I was watching ‘Monkey’ over the weekend, and thought how cool it would be to have a LARP based in that world. See www.greatsage.net for clips.
This would be a Chinese period combat larp, like Monkey, or Water Margin. It would be a world without Monkey, where Buddha decided to send multiple people to get the scriptures from India rather than just Tripitaka, Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy. Thus all the players would be Buddhist pilgrims of some sort, and would battle with various demons and situations.
Players could be Priests (human, must folow buddhist precepts, but granted great respect and can pray)
or Humans (like priests, but dont have to be so strict, can fight, but cant get such good prayer results)
or Animal Spirits (like humans, but must have residual animal appearance and characteristics).
Would be lighthearted (like Monkey) and a bit combat-heavy. Magic would be restricted to the badguys. Weapons would be staff weapons or swords, no shields, maybe bows as well.
Problems? Well, it would require a fair amount of new costuming. People would have to learn some buddhist stuff, as priests that go around killing arent holy enough to collect scriptures.
Would work well with day events as you’d have each day as an encounter on the road from A to B. Very openended.
Other problems - I have absolutely no time to organise this. But I’d love to play it.