Dagorhir
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Dagorhir is a live-action dark age battlegame (or LARP) organization founded in Maryland in 1977. It has since spread to scores of locations with thousands of members in the US, Canada and England. Dagorhir is a combat-oriented organization with full-contact fighting as its primary focus, with a secondary element of acting in-character before, during, and after combat. Dagorhir fighters typically use weapons such as swords, spears, bows and arrows, morning stars, axes, and other weapons that were commonly used during the dark ages. This particular LARP does not involve use of “magic" only medieval type weapons. Participants also dress up in period costume and are expected to stay "in-character" during events, though the amount of seriousness the role-playing aspect receives varies greatly by unit and chapter.
In the early days, the weapons were crudely made of couch foam and broomsticks; today, they are usually made from closed-cell foam bonded with adhesive around a fiberglass core. Participants may also wear armor, which gives them an advantage in battle, but armor is not required, as the weapons are built and frequently inspected for safety. Fighters are organized into units of various sizes, organized along social lines, that generally fight and socialize together and are a club or fraternity of sorts. There is friendly rivalry between units. Units typically adopt a particular historical or fantastical race or nationality and dress, act, and fight according to their interpretation of that group, so at a battle you might see Roman Legionnaires squared off against Orcs and goblins, Vikings, Samurai, elves, and German barbarians. Chapters are organized by geography, and range between a handful of participants to several hundred. Typically a chapter will organize a battle each month, with the varous units participating, with occasional supplementary activities such as feasts, overnight camp-out battles, and even annual inter-chapter meetings. The biggest Dagorhir annual gathering is called Ragnarok and is usually held in Ohio during June. The original chapter, founded in 1977, is based in the Washington, D.C. area, and is known as "Dagorhir Aratari."
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