The Darkon Wargaming Club

Darkon Wargaming Club is a LARP Sword and Sorcery Fantasy game based around Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC. Founded in 1985 and built upon the rules of the now-defunct Emarthnguarth Outdoor Wargaming System, Darkon grew from a handful of LARP enthusiasts to almost 2,000 members in 2005, with a small number of chapters dotting the country.

Much of Darkon’s rules were originally based around Advanced D&D rules. Now, however, they have taken off in another direction, attempting to find a happy compromise between styles of fantasy play.

Darkon is divided into countries that take on historical or fantasy cultures as their premise.

Darkon shows examples of the following tropes:


 * Adventure-Friendly World: The Realm of Darkon is this, to the entertainment of its members.
 * Back Stab: Thieves and Assassins have it.
 * Badass Army: Mordom, Elidor, Ched Nasad…take your pick.
 * BFS: The maximum size for a sword is 6½ feet long.
 * Blue Blood: The Noble Council.
 * Chaotic Neutral: Moot. Some consider them to be Jesters, others Non Ironic Clowns.
 * Character Alignment: Optional, but can significantly change roleplay.
 * Character Level: Gaining levels usually unlocks new abilities until about level 20-25.
 * Charm Person: the mage spell Feeble Mind.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: Many of the “evil” countries wear primarily black. Most of the “good” countries wear bold primary colors.
 * Combat Medic: Clerics.
 * Crazy Prepared: If you’re a spellcaster, you need to have enough spell balls to be effective.
 * Death Is Cheap: Characters come back to life after a maximum of 12 minutes unless assassinated. Even then, they come back after 24 hours.
 * Elves vs. Dwarves: mostly averted, as in many cases race does not matter.
 * Empty Levels: Most levels after 25th do not grant new abilities. Spellcasters, however, gain more spell points.
 * Evil Army: Take your pick.
 * Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Players can play any kind of fantasy creature imaginable.
 * For the Evulz: Mordom’s motto: “Hate Without Reason”
 * Genius Bruiser: It’s scary to think how many people in Darkon are doctors, lawyers, rocket scientists…
 * Grappling with Grappling Rules: Grappling rules had to be changed after characters in full-plate insisted on grappling unarmored players.
 * Horny Vikings: The Forgotten Ones
 * Human Sacrifice: Has been known to happen on more than one occasion.
 * Instant Death Radius: Fireballs basically do this on normal battle days.
 * I See Dead People: The spell “Speak With Dead” allows the caster to ask a dead body three yes-or-no questions.
 * Knight in Shining Armor: Cavaliers are required to wear metal-based armor like Plate and Chain, or no armor at all.
 * La Résistance: The Republic of Harn.
 * Law of Cartographical Elegance:
 * Made of Indestructium: The Shield of Deflection.
 * Magic Missile: The Wand of Gartan fires three of these.
 * Magic Pants: The spell “Giant Growth” affects everything worn by the caster.
 * Malevolent Architecture: some adventures include a dungeon that may be full of traps, falling bridges, and more.
 * Manly Gay: Arguably, Laconia. They of course were playing off of 300, so…
 * No Conservation of Energy: Where does magic come from?
 * One-Man Army: Some Darkonians could be considered this: Pain, Inox, and Slindar come to mind.
 * Our Orcs Are Different: And yet they all fall back into the idiosyncrasies of Warhammer 40,000 orks.
 * Private Military Contractors: Bloody Axe mercenary Company, who adhere to a strict honor code.
 * Puny Humans: Averted, because race makes no difference to your character’s stats or abilities.
 * Putting on the Reich: The Teradox Imperium.
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: Keldar handed over a lot of responsibility in ruling The Kingdom after his player, Kenyan Wells, injured his ankle very badly and could not attend fights for almost a year.
 * Religion of Evil: Some of the religions in Darkon could be considered this. Lolth, anyone?
 * Shields Are Useless: Averted. Shields are hard to destroy, and take infinite hits.
 * Siege Engines: Included, and arguably the most powerful tools in the game under correct circumstances.
 * Spell Book: Necessary for spellcasters.
 * Squishy Wizard: Averted: Mages receive magic armor that under correct circumstances can be better than some armored characters…without the drawback of actually wearing armor.
 * Standard Fantasy Setting: Played straight on purpose, to allow more flexibility with player-run adventures.
 * The Fair Folk: Elidor, arguably.
 * The Horde: Ched Nasad.
 * The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Aquilonia hasn’t had a war in years.
 * The Plague: Used as an adventure arc in a recent year.
 * The Roman Republic: Legio Exilium.
 * They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Someone says this ever year when a new rule change goes through.
 * Turn Undead: Clerics can do this.
 * The Usual Adversaries
 * Weapon of Choice: Some players are known for certain weapon preferences.
 * Weird Trade Union: Guild of Fighters, Guild of Mages, Guild of Thieves, Guild of Druids…and lots of others…
 * World Map: here.