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Showing posts from January, 2013

February larps: Krvomeđe and Maksimir 63

The schedule for February has been announced. So far it looks like a quiet month - well, more quiet than January at least. February will give us one more Krvomeđe (Feb. 17th) and a Maksimir larp (Feb 23rd), which will be the first Ognjeni Mač larp by the new OzOI (Ognjeni Mač's plot team), in the Maksimir park, Zagreb. It will be the 63rd Maksimir larp made, and the next two have also been announced. Maksimir 64 will be on March 9th, and Maksimir 65 on April 13th. Seems like the OzOI is aiming for once-a-month larps this season. If you're a new reader, Krvomeđe is a pure fantasy battle event, while Maksimir is a high-action quest-based fantasy larp. Both last a couple of hours, are located in Zagreb on a public area, have free entrance, and will give you plenty of opportunities to fight. Last day of the February could be the first day of the planned larp convention (which is supposed to be March 1st-3rd in Zagreb), but it hasn't been officially announced yet...

Krvomeđe: fighting in the snow

Yesterday's Krvomeđe was a very interesting one. Well, first of all it suffered from a bad case of no-show - surprizingly, considering the popularity of the December battle. Only three of us appeared, so we weren't able to have the usual battlegames - Krvomeđe has the only regular battlegames in Croatia, featuring fighting (and no RP). We had several duels instead and went off to get a nice, warm cup of coffee. It's a pity that few players showed up - fighting in that snow that was there was something that's quite new, but it's probably what scared most of the potential players. The snow was not overly deep, but the top of it was hard due to last week's rains, so an icy crust formed on top of the ice. On some parts you could walk on top of it - on others, or if you pressed on top of the ice hard enough, you could sink into the ankle-height snow, throwing you slightly off balance and slowing you down a bit. I guess lightweight combatants could probably run

Carmen: Act One review

Yesterday was the first Croatian SF larp - well, second if you count Fallout  (and there were some Battlestar Galactica investigation committee games), but this is what most people think about when they refer to SF: space opera. Space travel, aliens, laser guns (read: nerf), humanity (and other races) spread across the universe, etc. Carmen is a space station (in orbit around Mimas) for life extension which had been abandoned for a long time, in a distant, dying-universe future in which you could bring any races or cultures, new - which you just invented - or from existing sci-fi universes and works. I decided to play a mercenary - a space Russian character from a colony around Barnard's Star, with a messed up childhood, converted to Islam, and of questionable morality and sanity. Fun! The larp had a grouping concept - a group of people could arrive on the station by the same ship. Our ship, Kverc Šomerc , had the crew/passanger list of four. I was, of course, muscles (an

Zimograd presentation and character journals

Yesterday evening I held a presentation of how it was on Terra Nova: Zimograd in SRP. Only it wasn't exactly a presentation in a regular sense of way - it was more of a debriefing discussion shared by pretty much everyone in who attended (almost everyone there was on Zimograd), and shared their favorite moments, and we also discussed which parts could be improved. I shared my ideas and inspirations, which of them worked, and which could have done better, clarifications about some stuff on Zimograd and some plans for the future. We went for a drink afterwards, and the evening ended in a very nice way. Also regarding Zimograd - so far six people wrote their in-character journals about what happened - it's quite possible that we'll get a few more some time soon, which is awesome. You can read them online here . I think that looking at how different everything seems from someone else's own perspective is fascinating and amazing. I wrote a bit less than usual, but t

Reactions to Zimograd, and larp news from Croatia and abroad

Player reactions to Zimograd so far have been quite positive. You can read most of them on Facebook event page  as they are in English. A special post which is certainly worth checking is the diary of Maverick Metzgerei , an in-character view of the events on Zimograd from a quite unique perspective... Left: Farkas Dávid aka Dregar as Maverick Metzgerei - author of the aforementioned in-character diary Right: Mesterházi Sándor aka Kildar as Johann Eckbert Hebenstreit - organizer of Chronicles of Demgard larp Another review of Zimograd has become available on Larp Hrvatska blog , by Zvonimir, who (largely) played the Or-tuk by the name of Mit-or-ya. If you don't speak Croatian, Google translated version retains enough of the original's meaning to be largely understandable... Mit-or-ya And, some non-Zimograd related news. Zagreb is full of snow. There hasn't been this much snow for as long as I can remember (and longer... apparently this is the most snow w

Terra Nova: Zimograd - how it was

Pine forest on the larp site Terra Nova: Zimograd. I've been preparing that larp for the last few months, but extensively the week prior to the event. Returning from it yesterday, it's all still fresh and I'm still exhausted both physically and mentally. Zimograd was run in a somewhat different way than the previous Terra Nova event in June 2012 (and WAY more different than the intro feast ). I applied to it several lessons I learned from participating in Drachenfest and Mythodea in Germany, Chronicles of Demgard in Hungary, and several Nordic-style larps and freeforms. I guess I could say the form of Terra Nova had been evolving with every event so far. The intro part was something rather new. First we did some terrain scouting - as much as we could in the darkness. The players were separated into three groups - one which contained old characters, and two groups which contained new characters, who arrived in two separate waves. Groups were better tied together

Terra Nova: Zimograd starts today

So, today is the start of Terra Nova: Zimograd - the fantasy larp which I've been busy preparing for a long time now... And especially last week. I've had some weapon workshops yesterday, and today it all starts. I'm quite excited to see how it all works out. We should have 35-ish players... and loads of fun in Croatia's first 3-day larp ever outside of the May-September warm season (btw yes, above is the new logo). Doing the final preparations now... and hopefully see you there. Of course, I'll write an article about how it went.

First Carmen SF larp announced!

Christmas holidays are over - unless you're celebrating them using Julian calendar, in which case merry Christmas to you - and the 2013 larp season starts strong. January - which has in years so far been a quiet month with maybe a couple of hours of fighting - will feature something every weekend now. This weekend is, of course, Terra Nova: Zimograd. I took a week off to finish all the necessary preparations for it, and to be honest I'm getting pretty hyped about it. The weekend after will be Krvomeđe. With renewed interest in pure battlegame format that we've seen on the last larp of 2012, it will be fun. The weekend after, on Saturday, January 26th there will be - it was just announced - the first Carmen SF larp. "Carmen - because you deserve to live longer" As I have mentioned before , Carmen is a SF larp. The rulebook is available here (in Croatian), it's 17 short pages containing the ruleset, and some basics of the setting and what is expected,

Interview: Andrej, Mladen and Fran, 2012's OzOI

The elections in Ognjeni Mač are over, and the new OzOI (Ognjeni Mač's plot team) has been elected. Consisting of Petar Janković, Ines Josić and Tijana Migić, you can read about their ideas in the interview we had recently. However, today we're talking with the 2012's OzOI, whose term is now done. Andrej Mihajlović, Mladen Miletić and Fran Putar took the Ognjeni Mač larps through 2012., they compiled the rules changes in the Ognjeni Mač Rulebook 2.1 (which just came out and will be valid for this year's Ognjeni Mač larps - in Croatian only!) and today they're talking about themselves, their past, their ideas, future plans and reflections on their work 2012. Read on! Mladen (leftmost) and Fran (rightmost) as Sun Warriors on Jaska 10 1. Can you tell us something about yourself? Andrej : My name is Andrej Mihajlović, I am 23 years old and I am a student at Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing. I play p’n’p RPGs, computer and board games, wa

Terra Nova: Zimograd starts in a week

The first larp of this year starts in a week. It's my own Terra Nova: Zimograd, a fantasy larp to be held in Pribislavec (near Čakovec), which will continue the Terra Nova storyline and it will be the first Croatian multi-day larp ever held in winter. With over 40 people signed up so far (and all indoor spaces filled up), this will be a very large event for local standards. And also an international one, as we'll have several visitors from Hungary and from USA. Preparations are finishing, long-term forecast looks great, and it's going to be a weekend to remember.

New Ognjeni Mač leadership and plot team elected

Tonight was the general assembly in Ognjeni Mač, and the new leadership got elected. New leadership elections are once every 2 years - I didn't run for the position of secretary again (nor any other position), and neither did the previous vice-president, Andrija Urban. New leadership (until January 2015) is, as follows: President: Lovro Radovčić Vice-president: Pavle Pelikan Secretary: Robert Šelendić In fact, no other candidates ran for those positions, so they got them by default. Also, the new OzOI (plot team) was elected - it gets elected every year. I previously interviewed the candidates. After a lively debate and a rather close vote, Petar Janković, Ines Josić and Tijana Migić were elected to run the Ognjeni Mač storyline for 2013. Congratulations to everyone involved.

2012 in retrospect

Happy New 2013 everyone! 2012 was a great year for Croatian larp - I'd even dare to call it the best so far in Croatian larp history. And I also had a wild ride with it. Where should I start? Chronologically? Or what was most important to me? Hmm, perhaps I'll try to group it into categories and make a story about it... Well, there are my babies. Two Terra Nova events - intro feast and the first big camping event, Terra Nova 2012. And the short modern one-shot, Death of the Japanese Emperor. Each was a huge learning experience, and also an experiment. Terra Nova will continue next week on the Zimograd event, the first three-day winter larp in Croatia with all bells and whistles to it. I also learned a lot on my travels - to Slovenian larpers, to Drachenfest and ConQuest in Germany, and to Chronicles of Demgard in Hungary - all of them unforgettable and filled with good memories. Combined with the other new stuff on the local Croatian scene this year - Steampunk larp, Fal