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empire winter solstice 2026
19 may 2026
have you been hearing about live-action roleplay recently? i feel like there's a bit of a medieval revival going on online. or maybe it's that dungeons and dragons is cool now. either way, all my friends are into dnd and such, so it was only a matter of time before i got dragged into some roleplay hijinks.
empire is the uk's largest festival larp, and my college friend group had been going for over a year before i got involved. you go camping for a weekend and pretend to be a fantasy character.
bringing a cloak, a bag of snacks, and an acoustic guitar on the train really helped me get into the fantasy traveller mindset
from the characters' point of view, the event is a summit at a site called anvil, where people from across the empire gather each season. this one was the winter solstice, even though it takes place in april. here are some shots of our camp!1
grilling hot dogs down at bell end
a peaceful camp on thursday night
the nation my friends are from is called navarr. it has a sort of "forest elf" vibe. among the other nations, we're known for our tattoos and war paint, and an open mic called songs and stories that takes place in a forest clearing around a fire. here's our group all dressed up!
aww, look at us!!
this actually isn't my first event. i went to the autumn solstice of 2025, and i played corren appleshelter, a cocky lad who was obsessed with joining the thorns (the army of navarr). he immediately went and died in battle, and i cried about it in real life, a lot. this is a phenomenon known as bleed, where your real life emotions and your character's emotions get uncomfortably mingled. you know that thing where someone strokes a rubber arm and your arm at the same time, then smashes the rubber arm with a hammer? rest in peace corren.
i kept an in-character diary as corren -- here's the bio i wrote at the start and the obituary i wrote at the end.
my first empire character, corren (rest in peace). this isn't even a tragic backstory this is just average navarr shit
i think actual tears fell onto this page
despite my pain, this is exactly the kind of tragic tale that larp thrives on! my lovely friends cheered me up and wrote a song about corren's daring exploits. this event, i decided to go back as corren's childhood best friend and rival, sian appleshelter, for maximum tragic roleplay potential.
my new character, sian appleshelter
sian appleshelter live unplugged at anvil (photo courtesy of my friend alise, who plays blod graveborn)
i really didn't want to die, and sian didn't either, so i decided to focus on developing a career as a bard. my friend millie (who you might know as piaden graveborn if you're in navarr) is an actual folk singer, and i can play a little guitar, so we went around playing lots of songs, both normal folk songs and filks (folk songs where the lyrics have been changed to reflect the lore of the setting). thorn like corren, our original song, was a huge hit! so was cheer up navarr, a filk of the bonnie ship the diamond. come along next time and you might be able to hear us play!
we played at songs and stories, and did two longer bar sets: the boar's head in navarr, and hadrian's hall2 in urizen. millie booked the bar gigs via facebook. we didn't pull in much of a crowd for either of the two bar gigs, but the few people who did listen were extremely friendly and supportive! if you're an aspiring bard, i highly recommend all three venues!
the songs and stories circle (photo: tom garnett)
since i chose not to go into battle, i worked as a healer in the hospital instead. this was fine, i apprenticed under a marcher mummer called marigold who was great fun, but the battle went so well that we barely had any healing to do. if the battle had more casualties, it would have been way more fun... at least for us.
spot the sian (photo: mbetts photography)
you can't really see it in that shot, but i had worked really hard to make a set of mage armour. here's some better pictures so you can see the blood and sweat that went into it. literal blood -- my character is a blood mage, so when i accidentally poked myself while sewing it, i deliberately wiped the blood around the gloves to distress them up a bit.
those are all beads lol lmao
at the end, we held a funeral for corren, and i did a ceremony to officially join my friends' in-character group, graveborn (i swore an oath and got a sick eyeliner tattoo). it felt like a very narratively satisfying end to the weekend.
overall, this event was fantastic! i socialised a lot more as sian than as corren, perhaps because she's more similar to me in personality. sian is also a naga, sort of a snake person (you can juust see my forehead scales in the guitar photo). being unapologetically hedonistic is part of the naga brief, so i met a lot of strangers while i was chasing after food, drink, and live music. something about having my hair down, socks out (i wore socks and sandals lol), and a cute little fantasy hoodie on just made me want to run around and have fun!
if you're in the uk and on the fence about going to empire, i highly recommend it. sian graveborn will be back!
until next time,
mzw☆
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1 note on photography: during "time-in", photography is highly restricted, so any shots from my own camera were taken during "time-out". these evening shots were from thursday night, which is a sort of "day 0" where you can chill around the campfire all night without having to play a character. this might be my favourite part of the event: we've met a lot of lovely people from across the country via larp, and it's nice to hang out with them as real people!
2 the owner, nero, is a legend, and a much more talented guitarist than i am.