Heroes and Heroines Live Action Roleplay (Larp/LRP)

9 Lepria, 8975 Ta

Source: Marius The Magnificent

Report from the Solstice Mission to the Field of Heroes.

To the Glorious People of the Protectorate – Rejoice!

Marius, the most Magnificent, Slayer of Zombies, brings to you his report from the most perilous mission to bring much needed supplies to the people of Dark Water, and to begin to resurrect those heroes who had fallen there five years previously in the war against the Illurian.

The brief was for an advance party to secure a forward base at an old farmhouse from which to scout the Field of the Fallen and to begin to sort the bodies into those for resurrection and to those bodies of the Illurian who would not be revived. To do so the party would cast “Speak with Dead” on the remains, and a worthy few would even be resurrected in time for a grand Solstice Feast.

Following the advance party, a wagon with supplies for the local village of Dark Water would be brought up and secured until they could be distributed to the local wretched scum.

Unfortunately (due to the fact that Lord Artimus is too narrow minded to listen to Marius’ most sensible and wise suggestions on how to improve the quality of teaching at the University and exactly what should happen to the stuffy old masters who so cruelly mark Marius’ test papers so poorly, and also apparently doesn’t appreciate being called Lord Farty Mouth) Marius was assigned to head up the guard detail on the wagon while the advance party went on ahead. Marius was assigned some second-in-command called Kyle as well as a dozen stout peasants to push the wagon while the advance party was made up of:

Angel: Clearly the leader of the party, resplendent in a gold doublet, with shiny mail and pauldrons that just kept going up, almost as high as Marius’ amazing wizards hat. Such excellent good taste clearly shows his natural leadership, incredible charisma, unmatched fighting prowess and unquestioned destiny to take the top job and Make the Protectorate Great Again. Plus he makes great cocktails.

Anduin: A nice enough user of the Good Sphere and certainly a dab hand with smiting evil and healing the party in equal measure, but does have a tendency to talk a lot. Still, when a spirit of wounding comes talking, Anduin is very useful to hide behind.

Twig: A mage of the Brown sphere, and mighty enough (for one of the lesser schools that is, of course if he was an Air Mage he could be really useful) Twig’s mastery of the magics of the Earth gave great Aid to the mission, although rumour has it that his lusty ways could have once led to the destruction of the Protectorate, the horney b*stard.

Ziggy: Peace and Love Man, Peace and Love. And the bl**dy mandolin as well.

Tenth: Another Mage of the lesser schools, a promising pupil of the Blue and Green school who has personally been mentored by Marius himself. Despite this he is still a cheerful and willing mage who isn’t afraid to get stuck in during a battle with many trips, warps and bind spells. As long as he doesn’t get ahead of himself and try to skip ahead on his magics, but takes his learning step by step.

Mugwump: Ewwwwww. A living experiment as to how many diseases someone can have and still live. His one redeeming feature is his excellent fawning skills, but Ewwwwww.

Ragnar: At first I mistook Ragnar for a stone golem, so large is he. But behind his great might lurks a cunning mind and shrewd schemer. Along side his martial skills sits a mastery of the dark powers that few could stand against.

Lurgo: Still suffering, it was very cruel of Lord Artimus to drag poor Lurgy out of his bed and into the cold and damp of wretched Dark Water. Still, just as well he did as he managed to be of some use, especially against necromancers.

Blackadder: I almost didn’t see him standing in the shadows over there. Cunning, Brave, Sneaky. Two out of three of these are true of Blackadder. His ability to suddenly appear behind an enemy with a sudden Backstab or Throat Slit and disappear again at high speed was impressive, as was his stair diving technique.

When Marius and the wagon arrived at the farmhouse which was to be the base of the operation, there were bodies of Malice necromancers strewn though the building, while the party was busy piling the remnants of the Malice’s foul creation, Zombies and Skeletons outside. There were tales of how the party had arrived and met a strange peasant who was acting most peculiar in the woods. When pressed he would not tell the party what he was doing and eventually revealed his true nature as a terrible creature intent of mayhem and destruction. An epic battle ensued and finally the beast was slain whereby the party reached the farmhouse to discover it occupied by the forces of Malice.

The party stormed the building and brutal fighting ensued with fierce Zombie and skeletal warriors, spirits of wounding, and ghouls controlled by some devilishly evil necromancers. There was blood and death all around and in the madness Blackadder was struck down, not by some undead monstrosity, but by the party themselves as he came unexpectedly through a crush of bodies and onto a party members sword. The lesson of the evening was “Party members come first, it’s the pursuer that’s the enemy”. Although he was revived with an elixir, Marius hopes that the guilty perpetrator sleeps very lightly.

Having arrived, Marius assisted in the clean up by finding the most disgusting and putrid of the Zombie corpses and giving it a good kicking just to make sure it was really dead and not just faking it. Just as well, for upon a hefty application of Marius’ pointy boots the pustulant ridden foulness leapt up and ran off shouting “Why is the mighty master kicking poor Mugwump, can’t Mugwump just enjoy catching new diseases without the handsome and amazingly well dressed magnificent gentleman kicking him?”

The party, joined with Marius, Kyle and some others, enjoyed a simple (only 4 courses) evening meal and Marius had the pleasure of greeting old acquaintances and also delighting some who had not previously has the pleasure of meeting Marius himself in person (although of course all had heard of Marius).

Marius had a pleasant time chatting, especially with Andiun who asked Marius to perform a solemn duty of timekeeping 10 minutes while he performed a ritual. This went uneventfully until the conversation came to Marius (as it so often seems to) and his last adventure (see Marius the Magnificent and his report on “The Last Best Hope”). Marius had just mentioned that one of his follwers in that mission was called “Broken” when Andiun gave a cry of sorry and wailed “Broken – I couldn’t save him”. A stunned silence descended for a moment before someone asked “Um..Anduin, doesn’t talking interrupt your ritual?”

Another silence followed by “…Bugger.”

At that moment Marius’ magical timekeeping spell chimed and Marius politely informed Anduin that his 10 minutes was up. Sacred duty done Marius went off to find a drink while Anduin muttered something that sounded like “…I hate Marius so much right now.”

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, and dawn came too soon and with-it new dangers. Marius helped the party prepare with some mighty magics to protect them while they stood in a muddy field talking to the dead and digging out the remnants of heroes for resurrection, before Marius had to go off and guard the wagon with Kyle.

We didn’t expect much danger to the supplies for Dark water, but luckily we were there for Marius was only half way through telling Kyle about his Magnificent adventures involving an evil magic ring that needed to be taken to a volcano to be destroyed to save the entire world (detailed in the epic tale “Lord Marius of the Rings”), when we were assaulted by a pair of demonic creatures who wanted to steal a bag of nuts from the wagon.

A brace of Lightning Strikes later, Kyle and Marius enjoyed a lunch of roasted squirrel and then the rest of the afternoon passed peacefully. (Well, Marius enjoyed his lunch, pool Kyle was so overcome with excitement at meeting his hero, Marius, that he spent his day banging his head against a nearby tree. I guess when you meet a legend like Marius it can be overwhelming).

In the evening we returned from our successful mission to find a muddy, bloodied, and scarred party babbling on about a foiled Malice plot to use the Protectorate’s fallen heroes against them, getting sucked into a pocket dimension before freeing a powerful Illurian who was trapped there by overcoming regret through facing some internal personal conflict (something about their regrets, Marius does not know the meaning of this word), and then slaying a trio of brave, clever, and devilishly handsome Illurians in a suitably epic and grand climactic battle, alongside resurrecting every slain hero (and some not-so heroic people) in the surrounding area before settling down for a good Solstice Feast.

Before the party could enjoy their fare however they were treated to a vision of the arrival of a Hepathic being called the Eater of Worlds, and how this foul creature would destroy the Protectorate. They retrieved a map detailing where a series of Hepathic locations are in this world and how at a particular moment in time they would line up and create the destruction of everything Marius holds dear (Jam rolls and his collection of stories about Marius) as well as the rest of the protectorate, good and evil.

Having been treated to such a cheerful foreshadowing of plot, the party tucked in to a most welcome and delicious Solstice Feast to celebrate the season and the return of our fallen heroes before the long walk home.

P.S. – An Epic weekend, thanks massively to Seb to worked very hard during the event to keep things going and provided us monsters with a never ending range of costume changes and parts to play. Also awesome feast at the end, I don’t think I’ll need to eat until the New Year now.