NPC costume

Overview

We are working to equip our npc team with the best costume and kit we can. Inevitably this is a long process that takes time and of course money. The ideal way to get the best possible results is to work with our crew - trying to kit out a character from scratch is particularly difficult, the best person to put a costume together is the person who will be wearing it. In particular, many of our crew are able to make beautiful costumes and others are happy to buy pieces of kit for a character they are going to play. We want to encourage all of these approaches and help support with costs wherever we can.

Whatever you buy or make under any of these arrangements is your personal costume - we expect you to take it home and use it as you would any other kit you own. We only ask that you bring it with you to our events so you can use it there. Obviously, PD gain a huge amount from this arrangement, but we hope that our crew will also gain some really nice pieces of beautiful LRP kit at cheap prices.

Costume and Armour

If you are making costume that will be worn by an NPC at our events, either a regular character like a civil servant or egregore, a plot NPC or one of our orcs on the battlefield, then talk to us first. If the character is useful for our events then Profound Decisions will pay all the costs for any materials used to make the costume. By paying for the materials we hope to encourage anyone making kit for NPCs in the game to use the best available materials to get the best finish possible.

Armour

We have several thousand square foot of leather on site. It is far from perfect for armour, it is thin in a dark colour but that does at least make it fairly easy to work. Any member of crew who wants to make costume or armour using the leather is welcome to use as much of it as they wish for their personal use while they are on site. We are going to look to organize kit making sessions for the start of the events for everyone involved with Empire, to try and help people create cool orc kit.

Skirmish Team Special Offer

We have a special offer available to any member of the skirmish team who has crewed for more than one event already. We've done several deals with traders to get orc masks and weapons for our skirmish team at competitive prices. And then - for our skirmish team - we are subsidizing the price by paying half the cost for you for any kit you will use regularly as an NPC at our events.

The deals below are available to anyone who has crewed for us as a member of the skirmish team for at least one event, so that you are certain that you are enjoying crewing and want to carry on doing it. We have a limited budget available for this special offer - so in the happy circumstance where demand is so high the PD budget to support it is spent, then you would have to wait a year to take advantage of the offer. If we have more demand than we can support all at once initially, then we will try to allocate funds to people who have been crewing the longest.

Masks

For masks, Profound Decisions, have an arrangement with Mandala to supply us the perfect masks for Empire at a special discount rate for crew. To get the price even lower, we encourage everyone to group together to make a bulk order. And then we pay for half the costs of whatever you order. You can tailor your mask to your own design, so you can have more expensive options like a full-face mask, or one with hair. We will pay half the total cost for a mask for any member of the skirmish team, provided that the design is not so utterly unique that it is impossible to be reused more than once ever.

There is likely to be a crew order for masks once or twice a year at most, so if you are part of our skirmish team and you want to buy your own mask, then let us know what you want for your mask and we'll let you know when it is happening.

Weapons

For weapons, Profound Decisions, has an arrangement with Andy Rimmer of Offa Studios, to produce ideal orc weapons. Sketches of Andy's designs are shown below. All are available in metal (steel or bronze), antler, bone, stone or wood finishes. Obviously Andy can vary lengths on swords and axes, swords price from £40-£70, axes £50 to £70. He can do LRP safe standards as variants on pole arms and of course staves for mages/shaman.

Like the masks, whatever the price of your weapon, PD will pay half the cost listed above if you are part of the skirmish team and provided it can be used by you when playing an orc at our events. If you want to buy a weapon, get in touch with Andy Rimmar at Offa Studio, work out what you want and then chat to us about sorting half the payment for you.