Skip to main content

Cug review (Steampunk larp)




Cug is a Croatian spelling of the German word Zug, which means train. In several Croatian dialects, it is still commonly used to refer to trains, rather than the Croatian word for train, vlak. Cug is also a name of the train-themed cafe bar near Zagreb's main railroad station, where the new installment of Steampunk larp "Para pokreće svijet" was held. The name of the event was also Cug, and - unsurprisingly - the location represented a train in-character. A super-fast Steampunk train running a zig-zag north-south route through the fictional version of 1902's Austria-Hungary.

The event - held 10 days ago - was structured around certain train stops, which provided embarkation / disembarkation points for various player characters and NPCs. The train would remain at the railroad station for a while (giving characters the opportunity to exit the train) and then it continued along the way. Since the larp was held on Sunday - a bit odd time for larps - that actually worked well, as there were players who couldn't be there for the whole duration of the event - which ended at 23:00, which was much easier than previous large event that ended around 03:00...

Someone lost a bunch of mail...


René. Photo by Ivo Turk

I played my old character - the one I've been playing for almost 3 years in that campaign, the French ambassador by the name of René (personalities from various countries are well represented). Although, to be honest there haven't been Steampunk larps from the same campaign in a while - last year there was only one, and it was an offshot with a very different concept. And two events prior to that were held in a rock climbing gym, with fluorescent lighting - not necessarily the best Steampunk experience. Cug, however, was very well suited to playing Steampunk. The part where we were was curtained off from the rest of the bar, and one of the organizers played a waiter. Due to the size of the playing space, the number of players was limited to 22. My character was to be aboard the train for the full duration of the larp: 17:00 to 23:00, which represented the trip from Zagreb to Krakow.

I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray! Hooray!

"Mr. Japanese representative, why do
you hate Netherlands so much?"
"Because of TURIPS!"
Divining the location

Para pokreće svijet is a social larp, and it showed well this go. There was much less violence than in the previous installment. The time, if anything, was too short as I didn't have the time to RP with everyone I wanted to. There were lots of things going on, lots of tasks to do, and lots of hard decisions to make. My character got some of his goals solved, failed others, made mistakes, and fell in love because he was made to drink a love potion.

Para pokreće svijet is light-hearted, wacky, fun and doesn't take itself too seriously. It messes with history in a way that is often unexpected, but easily relateable. That concept has always worked quite well for it, and this was easily one of the best larps from the entire series. I haven't had so much fun on Steampunk since Vrste almost 2 years ago... or maybe even longer.


Most photos in this article have been made by Joško Frančeski and are used with permission.

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