Lorien Trust (sometimes abbreviated to LT) is the trading name of Merlinroute ltd., a Live Action Role-Play organisation that runs LARP events at Locko Park, Derby, UK. It runs some of Britain's largest Live Roleplay events, historically claiming to attract around 1,200 to 1,500 to its first three events each year and around 2,500 to 3,000 people to The Gathering. More recent figures are lower, but not in the public domain. It was formed in 1992, originally as a charitable organisation (hence "Trust" in the name). In 1995 it became Merlinroute ltd trading as Lorien Trust. The Lorien Trust has a well established game world, and uses its own set of LARP rules, known simply as the "Lorien Trust rules system". In addition to the four events held per year, the Lorien Trust also sanctions many smaller events to use the same system and game world.

The Lorien Trust's flagship event is The Gathering. It is held over the August bank holiday weekend. The final battle of The Gathering once drew around 1200 players on each side, but recent figures are not in the public domain. These were some of the largest Live Action battles in Europe. and the BBC. In October 2012 the Huffington Post posted an in depth article exploring a first-time roleplayer's view of the Live Roleplay scene from the point of view of someone attending the Gathering for the first time and interviewing a number of attendees, charting The Lorien Trust and other systems in the UK.

References

  • Lorien Trust Homepage
  • Lorien Trust - Harts Faction library
  • BBC article covering the Gathering in 2001
  • Lorien Trust rules
  • Live Role-Playing Games: Implications for Pervasive Gaming, a conference paper employing the Lorien Trust as an example of a live roleplay system