Hey all.
This will be mine and my husbands first time ever larping and are trying to find kit on a massive budget.
I have enlisted the help on someone who can sew but everything we try and make seems to look really rubbish in comparison to photos on the website and the Facebook page and being larger and deciding we fancy it only a few weeks before the event is not helping.
We are planning on joining Highguard and have already make cloaks which look ok, a long tabard for me which I was planning on wearing over a white dress (looks horrific right now) and a hooded open fronted long jacket thing for him.
I guess what Iām asking is what is the minimum level of kit that would be acceptable and can anyone show pictures of their beginners kit so that I can see what we are aspiring too.
Feeling really down hearted about it all today and not sure we will be able to come.
Thanks all
My first game kit was hike boots, primark leggings, a store bought shirt and doublet, a hat and a belt.
I donāt have a photo to hand, but the doublet was the wrong size and the fastening hook badly scratched up my neck.
Ooh, actually:
Here is me chatting with a fellow Leaguer. Notice how the lovely lady with excellent dress and make up is happy to be photographed talking to the overheating nerd in a shirt and hose. She even gave me the drink!
The starting standard is always ānot T shirt and jeans pleaseā. People will be happy to talk to you, commiserate about kit making woes, and make you feel welcome. 
I donāt have any pictures but remember what you see on the wiki and on a lot of the facebook stuff is the prettiest and best stuff, most of us donāt have anything like the top levels of kit. Itās aspirational; we all want to make better kit over time but accept that itās rarely possible to start out that way, and we aim to add more and more as we go. I hope this link helps allay your fears a little: https://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Costume
Tabards are a great way of hiding things underneath! There will be Highborn players who can be along to give better advice than me but the Highguard brief has always looked very simple yet effective to me; if you have block colours and a hood or veil that will speak Highguard to me. Cloaks are great for warmth, which you will really appreciate after dark.
Can you post some pictures of the items you have made, we might be able to make some suggestions to help you on your way.
Also sometimes we are our worst critics and that things donāt look as bad as we might think!!
Hello and welcome!
Firstly, Iāll warn you that the website and Facebook tend to show the best and most photogenic kit. So thatās a rather biased view of things.
Secondly, in my experience (near 20 years of LARP and cosplay) WHATEVER you wear, HOWEVER much effort you put into it, when you arrive at one of these events, there will be someone whose costume makes yours look awesome, and someone whose costume makes yours look like trash.
Thirdly, given the costume standards at the last event (sweaty bundles of heat-stroke in linen and wool), youāve a very low bar to clear
Fourthly, the ethos behind kit and costume is aspirational. Itās not what youāve got, itās what youāre aiming for, and how much effort youāre putting into it. Wear what you have, always aim for better, take reasonable and honest advice and tips, and if anyone sneers, kick them into the mud.
Fifth, the mud. Mud is SO in at Empire, itās been a classic colour and look from (event 1 year 1), and never goes out of fashion. Worn by lords, ladies, artisans, warriors, and little kiddies. Itās also a great leveller in terms of kit standards
Sixth, itās not what you wear, itās the way you wear it. Play the character, be awesome, make an impression, and no-one will notice what you were wearing.
Seventh, weāre a friendly bunch, you know. New folk turn up and join in round the year, and we arenāt expecting everyone to have a wardrobe fit for the Royal Shakespeare Company and a kit collection built up over decades. Weāre happy to welcome anyone, and you may well find folks willing to sell you (at very low prices) costume and kit, or freecycling events, or even just a friend to lend you some bits and pieces to make you feel the part. It can be as simple as a belt, a headband, or a piece of costume jewellery. If you bring imagination and enthusiasm, youāll be welcomed. Given the costume youāve already described, I think youāre off to a fine start.
(Also, thereās no great hurry. If things donāt work out and you canāt make the coming event, thereās another one this year, and Empire isnāt going anywhere. Weāll wait for you )
Thereās also vendors at the event if youāre worried about shipping times, plenty of kit to be gotten there. Just focus on something bare bones and kit up from there. My first kit was based off a dread pirate roberts cosplay with a red doublet on top. Got some nice leather shoes on ebay to go with it. Also remember to bring kit relating to what youāre hoping on doing at the event, bag if youāre planning on carrying stuff, weapons if you plan on killing anything. Phys-rep for potions etc.
Iām in Highguard and it sounds like youāre ahead of where I was on my first game, I just bought a long black tunic and a velvet hood to go along with a bog standard cotton LARP shirt and pair of black trousers I picked up from a trader in the field.
To be honest a lot of what makes my kit look decent nowadays, with exactly the same base layers is things like belts and pouches. Which are all handily available at places like Darkblade on the field.
It also sounds like your husband is wearing something a lot like Iām wearing here, Iāve just got a bit more leatherwork and gubbins around it.
So I think youāre going to be absolutely fine.
If either of you want to come on a battle and skirmish, please ask around and talk to the Egregores as Iām sure as a nation someone will have some spare armour, bucklers and weapons to lend so you can try it out too :).
Oh yes, bags or big pockets are very useful. Large fabric rectangles folded and hemmed with some cord/braid for a strap can work wonders if you canāt afford leatherwork.
Belts are super-useful too as you can hang things off of them as well as holding up your trousers. You can often find nice leather ones in charity shops.
Charity shops in general are great, you can find all sorts of stuff there for base layers and costume jewellery is often super-cheap. You can also find curtains which are about the cheapest source of fabric Iāve found. Most of my kit is made from curtainsā¦
Most of Highguard works on the stick a tabard over your base layers and youāre in costume.
In fact for any new joiners to Cantiarchās Hold get a surcoat (slightly fancier tabard) and a cowl and thatās all thatās necessary. Almost everyone has some suitable black and white base trousers and shirt.
Of course most of us now have dresses, fancy jackets, priestly stoles etc but thatās because we have been playing the characters for a while and you sort of accumulate stuff!
you might want to look into a veil or cowl but otherwise what youāve mentioned above sounds fine, And the cowl can be as simple as a length of cotton or linen with a single twist and the ends sewn together, in fact this is probably a good option as we hope the weather will be warm this event and then you can always damp it under the tap to help keep you cool.
Hello!
Donāt worry about your kit not looking like the stuff on the website. Like the others have said the stuff that hits the wiki is the most lovely, photogenic stuff. My first kit was two tunics and some trousers my mum made for me, as I had cut the tunics out of one piece of material they werenāt quite long enough in the arms and stopped some distance above my wrist! Your kit devrlops over time and it sounds like you are on the right track for sure! For me itās the little things that add the most, that little trinket you picked up IC, your belt and pouches and the like.
The base costume requirements are ānot jeans and a t-shirtā and youāve certainly smashed that.
Old and not very good selfie of my original kit, taken after my 2nd event when ubgsd acquired some leather bracers.
Thank you all. This is very reassuring. I will put together what we have tomorrow and take some pics.
I have bought a light weight black scarf to use as a hood and we have leather braided belts and I managed to find some black fabric pouch kits for 20p each that just need sewing together so hopefully it wonāt look as bad as I think.
On a slightly different note, where do you all keep important things like car keys if you are ooc camping? I am terrified I might lose the key in a field and never find it again.
I have one pouch that is just for OC stuff - keys, torch, hand sanitiser, OC cash - which is very firmly closed. Iāve also made a little brightly coloured label with my name and PID on it for my keys in case they are lost.
For camping both IC and OOC, I tend to leave my car keys hidden in my tent. On smaller LARPs with no camping, I tend to wear sturdy trousers with zippable pockets.
Small sealable pouches are also useful, and in extremis, you could wear a bum-bag or money belt under your costume, with keys/money/phone secured within.
This is big and clever and everyone should do it, and not just because Iām the one who has to deal with you all when you loose them.
I love the idea about the tag for car keys! If I have time I am totally doing this.
I use a big A5 darkblade pouch with a smaller drawstring bag inside to section off my OC bits from anything IC that may end up in there.
I found a long thin purse in primark, and put it on a long cord so all my precious stuff can go round my neck between my tunic and surcoat. Means I can keep my OOC money separate. And it has a copy of my name and Pid in it too!
Car keys stay in the tent after Friday am, as Iām not taking it out again till Sunday!
I do also have a pouch with OOC medication, pen knife and head torch, and one with a good buckle for my camera which are separate to my in character bag.
Iām someone who makes super fancy kit, lots of layers, etc.
This is what I wore for my first character:
high street leggings, plain t-shirt as base layer, with a tunic, belt, and rucksack I borrowed off someone. Worked fine without the rucksack, though Iād suggest having an IC bag or pouch of some kind.
This was my kit at E1. Itās a body warmer from a charity shop, with my chapter symbol clumsily embroidered onto it, and a simple tunic I ran up with about an hour on a sewing machine. (Sleeves are hard)
This, combined with a grey wool cloak for the cold, served as my soft kit layer for three years or so. I am now replacing elements of it, keeping the old tunic for battles etc.
Sadly, I canāt find any good pics of my new tunic, but Iāll share some WIP stuff of my fancy new dress uniform later if you like. A small amount of sewing skill (I am pretty useless at it, honestly) goes a long way to making kit look great. Small touches (such as chapter symbols, combined with running with the look and feel, really makes a world of difference.
So for Highguard, one base colour (white, black, or something dark), one highlight colour (this can/should be fairly bright). So Adinaās Charge, for example, has a Navy Blue and Silver/White colour scheme.
In my opinion, and from what Iāve heard a lot of other people say, itās all about the accessories. There are a lot of generic kits out there on the field, but when you add a feather necklace, a belt, pouches and a few interesting belt fetishes, you transform a generic kit into something that draws the eye to things which are important to you.
You might not have any interesting bits for your costume for your first event, maybe not even for your second, but by your third event try and find a few bits that have a meaning and stand out somehow. A dour Highguarder with a scrap of bright silk from a Brass coaster who saved their life, the Urizen sentinel dressed immaculately, but with a string of orc teeth which you have collected during your campaigns in Spiral.
