THE REALM OF DARKON — The marauders poured out of the woods, swords and spears in hand.
Salty veterans escorting the caravan full of the king’s gold along a narrow forest path turned to face them. They were expecting an ambush.
The narrow forest path became a bottleneck as the two sides clashed in close quarter combat.
"Orcs!" someone shouted above the din of battle.
Four orcs wearing yellow and black were creeping up through the brush toward the exposed left flank of the column. An archer feathered one, while a group of soldiers went to meet the rest.
From the right, a fireball sailed down and exploded among the soldiers clustered along the narrow forest path. The call came from the front of the melee: "Push forward!"
Over the next hour, the caravan pressed through the ambush, battling bands of brigands, orcs, and finally a group of supernatural wights.
With the king’s gold finally safe, the sweat-soaked survivors trudged to a nearby barn, plate armor clanking and leather creaking.
Two soldiers sat on a bench, laid down their foam-wrapped swords, and lit up cigarettes.
"Well, back to real life," one said. Nearby, two other soldiers were checking their fantasy football scores on their cell phones. It was Sunday, after all.
The 100 or so members of the Darkon Wargaming Club took a break to reflect on a good day’s work.
Darkon is a live-action roleplaying (LARP) group based in the Maryland, D.C., and Northern Virginia area. That day, the realm of Darkon was located at Patuxent River State Park in Maryland.
Larpers take Dungeons & Dragons from the tabletop to real life—or at least as close to real life as it can get. They dress up in medieval gear, head out to the woods, and hit each other with foam-padded weapons.
Members have an impressive range of weapons at their disposal: daggers, swords, spears, axes, glaives, halberds, javelins, flails, maces, war hammers, arrows, and even a crossbow.
"We’re a smidge different from other larping groups in that we actually hit each other," one Darkon member named Martin told me.
Martin was a droll, mustachioed, and middle-aged Darkon member. He was wearing a leather jerkin and billowy white shirt. A plastic Coke bottle was tucked into his belt instead of a dagger.
"What’s your in-game name?" I asked Martin. Most other members of Darkon choose fantastical names, such as Andrick VanDahl, Keldar Vinnerex, and Exodus Delgato.
"Martin," he replied.
Before the caravan scenario, Darkon warmed up by splitting into two teams and scrimmaging in a field. After the call of "lay on!" the two groups rushed either.
Martin wasn’t joking about the hitting. Darkon allows combatants to shield bash each other, as well as grapple. The weapons may be wrapped in foam, but there is usually PVC pipe underneath. It’s not a good day unless you come back with some bruises.
Their costumes are elaborate and include authentic metal plate armor, chain mail, leather greaves, and vambraces. Some have full helms and shields with the standard of their country on them.
Martin explained that the fictional realm of Darkon is split into countries that players ally themselves with. Warring countries can fight over territory represented on a hex map.
The demographics of Darkon skew male, but there were a fair amount of women at Sunday’s event, too. Most of them were attached to other men at Darkon.
Hallie Hough, 18, was part of Asaheim, the Viking-inspired country. She’d been roped into Darkon by her boyfriend and became obsessed. She was one event away from losing her newbie status and declaring a class (ranger, monk, etc.). Unfortunately, she was sick that day and watching from the sideline.
Also watching the battles from afar were two smirking high schoolers, who were filming Darkon as a project for their anthropology class.
One of their friends, Will Rodgers, decided to try it for himself and got a sword. "How was it?" I asked, when he slunk back after a couple of battles.
Rogers, 18, said it was difficult to get acclimated to the rules and inside terminology. He also referred to his superior opponents as "a bunch of scary 30-something-year-old guys who couldn’t cut it in college sports."
On the other hand, Will is an obnoxious 18-year-old who can’t go to bars and probably still has a curfew.
Two other first-timers, a father and son duo, were on the field. Matthew Taylor, 55, said he came out with his son after hearing so much about it from his friend Martin.
"I fence, but this is way different," Taylor said. "Way different."
During the caravan scenario, the Darkon "senate" met to discuss rule changes. Darkon has three separate ruling bodies tasked with modifying and enforcing the 80-plus-page rulebook.
One of the issues on Sunday’s agenda was whether the costume marshal should have the power to send people home who show up without appropriate dress.
Darkon is by far the biggest larping group in the region. A four-day event last year drew more than 300 participants.
By all accounts, the two or three-day campouts the group hosts, with full roleplaying campaigns, are the highlight of Darkon. I talked to one women, in-game name "En’yalla," who didn’t fight but just went to Darkon events for the socializing.
The size and zealotry of the group has attracted a lot of media attention over the group’s more than 20-year existence. There’s even been a feature-length documentary on the group.
"I mean, if you stand back from a battle and just shoot it in a wide shot, it can be really boring," co-director Andrew Neel told NPR. "They kind of slap each other a whole bunch of times and people fall down and then that's it. They get up and do it again."
Like Dungeons & Dragons, combatants have armor classes, and weapons deal different amounts of damage, indicated by a color. They have to shout out the color when they strike another player, so when scores of fighters meet on the field, a cacophony of colors fill the air. "Yellow, yellow! Black! Redredred! Black!"
Small pillows are used to represent spells, so a devastating fireball takes the rather unexciting form of a red pillow sailing through the air.
But there’s something bigger at play that fascinates outsiders.
"What we wanted to do was to try to get inside their mind and create a kind of Hollywood reality that we think that they sometimes live in when they're playing the game," Neel said.
In Darkon, a gangly kid can be a fearsome orc or a knight of the realm. Martin isn’t just Martin. He’s Martin.
"Darkon" is not just whacking people with foam-wrapped PVC. It’s also an imaginary space the members inhabit and shape. The great battles shape the fates of countries and are collective memories. The heroes are legend.
During the caravan scenario, a young man clad head to toe in black armor took a short breather to chat with me. He was dripping sweat but looked rather pleased with himself.
"It’s a good outlet for those of us who don’t have a lot of outlets," he said before jogging back into the fray.