LARP Gift Ideas

I was going to post a more detailed description on how to form a stance, but Warlord Sports is currently down. So I'm going to talk about the next best thing...

Presents!

Buying presents for a LARPer usually depends on how crafty they are. Players who sew their own garb and build their own weapons are certainly less expensive to buy for, but they might not appreciate completed goods as much as someone who doesn't make their own gear and garb.

So here's a list of gift ideas for the LARPers in your life.

1. Waterproof Boots
There's nothing better than fighting for hours in the cold and snow and coming in to find that your feet are still dry. It's amazing. You can generally find good quality boots for around $80-$120, but there's also a fair amount of boots you can find in the $30-$50 range. The less expensive boots can't wick the sweat away from their feet, but believe me, it's much better than being drenched in ice cold water.

2. Foam
This one goes out to the craftier types. There are many different kinds of foam out there, and some of them can be pretty expensive or hard to find. Camp foam is always nice, but you can also buy plank foam (#2) or non-standard wall thickness pipe which are hard to find and usually have to be ordered. But do it soon, because those places usually have high shipping costs to start, let alone the cost of expedited shipping.

3. LARP Movies
There are a ton of LARP-ish movies out there to choose from. Either you can try and find a copy of an actual LARP movie (Darkon, Monster Camp, The Wild Hunt) or one of many LARP Pump-up Movies. Watching a movie is a nice thing to do when there's too much snow outside to do anything else.

What other gift ideas can you think of?

Weapon Review: Warlord Sports OMNI

Edit: These weapons were purchased about 6-9 months prior to the release of this article. Since that time, WLS has dropped off the face of the earth and the website is down indefinitely, so these weapons are unfortunately no longer available.

We have not done any reviews yet so here is my first. I am going to give you 4 categories; Style, Functionality, Durability and Value, then I will give the weapon a score out of five based on the average of the 4 categories. Without further ado, I give you the Warlord Sports Omni.





Between Bill and myself we have purchased four of these swords. I purchased two of the 33" swords, one regular and one light. They have a few different handle varieties, I ordered the cast rope. When they got to my porch, they were professionally packaged. I was impressed with that because the company is fairly new. I am not sure about the rest of you but I get super excited when I get new kit, I called Bill pretty much right away so I could beat on him.

Style: These swords look like foam baseball bats or clubs. They are not the most stylish weapon in existence. The translation from foam club, to magic sword of epicness is one that larpers get used to fairly quickly in the game so they looked good to me. Professionally built, excellent stitching on the covers, the foam was all tight and there were no rattles. Style is pretty subjective but with real looking latex sword on one end and duct taped PVC on the other I can safely give these a 3.5 on style.

Functionality The functional use of a foam sword is to hit your friends. These swords have dense foam which seems to break down very slowly. The cores are well buried on all sides and the cap on the top( Which appears to be marine foam) is really thick. I can see myself beating my friends with these two swords for at least a year from purchase. The weapons are very well weighted, they have the balance point about half way up the blade. The cast rope handle does not slip even when the air is wet. The foam appears to be somewhat waterproof as the sword does not get significantly heavier in the rain. For functionality these swords get a 4.5 they are really a 5 if you play only Amtgard or Dagorhir, a 4.5 for NERO because you need to do some convincing every time you use them that the marine foam cap is safe to stab with.

Durability I generally get about 12 events out of a latex sword before I deem it unsafe, I have already used my Warlord Sports sword for probably 20 events worth or practice and it shows no signs of deterioration( Apart from the cap of the cover coming off because I do a tip drag on a low feint) For Durability these get a flat 5 no questions asked one of the most durable weapons I have ever owned.

Value For 25$ these are an excellent value. You get a bunch of customization options and color choices. You can choose from light, normal or heavy weapons. It is strange but buying these is probably cheaper than making your own sword of similar quality. I give these a 5 on value as well.

So for an over all score you take the 4 categories
Style 3.5
Functionality 4.5(5)
Durability 5
Value 5
Total 18 /4 = 4.5 (4.625 if you play Amt or Dag only)

Yo Dawg, I Heard You Like To Make Weapons

So I put this post up so you can read about making weapons while you're making weapons.

It's been a while since I made my last weapon, but I'll be making a pair of shortswords for someone who was coveting one of mine at the last NCN event. I figured, while I do this, I might as well drop some hints and include you all in the process.

Today, we're talking about materials.

There's a lot of different ways to make a weapon, which includes a lot of variants on materials. I'm going to try and include everything I can. Before I start, I can't stress that a good looking weapons means nothing (or at least very little) if you don't meet the minimum safety requirements for your game. Foam thickness, weight (if appropriate) and length are the big three, while some games also have some additional requirements for covers.