(Erica Shi | Student Life)

Saturday afternoon, Ligget-Koenig lawn. Although it was already 2 p.m., the South 40 was quiet, a blanket of muggy heat holding everything at a sticky, leisurely standstill. Nearby, students nursed spillover regret from the previous night or unhurriedly ambled towards the main campus for some semblance of studying. Productivity wasn’t the only facade, though. So was peace. Within minutes, this place was about to descend into a frenzied, murderous battle. 

Since 2005, WashU has been at war. Twice a week, challengers armed with swords, shields, and spears descend onto the field off Shepley Drive, and with a rallying cry of “Weapons up! Play on!” the vicious fight to the death breaks out. 

The only problem is that said weapons are late, being shuttled over from Danforth House. 

In the meantime, the members of the WashU Belegarth Medieval Combat Society lingered around the picnic benches surrounding the perimeter of the field, filling water bottles and strapping on knee pads as they waited for practice to start. It was my first practice; after months of curiosity, I was finally swapping out my books to join the study of the blade. 

Belegarth describes itself as a full-contact combat sport, combining fight elements of fencing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with the simulated aspect of Airsoft. Like other alternative subcultures — such as cosplay — crafting and customization is a large part of the activity. Players source imitation medieval weapons from online crafters or make them by hand with hardware-store-accessible materials like foam, wood, and PVC pipes, which are then used in hand-to-hand combat with other players. Fighting is simple: use your weapon to make hits on other players, defend against hits yourself. One hit “disables” a limb, preventing it from being used. Two “disabled” limbs equals death, signaled by dropping your weapons and leaving the field. There are several classes of weapons, but the most common is sword and shield. 

Practices alternate between training drills and games that wouldn’t be out of place in a typical middle-school gym class, like capture-the-flag but upgraded with weapons. The heart of Medieval Combat, though, are line battles, where players split into two teams and simply duke it out. At their largest, battles can include hundreds of players at national meetups, which the WashU chapter travels to a few times a year. 

WashU Belegarth operates under a modified version of the rules that prevents grappling and decentralizes a focus on physical strength. It’s one of the many steps Belegarth has taken in recent years to make the sport more inclusive and social. 

“Weapons have become a lot more accessible. They used to be very heavy, so you would need a certain amount of raw strength to get into it. Now, technology has trended towards lighter gear, which people who have less strength or certain body weaknesses can use. I have weak wrists, so our old stuff I couldn’t really use at all. But with newer technology, I’m able to actually participate,” Angela He, WashU and Belegarth alum and current staff advisor for the club, explained.

However, the simulated weapons are as far as the fictive elements go. Contrary to common misconception, Belegarth is not a form of Live Action Roleplaying, or LARP. There is nothing in the meticulous, 29-page-long Book of War forbidding players from dressing up. As then-senior Ben Mudd reported to StudLife in 2008, “You can say you’re an elf, I guess, but it doesn’t mean anything,” he said.

Sixteen years later, the misnomer of a reputation still follows Belegarth. You don’t have to scroll far down the notoriously-democratic anonymous social media forum Sidechat to find references to the “LARPers on the lawn.” 

WashU Belegarth is more than familiar with their reputation. The play may involve unconventional elements and require some imagination, but that’s as far as the fantasy goes. 

“Our sport is kind of silly,” said senior and Belegarth President Joy Hu, “At the end of the day, you’re hitting people with whacky sticks, right? You can’t take yourself that seriously.”

Still, the passion that players have for Belegarth is more joust than jest. Instead of running from the LARPing allegations, WashU Belegarth has used the misconception as a way to leverage curiosity.

“I feel like we don’t have to be like, ‘No, we’re not the LARPing Club! We’re the Medieval Combat club!’” junior Sam Reynolds said. “At a certain point, people are going to think what they think. I like to focus more on like, ‘Okay, you think we’re LARPing. Come try it out and then see what you want to call it.’” 

Taking Reynolds up on his challenge proves tricker than I thought. I get equipped with a two-foot-long sword with a “blade” resembling a pool noodle and a large circular shield, both made out of dense foam. Even with recent material improvements that make weapons easier to wield, my recent slacking on those 6:30 a.m. Dark Room Cycling classes is apparent. I get tired within the first couple strikes of quick close-quartered combat, and juggling attacks without lowering your defenses requires a massive amount of coordination I clearly don’t possess.

Still, my sparring partners extend seemingly limitless patience to my training, offering helpful tips and demonstrations, dependably blocking each easy strike I attempt, and putting up with my endless resurrections each time I fail to avoid their jabs in return.  

By the time practice officially starts, I’m ready to return to the picnic benches under the excuse of “taking notes,” but I’m really just plain out of breath. The combat may ring out with resounding thwacks of foam and wood instead of clashes of steel and bone, but, real or not, there’s still something about it that triggers the basest fight-or-flight rush of adrenaline that gets your blood pumping. This is fun. 

This is also sophomore Isa Wilson’s first practice. After we unsuccessfully try to duel each other, exchanging wide, loping whacks in between giggles, she tells me that despite her initial hesitation to join, “I don’t regret it one single bit.”

Midway through practice, the players trudge off the field as they break for water. A guy hanging out the passenger side of a car driving down Shepley sticks his head out of the window and starts heckling the fighters. His taunts get louder and louder as the car slowly rolls by until he’s screaming, “C’mon guys, keep fighting!” out the window as his friends laugh uproariously. 

“It’s fine, just ignore them,” Hu, obviously channeling TLC, advises as the players resolutely ignore the frenzied shrieking. “We get harassed a lot.”

From my perch off to the sidelines, I count dozens of side-eye glances from passersby containing varying levels of judgment as practice cycles between line battles, dual-sword training, and drills. Once or twice, I see acquaintances, but when they ask me what I’m doing at a Belegarth practice, I’m surprisingly quick to recuse myself from any actual association. “I’m writing a piece for StudLife,” I hear myself explain (or excuse). Why am I so quick to distance myself from a group that — besides being a completely sane, fun activity —- has also shown me nothing but a genuine kindness and inclusion? 

Although Belegarth welcomes anyone to try the sport, the core group that consistently makes practice hovers around 10-20, and their close bond is apparent. Using herself as a prime example, He points out that the club itself is “sticky,” with high retention of its members, even after graduation. Throughout the interview and practice, the group exchanges a continuous stream of lively banter and jumps at the opportunity to reminisce about Halloween costumes, Ren Fest visits, and years of memories associated with the club. Reynolds now lives with one of his teammates he met through Belegarth during his first year, and the forwardness of players’ love for the club is striking.

It’s not hard to see why they stick around: throughout my time with WashU Belegarth, I’m welcomed with open arms not necessarily congruent with the way in which Belegarth has been treated by outsider press in the past. I’ll admit that I came into this article with a not-quite-journalistic level of neutrality in the subject — there’s been more than once that I’ve trekked past a foam sword fight and wondered if whatever state of inhibition I’d been under the previous night was a little stronger than I’d thought. 

In 2015, WUnderground ran a parody article describing Belegarth as a “weird sex thing,” with the combat operating as a thin veneer for “mass orgies.” Mistakenly identifying Belegarth as a LARP group, WUnderground riffed upon the supposed role-playing element turned carnal. The article was written years ago, but it’s still referenced in our conversation.

It’s not that the innuendos aren’t there or acknowledged. (“Newbies always assume size matters,” Hu said, reminiscing about a six-foot sword that serves more as a novelty burden than an effective weapon. “It’s about how you use it.”) Instead, it’s that the jokes are such low-hanging fruit that they practically write themselves, and that there was little care in treating Belegarth as a worthy subject of actually interesting parody, or anything but an object of ridicule.

“The other alums used to say that if WUnderground staff had approached them, they would have been able to come up with much better content than that,” He said. 

Sure, Belegarth’s battles are unconventional. And to the untrained eye, the club undoubtedly looks similar to LARP or other alternative subcultures. But at the end of the day, it’s a form of physical activity based on play and free expression. My nine-year-old self would have been thrilled to have livened-up gym class games of Sharks and Minnows with swords. At 19, I’m still delighted. 

For every unfavorable experience, though, there are others; a group of students arriving from Hillel in freshly-pressed button-ups and flouncy dresses come over and ask to join in. Reynolds takes their interest in stride, picking up some extra swords and shields and immediately jumping into a basic training session. 

As Hu watches the group scuffle in loafers, she explains that she readily invites the curious to try out the sport. Anyone from visiting grandmothers to nosy StudLife writers are welcome.

“[It’s] a side of admissions you usually don’t get to see. You can come to college and do something like this,” she said.

Throughout its 19 years, WashU Belegarth has grown from simply combat to focusing more on the Society part of its name, incorporating weekly post-practice dinners for the group and becoming more involved in the greater community at WashU. Their booth at Thurtene last year allowed participants to try out medieval combat for themselves and was honored as “Best New Game Booth.” Last year was also the first time they hosted a “realm invasion” for other Belegarth collegiate chapters at WashU.

Still, the members are happy to maintain the small, more intimate feel of the club. Although all this expansion is exciting, the heart of WashU Belegarth still stems from the strong bonds between its members.

It takes a significant strength to do what you love and express your interests so openly in the way Belegarth does. It is even more difficult to extend the kind of radical acceptance that the community continually shows to all, even if it isn’t always reciprocated.

Ultimately, allies — the kind that have your back through every battle, whether on the LK field or otherwise — is what makes it all possible. Having a six-foot-long sword to swing around just might also help.

“It’s really awesome, because you get close and you’re comfortable being around each other,” Hu said. “People are just free to express themselves in Belegarth.”