Skip to main content

Chronicles of Demgard 2014/1 - Expedition to Arnbjörg review

Two years ago was my first time that I went to a larp out of Croatia. It was Drachenfest 2012. Not long after, I went to my first larp in Hungary - Chronicles of Demgard 2012/2 - The Secret of Hartwigstein. Traveling to another country to larp there? It was quite an adventure. However, time passed. Croatia joined EU, simplifying the border controls. I crossed the border again to play Chronicles of Demgard 2013/2 - The Sternn Pass Incident, and then again in March for the second PoRtaL convention in Budapest. Going to Hungary for my third Demgard larp was... well, pretty much like a hop to the neighborhood. And due to my newborn daughter, probably my last international larp adventure this year.

Unlike the previous 2 Demgard games I've been to, this one started earlier - however, this is a Demgard summer game (first one that's international), and the summer games they have are bigger. So Friday was also the playable day, and I arrived at the terrain near the city of Tatabánya, Hungary (60 km west from Budapest) a bit late, just at nighfall. I set up my tent and changed, and I entered the game...

The Chaos army, with Horned King and a summoned wyvern. Photo by Sindeon

There were three factions in this event: First Joint Expeditionary Force consisting of two "civilized" nations (Western Empire and Uspenland), the local Tribes of Arnbjörg and a Chaos force consisting of the followers of the Horned King. The setup was basically a tug of war between the Expedition and Chaos, with Tribes being the key faction in the middle, to see who will gain influence over the land. I was with the Expedition, playing the same character as the last larp (which only a few characters on Demgard do - most were new, fitting the situation).

Looking at the scene. Photo by Elena Loken

Intertwined with all this were many personal storylines and goals. One of the more noticable things was the fact that Chaos really functioned as a corruptive force, and during the course of a larp many characters joined it. With the Chaos on Demgard working pretty much the same way as Warhammer Chaos, it was a nice way to explore why someone would join them.

Internal divisions in camps, tribes counseling, finding the hidden valley with the Fourth Tribe in it, diplomacy, threats and very decent costumes were just some of the gems of this event.

However, similar to last 2 Demgard events that I've been to - the plot resolved too quickly. The Tribes didn't create a champion who could defeat the Horned King. Weakened by deserters and traitors, the Expedition could not stand against the Chaos so it withdrew, together with most of the tribes, leaving the lands to the Horned King. And by 4 PM it was all over, which was a shame because I probably enjoyed this event more than previous Demgard events I've been to. Some 3-4 extra hours of content would've made it perfect in my opinion. I used that time to pack up and get all of my non-essential gear to the car, remaining for the party night but ready to go early in the morning.

The character I played is getting retired. He had enough excitement this past year. But I'm looking forward to the future Demgard events.

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...