While KSC students know the usual dining options, a fantasy-themed dinner was held for just one night on campus.
House Bedevere is the newly formed live-action roleplaying (LARPing) club at Keene State. It’s connected to the larger Keene community LARP group, Caerbannog Inn. The club was made official this semester and members meet at the science center to go on quests, fight battles or do whatever needs to be done for their ongoing story.
The club’s Medieval Fantasy Banquet was held on Thursday, April 3 at 6:30 p.m. in the Mabel Brown Room and was its second annual hosting of the event. House Bedevere president, sophomore Gabe Hong, said he hopes it can become a lasting tradition.
“This is our big end-of-the-year celebration,” said Hong. “The hope is this is a continuing yearly tradition, we hope to do this every year if possible.”
Hong continued, “This year is vampire-themed because a lot of the stuff going on outside of House Bedevere and in the larger park is vampire-themed, so we’re kind of tying that in.”
The Mabel Brown Room was decorated to fit the theme, and many members of the club came dressed in fantasy-style outfits. Members of the club and Keene State students were welcome to have a meal of Domino’s pizza or pasta while they waited for the battle to begin.
“Today, we’re going to be actually getting to hit each other and tie [the story] up,” said Hong. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
While the free food may have been part of the draw, another part of it was the story. Members of the club played LARP games, dueled each other with foam swords and shields and continued the adventure they had been on beforehand.
“We did a quest for our players on Tuesday when we have our general meeting that led to being invited here,” said sophomore Elizabeth Fahel, vice president of House Bedevere. “So they can fight and help to save the world.”
Fahel continued, “We wanted to find a way to incorporate it with the actual goings-on of [Caerbannog].”
Although the story’s details were classified to only House Bedevere and Caerbannog members, House Bedevere member Elijah Sky explained the main plotline.
“The [story] beats are that a group of humans/heroes will be fighting off vampires to try and unpossess at least two of the members,” said Sky.
Members of House Bedevere expressed a feeling of fun and community within the club.
“I enjoy the game and one of my favorite parts about it is the socializing and being able to be around people that are safe,” said House Bedevere member Violet Platt. “It’s really nice to just come out and be with people.”
“KSC LARPing is a really fun way to stay physically active … but also if you can’t really do much physically … there’s a lot of creative aspects,” said Fahel. “Overall, it’s really welcoming because all sorts of people will come in and do this. It’s just a really great community.”
Orion Corbin can be contacted at
