Who’s putting on this event?
Armistice Arcane is produced by Peculiar Crossroads Productions.
Peculiar Crossroads is a team of game designers, writers, and storytellers dedicated to creating Live Action Role-Playing experiences with a gothic flair We have been running LARPs as a group for over ten years. What started as a few people writing a one-shot event to celebrate a birthday with some friends has become an opportunity to share and create stories with and for a larger audience of gamers, actors, roleplayers, and lovers of gothic themes. Read more about Peculiar Crossroads here.
The team includes: Dr. Mark Hill, Dr. Kathy Amende, Mr. Scott Brown, Mr. Corey Lowenberg, Ms. Jaimie Spencer, Mr. Robert Paul.
What is the theme of this event?
The Armistice Arcane is a game of intrigue, high politics, gothic horror, and magic. We explore themes that are both light and dark in nature — friendship, alliance, working with our enemies, diplomacy, paranoia, fear, and anger. Many of these characters are outcasts from society, and some of them have lost everything they love. We also look at the nature of good and evil and ask questions about what truly makes a person a monster. This is not a game for children or for those who are easily disturbed by exploration of any of the above. The Armistice Arcane aims to see what happens when we push the limits of “acceptability” set forth by society, and what happens when our actions come back to haunt us.
Is this an event that is inclusive to all people?
It is important to the Peculiar Crossroads Productions team that our games are openly inclusive to all people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender expression, nationality, or other affiliations and identities. Unless a game specifically explores themes of exclusion or oppression, our worlds are written as open to all peoples, and any game with oppressive themes will be clearly labeled and workshopped for the safety and security of our players. We firmly believe in the power of LARPs to tackle social issues, and we have ourselves examined immigration, the treatment of the mentally ill, and other problematic concepts in previous games. However, we also believe that not every LARP needs to tackle every ill, so depending on the themes we wish to explore in any particular game, we may or may not create ahistorical settings in which certain problematic social issues do or do not exist.
Where is the event located?
The event is located at the Le Pavillion hotel in New Orleans. The address is: 833 Poydras St, New Orleans, LA 70112
How does the roleplay work?
We are interested primarily in the act of creating in-game stories, as opposed to creating in-game mechanics. To this end, our world is consent based and mechanics light. While certain games may have some light mechanics, for the most part we rely on our players to work together to create satisfying resolutions to challenges. This creates a rich world wherein players together will be responsible for the ultimate end of the game and are not guided towards any particular resolution. Player agency is important to us, and we will always, to the extent such is possible, ensure that the players have the primary say in what happens to their characters in a game.
Additionally, Armistice Arcane will have a pregame workshop focused on getting into character to help novice role-players ease into the weekend!
What kind of costuming should I wear?
The Armistice Arcane is set in a slightly alternate version of American history. While all of the events of the eighteenth century have occurred as in history, our America has grown more progressive in a much shorter period of time. It would not be completely unusual to see people of color in positions of power, women in public wearing drag, men dancing with men, or even people daring to show a little more décolletage at fancy parties. However, we are aiming to keep the costuming roughly late Victorian in feel and look. Don’t worry about being specifically dressed for 1897, however. Not everyone could afford to be a contemporary fashion plate, some people simply loved older fashions, and those who work within the Cirque, the theater, or the scientific institutes may have slightly more fantastical outfits – so you might see fashions from as early as the 1870s and as late as the early 1910s, and those may be slightly unusual as well. If your look stays roughly in the Belle Epoque era, you should be doing just fine!
For inspiration check out our Pinterest board!
Are you looking for volunteers?
We appreciate your willingness and desire to volunteer for us, but we have it all in hand! Our fully paid staff is good to go and is there to make your time at Armistice Arcane a success. The only thing we want you to have to worry about is having a good time!
What are the rules and mechanics?
In brief, conflict in The Armistice Arcane will be handled through a combination of open mediation and narrative decision making. Primarily, the rules in place will cover safety and consent, whereas any direct conflict will be mediated through the parties involved in that conflict. There will certainly be no system using statistics and random success generators like cards or RPS.
What language is spoken at Armistice Arcane?
We are happy to have characters from anywhere who speak any language. We will even attempt to incorporate that into your character, if you’d like. But the game itself requires at least a basic understanding of English and the ability to speak at least broken English.