Foam Swords, Full Armor & Heat Stroke: Inside KSU’s LARPing Kingdom (ft. Iron Springs)
Yeah. Catnip ever
B:Yeah. That's her
Tyler:full name. Catnip ever. That's her name.
B:That's her name. Catnip ever. Yeah.
The Gambit:Yes.
B:That's what she goes by.
Tyler:It Catnip ever
The Gambit:Oh, yeah. You don't want say that again.
B:Dookie. There you go.
The Gambit:My bad. You tell her.
Dorian:My condolences for whoever edits edits this episode.
Tyler:Alright. Welcome everybody to Creators Real Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Watson, and welcome guys. We got Iron Springs here with us today. Give a little little round of mouths.
Tyler:Alright. So I'm gonna hope I get I'm gonna hope I get this right. I got Gambit. Yeah. I got Bea.
Tyler:Yep. And I've got Dorian. Yep. Right. Okay.
The Gambit:So Technically, it's the Gambit, but Gambit don't talk don't use
Tyler:the making this more difficult.
B:Also technically, my full name is B. Apis Malefra.
The Gambit:B. Apis Malaria.
Dorian:Oh god. And technically, my full name is Man at Arms, Dorian Vanguard.
B:Oh, if we're doing our titles.
The Gambit:Yeah. If we're doing our titles and all that, then technically speaking, hold up. What is it? Okay. Okay.
The Gambit:Gave us a guy. Alright. So technically
Tyler:I'm the
B:only one with a board title here.
The Gambit:For now. For now. If we're doing like full titles, then technically Gambit is Page, The Gambit, Bongsan, Commandment of Truth, Silver Scale. What? Yeah.
The Gambit:If
Tyler:I if you really expected me to say all of those No.
The Gambit:No. Gambit just expects a gambit.
B:Yeah.
Tyler:Okay.
B:Okay. So if we're doing my full title, it's Liege, man at arms, be aptus malefria Malefra aliyuhu god.
The Gambit:Be a malefria.
B:Ah. Yeah.
Tyler:Okay. You know what? We'll we'll jump into that. But first, my intro question is always, introduce yourself, tell us about who you are, what you do, who would like to answer
B:that? Dory first.
The Gambit:Alright. Why Dory first?
Dorian:Hi. My name is Dorian or a lot lot of people call me Dory. I am a junior here at KSU. I started LARPing basically the first few weeks of me coming to KSU. I was walking on campus and then this one guy came up and yelled, hey, do you want to fight me?
Dorian:And Wow. My first instinct was, well, I got nothing better to do.
Tyler:Okay.
Dorian:So I came over and I fought him and then I really enjoyed myself and then I kept coming back to fight this guy. And now I am dressed in a tunic, a yellow belt, and I'm doing a podcast on this.
Tyler:And let me clarify, fight in in live action role play, and not just straight up this dude is like bare knuckle like let's go.
Dorian:Know, I first thought that he was going to go bare knuckles, but then he handed me a foam sword and I was I was slightly disappointed, but I started to enjoy it. Was it shaggy? It was shaggy.
The Gambit:How'd Gambit know?
Tyler:So you're telling me that if he if somebody across the green yells at you, hey, you wanna fight me bare knuckle? Like, you're like, yeah, let's do it.
Dorian:I've done stupider. Yeah.
The Gambit:Like, there was a couple weeks ago when someone Yeah. Yeah. Someone came up to us. We were in the middle of practice. We're not like middle, but like we were about to start a battle game and they were like, hey, does anybody want to get pie in the face for $20?
The Gambit:And this this one right here, he was like, yeah.
B:$20 is $20.
The Gambit:Basically. Yep.
Tyler:20 whole dollars.
B:Then He got the money.
The Gambit:He did
Dorian:get the money. I spent that on Chili's, a three for me. It was the best Chili's three for me. Chicken bacon quesadilla.
B:It was earned.
The Gambit:And But a great use of $20. But do you have a Chili's plate? No. Gambit does.
Tyler:But, you know, besides when did you guys get started? So I learned now I first, I was like, what is the LARPing group on campus? That was my I was looking for that. And then I was like, oh, Iron Springs. Like, what does that mean?
Tyler:So what is Iron Springs and why does it have that name? And how does Iron Springs fit into live action role play?
The Gambit:So there'd be different types of live action role of like foam fighting live action role play. So there's Ampguard, which is what we do. There's Belagarth. And then there's kind of a third one called was it Dagger here? Dagger Dagger Here.
The Gambit:Here. That one's not really a thing anymore.
B:They disbanded.
The Gambit:Yeah. But so Iron Springs is is one park in the Kingdom Of Winter's Edge Of Ampgard. So was includes Tennessee, Alabama.
B:It's Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina. It's a region. Yeah. So that's that's our kingdom. We're a park within our kingdom.
B:There are other kingdoms like the Kingdom Of Neverwinter. No. Wait.
The Gambit:Yeah. Neverwinter.
B:Neverwinter. Yeah. That's right. Which is in Florida. And then there's like Burning Lands.
The Gambit:I don't know where that one is.
Tyler:Should we go deeper here then? Because maybe the bigger question here is, teach us about live action role play and and how on earth there is this much organization with it. Because in my eyes, I'm thinking this is just a pickup group of foam sword fighters. Right?
B:So we're actually a, like, nonprofit organization. Ampgard is. Like, it's a
Dorian:Five five zero one c nonprofit.
B:Yeah. Nonprofit. There are rules. We have rule books that you have to follow in order to have, like, legal weapons. If you bring just, like, a golf club onto the field, we're gonna be like, what the fuck?
B:Get out of here. Or or
The Gambit:like a random example of cast iron skillet.
B:Yeah. Oh my god. Has somebody tried that? Yes. Someone has tried
Tyler:that. Oh my gosh. You just kill like everyone you touch.
The Gambit:No. Okay. In Gambit's defense, it's a small cast iron skillet. Like he can hold it in one like he has it in his bag. Could easily bash
Tyler:somebody's skull in with a tiny cast.
The Gambit:Okay. But like one day they're gonna they're gonna pass it and Gambit's gonna be allowed to cast iron on field. Alright. It's the only spell Gambit knows.
B:So we have we have our rules, which are the code of conduct that lay out what you can and cannot do and what will happen if you do those things. Yes. Then we have our rules of play, which help us know how to build weapons and how to make games and how to do things safely. Right. And is there another thing?
B:I think that's it.
Dorian:Oh, I do wanna get into the safety aspect because a lot of times within Ampgard, we get asked the question, hey, am I going to get hurt doing this? And Maybe. We tend to focus a lot on safety. That is our number one priority. So the way we build our weapons is that the sword will break before the person.
Dorian:Right. Right.
B:You're more likely to get hurt by tripping and falling and or getting hit in the face then you are you know, if you get a body shot, it's not gonna hurt that bad. You're Right. You know?
The Gambit:It might sting a little. It might sting. It ain't gonna be pleasant.
B:Might get a bruise if the weapon is is, like, not broken in. But my god.
Tyler:Oh, there's the cast iron skill. His
B:name is Morten. But your the sword is more likely to break than you are. Right. Whatever we use is designed to keep you and others safe and its handler safe, if anything.
Tyler:Context to audio listeners, Gambit has just pulled out a foam sword.
B:If I knew we were gonna get weapons, I would have brought my, like, bow
The Gambit:and arrow. Gambit knows that with Gogoat, he can't. We would it
Tyler:be okay for you guys for us to get into the making of weapons?
Dorian:Yeah. Of
Tyler:course. What what can we have Gambit kinda explain what we're looking at here?
The Gambit:So what this is this is Gambit's short sword Gogoat. Named after the ghost song, not the Pokemon.
B:Okay. Oh, yeah. Everything. There are different kinds of weapons. Yeah.
B:Short sword, long sword. We use polearms, which that's my main weapon. And my mic.
The Gambit:You're fine.
B:So that's a longsword.
The Gambit:This is David's go to weapon, spade.
Tyler:Okay. Another a longer sword has appeared.
The Gambit:Yes.
B:We have, like, air bows and arrows and things like that. Again, all under regulation. So, like, for example, bows have to be 30 pounds and under for them to
Tyler:be legal because if you have a 50 pound
B:bow, that's gonna hurt somebody.
Tyler:50 pound? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That would that would feel incredibly dangerous.
Tyler:Yeah.
The Gambit:Yeah.
Tyler:I I feel like I this is good that you guys have safety because I feel like you could have one dude who's just way too into it, and he's got, like, this extremely, like, solid bat.
B:Yeah. He just breaks
The Gambit:your hammer.
Tyler:I mean
B:We also have waivers.
Tyler:That's good. Yeah. Yeah.
The Gambit:Because although these are designed to break before we do, like, again, this is just
Dorian:it's a contact sport at the end of day.
Tyler:Yeah. I think you could get hit by that and like, I'm sure it's not gonna feel great, but it's like, you know, paintball is not gonna pierce your skin.
B:Right?
Tyler:Right. I mean, that's probably just gonna hurt a little bit. Like,
The Gambit:at the end of the day, this is just a golf club with with pipe insulation wrapped around it and then puzzle mat, camping pad, and like yoga mat at the end. So that way when, like, if you get stabbed by by it, you don't die because a golf club tip went into your into your body.
Tyler:Yeah. You put like awkward points on the end of your pass, just accidentally stab somebody. You know what we're gonna do after this for a video? Mhmm. And if you're looking if you're looking to see this video, it's gonna be on Instagram because we're definitely gonna do this.
Tyler:We're gonna have you smack me as hard as you can with that. Oh.
B:Back test. Back test. Back test. Back test.
Tyler:Because I and I don't know why I volunteer myself for these things, but I actually think that'd be great.
B:We could also just do a normal fight if you want to.
The Gambit:You can just We could do both.
Tyler:I I I wanna save that for another.
The Gambit:You could do both.
Tyler:Okay. Wanna do a whole thing with that, but we'll get into that later. Okay. So we got into the the making of weapons, the different type of weapons.
The Gambit:Yep.
Tyler:Now and you said there's a lot of waivers and stuff like that. So how does it usually work?
B:Yeah. That's my job. I am our parks. So Iron Springs PM, which is prime minister. I handle all of the paperwork, the money, the getting people signed in and making sure that they get their credits and things like that.
B:So the waiver, the kingdom itself. So Winter's Edge, which is our kingdom, comes out with a waiver that can say pretty much whatever. Our waiver currently says, you know, you're not gonna sue us. We're not gonna sue you if someone gets hurt or something gets broken. Right.
B:And then they just came out with a new waiver that was like, you cannot take this before a judge.
Tyler:Okay.
B:I could probably go get one of my waivers out of my cart if I really wanted to.
Tyler:I guarantee this stuff will happen all
B:all the time. Yeah. So that's why the waivers exist. So basically, get the waiver. You have to have your ID because you have to be 18 to sign the waiver for it to be legal.
B:And I take your ID. I write down you. I have you write down your name, sign your name, put today's date, and I forgot the other thing.
Tyler:Shoot a selfie?
B:Yeah. No. I'll Witness. Witness. But we'll get then to the second.
B:But I do my job is to write down your birthday, what form of documentation you have. So if it's your driver's license, your state ID, things like that, and then sign a witness area, and then I have to pass it to one of my fellow officers. So the GMR, the Monarch, the Regent or the champion. And then they have to sign another witness area saying, yeah, this guy is 18. He signed the waiver.
B:We watched him do it.
Tyler:That makes sense. Yeah. That makes sense. And it's a it's a detailed process to make sure that everybody's safe and
B:safe. Yeah. Because, you know, with how long this sport has been going on, it's like it's been around for a while. How long?
Dorian:Since the seventies.
B:Yeah. Since the seventies. Yeah. It's been around for a while. You know, some stupid person got hurt and went, oh, I'm gonna sue you.
Tyler:Oh, it's gonna happen all the time.
B:All the time.
Tyler:I just imagine two two people getting way too into it. They hit one guy hits him way too hard. Mhmm.
The Gambit:And then Yeah.
Tyler:Next thing you know what, they're cursing each other out.
B:Yeah. Yeah.
The Gambit:So That's happened that's happened Gambit's seen that happen at
B:Iron Springs But they can't do anything because they send a waiver.
Tyler:So one question I kinda like wanna go back into is so you so you said it started in the seventies. What can you tell me about, from what you know, of, like, the initial beginnings of it, where it started, who started it?
Dorian:So I believe Apgar as an organization kind of was a break off group from another group called Dag Here. We really wanted to get into more of the magic area. From what what my knowledge is, and this has been basically not well documented, but passed down through plenty of people, is some guy had a rule book that came out that was Ampguard. He sold it. And then over the course of a while, he kind of abandoned the project.
Dorian:Other people picked it up. And the rule book kind of changed every now and then. I believe we are on version eight or nine of the
The Gambit:was like eight point something that was in Gambiturk.
B:Yeah. I think so.
Dorian:Yeah. And so over the years it kind of evolved and dispersed just just kind of naturally And people took it with them, people moved, and just started their own parks. Right.
Tyler:Right.
Dorian:Yeah. It's just kind of something that naturally dispersed like any sport would.
Tyler:Mhmm. Yeah. And it kinda like is this kind similar to how maybe I'm trying to think of better examples than this, but this is the only one that comes to my head. Like, Scouts and Boy Scouts, how they are kinda it's easy to, like, start a chapter of it, I guess.
Dorian:Yes. Actually, that's a fairly good analogy. Really, all you need to do to start a park is do a little bit of legal documents, talk to your local kingdom, and get some people involved. Ampgard as a organization isn't really too hard to start a park. It's just keeping that momentum going.
Tyler:You have to have people regularly attend. You have to keep it organized. You have to have responsible people in charge.
B:Yeah. Yeah. So there are actually levels to having a park. The kingdom or not kingdom. Park Of Iron Springs is a duchy level park.
B:Yeah. Yeah. A Dutch level park. But there's like the Shire, there's Grand Duchy, which is after Duchy. I don't know what comes after Shire.
B:What comes after Shire?
Tyler:I believe.
Dorian:Yeah, it's blanking
Tyler:on me.
The Gambit:Is there's like Shire Principality.
B:Yeah. No. Principalities are break broken off from kingdoms.
The Gambit:Yep. Gambit thought of Gambit thought it went like Shire, Shire, Duchy, Grand Duchy, Principality, Kingdom.
B:I have no idea. But it all depends on how many people regularly show up to your park. So there's there's newcomers and then there's the people who show up consistently to your park, which is called populace. And whoever has a bigger populace gets to move up to whatever is next. So a shire gets to move up to we're gonna say a duchy because I can't remember the other ones, if there's another one.
B:A Shire gets to move up to a duchy and then a duchy gets to move up to a grand duchy, which Iron Springs is very close to actually moving up to a grand duchy. We get to we get to decide if we want to take it or not. And so far, we're like on the fence.
The Gambit:Yamba thought we had like special permission. Was like
Tyler:Special privilege?
The Gambit:Yeah. Because since because like the kingdom because like kingdom knows that since we're like a college park, our numbers tend to like dwindle during the summer. So like we have that like special like there's something where it was like we don't accept Grand Duchy and like we just stay at Duchy because
B:But we've had consistent Grand Duchy numbers
The Gambit:Like Gamba don't Gamba as don't really know all. That's just what he heard from people.
Tyler:So and how many people are we talking like numbers wise for attendance, I guess?
B:So usually for Iron Springs, we have more than 20 people per day. But consistently, we can we have 40 populace pretty And that's just at KSU campus. At Marietta campus, they also get like fifteen, twenty people per day. Right. So being able to have that amount of people and then having 40 populous means that we could soon move up to Grand Duchy.
B:So yay.
Tyler:Okay. Well, sweet. Now, maybe let's talk about like so I've been told to talk about belt lines, households, and fighting companies.
The Gambit:Oh, fun.
Tyler:So which one which one of you guys would like to dive into this?
The Gambit:So Game we can go to for so with belt lines, if a amp garter has been granted a lord lady, liege, or whatever, the title that's on the same level of lord, lady, and liege, they're able to take up what are known as pages.
Tyler:Okay.
The Gambit:And you can denote if someone's a page or not by if they're wearing a primarily or solid yellow belt. So Gambit is page to, you might have seen him on like social media Teddy. So that relationship typically is like a mentor mentee type relationship. Oftentimes it kind of becomes sort of like a parental relationship with from like the under belt to the over belt. And within like belt lines, there can be a line where one person has belted somebody who's belted another person.
The Gambit:And that's a full belt line in and of itself. Like for example, Teddy is belted to another player named Faust. So Gambit is belted to Teddy who's belted to Faust. So that's a whole and they basically become like family trees. And also like as people get like elevated in titles, the title that you have that you're belted with moves up.
The Gambit:So like if somebody is a a page and their lord was if like their lord becomes a knight, then they're no longer a page. They become a squire.
B:If they decide that.
The Gambit:If they yeah. If they decide to.
Tyler:Decide to stick stick with them.
The Gambit:Right? Yeah.
B:Yeah. So it's basically if you're a knight, so knights are like the big thing. Yeah. If you're a knight, you're
Tyler:like one of the best. You're like warrior tier, right?
B:There are different kinds of knights. There's like crafting knights, which are dragon and stuff like that. There's things like if you fight well, you can have a knighthood for that. If you do battle gaming well, you can do that. But battle gaming is like classes and like think D and D.
B:But basically, if your knight pages you whenever they're not a knight and they move up to knight, they can go, hey, do you want to be my squire? And then you can be like, yeah, or no, I just want to stay night.
Tyler:There's like a whole yeah, kind of like you said, there's a whole web to it. Yeah, there's kind of everybody has different labels, tasks, stuff like that. What are some of the other labels?
The Gambit:Man at Arms? They're under They are under squires. Okay.
B:Yeah. Yeah.
The Gambit:So you're a man.
B:Me and this one are man at arms, which is denoted by a green belt or primarily green belt or a black and silver belt. Okay. And, yeah, so that's and then there's squires. Squires are red belts. Okay.
B:And knights are white.
The Gambit:Yes. Yes. That is correct. Yeah.
Dorian:Yes. Avgard, very much as as an organization, has a heavy amount of culture. This is where most of our fantasy elements come from other than classes, which we'll get into later, is our hierarchy system. Right? Mhmm.
Dorian:As Gambit has previously stated, we kind of have familial ties, and a lot of the times our dynamics are both as friends, but when we get into that, like, hierarchy system, a lot of people just straight up become, like, found family to us. Right. Right. I would honestly consider a lot Vamp Guard, even outside the belt system, as a found family.
B:Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And then, like, people who are paged next to you or man at arms next to you under the same knight or squire or whoever becomes like your siblings. So I just moved under a belt line under a guy named Toast who already was who already had a man at arms named Dreyfus, and now Dreyfus is technically my brother.
Tyler:Is there maybe this is a bad question. Is there conflicts between can there sometimes be conflict between if there's multiple squires under one knight? Sometimes.
Dorian:Yeah. There's potential.
The Gambit:Gamble would say there'd be potential there.
B:People people are people. There's gonna be fighting no matter what you do. You can try to prevent it, but, like, sometimes people
The Gambit:Not everybody. Along. Know, I
Tyler:kinda I guess it also brings my next point is can we get a rundown of when you guys approach the day, right? So obviously you're kind of split off into like knights and then knights, under those knights for squires, same with, like pages or under lords. So how why separate them? Do they go against each other often? Like, is this kinda like forming teams, I guess?
B:No. So basically, what it is is just like denoting what you've done to earn your title. So, like, we have awards. So I'm gonna do battle gaming as a as an example. If you do really good at battle gaming, say, like, the first award you get is, like, using your first spell.
B:That's a battle game. You get your first award. Second award, getting to know your spell list. Third award, getting to perfect your spell list. And then so on and so forth up until eight or nine.
B:And then once you get to eight, nine, or 10 I don't remember.
The Gambit:It's typically like the tenth one is when you become eligible to become a knight.
B:Yeah. So once you get to 10 awards in one section, because we have a bunch of them, there's battle gaming, there's just regular fighting, tourney fighting.
The Gambit:Role playing.
B:Role playing, crafting, things like that. Once you get your tenth award, you can become eligible to become a knight. And typically, we want what we want to see in knights is being able to teach someone, mastering what you know best. So classes as battle gamers. So, like, if you know how to battle game, we want you to be able to teach someone how to battle game and give to your park and kingdom.
B:So community just generally knights help out their community and all that stuff. But basically, it's you're the best at what you do in Right. This area Right. Of expertise. So yeah.
Tyler:Okay. So that that makes less a little bit more clarity. It kinda shows the level of experience, I guess. Yeah. Without just being like, this dude's good.
Tyler:This dude sucks.
B:Yeah. Right. And then, like, also for, like, liege lady lord titles, it's denoting if you worked in office. So, like, my position right now as PM, I got my liege title from being good at my job, basically. Right.
B:Okay. Yeah.
Tyler:What about fighting styles? Let's let's talk about that. Let's talk about how usually how usually a fight operates in in this.
Dorian:Well, typically when we engage in fighting, right, there are different types. We We can do like army style battle games. We can do ditches, which is basically just a version of team deathmatch. Or we could do just 1v1s, right? All of those have different rules of engagement, but what I really want to focus on is like different weapons and different fighting styles because all of us here have different things we kind of are proficient in.
Dorian:I like to say like there are kits, right, for the sport. So say, stick, right, which is just one short sword or one long sword. Then we have sword and board, sword and shield. We have flow, which is short for Florentine. It is two swords at once.
Dorian:Is actually yeah. Yeah. It seems it seems very rooted in fantasy but actually can be quite effective especially with how our weapons are built. And then we have what me and Bee here are very proficient at which are polearms which you might see online these big ten foot eight foot long, just giant sticks we whack each other with.
Tyler:Yeah. Like jousting?
B:So it's not like we do have ones that like spears that's just stab only. So basically you can stab not swipe. But what me and Dorian use is glaives mostly. So it's basically really long stick with a lot of foam on the end. So you can slash, you can stab, you do whatever you want with it.
B:And that's what we're best at. Interesting. I'm sorry.
Tyler:No, no, go ahead.
B:You can also think of fighting styles as like rock, paper, scissors. So flow is good against sword and board. Sword and Board is good Excuse against
Tyler:me? Well,
The Gambit:the Sword and Board user knows what they're doing, Flow is kind of
B:Well, mean, if anybody knows what they're doing
Tyler:Well, but like, no, because It falls apart.
The Gambit:There are some things that's like, you know, if you know what they even if they know what they do it, like, there's one that's like clearly gonna beat the other.
B:Yeah. But like, you know, grapes or glaives or whatever is good against flow because you're not blocking with a big sword and board, but sword and board is good against grates. And it's just like a big triangle, basically. And then you got your off ramps, which is like having a flail or
The Gambit:Like a Madhu, which is like you have a shield and then a sword sticking out the end.
Tyler:So there's like so many different like weapons, how they're and different classifications.
B:So many.
Tyler:There's like obviously there's there's probably books on this, right?
Dorian:Are. Yep. And you can do some very, very funny text as long as you exist within the safety rules and it can follow general common sense. I mean, it's by the books, but obviously dangerous, we aren't allowing it. But if it's safe and by the books, we allow it.
Dorian:For example, Jambit's laughing because I am the mad blacksmith of the group. I once created a eight foot tall axe that is about has a head about the size of half this table. Yeah. Out of metal?
The Gambit:No. No. Was like Out of foam. It's completely it's like the thing is with the axe is like it's it's like getting hit with a pillow. Yeah.
The Gambit:It does not hurt.
B:But it's intimidating.
The Gambit:Oh. Swinging it generates lift.
Tyler:Is it like a big impact when that thing hits you? It's like a mass like a comically large bat or whatever and like Looney Tunes?
B:Depending on how you get hit. Yeah.
Tyler:Yeah. Yeah. I wanna see this now. Yeah. Hey.
Tyler:Let's put up hey. Know what? Send me that photo. We'll put a little photo up.
The Gambit:Gotcha.
Tyler:Right here.
The Gambit:There's also don't forget pickle.
Tyler:Oh, yeah. Pickle exists.
The Gambit:Yep. Pickle?
Dorian:Yeah. You want to describe it?
The Gambit:So, pickle is one of Gambit's great swords.
Tyler:Is it green?
The Gambit:Yes, it is green. Okay. So we call Pickle Pickle because it is a bamboo core great sword. So that so because of that, there's a curve to the to the sword. He was given a green cover and he looked at anyone in Gamuta, oh this looks like a giant pickle.
The Gambit:And that was and that was basically how pickle pickle one came to be.
Tyler:Who's pickle?
The Gambit:Unfortunately, pickle one died. Pickle one? Pickle two? Yeah. There's a second one.
The Gambit:Pickle Pickle one died New Year's Day twenty twenty five.
B:My God.
The Gambit:Core cracked. So we were at practice and Gambit still remember, we were at practice at Swift Cantrell. And at first we thought it was just oh, like the pommel was coming loose and we thought, okay, you know, maybe just be fixable, and then Gambit looked at the bamboo and he saw that there was a crack going down the center of it,
Tyler:and
The Gambit:just dread filled Gambit as he realized that his iconic greatsword was now dead.
B:Pickle became illegal that day.
Tyler:Yeah. Pickle became illegal.
The Gambit:But luckily, Pickle had a brother that was not that was not used that Dory still had. And so game so Pickle was reborn with Pickle two.
Tyler:Yep. Mhmm. We'll put Pickle right here.
B:If we have a picture of it.
Tyler:Can we give it, like, a sad violin on, like, Pickle one? What is the worst conflict you guys have had and to what extreme did that conflict get to? I feel Have the police been called?
B:No. Good. Feel like everybody has their, like, one worst conflict in their head. But
Tyler:Who out of the three of you has the worst conflict? And then alright.
B:We be getting into stuff.
Tyler:Yeah. Alright. What are you getting into, dude?
Dorian:Let's actually about heat stroke incident.
B:Heat stroke incident.
Tyler:Yeah. Heat stroke. I wonder oh, okay.
Dorian:Alright. So typically, we have these big events every three months. Right?
The Gambit:Four They're times a called kingdoms.
Dorian:They're called kingdoms. We basically go up to Chattanooga. We rent out an entire section of a national park.
The Gambit:I believe it is not Booker T.
Dorian:Washington Park up in Chattanooga.
B:There's a couple.
Dorian:And so this was during the July heat, I believe. It was like Oh god. Late July, early August. Late July, early August. Basically, start of last semester.
Dorian:And I was going up there to go see
The Gambit:just watch people.
Dorian:Right? There was being there was a giant battle game being hosted. Right? This was a competitive one. This was for awards.
Dorian:Yeah. So everyone was locked in.
B:There you go. It's called a battle game tourney or tournament.
The Gambit:Multiple battle games being fought all at once.
B:Round after round after round against different teams, and there was hardly any breaks in between. Oh,
Tyler:and probably not very much drinking of water.
The Gambit:Right? Unfortunately not.
B:Yep. Well, some of us tried to drink water, and I'm saying this as someone who was part of the heat stroke incident. Oh, so
Tyler:you're you were the one of the people who did not drink enough water perhaps?
B:I did drink water. Basically, I was low on sodium. I didn't realize that. Felt kind of pukey, but I was like, I'm really hot. I need to drink water.
B:So I kept drinking water, kept drinking water. It didn't absorb. And at the end of the battle games, Attorneys, I think we had like one game left. I got up because I was sitting down. I got up and I was like walking and my vision started like getting really blurry and then getting black at the edges.
Tyler:Right. Right.
B:And I went up to now my belt brother, Dreyfus, not belt brother at the time, but belt brother now. And I went Dreyfus. Dreyfus. Maybe I'll just come in what? And then he grabbed me and, like, there was this huge panic of people.
B:And I was, like, blacking out at this point. I was, like, barely conscious. But I remember people, like, putting me in my car, and then I got wet towels and, like, cold ice Oh. Put down my shirt and nourishes my legs.
Tyler:And then everybody's just trying to, like, rescue you as you're
B:practically Yeah. I got banned from fighting for the rest of the day.
Tyler:Oh, good.
B:And put in a deep freezer. I thought
Tyler:they were gonna say like the like the rest of the time and I was like, okay. But the rest of the day,
B:that's that's what
The Gambit:I got. Yeah.
B:I also got put in a deep freezer, which is funny.
The Gambit:Gambit remember sweating his absolute off because he was in so many layers.
Tyler:Oh my gosh.
The Gambit:He was in Gambit was in three three layers because he had his like his regular tunic, then he had gambeson, which is like quilted armor, cloth armor, and then he had his his leather tunic on over that, plus he had like a bunch of he had like he had his page belt on, and then like a belt type thing that he made to denote his team.
Tyler:Golly.
The Gambit:Plus he Plus Gambit was wearing his mask, and then he has Gambit has a specific hat that he wears during tournaments. It's a PK slider hat from that
B:It's a kick slider.
The Gambit:It's what whatever. It's the white dog from Animal Crossing, And he wears it and that's his tournament hat. And so Gambit also had that. And so the worst part about it was like Gambit wasn't even really fighting all that much. He was on the the team he was on.
The Gambit:He was just there as like adjusting case as an extra body. So he was just kind of sitting there cooking for like
Tyler:Just cooking forever. At least you're not running around.
The Gambit:Gamble would have preferred if he was like getting like absolutely miserable in the heat while doing something rather than just sitting there, honestly.
Dorian:And to add on to that, a lot of times in this battle game tournament, people were wearing like chain mail armor, metal armor.
The Gambit:Heavy heavy quilted fabric armor.
Dorian:Earlier, we mentioned a player named Faust. Funny story about that. He was involved in this heat stroke incident. This was the last round of the tournament. They were ready to call it.
Dorian:Right? They were just gonna do one more round and then that's gonna be it. So Faust was running in, I believe it was Chainmail Gambeson in like 95, getting close to a 100 degree weather. And so he was running on fumes already, and some guy with a foam arrow,
The Gambit:it
Dorian:was an archer, ready to shot. And it just so happened that the arrow was aimed a little too high and went smack dab right in the center of his forehead. And he just
B:He fell. Oh, damn. Yeah.
Tyler:And then he went over and he was like, KO. Know? So
B:it was actually three people. It was me, my belt father now, Toast, and
The Gambit:Phounce. Belt Pee Paw.
B:Belt Pee Paw. Belt pee paw. Okay. And we were all stuck in the deep freezer because so the the area we were in, we had a big, like, kitchen and, like, industrial stuff, and they were like, alright. Your body temperature is way up here, and you're shaking and you're slurring your words.
B:We're gonna put you in the deep freezer. So me and Toast and Faust all sat in the deep freezer for a while.
Tyler:Hey. You know what? I've actually done that before. One of my jobs, worked I at Publix and I had big walk in freezers and then on a hot day I just walk in there and just be
B:like yeah. I
Tyler:actually have a story that kind of goes along this whole heat stroke thing. So me and my buddies used to always go and play Ultimate Frisbee for some reason And one day we go and my buddy, you know, we're all playing just like normal and I throw I'm throwing it to him and he decides he's gonna dive. I'm like don't throw that on. Like I never I was like okay I'm just not gonna catch it. He dives, lands like this, like, with his arms tucked underneath him.
The Gambit:Uh-oh.
Tyler:And all of a sudden, he just down. He's like, he lands and he's like down. We're like, okay. Well, what the heck happened to him? And everybody keeps playing.
Tyler:And I'm like looking at him as he's convulsing on the sideline. Oh my god. And I'm thinking, okay, well, let me go check it. I'm like, hey, man, are you okay? He's not talking.
Tyler:Like, he's awake. He's just not talking.
The Gambit:That's not good.
Tyler:And this goes on for a while. And finally, I'm like, guys, we have to stop the game. He's like, we might have to take him to the hospital. So, you know, finally and we're all, like, kind of just like, oh, I don't know what to do. And he's like we're like, you want us to take you to hospital?
Tyler:He's like, I'm fine. I'm like, are you sure? What he did is he cracked his ribs.
B:He
Tyler:cracked, like, multiple ribs from doing it.
The Gambit:Ow. From landing on his arms?
Tyler:Yeah. From landing like that. I just just because how he landed, I guess he cracked his ribs. Well,
The Gambit:only takes
B:makes sense.
The Gambit:Three pounds per square inch to break a rib. So
Tyler:And you know what the worst part is? We let him drive home.
B:Oh. Wow.
Tyler:Because we called his mom. His mom was like, I can't go pick him up. And we were like, well, we don't we don't want to.
B:Oh, my god.
Tyler:And so we did not call the ambulance. Nothing. He just drove himself home and then later on went to the doctor.
B:That's how you get a punctured lung and then you don't see your
The Gambit:friends And
Tyler:that's how you don't show up to Frisbee tomorrow.
The Gambit:Yeah. Yeah. Well, hey, fun story. Well, not if their lung was punctured and they can't breathe. Touche.
The Gambit:Touche.
Tyler:But last thing I kinda wanna ask is just what does what does role playing or what does LARPing Ampguard mean to you guys? And what how would you encourage other people to join?
Dorian:Ampgard to me as very cliche as it sounds is very much a lifestyle to me. It's very much these people. I look at them and I see a brother, a sister, family. I see people around that I love and care about. Basically, Ampgard is a good portion of my life when you get into my social aspects.
Dorian:And I encourage people to join. It's very much well, I like to advertise it to people as free anger management, but really, it's a way to get community. I know a lot of people I came from the other side of Atlanta. I was coming to KSU without any sort of friend group or anyone I knew here. And really like getting that experience, getting to know the people inside this organization was very much good exposure therapy.
Dorian:I was a very shy kid. Some dude at I forgot who taught me the phrase to be cringe is to be free. I know a lot of people look at Ampgard and the LARPers and kind of scoff and say cringe, cornball, whatnot. But
The Gambit:it's They're absolutely right. And it's amazing.
Tyler:Yeah. Mhmm. But you own it. Yeah. Like, this is what you do.
Tyler:Okay. I'm happy. You're not.
Dorian:Yeah. I
B:was the same way, honestly, as those people. I was like, yeah. I'm a nerd, but I'm not like that kind of
Tyler:I'm not doing I'm
B:not that. And then someone was they were doing a cotton candy fundraising Silas was I was like they were like I came up and I was like, do you guys do D and D? And they were like, yeah, we do D and D. And then I got led away to a secondary location by someone else. And then I was like, you know what?
B:I might as well.
Tyler:You're one in Rome.
B:Yeah. But Ampgard is just community as cliche as it is. It's nice to have people around you that have the same interest as you. Right. It's just it's just nice coming from somewhere.
B:I I'd moved from Florida, where I came and I had one friend with me who lived with me, who was my partner, and no other friends, didn't know how to make friends, went to KSU campus and then found this group of people who are so energetic and so kind and willing to bring you into their situation and just teach you how to play and be your friend. It's just it's so nice.
Tyler:Right. Yeah. Absolutely. And I have a lot of respect for you guys because, again, I know I said at the beginning, I was mainly having you guys on because some other influencers is kinda pointing you guys out as a little bit of a spectacle. Maybe be like, oh, look at the look at the LARPing group.
Tyler:Like, look what they're doing. But a lot of respect for you guys because you guys are in the center of the KSU campus. Everyone has to walk around you to see it. And you guys are just unapologetically doing what you guys like to do. So I have lot of respect for that.
Tyler:Yeah. But is there anything you would like to say to the world before I cut you loose?
The Gambit:So if Gambit wanna say if something like directly he that that camera right there?
Tyler:Yeah. Yeah.
The Gambit:Gambit wanna shout out Gambit's Peapaw. Shout out Peapaw Faust. Gambit don't know how, but you will be seeing this and you will be knowing. Also shout out Teddy because Gambit's Belt family is awesome.
B:Yeah.
The Gambit:The best.
B:If you guys wanted to play Ampgard and you don't know where to start, there is literally a website called play.ampguard.com. It shows you your nearest park to your location. Go and play. It's really fun.
Tyler:And if you're a KSU, you know where it's at. You know exactly who to talk to.
Dorian:Mhmm. Anything from you? Last thing I would say is, really, for people who are looking at this and are scared to join, don't be. We are a very welcoming community, and we would absolutely love to have you at the end of the day.
Tyler:Alright. Well, thank you guys for being here. I wanna let the listeners know that you're looking where you can find these links. They're gonna be in the link in the description of the video or wherever you're listening. Other than that, have a great day, guys.
Tyler:We're looking at center camera. Goodbye, people of
B:the world. Goodbye. Thank you for having us.
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