Peter LaGrue

In short, the founder of Amtgard, long estranged from his, creation. There are various stories about how it came to pass, but they all generally go over the same basic material:

Peter LaGrue formerly played Dagorhir (and maybe Emarthngarth) back east, and moved to El Paso in the early 80's. He posted an announcement for something called "Atilla the Hun's Birthday Bash" in various places, talking about siege engines and tents and weapons. Many people, including some from a high school science fiction club showed up, saw no siege engines or tents, but he did have weapons, and they held a tournament which was won by Tawnee Darkfalcon. He proclaimed her Queen, gave himself the higher title of Grand Poobah, and started the Amtgard club, charging each week for people to play. He also had with him a rulebook he had written (borrowing liberally from Dag, Emarth, but had some original material as well) which he sold (to play you had to buy one). He basically kept all the money himself, though would often claim otherwise. His various antics seemed to be destined to kill the group, which would have been but a footnote in history except he up and vanished suddenly, leaving his buddy Harnsaure in charge. Harnasure lacked the force of will and ability to manipulate people that LaGrue had, and the remaining people quickly replaced him in short order, changed dues to the $6/6months (which they remain at a quarter century later) and the rest is history. He turned up somewhat later and was not allowed to reclaim his position, and has been hostile to Amtgard ever since.

Since being outsted from Amtgard, LaGrue has had kind of a legend about him, he turned up in various parks, and was alternately incoherent, weird or even violent. One story has him showing up in Houston, challenging someone to a duel, then throwing up on their sword. He has written threatening letters to various amtgarders from the Burning Lands, and succeeded in getting at least one event to lose their site after one of these letters. Many of the people who knew him from El Paso have warned about having contact with him. He turned up homeless in a park in El Paso at one point, recognized a few of them and shouted various incoherent things at them. Stuff like that. Proceed with cuation. The accuracy of any of these "tales" cannot be easily verified.

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Here's a short History I found on the Net dealing with our infamous founder.

Overly colorful on its best day, Amtgard was the semi-spontaneous creation of a man named James Haren, under the alias of Peter LaGrue. A kind of small-time confidence man with a background in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, LaGrue had recently been expelled from another fantasy role playing group, called Dagohir, in Maryland. One Amtgard member later recalled, "He could stand in front of you and lie with absolutely no concern over whether or not you knew the facts of situation. Attempts to challenge him would bring attempts at verbal or physical intimidation. At the same time, he was so silver-tongued that only the finest orator could challenge him, a formidable fellow. Unfortunately for LaGrue not everyone in Amtgard in those days was a pushover."

Amtgard itself was named after Matthew and Katy Amt, siblings who befriended Haren/LaGrue back east. As Matt Amt later recalled, "Back in the 80s I got my start in reenacting with Markland, the local medieval group, along with my sister Katy. Not long afterwards we also discovered Dagorhir, a fantasy-medieval padded-weapon organization, which was a blast. One of the group leaders in that was Jim Haren, then known as Musashi, and I fell in with his band, along with a few other folks, mostly teenagers. We had a great time! Musashi always had incredible stories to tell both war stories from past battles and real life experiences. He was a bit of an odd duck, always changing (or losing) jobs and living in various peoples' basements and closets. And there was quite a rapid turnover of members in his group, and he kept declaring the group dead and then reincarnating it with a new name."

Amt continued, "Somewhere along the line we started hearing the strangest stories about him, though he was always puzzled and aggrieved that such-and-such a person should have taken a disliking to him! Then it began to dawn on us that his version of a particular event could be wildly different from that of other persons involved."

"Well, to make a long story short, we eventually got it through our thick skulls that he was a jerk and a liar, and, in real life, a total loser! He decided to have his character Musashi commit public suicide (as some sort of apology to the world), then reappeared minutes later as Peter la Grue. Things didn't really change much. (It couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years that this all went on, but it seems like more!)

On several occasions Jim went travelling or moved back to El Paso (his family's home), and my sister and I kept our little group together and battling. He had appointed me Warlord and I was in charge while he (being King) was away. After one of his returns from Texas he told us he had started a new group and named it Amtgard in honor of us, his best friends. We gagged a bit, said "Uh, gee, that's great, Grue," and thought, "Gads, he's done it again, and lured yet another band of kids to their doom!" Eventually we ALL got sick of him, and he threw a tantrum and left for good. It must have been not long after at one of my last Dagorhir battles, one of the guys in charge was showing us a letter he'd gotten from someone in Texas. The name was different, but it was Jim Haren's handwriting! He had, he said, just learned about Dagorhir and was surprised to find that the rules were so similar to those of his own group, Amtgard. "Of course," crowed I, "it's because he photocopied the Dagorhir rulebook!" We all had a great laugh."

Finding himself in El Paso, he placed an ad in a local paper the week before the 13th of February 1983. The ad announced a celebration "birthday bash" for Attila the Hun and directed people to a local park and told them to look for the pavilions and siege machines. There were none. For the 40-odd people who showed up, all they found were LaGrue and some members of an old science fiction fan club playing with LaGrue's weapons. None of this even slowed LaGrue down.

Attendees were told that Amtgard was a nationwide organization. Each person playing Amtgard was charged $1.00 per week dues, and .50 for a rulebook. In order to play, each person had to purchase a rulebook. LaGrue pocketed the money.

Matt Amt recalled, "A couple years ago I was put in touch with another Amtgard member (some question about costuming, I think), and discovered the group's website. It was quite startling to see how large and far-flung it had become. Reading through the archives, I found references to the exact same kind of troubles with la Grue that we had had--eventually Amtgard had thrown him out, too. What a hoot! I like to believe that Amtgard has flourished not because of him, but in spite of him."

For some reason he also, very early on, had Amtgard make contact with the local SCA chapter. By Amtgard's own chronology, on February 26, 1983: "Amtgard challenges the SCA and the SCA breaks Amtgard's weapons." Before too much longer, however, LaGrue generated sufficient hostility among his own rank and file that he chose to disappear, leaving the group to recreate itself with more satisfying results. In a fairly short time the group spread across two dozen states with a large number of chapters in the Houston-Galveston area. An Amtgard member later recalled, "Since then he was reported as showing up once in Granite Spyre (Houston), where he challenged a number of people, but then keeled over and threw up on somebody's sword."

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Lagrue's page on the first 3 years site: [[1]]