Bladesinger LARP Sword

(About): Fully Roleplay-Ready Elvish LARP Sword – Resilient Closed Cell Foam with Safety Fiberglass Core

The Elves are faded from this world – they have gone to the Grey Havens and taken their craft with them. But a few relics of their superior metalwork remain. In the deepest dungeon, the foulest cavern, the deepest mine – you might chance upon a sleeping golden sword. Our Bladesinger LARP Sword is the finest of Elvish craft, snatched from the obscurity of mythology by the master sword-makers of Epic Armoury, Denmark’s finest LARP manufacturers. The Bladesinger LARP Sword is a two-handed Elven war-sword made from forgiving foam and latex, and it is constructed with the highest standard of safety so that you can immerse yourself fully in your character rather than having to worry about keeping safe.

The Craft of Elves

In terms of its design, the Bladesinger LARP Sword is a beautiful Elven two-handed longsword. It has a single edged blade, which is elegantly curved in a two-section design with a parrying point midway down the blade. The blade is made with a straight back – save for a subtle backward curve toward the tip. The lower segment of the blade is inscribed with an organic pattern of delicate tendrils shaped like reeds waving in the breeze. These could be made from the mysterious Elven metal frequently called mithril, which their master-artisans use in much of their decorative art. The blade is finished in a polished-steel effect, shot through with a subtle shimmer that hints at the magical origin of such glorious craftwork.

The hilt of our Bladesinger LARP Sword is a marvel of Elven design: it is a beautiful combination of art and craft that perfectly captures the union of Elvenkind with nature. The cross-guard is created from two symmetric golden-colored leafs that gently cup the blade’s forte. A langet imitating a golden vine snakes up the back-side of the blade. The hand-grip is a generous two-handed size over 11 inches in length, allowing this weapon to be wielded with the flowing, sweeping styles of the finest Elven swordmasters, rapidly shifting the position of the hands to create a swift whirlwind of strikes. It is wrapped in suede leather, creating a stable grip surface for use in bare-hands, gauntlets or gloves – for Elven swordcraft, we would recommend a soft pair of comfortable gloves like our Celtic-inspired suede gloves. The pommel is a gold-effect crow’s-beak, which can be used to deliver a surprise death-strike to armored opponents at close quarters.

Overall, the design of our Bladesinger LARP Sword is a truly spectacular Elven-inspired LARP weapon. It draws together a fantastic range of contemporary fantasy and historical medieval design features into a perfectly-proportioned masterwork of Elven craft.

Top-Notch Safety Features for Immersive Roleplay

Whilst they may be steeped in the mythology of Elves, the artisans at Epic Armoury have their feet firmly placed on the ground when it comes to constructing modern LARP weaponry that is fit for purpose and safe to use in physical roleplay. Epic Armoury have constructed our Bladesinger LARP Sword around a 10mm thick, solid glass fiber core, perfect for high-quality affordable LARP weaponry. This material’s performance in impacts is second-only to expensive carbon-fiber, springing back to shape every time and resisting shattering. For extra safety, Epic Armoury have fitted the core tip with a Kevlar safety shield to prevent it from piercing the exterior of the weapon in the unlikely event of shredding.

The blade is made from EVA foam, a rigid but forgiving synthetic foam used in a wide variety of roleplay and cosplay applications. It is closed-cell, meaning that it is highly shred-resistant and will retain its shape well with a high degree of elasticity – as a bonus, it is also waterproof. The weapon is finished with a thick top-coat of latex. This is a perfect finishing material for the foam, since it gives a secure top layer – and it is what allows Epic Armoury’s artists to create such a magnificent hand-painted finish on the weapon. A latex-finished weapon will require some care: the occasional coat of silicone spray (especially before and after use) will keep it in tip-top condition. The sword’s hilt is made from cast EVA foam, resulting in a firm-but-pliable grip. Epic Armoury classify this combination of materials and construction as the ‘Classic’, their softest LARP weapon type. It is forgiving enough to engage in lightly armored light combat – for example with our stunning Wood Elf-like leather armor.

(History): The Historical Roots of Elven Swords

Whilst ‘elves’ have existed as a concept in European folklore since pre-Christian times, what we in the modern West think of as ‘elves’ are a very recent invention, not stretching back beyond the middle of the 20th century. Our ideas of elves broadly feature common themes like their impossible beauty, near-immortality, close connection with nature and animals, and their detachment from the affairs of humankind. The ideas of elvenkind formed into its modern format in the aftermath of the Second World War, with the explosion of modern fantasy literature. The rediscovery of JRR Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings in the 1960s and 1970s became cemented in the popular imagination. It was the big-screen adaptations of the Middle Earth trilogy, screened in the early 2000s CE, that set above all what Elves look like. The meticulously realised and painstakingly designed Elvish aesthetic grabbed audiences, and has itself fed into the burgeoning fantasy craze of the 21st-century, spanning depictions of Elves in roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons, and video games like World of Warcraft, The Witcher, and The Elder Scrolls series.

Aside from the magnificent architecture and clothing created by director Peter Jackson and the sprawling design and fabrication teams who worked on the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the weaponry of Elvenkind forged a new kind of Elvish aesthetic, of which our Bladesinger LARP Sword clearly stands in the tradition. Conceptual designer John Howe and smith Peter Lyon were the two artists at the heart of the sword designs for the movies, and they both drew on prodigious historical knowledge and references to create weapons like Hadhafang, horse-sabre of Arwen, and Aeglos, the glaive of the Elf-King Gil-Galad. Let’s examine the historical influences that are evident in our Bladesinger LARP Sword, drawn together by Epic Armoury’s master smiths.

Parrying Hooks and Fancy Germans

Complex blades such as the one o f our Bladesinger LARP sword are rare in European medieval history, but they do exist. For example, the spectacular German Zweihander sword emerged at the end of the 15th century CE, and were wielded by flamboyant professional soldiers called Landsknecht. These were the idea weapons for these ostentatious mercenaries, who wore gaudy, bright clothing and painted steel half-armor – Zweihanders were sometimes forged with extravagant variants like the flame-like ‘flamberge’, and sometimes they featured ‘Parierhaken’, or ‘parrying hooks’ that formed a second grip part way along the blade. The Parierhaken grip made the Zweihander into a flexible multi-functional weapon: the secondary grip could be used to wield the greatsword like a spear using the ‘Halbschwert’ (‘half-sword’) technique – or even to reverse the sword entirely and to deliver a ‘Mordhau’ or ‘murder-strike’ with the quillons of the sword. Whilst our Bladesinger LARP Sword does not have this secondary forward-grip, Elven blade design clearly takes inspiration from the complex compound blades that appeared in Renaissance Europe.

Ancient Origins

There are other, more ancient sources which designers have drawn on for their fantasy weapons. One of these might well have been the khopesh. This ‘sickle-sword’ appeared in Egypt in the Late Bronze Age, becoming a common military weapon during the New Kingdom (c. 1550 BCE – c. 1077 BCE) – although the earliest appears on the ancient Mesopotamian ‘Stele of Vultures’ which dates from the middle of the 3rd-millennium BCE. An ancient weapon indeed. The khopesh (sometimes spelled ‘khepesh’) was a distinctive compound blade usually made from bronze, with a short straight spine that kinks into a wide, flat curved blade. This format of blade probably developed in imitation of crescent-shaped war-axes – it is certainly an arresting sword design that would certainly have been fearsome against lightly armored ancient troops.

Some Classical weaponry has clearly influenced the development of modern Elvish swords. The Ancient Greek kopis is a very clear source for much Elvish single-edged weaponry. This shape derived from its requirement to be kept light, which ancient bronze-smiths achieved by narrowing the blade from the forte, the least useful cutting part of the sword. The result was an elegant, flowing double-curved wave-edge, just like that of our Bladesinger LARP Sword.

Messy Messers

Another weapon that has frequently inspired Elven-style weaponry such as our Bladesinger LARP Sword is another German sword, known as a messer. Literally meaning ‘knife’ in German, messers were a form of civilian side-arm that developed in the 14th century CE, probably from earlier peasant long-knives descended from the Early Medieval saex. Messers were usually slightly-curved single-handed swords with cruciform guards, defined by a hilt made from sandwiching a very wide tang between two pieces of wood riveted through (you often see this method of construction in modern knife-making). A larger, exclusively military style of messer, known as the Großes Messer (‘great knife’) or Kriegsmesser (‘war knife’) developed in the 16th century, used by German mercenaries – and it is one that clearly inspires the modern conception of Elvish weaponry: the back-side of our Bladesinger LARP Sword mirrors the long, straight back with a back-swept hatchet point that is frequently seen on swords of this type. Such a blade geometry distributed the weight of the Kriegsmesser’s blade toward the tip, permitting it to deliver spectacular devastating cutting blows whilst remaining extremely fast in the hands. This is exactly the kind of characteristics that Elvish sword techniques require.

Appreciating the historical sources that have contributed to and informed fantasy design can help us build more immersive and impressive outfits to complement them. For example, we might choose to match the Ancient Classical styling of much Elvish weaponry with elegant, restrained medieval-style clothing from our range. Or you might match the golden organic elements of our Bladesinger LARP Sword with our stunning Elf-inspired warrior armor. With a weapon as genuinely beautiful as our Bladesinger LARP Sword you cannot fail to create a breathtaking Elven impression to grace any roleplay battlefield.

Key Features:

• A great affordable price
• High safety, approved by the top organizations
• Round Flexible fiberglass core
• Strong Kevlar core tip protection

Technical Specifications:

Total length: 44 inches

Blade length: 29 inches

Blade material: EVA foam & Latex coat

Core material: 10mm solid fiberglass rod

Hilt material: Split leather

Weight: 0.8 lbs.

Measurements will vary slightly as these are handmade items.