Belegarth

This may not be the forum for this. If it ain't, Derian or other moderator, please move it, kind Sir(s).


I'm sick of driving 1+ hrs from home to fight with tiny groups of Dagorhirrim or even tinier groups of SCAdians (in borrowed, ill-fitting armor, no less) and I'm sitting on a stockpile of enough Bel weapons and shields to outfit at least 10 people, if not several more, and foam and cores enough to outfit a good 5 more.

So I want to start a Realm. There's no Belegarth presence up here that I'm aware of, so it's time to break some new ground. I don't want to start a Dag group, not only because I'm Belegrim at heart, but also because I don't want to be yet another sub-unit/2-man unit of Anvard and I don't want to have to get any * thing Notarized.

So. Belegarth Realm. No where near any established Bel Realms. With one "competing" LARP group already incorporated at UConn as a student org. I quote competing because they're a group called "The Realms" that no one outside of CT has ever heard of and that literally takes all touches as full hits (I was told not to hit so hard, like, 20 times at the one practice I attended) and whose weapons bear no resemblance to a real weapon. I feel there will be very little/no overlap in membership; anyone who would enjoy their style of combat will hate ours and vice versa.

I fight. I might be able to convince my girlfriend to spar with me in a public place. Maybe. If I promise her jewelry and massages. I don't really know a lot of folks in the area yet and have no real idea who to approach as being possibly interested.

My current plan is to print up a variety of 8.5x11 posters with a pile of contact options on 'em (some emphasizing combat sport, other emphasizing medieval combat, with various graphics) and slap them just all over the * place. If I get some moderate response (4-8 people), I'll schedule a practice/interest meeting and put up another batch of posters and then hold the practice in an area that gets a * of foot traffic. If I have anyone who wants to do more, I'll set up a weekly/bi-weekly spar session/practice for us and inform the local (relatively speaking) Dag folks to see if any of them are interested in tripping down/over for a session.



Ok. Does any of that sound like a bad idea/where can I do better??

Name ideas forthcoming (lost a pile when my compy crashed earlier...)

Definitely invite the dag group just so you'll have numbers to show off in public. It wouldn't hurt to invite the larpers either, as there's always the chance that some of them will enjoy the harder fighting, but only went there as there was nowhere else to go.

Yale in New Haven has a small Foam Dueling Association (FDA) group which plays with weapons/rules similar to ours. The hit a little lighter, but they are not "touch".
Also, Weslyean (1 h or so from New haven) has a group of Larpers who hit only a little lighter than us.
Both of these are good crews and it may benefit you to develop relationships with these people.

-Anastasia of Chamonix

Yeah, I'm in contact with the guy(s) at Yale. I have yet to make it down there for a practice, though, as they theoretically practice from 2-5 on Saturdays, which is like the only time during the week I have to go shopping and run errands and things and, again, that's an hour's drive with gas at 3.**/Gal. Also, every practice alert email includes something to the effect of "If nobody show up by 2:30, I'm leaving so get there early!" which is NOT confidence inspiring as regards my prospects of fighting with a large group of good fighters. I do intend to get down there though, perhaps as early as this weekend.

Wesleyan is the bigger Quest group that the YFDA guys are affiliated with, right? Yes, I may indeed want to get up with the lot of them, see if they'd be interested in a road trip...

It'd be so *' to eventually throw a big, fat one-day event...

Thanks!

My suggestion. I know you said you didn't really know anyone and all that, but find, somewhere, anywhere. A couple of people to fight with. Then set up a place and time and be there every week, even if you are the only one. Make sure that the contact info on your fliers is soooooper easy to remember. Like swords * mail.com or something like that. Otherwise most folks who are mildly interested after seeing the flier wont remember how to contact you. I would put up fliers around the University if there is one, as well as any gaming shops, even martial arts schools, gymnastics places, skate parks. Anywhere anyone does some sort of physical activity.

Well, that be my 2 coppers.

Good luck dude :3

I would give the poster the little tare of contact bits on the bottom, as many people won't bother contacting you, so if you go by your posters you can at least see if there was some interest by the number of tabs left.

Ya, you really need to just start up some how, send out press releases when you do to every media thing around to. News papers, student papers, mags, TV stations, Radio Stations, you never know, maybe some one will bite.

But ya, you really just need one (2 is better) other person to get this rolling...

Yeah, Cib, that's what I was thinking.

I went by the other, Larp-y group again yesterday evening and several people there seemed interested that I played something different.

I may have a base already.