Act Structure
The larp is divided into five acts, exploring different themes and emotions, and slowly escalating the narrative arc. The acts can roughly be divided into Evening acts and Day acts. Evenings are odd numbers, days are even numbers. Each act either starts when you wake up (Day acts) or when dinner starts (Evening acts). There will be an off-game calibration break early in the fourth act. The acts are:
- Act 1 – Hope
- Act 2 – Unease
- Act 3 – Escalation
- Act 4 – Denial
- Act 5 – Downfall
You do not need to memorize the acts perfectly, but just understand the overall narrative arc, and at what pace things should escalate.
Act 1 – Hope
(Evening)
In the first act, as the guests arrive and are greeted by the hosts, the rules of polite society are still in place, and everything appears to be quite normal. The guests are full of excitement and anticipation at being invited into the presence of the gentry, and all have their own hopes and plans of what they want to experience and achieve. Some are looking for romance, some to gain worldly advantage or increased wealth, and some are simply hoping to enjoy themselves to the fullest. The gentry are upholding the facade, not yet revealing their intentions and schemes. Instead, they are getting to know the guests, perhaps engaging in some innocent flirtation, and getting to know the hopes and fears of their unwitting prey.
Surface, Politeness, Eye contact, Subtle influence, Excitement, Romance
Act 2 – Unease
(Day)
Act 2 begins when the characters wake up on the second day. This act takes place during daytime and is dominated by a subdued, slow paced existence. The guests are still hopeful, desiring fortune, romance or grand possibilities, and these hopes are being built up by the gentry’s hints and half-made promises. At the same time, however, some of the guests are feeling a slowly growing sense of unease, as the gentry begin to hint at their true nature. But these feelings of unease are best pushed away – it would be impolite to mention, and it is probably nothing anyway. In public, everything remains polite, and while boundaries might be subtly pushed, they are never fully overstepped. Behind closed doors, however, some of the gentry might start to set their games in motion – secret affairs will be suggested, debts will be called in and some hidden truths from the past will show up, pushing the guests to seek favor from their hosts.
Socialising, Unease, Ambition, Self-deception, Letters, Affairs, Romance, Favours
Act 3 – Escalation
(Evening)
Act 3 begins after dinner on the second day. This act takes place during the evening and night, and revolves around the escalation of the situation at the manor. Gambling, drinking and feasting will be taken up and the stakes are raised. There is dancing, there might be marriage proposals or far less honorable proposals, blackmail or ultimatums delivered to the less fortunate guests. The facades are slowly crumbling, but the masks are not removed just yet. As night falls, there are terrible things happening behind closed doors – but in public, it only seems like a party gone wrong. The carriages and horses of the guests all disappear sometime during the night.
Revelry, Gambling, Debauchery, Threats, Ultimatums, Propositions, Dishonor, Abuse
Act 4 – Denial
(Day)
Act 4 begins the next morning when the characters wake up. Bruises are covered up, tears are wiped away and the revelations about the intentions and nature of the hosts are pushed aside. Everyone lives in external denial of the evident truth – that the guests are prisoners here at the manor, without any chance at leaving unless they please their hosts and are set free by their good will. During this act, the scrambling for favors and desperate attempts at earning the approval of the gentry increase in intensity, even as everyone pretends that the situation is still under some kind of control. The facades crack and shatter at times, only to be rebuilt a moment later. Cruel punishments are carried out in private for imagined slights, vulgarities and games with human pieces take center stage and revelations about the past are brought into light.
Pretense, Control, Desperation, Cruelty, Revelations, Appeasement
Act 5 – Downfall
(Evening)
When the bell calls for dinner, Act 5 begins and all truths are laid bare. The cruel and unfathomable natures of the wealthy hosts and their servants are made apparent, even as old rivalries and enmities are played out with the guests as pawns. Violence and desperate gambling might be carried out in front of people, sexual acts are just barely hidden from plain sight, morality slips away and sanity with it. Has this mansion turned into hell, have the hosts lost all sight of reality, or is this the actual truth that hides within any woman or man once our souls are laid bare? A few will escape the manor with some of their dignity intact, others will have lost everything, betrayed the ones they cared for or sullied themselves with actions they can never take back. Someone might even lose their life or wits to the cruel acts that are played out.
At the end, as night envelopes the manor one last time and the larp meets its end, the characters that are alive have been irrevocably changed.
