How To Build Your First LARP Character

Mystic Realms

These instructions were created for our main monthly high fantasy realm, “Glory of Guildhall”. If you’re looking for instructions on other realms, please contact us, and we’ll walk you through it.

Synopsis of your character’s place in the Realm of Guildhall

Before making your character, you should understand what applies to all player characters in this realm.

  • Your character was born somewhere in the realm to one of the cultures of the realm
  • At some point in your character’s life, they learned they were arcane and could learn the magical skills of Guildhall
  • Guildhall is a humanitarian organization of heroes, called guildsmen, who fight to maintain the Age of Order, preventing the Age of Chaos, aka the end of the world. 
  • Your character chooses to join Guildhall and spend at least one year in training as an apprentice, learning various skills of fighting, magic, and more. 
  • Through their training, they have chosen one of the 13 guilds to be their own.
  • Upon your first event, your character will come to Evermore (our in-game region of the realm) to work with Guildhall for whatever reason your character has. Whether that be to make silver, hone your skills, or, of course, preserve the Age of Order.

If you would like to read more about the realm of Guildhall, please visit this page of the website that talks about the history and more: https://www.mysticrealms.com/glory-of-guildhall/ 

Now, for making your character, each person approaches it differently. We have it starting with your Backstory or character concept, but many people like starting with their Guild (think class in a TTRPG) or their Culture (think Species/Race in a TTRPG). It is up to you on how you’d best like to approach it, but all three will feed into your character. 

Character Concept / Backstory

We are a highly immersive LARP that really encourages players to explore character depth in a highly detailed world setting. Your Character concept always starts with their name and three important things about them. Their past, personality, and purpose. 

Each of these entries are connected to the source materials of the realm. If you’re brand new and just coming to your first event the important thing to realize is that Evermore has a detailed world and you should not make up a detailed fantasy background from some other fantasy world and try to play that. The Realm of the Five is unique and has a wonderful history. Come meet people and find your character’s place in the world. 

 

Past

It’s important to understand your past because the events of your life will serve as a basis for reacting to situations and events that you will find yourself in as a guildsman. Your family history, your early life, and a little about your apprenticeship all shaped your character.

 

Personality

Think about your mannerisms or the way you will move, speak, and act in character. Next, think about your conversational skills. Are you an extrovert or introvert? What is your demeanor? It’s important for you to understand yourself and how you will fit in with others.

 

Purpose

What does your character want out of life? Adventure? Riches? Fame? As a guildsman, you can have all this and more. 

 

Guild

There are 13 guilds to choose from, each with their own flavor. Think similar to a class from various TTRPGs. Every player character must belong to one of the guilds. Read the Guild section here on the Glory of Guildhall to decide what best fits your character or what guild you want to make a character for.

Each guild has their own strengths and weaknesses, but all guilds are powerful and can hold their own in a battle. Notably, the four magical healing guilds are: Alchemist, Cleric, Druid, and Necromancer.

Culture 

Your culture guides your basic life experiences. How you were raised will often determine your values and ideologies. Your culture guides what you wear and how you act. Sometimes, if you’re from a certain place, you’ll even have an accent. Think similar to a species or race from various TTRPGs.

Here you can find brief summaries of the various cultures of the realm of Guildhall. A culture will have examples of what each culture typically wears. It is not required to wear such garments, but it gives perspective on what your culture usually wears. More in-depth descriptions of the cultures are found in the Guildhall Sourcebook. 

If you play a non-human character, there are requirements to make sure you are properly portraying that culture. I.E. Elven ears & facial tattoos, Orc skin being painted green, etc etc. Please reach out to us if you have questions or are looking for examples of the cultures.

Costuming

As a baseline, we expect all players to be in high fantasy garb, which means things like blue jeans, graphic t-shirts, colorful shoes, and other modern dress should not be used. See the members’ manual for any further rules.

As stated in the culture section, you should also consider your characters’ culture when picking your costume. 

Some resources to help in your costuming:

LARPer costume pair of players example as instructions for how to create your first larp character costume
cleric woman in armor with mace as example of how to make your first larp character
man in leather armor as example of how to make your first larp character
Woman larper as orc as example for how to make your first larp character
viking warrior man in costume as example of how to make your first larp character
candy mouse woman costume as example of how to create your first larp character's costume
viking man with long hair as an example for how to make your first larp character
woman in fancy dress costume as example for how to make your first larp character
woman of color larper showing costume of how to make your first larp character

What weapon should I get?

We are very safety conscious and carefully inspect weapons to ensure they are safe. 

We recommend using our loaner weapons to start, which are made to our standard, rather than making or buying your own and not having them pass inspection. Loaner weapons are free to borrow and must be returned before you leave the event. 

Only specific brands and limited sizes of latex weapons are permitted, and we have specific build requirements for boffer weapons.If you already have a weapon and would like to know if it’s legal at our events, please reach out to us, and we will confirm with you if it is legal to use at Mystic Realms events. We strongly recommend speaking with us before purchasing any weapon for Mystic Realms events.

Your skill sheet

We would recommend not worrying about your skill sheet for your first event. We’ll give you what we call an “optimized character card ”.

This page will give you the best skills of your guild with explanations directly on the page. If you want to customize your sheet, please reach out to us, and we can have a call to walk you through it. 

Conclusion

We hope this brief guide to creating a character was helpful.

If you have questions about character creation, would like to get access to the Guildhall sourcebook for a deeper reading into cultures and the lore of the realm, have questions about the mechanics of the game, or have questions about the event as a whole, please reach out to us anytime.

https://www.mysticrealms.com/contact/ 

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