The Story

Lord Byron, the most successful poet of all time has fled his native England to escape scandal and debt. He is accompanied by his personal physician — Dr. John Polidori — and a carriage full of servants. He is joined by the poet, Percey Bysshe Shelley, Byron’s one-time lover Claire Clairmont, and Claire’s half-sister, the writer Mary Godwin, who was later to become famous under her married name, Mary Shelley.

Along side the poets are Byron’s cadre of servants. Byron’s household is rather lax, for whilst the servants work, they are also encouraged to think, to drink, to join in festivities and … other things.

The year is unseasonably cold and dark and the group are largely trapped inside Byron’s villa by the storms outside. To stave off the boredom, they amuse themselves with drink, drugs, poetry, and much darker things; Byron challenges each of them to write the best horror story. In this summer, Mary Godwin wrote Frankenstein, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley wrote a few fragments, Dr Polidori wrote The Vampyre . . . 

In our larp, Claire Clairmont also writes something, but that never sees the light of day. Indeed there is no daylight here. One dark and stormy night, things start to go very wrong, as their gothic tales seem to come to life. . .

That summer was a tragedy, but all good tragedies can lead to great stories… Join us in creating some.