This is a behind-the-scenes question I always love asking fellow larpers, so: if it doesn't give secrets and spoilers away, who were your mythical, pop cultural, and trope-y starting points when you built your Empire characters? Somewhere I have a stickynote on my computer which I add to occasionally. It has people and quotes which were or later became inspiration points for my character.
I thought this was a really interesting post, but actually I couldn't add anything of worth to it. So I thought I would write a little on how Lunetta came to be, and if people seem interested, I might write a little bit about some of the other characters I have, and what brought them about.
How I became a LARPer
The reason I couldn't add anything of worth, in my mind, to that question...was that Lunetta was not created in that way - none of my characters have been, so far as I can think. But Lunetta was unusual even for me.
I have been a roleplayer, in many forms, since I was 11 years old. I cut my teeth on forum roleplaying (acting as Admin on a few sites as a young teenager), a tabletop gamer (Dungeons and Dragons 3.5ed, anyone?) and a Live-Gamer (slightly different to a LARPer, some would call this "Parlour LARP", using the Vampire: the Requiem setting). As an almost-18 year-old I had joined the local University's Games Society while at college and met some truly wonderful people...and it was one of these people who convinced me to try Empire.
I was dating one of the members of the Games Society in early 2012, and while chatting to him on my way to University (a different University!) elsewhere in the country (I come from Norwich but go to University in Plymouth), the following exchange took place:
Him: So...what do you think of LARPing?
Me: LARPing? Well...it's just cross-country with swords.
I had only ever seen the University of East Anglia's (UEA's) Games Society LARPs, which did, to be honest, just look like running around the University grounds, hitting each other with swords. Those of you who know me, will know that I am not the fittest person in the world, and that I have something of an aversion to running (flat feet that weren't diagnosed for years and caused great pain tend to do that to you...) so I had always avoided such things like the Plague.
He had already been to Empire event 1 (E1) (where he didn't get the flu, but brought it home so I could have it instead!) and had done nothing but rave about it. He eventually convinced me to half-heartedly say "yes" to attending E3 with him, and to put my money where my mouth was, I booked my ticket then and there (much to his shock and surprise!).
This then left me with an issue. I needed a character.
Building Catalina di Sarvos
I looked through the nation briefs and found two nations I really liked the look of. I contacted my boyfriend.
Me: I really like the look of the Brass Coast or Highguard.
Him: Oh...
Me: Or do you want me to join you?
Him: Well...it would be nice to roleplay alongside you...
There were a few issues. The League (the nation he played) seemed like too much of a PvP based nation (very focussed on profit and competition) and I find PvP very difficult. I enjoy playing part of a team; part of a cohesive group all working together to make things better for everyone, not just certain people. Secondly...the League costumes? Expensive. I was a student struggling to make ends meet as it was, and so had concerns about taking part in what looked to be a high-cost hobby as it was, without the expense of a fine costume as well. The Brass Coast were one of my original ideas because I knew in Norwich there were lots of Indian/Eastern inspired shops that I could buy costume pieces from at relatively little expense. Still, he and I figured we could get a costume organised together and that it wouldn't be as expensive as I was fearing. He also reminded me of the benefit of coming in with him and a joint friend of ours as a "safety net" and support group for me if things got too tough, and that I would be walking into a group straightaway, rather than coming on as a player "looking for group". So I agreed.
So...I was going to be a part of a nation that I hadn't actually found massively enthralling. Now I had to come up with a concept. My boyfriend and our friend were playing mercenaries, so I put forward the idea of a healer/physick. The hope was to have mainly magical healing capabilities, with the aim to expanding into mundane healing as well. So Catalina di Sarvos was born.
And then this happened:
Him: You don't intend to go onto the battlefield, do you?
Me: I don't know how to fight, so no.
Him: I wouldn't play a healer then. Most healing gets done on the field.
Me: But it makes so much sense for my character! I could wait at the Portal for you to get back?
Him: But magical healing would be of little use by that point. Most healing happens on the field.
Me: *sigh*
So Catalina was killed off the PD system before I had played her at all.
And I was back to square one.
Building Lunetta
I re-read the brief, feeling quite low about the fact that my first character concept had been grounded before I had even had the chance to trial it. And then I spotted the Virtues.
Loyalty.
It was like an epiphany! The bones of a backstory wrote themselves.
Priestess of Loyalty wants to see the world. Two mercenaries come by her home city, she notes their incredible loyalty to each other and begs them to take her along with them. Simple.
That was literally what I walked on to the field with. Nothing more, nothing less. No myths, no pop culture, no tropes I was actively looking at bringing in (though I suppose there is a "Gilded Cage" trope in there somewhere (ironic given her new Carta...)/"Girl in the Tower" edge) just a pure need to explain what on Earth I was doing with these two mercenaries as a non-combatant!
When Lunetta entered the field, she had all the Priest skills minus excommunicate. Her costume was made by another friend of ours (who was just wonderful with me!)
By E5, Lunetta's costume looked like this:
By E6...it had changed. To this:
Has there been character development? Hell yes. Has it been challenging? So much so I have felt like giving this character up previously. Have I enjoyed it? No end. It has been wonderful to expand Lunetta's backstory in-game (something I have never done before) and to go from the very small, four line long summary up there to a character who has a named Chapel, named NPC aides and a proper, true impact on her story and the story of the characters she has interacted with. It's been wonderful, and something I have been so glad to be doing with this character in particular. One day Catalina will come out (probably not as League, but in a variant incarnation) and I will get to try my magical/mundane healer, but...I'm not praying that day will come too soon. Shine on, Lunetta, my impromptu (slightly unwise) priestess. Shine on!
[Special thanks to Mim for the original Facebook post, which lead me on this particular tangent. :) ]
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