Friday night was the FR LARP, which I co-wrote and co-ran with Brian, who you may know from various message boards as "GarenThal." We had about 25 people show up, which is pretty good (max attendance was 30, we had sold out in prereg but some people didn't show and we had a couple of people jump in with generic tickets. Here's the event info printed in the program book:

Forgotten Realms: Castle In The Stonelands
A band of adventurers have cleared a border fortress in the kingdom of Cormyr and given the key to the regent. Now the crown seeks someone worthy of this fortress, to guard the border against monsters and raiders. The honor and strategic value of this prize has attracted adventurers, nobles, Red Wizards, and even a contingent of drow. Are you worthy? (The victor in this game run by Sean K Reynolds gets their character named in an FR D&D book!)

Each player played someone interested in the castle or interested in keeping it out of someone else's hands. The game ran about 3 hours (plus a half-hour intro, explanation of the very simple rules, and assigning characters).

The Shadowdale merchant veteran of the war against the Tuigan (in the vest) and his Shadowdale militia bodyguard (in the gray t-shirt) discuss with the Waterdhavian half-orc cleric of Tymora. The half-orc was part of an adventuring company who wanted the castle as a place to retire.

A drow of Cormanthor and a Cormyrian noble of the Silversword family.

The Waterdhavian dwarf barbarian (in red and gold) assessing the room with her gnome bard friend.

Another member of the Silversword family (in the fancy dress) talks with an elven bard (the seated man) and a half-elf druid (in the white shirt).

The Shadowdale merchant again speaks to the half-orc.

A large group of players talking at the front of the room. It's kinda funny, the folks on the left-hand side showed up thinking this was going to be a regular D&D game, but they stayed anyway ... although they never got up from the table the entire time!

The elven wizard negotiates with the Silversword noble....

The dwarf, elven bard, male Silversword, druid, and gnome make a deal.

The Halruaan wizard was content to let people come to him, and he (like everyone) had his own secret agenda.

The elven wizard, the Halruaan, the Shadowdalers, and a Silversword noble try to come to an agreement.

At some point the gnome bard agreed to sing a song in exchange for money from some of the other characters, so she hopped up on a chair and entertained us. She actually was pretty good!

The Halruaan, Silverswords, and Shadowdalers reach an agreement.

Brian officiates a duel between the drow and the druid, while the Cormyrian merchant looks on.

The Zhentarim agent, elf bard, elf wizard, and the Thayan Red Wizard (in the gray shirt) discuss evil and what the evil groups might do with the castle. The bald guy in the doorway was just watching the game, as one of his friends was playing.

Frustrated that the Cormyrian paladin had inadvertently thwarted several of his schemes during the meeting, the Zhent challenges the paladin to a duel. Unfortunately for him, her smite evil and vast combat ability knocked him flat after two rounds. We woke up just in time for the vote on the disposition of the castle.

The players did something really smart: they saw that the Waterdhavian adventurers worked as a team, and knew that a vote for any Waterdhavian in that group counted toward their team's total, so most of the evening was spent creating alliances and factions. The final groups were the Waterdhavian team, the Silverswords, the elves, the Zhents (party of one), the Red Wizards (party of one, as no player chose the junior Red Wizard so the senior Red Wizard was the only person from his country present), and the drow (party of one).

We took a vote count and that's when everyone busted out some contracts, and they realized two things. One, the paladin had agreed to vote for a particular faction, but a duel at the end between her and the Cormyrian mercenary captian (of the Red Ravens mercenary company) forced her out of the room for ten minutes (that was the "prize" in the duel--her presence or absence at the time the vote was called), so she missed the initial vote. Two, the Cormyrian merchant was called away from the vote at the very last minute. Three, the Cormyrian merchant had not only sold his proxy vote (he carried a letter of proxy for someone unable to attend) to three different factions (Waterdeep, Silversword, and elf), but he had sold his own vote to those three groups. Unfortunately for two of those factions, only one team (the Silverswords) was smart enough to claim the actual letter of proxy, and that is what counted--not the contracts for the proxy. He then had the stones to offer up his vote on the spot to the highest bidder! Unfortunately for him, he was found in violation of Cormyrian contract law, and his personal vote was nullified (because voting for one would violate his contracts with the other two).

The end result was a tie between the Silverswords and the elves. The question was whether to hold another vote between these two factions (as those who voted for the Red Wizards, Zhent, and Waterdhavians would now change their vote to one of the two finalist factions) or to have a duel between champions of the two factions. We took a vote to decide that question, and the majority wanted a vote. The final vote was taken and the Silverswords won. The Silversword with the fancy hat was chosen as the recipient of the crystal key (which I forgot to photograph, but looked really cool), and he's sent me a description of his favorite character for inclusion into an upcoming FR sourcebook.

After we awarded the key, people called out kudos to various players on their performances, and there were a few choice secrets revealed, but I won't put that in here, you can read about it when I get the LARP documents posted sometime in the future....