It’s been a while since I have done one of my ultra-long LARP posts, but I am afraid this won’t be it. I just realized that I hadn’t shared any pictures from Kongemord, a one-day Danish historical medieval LARP I went to this summer. And considering how much I suffered for this costume, it really won’t do not to show the proof.
It was 28 degrees (that’s a LOT for Denmark), and not only did I have to wear a heavy dress, but the friend who had convinced me to join her for this game also made it absolutely clear that wearing a smock underneath was not optional. I am now convinced that the only reason women in medieval times didn’t throw themselves off castle walls more often was that they couldn’t bloody move.
Never again. Don’t get me wrong, the game was really well-made, but having to navigate those benches in the dining hall all day while wearing multiple layers of skirts is a special kind of torture.
Ahem. About the game: as mentioned, it was a historical medieval LARP set in Denmark in the late 1200 and loosely based on the murder of King Erik Klipping in Finderup Barn. The name “Kongemord” literally translates to “King murder”, which makes it slightly funny that this was one of the few LARPs I attended that wasn’t heavily focused on murdering each other.
(We did have the king murdered, but that happened between acts, and it was all very political.)
The game was all about intrigue and political alliances between the country’s powerful families. I played Cecilia Nielsdatter of the Rodsteen family, the oldest daughter of Niels Sunesen and sister to Magnus and Elena. Their father was a right bastard who made enemies left and right, squandering what fortune the family had left, and his only son was a gentle soul who was more interested in becoming a monk and serving god—much to the disapproval of his father—than becoming the new head of the family. This left Cecilia and Elena to be the responsible ones who took care of practical matters, and try to mitigate the damage done by their father, all while trying to protect their dear brother.
So, I did say that this was a game about politics and not murder, but… Cecilia’s main objective was to get married to a man with enough influence to help her get rid of her father in order to protect both her siblings and their family name. And she totally considered murder to be an option.
I haven’t started playing meek characters, even if they appear to be more well-behaved than usual.
I will say this: while the first half of this game was very uneventful for me, the second half got pretty damn crazy. I managed to get engaged to three different men in the span of an hour (none of them being the one I had picked for myself and attempted to make a match with), my dear brother—who had no interest in finding a wife—got married and disowned by our father, and our sister orchestrated a plan that ended up with our father both accused of the murder of our mother and banished for treason, then eventually killed as he tried to murder Elena in front of everyone.
Good times.