The Lord of the Rings larp.

[janestarz]

Friday
When I arrived in Breda around nine pm, I was glad my trip was over. Around Tilburg some strange old man was talking to me, and at Breda, there were a lot of drunks and homeless. One guy started to harass a taxidriver and I was really glad Björn finally arrived to pick me up. We ate some fries at the Bking, and then navigated to Oosterhout, all packed together in his tiny car.

When I got out of the car, the forest smell welcomed me. The first thing I said was “I’m home again.”. *smile* We went inside. There were a lot of people I knew from Formanterra, and I hugged Asterix and many others. Then I sat down to watch the video of Formanterra IV and V, after I had arranged a bed for the Dragon and me. Putting two bunk beds next to eachother did the trick.
At 03.30 am, the video’s were over, I had enough alcohol to send me spinning and Suzalinda said I should go to bed. I agreed, I was really tired. But once I was in bed, I couldn’t sleep. My ears were awake as ever and when I heard a car, saw its headlights on the windows, I got out of bed again and put on my pants.
The loud “UNO!!”-shouting assured me it was who I was waiting for.

Proving he had missed me (many many times), the Dragon and I sat apart from the others. In the semi-dark, I realised three weeks was a very long time, and I sat close to him. At five am we went to bed. I crawled into his arms, and slept like a rose.

Saturday
At seven I was out of bed again. There were already more NPC’s and players arriving and after a terrible shot of cafeine we went towards the place where the Shire was being built. Through the sand, wearing my already not-really-comfy-anymore armyboots, I helped carry tents and boxes with merchandise. Then we built up the tents and the NPC’s were readied. As soon as Signe was ready with her horse Blizzard, she got dressed by the Elanor people. A wide robe, a piece of cloth over the head and face, a headband which was secured to the hood, and another cape with hood, made her outfit complete. The transformation from cool girl to scary Nazgûl was amazing. Jordan once wrote about the Fades “the face of the eyeless is fear” and that is true. When someone has no face or no eyes, they’re pretty darn scary.
I was next. The robe was made of linen (so not too hot) and had a part of ragged torn fabric over it. There were no seams so everthing ripped nicely. The thing on the face was way hot though, and the cloak kept falling back. But I looked very very good.

Migs started to bring the NPC’s where they were supposed to be. It was pretty close to the Shire where we were put. Signe was a Nazgûl that every half hour appeared in the Shire, we had to chase first Arwen, and then the other players towards Rivendell. Three Nazgûl were posted, Ohno, Thomas and me. The strategics proved more difficult. We positioned ourselves out of sight, but chasing the players onto a path which is pretty concealed, and with that, crossing a very large path, into the right direction was very hard. After three groups we finally had the basics down. Because the Nazgûl are very scary, players will run from them, uncaring for the red-white ribbons that shows them the way. And there were some civilians riding horses, one horse got really scared by us and threw off his rider. *blush* Am I really that scary?

Basically, what happened was the following: I hid in a trench a little to the right from where the players would come, and Ohno opposite the path. Thomas were to stand in the middle of this wide path (which they shouldn’t take). As soon as the players saw Thomas, they drew their swords, and stood watching him (and not their surroundings. Surprise surprise, there were three Nazgûl instead of one! *very evil grin*). Ohno and I came out of hiding, and walked in on them.
Some groups chose to face us and fight. Bad idea. Others ran, in some direction or other. With three Nazgûl we made movements as to steer them into the right direction. Sometimes we had to run along the path a little way around them, to steer them around, back into the right direction. Once we were approaching Rivendell, there were Elf Guards, shouting to them “over here!” As soon as the Elf had them, we retreated. Elf scary.

One Aragorn, a female one, was hit so hard that she couldn’t stand (ingame) anymore, and this group really amazed me by their roleplay. Boromir came back for her, and together they reached Rivendell. There was another group who ran all the way down the wrong path, we couldn’t catch them and had to whistle them back. Then we killed Legolas from their group. *grin* “Take your corpse along with you” I heard later that he died twice on the trip.
Most of the groups (there were nine groups and each was a fellowship) were of new players. Most of them didn’t know what we meant by “Fear us” (like…hello! We’re Nazgûl and very scary, so you’d better run!) and some didn’t even understand “Run!” and there was one kid who hit my sword so hard I thought it was close to breaking. I was glad I blocked that blow. I told him that that was WAY too hard, but the rest of the conversation with players was exactly like you’d expect from Nazgûl. “Baggins!” , and “Give us the Ring Halfling!” and “Run!” hissed with scary voices.

After seven of the nine (hehe) groups my feet were so sore I couldn’t walk outgame anymore. As soon as I was Nazgûl I didn’t feel it, but outgame I could hardly walk. Jurn replaced me as Nazgûl, and I walked back to the Shire. I was looking around for my mom and Luc, but they weren’t there. So I told Asterix I’d go and check out Moria (the inn was transformed to the Mines…) but before I got there I ran into my mom and Luc. They gave me an early (very early) birthdaypresent: a digital camera! I put that to good use instantaneously. In the Arena I fought Björn and then I told my mom to take over for me. She’s just as pretty with Tear in her hands, I must admit.
The Dragon and Kurt, dressed up as Gandalf and Saruman, came back from the forest and did a little of their scene for us. The Dragon was really exhausted and he collapsed into the sand for a minute or five, before I introduced him to my mom and her lover.

I believe that mom and Luc were pretty impressed by the Shire, even if the whole idea of late afternoon in Larp is mostly “bash!”. Everyone needs to let go sometimes, there’s always some time for fighting. Asca wanted to fight hand-to-hand, and I managed to fall on the Dragon. Later, Dester punched him in the stomach. It wasn’t really his day. [And the amazing thing is that Dester survived…]
After my mom took lots of pictures of me as a Nazgûl, and the surroundings and all, they went home again, and we were preparing for the Final Battle (of Helms Deep)

We walked to the sandy hill where Formanterra V had its last battle, and we even found it this time. ALL of the NPC’s including Galadriel, were Evil, and all of the players were commanded by Gandalf (goody wimp). Saruman and Wormtongue (Asca) commanded the Evils, and there were four of us Nazgûl. I loved that scene. Us four entered stage left, in line, and counted down…3…2…1…draw! We drew our swords simultaneously, and walked with the blade near our noses, point upwards, hands on chest, towards the enemy.
Soon after we started fighting, I was surrounded by new players. They formed a circle around me and I was getting bored by being hit by all of them. So I tried something that didn’t work before. I extended my left hand (the one with the ring) and hissed “FEAR!” at them, while circling slowly. Only three didn’t understand that spell, the rest ran away, some even yelped. *wide grin*
As soon as I disposed of them, I saw Elrond and Gandalf coming my way. First Gandalf started to talk, then Elrond. Both extended their ringed hands to me. I heard some of the text “By the powers of [name] …the flame of Anor…go back to the shadow.”
I was seriously scared of them. I mean, when a fearless Nazgûl with unlimited hitpoints finds her match, it’s not good. I backed off and they started fighting something else. They scared me! For real!

After the final bash, we all returned to the Shire and then back to the inn. There, I took off my shoes (carefully) to reveal blisters about an inch wide on my heels. Great. I poured some water on it, and I lay on the bed with the Dragon for a while. He was really tired and couldn’t move. Corpse is the word.

Food helped, we were first in line (yay) and ate spareribs and chicken and melon and whatnot. Then, the Dragon started lighting fireworks and did some awesome magic tricks. I danced a bit with Jurn, because all of the chairs were outside around a small fire, the main room was empty, and I swirled in my goth dress, corset and flamejacket. Dancing was fun again, and Jurn was really good.
I guess we went to bed around one am, which is rather early. I slept like a charm.

Sunday
I woke up and the Dragon curled his arm around me, we lay half-sleeping for a good while. Strangling arms around my body, my head on his chest.
Unfortunately daylight savings time went in (or out, I don’t know) so we lost an hour durning the night and Björn had a schedule. So after I got up I had to sort of hurry to be able to catch a ride back to the train. I said a short (way too short to my liking) goodbye to my Dragon, hid two rolls of bread in my jacket, turned my recently-packed bag upside down in search of my cellphone, and travelled to the trainstation.
When I was back in Ede, there was a mini-meeting of Dutchelfwood, and I drew two and received one picture. I drew myself as a Nazgûl, go figure. So inspiring.



That’s all for the report for now. Tomorrow I’ll go to the clothmarket here in Ede and buy fabric for my own Nazgûloutfit. I want one.
My feet are so strangling me, but at least I had a shower already. I hope I’ll be in the kitchen tonight. I can barely walk.