Legynds

Imagine yourself a sorcerer with the ability to freeze a green-skinned adversary in his tracks. Or an axe-wielding dwarf with an axe to grind against the wicked goblin who plundered your treasure trove. Now, imagine yourself doing this all weekend. This is the world of Legynds, one of several LARPing groups in the Atlanta area.

Live Action Role-playing, or LARPing for short, takes the fantasy world of games like Dungeons and Dragons into the realm of three-dimensional interaction. As in traditional role-playing games, participants maneuver their characters through certain scenarios, but in LARPing, they dress the part and fight the battles. Combat is acted out with “boffer” weapons — PVC pipes covered in padding and shaped to look like medieval instruments of war.

But while combat may seem to be the most exciting aspect of Legynds, the game and its characters go deeper. Participants immerse themselves in the economic, political, and social aspects of the game world. They negotiate trades, make back-room deals, and carry on romances while in character, and then, at the end of the weekend, they go back to their lives in the real world.

The action in Legynds takes place in the fantastical realm of Mythir. Humans, dwarves, elves, goblins, and other beings of all sorts struggle to rebuild a civilization still reeling from a devastating cataclysm in the recent past. The story plays out monthly in state parks around the area.