With another Wasteland Weekend coming up this September, it’s time to pull out your cans of Wilton Silver Cake Spray and get ready to enter the gates of Valhalla. As Geek & Sundry has covered before, the event is a full immersion weekend getaway that combines camping, costuming, tricked out cars, and a lot of post-apocalyptic enthusiasts.
What if that weekend doesn’t work out for you? Perhaps giant camel spiders in a desert aren’t your thing? Then check out Dystopia Rising, which is on its 6th year and allows you to get your radioactive zombie fallout fix in a full immersion LARP at survivor settlements around the country.
Dystopia Rising has a rather… dystopian origin story. Picture a music festival. A massive thunderstorm blows in and destroys the tent city built for the festivities, leaving everyone in chaos. The next morning, there’s only ruins; people huddling in small groups under the remnants of shelter as they look upon the destroyed tent city. Amidst the carnage, a single man walks with hot dogs and popcorn in tow—selling his wares. This was the event’s inspiration. Michael Pucci, co-founder of Dystopia Rising LARP, said: “No matter what happens in the world, we will always have people trying to better themselves at the expense of others while clusters of others would latch together.”
Once you are ready to play, you’ll make your character based on a survival background (or how many twinkies you’ve stockpiled) and head out to the weekend campsite. As a full immersion experience, once “Game On” is called on Friday evening, you will be LARPing all weekend until game ends on Sunday morning. In the game, you’ll be living in one of the settlements for the weekend. Meeting great new people (or angry cannibals) while stepping away from your daily life in a post-apocalyptic world.
Eschaton Media (Dystopia Risings publisher) has created a tabletop setting well. Giving you campaign material and local setting information that integrates hand-in-hand with the LARP like Axis of Blood and Iron or Diaries of the Rum Coast. Many of you have asked for a non-magic post-apoc RPG setting and this fills that slot if you wanted to run your Fallout campaign. You and a few friends can play tabletop, get familiar with the world, and then roll into a Dystopian survivor settlement like a group of bosses… or even zombie NPC’s
Regardless of how you enter the glorious gates of Valhalla, or what your unique story will be, Dystopia Rising has a starter kit, free rules guides, and everything you need to get playing right here.
Have you attended a Wasteland Weekend event or Dystopia Rising? Send us your awesome pictures below or tell us your stories!
Featured Image: Wasteland Weekend.com (cosplay Bruce Schewe)
Image Credit: Dystopia Rising.com
