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The Mortigeist is BOUND....for now.

In-Game Racism and Cultural Sensitivity

Underworld LARP recognizes that racism is systemic in Canadian society, including in LARP. Racism is more than just obvious and racially motivated acts, such as violence or segregation of ethno-racial groups. It is embedded in the dominant culture and social institutions in a way that is so pervasive that it is often invisible.

Racism affects everyone. It affects the perception of those who knowingly or unknowingly carry around the baggage of racist attitudes or stereotypes, which makes them prejudge individuals and situations. These perceptions lead to behaviours that validate and propagate racism. Racism affects the everyday reality of people of colour.

Underworld LARP also recognizes that women of colour face specific additional barriers, and that while our actions in the LARP community are not going to single handedly take down the entire system, it’s still important we do our part. We realize that, given the nature of our 18+ horror LARP, we’re not designed to address and progress every facet of anti-racism. Our world and stories are gritty, dark, and we touch on a lot of sociologically and ethically challenging topics that sometimes have direct real world counterparts. We often find some players want to take those elements and challenge them, because in the real world they are not acceptable. We have to remind people that this is fiction and that we need terrible things in our fiction so you can feel amazing defeating it. In these cases, our objective is to minimize the impact to our players of colour. When elements of the game cannot move progress forward we must ensure that it, at the very least, does not move progress backwards. In-game racism is tolerable, OOG of game racism is not. Our policies on OOG racism and IG racism are designed to reflect that. 

OOG Racism

  • Zero Tolerance: Underworld LARP Global and each of our Guildhouses will not tolerate OOG racism in any form. Guildmasters are expected to enforce the strictest and most punitive measures on those that discriminate against any race or culture. Underworld LARP players found to be using IG racism to facilitate OOG racism will be immediately removed from the game and risk permanent suspension. 

IG Racism

  • Iconography: While we allow our players’ characters to be racist toward other fantasy races in-game, for example dwarves toward elves, we also understand that there are potentially problematic scenarios and real world racist iconography that could be taken as hateful out-of-game, if used inappriopriately in-game. Guildmasters should be aware of these problematic scenarios and should give players an option to opt-out, or prevent the situation from happening at all, depending on the players involved. Examples of such iconography include but are not limited to whips, nooses, slavery, indentured labour, etc. It is impossible for us to create a comprehensive list as racist iconography changes over time and is dependent on culture and region, but we expect our Guildmasters and their staff to make every effort to actively work on being perceptive and aware of this potential issue and its resolution.
  • Real World Slurs: All Underworld LARP Guildhouses prohibit the use of any real world racial slurs in game. 
  • Real World Culture: We believe strongly that if our game world is going to be inspired by lore from the real world, that lore should not only be from white-centric western myth. We endeavor to include monsters, heroes, and lore from as many cultural sources as possible. In addition, players may be inspired by and incorporate real world culture into their histories and kit in a respectful manner. Guildmaters reserve the right to prohibit a player from incorporating real world culture into their character history and kit, should they feel it inappropriately done. 
  • Removing Racials When Leaving Site: Part of the reason we can use certain colours of makeup to represent IG race is because when combined with other makeup or prosthetic requirements, they do not resemble anything that has historically been problematic in the real world. Removing those additional elements, such as horns or latex ears, but keeping the problematic ones when leaving the site, makes a problem again. Because of this, it’s our policy that players with full makeup that may be mistaken for black, brown or yellow face caricature. must remove their makeup when leaving the game site. Failure to adhere to this policy could lose you access to playing that race, as decided and enforced by your Guildmaster. As a note, Underworld LARP does not include any full black, brown, or yellow face makeup for any of our races.
  • Red Armbands: We use a red armband for certain aspects of our game. Our policy is to ensure the design, which can change during special events, will not be mistaken for Nazi or other real world political imagery. These design specifics will be set in our Guildmaster’s Handbook. In addition, it’s our policy to require players remove their armbands when departing the game site.
  • Representation in Marketing: Underworld LARP requests that each Guildmaster will join us in including more representation in regards to gender and race, both our promotions and advertising.
  • Racial Makeup Changes:  If an Underworld race receives a rulebook change to it’s makeup requirements due to OOG racial sensitivity concerns, all existing and future characters both PC and NPC must make the change immediately. In other words, old characters of that race cannot be “grandfathered” in and keep the old racial requirements.