Oh damn. I came here to answer this too, but was definitely not expecting someone else already to have said it.
I do HEMA, which has a healthy overlap with the SCA, but from what I’ve heard, the SCA has a pretty rigid structure and hierarchy with ranks and titles. I’ve heard about people winning bouts in SCA fencing against someone who is supposedly ranked higher than them, and getting shunned because of it. That’s not healthy.
Dagorhir also overlapped with SCA a bit, and surely had a weird social scene, but I wouldn’t consider it cult-like. People seemed well integrated with the rest of society when they weren’t battling.
Oh damn. I came here to answer this too, but was definitely not expecting someone else already to have said it.
I do HEMA, which has a healthy overlap with the SCA, but from what I’ve heard, the SCA has a pretty rigid structure and hierarchy with ranks and titles. I’ve heard about people winning bouts in SCA fencing against someone who is supposedly ranked higher than them, and getting shunned because of it. That’s not healthy.
Dagorhir also overlapped with SCA a bit, and surely had a weird social scene, but I wouldn’t consider it cult-like. People seemed well integrated with the rest of society when they weren’t battling.