LARP brings warfare to Commerce

Live Action Role Playing is a sport that only recently started spreading over the country and alumni Jared Tremor has brought the battle to Texas A&M University-Commerce.

LARP is a game played by people who dress up in medieval apparel and battle each other with foam swords and shields. There are several different organizations throughout the country, some of which allow the use of "magic." Each organization has several chapters, which are specific to a region. The chapters are comprised of LARP competitors.

Tremor, who graduated in December 2009 with a degree in English, said he discovered the sport while randomly searching the Internet two-and-a-half years ago. He joined a nationwide game called dagorhir and then joined a chapter named Guilder, which stretches from Commerce to Denton. Guilder is not the only group in Texas according to Tremor. There are groups in West and South Texas as well.

Tremor said he was driving to Plano to practice, which is why he set up practices outside the Hall of Languages.

"Plano is pretty far and I think a lot of people could get into this," he said.

According to Tremor, the practices will be held every other Saturday and anyone is welcome to come out and try the sport.

Tremor said his organization is a lot like a club.

"You are not going to hang out with every person you meet in college, but you will join clubs with people who have interests similar to yours," he said. "That's what this is."

Tremor said there is room in the sport for those who want to role-play and those who just want to battle. He said he is more of a brawler called a stick jockey, but other people he has competed with will incorporate acting into the game as well. Inside the Guilder chapter Tremor is part of another group called the Blood Fang Riders, which tend to be stick jockeys.

Tremor said the riders are neutral competitors.

"We tell people we are not the good guys, but we are not the bad guys either," he said.

Another member of Guilder alumni, Nathan Presley, said his parents were involved with a similar organization when he was a kid. Presley, a friend of Tremors, said when he discovered the sport he could not wait to join.

"It seemed right up my alley," he said.

There is a health value to this activity as well, according to Presley.

"It's good exercise," he said. "It gets you to stop playing video games and get out of the house."

Presley said the chapter has grown from six two-and-half-years ago to around 40 now. He said the name for the chapter Guilder comes from a popular movie.

"We got it from The Princess Bride," he said. "In the movie they are always blaming Guilder, so we made it a joke that when anything goes wrong it is our fault."

Another member of Guilder, Paris Junior College Radiology student Elizabeth Barbier, joined the chapter purely by coincidence.

"I asked Jared what he was doing on Saturday," she said. "He told me, so I came out, tried it and loved it."

Barbier, who joined the chapter in November 2008, said Tremor and her have not kept the fighting local. She said in June 2009 she, Tremor and few other members of their chapter traveled to Ohio for one of the largest LARP events in the world, Ragnarok.

"There were more than 1,500 people there," she said.

The festival has grown too big for the park they were using in Ohio, according to Barbier, and this year is being moved to a new location in Pennsylvania.

Tremor said he hopes the game will continue to grow, bringing more and more people to the sport.

Those interested in joining Guilder or coming out to a practice can contact Tremor at bookworm8706@hotmail.com or visit the chapter's Google group at groups.google.com/group/dagorhir-guilder.