Ashwick Plantation is pleased to announce another incredible event at Salem’s Pioneer Village: Daemonologie.

Every Friday night, from September 29 through October 27, audiences will be treated to the latest in immersive theater experiences in a show that blends magic, horror, and the audience’s input to create a novel outcome every time.

The show puts the audience in the middle of a 1680 New England witch hunt in a world where magic is real and threat is imminent.

Daemonologie tests not only the audience’s wits, but their ethics, and the end of the story depends on the choices the audience makes.

Daemonologie is the brainchild of Carly Dwyer and Margot Tate, the co-founders of Intramersive Media, LLC. “There are no innocent bystanders.” says Tate. “You’re either part of the solution or complicit in the horror.”

Directed by Dwyer, Daemonologie is not just a play – it’s also a game. “Repeat players welcome,” says Ms. Dwyer. “We are really interested in using activism as our driving theme,” she explains. “We want our audience to know they have power, they have information, and they can make a difference in the outcome of the show.”

Taking cues from the popularity of immersive theater shows such as Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More or Third Rail’s And Then She Fell, and the proliferation of escape rooms, Tate and Dwyer formed Intramersive to take audiences to a deeper level of theater immersion. The audience of Daemonologie will be able to choose to engage with the actors – or not — and impact the story as they see fit.

Daemonologie will be presented three times nightly every Friday night, starting September 29, and running October 6, 13, 20 and 27. Tickets can be purchased online at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/34954 or read more about Daemonologie and Intramersive Media at https://www.intramersive.com

We at Ashwick Plantation are happy to announce an incredible opportunity. The Witch House and Pioneer Village are looking for tour guides, gift shop staff, storytellers, and performers for their upcoming daytime tours and evening performances!

The Witch House will be featuring Tales at the Witch House – Ghostly tales performed in their ancient darkened chambers – while the Pioneer Village prepares for Dark of Night – candlelit stories in the cottages along the edge of the woods.

You can also join them for their historical tours and their beautiful Lanterns in the Village event.

For employment opportunities email them at info@witchhouse.info.

For more information on their events, check out http://www.witchhouse.info and http://www.pioneervillagesalem.org.

Stay tuned for more exciting events at Salem’s Pioneer Village.

Over the past few months we’ve had requests for costume and prop ideas.

Well, we put together a Pinterest board to help you give you all an idea of how we will be dressing for events, and hopefully it inspires you to come up with a wonderful kit as well. You might even see some familiar faces!

We will be updating this as we get closer to our events, but for now we hope you will find a strong base on how dress for Ashwick Plantation.

https://www.pinterest.com/jadataylor013/ashwick-plantation-colonist-costuming

We are happy to announce that we are partnering with another LARP in an Exchange just in time for our playtest!

Remember, if you NPC a LARP we have an exchange with or attend a Community Event we are a part of twice, you will receive one extra Between Game Action. Between Game Actions allow your character to interact more with the world between events. The more you participate with other LARPs, the more you’ll be able to participate in Ashwick Plantation.

Our second LARP to join us is Divine Intervention – another LARP from Be Epic! Divine Intervention begins this fall with their first event being September 1st-3rd. Events will take place at Camp Denison in Georgetown, MA. They welcome involvement from all be it as a player or a member of the cast.

You can join us June 10th in Wayland to help with their War Day as well!

For more info please visit any of their Website, Facebook, Forums, or email them at DivineInterventionLarp@gmail.com

From the creators:

Divine Intervention is Be-Epic’s fourth open invitation multi-year campaign. It is a Medieval Magepunk boffer larp focused on a central branching narrative arc that every player has the ability to interact with and impact through an even mix of roleplay, tactics based combat, and puzzle solving.

Lore:

Divine Intervention takes place in the fictional medieval magepunk world of Aukana. For centuries, the world of Aukana has been full of mundane nations warring, trading, and living. At different points, the Gods of the world –known as The Five– have been seen walking among the people, performing wonders and then disappearing in a flash again. Aside from that, however, Aukana was a simple place, its people just beginning to get a handle on stable society.

At least until nineteen years ago when, in an event that has become known as the Illumination, The Five granted humanity the gift of magic without warning. In an instant, every farmhand and lord on the planet could work miracles.

Society changed. Wars grew far more terrifying than ever before, new alliances formed, and humanity wondered if this Magic would last. But it remained, and with it the people of Aukana have begun taking the world into their own, now capable, hands and shaping it into one of prosperity for all.

Divine Intervention begins when the Five issue a decree: Come. Live with them. Learn. So that you might ensure the future of Humanity in the same place it began… within the Origin of Life.

Will you answer the Gods’ call?

Tone:

Divine Intervention is intended to be a game of grounded hope. Hope in progress and the future that humanity is capable of, grounded by palpable reminders of their own fragile bodies and minds as well as their fraught and messy past. This is a game in which small groups of people will be able to affect history profoundly but where the outcomes will always come with new non-binary complex questions.

Format:

Game will be divided annually into four weekend-long events taking place at Camp Denison in Georgetown MA. The first three events each year will primarily focus on the playerbase preparing for an expedition into what is known as “The Origin of Life”, during the final event of the year, in which many dynamics of regular play will be altered or inverted. These four event seasons, each ending in an expedition into the Origin, will continue along a fixed story arc expected to last between three to five years depending on player action.

Visit Divine Intervention’s Website. We hope to see you alongside us this weekend for our playtest and also in June at their War Day!

At Ashwick Plantation, we’ve heard crafters delight about making their own guns for our game. Schematics, tips, and photos of guns are some of our most asked for items when Ashwick Plantation is brought up. With that being said, we figured we should release something that will get the crafter in you excited for our upcoming events.

Check out our instructable for how to make a doglock musket for Ashwick Plantation: http://www.instructables.com/id/Ashwick-Plantation-Muskets/

The weapons will be wood stock blow guns using NERF darts as ammunition (with a slight surprise added for you at game) with PVC tubing for a barrel.

As for the doglock, one of the most interesting pieces of history we’ve found in regards to our game is that the late mid-late 17th century is a varied place where fashion, tools, culture, and yes, weapons are in a state of flux.

Fashion moved forward from the time of the first Pilgrims as merchant adventurers arrived with hopes of new wealth. The doublet and breeches began to go out of fashion in England, but it would last throughout King Phillip’s War among some in the colonies. Likewise, stays, petticoats, and headwear changed over the coming years.

Planes, chisels, and saws went through changes in size, durability, and style for woodworkers while the first thermometers and microscopes made medicine more effective.

Lastly, the Thirty Years’ War brought about changes in warfare. Doglocks replaced matchlocks and wheellocks, and flintlocks would soon replace the doglocks. For now, the doglock is king. Have fun crafting it!

Registration is open for Ashwick Plantation!

We’ve updated the Registration page for our events to allow you to register for our Spring playtest. May 6th is our first playtest, and we can’t wait to see you all there. We would like to get a rough estimate of who will be able to attend so we can prepare enough elements for everyone to be involved.

The playtest is absolutely free and will begin at 1pm and end at 6pm. Food will not be provided.

Attendees will not be expected to be in colonial garb, however, if you have attire for the event, we would be thrilled to have you in-costume for the playtest.

We will have the incredibly talented Jon Washer on site for photography and video prior to and during the event, and we ask that you check out our Waiver Page to look over our photography release and liability release forms. Agreeing to these forms online will help facilitate the registration at game quicker and make the process a whole lot easier and so we can get to gaming as soon as possible.

For now, head on over to the registration and waiver pages and let us know we’ll be seeing you in May!

A major part of our LARP experience is created by the people that surround us. With that in mind, we wanted to talk about our Character Point (CP) exchange opportunities.

If you NPC a LARP we have an exchange with twice or attend a Community Event we are a part of twice, you will receive one extra Between Game Action. Between Game Actions allow your character to interact more with the world between events. The more you participate with other LARPs, the more you’ll be able to participate in Ashwick Plantation. Throughout the entirety of Ashwick Plantation, we intend to have exchanges with multiple LARPs to give you plenty of opportunities to enjoy many different styles of play.

The first LARP that we have partnered with is Ballad – a time travel LARP starting March 31st. Ballad is part of Be Epic, a LARP company that has brought to life the worlds of Steam and Cinders, Second Dawn, Lacuna Cathect, and 420.

http://balladlarp.com/#/

Ballad will run as five weekend-long (Friday night – Sunday afternoon) events spaced out over the course of Spring to Fall 2017. Events will take place at Camp Denison in Georgetown, MA.

Their first event is March 31 – April 2.

If you would like to join us and want to help Ballad, please email them at balladlarp@gmail.com

From the creators:

“Ballad is a heroic time-travel larp. Heroes will be from the modern day, and – much to the heroes surprise – an unavoidable danger to the past will pull them away on a dire quest to save other times, and perhaps even their own. Ballad is about working together to protect the timeline and the people the heroes meet in each setting.

The first event is set in Camelot, and every subsequent event will take place in a different interesting time and place.

Ballad is meant to feel like a successful Dungeons and Dragons campaign– heroic, a little campy, challenges to overcome, but with characters that genuinely matter to each other. Ballad is inherently collaborative– from the hook, it’ll be apparent that players need to work together to solve the challenges that face them.

Ballad will have combat: we aim to have many fights include puzzle elements. Logical puzzles will be incorporated into mods and similarly, physical puzzles (like a 3D puzzle or metal puzzle) will be featured. Historical roleplay challenges and heist mods will be featured and players will find themselves having to take command of various NPC groups.”
From all of us at Ashwick Plantation, we can’t wait to see you all, March 31st at Ballad!

When we began this endeavor, there was one word that came up consistently when talking about starting a new venture in LARP: community. At Ashwick Plantation we are attempting to create a community that cares about its participants but also cares about the other LARPs and LARP-adjacent communities as well. As we are still over 12 months from our first true event, we are focusing this year on community building.

The next step in fostering our community is cementing our mailing lists. This might seem like a simple logistical chore, but it isn’t. It is one of the first steps in establishing a community by providing everyone with the same message and ensuring players, NPCs, and staff are on the same page. This is extremely important in regards to expectations, and especially so in LARPs that deal with the ethical concerns of our genre and time period.

If you are interested in joining Ashwick Plantation, we highly suggest you check out our Contact Us page to sign up for our mailing lists for NPCs and Players alike.

We said we are looking at a full year focused on community, so here’s a sneak peek at the next few months.

We plan on releasing a forum for you all to share ideas and to keep announcements better organized. We will also be featuring our first CP Exchange and go into details about how exchanges work within our ruleset. We wouldn’t be upset if you began guessing at who will be the first to get an Ashwick Plantation endorsement, but we also don’t intend to divulge that secret just yet. Some of you have been paying attention, though…

Further, we have multiple events planned leading up to our playtest. First, a crafting event where we will help instruct on costuming and crafting (perhaps even a schematic might be given out). Second, a clean-up / walk through of the Salem Pioneer Village. We all know how winter and early spring can affect a site, and we want to assist the Pioneer Village in any way possible. It will also help people get a first look at this new location for LARPs.

There are other plans we have, but they are much further down the line or necessitate a bit more secrecy, so mum’s the word for now. As we gear up for the beginning of LARP season, we feel it is most important to stay connected.

Head on over to the Contact Us page and join our mailing list to ensure you never miss a beat!