The Experience

The core vision for Spoils of War is to experience an epic drama of very human dilemmas and emotions in the endpoint and aftermath of a brutal world war. All characters are significant and no one important in the world is outside the larp.

Who will you play?

The larp revolves around a central conflict with characters on two sides. In the first act of the larp, one side is barricaded inside of the Royal Castle, while the other is besieging them from the outside. Neither side is certain of victory or defeat, but in the structure of the narrative, it is already decided that the castle will fall, and its inhabitants will either surrender or be taken as prisoners. The players know this ahead of time, but the characters do not.

The main elements of the larp are the personal stories across the Houses and factions of the war. The bespoke design of the setting is a framework to tell these stories, and it contains a variety of Noble Houses with each their own distinct culture, customs, and traditions. The Houses are either matriarchal, patriarchal, so egalitarian in structure, so despite the medieval fantasy aesthetic, your experience won’t necessarily be constrained by these gender stereotypes.

On which terms will each side set their prisoners free? How will members of the losing side be punished? Who will marry whom? How does the realm move forward from here? Trials and negotiations will be held during the larp’s run time to find out.

Within this framework, there are numerous themes of love, loss, fear, anger, abuse, friendship, and the horrors of war, and when you get a spot, you will be provided with a character with its own story, relations, and place in the world that can help you get the experience you want.

Types of characters

These are the types of characters you can play in Spoils of War:

Noble members of Houses
Servants
Religious figures
Heads of Houses
Military officers
Advisors

At the beginning of the larp, certain characters are prisoners of war, separated from their House and family, making them bargaining chips and providing an alternative start to the larp for the players portraying them.

Some characters are ‘Woodlanders’, a parallel civilization who lives in forest groves instead of houses and castles. These characters are spread out across House groups and will experience racial discrimination as part of their play experience. Some are open – some even aggressive – about their heritage, and some also discriminate against the City Folk. Some hide their origins, wishing to avoid the branding.

A few characters will provide for an especially restraining experience, being the main scapegoats of the war when their side loses. These characters include the dethroned King and some of his closest allies. This might involve spending much of the last half of the larp physically limited to a dungeon cell (yes, there is a dungeon), and your character will face some severe punishment before the end of the larp; possibly even death. There are also a few actions that your character is off-game required to do. If you would like to play this kind of character, you must have an online meeting with the organizers before Spoils of War for briefings and discussions on how to play this out.

Playstyle

The playstyle will be Nordic in origin and with focus on “Play to lift”. For example, we encourage you to engage in “No, but” which means that if you are stopping someone from doing something in the larp, that can be brilliant oppression play but if it happens continuously, try to offer an alternative. More about this in the workshops. We invite you to think of Spoils of War as a Nordic larp in fantasy disguise and stylewise leaning towards “epic” play as opposed to “slice-of-life”. This means that the characters are in the most exceptional circumstances of their lives and their decisions and actions have potentially world changing consequences – but mostly they will try to build the best possible future for themselves and those they love.

Think of the noble familie more as gangsters than posh Brits. Yes, manners matter, but they have just been to war, and many of the characters are rowdy. This is not a larp, where we sit around battling on politeness (except during the Feast of Life) or semantics, and grand gestures as well as subtle ones are very welcome.

Transparency

The larp is transparant in the way that you can see the full schedule on the “Practical” page, and we try to tell you as much about the design concepts, playstyle, themes and pacing as possible on this one. Hopefully, this equips you in the best way possible to engage with the larp in a way that fits you as a player and makes it obvious when it is a good time for a break.

You will also have the option to read all of the characters, but you are only required to read your own. If you really like character secrets, that is fine! Tell you co-players that you would rather not know anything about their character’s point of view. For us, reading other peoples’ characters is only a small part of a larp being transparent.

Calibration style

During the in-game playtime, there will be options for short off-game calibrations during scenes, but there will be no off-game comments in ingame areas and no longer off-game conversations outside off-game areas. Calibration in Spoils of War can be with regards to boundaries in personal play, asking for help if you are not having a good time and communicating if there is something you would like more of. Calibration is NOT for asking for certain outcomes of scenes, trials or negotiations and strong-arming other people’s play to accommodate your own wishes for your character.

Winning or losing side

There is a lot of loss in Spoils of War. That means that if you sign up to play for the losing side that will be the main thread of your story. The winning side will sit on more power, be unfair and have a responsibility to punish the losing side while giving way for personal stories and the losing side grapping on to small bites of the spoils.

Playing a head of house

Playing a head of house comes with the off-game narrative responsibility to consider if interferring in or overruling other players’ actions spontaniously is creating a great scene or if it actually you using your in-game power to just enhance your personal experience.
We welcome all the immersion this larp can give you but if you play a head of house, we ask you to consider your co-players’ experience before stopping play for the members of your house because of “what feels appropriate for your character”.

However, you are fully a player and don’t have any extra off-game coordination responsibility for the family group. You also don’t have the responsibility to sacrifice your own experience for your house members’ play – just don’t block it in an unreasonable manner.

Playing an engaging victim

Another core concept of the larp is practising the skill of “Playing an engaging victim”. We will lift each others’ play – especially when we are playing oppression play, and you can read more about the concept here:

Pacing

Spoils of War is what we call a “Frontloaded” larp designed after the “River Rafting Design” principles of Katrine Wind.
This means that there are a lot of complicated relations in the character backgrounds and the setting is designed so that we we begin the larp in the end of a great war. This means that there is lots of recent and more ancient history to play on from the get-go.

There are a few mechanics that supports the experience. These are most prominently Dinner Warfare, some safety mechanics and flashback scenes. Another mechanic will be that carrying weapons is a sign of martial power in the way that when the losing side surrender, they will deliver their weapons to the winning side and are not allowed to carry weapons around – they might be granted them back for different reasons.

We believe that when you act, you experience. So instead of waiting until you learned how you want to play your character, get to know your relations and use the mechanics, we will frontload the pacing and start “in medias res”. This means that there are some dramatic scenes and planned events in the beginning of the larp so you get going right from the beginning. This frontloading is meant to create high intensity early in Spoils of War as well as provide more opportunities for emotional impact right from the get-go. Later, most of the time will be free play making it both more sandbox’y and unpredictable in outcomes, but there are some collective activities that all characters will participate in.

If you are familiar with larps based in Nordic larp design, the choices of this larp are made to enable more of a narrative style of play than an immersionist one. There is plenty of room for immersion – in fact, some will aim for it – but we want to collaboratively tell the most interesting stories possible more than only experiencing how it is to live in the skin of our own character.

Read more about these design principles in this article:

What will you spend your time on during the larp?

Look at the schedule to see what happens specifically from our side regarding common events. Everything is just an alibi for you to experience what Spoils of War has to offer and we add different design elements to help with that:

– Personal relations: There are a lot of them and they are complicated. You will spend time on many of these as well as new ones during Spoils of War.

– Prisoner inspection: Some characters are prisoners of war, and on the first night there is a prisoner inspection where both sides can see their lost loved ones. You can also be responsible for a prisoner in the beginning of the larp if you would like.

– Trials and negotaitions: Indivial war crimes will be assessed by nobles and religious figures in trials and each house has a negotiator for the structured negotiations where the houses will settle what the cost of war and war crimes should be – and where the future of everyone is settled. If you choose to be an active part of the trials and negotiations, we don’t expect you to be good negotiators or lawyers. These scenes are alibies for playing on the themes of the larp, your character and relations. So we expect you to think of what would be a cool scene instead of the result. If you sit on a trial, we expect you to talk to the accuser and defendant in an off-game break to make sure you know what would personally be things you could pressure their character with. You will get a lot of guidance of how we envision this in the participant material as well as at the workshops.

– The coronation of Princess Moon: Even though the characters don’t exactly know the outcome of the war, the players do. Everyone will participate in the coronation if they want to or not.

– Dinner Warfare: Day two of the larp will include a long meal with the winning and losing side together designed around “Dinner Warfare”. You can read more about that concept here:

What is the larp and what is it not?

This experience is for you if you want:

Personal drama and complex, deep relations
A deep and epic bespoke setting
Themes range in a spectrum from family, romance, loss, broken expectations, abuse of power, oppression, abuser/victim dynamics to vengeance and a pinch of mysticism
A Nordic style, feminist larp played out in a unique setting evolving around the aftermath of a brutal war where women and men have fought, loved and died
A story with a set stage where you can focus completely on the conflicts in the game instead of the result of the war
A larp that raises the question of what a real victory is while facing the horrors of war. If your enemies are rivalling houses, many of whom are your friends and family, wherein lies the true victory? Does anyone even win?
Appropriate workshops (regarding larp mechanics and safety techniques) to properly introduce you to the world, your groups and the setting itself
A “front-loaded” larp with long characters (10-14 pages) with complex, predetermined relations and planned events for the first part of the larp and then less and less organiser determined content the longer you get into the larp

This larp is not for you if you seek to:

“Win the game” through power or strength
Pre-calibrate outcomes of trials, negotiations or scenes
Fight in epic battles
Keep all your secrets close to your chest
Play a high fantasy game with obvious magic and magical creatures
Wander around in a historically accurate representation

Factors this larp will not include:

Unexpected outside threats in the narrative used to push a plot forward
Many player rules and numerical stats
A plot where you are to prevent an impending disaster; e.g. the end of the world

Inspiration

Inspired by Game of Thrones, The Tudors, European history and a dash of Shakespeare. Spoils of War is an intense larp where you can fully immerse yourself into the world of the fictional setting ‘The Starlands’ as people inhabiting the war-ravaged lands.

What we expect from you

To particiapate in Spoils of War, we expect that you will read the website and adhere to our guidelines regarding safety and collaboration. When you get your character, you are welcome to reach out to the players of your relations but you are not required to. We would love if you are excited about the larp but remember that we prepare in different ways. Please ask your co-players how they want to prepare for the larp before expecting them to engage in lenghty conversations with you.

We invite you to lean into the playstyle we are designing for to ensure everybody gets the best possible experience. You should bring your own costume, bedlinen, towels and transportation is not included.

We ask you to pay the installments on time to help us not spend our time on chasing down payments and reach out to us proactively and quickly if you should need extra time to pay or have to cancel.

This larp has a strict time management policy which means that we will start on time regarding the off-game schedule and not wait for anyone so please plan to be there at the times stated. If something comes up, don’t worry. We will catch you up. But do your best to adhere to the times. You can only participate in Spoils of War if you are also there for the workshops.

Gender and background

We highly encourage all genders and backgrounds to join this larp.

Please note that there are only binary roles (men and women) ingame, but all genders are welcome to play all characters. In the casting form you will be asked whether you want to play a male or a female character, but this has nothing to do with your offgame gender.

No offgame discrimination!

Sexism, racism, body shaming, non-consensual sexual behaviour and bullying based on off-game traits are strictly forbidden at this larp. Please note, however, that some characters will display an inherent racism towards the other culture in the game; “The Woodlanders”. Some characters will also play Woodlanders, but you will only get cast into this kind of character if you specifically state in the casting form that this is a concept you want to include as part of your game. Off-game, this is a queer friendly space and the organization aims for a progressive and inclusive environment.

Cultural differences

Please note that this will be an international larp, and we probably all have different larp cultures. Be observant and empathetic. If you can sense that another participant is either insecure or reacts in a way you’re not used to, rather go off-game and talk with each other to ensure that you’re all having fun.

Safety - The House of Bravery

Safety is of utmost importance to the organisational team both because we want everybody to feel good but a feeling of safety is also necessary because of what we want to enable you to do: Be brave in your interactions with your co-players and get the most out of the Spoils of War and share a powerful experience!

The philosophy of Narrators Inc. is that self-care comes first. We expect you to take responsibility for your own experience and well-being. That means stating your needs, limits and using the safety mechanics if you need it and asking for help if necessary. You can count on everybody else – players and team – doing the same at this larp.

However, to help create a feeling of safety, we will set some hard limits and initiate us building “The House of Bravery” together. This starts with us as organizers both providing a floor of what you can just always do and know that everybody has signed up for as well as a a ceiling of the upper limits of certain interactions – and not just one of the two. You can make sure that your co-players stay within this house meaning that you don’t have to calibrate with anyone beforehand to do things within the boundries of the house.

The floor – what everyone agrees to before signing up
To decide if Spoils of War is a larp you would want to play, please consider that Spoils of War is a larp containing dark themes. It can include triggering elements, the common ones being physical and verbal violence, war crimes, racism, people shouting, forced marriage and death of a family member. There are also less common but absolutely present ones like torture, sexual violence, pregnancy, abortion, mutilation and ritualistic cannibalism. If you want to inquire about if certain topics will be present in any capacity, please reach out by email.

You will NEVER be forced into playing on these themes and can use the safety mechanics to leave the room. We will also do everything we can to avoid your triggers in the casting process. However, you can be sure that everyone who signed up knew that these themes could appear in Spoils of War, and everybody is okay with the themes being part of the larp even though not everyone wants to play actively on all of them.

So we encourage you to be brave and play on the themes if it fits your larp. You will not be stopped off-game from playing scenes involving these themes no matter who is present as long as you stay within the limits of “The House”, and you don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to do so.

Spoils of War will feature physical interactions, and the floor of what you have to be okay with without any calibration could be e.g. a stranger touching your arm, giving you a hug, holding your hand or kissing you on the cheek. If you are not comfortable with this level of physical interaction, Spoils of War is probably not a larp for you. But it also means that you can play even military characters without having to get into any physical fights.

The ceiling – the hard limits to what you can do at Spoils of War
Players can choose that their characters act in violent or sexual ways, experience dramatic breakdowns or suffer from mortifying humiliations. For sexual play of any kind up to theatrical sex (dry humping without rubbing of genitals) is alright, but no off-game sex is allowed. No nudity of torsos or genital areas is allowed in the in-game spaces for any genders as well as groping of these areas.

The limit for physically violent interactions is to not use unreasonable off-game strengh or cause real injury/more pain than grapping another person’s arm would cause.

Within the limits of House, you are welcome to not calibrate with you co-player in a scene if you are absolutely sure that they are okay with what you are going to do. For example, you can initiate a kiss on the cheek with anyone but you have to make sure your co-player is okay with a kiss on the mouth. If you know already for sure, go for it without calibrating. Another example is that you will never be slapped in the face by someone who doesn’t know if you are okay with it – but you are allowed to slap someone if you absolutely know they would allow it.

Safety workshops

Since we do have different playing cultures as players, there will be workshops of how to use the word “off-game” for one-line calibration on the middle of a scene, escalate slowly, leave situations and calibrating with respect to everyone’s wishes for degree of off-game agreements when we get nearer to the ceiling.

The workshops also include specific exercises of how to play on discrimination, sex and violence. Hopefully, this will make everyone dare to play on the harsh themes of the larp and opt in to situations they want to experience so that we can create something truly dramatic together.

Off-game room and safety team

There is an off-game room available where you can take breaks from the game. You can find painkillers og snacks there at all times.

There will be a designated safety person who is not part of the organisation in general and who doesn’t play a character. They will be there if you want someone to talk to about anything as a player and not regarding your story. Consider them a friendly person who is ready to listen, provide snacks or maybe give a few suggestions if you like – no more or less than that.

The safety person will also host a voluntary debrief after the game. You can speak with the game masters Katrine and Alexander if you have anything larp related you need help with.