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Live-Action Role-Players Get Boffed in Amtgard

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The Amts recall Haren turning up on their porch one night; a neighbor called to alert them. He was huddled in the corner, sleeping. The Amt family took him in for a few weeks, but Haren wouldn't talk about his relationship with his own family. All he'd ever say, according to Matthew Amt, was that he was the "white sheep" of the family. Before he left for El Paso, he moved from couch to couch, even living at one point in someone's walk-in closet.

"He's been spotted a few times since then," says Amtgard historian and transplanted Houstonian Michael Lynch. "But basically since...'84 or '85, he hasn't been in Amtgard at all."

Subsequent Haren sightings are akin to glimpses of Sasquatch. Reports have had him working as a department store Santa Claus, living on the streets of San Francisco and once turning up at an Amtgard battle in Hermann Park, demanding royalties from these people who were so brazenly playing his copyrighted game. Although Haren never made much money off Amtgard, he had an entrepreneurial spirit that might have been a gift from his dad.

Speaking from his home in Florida, James "Bulldog" Haren Sr. says he hasn't heard from his son in about three years and is not sure where he's living.

The elder Haren runs a home health-care service for seniors that has branches in Florida and Texas. He's proud enough of his achievements to post them on his company's Web site. These include having his name above the varsity weight room at Virginia Tech, his alma mater, and being listed in the International Who's Who of Intellectuals.

The Web site also cites Haren Sr.'s business acumen, which includes founding "two national corporations." Although the names of these corporations are missing, business filings in Virginia and Florida show Haren Sr. as the head of International Inventors, Inc., and the International Bartending Institute. The former charged budding Edisons $250 to evaluate the "marketability" of their contraptions, and, in 1979, received a warning from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for allegedly misrepresenting franchise agreements. The FTC ordered Haren Sr. to disclose a success ratio, to provide a ten-day cooling-off period and to give copies of the FTC order to employees and prospective clients. Fifteen years later, the FTC fined Haren Sr.'s bartending school franchise $50,000 for allegedly violating the 1979 order. (Because Haren Sr. wrote the International Bartending Institute's textbook, which was sold to students, he's listed on his current Web site as a "bestselling author").

Haren Jr.'s half-brother Greg Haren runs one of his father's Houston locations. He says he hasn't seen his half-brother in about nine years and that, at one point, Haren Jr. was living with his mother in El Paso. Messages left for her were not returned.

"My dad always worries about him," Greg Haren says. "And we'd like to at least know where he's at."
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Before today's battle begins — before Germ will split his lip — an ominous black school bus pulls into the parking lot here at Jack Brooks Park in Hitchcock.

With blacked-out passenger windows and a skull dangling from the rearview mirror, the bus looks like it belongs to the Bowels of Hell Independent School District. As soon as it stops, the front and rear doors fly open and a band of black-clad figures pour out. They are Corpus Monstrom, one of Amtgard's many fighting companies — fraternal organizations that stick together on the battlefield. (Or, as one of the Monstroms likes to say, "We're not a fighting company, we're a family.)

Corpus Monstrom consists mostly of current and former peace officers and military men. And it's at least 62 pounds lighter than when it formed nine years ago — that's how much weight Monstrom honcho Nomada Demonicus Non ConCeedo dropped after his first year.

Nomada (a.k.a. Damon Jackson) took to Amtgard almost instinctually.

"It's genetic," he says, adding later that games like Amtgard were borne out of "hundreds of years of no outlet for warrior culture in this world."

So Jackson and his companions travel from park to park in the vessel they've named the Big Black Bitch, ready to get their warrior on.

While they prepare, a knight-in-­training-slash-property-manager named Dughan ambles around the parking lot, plucking a mandolin. Well over six feet, with long, rust-colored hair and a ­sideburn-mustache combo like Lemmy from Motör­head, Dughan might make for an imposing figure if he weren't in fact playing a teeny-tiny guitar, and if he weren't in fact a supremely nice ­individual.

Dughan, a.k.a. Brian Dean of Spring, has been in Amtgard for 11 years. An early interest in medieval history, and medieval warfare specifically, led him when he was 19 to the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval reenactment group that fights with real armor and real weapons. At a gaming convention a few years later, he heard about Amtgard, and when he showed up for his first battle, it was like walking into an extended family.

Like just about everyone out here, Dean finds Amtgard to be first and foremost a great workout — a fun way to just let go and relieve stress by whupping ass in a safe, friendly environment. It also gives him a musical outlet; when he's not swinging his sword, he can be found on the sideline, jamming with a drummer or a dude on a lute.

Lately, Dean's been excited about his upcoming knighthood. He's been a squire (knight-in-training) to Misteslaus Harlstonovich, a.k.a. Stephen Duncan, an Oriental Orthodox priest and fellow musician. It's Duncan's job to forge Dean into the best Amtgarder he can be — make him a leader who will be a credit to this fantasy universe. Squires are knighted in different disciplines, and Dean is shooting to be a Knight of the Serpent, a person who has excelled in Amtgard's more artistic aspects, such as music, wardrobe and acting. Knighting ceremonies typically take place at major gatherings, amid much celebration and libation. The squire drops to one knee within a circle of knights, who pass a cup and say a few words about the man or woman of the hour.

It's a huge honor, and it's something serious Amtgarders don't forget — like Finoghaal, a.k.a. Penelope McFadin of Nassau Bay, who in 1998 became a Knight of the Flame for outstanding service to the kingdom. She got a late start today and doesn't show up until after the battle has begun.

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