Diary of a Croatian larper

We had a guest on this Jaska. It was Sarah, also known as TyeDye of the Radiant Valley. She's an Amtgard player from USA and a member of the Principality of Winter's Edge, Kingdom of Neverwinter. With her permission I'm re-posting her review of the event and the way we play here which might provide interesting insights for Amtgard players among you :) More photos and video about the event will be available soon. I played a barkeep NPC and the event was great. Sarah's review is below:

Back in August I visited the Rajski Vrhovi XV event. It was with my new character, so this would be my first event where I'd play a Frenchman for the first time. Basically, the roleplay was awesome - after 8 years of playing my previous character it was quite a refreshment. I even got a girlfriend or three during the event (purely in-game of course). One of those in-game relationships would grow into something else in the next couple of weeks at Lubena event... But I'll talk about that in its own article. The event was home to probably the best dungeon I've seen in Croatian LARPs. Lots and lots of traps. Perhaps it took a bit too long to solve, but it was memorable for sure. The lost crystals of Veles were not found, which spells trouble for the next Rajski Vrhovi event (draught and stuff). And a vojar appeared - they are a particularly troublesome bunch of near-invulnerable dark elven undead warrior-necromancers, originating from Osijek LARPs at Utvrda Svijetlosti ...

Just a quick reminder for everyone: Jaska 9 is tomorrow, starts in 24 hours. If you're in Croatia, be there. We're having several foreigners on this one. It will be chilly but action-packed and fun day of roleplaying.

While each of us has a unique experience every LARP, the one I had on Jaska 8 this July was shared by very few people... All of them in the same trouble as me. Have you seen the LARP movie "The Wild Hunt"? Well, it didn't really end that way. But there was a wild hunt. On my character, baron Maksimilijan Vurnovečki, count Vilijam Kruška and our supporters. We were hunted savagely - with search parties, hunting horns etc, while trying to rally more supporters to our cause. It didn't work - most players were either afraid or indifferent to help us, or wary of getting tangled up in in-game politics as we were. In the end, we went and got ourselves executed. There wasn't much more we could do while our supporters kept dying, except run away which wasn't in our character. So we figured it was better to throw ourselves at the mercy of our prosecutors (with execution being the most likely outcome) than to die somewhere in the bushes an hour or three later or leav...

Maksimir 50 was excellent! Too bad I wasn't on it :( Work got in the way. But this awesome video was made on it: so you can enjoy the epic atmosphere from your couch... Just like I did :) Hmm, epic atmosphere... from a park event of only a couple of hours? Yup, apparently they managed it. I made it on Krvomeđe the next day. No quests, just a battlegame, but it was nice to do some weapon practice and quick action games. And a tournament, of course. You can check all photos here . By the way, did I mention I started up a new Krvomeđe website ? Now I did :)

Before I continue reviewing our summer of LARP, let me just tell you that LARP season in Croatia has been seriously extended this year. While there aren't any classic big LARPs in store this month, there are two very interesting weekends. Next weekend is the first one. On Saturday, October 8th, we're organizing our 50th Maksimir LARP. It's the longest continuously running short LARP in Croatia (couple of hours of playing in Maksimir park) so we're now making a bigger one to celebrate. While they usually last from 2-3 PM until 5-6 PM, this one will last from 3 PM until 10 PM. And the next day, Ivo Turk is restarting his Krvomeđe events, with a similar philosophy to Maksimir events - actually, Krvomeđe was there first, but it simply ceased to happen couple of years ago. It's gonna be south of the Savica Šanci lake in Zagreb, at the bank of the Sava river. It's gonna be shorter, like regular Maksimir length (from 2:30 PM until 6 PM). Krvomeđe event couple ...

This year in June, I decided to visit the Utvrda Svjetlosti LARP (The Fortress of Light) in Ivanovac, close to the city of Osijek. It's one of the older LARPs in Croatia. For a while it's been holding a bad rep between some of our players (exact reason why is a long story), but I heard extremely positive comments from those who visited it last year - they were telling stories of a huge improvement. And indeed, Utvrda Svjetlosti 2010 was the largest LARP in the last few years, it's only been topped by Jaska 8 this July. I decided it's worth a cost of a road trip and I'm glad to say I was right - it was definitely worth it. For the record: It's the farthest to the east I've ever been to :) This is where you actually play... The Korođvar fortress First of all: the fortress! It's extremely, extremely epic! And yes, I actually had my tent in there. Two other guys from my group also came to this LARP, they set themselves up in another camp. They came ...