Becky

Tell us a bit about yourself and what got you into larping

Well I’ll be turning 40 this year so I’m officially old. I have 2 kids who are slowly driving me to insanity and have been married to my awesome orc honey for a good 16 years now. I’m a stay at home mom that probably collects far to many random projects.

Larping sounded like the best vacation ever to me, and still is! I get to go pretend to be someone completely different! What better vacation is there? I also am a story addict. Get me invested into a story and I will obsess and need to see it through to the bitter end. I will happily spend hours taking apart a character’s motivations and thoughts and the theme of a given tale.

SoMi specifically I got ambushed and told I was being kidnapped to go larping. Mike handed me over (thanks hon!) and then the weekend I was free was a SoMi weekend so off I went.

What are your other interests?

Tabletop gaming is certainly up there along with video gaming. Have to admit I am an RPG addict, goes with that story love of mine. I also like to draw and cook, which appease my creative needs.

Tell us a bit about your character(s)!

Well I’ve only had 3 characters.

1. Setsuna Koshino: She was the first character and I played a dark elf because that’s what the people I was friends with were playing. I actually race changed her at one point and wrote in a reason for it to my history after having a baby cause you know, paint and toddlers seemed a bad idea. She was a quiet kind of rebel and probably should have gotten murdered by her matriarch a few dozen times there.

2. Kali Ramses: Human I made so I could hang out with my friend Kelly who wanted to play but not be a dark elf for a host of reasons. She was my “fuck it let’s try it” character who was more of an opportunist. I didn’t get to play her as much as I wish but I always ended up knocking someone out when I did it seemed.

3. Blue: Everyone’s favorite rabbit and actually the first character that I started up without being attached to anyone else’s fun. I actually aimed to be the funny sidekick type character with her. Be useful but always kind of in the background because I figured I wouldn’t be overly involved due to life usually getting in the way of me playing consistently. So far been doing good on that though!

What is your favorite larping memory?

The Spirit Bottle Theft

So I was playing my dark elf Setie long ago. I had race changed her at this point and given folks a fake name. Only a few people actually knew who I was and all of them were not regular enough to really cause a problem for my cover. So plot had this villain named Zai that knew Setie was a dark elf and she was rather paranoid (for obvious reasons) about that. She wanted to get his location and to do that she went to the shady part of town to cut a deal with this criminal hobling (think hobbit) lady. This was far out of the character’s comfort zone cause Setie was mostly a lawful type character, dark elf and all that.

Now, there was a group at the time named Plan B, they were nice enough people but as players they kind of had this attitude of not caring about consequences. Kill the town guard? We’ll just forget-it-well them and we’ll be fine. For those that don’t know what that is a forget-it-well is kind of like a hypnotic suggestion. The giver tells you a phrase of I think 10 words and the victim has to find a way to roll it into their memory. These people were not exactly folks Setie hung around.

So they followed the tracks of Setie and her small party to this shady lady’s bar. I had just finished cutting a deal with the lady to retrieve a locked chest of her possessions from the town constable in exchange for the information I wanted. Not happy about it but what else was I going to do and the lady knew enough to make me swear on it...a big deal for dark elves, even race changed ones.

Literally the next second Plan B burst in and kills everyone, including the hobling I needed to be on good terms with. After some first aids and a lot of arguing the players in Plan B decided to forget-it-well her and tell her she got her chest and hid it. Now Setie is sitting there going “Are you stupid?” (because obviously the lady is gonna be pissed when she doesn’t find her chest and Setie’s gonna be the one in trouble) but I didn’t have the manpower or ability to really counter Plan B so I just sat and waited while they got the lady to hand over the location and then we all went and raided the evidence warehouse with Plan B using forget-it-wells like candy.

We get back to town then and Plan B and I go to their cabin. They start digging through this chest and it is FULL of stuff to sell, components, gold, antiquities, etc and the final thing at the bottom is a fully prepared spirit bottle, just waiting for a soul to be put in to store (and make a lich). Setie is sitting there and immediately zeros in on this and is thinking “Oh shit...I am in so much trouble.”

Just then though there is a ruckus outside and someone is bringing in a Time guy that apparently doesn’t like undead, which you get from a spirit bottle. So one of the guys hiss at us to hide it quickly.

I grab the bottle and toss it under the bed behind me. Plan B focuses entirely on this Time guy that I know nothing about.

Now we had a marshal there for identifying things who also happen to be a rogue marshal. I just subtly nudge him and wiggle my fingers so he can see me reach behind me under the bed and grab the bottle before I tuck it away in a pouch. Then I get up and ask to be let out of the circle and the ward. Plan B does so without a single thought and I go off and quickly hide the bottle in my bed without looking at it. This whole time the last time I looked at the bottle was when everyone saw me grab it and put it behind me under the bed.

I make a show of laying down for a nap because I was exhausted and it was almost reset and I was a caster so most people weren’t going to bother me. Not 2 minutes later in comes some folks from Plan B asking what I did with the bottle. I told them “I have not seen the bottle since I threw it under the bed.” I was literally sitting on it at the time but I wasn’t lying because I had not actually looked at it. They stand there talking about how it’s missing for a few and I tell them I am sorry and ask if they would like me to make restitution for the loss. They literally went “No no, we know you didn’t take it. You’re not smart enough for that.”

I waited until they all left and then during my “nap” went off into the woods and physically buried it, even marking the tree before I took the prop back to plot (cause I didn’t want their prop to get ruined in case they ran a mod there) and turned it over. I got a standing ovation from the plot team for my heist.

Later when the lady came to take off my head I told her exactly what happened, who did it, their names, where they lived, and where she could find her spirit bottle. Never got to find out what happened after that though sadly as the chapter closed down.

When someone meets you at larp, how can they best get to know you/engage with you?

In Character: Just start talking to me. Could be moral musings. Could be asking about something random your character wants to know. Could be checking who’s who. Some of my best conversations IC are just spawned off random comments or questions people asked or I asked them. Everyone wants to talk about their story (even if they are scary loners they want the chance to creep you out) so just showing a general interest about folks can get you going. Some of the best things to start with are just picking a more personal looking costume piece and asking about the history of it like warpaint or scars or what someone is.

Out of Character: Probably at Afters. When I get to site and during clean up I’m usually in work mode to get things done so I have a habit of not paying as much of attention to folks. Also just chatting on discord. I’m far more quiet ooc I have to admit cause I think I’m boring. Always willing to talk about costume projects or cooking though!