To strains of The Lord of the Rings soundtrack, two mighty troops armed to the teeth clashed in a battle for the ages in a backyard here on campus.
On Saturday, Sept. 13, the House of the Living Arts, known to students as Art Haus, hosted a Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) event. There, people could gather to create homemade armor and duke it out with cardboard weapons, or simply enjoy the spectacle.
At 1 p.m., small groups of people began showing up in the yard made battlefield. Using the available heaps of cardboard and rolls upon rolls of duct tape, they set to work constructing what armor and weapons they could, being serenaded all the while with a Pandora playlist of “epic music.” Within the next two hours, a group of finely equipped warriors was made.
The group was divided into two teams that played out a round of Capture the Flag, with rules to incorporate cardboard weapon combat into the game.
“Team one, the attackers, will begin in the yard behind The Lyon’s Den, down yonder valley. Team two will begin in this here castle, Art Haus. Assemble!”
And so the field was drawn out, the teams rallied, and the battle soon began. Team one defended The Lyon’s Den and a flag borrowed from ECCO House, and team two, as mentioned, defended the Art Haus flag at its respective house.
In the three rounds that followed, team one was indisputably victorious.
In the first round, Steven Kearns ’17, after sprinting up the fire escape, retrieved the Art Haus flag only to be taken out by Geoff Cook ’16 in the driveway with a cardboard axe to the chest. The flag changed positions, and was soon picked up by team one again to secure that first victory.
Emerald Bresnahan ’15 captured the ECCO House flag during the second battle for team two, but was cut down as she attempted to return it to Art Haus. Jeff Paer ’15 then successfully captured the Art Haus flag for team one, leading to a second consecutive victory for the team.
Kearns secured the flag for the third and final victory for team one, and so the organized event was concluded, and the group devolved into challenging each other to duels, while others exited or helped clean up the cardboard debris littered behind the house.
“I think it was not just the creativity of it,” said Cook, who fought alongside team two, “but also the ridiculousness of it. It’s the fact that when people walk by, you realize you’re wearing cardboard armor, holding a cardboard axe, and whacking someone over the head as they’re trying to duct-tape their armor back together. The greatness of it all was not only realizing how silly it but also not caring how silly it was.” Thanks to Art Haus for hosting the event.