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Sword Play
Ready Or Not, the Live-Action Role-Players Of Darkon Get Their Closeup
By Cole Haddon
Two armies face each other beneath a blistering midday sun, the glean from their regal armor almost blinding. Fists drum against emblazoned shields. Generals stir in each line of warriors an almost religious fervor to die gloriously for their great countries. Humans and elves raise their weapons—swords, battle axes, maces—and roar so that even the gods can hear them.¸
“Charge!” howls one of the generals. His noble enemy across the field of battle orders the same. Slowly, overwhelmed perhaps by the prospect of death, warriors charge forward and collide with each other in a flurry of carnage that may be retold for centuries in song and myth. Watching from the sidelines, some 60 or so family and friends shout their support. Their mini-vans wait to whisk them away.
Afterward, the wounded are tended to, holy clerics say prayers over the dead, and corpses are dragged from the field. “There’s definitely a feast at a local watering hole where the myth begins,” says Skip Lipman, one of those warriors. “The reality of the day is over, and then the storytelling starts. And if it’s Sunday afternoon during football season, we’re trying to find the game. It’s definitely just guys out having our fun.”
On any given weekend in the Baltimore-Washington area, epic battles that play out very much like this are taking place in local parks and campgrounds. The men and women of the Darkon Wargaming Club Inc., dress in medieval-style costumes and armor and pound on each other with foam-padded weaponry. They give themselves names specific to their game realm, Darkon. And it has evolved into a complex game/sport of character role-playing and physically challenging battles with a membership of more than 1,000 strong with some 300 active participants. For the layman, they make The Lord of the Rings a simulated reality. And they’ve been doing it since 1985.
In the fall of 2003, filmmakers Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer began regularly making the long drive from their New York homes to Baltimore in order to transform the Darkonians’ stories into Darkon, from which the above scene comes. The documentary premiered at the 2006 South by Southwest Film Festival, where it won the Audience Documentary Award along with some of the fest’s loudest buzz. Getting Darkon’s members to agree to the movie wasn’t the easiest task...
Full Article Link
Sword Play
Ready Or Not, the Live-Action Role-Players Of Darkon Get Their Closeup
By Cole Haddon
Two armies face each other beneath a blistering midday sun, the glean from their regal armor almost blinding. Fists drum against emblazoned shields. Generals stir in each line of warriors an almost religious fervor to die gloriously for their great countries. Humans and elves raise their weapons—swords, battle axes, maces—and roar so that even the gods can hear them.¸
“Charge!” howls one of the generals. His noble enemy across the field of battle orders the same. Slowly, overwhelmed perhaps by the prospect of death, warriors charge forward and collide with each other in a flurry of carnage that may be retold for centuries in song and myth. Watching from the sidelines, some 60 or so family and friends shout their support. Their mini-vans wait to whisk them away.
Afterward, the wounded are tended to, holy clerics say prayers over the dead, and corpses are dragged from the field. “There’s definitely a feast at a local watering hole where the myth begins,” says Skip Lipman, one of those warriors. “The reality of the day is over, and then the storytelling starts. And if it’s Sunday afternoon during football season, we’re trying to find the game. It’s definitely just guys out having our fun.”
On any given weekend in the Baltimore-Washington area, epic battles that play out very much like this are taking place in local parks and campgrounds. The men and women of the Darkon Wargaming Club Inc., dress in medieval-style costumes and armor and pound on each other with foam-padded weaponry. They give themselves names specific to their game realm, Darkon. And it has evolved into a complex game/sport of character role-playing and physically challenging battles with a membership of more than 1,000 strong with some 300 active participants. For the layman, they make The Lord of the Rings a simulated reality. And they’ve been doing it since 1985.
In the fall of 2003, filmmakers Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer began regularly making the long drive from their New York homes to Baltimore in order to transform the Darkonians’ stories into Darkon, from which the above scene comes. The documentary premiered at the 2006 South by Southwest Film Festival, where it won the Audience Documentary Award along with some of the fest’s loudest buzz. Getting Darkon’s members to agree to the movie wasn’t the easiest task...
Full Article Link
