By day, they’re cops, lawyers, mothers and fathers. But when the weekend comes, they’re warriors and nobles. Meet the Society for Creative Anachronism
You call it Southern Nevada. They call it the Barony of Starkhafn, part of the Kingdom of Caid (“kay-eed”), which spans Southern California, the greater Las Vegas Area, and Hawaii. They’re kings and queens, warriors and nobles. And they could be your neighbor, your postal carrier, your accountant or lawyer.
Who are these people? They’re members of the Society for Creative Anachronism. It’s a medieval recreation society — with the emphasis on “recreation.” Started in Berkeley, Calif. at a backyard graduation party, the society celebrates its 46th birthday this year. Las Vegas’ local branch just turned 27.
But it’s much more than medieval costumes and mock combat. A closer look at their society reveals that the line between their real and role-playing lives isn’t so clear. A rich fantasy life, it seems, can inform and inspire real life.
He is a noble warrior who fights with honor and protects the innocent — on the battlefield and on the streets.
AKA: Mike Wolff, a valley police officer and 27-year-old Henderson native.
Chivalry +6: He says the society helped give him direction after a “typical, weird Las Vegas” upbringing. “I grew up without a lot of structure,” he says. “The SCA gave me a bit more. It gave me ideals and values and role models to look up to, values like chivalry and honor and largess and prowess and courage. Doing what’s right even though it may hurt you.” He says the old, knightly values really struck a chord in him and “inevitably” brought him to police work. “I wanted to be a knight, but that doesn’t really, per se, exist in our modern world. However, police work is very close.”
Special attack: Warrior spirit. Wolff credits SCA fighter training with making him a better police officer because, like any good martial art, it cultivates a detached, observant “warrior mindset” on the job. “It helps keep my mind in a place it needs to be, to keep me safe and deal with the people I need to deal with. I’m always looking — not looking to get into a fight, necessarily, but always looking at it through the warrior’s lens. A warrior’s job isn’t to fight everyone and everything all the time. It’s to be ready and willing to fight when appropriate, and willing to stay one’s hand when it’s not appropriate.”
Strength +10: “(Fighting) lends itself to overall physical fitness. Being an SCA fighter is a very physical sport. I’m used to wearing armor suits in the SCA, which are quite heavy and encumbering. Now I wear armor every day at work and it’s not that big a deal. My police gear is lighter and much more comfortable than my SCA gear.”
The barony’s chatelain hails newcomers with warmth, and answers the queries of curious passers-by.
AKA: Guy Butler, 42, a heavy equipment operator and native Las Vegan.
Special spell: Realism. “In the society, we are recreating the Middle Ages the way they should have been,” he says. “We’re people that enjoy the chivalry and fighting and crafts (of the period).” What do you do if you don’t want to fight? “If you go to an event, say there’s 10,000 people there, you have probably 2,000 fighters, so those other people need something to do. Anything that happened in that time, cooking, brewing, arts and crafts, making armor, all kinds of things that go on. Anything that happened from 600 to 1600, somebody in the SCA is interested in it and wants to show other people how to do it.“
Special attack: Misconception-breaker. “A lot of people think the SCA is like a renfair (Renaissance fair). But it’s not. The thing with a renfair, the people are out there to make money and you can’t leave stuff laying around. … At an SCA event, you can leave your wallet sitting on your table in the middle of camp where people are walking through all day long and nobody will touch it. You know that everyone values honor and chivalry and they’re going to take care of each other. If a kid runs off, they’re going to be OK. It’s great for having families around.”
Her hospitality — and her hearty victuals — are a boon to newcomers and longtimers alike in the Barony of Starkhafn.
AKA: Aeisha McKenzie, a 31-year-old marketing executive from Northern California who’s been playing in the SCA for two years now.
Special spell: Hospitality. “If you’re a jerk, other people aren’t going to join. For this dream to continue, you gotta have other people coming in. That’s the lifeblood. So it becomes important to be welcoming to other people so they can help support your dream.”
Armor class +3: She also explains how the standard for costuming has changed as the group grew up. “From the old-timers, it used to be the 10-foot rule (if you looked authentic from 10 feet away, that was all that mattered). Nowadays people do that less. People are more concerned with making sure their garb is made with linen, instead of something that just looks like linen. We’re talking about 45 years of research that people are building on. Now, when I want to go make a Viking dress, I can go online and find authentic patterns that someone else has already drawn for me.”
Authenticity +7: “After I graduated from school I got a normal job and I got sucked into ‘real life’ and corporate life.” The theater major says she couldn’t convince herself to do the “artsy stuff” because, “I wasn’t going to sell it, I wasn’t going to use it for theater; there was no purpose. With the SCA, I’ve taught myself to sew, because I need clothes. I’ve gotten to work on period recipes, which fulfills me because I’m a big old history geek and I love the research, but I also love to cook because there are people to cook for and reasons to do it. If there’s a reason for it, if it’s useful somehow, then it’s not wasting my time that I should be spending doing serious adult stuff.”
He is a fierce and cunning fighter who employs his sword — and his guile — to prevail in the art of combat.
AKA: C. Conrad Claus, prominent Las Vegas attorney, MMA fighter and occasional cable-news commentator. Forty-two-year-old Claus is an Oregon native who studied history in college, where he was also a nationally ranked wrestler. He passed the bar in 1996 and spent eight years at the Clark County district attorney’s office before starting his own practice.
Special attack: Intimidation. Whether he’s wearing plate mail or a three-piece suit, his shaved head, goatee and coolly appraising manner are designed to intimidate. Claus relishes combat, which is what drew him to the law (his website is “lawiswar.com”), and then to the Society for Creative Anachronism 13 years ago.
Spells: “The SCA is a lot like law for me,” he says, “insofar as chivalry is a lot like law for me. Both of them are codes of conduct that were enacted to ennoble pure combativeness and aggression. When you’re an advocate in law, there are certain rules by which you must behave to be ethical. … The values of the legal profession are to be a gladiator, a fighter for somebody’s rights.”
Combat modifier: “The fight is the thing,” he says of the SCA. “The chivalric combat is attractive to me. I can fight, inspired, by a courteous and noble lady. I can fight with boon companions at my side. I can fight with others who understand concepts like honor, prowess and hardiness.” So, are you missing out if you don’t like to sword fight? “The honest and not-too-PC answer is, yes, you’re missing out on the SCA if you’re not fighting. You’re missing out on a big part of the SCA if you’re not taking a charcoal forge and making a sword, or if you’re not making armor. There are so many things in the SCA, it’s impossible not to miss out on a big part of the SCA.”