Documenting Menhirs Fate E2 2025
May 2025 marked the second ever running of Menhirs Fate, a brand new UK fantasy fest larp. After the smashing success of the first event, from a player side at least, all eyes were on the second event to see if it could be repeated.
The high level overview of my event was that unfortunately, it was pretty mid. It was definitely the case that it was much worse than the first one for me, especially in the first half. It did pick up a lot in the second half and the ending was pretty good, but midway through Saturday I was genuinely pretty miserable.
What Can Go Wrong
If I was to summarise, it was that a lot of the things I expected to go wrong at the first event and didn't, did go wrong here. Looking at the setup of the game, my suspicions were that the following things would be problems:
There would not be enough Faith to go round for those with Faith skills to feel like they could really participate.
Weaving and the guilds would end up being something of a "queuing simulator", as you waited for each step to be processed or for new things to become available.
The fact that so much stuff has to be mediated with crew and the promise that game would come to you, meant that any drop in crew numbers would be keenly felt.
All of these things came true, with the Faith stuff also being a problem in the first game. I like playing religious characters but immediately shied away from Faith skills for this reason, opting to just play a devout character with no religious mechanics. I won't go into this too much other than to say it's a big point of contention among the playerbase, and a major source of complaints.
I suspect some sort of update will be done, and won't speculate on what that could look like. I do think encouraging people to play devout or religious characters who don't have the mechanics would be useful.
As I alluded to in my post about character creation, the "mechanics first" nature of many UK larps can lead people to think that only priests with mechanical skills "count". Just like at Empire, I'd really like to encourage the notion of just playing a very faithful person without mechanical skills, both because it's fun roleplay, but also because it gives mechanical priests someone to minister to.
Warp and Weft
The issues with weaving were the primary source of my frustration at this event. I was surprised at how smooth weaving was at the first event when I expected there to be a lot of logistical problems. I suspected at the time that this was mostly due to a lot of new players not getting to grips with the system yet, and so the smoothness was due a simple lack of demand.
My theory was borne out this event. A great many more people were making use of the menhir, and as such it was clear early on in the event that the staff were overwhelmed. While at the first event I would get handsel auguries forms (forms that document your intention and payment for a weaving) back straight away, at this event there was a significant delay.
Worse, it wasn't made clear when you would get auguries back, meaning constant pestering of clearly stressed crew to see if it was done yet. This was made worse by the fact that once you've submitted an augury, you can't do another one, leaving you in something of a limbo if weaving was your primary game. The process ended up something like this;
You come up with a cool idea for a weaving
You fill in a handsel augury form and check it over with the guardians to make sure it makes sense. This is an IC/OC sanity check - if your weaving won't work for whatever reason, you'll get told at this point. At least that’s the theory. I did have an issue where a guardian at this point told me to go ahead, only for another guardian later to tell me my idea was basically pointless. Also, this is the first point at which you might have to queue for a guardian's attention.
Assuming the guardians don't tell you your idea is total dogshit, you go away and perform the Handsel Augury rite. This takes 10 minutes and needs 10 weaving power to do. This can be one of the barriers for solo weavers since this will take at least 3 people at the moment, especially because the size of the game means some weaving types are quite rare.
Once you've done this, go back to the menhir, hand the guardian your form and an essence, and wait for it to be processed. You might have to queue again in order to hand your form in.
Go back to the menhir a few times to see if your augury is done. In my experience at E2 this took at least a few hours.
Once it's done you'll know what handsels are needed to make your weaving good. This is usually some combination of mundane items like a spyglass or a crystal ball, and specific carded items that are somewhere in the playerbase.
While you are hunting for handsels or once you have them, book a slot to do your weaving. Again, you might have to queue.
Turn up at the time you booked and do your weaving. Neat!
As you can see, conducting a weaving is an involved process. Part of my game was shepherding new players through this process and bringing them along, something they seemed to appreciate at least. One of the problems here is that the workflow in the Menhir isn't always clear. Many people, including me, spent a lot of time not sure if anyone was free to talk to, or if conversations that were happening were business or pleasure, if that makes sense.
Magic Rock Customer Service
Ultimately this is not a unique problem to Menhirs Fate. I think it's fair to say that most of the larpers who become ritual crew at a magical rock do it for the love of pretend magic, rather than wanting to set up efficient customer service workstreams. Fortunately the latter *do* exist, and organisers should hold onto them for dear life when they find them.
I ended up having a particular nightmare since I offered to do an Oracle weaving on behalf of a friend, Al. Unfortunately it rapidly became clear that the guardians did not have the information needed to process the weaving. However, instead of refunding me the augury and sending me on my way (something that did happen at E1 that I was very grateful for) I was kept waiting and thus unable to perform another augury. This problem wasn't actually resolved by the end of the event, meaning the handsel augury is still outstanding. Again, this was after a great many back and forth trips to check if it was done yet. A mere annoyance for me, but potentially a real impediment to someone less able to get around easily.
(For what it's worth in this case the problem was a breakdown in communication between nation plot and the guardians; again, not remotely an issue unique to Menhirs Fate. This can be one of the primary problems with a more decentralised plot writing setup than Empire. There are more opportunities for miscommunication and issues with handover as information moves between groups.)
Solo Struggles
As it was this sort of didn't matter really, since the fact my group, the Lantern Rats, has 3 Oracle weavers means we could in effect "juggle" auguries and always have enough to do. The really great weavings I got to be a part of were put through by other characters. Nevertheless it was still a frustrating experience, and could have really ruined the event had I been a solo player. It felt like I spent a lot of time in limbo, not sure whether I should go pester the guardians again, or give up or a few hours and go do something else.
Part of the issue here is a design one. Use of the menhir is done on a first come, first served basis. The only limit is essentially how fast you can churn through your weavings, and how much essence (one of the game resources) you can spend to do auguries. There's going to be a long term problem for weaving in determining how to "ration" time at the Menhir, especially if the game increases in size. Compare to Empire or Lorien Trust, both of which also have large multi-person rituals that are mechanically limited in number.
People who come primarily to do weavings might find that in reality they simply spend a lot of time waiting around that they didn't realise would happen. I feel like my problems were in some ways self imposed, since the Lantern Rats seemingly did a lot of smaller investigation weavings. I wonder if most weavers did a lot fewer weavings in total.
Still, without intervention of some kind the possibility exists that someone could come to an event as a dedicated weaver character, and not be able to do their own weaving for reasons outside of their control. This comes back to my original critique about MF being a system with a lot of uncertainty, though I have faith long term that this will be resolved for the better as the shape of the system solidifies.
I’d also note that all major UK fest larps have some kind of ritual magic system, and all have setups that mean you will be much more successful if coming in via an organised group. Given that ritual magic is almost always group focused, this shouldn’t really be a surprise. However I think player facing information in all of these games often aren’t totally honest about the difficult a solo ritual player will face. It’s a difficult line to thread without putting people off entirely, but seeing new solo players struggle with the reality of actually pulling off rituals is pretty common in all big fest larps i’ve been a part of.
Guardians of a Good Time
One thing I'd like to note is that the guardians, the staff members responsible for weaving, were at all times lovely and pleasures to deal with. While I genuinely had a tough time with parts of the game they were directly responsible for, the stuff that needs to be fixed is workflow and logistics stuff.
It's much better to have a fun game with cool people where the logistics are a bit busted than the other way round, for sure. So far all of the most memorable and fun moments I have had are performing weavings at the Menhir, and it's what I'm looking forward to the most going back.
I also want to shout out the "yes, and" attitude of the game in general and how accommodating it is to different play styles. I don't often play "seeker of forbidden knowledge" type characters, in part because I think it often ends up on the edgelord spectrum, but also because hoarding secrets tends not to be very fun game in my opinion.
At Menhirs Fate though it's possible to play that kind of character much more in the open. Because of the very strong assertion that everyone IS on the same side, the Lantern Rats have been able to carve out a niche as willing to "gaze into the abyss" so to speak. This comes at considerable mental and spiritual peril for the characters, and also garners a lot of suspicion, both great for gameplay.
In addition because there's no reason to hoard information (hoarding is actively frowned upon as corrupted behaviour in character), doling out secrets like treats is a great to make and reward friends, while also being kinda sus. The guardians really play into the "messing with dark powers" stuff really nicely, in a way that feels threatening without being punishing in the way it can seem in some games. It also ties in nicely to the religious game of being a Shadow worshipper.
I was worried that playing a religious character who dabbles primarily in magic would end up being "frowned upon" in some fashion, in part because of previous bad experiences in ritual systems where saying the wrong word has punishing consequences. Here again though, the vibes are great, and crew and players on both the magic side and religious side played into the notion of "religious magic" in a neat way.
And The Rest
As you can probably tell by the length of that section, weaving dominated my game at E2, for good and bad. It wasn't the only thing I did though, so here's a bullet list rundown of some other thoughts on the game.
Treasure Hunter's Guild
Part of the miserable time I had for the first half of the event was a bad experience with a stealth encounter with the Treasure Hunter's guild. This was my first experience with any type of guild activity. So far i'd avoided the mission guilds both due to reports of over subscription, and that I suspected I wouldn't really enjoy it that much. I was unfortunately correct, though I have to stress that it was really a "It’s not you, it's me" issue.
The mission was to obtain a bunch of items via stealth - I was invited along by fellow Lantern Rat Veil (played by my friend Sam), and I mostly turned up just to see what the guild game was like. There was a very long wait for the mission to start (the whole thing took about 2 hours in total start to finish), and the mission itself ended up being very "video gamey", something I'm not a fan of at all. I prefer a more realistic, hard skill and patient form of stealth, as opposed to "Metal Gear Solid but larp". Basically everyone else had a good time (see Robyn and Oliver talking about it on this episode of 2 Have and 2 Role) and I'll just chalk it up as a matter of taste.
I want to shout out the leader of the Treasure Hunters Guild who came along, and was talking OOC about the design ethos of the encounter while we were waiting. I really appreciated an insight into the thought behind the guild in general. Their ambition is to create "rogue larp", something they feel is a niche to be filled. It seems like a success so far, so I hope they have good luck exploring this design space, even if it personally left me cold.
Event Structure
This event felt like there was less "going on" in general, compared to the first event. Last time, the event opened with a big speech and a bunch of the aspects of the gods hanging out to be talked to. I noted that there just seemed to be crew *everywhere*, to a degree that took me by surprise.
Well, that was likely made possible by running the crew ragged, something that was dialled back this event. While I was certainly busy all event, there was less stuff turning up to interact with us out of nowhere. Now this might be just random chance, but I did speak to a few people who said the event in general was quieter.
In addition there wasn't the same strong through line to the event as there was at the first event. There was no specific worldwide plot to be solved as far as I could tell, and no final battle. This isn't a problem; I felt like I had plenty to do anyway. But it's something to note, as one of the structural pitfalls of a setup like Menhirs Fate is that the organisers have more of an onus to send things onto the field to keep the promise of plot coming to the players. There are fewer engagement engines to keep characters interacting with each other, without direct input from crew.
Of course this is going to be an ongoing calibration effort between player expectation and crew capability. You’d anticipate that as backstages kinks get worked out things get more efficient, and it's possible to deliver more without burning people out (hopefully).
Camp Attacks
Speaking of the plot coming to you. I'll admit that I was not particularly looking forward to the idea of larps with camp attacks again, after going so long without them. However this event in particularly I thought they worked excellently. It felt like there were fewer of them this time, but a lot of effort had clearly gone into making the monsters look and feel unique. There was a lot of distinct uniforms out there, and obvious troop types and tactics you could tell without knowing them beforehand.
The fights were exciting and sometimes threatening, and the balance felt spot on. On the reverse side, monstering was good fun too, and the ability to play very distinct sets of enemies you can get to know is something I adore. From recent posts it sounds like the efforts for this year are to focus on the two enemies factions we've seen already (The Fallen and The Void), but I'm genuinely really excitied to see what is done with the remaining two.
Bank Build Game
This is probably the aspect of the game that is oddest to me, and leaves me tilting my head like a confused dog. I only vaguely heard about the idea of talking to bank manager to get stuff built before the game started, and didn't look into it at all because it's not the game that interests me at all. What is surprising is how much time talking about bank builds and getting resources for bank builds takes up for some people. It's basically become the number one thing to pour resources into, and a bunch of people seem to enjoy it? I guess?
Part of the bafflement for me is that I just simply get no joy out of "accomplishing" things in larp, by which I mean spending a bunch of in character money to get some text on a website. Part of the confusion is that to me, everything in larp should be focused on generating some sort of cool scene. The strange part is that bank builds seems totally ignorable in play. People would talk about them and I would just not have any reaction to any of it. Maybe I just don't get it. It seems harmless enough, though I wonder if the Bank can keep on top of all the things being built and the demands and expectations people will have from them as a result.
Endings
That’s it for this time. Despite the ups and downs i’m still very keen on the game, and will be attending E3 later in the year. There’s a 14 week gap between events which means plenty of time to make changes that weren’t possible in the 5 week gap between E1 and E2. As for 2026, i’m still debating whether to play or crew. A lot will depend on exactly how much of a burnout my character Lumi turns out to be, and whether I think there’s more juice to be squeezed out of him. I’m excited to find out in August!