Author: Don Reynolds
In 2025, I designed, built, and launched a mobile-friendly web application to replace the Kingdom of An Tir’s outdated paper-based combat authorization system. The platform now manages ten combat disciplines, six levels of safety officers, and supports 4,800 users with 14,000 authorization records. It reduced processing time from weeks to minutes, eliminated bottlenecks, and restored trust in the process.
Challenge
The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is a nonprofit dedicated to medieval education and recreation, with activities ranging from cooking to sword fighting. In the Kingdom of An Tir, all combat participants must be certified by trained safety officers to ensure they meet strict safety standards.
By 2025, the authorization database was outdated, error-filled, and entirely dependent on paper forms mailed to a single volunteer. Delays could stretch into weeks, paperwork was often lost, and fighters’ ability to participate was sometimes held up simply because of processing bottlenecks.
Approach
As someone who had served in multiple leadership roles within the SCA, including international safety officer, I understood the stakes and the operational complexity. Having recently learned Python and Django, I volunteered to create a modern, digital system from scratch.
I began by rebuilding the database, replacing years of accumulated errors with a clean, validated structure. From there, I worked through the combat regulations for ten disciplines, translating age restrictions, prerequisite requirements, and progression rules into system logic that could be applied automatically. This meant that authorizations could only be issued in full compliance with established safety standards.
Another major challenge was officer management. The kingdom had six distinct levels of safety officers, each with different privileges. I built role-based permissions directly into the system, ensuring officers could only perform actions appropriate to their level.
Finally, usability was a top priority. I designed the system to be mobile-responsive so that marshals could issue and verify authorizations directly at events. To support adoption, I created a detailed online FAQ and hosted live training sessions for officers, ensuring the transition from paper to digital went smoothly.
Impact
The new system eliminated mailing delays, reduced processing time from weeks to minutes, and improved overall data accuracy. It now supports 4,800 users and 14,000 active records, with officers reporting greater confidence in the process. The database officer’s time is now spent on improvements and problem-solving rather than being buried under paperwork.
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