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If your LARP takes place outdoors, this guide is for you. Knowing how to stay warm or cool at LARP is more than just knowing a few life hacks. You’ll need a comprehensive understanding of how to keep your body at a healthy temperature. You’ll also need knowledge of the supplies that enable this feat.

Related: 8 Essential Supplies for Your First LARP

Ah, the midday nap.

Photo by Javier Ezpeleta on Unsplash

Self-Care

Before we dive into any particulars, we need to make sure we cover our bases. It’s great to know what to wear, but if you’re not also generally taking good care of yourself, you don’t have the full picture. Make sure you put yourself in the best position to enjoy your LARP by practicing good self-care.

Stay hydrated!

Yes, even in the dead of winter. It’s miserable to have to pee in the freezing cold, but your body will thank you for the water supply. If you stop peeing, start worrying–and start hydrating!

Water is absolutely essential to your body’s ability to maintain homeostasis, which includes keeping your core temperature at a healthy level regardless of environment.

Beware over-hydrating. This is most certainly a thing. It is a state of too much water, not enough salt. Your body needs a balance of both water and electrolytes to function properly.

If you drink only water, you’ll end up low on essential electrolytes and miserable, possibly in serious medical danger. You also don’t want to drink exclusively “sports drinks”, because too much salt, not enough water, is just the other side of the unhealthy coin.

Your best bet: alternate between water and drinks that restore electrolytes. If you can bear it, water your sports drinks down to half water.

Another (genre-focused) tip from a friend who’s far more of a survivalist guru than I: “The Romans had a drink called posca. It has two ingredients–water and red wine vinegar. It only takes a little, about 1 tsp per gallon (it should be barely perceptible pink), and the taste can take getting used to, but it works. As a bonus, it’s a mild disinfectant.” (Thanks to Clayton for the extra info!)

Don’t Hold in Your Pee

When It’s Cold: If you’ve ever impatiently waited for a pot of water to boil, you know that making water hot takes a ton of heat. The same principle applies to your bladder.

Your body spends energy to keep the urine (mostly water) in your bladder warm. That means less energy is devoted to keeping the rest of you warm. Empty your bladder regularly. You will be warmer.

When It’s Hot: Holding in your pee is known to be a bad idea, medically speaking. Just relieve yourself. Going to the bathroom also places you next to water. Take the opportunity to cool off while you are near a sink. Run some cool water over your wrists and splash a little on your face.

Stay dry, or have a controlled soak.

Depending on genre, I strongly encourage your investment in a poncho or cloak that you can waterproof. Hypothermia can set in swiftly, even in relatively warm weather, under the right conditions.

If you get wet in the winter, immediately go someplace warm, strip off the wet layers, and stay there until your clothing is dry. Even better: always pack extra clothes to change into in case this happens.

In the summer, avoid soaking yourself and then lingering in an air-conditioned space, as this temperature swing can be hard on your body.

If you won’t be hanging out in an air-conditioned area, a good soaking can be like heaven, especially when combined with a fan. The water plus the airflow can cool you down at a safer pace.

Eat, sleep, rest, and take your meds.

Your meat suit can’t take care of you if you don’t take care of it. Treat yourself kindly, and you’ll find you are more comfortable overall, from your body temperature to your feet to your back.

Hot Tip: “All Hail Floor” – This mantra is popular at my local boffer LARP, when it’s just too hot to move, and the sweet embrace of the cold concrete floor is the greatest gift of the gods in the summer heat. If you are fortunate enough to have access to such a surface in hot weather, I highly recommend hailing the floor.

Cool Tip: Beware the Earth – DO NOT sleep on the ground in cold weather. Your body heat will be sucked right out of you through whatever flimsy barrier you are trying to use. The best way to prevent this is to sleep in an available bed at the game site or use your own cot. Distance yourself from the ground, and adding blankets always helps!

Photo by Arvid Høidahl on Unsplash

A Genre-Minded Approach

A LARP’s “genre” is its style, and it affects how you gear up for the weather. Some examples of popular LARP genres include: fantasy, steampunk, post-apocalyptic, and sci-fi.

Many LARPs have clear rules against clothing and other costuming that “breaks” genre, as it pulls people out of the role-playing experience by damaging their immersion. Therefore, it is wise to keep genre in mind when assembling your temperature control costuming and accessories.

Personally, I don’t believe genre is more important than health and safety. A good faith effort to stay in genre is the most I think should be expected of any player.

Fabric Choice Is Key

Remember genre when selecting a fabric. Some synthetics can be woven to appear natural, so don’t count those out of your fantasy LARP just yet. Most of the fabrics listed here are natural, as synthetics are often blended with natural fibers or each other, and parsing them out gets tricky.

Bonus Tip: Avoid synthetic fleece and synthetic broad cloth. They respectively mimic wool and cotton, but with none of the benefits and serious flaws. Spring for real wool and invest in cotton, which is very cheap.

Bear in mind that this is far, far from an exhaustive list. These are just fabrics that I personally have semi-easy access to as a debt-laden millennial spending my almost non-existent disposable income on these small joys before the world collapses around me. Now then, where were we?

Photo by Rahul Vaidya on Unsplash

Fabrics for Staying Cool: Cotton, Linen, Rayon, Spandex, Nylon

Light-Weave Cotton (natural)

Cotton is highly versatile and good for all weather and any genre with the right weave and style. You can probably find an affordable cotton garment for most any genre of LARP.

As long as you change it often, cotton makes a great under-layer for absorbing sweat and protecting fancy garb, but this is also its Drawback: Cotton is absorbent as FUCK.

It makes an amazing loose outer-layer, but if you’re soaking it with sweat, it’s going to just…sit there, stink, and eventually chafe. Don’t wear it right against your skin if you know you’re going to be sweating a lot and for a long time without changing it.

Linen (natural)

This one is immensely popular in the fantasy, medieval, and steampunk genres, but could be used in apocalyptic ones as well. The craft of creating linen is and old one that would be relatively easily reclaimed after an apocalypse.

Linen has cotton’s absorbent quality, but also dries very rapidly, keeping you cool, un-chafed, and less stinky! In addition, I recently learned it is not so fragile as it seems. (Thanks, Rachel!)

Drawbacks: Linen is super wrinkly, but most people don’t mind the look, because it does such a good job keeping you cool. Wash and dry on HOT before sewing anything from it though, as the shrinkage is real.

Rayon (semi-synthetic)

Rayon is a weird, wonderful fabric made of chemically-treated cellulose obtained from wood pulp. It can mimic natural fibers, so genre is no obstacle. I absolutely love my rayon renaissance shirts and highly recommend this material. (I’d link them, but I got them at the local Ren Faire.)

Drawback: Rayon’s not the sturdiest fabric, and sometimes a normal washer-dryer treatment means shrinkage or color bleed. Always check the instructions!

Spandex & Nylon (synthetic)

While 100% spandex or nylon is likely only acceptable in modern, futuristic, and maybe post-apocalyptic LARPs, these wicking synthetics are often blended with natural fibers or other synthetics to simulate a natural look. Incorporating just a small bit of spandex into a natural fabric can increase durability, wicking, and drying speed.

Drawback: Sometimes it’s hard to find these in natural looks and colors, and often not allowed in popular forms of LARPs otherwise. They also tend to be more expensive. They can make great hidden under-layers though.

Hot Tip: Color can be killer, literally. Remember to avoid dark colors, especially black, in hot weather. It absorbs far more light than it reflects, amassing a sometimes-dangerous amount of extra heat!

Coffee and other hot liquids are a blessed reprieve from winter’s cold bite.

Photo by Alisa Anton on Unsplash

Fabrics for Staying Warm: Cotton, Wool, Leather, Fur

Heavy-Weave Cotton (natural)

Don’t fix what ain’t broke. Cotton is one of the MVP’s of temperature management. You can wear it in any genre, it can be any color, and it has a wide range of styles readily available and affordable.

Drawback: Take care that if you start to get sweaty in your warm gear, you should shed a layer or two if cotton is involved. It will hold onto the moisture and may put you at risk of hypothermia. It’s also going to get stinky and chafe after a while if you don’t change.

Wool (natural)

Yes, some wool is itchy as all hell, and you definitely should not wear that kind right against your skin. Don’t worry though, you can find lightweight, non-itchy weaves to suit your needs. Wool would likely fit into any genre. As with linen, the method of its creation isn’t exactly secret.

Drawback: Wool becomes heavy if it gets soaked. When selecting wool that is going to be facing a lot of direct water contact, be sure to spring for something felted, and preferably also something that still has lanolin or has had lanolin re-applied.

Both features increase the hydrophobic quality of wool garb. Oh, and DON’T clean your wool with soap! Cool or warm water and brushes only to keep it in good condition!

Related: What Is Lanolin?

Leather (natural or synthetic)

You can also go for faux leather, if you prefer. Leather isn’t so much a “fabric” as the tanned hide of an animal. That said, it is literally perfect for keeping you both dry and warm, and real leather (I have very little experience with faux) molds to you over time for added comfort.

Drawback: (Aside from being once-alive.) If you’re the sort of person who gets bothered by little nicks and imperfections on your garb, leather really, really isn’t for you. You can treat and polish it back into great shape, but sometimes imperfections are just part of the character of a piece.

Fur (natural or synthetic)

As with leather above, you can opt for faux fur. Aesthetically, fur is very different, and many people prefer it over bare leather. As it is attached to a tanned hide, it is just as waterproof as leather, with extra warmth from the insulation of the fur itself.

Drawback: Wet. Fur. Need I say more?

You have a huge variety of options here, really. I found this helpful blog post that has more in-depth info, though it’s more generalized for camping and survival.

Cool Tip: Heavier and thicker doesn’t mean better. Layering multiple light, high-quality under-layers in the cold can do far more than a single bulky one of low quality. Invest in your warmth! Most humans can’t grow their toes back!

Note the combination of outer layer and undershirt to keep the sun off the armor and the armor off the skin.

Photo by Chander Mohan on Unsplash

Armor Advice

When LARPing, most genre-appropriate armor either looks or is metal. Whether it’s real steel or just foam, it’s not going to breathe. To avoid heatstroke, you have options, both under and on top of your armor. Check out the advice below from Clayton, the armor guru.

“Under the Armor: Use a gambeson, aketon, doublet, something to keep hot metal (or foam) off your skin. “Some designs even use the characteristic grooves and furrows in the padding to improve airflow. Not to mention the other benefits of another protective layer: prevents rashes/armor bite, provides attachment points for armor pieces, better distributes weight, why wait? Order now!”

“Over the Armor: One of the big lessons learned in the first crusade: The fiendish desert sun maketh our iron duds unto an oven, dudeth! So a practical solution became a major fashion statement: surcoats and orles (the cloth helmet cover). When I first wore one many years ago, it was a life changing experience. Though the weather was 10°F hotter than I was used to, I felt 20°F cooler. Not only that, I had a cool longcoat effect as it billowed in the wind.”

Supplies & Accessories

While the composition of your base outfit is extremely important, don’t forget about the extras!

I’ll take any excuse to put a pic of a pupper on a post.

Photo by Mel Elías on Unsplash

Hot Weather Supplies & Accessories

Shady Hats (endless possibilities) – I normally link a handy search here, but there are too many STYLES. Have fun with it!

Sunglasses or Goggles (if genre-appropriate)

Water-Soaked Towels or even Synthetic Cooling Towels – If you can get away with it, those Frog Toggs are heaven.

Hand Fans or Mini Battery-Powered Fans – My doctor character heals in the summer using a hand fan. I’ve had no complaints.

Wicking Socks – Again, splurge on the footwear for best results.

Hot Tip: Change your socks often when you are sweating in the summer heat. Your feet will thank you. Also, those synthetic cooling towels come thin enough to tuck under your genre gear, just sayin’. 😉

Fire good. Flame pretty.

Photo by Chris Rhoads on Unsplash

Cold Weather Supplies & Accessories

Warm Hats – Tons of styles to choose from. Make sure your ears don’t fall off at game.

Scarves – Always seems like some of your neck is exposed somehow. A good scarf fixes that.

Gloves – They keep you warm AND make getting smacked in the hand at a boffer LARP hurt much less!

Hand Warmers – No need for these to be genre if you stuff them into your gloves (and boots…and back pockets).

Space Heaters – These can be cleverly disguised, but never put anything flammable on or near them!!!

put anything flammable on or near them!!! Wool Socks – Get nice ones. Merino wool is excellent.

ones. Merino wool is excellent. Fire Starting Kits – Starting a fire the hard way is VERY hard, folx.

Cool Tip: Add a pair of silk glove liners under your genre gloves for a surprising amount of warmth. My tiny hands have been saved by this strategy!

This is gorgeously eerie. Just…wow.

Photo by Justin Novello on Unsplash

For Fluctuating Weather

Semper paratus. Always ready, my fellow nerds. I LARP in the midwestern US, primarily, thus I often pack to experience all 4 seasons in a weekend. If it’s a safer bet where you live, don’t feel the need.

Still, we’re always better safe than sorry. If you suspect the weather will be variable, pack all your temperature management gear–or a reasonable chunk of it–for some peace of mind, if nothing else.

Other Resources

Just as with our 8 Essential Supplies for Your First LARP Guide, a good deal of this post is simply camping advice. Ask your backpacker enthusiast friends for some useful tricks they’ve learned.

Engage with more experienced LARPers for handy tips that apply to your game of choice.

Check out more blogs that focus on this sort of thing! Seek, and you shall find. Now get out there, be kind, and have fun!

Thought of anything we missed, or a good addition? Let us know by commenting below or using the Contact Us form!

This guide has been improved by the advice of:

Clayton, Rachel, va_wanderer, Kelmon80, Sethrial, and Colisprive

Thanks, everyone!



