Stroll through Winnipeg’s Coronation Park on any given Sunday and you might run the risk of being swept up in a medieval battle – with a twist.
Instead of steel swords and shields, these chainmail-clad warriors wield sabres made of pool noodles and pipe insulation. Their bows are loaded with foam arrows.
“We dress up in costumes, and we pretend to be wizards and bards and paladins and warriors,” explained John Manning, who is known as Thistle on the battlefield.
“Then we go play Capture the Flag, but you’re hitting each other with swords, which is so cool.”
This war, waged on the lush battlefield of Norwood Flats, has been hard-fought for over a decade by the members of Northern Fields – a Winnipeg LARP group.
For the uninitiated, LARP stands for “live action role-play.”
At its core, it’s an immersive, interactive storytelling experience that allows players to inhabit characters – dressed in full costume, of course – as they encounter fictional scenarios and challenges.
There’s plenty of medieval combat but without the bloodshed of yore, thanks to heavily padded weaponry.
All the action is typically conceived and orchestrated under the watchful eye of a game master.
Chaotic good: Tracing LARP’s tabletop gaming roots
If it sounds a bit like Dungeons and Dragons come to life, that’s no coincidence.
While this type of immersive play can be traced as far back as the ancient Romans, who would flood the Colosseum to stage mock naval battles, LARPing as we know it today really took hold with help from the wildly popular tabletop game.
“It’s usually pegged to the rise of medievalism in the 1970s in the U.S. and to the creation of Dungeons and Dragons,” explained Lizzie Stark, author of “Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-Playing Games.”
“Then it spread quickly to places all over the world who adapted LARP to suit their own cultures and came up with the multiplicity of play traditions that we see today.”
From knights to Lovecraft: Inside Manitoba’s multi-faceted LARPing world
Manitoba’s hearty LARPing landscape is a clear example of this transformation, with many groups evolving well past D&D’s magical wizards, hit points and many, many dice.
Take, for example, Misthaven - a medieval, dark fantasy LARP that brings make-believe guts and gore to a hobby farm in Paradise Village.
Coltin Day launched Misthaven five years after learning the ropes in more traditional games.
“This is a little bit darker, a little bit more Lovecraftian - like horror-based LARP,” explained Day, referencing the work of H.P. Lovecraft, an American writer of horror, fantasy and science fiction.
Then there’s Etherworld - billed as a high fantasy, 2SLGBTQ+ LARP that brings its escape room-style puzzles, combat, and magic to multiple locations in southern Manitoba.
Each game stretches from Friday to Saturday through rain, sleet, fog, hail, and whatever else Mother Nature throws players way, be they bearded vulture or siren priest.
“We have people who do the cooking for us. We have people who are medics. We had one person show up and the majority of what they were doing was playing music,” explained Etherworld’s Chery Lovell Simons.
“It’s LARP. It’s basically what you make it.”
The business of LARPing
Luke Thiessen first tried his hand at LARPing in 2010 in Steinbach, after seeing the hobby dramatized in the Paul Rudd movie “Role Models.”
“I saw these scenes of all these people getting together and battling with foam weapons and dressed up in costume, and I thought, ‘This is incredible,’” Thiessen recalled.
He started battling his friends with homemade swords, dressed in costumes they scrounged together. Soon they invited more people to join, running events every couple of weeks. Think paintball or Capture the Flag, but with a medieval spin.
Today, it’s a full-fledged business, offering a variety of LARPing experiences, ranging from the post-apocalyptic “Mad Max” variety to experiences catered to the zombie-loving set.
They even host programming at kids’ birthday parties, inviting little warriors to battle for birthday supremacy using Nerf Blasters or foam swords.
“With some LARPs, there’s a huge barrier. You’ve got to read this big rule book and, of course, getting the costuming right. There’s a lot of steps to take, so we try to simplify some of that,” Thiessen said.
‘I don’t have to think about my own worries’
For Etherworld’s Ashley Davis, the appeal goes beyond slaying monsters and casting spells. Dressing up as Desmond, their gruff, 50-something, arcanist character, is a transformative experience in more ways than one.
“In everyday life, it’s a bit weirder if I went out in makeup, beard and whatnot, and I kind of get looks and questioning for that,” they said.
“But with LARP, it’s a fun form of gender expression, for sure. You have that opportunity to explore a little bit of everything. It’s very cathartic in a lot of ways, especially for people who are non-binary or who are trans.”
Even though combat is baked into each LARPing meet up, these groups have become safe spaces for people who find navigating everyday life more challenging than a face-off with an orc.
Lisa Stanely began LARPing in 2018, trying out a number of groups before settling in Etherworld.
Stanley is on the Autism spectrum. In their day-to-day life, they have been told they can come off as aggressive or abrupt, often when they are trying to understand something or someone new.
That’s not the case when they’re LARPing as Edraith, a sneaky alchemist who dropped out of the military and dabbles in earth magic.
“I feel like I can question people’s motives and stuff and the rules and the reasoning behind why things are the way they are without it being socially disruptive.”
Kate Thomas, who is also on the spectrum, started LARPing with Etherworld after moving to Winnipeg with their husband last year.
Dressed up as their snowy owl character Winter, escapism is a big part of the appeal.
“I don’t have to think about my own worries. These little quirks that I have are because of my character and not because there’s something misfiring in my brain.”
Clinical psychologist Elizabeth Fein has done extensive research exploring why folks on the spectrum find the world of live-action role-playing so appealing.
She believes the structure is particularly helpful. There’s typically a rule book that everybody is operating on, a set of assumptions that everyone understands.
“It’s a little bit like offloading or outsourcing some of that social cognitive work. It’s already done, so there’s less of it that you have to do intuitively in the moment and more that’s kind of given to you.”
‘Incredibly bonding’: Magical connections formed on and off the battlefield
No matter the group, LARPers of every ilk spoke about an incredible sense of community forged while slaying an ogre, casting a spell, or chewing the proverbial fat at the tavern post-battle.
“It’s incredibly bonding,” Thiessen said.
“Those emotions, even though we know it is pretend, your body thinks that it’s real. You feel that adrenaline.”
For Day, pulling the strings as game master in the horror-infused Underworld LARP is a return to childhood play without judgment.
“At some point, you went outside and played with your friends for the last time,” he said.
“That’s what I think LARP kind of brings back, is that youthful joy that, as adults, the world kind of beats out of you.”
Thomas, who moved to Winnipeg a year ago knowing almost no one, found connections that extend beyond the game to real-world friendships. Their fellow LARPers even put down their axes and spell books to help Thomas move last summer.
“The entire group was packing and unpacking and helping rearrange the house. Some of them came out to help us paint. It feels like it’s just taking off the burden of loneliness.”
For Manning, LARPing can be a blueprint for life.
He chalks up a lot of his success to lessons learned when he picked up his first pool noodle sword at 15 years old.
“This hobby of mine is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I attribute a lot of my personal growth to it,” he said.
“Create, help out, lead and better yourself—they’re all pillars of what it is to be yourself, to work on yourself and improve, and this game encourages that.”
