It may sound gruesome, but closer inspection reveals that the dozens of swords, spears, double-blade axes, and maces are crafted from play-safe foam. The cheerfully murderous man on the cell is Rueben Pacheco, a staff member at The Wayfinder Experience, a unique interactive camp based in Kingston. His armory and scene shop abuts a costume room stocked with over a thousand robes, capes, and gowns, plus a wall full of masks. There are neatly stacked bins labeled Armor, Fur, Claws, Lanterns, Small Melee Weapons, and Dragon Eggs.

What is this thing called Wayfinder? "It's a live-action role-playing game," says Ed Kelly, 16. "It's a theater camp," says his classmate Emilie Ruscoe. Seventeen-year-old Clinton Graybill says, "Remember when you were nine and you had this really cool dream where you fought this dragon with a sword made of lightning and the princess gave you a castle made of chocolate? It's like that."

An outgrowth of Adventure Game Theatre, run by Howard Moody and Brian Alison at Omega Institute in the 1990s, Wayfinder is equal parts Joseph Campbell, Capture the Flag, and Monty Python & the Holy Grail. With five full-time staff members, 30 additional summer staff, 300-400 campers, and events ranging from one to 12 days at locations throughout the Hudson Valley, it is truly a moveable feast.

The former garage on O'Neill Street is the group's first real office: Until last September, the vast archive of costumes, props, and armaments was stored in staff members' basements and attics. Wayfinder President Reed Mollins says, "It's pretty surreal. We come in here and feel like we're playing businessmen."

All five full-time staffers are still under 30, and they've been friends for over a decade. When they argue about their titles, it's like a revue sketch. Vicki Howland: "I'm the Human Resources Manager." Ike Shaw: "Call me the Marketing Director." Reed Mollins: "I liked Corporate Identity Manager better." Shaw: "That makes me sound like I work for IBM." Pacheco: "I'm—what am I? The Shaman." Shaw: "Call him the Warehouse Bitch." Mollins: "I'm technically the President, because I have the biggest desk." (Genevieve Casagrande, who's home sick, is identified as the Artistic Director.)

Johan Sheridan as a dark knight and Vicki Howland as a lady warrior.

They all played Adventure Game Theatre in their early teens. Mollins, a self-described jock, "loved the athletics of swordwork." Shaw was drawn in by the friends he made, Howland and Casagrande by the theatrics. Pacheco remembers his first close encounter with AGT at Stone Mountain Farm: When he saw a large group charge across a meadow with swords, he was "so entranced that I drove my car into a telephone pole."

Left to right: Rueben Pacheco as a shaman, Reed Mollins as a Greek sage, and Jud Packard as an angel outside Wayfinder headquarters in Kingston.

Every Wayfinder program, from a one-day Bootleg Adventure to a weeklong sleepaway camp, starts with an Opening Circle and series of non-competitive New Games and warm-ups to loosen up newcomers. "We get really silly and get their defenses down," Shaw says. Pacheco adds, "Some kids come in all freaked out, thinking 'What is this?' We make them laugh, let them know it's okay to play."

At a typical weeklong camp, the first day includes Opening Circle and workshops in swordplay and improvisational theater. "And we start to talk about story a little," says Shaw. "Just a teaser to get them excited."

Day two adds magical systems and ground rules, culminating in a camp-wide Capture the Flag game with foam swords, extravagant dying ("Act out your wounds" is the watchword) and resurrections; no one stays dead long at Wayfinder. Campers start to develop their characters based on archetypes in the story. By day three, they're trying on costumes under Howland's guidance and entering improv scenarios.

The centerpiece of any Wayfinder event is the Adventure Game. These often take place over several days; night games are frequent, and the dark woods lend the action a thrilling immediacy. Though the players experience improvisational freedom, there's a carefully wrought superstructure behind each Adventure Game. Called "The Flow," it's a scenario of planned occurrences, preassigned roles, and events that will carry the storyline to its conclusion. There's also a set of safety procedures and a production list of scenery, props, and costumes gathered from stock or created to order. Some of Pacheco and Howland's recent challenges have included a glass coffin with breathing holes, oversized monster suits, and an entire haunted carnival.

Story premises range from medieval fantasy realms to superheroes with comical powers to epic battles between good and evil. Mollins comments, "There's something really special about large-scale role-playing. People develop a comfort level really fast. No one's a stranger if he's been your brother and saved your life."

The intensity of the game is followed by a community celebration called Bardic Circle, the one event parents may join. Around a crackling bonfire, campers get up and perform for their peers: original songs, recitations of fables or jokes, Shakespeare monologues, magic tricks; last summer, a six-year-old boy from the "Weefinder" group did a bellydance.

Wayfinder brochures sport such buzzwords as "teambuilding," "communication skills," and "experiential learning," but that's not what hooks the kids. In the words of Sam Reeder, seven, "You get to act out dying and you get fun swords to keep."

The Wayfinder Experience also does birthday parties and school workshops, and recently visited Sam's alma mater, Marbletown Elementary. One shy kindergartner wearing a velvet dress and white go-go boots started out looking scared of her sword. By the end of the game, she was gleefully whacking at boys twice her height, with a mile-wide grin on her face. Shaw comments: "They get to reverse roles. The bully becomes the bullied–this has effects that last way past the game."

The changes wrought in older participants may be even more striking. Kingston dentist Bruce Hottum has three sons in Wayfinder; when his oldest signed up at 14, "He was bored with school, bored with his friends, bored with himself. This brought him back to life. It sounds corny, but it's the truth."

"We've had kids where it took years to loosen up, who were very resistant at first," says Shaw. " We've also had some who said 'This isn't for me' and never came back–about two of them, over the years. Some kids are just into swordfighting, the aggressive aspect. They start out just wanting to whack kids with foam, and three weeks later, they're crying at Closing Circle, saying how much they love everyone."

Mollins observes, "The kids come from such different places: jocky kids, theater kids, nerdy kids into video games and fantasy. A lot of them don't hang out much, so this is a whole new experience."

Emilie Ruscoe learned AGT-style play in gym classes at Woodstock Day School. Her favorite aspect of Wayfinder is its female-centric New Moon games. "Boys have to sign up with a girl, so it brings the testosterone level down–or better, brings the estrogen level up." New Moon downplays weapons; in one recent game, villains confronted other players with mirrors, calling them "ugly." Needless to say, these self-esteem hags were vanquished. "We had all these powerful women running around in the woods, covered with mud," Ruscoe exults. "It was awesome!"

Chaos amidst the transformation: Reed Mollins, dressed as a Greek sage, looks on as Rueben Pacheco, dressed as a shaman, gets a mouthful of Ike Shaw's demon claws in wayfinder's costume room.

Clinton Graybill and Ed Kelly are transitioning from campers to staff. Graybill played the vampire Prince of the Gypsies in the recent Spring Thaw game, the one with the hanging. Kelly's roles have included "a flying monkey from The Wizard of Oz, your standard Ninja samurai, rogue, sacrificial child, evil event planner, smuggler, random monsters, a fairy, warriors of course, necromancer, a very snobbish cleric, British naval officer, a half-Smurf/half-human, and a zombie from Michael Jackson's 'Thriller.'"

The costume room at wayfinder is packed full of vintage and new ballroom dresses, capes, hats, armor, masks of all shapes and sizes, crowns, tiaras, and fairy wings.

Graybill, a misfit at school, found a different reception at Wayfinder. "You're this instant rock star," he gloats, noting that he found his first girlfriend at camp. "It's like stumbling onto this community of friends you wish you'd had your whole life." Between games, this community keeps in touch via online Wayfinder Forums.

The main thing Wayfinder lacks is a place to call home. Though they enjoy hosting events at such scenic venues as the Ashokan Field Campus, Unison Arts Center, Woodstock Day School, and Epworth Center, Shaw says, "Our biggest vision is to get our own piece of land, build a castle, have permanent sets, hold festivals, live there."

It's hard to imagine most CEOs dream about living at work. Mollins's online bio concludes, "He wants to do this for the rest of his life," and the others appear to agree, though Shaw admits, "It's an epic task for us to be in business together–we've been friends for so long, we know all the right buttons to push." Some disagreements are settled with foam sword duels. "And when we get sick of typing at desks, we go do something fun in the shop. It's like working in Willy Wonka's factory."

Indeed, as the staff dresses up for a photo shoot, the adrenaline surges. Voices take on a stage-English tenor: "Wear a mask, you should be ethereal." "Not that, that's terrifying." "I would wear this to the mall." "Rueben, where do the ripping claws go?" "These are definitely chick's pants." Mollins grimaces, struggling with ill-fitting velveteen.

They troop outside, causing a pickup driver to slam on his brakes as the procession in sun-face masks, demon horns, capes, wings, and monster claws crosses the street to the Boice Dairy parking lot. Pacheco grins. "It's like Halloween every week."

That may be as close as anyone comes to putting the Wayfinder Experience into words. As Clinton Graybill says, "It's literally something you have to try. Show up at a Bootleg. The thing we do that gets you to love us is completely free."

The next Bootleg Adventure is scheduled for Saturday, June 10, at Epworth Center in High Falls; admission is free for newcomers and $35 for veterans, with a $5 discount for bringing new friends. Other fees range from $175 for an Empowerment weekend to $1,295 for a twelve-day Advanced Camp; most week-long programs cost $375 for day camp, $600 for sleepover. Discounts are available. For more information: www.wayfinderexperience.com.