Diary of a Croatian larper

As I have mentioned before, last weekend was quite busy . What time I spent on the living history tournament I was mostly busy or having a headache, but it was nice except for all the rain, but I mostly missed that part. We did the Hangout . I missed the Krvomeđe on Sunday, but it had 12 people attending, and fitting nicely in the dry period of the day. The biggest larp thing that weekend, though, was the Highland Games larp. Campfire tales Well, due to my schedule and arriving late I missed the "games" part, but I heard from the others it was great fun. Caber toss, hammer throw, tug o'war and several other games were played in-character. When I arrived, the sun was already setting - at least I guess it did, the cloud cover was thick enough. The spit-roasting of a suckling pig was just about done, and I arrived at the start of the feeding frenzy. And it really was a sight to behold - I can honestly say I have never seen people who are more happy or excited about th...

We made our fourth Larp Group video - about love and relationships on larp. If you haven't seen it live, check it out here! :)

Tomorrow is when the biggest Croatian reenactment / living history event starts, the tournament of Sv. Helena - it's a huge tournament which draws in many medieval groups from Croatia and the surrounding countries, and many visitors too. The attendees will also see great visuals... which sometimes remind me of big German larps, such as Drachenfest and ConQuest. There's just something about that level of organisation, size, visuals and equipment standards which brings back memories, and desire to bring Croatian larp closer to that visual level. Tomorrow is also when I'll do another Hangout by larping.org's The Larp Group. It will start in its usual time, at 5 PM CET, and it will be about love and relationships at larps. If you miss the live stream, you'll be able to see the video on the youtube channel, as usual. Highland games is a larp that will happen tomorrow - in-character highlander and celtic games, with lots of song and partying to boot. It will ...

The question I've been asked recently by several people is why don't I do more larps. The question was not larps in general - it was about the specific series. Why don't I do a sequel to Izgon soon? Why don't I do more Terra Nova events per year? I'll explain my thoughts on this below. To tell the truth, I've actually been doing a lot of stuff for a while. Here's a short list of things I've done this year so far: Terra Nova: Zimograd  (a 3-day larp event) PoRtaL (a 3-day larp convention - coorganized it, while doing workshops, presentations, writing a larp  for it and guiding a team into creating another larp, (Re)union) Izgon larp, merely running it took over a month, preparation took some more time Running Ars Amandi workshop and Death of the Japanese Emperor larp on SFeraKon Co-organized a Krvomeđe Terra Nova 2013 (a 3-day larp event) Maintaining this blog, my personal life and my sanity, while also writing stuff for larping.org, do...

Scroll of Law of New Ardonia Reviewing an event which you have done yourself is different than reviewing an event you have visited, as experience had shown. Terra Nova series is now over a year old. It had four events since March last year: intro , 2012 , Zimograd , and now 2013. Its fourth event was also its third big event, and the second summer event. Like all Terra Nova events so far, this one was done on a different terrain - both in-game and out-of-game - and it was played in Starigrad near Koprivnica. The terrain consisted of a narrow valley which housed camps (and a house which was on terrain), a hill, and a nearby forest, and it represented a mountain in the larp storyline. An Ur-Tuk and the air altar Due to some terrain issues, organisation started later than I wanted to. There were some other issues as well - as I have switched jobs I was unable to take a day off at Friday, and Zagreb was overcrowded that day, which means me and other organizers arrived after s...

Terra Nova 2013 starts tomorrow. It's something that occupies most of my thoughts since Izgon ended, and especially this week as it's been quite busy. Most of my free time had been spent preparing for the event and making sure everything goes smoothly. I haven't watched the newest episode of "Game of Thrones", nor did I go out to see the newest Star Trek movie yet. There will be time for it - after weekend. Last evening I was on the terrain which will be used on Terra Nova 2013. Most of what we did was some minor landscaping - clearing the terrain, making it more accessible, safe and usable for larp, camping and passage. We also did some crafting, scouting the nearby locales and had some fun together, preparing for the event this weekend. Preparations are not done yet - there's still stuff to do today and tomorrow - but most of the stuff is done. It makes me wonder - dear readers, what usually goes in terrain preparations for your larps? Or set preparat...

Apparently, I'm a pretentious, jealous piece of shit. It seems my review of Jaska 11 had ruffled some feathers. As one of its organizers posted on his facebook profile: Although I was not specifically named, I assumed this refered to me and my review - which had dared to say something negative about that event (mostly about gamism gone wrong, as I reviewed that event on a largely positive note). Apparently, I'm trying to put down the event to raise my own (Terra Nova). Am I jealous? Well, the golem suit was awesome, but it was probably the only element on Jaska which I'd like to see on Terra Nova. Anyway, to clarify if this refered to me I've asked the man himself: So, the status was referring to me among others (isn't it nice when an organizer calls his players names?). Also, apparently I write huge piles of shit, I'm a liar and my "writing" and "blog" are so worthless that they've had to be put in the quotation marks. And...

Coming straight from Jaska 11  (which is the reason why there's no "day two" review), I had time for breakfast and coffee before SFeraKon started. Sunday is not a very popular day on SFeraKon, and this year it was no different as population paled compared to the one on Friday (and probably Saturday, but as I was not there I cannot guarantee it). I also managed to visit the only content on SFeraKon other than mine for the duration of the convention - my sister-in-law's presentation of Destination Star Trek in London last year which she visited. After that, I ran Death of the Japanese Emperor . Only three people have signed up for the run - one less than the minimum number - but I still decided to run it. The “secret crush” part was not done as it was meaningless in such a small group, and it was impossible to fully control the lighting due to the run being in the early afternoon, so no light turning off was possible. However, the idea from A Party Full of Secrets...

It's hard to offer a good review of an event on which I've been on only partially, so take this review with a grain of salt. But the size of Ognjeni Mač's Jaska 11 was impressive. With 50-ish participants it was the second largest Jaska event ever, after Jaska 8 in 2011, and the biggest larp ever organized in Croatia in a month other than July. Together with last year's Crolarp (organized on the same terrain), this was the third biggest larp in Croatia since mid-2000's. It had other strong links with Jaska 8, one of the most prominent ones being the storyline - very much connected to the one in Jaska 7 and 8. It saw the end of the dragon. Martin in particular yelled "For Vilijam and Maksimilijan!" while he attacked the dragon, which I found very heartwarming. References to past characters are unusual on Jaska larps - life there is cheap, player turnover is large and tons of content is produced over the year - so it was a nice moment for me to see ...

This will be a short article - as I'm getting myself ready to visit Jaska 11 at least for a day - and no photos as I didn't snap any yesterday. Apart from lots of stalls representing the usual share of associations, goods and services, and meeting a lot of people I haven't seen in a while (conventions really function as meeting places), I haven't seen much of the convention as I was getting ready for running an Ars Amandi workshop. A total of 11 brave people signed up, most of them with little larping experience: One person was a very experienced fantasy larper My sister-in-law was there, having some experience in fantasy larp My wife was there, having some experience in various forms of larp (fantasy, steampunk, Death of the Japanese Emperor ) A person with some limited chamber larp experience ( The Cabin , A Party Full of Secrets ) A person whose only larp so far was Izgon Rest of the people had no larp experience. Compared to the run on PoRtaL , I'd...

As noted in my last post , Jaska 11 starts today at 3 PM. For those larpers staying in Zagreb, there will be a lot of interesting content on SFeraKon this weekend. Larp content: Ars Amandi workshop (by me), Friday 21:00-23:00, White room The Killer Game, Saturday, starts at 13:00 Presentation of the larp convention PoRtaL  (A. Rajner, B. Špoljarić), Saturday 16:00-17:00, A-201 The Cabin larp (I. Delač, V. Kurilić), Saturday, 22:00-01:00, A-201 Death of the Japanese Emperor larp (by me), Sunday, 14:00-16:00, A-201 And there's plenty of other content useful for lots of larps, such as workshops for creating chainmail, writing elven caligraphy, rune-making, body painting, wing making, drawing etc., as well as tabletop RPGs, board games, inspiring costumes you'll see and plenty of other fantasy, steampunk and of course sf content. Check out the full schedule here  (in Croatian).

The summer season opens next weekend in Croatia - although in the neighborhood it was open the last weekend with VLarp in Serbia, connecting free days from the May 1st until tomorrow, when Orthodox Easter festivities will end there (here are their rules for everyone who's interested) - but in Croatia it begins next weekend with Jaska 11 by Ognjeni Mač. Btw, "Jaska" is a nickname for Jastrebarsko, a town near the place  where this larp series is being held. It's interesting to note that it's (together with larp Maksimir) the last remnant of once dominant form of calling larps primarily by the off-game name of the place where they're being held. Although not the first multi-day larp this year (that one would be Terra Nova: Zimograd this January), it is the first multi-day larp in the warm season where it's considered socially acceptable to camp outside. As all Jaska larps, it will be a four-day event, from Thursday to Sunday. The yearly number of Jask...

Here's a short recap of three small larps which happened in the last three weekends which so far I haven't found the time to write about. They are: Krvomeđe, April 21 (a battlegame event) Maksimir 66, April 27 (a battlegame event) Ognjeni Mač feast, May 5th (a feast ) With the nice weather returning, Krvomeđe got really populous again. I did not fight this time - I helped Ivo run everything, so I was a reeve this time, acting as a referee on the field in which several interesting battlegames were played - two variants of capture the flag, and a "goblin football" match (a very simplified variant of jugger). I had to leave this Krvomeđe slightly earlier, as I was due to a certain board game. And it was not just any kind of board game - Sven, who runs the steampunk larp "Para pokreće svijet" is a board game designer. This specific board game was very much tied into the "world control" overtones of this larp, and it was a really nice to...

Terra Nova 2013 has been announced for May 17.-19. Perhaps the final announcement was sort of late (though I did announce it on PoRtaL convention two months ago), but here it is - the terrain was arranged past weekend in Starigrad - near Koprivnica (which is important to note as it's not the one on Hvar, nor the one at Paklenica, nor the one in Senj, nor any other place or old fort or castle with the same name in Croatia or any other slavic country, as it's apparently a very popular name). Photo from the terrain Sign-ups and tickets are available here . You can also join the event on Facebook or Google+ . Setting info is available from the website . For all fresh news check out here - you can also sign up to receive news by e-mail. Of course, like most larps I do this one is also made under Lateralus brand.