The Winter Queen's Masquerade

The mortal world warms. The weather changes, wracked by storms. Things change in Faerie, too, where an ambitious young courtier breaks away from the Summer Court and declares himself the Storm Prince. From her glittering throne of ice, the Winter Queen watches, gauging the young Prince's strength. Wondering if it is time for the balance of power in Faerie to shift. 

An invitation has arrived. The Storm Prince and four guests are invited to attend a masquerade hosted by the Winter Queen and four of her most notable courtiers. Games will be played, duels will be fought, and at the end of it, the two courts will find their way to either an alliance or a declaration of war. But in the shadow of the greater politics, individual scores will be settled, painful and joyful reunions will be had, and hard choices will be made. 

tl;dr: angsty faeries being mean to each other

Good for players who: like deep emotions and high drama, enjoy interpersonal politics, want an excuse for extravagant costuming

Bad for players who: struggle with subjective and/or impossible goals, prefer detailed game mechanics, are negatively impacted by bad things happening to their character

Run Time: 3 hours plus pre-game demonstrations and post-game wrap-up

Players: 10

Suggested player experience level: Intermediate to expert; players less experienced with one-shot LARPs often struggle with pacing due to the lack of built-in structure

The Winter Queen's Masquerade is an almost entirely social game with the motif of unhealthy relationships. There will also be flashy duels and, hopefully, dramatic pose-offs. 

What is a prerelease sale?

It means the game isn't as thoroughly tested as I'd like it to be, so you get a discount! All fully released games have been playtested multiple times and run by GMs other than the writer, meaning that the GM guide has also been tested. 

Games in the prerelease state have been playtested - they've been run several times and are confirmed to be solid, fun games - but they've only been run by the writer, meaning the GM guide itself has not been tested. It's possible there are obvious questions that haven't been answered or bits of set-up that aren't described as clearly as they could be. 

You're taking a little bit more of a risk on a prerelease game, which is why you get a discount. This discount is only available for a limited time, because as soon as the game has been run a few times by people who give feedback - feel free to be one of those people! - the game will move into a fully released, full price state. 

Running Requirements

At minimum, a large enough indoor or outdoor area for people to break off and have semi-private conversations. Each player will also need a bag with nine tokens of some kind. The game documents give options for high-production-values and cheap-and-easy versions of all relevant props and set dressing. While the ideal run of this LARP features a scenic forest grove with an imposing throne and live harp music, you can run it with less.