It’s a Man’s World
It’s a Man’s World is a LARP about masculinity in a world where all women have died.
In a not so distant future a plague has swept the world, killing everyone without a Y-chromosome. In the waste of the Disaster civilization still stands, but it is a doomed civilization.
However, in the newly formed Nordic union an advanced research project around artificial wombs is reaching its final stages, and potential parents are being screened. They are hoping to be chosen to raise the next generation of humans. Only, the rumored artificial womb project is really just a smoke screen. In fact, the joint-Nordic government shelters the last living female.
Themes
The thematic content of the larp focuses masculinity, family and fatherhood, loss and hope.
Setting
Civilization is more or less intact and the government keeps peace. Most people still go to work and still get their salaries on their accounts at the end of every month. The Nordic governments have united in a loose political and military alliance, with the separate countries keeping most of their independence. There is political and social unrest in the rest of the world, but no major wars has broken out. Therefore, the Nordic countries has almost completely closed their borders.
Every family on Earth has lost members to the Disaster. Nearly every home is broken. The suicide rates peaked following the Disaster and remain extremely high, especially among older men. Many have had their wounds reopened by a male family member taking his life a month or a year after the deaths of the women in the family. Disillusioned young men join up in gangs, roaming the streets and acting out their anger.
Story summary
Three years have passed. Three very long years. But now there is finally a shred of hope, that you get to experience first hand.
Our story centers around a group of men who have all applied to a government program that claims to have succeeded in creating artificial wombs. After extensive evaluations they hope to be approved to rise the first new generation.
The first act centers around these evaluations. The family units of three will meet psychologists, medical specialists and social workers, and try to convince them all that they are suited to be fathers and that they will be able to provide a safe and loving family for a child.
The second act will be set off by the revelation that the success of the artificial womb project was a lie, and the mother of the children that the project will provide is actually the worlds last living woman. As she enters, the world as you know it changes again. And now you also have to convince her.
Characters
All characters are organized in groups of three:
- The Committee – The people in charge of the program.
- The Specialists – The professionals in charge of the evaluations.
- The Survivalists – A self sustained group living separate from society at large.
- The Lovers – A group who were already part of the gay scene before the Disaster, and are basing their family on love.
- The Radicals – Activists representing a political counter-culture.
- The Professionals – A group whose professional qualifications makes them suited to rise a child.
- The Nuclear family – A family with a transgender woman.
- The Academics – Young idealistic students aiming to shape the new world that is to come.
- The Fathers – A group of people who were all fathers before the disaster.
- The Brothers – Working class brothers struggling with the aftermath of a suicide.
- The Singles – Close friends handling ambivalent sexual tension.
- The Three Wheels – A group of three who would rather be two