Over the course of 14 years, Czech LARPers come together to recreate the Battle of Five Armies from The Hobbit, but the good side doesn’t necessarily win.
Every year since 2000, humankind, elves, and dwarves have fought against the Orcs and Wargs in an epic battle as a LARP.
This Czech LARP obviously has no Lonely Mountain to set up by, but it takes place in a meadow where participants fight for their side. In this LARP, the evil side can – and has – triumphed. So far, the evil side has won about half of the time. Participants also make their own weapons and armor. Organizers provide tutorials for those interested. Even if you can’t read Czech, the pictures of the weapons are great to look at. To make identification clearer, armor and dress should be of a certain color, depending on the army participants are in.
Other than dress, participants will also wear beards or masks to denote which race they are playing as.
It also appears a “full-contact” arena is going to be set in place for next year’s Battle of Five Armies LARP, which is set to take place late May or June of 2015.
To see participants in motion, watch a 2012 30-minute documentary on the Battle of Five Armies LARP.
The Battle of Five Armies is one of the more notable battles in Tolkien lore, and it will be reimagined in the upcoming film, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, this December.
Photos from the LARP are by Ondra Penicka. Pictures are courtesy of Larping.org.
Source: Battle of Five Armies via Larping.org
