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SCA Croatia


There's plenty of new things going on in LARP this year. In the first 6 months we already got the first Croatian Green Banner LARP, Robert's feast, and two Steampunk and Terra Nova events (Intro and Terra Nova 2012), as well as the new larp association. And there's more! However, the newest kid on the block is actually one of the oldest such groups in the world.


It's SCA, Society for Creative Anachronism, and its Croatian branch has just started forming. SCA takes the middle ground between medieval reenactment and LARP, although that's a pretty shallow description as not everyone has the same idea of what LARP is, or what reenactment is.

Like our fantasy LARPs, it covers a wide time range, it's done primarily for the participants themselves, not as a display to the general public, and it's designed to be fun without a lot of expensive gear. SCA usually offers arts and crafts classes such as (historically accurate) sewing, heraldry, dancing etc. One of the big appeals is SCA combat, using (unpadded) rattan swords and heavily padded armors.


Plenty of people are probably asking themselves how will SCA affect the local LARP and reenactment scene. It already has. It's big enough and it's been around long enough to affect plenty of LARPs and reenactment societies, and its members actually contributed to a lot of significant research that formed our picture of the Middle Ages. And it's doubtful that Amtgard would be around if SCA never happened.

To tell everything that SCA is would be hard. Very few LARP and reenactment groups ever come even close to covering the wide range of activities that SCA does. There's also the international appeal. There's basically SCA everywhere, and the closest groups are in Italy and Austria. Together with them, Croatia falls under the SCA branch called "Kingdom of Drachenwald", which is responsible for the new groups in the entire EMEA region.

SCA Croatia is already getting interested people from both LARP and reenactment groups. It might connect them, get them both together, and have everyone sharing their particular experiences and knowledge, learning from each other and leading them to do great stuff... It remains to be seen.



The person behind it all in Croatia is Rebecca Schoenfeld Vidas (aka Lady Grainne Inghean Diarmada), who was a member of SCA in USA, and moved to Croatia a couple of years ago. And our own Goran Magdić, who's active in reenactment scene and... well, he's pretty much everywhere. There are already great plans for the future. There will be the first meeting in Crikvenica next week during a medieval festival held there (June 23, I'll be there and let you know how it went!). And the first big event is planned for September 15-16. In the meanwhile, you can check out the Facebook page.
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