Diary of a Croatian larper

Elysium 39 last week was the 50th Camarilla Agram event ever, and as such it was a bit spiced up compared to usual. Normally, the plot on Elysium events is fully player-decided social sandbox. For a change, Elysium 39 featured a Sabbat ductus who visited the Elysium in a dominated body, and the reaction by most characters was shock and fear. The situation got handled a bit clumsily, but that opened up new avenues to the story. Apart from exploring the Sabbat situation, most of the plot in Elysium 39 and 40 revolved around who will be the new prince (due to the previous events ), and around effectively organizing all the characters from the in-character perspective. Currently there's rather intense plotting and backstabbing going on. We'll see how it ends up on Camarilla Agram 8 this Saturday (reschedule: it will start at 7 PM instead of 6 PM), and how it develops further on future events . And now let's catch up with some local larp news and announcements. E...

The Elder Scrolls Chronicles 2: Soulburst event was supposed to run over 2 months ago. However, due to heavy flooding in the area it got postponed. Organizational blues didn't end there - several players could not make it for the new date, and a lot of players canceled in the last two days. At this point, I'm pretty much certain that "canceling at the last moment" is actually a hobby among a lot of Croatian players. So the larp ended up with two thirds of planned characters - 41 (including 6 organizers) as opposed to the originally planned (and balanced-for) 62. It was still the second largest fantasy larp of the year, after its' predecessor . But when the plot is player-driven instead of NPC-driven, loss of players can hurt the plot significantly, and postponement did kill a bit of hype and excitement. The weather was nice. November Sun's Dusk is of course colder than September Heartfire, but it was dry and at times sunny. The outdoor terrain was hi...

A Star Wars larp by Matija Mihoković and Ivo Turk was played this weekend. It was a fanmade larp, the third in the Star Wars series which started this year (check out the reviews of the first and second event here). It's important to note that the storyline ended here - the Star Wars larp will continue, but it will be played in an earlier time period. So this review is also a sort of a wrap up of all three events and how they looked. First of all, apologies to everyone, but I forgot my cellphone at home, so I didn't manage to snap photos of this larp. Some people did, but those photos are not available yet so most of this review will be in text. But if we were to compare looks with previous larps in the series, this one was close to the second event. The first larp still looked best, but a lot of these players haven't returned afterwards. There was one exception though: an amazing Twi'lek costume. And there was a cute Ewok costume too! :) With the projection ...

Warrior. Fighter. Soldier. Swordsman. They are some of the most popular archetypes played on larps which include combat. This guide will focus on mastering the role of a fighter - especifically in a medieval-ish fantasy setting, but most things could be adapted for other genres too. In most larps, fighters are actually one of the simpler characters available to play. It takes minutes to explain things to someone who hasn't done it before. This article will NOT attempt to do that. If you're new to larping, you might want to start here instead . This article is about mastering the role of a fighter, in any way possible. Now, obviously you don't need all of this just to be able to play. But if you are dedicated and want to do your best in your portrayal of a medieval-ish fantasy larp warrior, read on. I'll divide this post into sections: Know your character, your setting and combat rules Fitness Gear Ability, acting, specific training Types of battle Tact...

Last 2 Camarilla Agram Elysium events - on Friday, November 7 and Monday, November 10 - have been quite memorable. We rarely do our Elysium events on Friday - approx. once every 2 months - because we play them in public places which tend to be more crowded on Fridays. This usually means it's harder to keep in character, and this Friday was no different. However, this Friday was memorable for two things: one, it featured a couple of players who arrived from the city of Rijeka. Two, it started a chain of events which would culminate on Monday's event: abdication of a Prince. This has caused quite a stir in the internal politics. The position of a Prince is now open, and a lot of people started manuevering. Some in attempt to become the next prince, others to profit most from the change... This will continue for 2 more weeks, until a new Prince is elected (or takes power) on Camarilla Agram 8 . However it turns out, we'll have a new balance of power at the end of this y...

Click here to visit NERO webpage Last night, Diary of a Croatian Larper has received a generous donation from Joseph Valenti of NERO larp. This is a public "thank you" note. This donation will help a lot in covering the operational costs of this blog - both from technical standpoint and content-wise. A bit of statistics: most of my readership (about 46% of total traffic) is from USA, where NERO is based. It's followed by Croatia (20% total traffic), Germany, UK and Hungary. As a blogger, I'm always grateful for positive feedback and support. This donation will positively impact all articles on this blog - and I got some interesting stuff planned... Should you wish to donate yourself dear readers, check out my Patreon page for more details or contact me. Thanks and it will be greatly appreciated!

Available on DriveThruRPG Almost a year ago, Mind's Eye Theatre: Vampire the Masquerade rulebook was released (and reviewed on this website ). During its' original kickstarter, one could order the Storyteller Secrets PDF-only addon. Now it's finally been released. I didn't preorder it on the Kickstarter (for extra $20, when I had the chance - retail price is $25 now). To be honest, at the time I was not really sure how committed are we going to be to run Camarilla Agram . Well, we're pretty sure we're committed now. So on day one when it was released we decided to get a copy for our own use. If it's gonna help us make better games... Why not?  Camarilla Agram 8 and Sabbat Agram are approaching as we speak. Disclaimer: this article will use some lingo from the rules. If you don't have them and if you're unfamiliar with general Vampire rules, you can also check out the free quickstart rules which explain the base mechanics and terminolog...

Mirror of Second Sight Last week's Elysium 36 event was a pretty standard one for our Vampire series, Camarilla Agram. 17 people showed up - a large number for the last event of a month where most people are XP capped. It was all pretty standard, low-intensity social larping. Camarilla Agram can feel like a very different larp depending on what's going on at that particular time. When things are (sort of) relaxed, they are (sort of) relaxed. When they are tense, they are TENSE. I'd say that the centerpiece of the event was certainly enchanting of a magical item (Mirror of Second Sight) done by a player in a way which was very cool - and it's one of the very few instances of using props on an Elysium event. Such stuff is mostly reserved for large events on Camarilla Agram. Speaking of large events, Camarilla Agram 8 has been announced as well as every Elysium event for November - you can find the schedule (and links to Facebook events) here . Next one's on...