The Black Hart of Camelot

The Omen
Ere Arthur made he Guinevere his bryde,
In Camelot whereat he spake his trothe,
And was in sacred bands of wedlocke tyde,
To Queene and Kingdome married fullie bothe;
A Stag of Whyte amazd the gatherd hoste.
Now shadows mirk the age of chyvalrie,
Tis seen a Hart of Blacknesse dark and lothe,
An omen needing none to augurie;
Enchaunter Merlin hight a preace of mysterie

It is a kingdom that never was, and always will be. The tale of the rise and fall of Camelot has been told and re-told over the centuries and has often strayed far from the truth. Now shall we uncover the true history of Camelot, and of all the lords and ladies that had a hand in its shaping, and eventual undoing.

Arthur is King of Britain, with four vassal kingdoms under him. To the southwest lies Cornwall, whose influence is growing. West is Cameliard, birthplace of Guinevere. In the north is unruly Lothian. East is noble Listenoise, home of the Fisher King. These four royal families vie for land and favour within King Arthur’s court and their sons serve as Knights of the Round Table. Over the western sea lies the Kingdom of Ireland, fiercely independent of Britain.

The new ideal of romantic chivalry is tested against the old rule of might, and Christianity clashes with the old pagan ways. Blood feuds are fought and unseen powers vie for the land’s soul. When a black hart enters Camelot, Merlin arranges a gathering of those who will decide the fate of the land after this omen. Now a crucial lost chapter in the history of King Arthur’s Britain will unfold.

The Black Hart of Camelot will run in Woodhaugh Gardens on March 5th a Saturday, starting at 1pm and expecting to run for 3-4 hours. Afterwards, there will be a post-larp party at the Chambers St flat.
There are 24 characters to choose from. Any medieval costuming is suitable - further details on costuming and characters closer to the game. Help with costume and props is available from NZLarps who will be couriering some stuff down to us, including larp-safe swords (yay!)

This has been postponed to Sat 12 (same time, same place) due to weather and last minute drop outs :frowning:

This ran yesterday, very successfully despite only having 9 players!

That’s pretty amazing - which 9 characters did you use?

I originally thought about writing this as a mini-larp for 7 characters.

Let’s see if I can remember off the top of my head

Arthur
Guinevere
Morgan
Mordred
Gawaine (me)
Launcelot
Mark of Cornwall
Elaine
Merlin
(one other guy whose IC name I can’t remember)

I arrived late (stupid real life :stuck_out_tongue: ) and the politics were already in full swing (I won’t spoil too much here as I don’t know how much of it was game-background and how much was made up by the players :slight_smile: ) so I inserted myself as best I could, made alliances and promises, and challenged Launcelot to a trial by combat for his crimes against Chivalry, which I duly lost (awwwwww. Seems sleeping around with the King’s wife is ok in the eyes of God. Who knew? :wink: )

I was actually coming just to observe and have a look at the gear NZLarps sent down - cheers very much for that you guys - but was pulled into it by Daphne. In her defence I did say that I was going to play, but I assumed that b/c I was so late it was too late to join in. I do have some questions about the swords (will put 'em in the Gear forum) but I thoroughly enjoyed the game even if Launcelot got away with it :smiling_imp:

Viperion

Thanks, that sounds like a group with lots of reasons to interact, especially around the fundamentals of who gets to run Britain and how, and the royal love triangle.

I wonder how Mark got on without Tristan, Isolde, Leodegrance, Nimue, or any daughters to conflict with? He’s the only one that seems a bit orphaned in terms of his goals. Did he get the relic?

As for Lancelot - he’s not unbeatable like he was in his innocent youth, but he’s still bloody tough.

Did anyone take photos?

Leodegrance was the other character :slight_smile: Mark did have a relic of some sort but before it could have any impact he decided to rebel against Arthur and some nobles joined him before Gawaine fought Launcelot which ended up uniting all the nobles against Mark who would not budge and seceded from Britain altogether by the end :open_mouth:

Viperion

Cool, sounds like Daphne did a great job on character selection and filling in the gaps. There’s a noble from each house (you were representing Lothian for your mother, Elaine covered the other one for her father), heaps of the big conflicts were still in play with the clues in there, and with a couple of substitutions (I can think of an extra use for the relic, for example) there wouldn’t be too many important bits missing. I’m tempted to revise the published game with advice on how to run the game smaller like this.

Sounds like Mark made his own fun, plus he had Leodegrance for conflict. Very nice to hear of a run where Mark rebelled against Arthur, he was written as the kind of guy who might do that but he hasn’t in the last two runs. I’m still waiting for a run where Arthur gets his teeth handed to him. Great stuff. :slight_smile:

In this run, possibly because of the lack of Nimue or Argante, Arthur didn’t get preserved to come back and save us. It was a pretty fun game, and I had to find ways to get some of the props and plots in without certain characters being around. There was some fighting too, so that was good :slight_smile: