Why I am known to many as Yorath.

For many years I ran a live role playing festival called Mayfest that was generally attended by between 50 to 150 people. As this is a costumed event where people play fantasy characters (think Lord of the Rings) I ran the event in character and the main character I played to run it in was Yorath. As a result many of the people thought of me as Yorath rather than Dave.

I took the name from a book where the main character was called Yorath and, according to that author, it meant wolf. I had played the character before running Mayfest in a couple of other larp systems and then played him in a system where one of their gods was called Rath. It is no secret that ever since DR Who was first televised, I have been a big fan. In this system Rath was the God of space and time as well as the circle of life. By the time I joined the system Yorath had evolved through role play into a time lord - this and part of his name being Rath soon had the plot writers tying the two up. Having a regenerating character that could manipulate time was very handy for controlling a role play festival and that is why he was used.

Now some of you may be wondering what all this live role play is about. Known also as live action role play and live adventure role play it soon took the shortened name of larp. {If you look in the Daviepedia you will see more about 'larp' the word and its derivations.} Larp is essentially a group of people playing a game where they make believe they are characters of a generally fictional nature. Sword and Sorcery is the most popular larp genre but cowboy western, steampunk and horror are also popular.

Tolkien, the author of Lord of the Rings, started it. His books contained a very detailed world and he also wrote, for young relatives, a game based on that world called Tunnels and Trolls. This was the first table top role play game where folk recorded details of a character, like how strong they were and how agile, etc. then worked they way through adventures rolling dice to decide combat. Quite a bit later Dungeons and Dragons was born and now there are many table top systems.

Live role players took this further. They found out of the way areas, dressed up as characters and monsters and happily played out adventures. There are essentially two types of events run, adventures and festivals. An adventure may be an event that runs for part of a day, a whole day a weekend or even longer but is a single adventure. It usually involves a party - the paying players - and a crew who play the characters and monsters the party are to deal with (as well as organise and run the event). A festival may have a plot and adventures may be run at it. As its name implies it is a far more social event and can include entertainment like bards and storytellers, old style games, music and dancing.

Mayfest and later the additional Augfest, is a smallish festival suitable for families and run on a shoestring. The main aim of the festival is to open the hobby to people that otherwise might not be able to afford it. To achieve this, there is no crew. All players are expected to help out as well as play. Over a short time this generated a great atmosphere as everyone not only felt they were contributing to everyone else's' enjoyment but actually were doing so.

For people interested in the hobby I will include a link to both the Mayfest web site and some further explanations here later.