One Dance, One End

RPG system: LARP
Participants: 15 players

By

Summer Larpin' But oh, those summer nights! (2022), Boxboro, Massachusetts, United States

Albert Lin (GM)

Description

You receive a letter. Written on real paper! It reads:

“The Emperor, the King Undying, Necromancer Divine, King of the Nine Renewals, His Celestial Kindness, the Necrolord Prime, has determined a need for new Lyctors. He, in his great wisdom, has foreseen that the next set of Lyctors must combine Necromancers and Cavaliers from different Houses. He has called forth one Necromancer and one Cavalier from each House to attend a formal dance, at the end of which each Necromancer will select the Cavalier that they believe to be their divinely chosen Ordained Thanergic Partner.

You have been selected to represent your House. The coordinates of the Midnight Ball are attached. Find your Ordained Thanergic Partner and thereby prove yourself worthy to become a Lyctor.”

–

One Dance, One End is a knock-off of Warren Tusk’s The Dance and the Dawn Games set in the universe of the Locked Tomb books by Tamsyn Muir. The target audience is people who are familiar with the Locked Tomb setting and want to spend an evening living in it; those who haven’t read the books may enjoy it as well, but I really have no idea.

One Dance, One End is set several generations before the events of Gideon the Ninth in an alternate universe where the Emperor had a different plan for recruiting new Lyctors. The premise is that seven necromancers and eight cavaliers will dance a series of dances with one another while each person tries to find their OTP. Some may find their OTP, others may fail and end up with a partner who is okay but not quite perfect, and at least one person will end up alone. This game is not about overthrowing the Emperor, discovering the secrets of Lyctorhood, making breakthroughs in necromantic research, unraveling political mysteries, or anything except finding your divinely chosen OTP.

Though no spoilers for the books (or the Dance games) are written into the game, it is likely that spoilers will be injected by players, especially during post-game discussion. Since the game is intended to cater to people who have read the books, if you wish to avoid spoilers, it is best to avoid playing; consider this a spoiler warning.

This game involves a lot of waltzing! Each person will dance approximately 22 short waltzes. You don’t have to be good at waltzing, and there are some limited options for accommodating people with mobility issues, but you do have to be willing to do your best to waltz if physically able.

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