Itara-itara

Itara-itara is a small parlor LARP set in a liminal space, with a cast of characters that are each arriving from the ending of a different world. During the LARP, they will be grappling with communications restrictions and completing a list of short and inscrutable tasks, like playing pick-up sticks and selecting eggs. They will also explore what stories mean when they're taken out of context, figure out how to communicate across barriers, and -- maybe -- unlock a secret or two about the strange place where they've found themselves.

Long Description

There is a stone door with the word ITARA carved on either side. It has been built over; flooded; buried in sand; taken apart stone by stone; eaten away by rain and wind and sun; and yet somehow, at the end of times, it is still here. It has been here for so long that it has been all but forgotten by most people. Except you.

You walk through the door, because there’s nothing else you can do.

On the other side of the door is a place you’ve never been. On the other side of the door are faces you’ve never seen. And when you half-turn, out of instinct, out of hope, out of fear, you see that the door behind you - the door that has been here since the birth of time, the door that has been witness to the end of times - has disappeared.

Itara-itara is a small parlor LARP set in a liminal space, with a cast of characters that are each arriving from a different world. During the LARP, they will be completing a list of short and inscrutable tasks, which include playing pick-up sticks, selecting eggs, and sitting quietly for a while. More importantly, they will explore what stories mean when they're taken out of context, figure out how to communicate across barriers, and -- maybe -- unlock a secret or two about the strange place where they've found themselves. (There’s also an hourglass marking time. But surely that’s nothing to worry about?)

The worlds that characters come from range in flavor from science fiction to steampunk to high fantasy and everything in between. The common strand is that they are all secondary worlds that bear little to no resemblance to ours. The overall genre of the game is loosely fantasy, and the tone leans towards the somber and thoughtful, though there’s opportunities for more lighthearted humor.

A major part of gameplay is communication restrictions. Every character will be entering the game with a different limit on the way that they can communicate with others, ranging from fully nonverbal (using oracle cards or drawings or pointing at words) to more conceptual (only telling the truth, only lying, only speaking in rhymes). While good storytelling will take precedence over following these rules precisely, keep in mind that there’s no intent for these restrictions to get fully lifted at any point in the game.

Finally, by nature of its setting, this game does not incorporate any prewritten character relationships. Your character may not have any explicit goals to pursue during the game; there may not be a possibility for a happy ending for any characters at the end of the game, and all characters are grappling with some form of loss or grief or hopelessness. This ranges from characters that have just experienced an apocalypse to characters that simply feel lost in their life.

If you’re excited about having potentially frustrating limits on your character’s ability to express themselves — and if you’re excited about ambiguity, unanswerable questions, miscommunications, and building connections in spite of it all — this is a good game for you!