The Biggest Underworld LARP Event of 2019

Hold on to your kilts if you’re Einish, or your ears if you’re Elvish, things are moving fast! We’ve released a couple new pieces of information about this years all-guilds Warcry 2019 event.

About Warcry

We’ve built a massive, amazing and complex world. We’ve been building it for decades. It’s built by our global plot team, our teams of guild shapers and every single one of our players. Every once in a while something so big happens that it takes a massive force of people from all around Maud’Madir to come together. Good or bad, heroic or malicious, self sacrificing of self-serving, we all find our reasons to come together and shape history.

We live in a world of gods, demons and dragons. Massive empires and timeless evils.

Once per year we invite players from all guilds together to experience the biggest LARP spectacle we can create. We can’t wait for you to experience WarCry 2019!

In Game Announcement

So much happens in our world and at our guilds. It’s hard to stay fully current on local and global plot developments without being active online. Some players prefer to only learn things in game, and some prefer to also get information from our global and guild Forums and Discord servers.

The first step of this has been posted to our global forums as an in-game missive written by Lord Seneschal Marius Paynes.

State of the Empire
April 3rd, 2261

Rejoice, citizens of the Empire, for an heir has been born!

After the vicious murder of Prince Marcel Berphaunt at the hands and blades of the now defunct Church of Darkness, the welfare of the Empress and her child were of utmost concern. Accompanied by her First Champion Imrik D’azul Adalite and the Royal Guard, Empress Annadonna was escorted to a secret place of safekeeping. In the year of our Emperor 2260 at 2 bells past midnight on the 25th of August the Empress gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Prince Damarian Berphaunt, the first of his name.

The Citizens of the Empire waited with baited breath for this wonderous news, however, unbeknownst to all, an insidious scheme was hatching. The Empress’s spymaster had discovered a network of assassins and murderers who had infiltrated the capital with a singular cause: The death of the royal children. Moments before the would-be assassins’ arrows rained down, the Empress along with her heir, Princess Amelia, and Princess Bernadette were spirited away to a place of protection until the threat could be removed. There they remained, watched and protected by the Emperor himself, as his loyal forces hunted down and dispatched each assassin, the last of which has been executed on this day. Free from the threat of death, the Empress and her son have stepped back into the light and taken their rightful place upon the throne.

Whilst this transpired, rebel forces lead by the Emperor’s own misguided daughter, Princess Louisa, eldest heir to the throne and recent favoured of the Goddess Raze, dared strike out at the innocent citizens of the Empire. Louisa’s forces raided the outlying towns west of the capital, razing settlements and putting every man, woman, and child to the sword. The Berphauntian military, reinforced by Iron Company, the largest mercenary guild in the Empire, conducted an operation to rid our lands of the rebel scourge.This operation was a great success and the rebel forces have retreated back to the forests like the cowards they are. For those who may sympathize with the rebel propaganda, do not! It is known that the rebels are supported by the Ebon Khan, a tribe of greenskins who have deliberately infected themselves with Ga’more’s brood. As if more proof of the rebels’ villainy is required, reports are now coming in that High Exarch Samaria the Ungraved, accused of the regicide of the Emperor’s eldest son, was seen within the ranks of the enemy. The High Exarch, who had accepted the worship of Ga’more into her Church of Darkness, has fled into the open arms of those that would see you enslaved. It becomes clear that the rebels, if successful in their cause, would tear asunder the delicate alliances we have masterminded with the Sons of Sprawn and the Whiteraven Alliance. Without a united front against the brood forces, all on Maud’Madir would be condemned to death, or worse, enslavement.

With the rebel threat brought to heel, the Empire moves ever forward in preparation to defeat Ga’more and bring peace to these lands once again. Repairs and upgrades to the Imperial juggernaut-class warship “Loyalty” are well underway and set for completion within four months time. Hammers strike anvils, and the forges of the Empire burn day and night producing weapons and armor for our brave fighting men and women. Recruitment is at an all time high and it is clear that the fires of patriotism burn in the very souls of our citizens. The Empire of Berphaunt stands strong and proud with hope and victory on the horizon.

Long live the Empress,
Long live the Emperor,
Long live the Empire!

-Lord Seneschal Marius Paynes

Out of Game Announcement

This is a huge endeavour. It couldn’t happen without the help of legions of passionate volunteers, and they help make our whole world better. We’ve been doing this for a long time and we think that transparency and honest are critical to a successful LARP event. We’ve released a statement about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. The original copy can be found here.

Warcry – August 2nd – August 5th, 2019

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 supercede 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.

Interguild 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