The Luminary Roleplay Society

The Luminary Roleplay Society (LRS) is a community of roleplaying enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area.  We seek to use Live Action Roleplaying games (LARPs) as a tool to allow players and writers to explore improvisational roleplaying, story writing, characters, emotions, and new experiences.

The LRS hosts LARPs and LARP writing workshops at local conventions and other venues.  We are interested in collaborating with other roleplaying groups across the Bay Area and beyond in achieving these goals.

If you are interested in joining the LRS, send a request email to the address below and we will get in contact with you. In the email, please let us know who you are, where you heard about our organization, and whether you have LARPed with us before (at an LRS event or otherwise).

If you’d like help with running an event, please fill out the LARP request form HERE. 

Upcoming Events (send us an email for more info including specific location): 

The LRS also has a Zoom account and has access to full google workspace accounts (IE unlimited length google hangouts) – if having access to either of these (or some other resource!) will help you run online LARPs, please let us know and we will see how we can help! 

Note that sending us an email and getting on our mailing list will provide the most up to date info. See also, the CALENDAR. Websites do not always get updated in the most timely manner.

10/21/2023, Costume Cafe
Come and make costumes! This is scheduled for shortly before grand LARP to facilitate costuming for that event but all costumes are welcome. Please bring your own supplies.
Location: South Bay (Mountain View)

11/10-11/12/2023, The Buried Paths of Siru Kisal – Grand LARP 2023:

Thousands of years ago, so the legends say, there was once a place called the Convocation at Siru Kisal. It was built on a mountain at the world’s heart, and there mighty sorcerers created wonders the likes of which humanity has not seen since, and performed terrible magics that shook the very foundations of the earth. In some myths the sorcerers are depicted as benevolent guardians looking out for all the folk of the land below their mountain; in others they are wise but inscrutable sages; in still others they are fearsome tyrants. But their reign was not to last. Proud Siru Kisal, once the center of everything, was erased in one ill-starred night. The mountain beneath them erupted, burying both the sorcerers and all their works under hundreds of feet of ash, leaving no trace of their existence save the oral histories passed down by the people of the surrounding lands.

The tale of Siru Kisal and its tragic destruction has captured the hearts and minds of poets and scholars for centuries. There is some debate over whether or not the doomed Convocation actually existed, or if some ancient bard had made up the whole thing. Perhaps it is just a fanciful tale, a commentary on the transience of human endeavor, or a scathing parable about power and hubris. Even those who believe that there is a seed of truth behind the stories generally hypothesize that Siru Kisal was a place of unusually advanced scientific progress that the ignorant locals misconstrued as magic. It obviously wasn’t actually magic. Magic doesn’t exist.

******

One year ago, the war ended. It was the first war that weaponized the fruits of modern science, and no one was prepared for its horrors. Peace has returned for now, but the scars of conflict are not so easily healed. In an attempt to exorcize the memories of the brutal fighting, people have flung themselves wholeheartedly into peacetime endeavors – exploration, scientific research, great works of art, or even just wild hedonism. However, tensions are rising amongst the disparate nations who recently fought as allies, and the nations’ leadership are looking for ways to promote ongoing peaceful collaboration between them. When a small team of volcanologists announced that they thought they had found the actual ruins of Siru Kisal on a remote volcanic island, it offered the perfect opportunity for scholars from all over to work together. However, the volcanologists cautioned that the site was still an active volcano, on the verge of erupting again. If Siru Kisal was to be excavated, it would have to happen soon. Accordingly, a hasty expedition of the allies’ finest archeologists and researchers have converged at the mountain, eager to delve into the ancient site and see what can be learned before it is once again consigned to the ash.

But nothing could have prepared the expedition team for what they found when they unsealed the first chamber. The entrance to the site is a small door embedded in a narrow outcropping. But the room on the other side of the door is an enormous atrium, far bigger than the hill which it theoretically fits inside. There was some argument about whether or not it was an optical illusion, but further investigation determined that it was not. The atrium cannot exist according to conventional geometry. But nonetheless, there it is, for all to see. Magic is real. There’s no denying it. And nothing will ever be the same again.

Location: Event center ~1-1.5 hours from the SF Bay Area

11/19/2023 – GM Brunch – Come and discuss writing games and the just finished grand larp. No writing experience needed, all are welcome.

Location: downtown Mountain View, near caltrain station

12/9/2023 – Chaotic Deliberations – No one had wanted the war. But the Prefect and factors of Spidlaria had refused to contribute to the greater light and prosperity of all Candar. The Guild had deliberated on what to do about the renegade land for quite some time. The High Wizard of the Guild of Light, Sterol, after not providing the results the members of the guild and their supporters in the large factors who paid their fair share of tariffs was forced to step down to the strongest Chaos mage seen in generations, Jeslek, who took the war to Spidlaria. But Sipidlaria had dark mages of their own to stand against the Wizards of the Guild. Over two years Spidlaria was conquered, its capital shattered by a Chaos mountain to split the walls, and the dark mage was driven to the edge of the land.

In the final battle, the dark smith had crafted a vessel that ran without the wind and distorted the very light itself around it. The mighty Jeslek was was ambushed by the dark smith Dorrin and slain in our moment of triumph. As the ranking members of the Guild sent to war, you need to choose a new High Wizard and chart a course for the Guild, Candar, and the resolution to the war. Who should lead the Guild and complete the war? What should be done in response to the cowardly assassination of the strongest wizard seen in generations? Time is of the essence and without Jesslek’s unifying might, the deliberations of those who follow the light of Chaos lack harmony.

Location: Sunnyvale

2/24/2023 – Wrestlemageddon – details to come.
Location: Peninsula

3/9/2023 – The Archive – details to come
Location: Oakland

4/2024 – Pixie Perfect – details to come
Location: TBD

6/2024 – TBD what game will run and when 🙂

7/20/2024 – LARP Festival – Come and play (or run) lots of small LARPs in one day! This event is good for exploring new game styles.
Location: Mountain View

8/2024 – LARP COR – details to come

10/2-10/4/2024 – Children of the Gods East Coast (Grand LARP, multiple days, payment required) –

Welcome to the world of Cengea. The Gods have gifted the people with magic, but at a cost – the ravages of magical devastation roaming across the land once every 3 years. Only a chosen few students can manipulate the path of these magical Storms. Until recently, a treaty ensured a tenuous peace. The three nations agreed that the Storm should hit each nation in turn, sharing the devastating burden. Although the Storms always took their toll, no one nation suffered too greatly. That all changed when the treaty was broken, and a nation betrayed. Although their engineers and diplomats struggle to repair what was lost, the work won’t be complete by the next Time of Deciding.

Our story begins at the center of the known world. Here at the College of the Gods, students are trained in the rituals necessary to change the path of the Storm. Instructors maintain the veneer of impartiality, but in reality, each fights for their own nation’s interests to varying degrees, all vying for control of the magical disaster. And the powers that be watch, in the form of political advisors, there to ensure it all goes to plan, though whose plan is up to debate. But despite their efforts, no nation has the complete picture – and new interests conspire to change the fate of the world. Where the magic will ravage next – and what consequences it will have – are for you to decide.

See game specific website for details.
Location: Connecticut

11/2024 – Grand LARP – yes, there is still a plan to have a west coast grand larp! Check back later for details.

(note: for specific locations, please send us an email. Precise locations are not listed here since we sometimes run at private residences people offer up for our use and we’d like to keep those generous people’s addresses private rather than share with the whole internet)