Here There Be Faeries
Uncovering the hidden magic of playing pretend
Story by Ava Nicholas
Illustrations by Grace Matson
Boisterous laughter and quick conversation overlap as a small crowd of people begins to ready themselves for an evening of adventure. One player fashions an eyepatch out of gaffer's tape, while others debate the virtues of the “Beetlejuice” musical. Whatever their task, all are there for the same reason.
By day, the small room hosts lectures, sleepy students and the squeak of old dry-erase markers. But as light streams in through the big, open windows along one wall of the classroom, ordinary people begin to transform into supernatural creatures.
Well, almost. Every Friday from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., members of the WWU LARP — or live action role-play — Club assemble on the upper floor of the Academic West building of Western Washington University. There, they immerse themselves in the world of The Gloaming Diaries, an original LARP system created by the club’s founder and Game Master, Kyle Weems.
Weems, 47, first entered Western’s LARPing scene when he joined one of the current club’s predecessors as a prospective student after moving to Bellingham, although he never ended up attending. As Game Master, Weems dictates the world and story the players live in. He acts as the setting, makes rulings and acts as a non-player character when the need arises.
“I wanted to get to know more people. Roleplaying was a hobby of mine. I’d been hearing about LARPing, and I knew the club would have a big attendance,” Weems said. “Basically never stopped LARPing since then.”
The early years of LARP history at Western are nebulous, with multiple games using different systems starting up and dying off over the years. LARP systems generally function as a framework for players and Game Masters to refer to when running a game. They provide the setting, rules of play and character creation templates so the game feels cohesive and smooth.
Weems even recalls when an article published by The Western Front temporarily shut them down. The group had mistakenly let their club status lapse, which the school discovered upon the article's release.
When the LARP Club’s predecessor eventually shut down almost 20 years ago, Weems took up the mantle of Game Master and hasn’t stopped running the game since. As the creator of The Gloaming Diaries system, Weems said he loves how the system and club both create a space for players to make connections and explore themselves safely.
As the years went on, Weems became disillusioned with the worlds and systems the club was using. Previously, the club had used systems like Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Changeling: The Lost. Sprawling, dark and complex games that can be intimidating for newer players.
“I kind of fell out of love with some of the themes that the World of Darkness [a popular roleplay game series] backers and creators have added into their stuff,” Weems said.
With that, The Gloaming Diaries was born. The game had its official online release in 2019 after years of playtesting, and continues to see modifications. Set in a small Washington town — not unlike Forks, for you Twilight fans — players create characters whose existence sprang from the gloaming, or melding, of two beings. One, an ordinary human, and the other, a folkloric creature.
“I constantly remind my staff, it's not a job. Players vote with their feet. If they're not having fun, they won't come back,” Weems said. “And honestly, the heart of it is the effort you put into people. It doesn't matter the system.”
To the uninitiated, the idea of spending five hours a week pretending to be a mystical creature might not sound like the ideal way to spend a Friday evening. But to Charissa Hayes, another long-term club attendee, it’s an opportunity to build community.
“People have compared their weekly or even monthly LARP activity to church. It's their social gathering where they feel like they're a part of a community that looks out for each other,” Hayes said. “And that's not something you find everywhere. I'd say in most places in the U.S., you don't find that easily right now.”
Hayes, 26, currently runs The Gloaming Diaries LORP, an online, text-based roleplay game that formed when the pandemic shut down the club temporarily. Whether online or off, a Game Master’s role is to make the imaginary world that surrounds their players more alive. “Occasionally, a storyteller will pull you aside and run a scene, which is a small, little running plot. Then, when you're done, you'll go back to the casual play,” Hayes said.
While the characters are pure fiction, players still find personal fulfillment through the game. Ariel Hill, 30, is a Western Fairhaven student studying folklore and is the current president of the club. Notably, Hill began LARPing with the group many years prior.
“Over the 12 years I've been playing here, I've noticed that people play facets of themselves,” Hill said. “I think the main difference between a character that you play in a tabletop and a character that you LARP is this sense of really being able to embody them. I've always used my characters as an excuse to kind of pursue the thing I'm interested in.”
Hill described how players often create characters that allow them to explore their identities further. Playing a character with a different gender identity or sexuality can be a less intimidating way for a player to experiment with who they want to be in their daily lives.
“I just brought in this character last week. He’s a white rabbit, and his power set is mostly based on tricksters from Irish folklore, but the human side of him is a stand-up comedian, and that's something that I've always wanted to try,” Hill said. “I figured that if there's anywhere I can try to make stand-up jokes in front of a crowd, where I absolutely will not be judged in a malicious way, it would be here.”
According to Weems, sometimes in-game romances have led to real-life relationships. “We've had weddings in-game before where players in character romances decided they want to have their characters married. They approached a [non-player character] I played to be the officiant, and they went all out. They decided to get a suit and a dress, and they had bridesmaids and groomsmen and way more costuming than normal,” Weems said. “And so there I am pretending to be a scarecrow, who is also the leader of one of the factions of the characters, marrying these two people. Turns out they got married a few years later.”
For many players, LARP can also be a way to work through fears around social anxiety. However, for some, the idea of full immersion might be intimidating.
“I think that is something that this place breaks down for people, their fear of being perceived. And that's what makes it great. It is its own set of rose colored glasses, you know,” Ariel Hill said as a group of players walked past, laughing boisterously. “Sometimes I’m aware of the fact that I'm standing in a mostly empty college classroom with three other people, and sometimes I'm not. And then that's, honestly, sometimes the hardest part about getting new people.”
While the LARP has many dedicated players, introducing new people to the game can be difficult. The Gloaming Diaries sourcebook was streamlined from almost 500 pages down to around just 60, so potential players can learn the system quickly and jump right in. Now, it seems that once a player is hooked, it’s unlikely they’ll want to leave.
“There are the same people. They build friendships that last. I think it's really important,” Weems said. “I hear in Europe, bowling has become popular for that reason. In this case, we're pretending to be fairies.”
If you’re looking for a little more magic in your life, an opportunity to build community, or even just want to try something new, immersing yourself in the world of The Gloaming Diaries might be just the right fit.
“I think people put a lot more of themselves into the game than they may realize. And I think that's very rarely negative,” said Hill. The characters and setting might be make-believe, but the relationships and community forged during the LARP are anything but.
