Player applications will open September 20, 2025:
The Court of Camelot is reborn throughout the ages with all its fractured bonds. Now it gathers once more in the modern era, drawn together by dreams, invitations, and the whisper of hidden memories.
Will you take up the mantle of the past or shed it for a quieter eternity? Is it possible to mend the old wounds between comrades-in-arms, star-crossed lovers, and sorcerers, or is King Arthur’s Court ever fated for tragedy?
Date: November 20-22, 2026
Participants: 40 players, age 18+
Tickets: $485
Lodging and food included
Location: Stronghold Castle
Stronghold Camp & Retreat Center
Oregon, IL USA (1.5-2 hrs from Chicago)
In The Once and Future Court, participants roleplay modern incarnations of characters from Arthurian literature who are only dimly aware of their past lives... until old memories return in a flood at the beginning of a mysterious gathering.
Wrestle with the tension between your modern life and your past life.
Participate in rituals to vividly re-experience shared memories, strengthen old bonds, and renew faded magic.
Struggle with the grief, hope, rage, longing, and love embedded in the past life memories flooding into your mind.
Duel a rival, sibling, lover, or friend.
Have an intimate romantic scene with the beloved of your Arthurian lifetime.
Share a drink with old comrades by the Great Hall fireplace.
Go for a walk in the woods with a past companion.
Take a secret corridor from the library to a small chapel for a vigil, renewal of oaths, or rite of passage
Convince your Arthurian loved ones to continue to Remember their Arthurian life before the final decision point at the closing ritual... or alternatively, convince them to Forget.
Grapple with the meaning and relevance of your past life experiences, all these many lifetimes later.
Renew old feuds, or put them to rest at last.
Drag painful old secrets into the light, exposing the unhealed wounds so that they might be tended... or exacerbated.
Confront the people who manipulated, failed, or wronged you in your Arthurian lifetime... or alternatively, be confronted by the people you hurt in the past.
Discover the repeating patterns of your past in your present, and choose how to move forward.
Call a friend from your modern life for support or advice.
Have an existential crisis about your current or former faith, your concept of reality, and the nature of your own self.
Handle a call from your modern parent, child, spouse, colleague, or boss, bringing up the concerns and demands of your modern life.
You’ve always had the indescribable sense of something missing, of not quite fitting into the modern era. Strange dreams of battles, castles, and sorcery invaded your sleep. Intrusive personality shifts and uncharacteristic behavior disrupted your relationships. Foreign emotions and impossible memories from a bygone age of knights and noble ladies interrupted your ordinary life. Somehow, those memories bore an odd resemblance to the legends of Camelot and King Arthur’s knights of the Round Table.
The Once and Future Court is a collaborative larp about belonging, identity, relationship rupture and repair, trauma and healing, second chances, and choice.
This is a cooperative storytelling experience designed for emotional intensity and interpersonal drama, with a focus on player-driven social roleplay. Event staff will provide the framework of the larp, but players develop the bulk of the interpersonal story together. The majority of the larp emerges from the conflicts and conversations driven by the player characters.
You do not need to be knowledgeable about Arthuriana to play, though a basic familiarity with the themes may enhance your experience. Everything you need to know to play your character is provided in your 6-12 page character sheet, supplemental setting materials, and pre-game workshops.
If you're not familiar with Arthurian medieval literature, please know that it is far more queer and gender non-conforming than you might expect. This larp plays heavily on the queer aspects of the source material.
Recently, a curious invitation arrived – one that only made sense if the sender knew about your intrusive memories. It’s uncanny enough to provide a glimmer of hope that you don’t have to keep living like this: disoriented, unsettled, haunted.
Belonging, kinship, and competing loyalties
Relationship rupture and repair
Past trauma (from battle, betrayal, abuse)
Grief, loss, and mourning
Destiny vs choice
Faith, belief, and skepticism
Memory (gained, lost, and its impact on identity)
Grief, hope, rage, love, and loss... If you were faced with something you never thought possible but found it was everything you didn't know you needed, at the cost of upending your entire life and opening long-forgotten wounds – what would you choose?
While you can opt out of certain content being in your character sheet, and we will highly prioritize opt-out requests when casting characters, you are still likely to encounter any or all topic from the themes and content list during the larp itself. You can always excuse yourself from a scene or conversation for any reason.
Discussions of abuse (canonical, mentioned in backstories, may show up between characters in game)
Content involving suicidal ideation or self-harm (canonical, in backstories)
Content involving rape (canonical, in backstories only, opt-out of backstory content available but it may still come up in conversation with other characters)
We will not cast any perpetrators of or enablers of sexual assault as player characters (PCs).
Two characters will be in-game as non-player characters (NPCs) played by staff; these characters canonically used magic to enable an off-stage NPC to commit sexual assault of an on-stage PC in the form of the bed trick
Character histories may include canon-typical Christian themes, which may or may not play into modern incarnation portrayals. Modern and Arthurian character histories may contain themes of faith and belief (in religion, magic, folklore, legend, and mythology).
Realistic simulations or descriptions of verbal aggression (e.g. cursing, shouting) and physical violence (canon-typical in backstories, may show up between characters in game if players have negotiated it)
Discussions of bigotry (mentioned in backstories, canon-typical gender dynamics, homophobia, and classism; in modern times, not as applicable but the historical backstory experience may come up in conversation)
