Live-Action Role-Players Get Boffed in Amtgard

While they prepare, a knight-in-­training-slash-property-manager named Dughan ambles around the parking lot, plucking a mandolin. Well over six feet, with long, rust-colored hair and a ­sideburn-mustache combo like Lemmy from Motör­head, Dughan might make for an imposing figure if he weren't in fact playing a teeny-tiny guitar, and if he weren't in fact a supremely nice ­individual.

Dughan, a.k.a. Brian Dean of Spring, has been in Amtgard for 11 years. An early interest in medieval history, and medieval warfare specifically, led him when he was 19 to the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval reenactment group that fights with real armor and real weapons. At a gaming convention a few years later, he heard about Amtgard, and when he showed up for his first battle, it was like walking into an extended family.

Like just about everyone out here, Dean finds Amtgard to be first and foremost a great workout — a fun way to just let go and relieve stress by whupping ass in a safe, friendly environment. It also gives him a musical outlet; when he's not swinging his sword, he can be found on the sideline, jamming with a drummer or a dude on a lute.

Lately, Dean's been excited about his upcoming knighthood. He's been a squire (knight-in-training) to Misteslaus Harlstonovich, a.k.a. Stephen Duncan, an Oriental Orthodox priest and fellow musician. It's Duncan's job to forge Dean into the best Amtgarder he can be — make him a leader who will be a credit to this fantasy universe. Squires are knighted in different disciplines, and Dean is shooting to be a Knight of the Serpent, a person who has excelled in Amtgard's more artistic aspects, such as music, wardrobe and acting. Knighting ceremonies typically take place at major gatherings, amid much celebration and libation. The squire drops to one knee within a circle of knights, who pass a cup and say a few words about the man or woman of the hour.

It's a huge honor, and it's something serious Amtgarders don't forget — like Finoghaal, a.k.a. Penelope McFadin of Nassau Bay, who in 1998 became a Knight of the Flame for outstanding service to the kingdom. She got a late start today and doesn't show up until after the battle has begun.

McFadin, a City of Houston employee, is old school. She joined Amtgard in the early '90s, when the Kingdom of the Wetlands had a chapter that met in Hermann Park. The chapter got its name from the place where they met at the park — the obelisk by the reflecting pool. They called themselves the Barony of Granite Spyre. (Ultimately, parking proved to be a problem, so the group moved to Memorial Park.)

An early lover of sci-fi/fantasy books, McFadin got into tabletop role-playing games in high school, and eventually joined the Society for Creative Anachronism. But lumbering around in heavy armor soon got to be too much for her, so she figured she'd take a break. That's when she saw an Amtgard demonstration at a sci-fi convention in Austin and thought she'd give it a shot. She was an instant fan.

Unlike the SCA, she says, Amtgarders "weren't so obsessed with the practice, practice, practice all the time...you would just go out, and you had fun."

McFadin can be found on the battlefield, but she really enjoys specialized battle games, like quests, which tend to involve more strategy than fighting. As McFadin puts it, "it's something other than just beating on people with sticks."

After a few years in Amtgard, McFadin became royalty. Amtgard elections are held every May and December, and McFadin won the queen's throne in December 1999. Kings and Queens hand out awards, make sure everyone's following the rules and, in a more mundane role, act as the heads of the board of directors for the kingdom, or, as the Internal Revenue Service would call it, a 501(c)3. (Each kingdom operates as a nonprofit corporate grantee under Amtgard, Inc., Kingdom of the Burning Lands.)

McFadin learned that campaigning can be brutal. Amtgard is not immune to political mud-slinging, both within and between kingdoms, nor is it immune to the occasional person who takes things way too seriously. And some believe it's grown worse in recent years.

Amtgard historian Michael Lynch says he's on "hiatus" because of political in-fighting. He says the Kingdom of the Wetlands (Houston) liked to add little things here and there that weren't covered in the rulebook, which earned the ire of the Kingdom of the Burning Lands (El Paso), which claims copyright control over ­Amtgard.

"Legalities aside, the Kingdom of the Wetlands wanted to do what it wanted to have fun," Lynch says. "The Kingdom of the Burning Lands wanted everybody to conform to [its] idea of what was right."

This resulted in the Burning Lands declaring the Wetlands a nonentity, which hasn't seemed to have much effect locally.

Lynch says, "The people that founded — and were early leaders — in this kingdom...they're true Texans, in the independent, 'we are what we are and you can't change us' sort of Texas way."

As distasteful as such bickering might be, Lynch still credits Amtgard with making him a better person.

"When I first joined Amtgard, I was about as immature of an 18- or 19-year-old as there is — which is funny, because I was 21 when I joined," he says. "I was afraid to even look a girl in the face, you know; I couldn't deal with conflict. Violence terrified me — I mean, I was a wreck of a human being."

Through his Amtgard persona — a ­Hobbit-like creature named Snicker Furfoot —he found his resolve.

"Michael was this shy little nerdy kid, but Snicker was this powerful, recognized...respected person," he says.

Lynch adheres to what many Amtgarders call "The Dream" — an ideal version of the real world that, theoretically, could be attained in a fictitious world. The Dream is having fun, respecting others, fighting fairly and just generally avoiding the B.S. that the real world can deliver by the truckload.

"There are those who are...not interested so much in the dream as just getting out there and swinging a stick of foam and being 'the best,' whatever that is," Lynch says. "Amtgard is like any other social organization...you can't dip a toe in the Boy Scouts or the Parent-Teacher Association or the Lions Club or Scientology without finding this exact same stuff."
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In 2006, some 30 years after live-action role-playing games started popping up, they got their first real mainstream (sort of) exposure.

That's the year Darkon, a documentary about Amtgard's D.C.-area forebear, was released. It won the South by Southwest Film Festival's Audience Award and earned mostly positive reviews. For many, it was their first glimpse into the world of LARPs, and while some viewers may have left the theater laughing, filmmakers Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer weren't driven by kitsch or mockery.

"We were interested in the notion of role-playing and the Shakespearean notion that, you know, 'Life is but a stage,'" Neel says from the duo's Brooklyn studio. "Another [theme] we were interested in was...raging against modern living and suburban life and office jobs and the increasingly homogenized world in which we live."

Neel believes that, while the film had "immediate hipster appeal," he and Meyer hoped the Converse Cognoscenti might view it in a non-ironic way.

"We treated them like human beings," Neel says of the Darkon players the film featured. "I think a lot of times, it's very easy to boil down their activity into some kind of ridiculous waste of time, or, you know, delusional fantasy world because they don't enjoy their own lives or something like that, which is just a very limited way of looking at it."

Neel puts it this way: "Darkon, to one extent or another, is an attempt to...combat, you know, the ennui that people experience in their day-to-day lives."

Ennui or not, mechanic Kevin McCall appreciates the heck out of the fact that he doesn't have to deal with a single engine when he's out on the battlefield. He can leave that behind when he's Silvertip, King of the Wetlands.

The name refers to his gray hair, a nod to the fact that he's 42 and still able to wipe the battlefield with fighters half his age. Amtgard, he says, reverses the aging process.

McCall's foray into the arts-and-­science aspect of Amtgard has been to make his own medieval beer, Silverbrew, which, at 30 proof, is a potent and quick way to unwind after running around the park. McCall came to Amtgard six years ago via the Society for Creative Anachronism, and he's a proactive king — trying to arrange more battles between the Houston and DFW kingdoms, and just generally promoting his kingdom online and at events.

On the battlefield, sporting wraparound shades and a diamond earring, he delights in the chance to take on the Corpus Monstrom fighters, at least one of whom is running around with a 14-foot foam-headed spear. Another Monstrom is running around with a bad case of sexism.

During one skirmish, a Monstrom comes within striking distance of 23-year-old Limbo, a.k.a. Megan Perrin of La Marque, only to lean in and say, "I don't kill women." Shortly after laughing her ass off, she tells a teammate, who says — loud enough for most on the field to hear — "Being sexist in this is just going to get you killed by a girl."

By now, Germ is back in the fray, darting around like the Tasmanian Devil, busted lip be damned. It's nothing compared to that one battle where he hyperextended his knee and saw it swell to the size of a cantaloupe.

Today's battle is a ditch-fight, a sort of informal scrimmage where the players line up on opposite sides of the field and charge each other at once. For the most part, they collide in a cluster of flailing swords and flying shields. Each skirmish is over in less than a minute. But it's an intense, exhilarating minute, repeated over several hours. Walking back to his line after one such skirmish, over the smack-talk and vows of vengeance, a voice rises above the mix. It's Silvertip, King of the Wetlands.

"You know what's cool about this?" he says to no one in particular. "We all go back to our starting points and do it again."

craig.malisow@houstonpress.com