“While I am a fan of all of the World of Darkness properties, Changeling: the Dreaming, has always been the core setting which truly held my heart. As a big fan of urban fantasy classics such as Bordertown and War for the Oaks, Changeling gave me the chance to really live my own stories with that same sort of framework. I am very excited to be able to share my love for this setting with our players, and see what stories we might tell together.”
Cynthia – Storyteller
Cynthia (aka Cyn) brings to the Backbeat Ballad Staff several years’ experience as a LARP staff member and contributor, as well as passions for costuming, community health and engagement, and storytelling. In addition, she has over two decades of customer service and people management experience, both in consumer retail, and in the hobby gaming industry. She is also a massive hoarder collector of plushies and a lover of spiders.
In 2018, she attended Armistice Arcane in New Orleans, an experience which completely changed how she approached LARPing and character vs character engagement. Cyn believes strongly that player agency and scene collaboration is vital to creating both a strong in-character environment, and a healthy out-of-character community. As the current Storyteller for Backbeat, she has refocused her efforts toward facilitating individual stories within the game world framework, and bringing new calibration techniques from her wider LARP experiences to the local community.
Randy – Narrator
Randy is a technology consultant by day and a passionate consumer of video games, films, and literature by night. He began his LARPing career at a Vampire: the Masquerade game in 1996, and he fell in love at once with the notion of combining the inventiveness of tabletop RPGs with the improvisational drama of party games.
Originally from the Bartlett area, Randy has since relocated to New Orleans, LA, though he loves the LARPing community in Memphis so much that he travels there once a month to play with them. He’s done his best to be a vocal and enthusiastic player in past LARPs such as Opposing Forces, Riverside Opera, and The Golden Age.
While he started plans for Backbeat Ballad all the way back in December of 2019, tragic world events made it seem like a Memphis-area Changeling LARP might never happen. So the fact that Backbeat Ballad has risen like a phoenix from the ashes fills his heart with no small amount of joy.
“LARP is a stage on which we are able to put our imaginations on display. Changeling in particular lets us slay dragons, craft ball gowns out of orchid petals, and steal secrets whispered by the evening breeze. Let’s show each other what we can do and celebrate how awesome our fellow players are!”