As Vesmir once said, “It’s about time.”

We know many of you have been waiting for our 2019 Warcry startup and, even though we’re a little late, we’re now confident you will not be dissapointed. We are coming in hot, both in online updates and in event planning. We have a couple key OOG points we want to address and then we’ll begin this madness:

Leadership - This year’s event and story will be written and led by myself, David Ruckus, and one of our new Mournful Guildmasters, Kieran Lawless. Both of us have an incredible amount of experience both in writing fantasy, larping, shaping and event planning. Kieran (and a few others) have been instrumental in most of the new lore that we’ve released on the revamped/new Gods, the Celestial War, and our Dragon wikis (they’re coming I swear). This is also the first real large scale event I’ve personally run since our Warcry Peace Summit in 2015 and I am itching to take the reins of leadership once again. 

Site - This year’s event will be hosted in Southern Ontario, at our Underworld LARP Jericho site. That land is owned by us and will allow us to build and customize as we see fit so that it is both accessible and comfortable for our travelling players. There was much debate between Kieran and myself on if I should post what I’m about to say next, but we’re both of the opinion that if you know a issue has potential to sow dissent you should deal with it before it does. So let me crush a rumour before it starts: I know this option is going to raise concerns that current Jericho players will have an edge over other players from visiting guilds, but I can promise you that we will make every effort to balance the playing field. I have a much bigger interest in seeing Underworld Global grow than I do my own game. I love Jericho, and will continue to see it grow, but our global community is what makes us strong. My principles on balance and fairness supersede even my love for my own local guild. This is one of the primary reasons I am not shaping or heavily involved in Jericho this year. Ted is focusing on the guild while I push our global expansion and Warcry. I give you this promise.

Story Format - Over the last two years we’ve started releasing World Lore updates through our global forum. This has worked well and we’ve only improved the process. This year, to make the story easier to digest, we’re separating our posts into five categories. Every post leading up to Warcry will be classified from the perspective of these pseudo factions. I say perspective because sometimes the truth might be slightly different than what you’re being told. Much like real life, be aware of #fakenews. These categories, and our major players on the chessboard, will be: The Empire of Berphaunt, The Whiteraven Alliance, The Sons of Sprawn, Louisa's Rebellion and general World News. 

This is not to say there won’t be other major players, gods, dragons, or subfactions, but all of them will have their stories included in whichever of the five categories make the most logical sense. Finally, each online story posted will be documented (linked) in a single google doc and posted at the start of every Warcry lore release. This will hopefully allow new players to catch on quickly to what’s happening in the world around them.

Inter-guild Plot Progression - This is the hardest one to pull off and, to be honest, we’ve failed every year we’ve tried. We’re going to attempt again to find a system to disperse small plotlines to willing Guildmasters that will change and influence the events leading up to Warcry. There’s no playbook on how to do this but we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. A discussion will happen very soon with all our Guildmasters to discover the best way to do this. Guildmasters, check our forums shortly. One option we’re going to explore is having each guild (if they want) offer up liaison, outside of our standard shaper team, to ensure things go smoothly with their players and their interactions with our team. I have no issue admitting that inadvertent bias towards people that they already know could be a potential risk. This isn’t something we think happens intentionally, but if we know it can happen accidentally then we should be taking steps to mitigate that risk. Having somebody from your neck of the woods working with our team both in story and fair plot distribution might not be the worst idea. We’ll chat with our Guildmasters on this as well and update you shortly.

Shaper Team - Kieran and I have a couple key people we’re asking to step up and then we’ll open the applications to our global community. In the past we’ve had two separate teams, those writing lore (World Shaping Council) and those running the event, but that has changed. This year if you’re on the team you’re both writing now and expected to attend and shape. If we find ourselves overwhelmed that might change, but we’re going to try to focus on consistency first. This team, together as a whole, will be responsible for authorizing the use of Principle NPCs to be used at your events, as well as for writing the stories you will both fear and cry over at Warcry proper. 

That’s all I’ve got right now. We’re gonna spend the next couple weeks seeking out team members, getting the story out, and prepping our propmasters. There’s only two of us right now (that will change quickly), so please send any questions or concerns to our world shaper email worldshapingcouncil@larp.ca

Now we’re off to focus a little bit on defining the “mortal forms” section of our new dragon wikis. For no reason at all. 

-David & Kieran

IG/OOG Global Posting Timeline:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/17wLC0VhJkPcr-gc03KbkMf_-bLUhXCFA2mof5HiVwQQ/edit?usp=sharing