Skip to main content

Rajski Vrhovi XVI review



I returned earlier from Rajski Vrhovi XVI. And all I can say is: for me, this was the best Rajski Vrhovi event I was on so far. I haven't been to all of them, the first one I was on was XII in 2010, then XIII in the same year. I skipped last year's XIV in June due to it being rescheduled to when I was not able to attend, but I visited XV last year in August and a shorter event in December. Each one was a better event, progressively, in my opinion.


Something was happening all the time - puzzles, combat, PvP action, roleplay etc, and from how people reacted on the event and from what they told after, they liked it. As part of the quest team for the event, I did some input on the story of the main quest... and did a lot of running and fighting. The main quest was written and GMed by Vjeko and Ksenija, with whom I did Terra Nova over a month ago. There was the necromancer above, plenty of ghouls and gnawing, puzzles, poems and items... Vjeko's teaser published last Sunday helped to set the mood before the game itself.


I spent a lot of time playing a ghoul, together with my namesake Ivan, who's otherwise known for playing Alastar. His defining moment was his role of the necromancer, the big bad guy who was defeated in the end. Vjeko and Ksenija did a lot of storyline roles. There were also shorter quests from Ivo and Silvio, as well as some personal quests which were resolved, progressed further or just started. And many other players volunteered and helped for certain parts of the game or logistics. When I was not playing one of the monsters, I attempted to provide some atmosphere...

Me being a barber in-character

The main encampment was rather impressive, compared to usual Croatian LARP standards. Some of which was due to effort in making it, and plenty of it due to Gareyth bringing a huge in-character pavilion tent which is a rare sight on a Croatian LARP, primarily due to the cost of one - so we are usually camping in modern tents.


Personally, I believe the most challenging part of helping with running this event was adjusting the intensity and the game style to make most of the players involved in game - in roleplaying and quests, as there were plenty of players with different playstyles and goals. But in the end I believe we created an event which most enjoyed.


Intensive quests, great atmosphere, excellent roleplay, Amtgard, over 30 participants. Rajski Vrhovi delivered. Weather was also great - there was no rain (weird for Rajski Vrhovi) and the heat was manageable due to the terrain being on Žumberak mountain. With the heat wave in Zagreb, I miss the more chilly weather up there.

There were some new players on Rajski Vrhovi, including some which started their LARP career with Terra Nova. Our Hungarian friends who were on Terra Nova didn't join us as they had their LARP at the same time. Sometimes I wish I could be in two places at once...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The 15 rules of larp

The following 15 rules (warning: strong language) were written some years ago in Great Britain, and have been pretty much generally accepted on the British larp scene. Especially popular is rule 7 - widely known by its number and commonly considered to be the most imortant rule of all (and I agree). Even the biggest British larp forum has taken Rule7 as its name. The rules have been originally created by the Drunken Monkeys and edited by Rick Wynne who added some extra stuff in the explanations to make them more understandable to international audience (it still contains some British larp lingo though), more work-safe and to throw in his two cents. (copy of the original wording is available here ) 1. Don’t play a mighty warrior; play a warrior and be mighty. Don’t label your character. As soon as you say that you are the best swordsman in the land someone will come along and kick your ass. Just get into the mindset of the person and role-play it out. 2. No one cares about you

Mind's Eye Theatre: Werewolf The Apocalypse rulebook review

Available on DriveThruRPG Just under three years ago I wrote a review for  Mind’s Eye Theatre: Vampire the Masquerade rulebook . It was the first book published by By Nights Studio, and a year later I reviewed one of its supplements - Storyteller Secrets . Now, after a long period of work, after the success of their kickstarter campaign, By Night Studios finally released the full version of the new larp rules for Werewolf the Apocalypse setting. This was preceded by various alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omega slices - each containing a different playtest version of the rules, slowly released from September last year until July this year. First impressions were that the artwork is very cool, and that the book is HUGE. Numbering at 762 pages, that's over 200 pages more than Vampire the Masquerade. But before I start going in-depth, I'd like to mention that this blog's readers come from various backgrounds - and I'll adjust my review accordingly. I assume I'

Larps in EU

Today Croatia has acceeded into the European Union as its 28th state. EU has loads of diverse and different larp scenes and cultures in them. Some of them are local, some are national, some encompass all speakers of a certain language, some are regional, and some are world-famous. Here's a short window into a couple of EU larps and larp scenes, carefully selected and profiled by the criteria of "those I actually visited myself" and "those who bothered to answer my survey on facebook on a short notice", with a dash of "this is like elementary culture you should know". So this is not a full list - not even close - and not even the fully representative one, despite it being the largest post on this blog ever. Even keeping track of the Croatian scene is quite a job and there are still many language barriers around. But hopefully you'll find plenty of new and interesting material here. If you want your larp represented - whether it's battle