Costume in the game follows a traditional Medieval-Renaissance-Low-fantasy –line. The game masters aren’t too strict with the time period, cut or wool-percentage of the costume, but you should avoid clearly modern materials and patterns, overly gaudy colors, and very fantastic and exotic solutions. Dress comfortably and warm – probably every character will spend some time outdoors, and some will stay there even longer times, and the Finnish May-weather can be surprising… Please keep this in mind also when choosing shoes for the game.
Try to take your character’s wealth, profession and social class into account when choosing costume. Almost every character has arrived to the game site from somewhere further away, thus probably even the highest and richest among them won’t be wearing their most decorated and unpractical court-costumes, although their travelling cloaks might be of finer quality than those of common villagers and their tunics have a brighter color than the one of the local stable boy. A short note concerning colors: bright red is usually considered as the color of the Royal Army of Marland. This doesn’t, however, mean that nobody else than the soldiers would be allowed to wear red, or that soldiers in an outback area like Mistwood would only be dressed in red.
One popular and practical accessory that should fit every character in game is a belt. Both woven and leather belts are common among women as well as men in Marland, and people often hang different pouches and bags, knives and drinking vessels, keys and good-luck charms (bells and rattles being the most common ones) on their belts. Besides belt-pouches travelers carry their belongings in different bags and sacks over the shoulders.
We ask female characters, with a few exceptions of which we’ll inform the players concerned, to wear some kind of skirt. Like that it is easier to tell them apart from possible male characters played by female players. The skirts don’t need to be excessively long, especially by working women they reach usually somewhere to the ankles. Women are allowed but not obliged to wear corset in the game – the fashion (and hairstyle) of women in Marland is very varying with regional variations.
Here’s a short list of words to use as a costuming inspiration: tunic, vest, cloak, hood, wide sleeves for high-status characters, earthly colors, jewellery out of wood, bone, amber or metal, fur trim, braids, travel boots, military tabard, grand-father’s old shoulder-bag of leather, clothes worn down by work and travel… … …
As to weapons… the game masters will inform any character that needs or is allowed to carry a weapon. Latex- and boffer-weapons are used, and the game masters will inspect the weapons before the game. Please tell us in your registration if you own some suitable weapons that you can take to the game either for yourself or to borrow! You can read more about in-game fighting on the “rules” page.
Different daggers and swords are probably the most commonly used weapons, though far from everybody carries one around. A sword is, besides an expensive symbol of status, a truly dangerous weapon, which will not go unnoticed by any character. In many villages there is no one that would own a sword, and also in large cities mainly officers and soldiers of the army carry swords. Other possible weapons in the game are mainly different axes, staffs and bows.