lost, and its impact on identity)

Costuming

Highly flexible! Anything from medieval fantasy to modern street clothes. Some characters might try to dress the part of their past lives for this event, whereas others might choose to show up in their modern daily clothing. Multiple levels of costuming hints are provided for each character (a light costuming option, a moderate costuming option, and sometimes a heavy costuming option).

Logistics

There will be 60-105 minutes of pre-game workshops establishing interpersonal connections and light mechanics, 3-3.5 hours of play, and 30-60 minutes for epilogue, derole/debrief and wiggle room. Mask policy subject to change based on conditions as we get closer to the event.

Please note:

There are no happy, untraumatized characters by the end of the source material.
The larp can have a somewhat happy or feel-good resolution, but it can just as easily end in a bittersweet or tragic way.
Almost all Arthurian romantic relationships involve some element of: infidelity, tragedy, love triangles/webs, abuse, or unrequited love.
If you’re not familiar with Arthurian literature pre-Le Morte d'Arthur (Sir Thomas Malory), please know that it is far more queer and gender non-conforming than you might expect.
Arthurian literature is a giant pile of fanfiction building on itself, written over the course of centuries. Characterization of Arthurian past lives in game may differ from the legends you’re familiar with due to the many different versions of the character in the literature.

For those curious about source material, this larp draws primarily on the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, also known as the Vulgate Cycle; it also draws somewhat from the Post-Vulgate Cycle, with occasional borrowings from earlier or later texts (e.g. Mabinogion, Chrétien de Troyes, Le Morte d'Arthur).

More details can be found in the Design Document.

Content Warnings

Individual character sheets will contain content warnings and a list of themes relevant to the character. All of the following content warnings are listed in the Casting Survey and players may opt into or out of these topics in their character sheet at that time.

Please note that players are likely to still encounter mentions of the content listed below during the course of the game. Opting out simply means we will avoid casting the player as a character that features the undesired content in their backstory.

Depictions of bigotry (in backstories, canon-typical gender dynamics, homophobia, and classism; in modern times, not as applicable but the historical backstory experience may come up in conversation)
Depictions of abuse (canonical, in backstories, may show up between characters in game if players have negotiated it)
Realistic simulations or descriptions of violence (canon-typical in backstories, may show up between characters in game if players have negotiated it)
Content involving rape (canonical, in backstories; opt-out available): Please note that we will not cast any perpetrators of or enablers of sexual assault as player characters (PCs). Also note that Merlin will be in-game as an NPC (non-player character) played by one of the organizers. He canonically used magic to enable an off-stage NPC to commit sexual assault in the form of the bed trick.
Character histories may include canon-typical Christian themes, which may or may not play into modern character portrayals. Modern character histories may contain themes of faith and belief (in religion, magic, folklore, legend, and mythology).
Character sheets may also contain the following: Adoption, alcohol consumption and abuse, arranged or forced marriage, being compared to one’s abuser, being imprisoned/captured, being othered, being rescued, child abandonment, child loss, childhood neglect, family rejection or estrangement, foster system, gender identity and dysphoria, guilt/shame, hallucinations-that-might-be-visions, housing insecurity, incest (unintentional), infanticide, infidelity, lack of autonomy, loss of limb, marital separation/divorce, matricide, murder of innocents, parental death or illness, parentification, physical disability, purity shaming, religious conversion, sexual identity and sexuality, social rejection, social masking, suicidality, self-harm, torture victim, unrequited love, victim-blaming.