FilmSim events and EYELarp proudly presents a Kitty Dobson & Johnny Fisher production:
Hoist the Colours: Nightmare
October 31st – Nov 2nd 2025.
Welsh Drive, Eversley
Tickets priced at £100 for with a £60 part-payment
Please see booking details below.
Tickets capped at 40 Player and 30 Crew
Hoist The Colours: Nightmare is a one-shot horror larp, spinning off from our long-running Pirate LARP Hoist The Colours.
We’re taking our inspiration from the classic look and feel of such great Pirate adventures with horror tropes as Pirates of the Caribbean series, Master & Commander: Far Side of the World, and and more modern interpretations of the genre like Black Sails, Our Flag Means Death, and The Lost Pirate Kingdom, and games such as the Assassin’s creed IV: Black Flag & Greedfall.
As always with EYELarp’s FilmSim games, we are encouraging high production values and will be striving for a cinematic feel and look at everything we do.
As with all our games, Hoist The Colours is set in a fictional pocket of history to allow all potential players to have fun with the early 18th Century aesthetic without worry of discrimination based on “historical attitudes”.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and any language or attitudes of a discriminatory nature are not welcome at our event.
The main rule is: react to everything and don’t expect a specific reaction.
Setting
It is 1725, and the Golden Age of Piracy is dead. All those who sail the seas under the black flag are the enemy of the Great Powers; the Royal Navies of Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands hunt down pirates relentlessly as they seek to conquer the last corners of the map.
You are one of a dying breed, more and more of your fellows are hauled off to Tilbury or Port Royal or Tarifa and hanged, drowned or beheaded every month. You may have seen the sacking of Nassau, been radicalised by the stories of it or even have worn a red jacket and been on the side of King and Country. The world is getting smaller, and the liminal spaces where an independent adventurer can make a living are running out.
In the last few weeks, what luck you have has run out. Most of you have been captured and placed in the hold of The Albatross, a 70 Gunner 2nd Class Ship of the Line with a full complement of some of the worst marines you’ve ever seen. Some of you may be the gaolers that keep them chained, seconded from more palatable duties for drunkenness, insubordination or other minor crimes.
There is very little that separates the common criminals who sail under Black or under Jack – except the oaths they’ve sworn, and shillings they’ve taken.
When storms hit, and ships wreck, it’s every sorry bilge-rat for themself.
Nightmare Rules
Hoist The Colours: Nightmare is part of our Nightmare spin-off set of games, which take a familiar setting and give it the “Treehouse of Horror” treatment.
It will be a one-shot, and has no impact on the main story of Hoist – feel free to bring your character from that, create someone new or bring back a dead character if you prefer. If your Hoist character dies at Nightmare, they do not die in the main campaign of Hoist The Colours.
We also have a reduced amount of archetypes to choose from. This game has no economy, so there isn’t much need for tradesfolk, and we have merged the Buccaneer and Marine archetype into one martial one – Gunner – to simplify things. Gunners can choose the loadout they prefer, from multiple pistols to two rifles, or a mixture of both. Surgeons have also lost and gained abilities – bead bags are not part of this game, but can conduct autopsies to discover more information about things that are happening around them. We have also added two new archetypes; Soothsayers, who are mystically inclined, and Chaplains, the religious focal points of their ship. These are to offer more thematically relevant options that will push the story along, in accordance with some of the spooky themes we’re working with.
