High-Altitude LARP Escape 2023
October 27-29th, 2023
Your last Halloween... well, wasn't actually when HALE 2022 was, but we hope you enjoyed it! This year we're back around Halloween to bring you another weekend of games! Join us at a beautiful camp in the Sierras for a weekend of compelling LARPs, gorgeous scenery, and relaxation with your friends!High-Altitude LARP Escape includes immersive LARPs run by experienced GMs from the East and West Coasts – some of these games have never been run in California before! There will also be indoor and outdoor non-game hangout space, a designated freeform LARP area to roleplay any character you’d like (such as the ones from our beloved campaign LARPs currently on hiatus) with others who are doing the same. In between games, hike out to scenic vistas, relax down by the creek, or just take a nap in your cabin if that’s what calls to you.This is an invite-only event with limited tickets – don’t miss out! Sign up and complete your casting surveys by August 16th if you want to be guaranteed a spot in a LARP! Anyone who buys a ticket after that date is welcome to come hang out and may be placed on waitlists but is not guaranteed any LARPing.Please note that this event can only run with enough player interest! If we do not have at least 25 signups by August 16th, we will alert everyone and provide full refunds (minus transaction fees) by August 23rd.
Contact Us: [email protected]
Games
Games and schedule are subject to change depending on player interest.
Schedule
Friday
9:00 PM - 10:30 PM
Sanguine
9:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Cuckoo
9:00 PM - 11:00 PM
NettlesilkSaturday
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Game of Scones10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
The Final Quest2:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Stars of Al-Ashtara2:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Ghosts8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
DOOM SWORD8:00 PM - 1:00 AM
The Dance & the Dawn IV: Other PeopleSunday
11:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Long Live the Revolution11:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Weaponfall12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
By the Banks of the River LetheFor more information about the signup and casting process, check our Logistics page.For more information about the specific sites where games will be run, check out the Camp page.
The Cuckoo
By Hannah Lipsky; GMed by Hannah Lipsky
PCs: 9 (4 male, 4 female, 1 flexible); NPCs: 0. Estimated runtime: 2 hours.
Your boss at PixID Media volunteered you to compete on a reality show about eight sexy singles who are each torn between two loves. The contract isn't the worst you've signed and who knows, maybe you'll even find a partner. Everything was going as expected until your ship, the Cuckoo, crashed just after picking all of you up from the paradise planet where you'd been filming. You were supposed to rejoin the mothership to film the finale where each of you would get married to (or rejected by) the partner of your choice.The good news is that all nine of you on board survived the crash. The bad news is, your contract doesn't make allowances for things like crashed spaceships, injuries, or being stranded in a forest. You must select your desired partner on camera between 70 and 80 minutes from now. Equally important, you must rig together a makeshift long-range communicator to broadcast the finale in order to avoid being in violation of your contract. With a working long-range communicator, a PixID ship will be able to locate you and rescue you. But if you don't all finish the show as promised, being stranded on this planet will be the least of your worries.--The Cuckoo is a 1.5 hour game for 9 players (four male contestants, four female contestants, and a camera operator/interviewer) set in a dystopian sci-fi universe. You do not need to have played any other Dove Universe games to play the Cuckoo, though as always, it will be funnier if you have.This game is intended to emulate all the worst reality shows. If you are not just prepared for, but actively excited about, interpersonal drama, sexual innuendos and tension, real or fake heterosexuality, screaming matches whose loudness is rivaled only by their pettiness, mild physical violence in the form of ineffectual slap-fights and light shoving, cheating, emotional manipulation, backstabbing, showboating, and manufactured life-or-death drama in the shadow of actual life-or-death drama, this is the game for you. If any one of those things doesn't sound appealing, you'll be happier skipping this one.There are no predefined correct pairings in this game. There are also no mechanics for anything.Note: real video footage will be recorded during this game! It won't be shared outside the game without permission, but if you are not okay with video of you being taken for any reason, do not play this game.
Location: Cat's Eye Clearing
Expected physical contact: Moderate, like hugging or dancing
Expected physical activity: Moderate; players can expect to be on their feet most of the LARP with occasional higher amounts of exertion
Pregame materials: 5-8 pages of reading
Content warnings: Representations of sex, extreme heterosexuality, screaming matches, mild physical violence in the form of ineffectual slap-fights and light shoving, wandering in the very real woods in the very real dark
Sanguine
By Alison Joy Schafer; GMed by Alison Joy Schafer
PCs: 4 (2 male, 4 female); NPCs: 0. Estimated runtime: 1.5 hours.
A ship readies in secret in the Port of London, just before dawn. Her name is Sanguine, apparently named for her deep red trim; however, she is perhaps named for a different reason altogether, as Sanguine represents a hopefulness in a dark situation. The year is 1840, and six potential passengers are out much too late on a dark and dreary night.Further down the River Thames, reconstruction of the Palace of Westminster has begun, the gentry prepare to levy their influence in Parliament, curfews are in effect, and Irish Nationalism is on the rise as the island plummets into poverty.It is late into the night; past the point of midnight oil, past the point of the last guests departing a party. All that remains on the streets of London are the sounds of rain, of sorrow, and of crime. Six potential passengers have dragged themselves through the night to the port where the ship - and the crossroads of their future - stand before them. Two of them, the Captain of the Sanguine and the First Mate, wear faces of uncertainty. A third is dressed in ideals and urgency. Another is a lady clad in sorrow and terror. The last two are dressed for a party, brothers in blood and fashion both. Who will board the ship to disappear, and who will stay and endure?Sanguine is a 60-90 minute larp. Players will reconnect with each other and make the choice of who will board the ship to forever depart, and who will remain in London. Content Warnings include starvation, murder, suicide. Please expect to spend the time talking about impossible situations and being separated from those you love. Alison Joy would not play this game.
Location: Dining Hall
Expected physical contact: Light/casual, like a hand on the forearm or shoulder
Expected physical activity: Low; players will be walking around and occasionally sitting
Pregame materials: 5-8 pages of reading
Content warnings: The impossibility of same-sex romance in this time period, unrequited feelings, social class discrepancy, poverty, starvation, and suicide
Nettlesilk
By Kristen Hendricks; GMed by Kristen Hendricks
PCs: 2 (1 male, 1 female); NPCs: 0. Estimated runtime: 1.5 hours.
She looked at the countless pebbles on the beach, and saw how round the water had worn them. Glass, iron ore, stones, all that had been washed up, had been shaped by the water that was so much softer than even her tender hand.
"It rolls on tirelessly, and that is the way it makes such hard things smooth," she said. "I shall be just as untiring."--Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans*****Once, far far away where the swallows fly when we have winter, there lived a beautiful princess who loved her brothers very much.These were harsh days, here and there and far away, and you must not let it surprise you when I say that her brothers, all five of them, were fortunate in their youth and strength, and in their younger sister's love, but in little else. For their father's second queen hated them, and embittered their father against them, and in time drove them from the castle and transformed them all to wild white swans, unsuited for the lands of men.Such things are not uncommon, even in these days, and in the ordinary way of things such tales end with the victory of the wicked, and the exile of the innocent. But on this occasion the princess was brave and good, and loved her brothers, and a good fairy took pity on her and told her how she might restore them.*****"Your brothers can be set free," she said, "but have you the courage and tenacity to do it? The sea water that changes the shape of rough stones is indeed softer than your delicate hands, but it cannot feel the pain that your fingers will feel. It has no heart, so it cannot suffer the anguish and heartache that you will have to endure. Do you see this stinging nettle in my hand? Many such nettles grow around the cave where you will sleep. Only those and the ones that grow upon graves in the churchyards may be used - remember that! Those you must gather, although they will burn your hands to blisters. Crush the nettles with your feet and you will have flax, which you must spin and weave into five shirts with long sleeves. Once you throw these over the wild swans, the spell over them is broken. But keep this well in mind! From the moment you undertake this task until it is done, even though it lasts for years, you must not speak. The first word you say will strike your brothers' hearts like a deadly knife. Their lives are at the mercy of your tongue."--Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans*****And so Princess Elisa -- for that was her name -- closed her lips, and set to work. At first she labored alone, in her cave in the deep forest, clumsy from inexperience and hunger and the pain in her hands, but growing steadily more swift and skilled, and thus she completed one of her five garments.But one day a great king came riding with his retinue through the forest, and found her there. And seeing her lovely and alone in the deep-dark wood, and finding that he could elicit from her not a single word, he determined that he would carry her safely to the walls of his own kingdom, and make her his queen. At first she despaired, but when he brought her to his castle he showed her a room he had prepared much like the cave in which she had dwelt, in which her weaving and her weeds had been left for her to do as she would with, and then it is said that she wedded him willingly, and for a time he rejoiced in her.Diligently did the quiet princess work, and quickly was her work completed. But in that time the court had become suspicious of her strange silent sorcery; and when she went to gather more nettles from the churchyard, the archbishop persuaded the king to follow her, and convinced him that she must be doing some evil there among the graves, until the king's heart broke. He gave her to the people to judge, and they convicted her of witchcraft, and sentenced her to die by fire.Such things are not uncommon, even in these days, and most such stories end there, in flame and sorrow. But Elisa's fingers had grown strong and swift, and she had nearly finished her work; and as they drew her out to the stake that cold gray morning her brother came swirling round, swirling round, until they were close enough for her to cast the nettle-coats over them. And at once they transformed back into men, and Elisa at last cried her innocence, and the wood of the stake grew with roses, and all who watched knew that they had done wrong, and condemned their queen falsely.*****All the church bells began to ring of their own accord, and the air was filled with birds. Back to the palace went a bridal procession such as no king had ever enjoyed before.--Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans*****And the hour came when the king and queen were alone, and free to speak.******Nettlesilk is a two-player one-hour larp. It follows directly after the events of (an only slightly modified version of) the fairytale The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen. Gameplay consists solely of conversation between the two PCs.
Location: Various groves near the dining hall
Expected physical contact: Moderate, like hugging or dancing
Expected physical activity: Minimal; the LARP is mostly played while sitting
Pregame materials: 13-20 pages of reading
Content warnings: This game consists of a conversation between two people who married under fairytale-style complicatedly consensual circumstances, one of whom has recently grievously wronged the other. Game backstory further contains violence, persecution for witchcraft, concern over childbearing and inheritance, and the emotional effects of fairytale-style mistreatment of children. Both characters belong to, and take seriously the tenets of, a close analog of the early Lutheran church as established in Scandinavia.
A Game of Scones
By Brittany Viens & Alison Joy Schafer; GMed by Lauren Skinner
PCs: 10 (flexible genders); NPCs: 0-1. Estimated runtime: 3 hours.
All Men Must Dine!Chaos reigns throughout the Seven Kingdoms. But first, everyone is hungry! The Small Council assembles over breakfast to discuss their personal (and often outlandish) agendas, voice their petty complaints, and finalize the seating arrangements for the upcoming banquet - a puzzle that could shape or shake the very future or foundation of the Realm. Beneath the smell of baked breads and lemon cakes, the atmosphere is poisonous. The meeting itself, a battleground. Propose laws, argue points, and use seating placements to stir up old feuds or forge powerful new alliances that will benefit your aims and weaken those of your rivals and enemies, and outwit them all! Appetites are rising as the Small Council battles it out while they play the Game of Scones. Breakfast is coming! Pay the iron price for it!----A light breakfast is included and optional.Players can expect to play a short but fully-plotted secrets and powers game for ten characters while they eat.Everyone will have precast short character sheets with goals, petty grievances, and connections. Sheets will be 2-4 pages long with another 1-2 pages of bluesheet.There is no character death until after breakfast.There will not be any sexual violence, torture, or mutilation prevalent, unlike in Game of Thrones.
Location: Dining Hall
Expected physical contact: Light/casual, like a hand on the forearm or shoulder
Expected physical activity: Minimal; the LARP is mostly played while sitting
Pregame materials: 5-8 pages of reading
Content warnings: Sexual humor, potential for romance for many characters?, character death (but not until after breakfast).
The Final Quest
By Kristen Hendricks and Warren Tusk; GMed by Kristen Hendricks
PCs: 6 (3 female, 3 male); NPCs: 0. Estimated runtime: 2.5 hours.
Once, long ago, seven children found a gate within a hillside, and stepped through it into another world.Meridel was a fantasy realm, a magical place filled with grace and enchantment. Meridel was a land peopled by a menagerie of strange races, where the natives recognized you as destined heroes simply by dint of your humanity.Meridel was a land in peril.A shadow lay upon this magic place, and all Meridel was caught up in the war against that shadow, and the seven of you had hardly arrived before you were recruited into the struggle. For the dark lord Aelzor, who once had been fair, grew in power and strength; and all trembled before him, fearing the desolation that lay beneath his outstretched hand. The Great Grey Griffon, Meridel’s ancient godlike guardian, charged you all with a quest. You were to recover the scattered regalia of the Hallow King, so that one of you, having proven himself pure and good, might don that mighty panoply and defeat Aelzor.You embarked on an arduous journey. You faced perils beyond imagining. You fought monsters, and evaded armies, and learned the wondrous secrets of the realm. And you were tested in soul and spirit, one and all, by Meridel’s exacting standards of worthiness, and met with such trials of character as taught you the shape of your own secret hearts. Six of you failed those tests.But in the end, all your efforts were rewarded. At the close of the quest, the dread armies of Aelzor lay defeated by the forces that you had mustered. Aelzor himself lay slain at the hand of the youngest of you, who had proven himself pure and good, and Meridel was green and free once more.Six of you had failed. Six of you came home.*****And then you grew up.Readjusting to the mundane world, after a year of wonder and terror, went as poorly as anyone would have expected. You were confused and lost and scared. You had seen something of your own frailties, which you could never again cease to see. Two of you were missing a brother, and all of you were missing a friend.But that was sixteen years ago now. You have found your places in the world. It may be that you will never forget the marvelous things that happened to you when you were a teenager...but, well, perhaps that makes you no different from anyone else.And now, only now, the horns come sounding, and the cry of the Griffon echoes in your ears --And the wind tells you that in far sweet Meridel, where centuries have passed, the final war for the soul of the realm is joined --And the lights beyond the hillside call you back to take your place on the battlefield, and to fight for the land that you once loved --And are you going to go?*****The Final Quest is a two-hour game for six players, by Warren Tusk and Kristen Hendricks. Gameplay consists of conversation and a decision made by each character at end of game. The Final Quest centers on themes of memory, adaptation, moral standards, moral failure, grief, and choice. Potential players should be advised that this is a serious, emotional, and fairly dark game; if you do not enjoy living with the weight of failure and struggling with judgment and blame from other PCs, this might not be the right game for you.