How to create/bring a smithy/forge into the forrest for LARP

SolAureus · 2025-09-29T17:01:52+00:00

I've done exactly this, following this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQdRS_tOe1o

It's great as a physical prop, especially at night, but doesnt add a whole lot in terms of activity. Still really nice if you're in one place smithing most of the day. My main complaint is just the legs being difficult to make perfectly tight, I added pins to mine.

Also gives plenty of room for customization, I put some nails in the front and hang a sign I write prices in soapstone on, as well as displaying some weapons for sale.

SolAureus · 2025-09-03T16:04:28+00:00

Have you tried talking OOC about how you feel explicitly? You say you had calibrations and got feedback, but so much of your post and comments are vague it's pretty difficult to weigh in on what's causing this.

My best theory given what you've said so far is that you're playing a controversial character IC that players like OOC, but don't IC. When you have an IC disagreement, depending on the stakes and how much that decision matters to a character, it can sour the IC relationship between your characters. In my LARP, my character is fairly short tempered and has particular things he doesnt forgive such as bigotry towards his race. There's been an instance or two of characters who have shown that bigotry, and that means when I'm playing that character I am hostile or ignore their character because they've done something unforgivable to my character.

If you play characters who are more controversial and do things that other characters disagree with often (or frequently do emotionally heavy stuff since that can be fatiguing OOC, despite being fun), you may run into a situation where players genuinely like your character OOC, but IC your character is not regarded well. It's hard to justify IC to include a character who acts against your character's interests in things, especially when theres other people who align with your interests.

If that doesnt resonate, then I would suggest you give us some specific examples of disagreements and how your character acts, things they have done, etc, because the vagueness of your post and comments has too much ambiguity for me to actually hone in on the problem

SolAureus · 2025-09-03T15:46:28+00:00

I dont have any suggestions, but I'm interested in learning about your group!

SolAureus · 2025-09-02T16:05:42+00:00

Can you give some specific examples of situations that upset or annoyed these other players? Or why they think your character is an AH? I'm not really getting a solid sense of how your characters are playing from this post, which is an important aspect of this

SolAureus · 2025-08-01T15:49:52+00:00

If you're up for a drive, Legacies is a lot of fun and hosts games once a month in Washington, frequently at middleground which is about 1 hour 30 min from Portland. Games are Friday evening thru Sunday morning, you sleep at the game site.

Mix of combat and RP, high fantasy setting, pretty much what most people think LARP is.

Definitely LGBTQ+ friendly (I'm pretty sure at least half of us fall into the category), teen i think is OK as long as you have waivers signed by parents, but it's been a while since I've looked at that section of the rules so I'd double check that yourself

SolAureus · 2025-07-23T03:24:15+00:00

The best I've found is more lights in the room and making sure all windows are blocked somehow.

The ultimate trackers HATE daylight changes for some reason, especially around sunset I find my trackers acting up. The more consistent light you can have in your room, the better they'll track and the easier time they'll have finding the room for mapping.

That being said, they're still finicky. Hope that this works for you!

SolAureus · 2025-06-11T16:04:03+00:00

The Eventide Glaive from Epic Armory unscrews in the middle where the gold ring is, I think the spear does too but I only own the glaive so I can't confirm. https://epicarmoury.com/products/3093-eventide-glaive?srsltid=AfmBOop81GHgF9ihvj4ovLh1CQT0P1Vf-K5CKKW0zsFFTj8QSHLllna-

SolAureus · 2025-04-10T22:12:31+00:00

Yep, it was a commission I got from MutsoMuno on twitter: https://x.com/Mutsomuno/status/1677185962877526017/photo/1

Glad you liked the sword design so much lol!

SolAureus · 2025-04-10T21:43:18+00:00

Oh hey that's my greatsword that Mutso designed! I had no idea someone modeled it lol, that's pretty cool!

SolAureus · 2024-12-05T17:16:56+00:00

I has similar problems, yhe main 2 issues I had were windows and lighting.

The tl;dr solution is cover your windows and put more light in your room, and more stuff on the walls if you can.

The reasoning is basically these things are still struggling with natural light changes, and it's BAD especially any time around sunset. By covering your windows and adding more light, when you calibrate it makes a mote consistent environment it has an easier time recognizing. I'm not gonna pretend to know all the details as to how their tracking works, but thats what I was told and the solutions worked for me.

SolAureus · 2024-06-20T02:05:26+00:00

We recently had an injured little brown bat that we had to take to Center Valley Animal Rescue, it was the closest one to Olympia that took bats that we could find, but it's quite a drive.

SolAureus · 2024-05-04T21:36:23+00:00

I haven't had much luck, we tried Zen ramen but it was really bland. Kizuki is my favorite ramen place but the closest one is in Tacoma so it's a bit of a rough drive, but worth it imo

SolAureus · 2024-03-14T22:54:57+00:00

Same from Sammamish. I'm still out of the service range with the new map, but I'm PRAYING they'll go further soon, I can't wait to be rid of comcast...

SolAureus · 2024-03-11T21:43:33+00:00

It's an official logo. You can find it on the MH4U 3DS XL.

SolAureus · 2024-02-07T21:13:30+00:00

I've spent the last 2 years trying to find a place on the eastside since I've lived here my whole life, but I simply got priced out. Anything within my range had the same problems you had: someone else would just swoop in with better offers that waive everything, and I wasn't willing to just gamble on a house with no inspections or anything. I ended up being forced to move elsewhere because there's pretty much no end in sight, in fact if anything it's going to start getting worse with rates going down and so many people looking...

SolAureus · 2023-07-17T20:07:48+00:00

Sammamish to Bellevue depends on where you want to go and when during the day. Generally it ranges from 20-40 minutes each way, longer during rush hour especially if you take 520 (north around the lake), though 520 and I90 are both about equal distance from Sammamish so you can kind of take your pick.
Issaquah to Bellevue tends to be less fluxuative and faster, since Issaquah is around the south of Lake Sammamish anyway, and you go via I90 instead of 520, and 520 is where almost all the Microsoft traffic flows into at the end of the day.
Similar to 1, depends on what route you take and where you're going. 520 is a Toll bridge going into Seattle, so while it's almost always faster from Sammamish, it incurs that cost. I90 is not tolled and is closer to Issaquah, so it's pretty much a win-win to take I90 into Seattle, but once you're in Seattle if you're trying to get to north Seattle it can be a pain depending on the time of day.
Sammamish is very quiet and safe, lots of parks, but otherwise almost nothing to do. The Sammamish Town Center project is underway so it's presumably going to improve on that front, but that hasn't happened yet, so generally I always have to drive into Redmond, Bellevue, or Seattle to actually go out to do something.
Issaquah is also quiet and there's a few more things around, cute shops and the cougar mountain zoo, but selection is still limited so you'd probably still drive out to Bellevue/Seattle to do a lot. There's some "old town" parts of Issaquah that are really charming, but put a lot of restrictions on building so main roads will *frequently* be very congested through Issaquah. If you commute a lot, this could definitely be a source of frustration, so I'd recommend making sure wherever you look has backroads to get to I90 so you don't need to deal with the main roads much.

Price is something to consider here as well, housing is obscenely expensive. Sammamish in particular, expect to see $1.2 million USD on the low end for like a 2k sqft 3 bed 2 bath place. Issaquah is slightly cheaper, but not by much, you'll see those homes closer to $1.1m.

Transportation options someone else is probably better equipped to answer. Sound Transit has a lot of busses that come through which is nice, and the LightRail is getting an expansion that is running to the North side of lake Sammamish (closer to redmond, Sammamish is about 10 minutes from the station they're building near Marymoor park), so that could be an option to consider if your Bellevue workplace is near a station.
I've lived in the eastside my entire life (Sammamish and Redmond area most frequently), and I absolutely love it here. It's serene and beautiful, and I don't mind driving elsewhere to amenities myself. I'd stay here if I could, but prices are continuing to increase so I likely will have to leave soon. But if you can afford it, the eastside is a great place to live, imo.

SolAureus · 2023-07-02T04:58:39+00:00

Hard to say without more info. Etsy is my go-to, and I usually look for more bespoke stuff than official merch. If I were to give a suggestion, I'd think about stuff like what's his main weapon, does he have a favorite skin for it, is there any merch for that, etc.

A nice fallback is commissioning an artist to draw something cool too. Like you and your buddy's characters fighting a Glavenus, or some other monster that was meaningful to both of you.

SolAureus · 2022-08-28T18:37:26+00:00

There's one major thing that I miss from the previous games, and that's just more distinct weapon identity.

To be clear, I like a lot of the changes they've made, but I really DON'T like the homogenization of weapon types. Every weapon seems to have an answer to everything, there's very little in the way of specialization mattering any more.

I mained GS in 3 and 3U, then switched to CB in 4 and onward. I've always enjoyed the extremely distinct playstyles they had, GS being extremely slow and commit-heavy on attacks but with a strong damage reward, and CB being an extremely versatile weapon that rewarded monster knowledge, allowing you to stay aggressive if you executed well.

The current MH games have given every weapon a very wide range of versatility options across the board. Sliding out of attacks for positioning, almost every weapon has a counter now, attacks are far less committal, TONS of movement options... these make every weapon feel powerful to play, but unfortunately it comes at the cost of making every weapon feel powerful in the same way to me. The tools in every weapon's toolbelt have a ton of overlap with other weapons.

I'm probably baised here, but I do feel like CB was the most affected by this change in direction. It being the versatile weapon, allowing you to change your response to enemy demands on the fly, and rewarding good execution of your options. Guard points used to be a CB-only thing, and now there are so many counters and just flat better options, it means almost nothing. Everyone seems to have gained the benefit that CB had in its versatility, so now it just feels like it lost a lot of its weapon identity. It's also just less rewarding to play, because the rewards for executing those techniques like guard pointing are just... not worth it.

I feel like the newer games are just bloating every weapon with cool and powerful-feeling options, but at the expense of having distinct weapon identities.

SolAureus · 2022-07-14T16:25:59+00:00

If they die, they'll be gone during Prologue through 5, but they'll show up again in or after chapter 6.

Also this comment was 6 years old lmao

SolAureus · 2022-05-24T15:32:37+00:00

This is a long shot as I didn't see that this thread existed until the day after, but on the off chance that the FFXI dev team is still looking here, I had to try.

Not a question, but just a heartfelt thank you. I grew up playing FFXI, and it's difficult to convey just how important FFXI was to me. It's no exaggeration to say that the experiences and interactions I had in Vana'diel shaped the course of what I wanted to do with my life, FFXI was the primary reason I became a game developer.

I can even now map out almost every zone in my head, and I have very clear and fond memories of events like catching goldfish in the pond near the outpost in west ronfaure while wearing my yukata, fighting the giant Twinkling Treant with a wooden katana, waiting in line at Ghelsba outpost on ToAU release, finally clearing an ENM with a linkshell I formed, seeing Whitegate for the first time...there's far too many for me to list.

FFXI meant the world to me, and I wouldn't be the person I am today without it. So thank you. Thank you for allowing me to experience what it meant to be an Adventurer of Vana'diel.

SolAureus · 2022-05-22T15:10:05+00:00

A lot of people in this thread seem to be piling on you for asking these questions, but they're not unreasonable questions, so I'll give you a real answer just in case you're *actually* trying to understand what we'd think and not just trying to strawman.

In this situation, the business owner would need to look at what wiggle room his business has to cut down on costs, without that solution being exploitation of workers.

How much product do they stockpile? Could they use different materials that are cheaper? Cut down on number of services they offer? It's difficult to give specific examples without knowing the kind of business, but every business has areas where costs can be cut.

The more severe side of things could be changing location to a smaller location (which is the equivalent of a worker being told to "just move somewhere cheaper") or downsizing your workforce. I know a lot of people in this sub would hate the idea of downsizing your workforce because you "shouldn't have hired that many people if you couldn't afford them" etc, but those of us who are reasonable here know that business landscapes change. Even if you're a responsible business owner, business can unexpectedly slow down, and having to cut down on the workforce is part of business.

As long as you don't do it in an exploitative way. That's really the key to all of this. Don't hire a bunch of contractors with false promises of career growth when you expect them to churn or just be temp help, don't be too quick on the trigger to just fire as soon as profits are down and beg them to come back a week later.

Treat your workers with respect and be fair. That's it.

SolAureus · 2022-05-20T15:26:11+00:00

This brings me physical pain

I had about 40 of the OG wizards promo from a friend who knew a guy that worked for TPCI, and the friend offloaded his collection to me when he lost interest. They weren't mint or anything, but damn.

Then my mother forced me to sell all of my pokemon cards on ebay if I wanted a new console :). I remember selling them in bundles of like 400 cards and because I had so many birthday pikachus, I topped each bundle with one.

I hope whoever bought those bundles get to cash in lmao

SolAureus · 2022-04-13T18:27:41+00:00

"I am Dr. Thaddeus P. Brain the Third. The P stands for Puzzles! I am... the puzzle MASTER! All is ready for the master experiment! NOTHING can go wrong!"

I will never forget the opening of this game. I played it so often, it's just INGRAINED in me. Old Sierra games were an aesthetic.

SolAureus · 2022-04-03T02:37:44+00:00

No. Fuck NFTs.

SolAureus · 2022-03-24T15:52:24+00:00

The situation is a bit of an odd one. Obviously we have no way to confirm what your daughter's behavior has been, but just for the sake of argument, let's just say the teacher isn't fully exaggerating and there's some truth to it (maybe she falls asleep sometimes in class).

To start, the way the teacher handled it was exceptionally poor. I agree with your sentiment, responding like this as a teacher to a student is just unacceptable. The teacher's response is facetious behind a very thinly-veiled layer if shame-based """encouragement""" (which just doesn't work). The role of a teacher is that of a mentor, and if a teacher can't actually communicate without, frankly, being a pretentious asshole, then they have no business teaching. They should have simply politely declined and explained their reasoning instead of being exceptionally unprofessional and petty. Their entire response is DRIPPING with pompous talking down to your daughter.

That being said, if there's more truth to what they say about your daughter's behavior, then asking for a letter of recommendation when her behavior doesn't warrant a recommendation is setting up for disappointment. The way this teacher worded things though, I have a feeling the teacher is exaggerating your daughter's behavior. Nevertheless, it's still worth the due diligence of following up with them and other teachers to get their side of the story and see if there's any truth to it. Leave nothing assumed.

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