A dark, sexy non-verbal dance game using the mind-control mechanics that made the larp Bjergtaget a hit. Tonight wizards, magical animals, spooky fae, and mundane humans take turns using terrifying mystical power to pursue their desires. When you are all-powerful, what is actually important to you?

Long Description

In the old, old, half forgotten times, magical beings spin helplessly through realms of music and magic. Tragic are they! These wizards, fae, humans, and magical animals do not see that they already possess the power to change themselves. To take control of their vulnerable situation, each group dominates the minds of the others in turn, each more wickedly than the last. Mind control scars both the leader and the follower, but each has a chance to heal. In the end, only True Love can redeem them and break their bonds. When they have the chance to escape, will they want to?

A dark, sexy non-verbal dance game using the mind-control mechanics that made the larp Bjergtaget a hit. Tonight wizards, magical animals, spooky fae, and mundane humans take turns using terrifying mystical power to pursue their desires. When you are all-powerful, what is actually important to you?

Glamourous Night is a larp about hurting others, and having a chance to redeem yourself. Players will learn two movement techniques and use them to perform ensorcelling magic as their characters. Players will experience joyful exploration and tempting darkness as their characters share, subjugate, and are subjugated. Players will be on their feet and moving during most of the three hour workshop and the two hour game.

Setting

The setting is a fantastical medieval Europe where all the folk tales are true. The characters are powerful magical beings who go on an accidental journey between dimensions. They are tempted to mind control each other before escaping, scarred. Only True Love can break mind control bonds and redeem their actions. Finally, each character decides which of the three dimensions they will make their new home.

Play Style

Glamourous Night represents magical interactions with two movement techniques, so that magic in this game is a full body experience. Instead of a flick of wand and saying a Latin word, magic in this game involves improvising body movement under specific constraints. The two techniques are simple to learn and the ‘rules’ of how to move make it easy to use and improvise spells. Mind control feels like a seductive domination of will, and focuses on eye contact. Mutual spellcasting is based on contact improv, which feels like playful, connected exploration. The workshop will be about 3 hours.

The play experience has a dreamlike quality, where two people might have an interaction and come away with different ideas about what happened. This game uses music to inspire the story and there will be a soundtrack for each scene of the game. Because movement is the most important way to communicate in this game, play will be largely nonverbal. Play will be about 2 hours.

You might like this larp if:

• You are open to a structured game experience that features temptation, power, and revenge.
• You have personal interest in fairy tales, rituals, mind control, or the power of music.
• You are interested in the games White Death, Desaparecides, Sarabande, Bjergtaget, Before and After Silence.
• You enjoy other activities that have “rules” for improvised movement such as contact improv, interplay, or Blues dancing.

Techniques

Music is Magical

Music is played throughout the entire larp. The music may be used to inspire movement, and it also signals changes in magical ascendancy, or who has the power to control others with magic.

Ars Rego

The Art of Direction is a technique created by Maria and Jeppe Bergmann Hamming for the larp Bjergtaget. This movement technique represents a seductive domination of will. The technique has been thoroughly playtested with regards to consent, and Bjergtaget was the toast of the European festival circuit in 2018.

The technique involves one player consensually ‘binding’ another with a visible marker like a ribbon and then directing their movements through hand to hand contact. It’s advanced forms include adding more followers and leading movement from afar with hand gestures. Interestingly, players report becoming sensitive to their partner’s location and know all the time where the other is. It allows players to roleplay losing control to dark, sexy magic in a way that feels very safe.

Ars Canto

The Art of Enchantment is a counterpart to Ars Rego, purpose built for this larp. It is intended to represent mutual spellcasting, courting a magical beast to become a familiar, performing arcane experiments with a willing participant, and other egalitarian magical interactions.

The technique is based on contact improv and so involves two players using a point of contact to share weight between them. Participants play with moving the point at which they make contact between their hands, arms, and upper back. With a few minutes of practice people can use this technique to express their character’s mindset, react to their partner’s emotion, or interact with multiple people at the same time. Players said they wanted to play the technique again and that sharing contact feels like a playful, mutual exploration.

The Betrayal of Speech

This is a mostly non-verbal game. By custom or by nature, characters cannot resolve conflicts through speech; only Ars Rego or Ars Canto can lead to a meaningful resolution. This restriction guarantees that abstract movement is the focus of the game while still allowing players to telegraph their character’s intentions to one another with words.

Costuming

Consider the following priorities in order as you consider your costuming:

1. Comfortable to move in for long periods of time.
2. Monochromatic clothing matches the blackbox origins of this larp. The four character factions each have a different color, or all-black always suits.
3. Based on your character as the last and least important consideration. In this style of larp WYSIWYG costuming is strictly optional.

Narrative

Acts are made known to players through the shifting of the auras that govern magic in the valley. When a group’s magica aura is ascendant they may use powerful mind control spells to advance their goals or toy with their companions. But when the aura changes again, they will find themselves at the mercy of another group of beings attending the celebration. Initially characters cannot bind one another, in the middle different groups can bind at different times, and at the end characters can choose whether break out their bindings.

Origin

This scenario was created for Fastaval 2020, and was first played at Stockholm Scenario Festival 2021.