Sub Rosa

RPG system: LARP
Participants: 6 players

By

Intercon U: Ultraviolet (2023), Crowne Plaza, Warwick, Rhode Island, United States

Betsy Isaacson

Description

Henrietta Barrington Tyler is dead. Her obituary will appear in the New York Times on December 25, 2019 – which is to say, tomorrow.

It seems a bit impossible yet. Who would have thought the indomitable society matron – the ruthlessly brilliant botanist – the fearless world traveler – the dragon of Union Square – would do anything so prosaic as have a stroke at the venerable age of seventy-seven?

(She was also mauled by a lion, either before or after having the stroke. That part, New York society reflects, makes more sense.)

Certainly the grand dame herself expected to live forever. If she hadn’t, she might have made a will.

In the absence of useful guidance, Henrietta’s lawyers have called together her six daughters – the varied and varying blossoms of their mother’s most disordered garden – and asked them to settle the inheritance of her interesting treasures quickly and quietly amongst themselves. There’s a greenhouse. There’s a townhouse. There’s a library full of rare books. There’s a very new breed of rose and a very old stack of diaries and a possibly-murderous lion and a rainforest five thousand miles away.

And there’s not much time to sort it all out.

Sub Rosa is a ninety-minute game for six players by Betsy Isaacson and Kristen Hendricks about family, history, control, and the ownership of some very unusual prizes. Pregame reading is slightly less than twenty pages. All six characters in Sub Rosa are women.

Played at