An Urban Fantasy Horror LARP

In the late 1800s, three families met in America. The Colts, the Lees, and the Volkovs all found they had a common purpose: to shine light into the dark corners of the world and defend the people around them from menaces they couldn’t even begin to imagine. However, the families differed on the methods of achieving these shared goals. After some initial hostilities—territorial disputes and misunderstandings—the families were brought together under common cause in 1919. Scions of all three families converged to contain and destroy a monster that had subsumed an entire California town. While those hunters lost their lives, their families united to honor their sacrifice, and formed the official official partnership known as the Firewatchers—the ones who keep watch in the night.

The pact allowed the three families to shore up each others’ weaknesses; it also allowed young members of each family to choose different methods of hunting if their own family’s didn’t suit them. The three families have intermarried considerably; while some members still join from outside the three families, the difficulty of the hunter life is that it’s very hard to explain to anyone who isn’t already knee-deep in it.

Despite this intermingling, each family retains some traditional responsibilities that their scions uphold. The Lee family are guardians over libraries of information—and hidden caches of unnatural relics the Firewatchers have recovered over the years. The Volkovs know how to work from the shadows, operating as scouts and trackers before going in for the kill—but also are known as the people to go to when you need supplies or weapons that aren’t strictly legal. The Colts maintain the bureaucratic connections that allow the family to operate smoothly in the light of day; less officially, they have a reputation as stalwart protectors and the people to turn to for leadership when shit hits the fan.

In general, the families get along well, albeit with a healthy amount of friendly rivalry and competition between them. Relationships forged through the fires of deadly conflict are not easily broken, yet each member of the Firewatchers knows too well how close each of them comes to darkness—and should any of them succumb to it, there can be only one solution.