Hello,
I came across a news-story on YouTube, telling about LARPers in New Zealand. Wow - I would have never expected such a fine LARP-community on the other side of the world.
Creating video-trailers for LARPs has become pretty popular here in Germany (is it the same in New Zealand? I think I saw a thread earlier about a trailer?). Some of them are nice, others are even nicer 
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One of the biggest events every summer is the “ConQuest of Mythodea”, a LARP with more than 4.000 players. You can download their trailer as a zipped WMV-File here:
http://www.mythodea.de/dateien/trailer/COM_TRAILER_2008.zip
or you may watch it here on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7L9fq8H1P8
but personally I dislike YouTube’s quality.
Oh, and don’t worry - there are only little spoken words and the German teaser-lines between the scenes are not that important.
The story (in a nutshell) of ConQuest goes like this:
[i]In ancient times man was unsatisfied with the five elements (Fire/Ignis, Water/Aqua, Air/Aeris, Earth/Terra and Magic/Magica). So man created own elements as counterpart to the five elements, the anti-elements. But all too soon those anti-elements turned against their creators and a battle between elements and anti-elements began. In the end, the anti-elements were banned from the world. But to keep the balance the five elements went to sleep for long years. The continent of Mythodea, where the battle took place, sank into oblivion.
Until seafarer Paolo Armatio discovered Mythodea again. The elements awoke - but so did the Black Ice, enemy of Fire. The five elements called for help and hundreds of adventurers have answered their call. Their task is to reach the big seals the keep the other anti-elements imprisoned before they can be freed by their dark followers.
During the past years the adventurers have failed three times. The Emptiness, enemy of Air, the Plague, enemy of Water and the Undead Flesh, enemy of Earth, have been freed. But the battle for Mythodea continues.[/i]
So basically your character can join one of the five element-parties. Or (as a NPC) you may join one of the anti-elements (especially Black Ice, which is present through massive black-blue robed troups or the Undead Flesh, who’s followers you’ll easily recognize in the video).
The LARP lasts five days and is devided into two parts - one part are the elements’ camps where you can solve quests and fight the anti-elements. The other part is the in-game city (which is neutral territory) where real merchants offer their products and you can sit in a tavern and enjoy the music of live bands.
All in all it’s a huge festival with players from all over the world.
Their English website is pretty nice, too:
http://www.mythodea.de/engl/start.php
