#9 — In — Character Imogen
For most of today, my name was Imogen O’Brien. I was an apprentice engineer who got lucky/signed up for a spot on a colony ship.
Not so lucky. Imogen’s cryo pod was found close to a crashed ship — a ship that was thought to be a supply ship, until we got on board.
That’s enough plot. Today was my second foray into larping, and I loved it.
“Here, have a read of this leaflet. It should fill you in on a couple of important things.”
“’The Quick’? Okay… Wait. This paragraph heading reads ‘WTF, Zombies?!’. Not actual zombies, right?”
“Well, yes. Actually, that probably won’t be of much help right now. You’ll find out as we get on board. Nice to have you around, Imogen. Good luck!”
I joined at event 9 of a continuing story. Most of the other player characters were well acquainted, quirks and all. So maybe it would be a bit weird or awkward joining in at this juncture — especially as I’ll be unable to attend future events.
As it turns out, hell no! My welcome (both in-character and out) could not have been warmer. From the pre-time-in banter to the in-character lunch chatter, I was included and encouraged. When they said they were always happy to see new players, they weren’t joking!

Some of my hastily — made engineer tools.
I quickly got used to hearing “IMOGEN!” being yelled when a new door lock was found that wasn’t a straightforward entry. And when we finally got access to the failing life support system (I rewired it and got it powered back up). And let’s save the incident that gave her radiation sickness till later…
A very dimly-lit venue, mostly relying on the few torches we had, meant that attacks from The Quick sometimes genuinely scared me. Suddenly something moved in the shadows and growled- often when the nearest person with a substantial weapon was either already hammering on another enemy, or was part of the rear guard. I don’t mind admitting, I did a fair bit of yelping in shock and quick dodging today.
When you’re waiting to be told it’s clear to advance and realise your heart is actually racing like mad, you know it’s going well. There were times I was genuinely trying to work out if I could wield my small torch and short knife one — handed, so I could be more efficient in attacking if I got jumped. At one point I got ambushed by a VERY fast-moving Quick; I managed to get one wild slash in before yelling for help and running from the room. I only went back in there once. I left the others to deal with the other terrors that area held. I was ACTUALLY scared of being ambushed by it again.
There were obvious gaps in my knowledge, as both player and character. In quieter moments, people were only too happy to bring me up to speed. It just WORKED.

A post- event snapshot. Gotta say, Imogen’s outfit is pretty comfy!
The final ‘encounter’ was something I had slightly expected. The team on the mission was mostly security staff and scientists- so when we were told we had to fight out way through to the engineering level and restart the thrusters to stop a swarm of unknowns, I started reading up on maps of the lower decks. How fortunate that the team had come across an engineer! Imogen is definitely NOT a nuclear engineer. She’s basically an over-inquisitive sparky. But that extra amount of points I put in for jury-rigging were sufficient to get the job done — while only picking up a mild amount of radiation sickness in the process.
If it had gone wrong, I was willing to order my security escorts to leave without me. With my impending move abroad, Imogen is highly unlikely to be making a return. It wouldn’t have been to much of a tragedy to see her die.
But she lives. And who knows — if I get lucky with vacation dates, maybe one trip back to the UK will coincide with another event weekend…