Diary of a Croatian larper

OzOI is the plot team which runs Ognjeni Mač's events, elected for one-year terms - they write the plot for the entire year, and play the majority of key NPCs on an event. The position was established in 2011. At the moment of writing there's a lack of candidates for next year's OzOI and it's unclear if Ognjeni Mač's plot structure will remain the same or if it will change in some way, and there are some changes currently ongoing there, but it's almost the time for them to pass the organizers' duties to other people. The 2012's OzOI was interviewed just under a year ago when their term was over. Many of the questions I asked them were already answered by the 2013's OzOI during their candidature interview  and you can read them there. Here's a new series of questions, answered by Tijana Migić and Ines Josić, two out of three members of this year's OzOI. The series is very much focused on their experience as the organizers - and sort o...

The biggest larp event in the world. Over 8000 players, over 1200 NPCs, over 700 pages of plot written for it. How do you even write a review for that? Heck, there are only about 5-8 other larps in the world which have more players than ConQuest has NPCs. Huge number of people make Mythodea a living fantasy country - there's so much of the stuff going on that pretty much every player gets a unique experience. Same as last year , I was a NPC - I joined the Swarm 1 of the Black Ice. Compared to Drachenfest's charged atmosphere, being in the out-of-character NPC camp on ConQuest of Mythodea is peaceful (if we ignore Swarms 8 and 13, which have a party setup - however, it's not noticable from an in-game area), and it gave us two days of rest and light activity to prepare for what awaited us. The familiar area, nice green grass and the awesome shade of the treeline we were close to had a calming effect. For some reason, Mythodea felt like home. Me, armored up as a Black...

The fourth banner is on the night watch this evening in the Copper camp. The gate guard, who perform that job during the day, are now resting, while we take the shifts. Mine is the first one, probably the busiest one yet the easiest one to stay awake on. People are on top of the gate, scouting, and I'm below near the gate with other soldiers guarding the entrance and helping to check the documents. Night life seems to be busy. Once the soldiers are done fighting and the air chills to the more comfortable levels, everybody else comes out and mingle. Yet this evening something is wrong. The order comes from above, and we're in lockdown - nobody comes in or out. Priests come out in droves, searching for the cursed dolls around the camp and warning us not to touch them if we encounter any. Some high positioned people can't go in or out, and that's a problem. Yet we are under orders, and we're not letting them out. Lady Zoe tries to push through. Avatar was angry ...

Dear readers. For the next two weeks I'm on my holidays and I will not update my blog. Reason for this is that I'll spend those two weeks on largest fantasy larps in Europe - Drachenfest and ConQuest of Mythodea. Remember what I said about getting ready for events ? Well, preparation for two weeks of larping is certainly more complex than preparation for weekend events. This time, my wife Jasminka did a huge amount of prep this week while I was at work - and during this weekend as I was out there working (in fact, I was finished with my work about an hour before publishing this, and it's when my vacation was cleared). Same as last year, we're going family style and we won't be traveling alone. Our traveling companion this year will be Marko (aka Erlin) from Serbia. That's us on Drachenfest last year, with our son Damjan If you're coming to Drachenfest, you can find us in the Copper camp, as last year. Unser Blut fur Kupfer! Try to find us before la...

Crolarp 2013 is the national, central storyline event of all medieval fantasy larps in Croatia running under Amtgard rules or some derivative of it - for more info, check out my last year's article . The first Crolarp was held in the same place (Gornja Kupčina, the usual terrain of Jaska larp) last year, and it was the largest larp of 2012. This year's Crolarp started yesterday and will last for the remainder of the weekend. Due to my work, I was only able to attend yesterday evening, for some four hours - so this review is just a short slice of what was going on on Crolarp. I snapped two photos (which I'm gonna post here as first photos from this year's Crolarp), however they don't look so good since I snapped them when I could, and that was in dusk and from some distance... A tavern (terrace) is visible to the left. First, some logistics. The camp layout didn't sit so well with me. There were two small camps, one huge camp next to the tavern, an org...

250 is a bit symbolic. A quarter of a thousand somehow looks more important than 50, 150 or 350. It also means I wrote 50 posts in four months . It also means I'm gonna ask you once again for feedback about this blog, this time on our new comment system . Tell me what you like about the blog, what you don't, what you enjoy reading about and what would you enjoy reading about even more. Drop in to say hi. Subscribe to this blog , or start or expand a larp scene . Right now is an excellent time. Anyway, here are some more announcements about this summer. This weekend is, of course, Rajski Vrhovi XVIII. It had already been announced on this blog, so I'm not going to repeat what's already been said - Facebook event is here . The next weekend - on Sunday, July 7th - there will be a Labuđa Rijeka 3 event by the same organizer - a summer battlegame in water. It will be held in Jarče Polje, on Dobra river. Several games have been announced in the water, including ...

The town of Novi Dom (New Home) It's been 10 months since the first Croatian fallout larp - and now it was the time for the second one - plot-wise, a direct continuation of the first one. It was also organized on the same terrain - an abandoned and ruined army property in Popovec, near Sesvete, with half-collapsed buildings, underground bunkers and much more. Some business signs Like last year I only half-visited this event due to other stuff I was doing, so I was there only on Saturday. This year had a different main organizer than the last year - Zoran instead of Mario - but both of them were the designers of the Croatian fallout larp, and Mario was still here, assisting. Rules were updated and shortened from 44 pages to 17 pages (both links are in Croatian), and they are inspired by both Amtgard rules of play and regular airsoft rules (plus, the last version also seems more inspired by Ognjeni Mač rules). Most of what was cut was fluff though, not mechanics. I...

Scroll of Law of New Ardonia Reviewing an event which you have done yourself is different than reviewing an event you have visited, as experience had shown. Terra Nova series is now over a year old. It had four events since March last year: intro , 2012 , Zimograd , and now 2013. Its fourth event was also its third big event, and the second summer event. Like all Terra Nova events so far, this one was done on a different terrain - both in-game and out-of-game - and it was played in Starigrad near Koprivnica. The terrain consisted of a narrow valley which housed camps (and a house which was on terrain), a hill, and a nearby forest, and it represented a mountain in the larp storyline. An Ur-Tuk and the air altar Due to some terrain issues, organisation started later than I wanted to. There were some other issues as well - as I have switched jobs I was unable to take a day off at Friday, and Zagreb was overcrowded that day, which means me and other organizers arrived after s...