Kiesel Park is typically a quiet place where dog owners can be found walking their pets. Saturday afternoons, however, the sound of padded swords can be heard ringing through the park. These padded swords belong to the members of Auburn’s Amtgard chapter.
Amtgard is an international Live Action Roleplaying society that is built around medieval combat.
“There’s large events that we go to, I was at a place called Eastmond Castle in Aiken, South Carolina, over winter break, and they had a day event where it’s just you show up in the morning, fight and do various events throughout the day, and they’ll sometimes do crafting competitions,” said Robert Anderson, member of the club and business administration student.
All fighters are given nicknames they are referred to as while playing Amtgard, and often these nicknames are given to the fighter by others. Anderson was given the name Screach.
“I got the nickname cause I was making noises with my first few practices, and one of the veterans at Dag said, ‘Man this new kid is screeching at me,’ and it stuck,” Anderson said.
A lot of the equipment and clothing that Amtgard fighters use is homemade, and so crafting is an important skill for members.
“We also sometimes do what are called craft days, which we’re just making items to use as part of the LARPing,” said Dakota Shamblin, junior in horticulture, “LARPing has definitely pushed my sewing skills.”
“It looks really, really complicated, but it’s pretty much when you get hit on a limb, you lose a limb,” Anderson said. “Two limbs out is dead hit in the torso you’re dead, and there’s other stuff on top of that.”
In addition, fighters can choose to play as specific classes such as assassin or archer, which gives them special abilities to call out during a fight. The Amtgard rulebook is over 70 pages long and provides details on what kind of equipment is allowed, how to organize each group and more.
“There are plenty of groups in Alabama,” Shamblin said. “We will soon be a part of a kingdom called ‘Winter’s Edge’ which ranges from about Tennessee down to South Georgia, and that’s about 17 other parks, which is what you refer to singular groups such as us.”
Fighters can choose to use a variety of weapons like axes and longswords, and they can even use ranged weapons such as light bows with foam-tipped arrowheads.
“There’s some videos online, and they’ll teach you the basics of combat,” Shamblin said. “They don’t really beat actual practice.”
Their armor not only gives fighters an intimidating appearance, but it also provides serious protection. Often fighters will wear heavily padded gloves to protect their knuckles from bruising.
“There is an injury risk; I got a bruised rib once, and that was from a really mean spear, but the injury risk isn’t as great as one might think,” said Amtgard member Sumner Umphress. “You might get a bruised rib, a broken rib, or a broken ankle but it’s not that serious, and even those broken bones are pretty uncommon.”
Some fighters grew up playing LARP games while others were introduced to the genre through Amtgard, and they have a variety of reasons for enjoying the game.
“It was just like 12 years ago, there were some people hitting each other with some foam padded sticks, and I was like, ‘Hey can I try?’ And after the first time, I feel in love with it,” Daniel Smith said. “Honestly, [my favorite part] is that I get to hit people legally.”
Smith graduated from Auburn in 2012 with a masters degree in microbiology.
Member’s meet every Saturday in Kiesel park at 1 p.m. to practice for the larger meets that they attend monthly.
“We’re all very focused on lifting each other and ourselves up,” Shamblin said. “I’ve personally really enjoyed that, just having some sort of a sense of community.”
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