Welcome!
Knights And Nobles And Rogues! I have never actually played Kanar, though my friends have, so some of my comparisions might be off. Please don't be offended.
One of the big diferences I've heard is the difference in combat. Both Larps use the boffer weapons, Alliance hits tend to to be lighter then Kanar's. I've played with some Kanar players who didn't take hits because they didn't "feel solid" which is I guess a factor in Kanar. In Alliance a touch is a touch and you take the shot. So Alliance weapons tend to be lighter and built for speed. Alliance uses spell packets, bird seed in a cloth wrapper, to represent spells instead of tennis balls. Still the same idea, Incant -> throw, if it hits the target they take the effect.
If I am not mistaken, Kanar just has the one site in Milan. Alliance is a National organization, wait International forgot Alberta, with chapters coast to coast. So once you make a character you can take that character and 'travel' to other chapters to see different styles of play, or meet new people. All exp and treasure stays with the character, for the most part. Some chapters restrict the magic items from out of chapter, some don't. They do this to keep the feel of their home chapter consistant. So chapter A can play an epic high magic game, and chapter B can play a gritty game and the characters can go from A to B without wrecking the feel. Gold and production items travel everywhere.
Michigan has two chapters, one that plays in Mason MI, and one in Traverse City. We get a lot of players who play in both. So if you're looking to fill empty weekends with Larping, getting into Alliance will easily do that. Depending on your taste for driving you can head out to chapters in Chicago or Ohio.
Our site is in Mason MI. It has heated cabins, showers, a tavern building with commercial kitchen, etc. The facilities are great, almost too good. It is definately not 'roughing it' out at the site. We still have woods and trails and fields to run around in the dark and adventure in. But it's nice to be able to sleep in a warm cabin. Especially since our opener is in February.
All you need to do to get started would be show up. You need to sign the sandard Larp release form and your first event would be half-price. Which at Somi is $25, half of $50. I would also encourage you to get the .pdf version of the rulebook. It's $5 dollars. cut/paste the link
http://www.nerohq.com/books.php
If you want more information feel free to E-mail us.
alliancesouthmi@yahoo.com is the main E-mail for the owner, Tom and for 'official' stuff. I am helping run Plot this upcoming season, and am happy to give you more information you can send me an E-mail at
jwconvery@gmail.com
Hope to see you out this season,
-Joe