Cottington Woods

Once Upon A Time, in the land of Farraway, there was Cottington Woods.
-unknown Patron

Cottington Woods is a fairy place.

That isn’t the same as a fairy tale place, though it has its share of those. Fairies are terrifying creatures, and the woods reflect those ancient masters. Here you’ll find the heroes of the tales, though not usually as you might expect. The Riding Hoods search for danger in the deep forest. The Jacks, nimble and quick in service to the King of Farraway, are constantly on the watch for plots within the Houselands. The cold-hearted elves from Greencloud are at war with the cunning goblins of UnderMarsh. Here things go bump in the night. It is the world of Mother Goose, but also of the Brothers Grimm, with Mary Shelley and a hint of Bram Stoker to keep you on your toes.

The Wood seems to exist smack in the middle of the entire world. Fairy mists reach out to all manner of places, distant and near, past and future. Mysterious goblin “door” magic makes it possible to go almost anywhere instantly. And there are the Ways, hidden folds on the map that can be sometimes found and traveled, if the traveler would risk them closing behind him. And at the center of the woods is Cottington, a tiny hub where the people of the woods gather for trade and news and sometimes hidden purposes.

Here, where the people gather at the Cotting House, are the stories waiting to be told. Warm fire and the boundaries of the Cotting House hearth keep away the dark - and, they say, the dangers deep in the less traveled corners of the Woods.

Here is where your story will begin.

About Cottington Woods 2 LARP

Out of Game Note on Cottington Woods 1: Beginning in August of 2012 and ending June 19, 2016, the Evil Fairy Queen campaign told the story of the attempts made by Baeldannen, the Evil Fairy Queen, to take control of the lands of men. Baeldannen was ultimately thwarted and imprisoned in a genie bottle, then placed on ice in the enchanted glass coffin that the Cottings use to keep the food fresh in the Cotting House kitchen.
In Tales, that bottle was stolen and thrown into a volcano in Fairy.

Out of Game Note on Tales: Tales from the Cotting House was set ten years after the events of the Evil Fairy Queen campaign. Tales was a collection of short stories tied loosely together by the tales of the various Cotting Ghosts, all of whom were trapped within the Cotting House by an ancient ritual that was, in the final Tales event, unmade. With a single exception, no plots from the original campaign carried over into Tales. This campaign was a bridge from CW1 to CW2 and was intended to explore a number of stories we couldn't get to in the original campaign. While the original Campaign was a "novel," think of Tales as a collection of short stories centered around a common theme/underlying story.

Out of Game Note on Cottington Woods II: The Final Tale: The Final Tale immediately follows the events that occurred in the Tales, the only time passing being the time that passed in real life. We've kept it simple - to determine the in-game date you need only add ten years to the out of game date. Thus, if game begins on September 17 of 2021, the in-game date is September 17, 2031.

If the Evil Fairy Queen campaign was a trilogy, and Tales from the Cotting House was a collection of short stories, The Final Tale will be our epic conclusion told over the course of three and a half years. The events of the past two games will provide a historical backdrop against which the new tale will begin, but with a few exceptions there will be no plots carried over from the past two games. Returning players and their characters will know about the world, but they will have no other advantage over new players or characters.

Plots in Tales were not meant to be any longer than a single event, but The Final Tale is a campaign. We will continue in our tradition of always having a title plot, or a plot that begins and ends during the same event so that you will always have a plotline that you can resolve within a weekend, allowing new players or players who miss events to not need prior knowledge and still feel like they can accomplish something without needing other players to tell them what they missed. But for the most part, plots will be longer in duration, allowing players to really sink their teeth in.

A Note On Our Plot/Story Style:
We really enjoy making deeply interconnected stories that also weave into player and NPC backstories. This helps with the "small town" feel of Cottington, but also deepens connections between players, NPCs, and the plotlines we - and you - create. Your character histories DO matter, as do the NPCs you write into them. We may not use everything you write, and we may take it in unexpected directions, but we WILL draw on your character history.

This is not to say that every plotline is connected to one another - they are not - but neither are plotlines "sandboxes" with no connection to one another. What it does mean is that you may find out clues and information about one plotline in a seemingly unrelated plotline, so it is important to talk to one another and share information. We like to encourage players and communities to come together and work together; while there may be times you should not reveal info to a particular NPC, we will rarely if ever have plotlines where we expect PCs to keep knowledge from each other. (In fact, Priests have skills to encourage knowledge sharing.)

This also means that details matter. We acknowledge that we aren't perfect and that we do make mistakes (and we will inform everyone if one was made), but we do everything we can to ensure that everything goes out is relevant, even if only minorly so. If you are wandering the woods and come across some "wandering pain" but are being attacked by something out of the ordinary, that is actually information about something going on. For example, in our original campaign, the PCs once were misled by a villainous NPC to attack a tower that they were told had been enchanted by the Evil Fairy Queen, but rather than fighting Redcaps, Mischievous Sprites, and other minions that would fight for the Evil Fairy Queen, they were instead attacked by Dryads, Treants, and Will-o-Wisps. This was an intentional clue that the Tower had been enchanted by the Guardian of the Woods, not by the Evil Fairy Queen.

We aim for a bit of the "Sixth Sense" feeling: enough information that you can figure things out but might not, hopefully giving you that "ah ha!" moment when it all comes together and you see that you could have solved it and had all the pieces to do so.

Content Disclosure:
This is a game based on fairytales, folklore, urban legends, stories and more. While there will absolutely be moments and plotlines of silliness, frivolity, and light-heartedness, many fairytales are dark, and Cottington often looks to twist those dark tales in unexpected ways. Thus, some story matter may be disturbing and may contain elements of trauma, systemic and personal abuse, mental illness, self destruction, addiction, the horrors of war, and other difficult topics. We strive to keep our game "lighter" than many mature LARPs in the area, but we do expect to touch on some difficult subject matter from time to time.

Add to the Immersion; Don't Detract From It:
Take the game world as seriously as it is presenting itself at the time. Do not take actions that take away from the gravitas of a situation, especially where it would negatively impact the enjoyment of other players or NPCs. There will be moments of absurdity in Cottington for certain, but there will also be moments where terrifying things occur. Staff will do what they can to make things as terrifying in-game as possible, and we ask that you immerse yourself in the experience and refrain from using infantilizing nicknames for scary things, refusing to be affected by what's going on (unphaseable characters unfortunately don't work well in LARPs), or otherwise detract from the scene.

Ask yourself: Is my roleplay increasing the fun of the people around me? Am I raising up the roleplay of others and contributing to the collective experience in a positive manner? Is my roleplay adding to the emotion of the scene or detracting from it? If we all strive to be immersive and to consider the fun of one another, player and npc alike, we will all walk away having an amazing experience.

Please see our INFO section for more information.


	Once Upon A Time, in the land of Farraway, there was Cottington Woods. -unknown Patron Cottington Woods is a fairy place. That isn’t the same as a fairy tale place, though it has its share of those. Fairies are terrifying creatures, and the woods reflect those ancient masters. Here you’ll find the heroes of the tales, though not usually as you might expect. The Riding Hoods search for danger in the deep forest. The Jacks, nimble and quick in service to the King of Farraway, are constantly on the watch for plots within the Houselands. The cold-hearted elves from Greencloud are at war with the cunning goblins of UnderMarsh. Here things go bump in the night. It is the world of Mother Goose, but also of the Brothers Grimm, with Mary Shelley and a hint of Bram Stoker to keep you on your toes. The Wood seems to exist smack in the middle of the entire world. Fairy mists reach out to all manner of places, distant and near, past and future. Mysterious goblin “door” magic makes it possible to go almost anywhere instantly. And there are the Ways, hidden folds on the map that can be sometimes found and traveled, if the traveler would risk them closing behind him. And at the center of the woods is Cottington, a tiny hub where the people of the woods gather for trade and news and sometimes hidden purposes. Here, where the people gather at the Cotting House, are the stories waiting to be told. Warm fire and the boundaries of the Cotting House hearth keep away the dark - and, they say, the dangers deep in the less traveled corners of the Woods. Here is where your story will begin. About Cottington Woods 2 LARP Out of Game Note on Cottington Woods 1: Beginning in August of 2012 and ending June 19, 2016, the Evil Fairy Queen campaign told the story of the attempts made by Baeldannen, the Evil Fairy Queen, to take control of the lands of men. Baeldannen was ultimately thwarted and imprisoned in a genie bottle, then placed on ice in the enchanted glass coffin that the Cottings use to keep the food fresh in the Cotting House kitchen. In Tales, that bottle was stolen and thrown into a volcano in Fairy. Out of Game Note on Tales: Tales from the Cotting House was set ten years after the events of the Evil Fairy Queen campaign. Tales was a collection of short stories tied loosely together by the tales of the various Cotting Ghosts, all of whom were trapped within the Cotting House by an ancient ritual that was, in the final Tales event, unmade. With a single exception, no plots from the original campaign carried over into Tales. This campaign was a bridge from CW1 to CW2 and was intended to explore a number of stories we couldn't get to in the original campaign. While the original Campaign was a "novel," think of Tales as a collection of short stories centered around a common theme/underlying story. Out of Game Note on Cottington Woods II: The Final Tale: The Final Tale immediately follows the events that occurred in the Tales, the only time passing being the time that passed in real life. We've kept it simple - to determine the in-game date you need only add ten years to the out of game date. Thus, if game begins on September 17 of 2021, the in-game date is September 17, 2031. If the Evil Fairy Queen campaign was a trilogy, and Tales from the Cotting House was a collection of short stories, The Final Tale will be our epic conclusion told over the course of three and a half years. The events of the past two games will provide a historical backdrop against which the new tale will begin, but with a few exceptions there will be no plots carried over from the past two games. Returning players and their characters will know about the world, but they will have no other advantage over new players or characters. Plots in Tales were not meant to be any longer than a single event, but The Final Tale is a campaign. We will continue in our tradition of always having a title plot, or a plot that begins and ends during the same event so that you will always have a plotline that you can resolve within a weekend, allowing new players or players who miss events to not need prior knowledge and still feel like they can accomplish something without needing other players to tell them what they missed. But for the most part, plots will be longer in duration, allowing players to really sink their teeth in. A Note On Our Plot/Story Style: We really enjoy making deeply interconnected stories that also weave into player and NPC backstories. This helps with the "small town" feel of Cottington, but also deepens connections between players, NPCs, and the plotlines we - and you - create. Your character histories DO matter, as do the NPCs you write into them. We may not use everything you write, and we may take it in unexpected directions, but we WILL draw on your character history. This is not to say that every plotline is connected to one another - they are not - but neither are plotlines "sandboxes" with no connection to one another. What it does mean is that you may find out clues and information about one plotline in a seemingly unrelated plotline, so it is important to talk to one another and share information. We like to encourage players and communities to come together and work together; while there may be times you should not reveal info to a particular NPC, we will rarely if ever have plotlines where we expect PCs to keep knowledge from each other. (In fact, Priests have skills to encourage knowledge sharing.) This also means that details matter. We acknowledge that we aren't perfect and that we do make mistakes (and we will inform everyone if one was made), but we do everything we can to ensure that everything goes out is relevant, even if only minorly so. If you are wandering the woods and come across some "wandering pain" but are being attacked by something out of the ordinary, that is actually information about something going on. For example, in our original campaign, the PCs once were misled by a villainous NPC to attack a tower that they were told had been enchanted by the Evil Fairy Queen, but rather than fighting Redcaps, Mischievous Sprites, and other minions that would fight for the Evil Fairy Queen, they were instead attacked by Dryads, Treants, and Will-o-Wisps. This was an intentional clue that the Tower had been enchanted by the Guardian of the Woods, not by the Evil Fairy Queen. We aim for a bit of the "Sixth Sense" feeling: enough information that you can figure things out but might not, hopefully giving you that "ah ha!" moment when it all comes together and you see that you could have solved it and had all the pieces to do so. Content Disclosure: This is a game based on fairytales, folklore, urban legends, stories and more. While there will absolutely be moments and plotlines of silliness, frivolity, and light-heartedness, many fairytales are dark, and Cottington often looks to twist those dark tales in unexpected ways. Thus, some story matter may be disturbing and may contain elements of trauma, systemic and personal abuse, mental illness, self destruction, addiction, the horrors of war, and other difficult topics. We strive to keep our game "lighter" than many mature LARPs in the area, but we do expect to touch on some difficult subject matter from time to time. Add to the Immersion; Don't Detract From It: Take the game world as seriously as it is presenting itself at the time. Do not take actions that take away from the gravitas of a situation, especially where it would negatively impact the enjoyment of other players or NPCs. There will be moments of absurdity in Cottington for certain, but there will also be moments where terrifying things occur. Staff will do what they can to make things as terrifying in-game as possible, and we ask that you immerse yourself in the experience and refrain from using infantilizing nicknames for scary things, refusing to be affected by what's going on (unphaseable characters unfortunately don't work well in LARPs), or otherwise detract from the scene. Ask yourself: Is my roleplay increasing the fun of the people around me? Am I raising up the roleplay of others and contributing to the collective experience in a positive manner? Is my roleplay adding to the emotion of the scene or detracting from it? If we all strive to be immersive and to consider the fun of one another, player and npc alike, we will all walk away having an amazing experience. Please see our INFO section for more information.


Cottington Woods © Copyright 2012 Designed by Jonathan Heard