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Showing posts from May, 2017

Running a workshop on Thursday in Terrible Lair

Terrible Creations, a Zagreb-based larp collective active for over 2 years, and the most prolific Croatian authors and organizers of chamber larps in that period, recently opened Zagreb's first larp-specific space, aptly named Terrible Lair. Several larps had already been held there, including their own productions as well as an Zagreb by Night event last Saturday. I'm deeply honored by the opportunity to run a first workshop that will be held there this Thursday at 8 - based on my experiences from Enlightenment in Blood . It's my hope that what I learned over there will be useful to larp players and designers alike. I, for one, would certainly wish to repeat that experience, and I got the feeling (and feedback) that the mini-workshop I did last Wednesday before my Vampire game (Noćne kronike) had a good effect on players' role-play, trust and safety. If you're around, I'd love to see you there. Facebook event - website announcement (in Croatian).

First Croatian blockbuster castle larp announced

TESC (The Elder Scrolls Chronicles) is not a new larp - it started with the playtest back in 2013, had two events in 2014, and the last event was exactly 2 years from the date of posting this. As a fantasy larp, all of its runs have been quite impressive compared to other Croatian fantasy larps of the era, regarding production, costumes, hype and much more - though it needs to be said, because of their obvious failure to raise a shrine to Kynareth, weather issues on previous larps are as legendary as the larps themselves. Yet, after producing one larp every six months (approximately), TESC has been silent for two years. And oh boy it comes back in style. A lot has changed in these two years. First of all, the blockbuster larps in the Nordic/progressive tradition happening around the world started affecting us as well, as some Croatian larpers visited those. College of Wizardry . Black Friday. Enlightenment in Blood . And others as well. This blockbuster larp experience (and

World of Darkness Berlin and Enlightenment in Blood

How do I even start this article? Fair warning: it will be long  (TL;DR - best larp experience of my life). It will be emotional. Sometimes rambling, or jumping from one subject to another. It will include both what took part on the con, before it, after it, and some of my own thoughts and reflections on it. And it will not include a lot of photos of the larp itself, because of the photo policy I signed. Last weekend I took a part in World of Darkness Berlin convention - first of its' type in Europe. Unfortunately, it was in the same time slot as SFeraKon in Zagreb, but when you have an opportunity such as this - well, you don't miss it. The convention, most of it taking place in Mercure hotel MOA Berlin (with several events in other venues), had covered almost every possible expression of World of Darkness, it's licensees and IPs - tabletop role-play, larps, V:TES collectible card game, and more. Let's be frank - if you're reading my blog, you're prob

News from our neighbors in Bulgaria: PoRtaL and Fog larp

While I'm still digesting the events of last weekend with WoD Berlin, here's two quick and important news from our neighbors in Bulgaria. First, the PoRtaL larp convention. PoRtaL 1, 3 and this year's 5 were in Zagreb. 2 and 4 were in Budapest. Yeah, I know, I failed to review the last two of them. My bad. But they were great. PoRtaL 6 has already been announced - March 2-4 2018 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. This marks the first time our Bulgarian friends are joining us as the organizers, as the convention expands to its third country. Also, the event date has never been known so early. So - save the date, and follow the PoRtaL convention news on facebook . In other news, Fog larp - the biggest fantasy larp in Bulgaria - is running a kickstarter in order to fund some improvements on their larp - check it out .

ZbN Croatian Conclave 2017 review

This weekend I attended the Croatian Conclave, a two-night Vampire the Masquerade castle larp organized by Zagreb by Night (ZbN). It was a big international Vampire larp, drawing many members of the games from the VIC network, as well as some others - apart from us locals, the visitors arrived from Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Poland, UK and Israel. Throughout the review I'll attempt to avoid spoilers, as well as write in a way which will also be readable to the non-VtM readers of this blog. The larp took place in Lukavec castle, a (comparatively small) two-story mid-18th century castle near Zagreb. There were several available rooms, including a large room which served as a throne room where central parts of the Conclave took part. The castle had a central open courtyard which served as a place for many public events in the larp. Considering the entrance fee was only about €20, the production value of the larp was outstanding. Apart from the use of castle for 2