A Typical War

Q: Do we really go to War?

A: Well, not really, really.  Just sort of.  Just as our Tournaments are martial sporting events between individual fighters, so our "wars" are martial sporting events between groups of fighters. 

Basically, first we look for a reason to fight.  It needs to be something trivial, and rather silly.  If you fight over things that are important, people take it personally, and stress out over it.  For example, my own Barony, the Barony of Thor's Mountain (Knoxville, TN) will go to war with the potato-eating barbarians of the north, Nant-Y-Derwydnn (Johnson City, TN).  They say that new world tubers, called potatos, are fit food for people.  We say they aren't. (They, of course, are wrong.) 

Then we pick a date.  The date is based on the availablity of the site and the time of year.  Wars tend to be big so we need sites to fit.  The Thor's Mountain/Nant-Y-Derwyddn war is small, with about 20-30 fighters to a side.  We don't need much space.  Any ol' park will do.

Next, where do we fight? Well, even a little war like ours takes up room.  But we do a one day war, so we don't need camping accomodations.  This means that we can use pretty much any public park.  So we tend to hold this one in Downtown Knoxville, TN, or Morristown.  That's unusual.  More often, wars take up a whole weekend, or even longer, and need camping space for lots of people.  So we rent out private campgrounds from the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Y, or other groups.

Now, since we don't REALLY kill or hurt each other, how do we know who won?  The Knight Marshals (head fighters) for both groups will negotiate rules for the battle, and then we'll have a great dust-up for a few hours one Saturday afternoon.

That's the short version.  Wars vary from our little war with the 'Nants, to the Great Pennsic War, 10,000 of our closest friends gather for two weeks of friendly mayhem and shopping.