There’s no surprise in the instant success of a web series about six questing female LARPers. The Damsels & Dragons cast includes a daring rogue, a cleric, and even the game master. In the series, the lady LARPers lightheartedly depict the rules of the game and some issues LARPers frequently encounter—such as gaming with new players and the finite differences between wizards and clerics.

Alltern8 correspondent Tara M. Clapper caught up with Damsels & Dragons actress May Zayan and writer Eric Campbell.

Zayan is originally from Egypt. Her education includes study at NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. On a more familiar and geeky level, she also starred in We Are Prey, which received a 2008 convention debut.

Eric Campbell is the quintessential role player, having contributed his talents to many Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and the SCA. This gamer packs LARP experience (Old World of Darkness) along with his lore mastery.

Tara Clapper: Had any of the damsels LARPed before starting this project?
Eric Campbell: May had played D&D when she was younger but for the most part no one aside from the (male) writer (me) had been a steady role player. This was actually kinda what we wanted. We wanted to take a group of people you would never have expected to be involved in such a hobby and reveal them as hard core gamers.

It's a classic case of "closet geekdom.” An example would be the back story I came up with for Kelly [Lloyd], who played FIGHTER. She is a recently divorced housewife. Rather than join yoga or get involved in some new age commercialized swill that her friends were signing up for, she sought out something she could call her own, something no one else was doing. It adds this whole layer of silliness and innocence to it that I didn't think we could get if we had experienced gamers. Plus I can get away with more, being that no fellow gamers are involved [evil laugh].