JoyCon III!

A Weekend of Larps
May 2-4, 2025

Cost for playing in any one or all larps is $20. The fee (and any donations, gratefully accepted) will be used to pay for various expenses.

REGISTRATION WILL OPEN IN JANUARY.  At that time, the link to the registration form will be sent to the JoyCon Groups.io list, as well as the Fête Fatale Groups.io list. Email Murder1 at fetefatale dot com for questions.

We are considering additional games depending on interest and turnout. Watch this space!

How Registration and Game Assignment Will Work

At the first JoyCon, we largely lucked into a great way to handle registration for a small event like this.

Ten days after registration opened, we had many more registrants than we had game slots to fill. Rather than letting the people who happened to register first get into all the games they wanted--and leaving later registrants with none--we distributed assignments so that 1) everyone got their first and/or second game, 2) everyone got into roughly the same number of games, while 3) not assigning people to games they had already played.

This may seem like a lot of work, just so we could feel like we were "being fair." But the REAL benefit of this approach became apparent the final few days before JoyCon, as we were notified by players who had to drop a game or even the entire weekend: we already KNEW who wanted to play the games we now had open spots for. We could simply contact those attendees and see if they were available/still wanted to play. Therefore, we're going to do much the same thing again, with registrants selecting games in order of preference. Hopefully we can use this to better refine our game assignment distribution? We're trying our best over here.

The Games:

Friday night, 8p to midnight (23 players)

Evermore

By Marc Blumberg and Chad Brinkley

In the cracks of the world, through which the forgotten dreams and forsaken places fall, the lunatics and outcasts have founded the last magical kingdom in the world - Evermore. It was once a place of limitless potential, but now the magic seeps away and the monsters prey openly on the unwary. Despite this decay, her majesty - the Queen of Rags - insists on holding the traditional Beltane festival. And so it is that the denizens of Evermore gather for a night of intrigue, romance, and murder in the realm’s 13th hour. A LARP inspired by the works of Neil Gaiman.

Saturday afternoon, 1-4p (21 players)

Brest or Bust

By Graham Arnold, Clare Gardner, and Sue Lee

It is 1912 and the race for the skies is well and truly on. Competitors for the Charles Royce Memorial Cup are invited to register their plane at reception at Royal Aero Club HQ at Muswell Manor near Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey, on the 1st May 1912. Please pay particular attention to the rules for the race or face disqualification!

It’s Brest or Bust ladies and gentlemen, and may the best flyer win! This is Wacky Races meets Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines with added women.

NB: No dogs were harmed in the writing of this game.

Recently the public’s imagination has been captured by the fearless aces who reach for the stars. Lord Southcliffe, Alfred Delicious, decided that his newspaper The Daily Mail should sponsor an air race. Preparations were well under way with a £10,000 prize fund and a date in the calendar for the race when disaster struck.

During the Bournemouth air exhibition a few months ago there was a terrible crash and Charles Rolls, pioneer of engine development, daring pilot and co-founder of the Roll Royce company became the first British man to die in an aeroplane crash. The tail of his aeroplane detached whilst he was doing aerobatics. The race was postponed and by popular demand has been renamed the Charles Rolls Memorial Cup. The cup uses components from his downed flyer arranged tastefully on a wooden plinth. The rescheduled race has attracted flyers from around the globe, and the destination is Brest in Brittany.

Characters will be pilots/co-pilots/would be pilots/and various other attendees. We anticipate many shenanigans and much hilarity, together with drama and skullduggery. There will be some mechanics but they will be mercifully short.

Air Race Information

This air race is co-sponsored by the Daily Mail and the Royal Aero Club. All teams have been registered by the team captain, in person, at a reception which was held at the Royal Aero Club HQ at Muswell Manor near Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey, on the 1st May 1912.

The grand prize is £10,000 from the Daily Mail’s proprietor Lord Southcliffe and membership of the Royal Aero Club will be awarded for both the pilot and any co-pilot of the winning aircraft. The Charles Rolls memorial cup will be awarded to the chief pilot.

There are three rounds: The Qualifier race which has already happened was on the 10th May, note that crews may be changed between the rounds of the race. All flyers must report to Bournemouth airfield for briefing on the 1st June for the second round, the Pilon race which will take place on the 2nd June. The final stage Bournemouth to Brest will commence on the 3rd June!

Saturday evening, 7p to midnight (29 players)

The Shadow Soiree

By Alison Joy Schafer and Gale Pollard

How high would you reach in the name of power, in the name of love, in the name of the world? …and how far would you be willing to fall in the name of those same pursuits? Don’t underestimate the things that you will do. The Shadow Soiree is a secrets and powers larp set in a late middle ages/renaissance fantasy world with inspirations taken from the *Witcher* among others.

The haunting melodies of a dark violin fill the grand hall, punctuated by the eerie crackle of magical portals. Against the backdrop of plush velvet curtains, a masked stranger strides forward and extends a hand to you, an air of fatal mystery about them. Is it a potential ally, your deepest enemy, your forbidden lover, or perhaps all three intertwining in a deadly dance? The anticipation sends chills down your spine as you reach out to grasp their hand.

There’s a land of dark magic and twisted secrets, where raw power is the ultimate currency and alliances are constantly shifting. Ruled by divided monarchs and plagued with fragile treaties, the true fate of the political landscape is not decided in meeting rooms, but instead at the secret Shadow Soiree — a clandestine gathering held under the cover of midnight. Here, twisted negotiations and threats occur under the guise of revelry. Behind elegant masks and flowing gowns, enemies and allies alike scheme over drinks with hidden agendas lurking behind their smiles.

Monarchs seek a connection to powerful court sorcerers to bend to their will and cement their rule, while cunning sorcerers grasp at the opportunity to manipulate the world to fulfill their own dark desires, the monarchy a mere stepping stone to greater ends. A council of sorcerers struggle to keep their chokehold on sorcery, the only thing keeping the world in balance. Apostate mages delve into the darkest and most forbidden magical sources and potentials. And other souls, consumed by grief and desperation, scour every corner of the world - and beyond - for a way to resurrect what they have lost.

How high would you reach in the name of power, in the name of love, in the name of the world?

…and how far would you be willing to fall in the name of those same pursuits?

Don’t underestimate the things that you will do.

The Shadow Soiree is a secrets and powers larp set in a late middle ages/renaissance fantasy world with inspirations taken from the Witcher among others.

 

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