A whole year to plan
attendance for an event. Holy crap. Here I am and I don't even know where to
start! Yes, I know... I have read through the various articles posted by the
Ordo about what to pack and what to bring and what to expect. They are quite good.
I've been to large events
before- most notably the large SCA event Pennsic and the things I have learned
from that helps immensely. To attend a weeklong event, in character, is a threefold
process of thought and preparation.
1) Persona and Role Play
I am coming into the game
with an already established character. I've been playing Thorwald since 2006
thinking that his dumb ass would be killed off and I could start me 'real' LARP
character. Somehow he is still alive and kicking- no help from his own actions.
As time has passed he has
grown and has changed just like a 'real' person would. Over three game systems
and ten years he remains mostly the same embittered Nordic warrior he was at
the very first game he appeared in.
As my theater friends would
say, "What's his motivation?"
Thorwald Hrodgerson is
older, more scarred by life and more travelled than many of his fellow fighters
in the Order. He's been out in the world since he was seventeen- leaving his
village to go raiding with his father before striking out on his own. Finally
after a lifetime of adventures he returned home only to find there was nothing
there for him. His family was all dead or had forgotten him. His family farm
was someone else's now. The girl that he had always pined for long married with
many children.
So off he went again into
the world looking for something to fill his life. After ten years of kicking
around the Southern lands he finds himself recruited into the Ordo Cervi by
another Northman.
There are three things
Thorwald likes; A good drink, a good woman, and a good fight.
His religious beliefs and
code of personal conduct are found in the nine virtues he holds as sacred:
Courage - Truth -
Honor
Fidelity - Discipline - Hospitality
Self Reliance - Industriousness - Perseverance
To maintain candor and fidelity in love and
devotion to the tried friend: though he strike me I will do him no scathe.
Never to make wrong some oath: for great and
grim is the reward for the breaking of plighted troth.
To deal not hardly with the humble and the
lowly.
To remember the respect that is due to great
age.
To suffer no evil to go unremedied and to
fight against the enemies of Faith, Folk and Family: my foes I will fight in
the field, nor will I stay to be burnt in my house.
To succor the friendless but to put no faith
in the pledged word of a stranger people.
If I hear the fool's word of a drunken man I
will strive not: for many a grief and the very death groweth from out such
things.
To give kind heed to dead people: straw dead,
sea dead or sword dead.
To abide by the enactments of lawful authority
and to bear with courage the decrees of the Norns.
2) Combat
I started out in the SCA/LARPing
back in the 1988 world wearing a T-Tunic, wrap pants, moccasins, and a gambeson
made of a moving blanket. Slowly I built up my armor levels much the same way
my D&D character built up his until currently I am 'plated out' with a mix
of fantasy armor roughly depicting an 'English' Man at Arms during the War of
the Roses, circa 1450-1480.
By about 1420, complete
suits of plate armour had been developed. A full suit of plate armor would have
consisted of a helmet, a gorget (or bevor), pauldrons , besagews, rondels, couters, vambraces, gauntlets, a cuirass (back and breastplate) with a fauld, tassets and a culet, a mail skirt, cuisses, poleyns, greaves, and sabatons.
What I have put together
for LARP is not a complete suit of plates as this is overkill for most LARP
game systems. This particular 'impression' is for the game at Biccoline where
armor points are minimum and it is a simple "If's it's covered it
counts" system.
I knew that I wanted to do
a Heavy Infantry impression as that is where my persona is. For Biccoline,
fighting in the shield wall as a spearman, this means as much protection as I
can get on my upper body while allowing movement to respond to the tactical
situation.
The base layer of clothing
worn is the shirt, hosen and shoes. For the game during combat I am wearing
pants and ankle supporting boots and then a linen shirt. Out of combat the
joined hose is worn with turn shoes and shirt under doublet.
The first piece of 'armor'
is the arming doublet. This is a padded garment worn under metal armor. I have
chosen to use Epic Armory's Imperial Gambeson as the starting point.
This is a very nice garment and has a great historic look
to it. It has various arming points all over it. The sleeves are laced on in
the event I want to remove them due to heat. It is machine washable and
although it comes in black I did choose to purchase the tan version. This had
more to do with the issue of heat than aesthetics.
The next step is to reinforce the gambeson to support the
plate armor worn above it. This was done earlier in the 15th century with a
mail shirt and later with patches of mail stitched to the gambeson to fill in
the voids for armor protection.
In Dr. Tobias Capwell's book, "The Armour of the
English Knight; 1400-1450" he discusses the need for this as weapon and
armor advances has reduced the danger to the knight except in those areas
needing articulation, in specific, the interior articulation points of the
inner elbows, behind the knees and under the arms. Here the plate cannot cover
and still provide movement that the knight needs to fight.
In his illustration in the book he shows where these mail
patches would be stitched on a gambeson very similar to the Imperial Gambeson
shown above.
I attached the mail through the solid rings rather than
the riveted rings for strength. The sewing went fast and soon I was at the
elbow point.
For cost and for weight I did choose to use riveted
aluminum chain mail purchased from Kult of Athena. I third reason was that if I
totally screwed this up or I didn't like the outcome I would only be out a few
dollars rather than several hundred. Also because this is LARP and not live
steel, blunted steel or SCA stick fighting the lighter aluminum would serve its
purpose (1 point of armor) as no one would be able to stick a latex bullock
dagger through my armpit being so protected. Sure- it isn't 100% authentic but
then again I could get killed by a fireball...
The aluminum mail did need to be cleaned first and I
washed it in a solution of soap and bleach and dried off with a towel. It's
still shiny but it won't rust and it looks good with the rest of the armor.
The mail skirt is mild steel and the standard, the neck
collar protective armor, is of the same type of aluminum riveted mail as the
voiders.
As I sewed I noticed the voiders went almost down to the
wrist covering the bottom part of the sleeve. The plate arms will cover most of
this lower area and the mail would be redundant.
As you can see the void left in the
elbow will need to be covered in the remaining mail peice to provide
protection. The standard protects the neck and throat and could be reenforced
with a bevor.
All in all I am very pleased with this
project so far. The total costs of the entire build so far have been:
Gambeson Dark
Knight Armory $136.80
Mail Voiders Kult of Athena $73.46
Standard Kult
of Athena $33.95
Pauldrons Dark Knight Armory $108.47
Arms Dark
Knight Armory $141.87
Breast Plate Kult of Athena $216.00
Pack Plate Kult of Athena $85.00
Sallet Helm Dark Knight Armory $159.30
Foulds and tassets Dark Knight Armory $171.87
Gauntlets Dark Knight Armory $201.60
Legs Dark
Knight Armory $152.00
The armor has been aquired over the last
two years, usually as items came up for sale. The total shown above is the
current prices of the items used.
3) Living Day to Day
Coming soon
