How is the experience?
The core vision for this larp is experiencing how it is to play two parts of the same character with someone else and be in symbiosis with them. Together, you are a whole human being. This also means that it is physically impossible to be more than two meters away from each other at all times during the larp. There is no exception from this offgame, so be aware that you sign up with someone where you feel comfortable that you will need the same amount of breaks. If one party needs a nap – the other one will have to be out of the game as well. Energy level is an important calibration topic when choosing a partner.
In fiction, separation will bring you both excruciating pain. The specific distance in practice is something we will try out in the workshops. How to be aware of each other at all times is also something we will practice in the workshops before the larp.
You will play characters that have or are trying to come to terms with the fact that they have been lied to for all their life, but many are still unsure of how they want to shape their life after the church.
The characters are former Magisterium people, experimental theologists (physicists in our world), witches, nobility, nomads, soldiers, writers, adventurers, students at the university, politicians, natural philosophers and the like. The characters more or less know each other before the game starts – some only superficially.
You have in common a great curiosity about what this state of things will mean for you personally and how the view possibilities of understanding have and will affect your understanding of your Daemon. Scientific experiments might help you learn more about your connection to your Daemon and thereby the world.
Playstyle and pacing
The playstyle will be Nordic in origin and focus on “Play to lift”. More about this in the workshops.
There will be options for short offgame calibrations during scenes, but there should be no offgame comments made in ingame areas and no long offgame conversations held outside of offgame areas. The GM will be playing a character in the larp.
Daemon is a so-called “Frontloaded” larp. There are a lot of complicated relations in the character backgrounds as well as a dramatic intro scene to start the larp off. Frontloading also means that there are more planned events in the first act of the larp in addition to a high intensity beginning. After that most of the time will be free play, but there are some collective activities that all characters will participate in of which meals and scientific experiments are the most prominent. You are welcome to bring the extra activities and ideas into the larp that you would like.
We will start the larp together in a collective scene and then we do directly into a three course dinner designed around “Dinner Warfare”. You can read more about that concept here:
That means that pacing wise, we are jumping right into the core of the larp instead of walking around and saying “hello” for ages. The three acts are between four and six hours, all designed for high intensity with breaks in between.
If you want to read more about the pacing itself, you can see an illustration in the article by Katrine Wind on page 34 in the 2025 Knutepunkt book Anatomy of Larp Thoughts: a breathing corpus.
River Rafting Design – Article
The character sheets are 5-8 pre-written pages. They contain all relations, back-stories and what you need to know about your character. No co-creation is expected regarding the basis of the characters and relations but there are open questions of things to think about and something you might discuss with your partner. The only thing expected is calibration with co-players in the workshops and deciding how you want to play it.
Another core concept of the larp is practising the skill of “Playing an engaging victim”. We will lift each others’ play – especially when we are playing oppression. An example could be to not demand that scientific experiments should be voluntary and make it too hard for the scientists to actually do transgressive experiments. You can read more about the concept here:
Examples of what you can do at the larp
- Experiment with the symbiotic relationship between human and Daemon
- Have a passionate romantic interest where the Daemons show the true feelings while the humans aren’t allowed to show them
- Have fun by making great toasts to science which has won the war
- Have an existential crisis over losing your deity and seemingly gaining free will
- Question the nature of the human soul
- Explore what place desire can have in your life
- Relive traumas from the war through your Daemon to heal
- Dine and dance in a way you have never been allowed to before when The Magisterium had a firm grasp over morality in this world
- Threaten a former friend who was on the other side of the war
- Be shocked and horrified by radical experiments taking place between Humans and Daemons
What this larp is not – what you should not expect from this larp
- A strict plotline for the overall larp. There will be plenty of character relation options and possible storylines for the individual and there will be much time to play this out to experience the bond between human and Daemon. All players are invited to create stories ingame and create play for each other.
- A ‘His Dark Materials’ reenactment. There will be no dangerous adventures in this or other worlds like the ones the main characters in the books experience. No known characters will be in the larp or be known personally to the characters. This is only a world inspired by the novels.
- What exists in the fiction outside of the setting and location we will be playing at is not important. Yes, armoured bears exist, and some might have seen one in the war, but they are not relevant to the story. The same goes for spectres and other elements of the original material that are not on this website.
- Daemons eating, sleeping like animals and being in full body costumes to look the part. Actually, in His Dark Materials, Daemons don’t eat at all. But as players, we need to eat, can’t fly and can’t be as small as a moth, so we will never be able to do a 1:1 representation of the animals anyway. Thus, the Daemon players will also eat at the table and sleep in a bed like their human counterparts and merely represent the animal form they have with bodylanguage and some costume/make-up parts.
- A sexual or nudity filled experience. Some of the important themes are definitely desire, the meaning of loss of innocence and newly won free will. Even sensuality or eroticism can be a part of this experience for some. However, the death of “The church” is not only about sexual liberation and there are many kinds of desire other than sexual desire. Therefore players are advised to interpret ‘desire’ as broadly as possible. Sexual violence is not a theme you can encounter in this larp.
Preparation
- You will get the same character sheet as your partner. For each character, there will be three options as to which animal the Daemon can be. The options will all fit the background and personality of the character.
- All characters are public to read before the larp. There are no secrets off-game but you don’t have to read anything but your own character. There are some events during the larp runtime that you won’t be told the content of but there are no secrets between players.
- You are not expected to plan scenes.
- Pre-play is discouraged. You just read your character and participate in the pre-game workshops. You are more than welcome to talk to relations beforehand but you don’t have to and no pre-play will happen. This is to make sure that you can just show up to the larp with a costume, knowing the setting and having read your character to play – nothing else.