Diary of a Croatian larper

The flooded village of Gunja The first news for today's article is... well, the kind you hope you never hear. Floods. Large parts of Eastern Croatia (as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia) have been flooded in the worst floods in over a century. Lots of people lost their homes, and there's been great loss of property and even life. Tens of thousands evacuated from their hometowns. Thankfully, my family's been safe. This is an appeal for humanitarian aid. For details on how to donate via Croatian Red Cross, click here . If you're in Croatia, you can also click here to see different ways how you can help. And now for some brighter news. I got a daughter yesterday! On May 18th, which was also dubbed International larp pride day in 2014. Coincidence? Anyway, she's 3700 grams, beautiful, 53 cm tall and called Leona. Myself and Goran doing a presentation (photo by Boris Kasavica) Also, this weekend was SFeraKon weekend! Due to expecting a baby on ...

Sven Nemet's Bizzaro larp has been played... I couldn't attend it, but the players there returned with positive comments. The concept for the event was to bring characters from any setting - as long as they were somewhat bizzare in concept. Played on the terrain slightly southwest from Zagreb, it was limited to the low number of players due to location requirements. It was described to me as very sandbox-ey in execution, and sequels were tentatively announced... This weekend is SFeraKon, Croatia's biggest Sci-fi/Fantasy convention. And I just realized, I've been writing about it in over 3 years this blog's been active. So yes, you can read articles about SFeraKon 2011 , SFeraKon 2012  (which was also Eurocon) and SFeraKon 2013 . (Some of the old articles' photo links are broken) Compared to the last year's schedule, this SFeraKon appears less larpy - there's less hands-on stuff such as games and workshops. There will be an increase in presentati...

Yesterday's Elysium 13  Vampire game was slightly smaller than usual - a total of 10 players took part in it. I blame the fact on my lack of marketing on Facebook - even though the date was known for over a month (it's visible on larp website ) and I announced it at the end of Elysium 12 , I was otherwise preoccupied so I didn't create a Facebook event until... yesterday. I think it's a good pointer on how much people rely on Facebook for their larp info lately. The event, however, gave us opportunity to do what we can't do with the higher population - after playing a regular social larp for about an hour, we switched to the tabletop mode (for the first time since Elysium 4 ) for some cross-media gaming, and for the last hour of the game we played an investigation and a big battle as tabletop - though transparently using the same rules. 9 players (playing Camarilla vampires) vs 20 weaker Sabbat showelheads - it took about an hour to play out due to the turn-...

Coming straight from Jaska 11  (which is the reason why there's no "day two" review), I had time for breakfast and coffee before SFeraKon started. Sunday is not a very popular day on SFeraKon, and this year it was no different as population paled compared to the one on Friday (and probably Saturday, but as I was not there I cannot guarantee it). I also managed to visit the only content on SFeraKon other than mine for the duration of the convention - my sister-in-law's presentation of Destination Star Trek in London last year which she visited. After that, I ran Death of the Japanese Emperor . Only three people have signed up for the run - one less than the minimum number - but I still decided to run it. The “secret crush” part was not done as it was meaningless in such a small group, and it was impossible to fully control the lighting due to the run being in the early afternoon, so no light turning off was possible. However, the idea from A Party Full of Secrets...

This will be a short article - as I'm getting myself ready to visit Jaska 11 at least for a day - and no photos as I didn't snap any yesterday. Apart from lots of stalls representing the usual share of associations, goods and services, and meeting a lot of people I haven't seen in a while (conventions really function as meeting places), I haven't seen much of the convention as I was getting ready for running an Ars Amandi workshop. A total of 11 brave people signed up, most of them with little larping experience: One person was a very experienced fantasy larper My sister-in-law was there, having some experience in fantasy larp My wife was there, having some experience in various forms of larp (fantasy, steampunk, Death of the Japanese Emperor ) A person with some limited chamber larp experience ( The Cabin , A Party Full of Secrets ) A person whose only larp so far was Izgon Rest of the people had no larp experience. Compared to the run on PoRtaL , I'd...

As noted in my last post , Jaska 11 starts today at 3 PM. For those larpers staying in Zagreb, there will be a lot of interesting content on SFeraKon this weekend. Larp content: Ars Amandi workshop (by me), Friday 21:00-23:00, White room The Killer Game, Saturday, starts at 13:00 Presentation of the larp convention PoRtaL  (A. Rajner, B. Špoljarić), Saturday 16:00-17:00, A-201 The Cabin larp (I. Delač, V. Kurilić), Saturday, 22:00-01:00, A-201 Death of the Japanese Emperor larp (by me), Sunday, 14:00-16:00, A-201 And there's plenty of other content useful for lots of larps, such as workshops for creating chainmail, writing elven caligraphy, rune-making, body painting, wing making, drawing etc., as well as tabletop RPGs, board games, inspiring costumes you'll see and plenty of other fantasy, steampunk and of course sf content. Check out the full schedule here  (in Croatian).

The summer season opens next weekend in Croatia - although in the neighborhood it was open the last weekend with VLarp in Serbia, connecting free days from the May 1st until tomorrow, when Orthodox Easter festivities will end there (here are their rules for everyone who's interested) - but in Croatia it begins next weekend with Jaska 11 by Ognjeni Mač. Btw, "Jaska" is a nickname for Jastrebarsko, a town near the place  where this larp series is being held. It's interesting to note that it's (together with larp Maksimir) the last remnant of once dominant form of calling larps primarily by the off-game name of the place where they're being held. Although not the first multi-day larp this year (that one would be Terra Nova: Zimograd this January), it is the first multi-day larp in the warm season where it's considered socially acceptable to camp outside. As all Jaska larps, it will be a four-day event, from Thursday to Sunday. The yearly number of Jask...

After a short part of the program in the hotel International, like on Thursday, Eurocon's program continued in its traditional venue, on FER. This year though, they put a stargate on the entrance. (Why did they have to use the one from Atlantis?) Eurocon 2012 convention entrance Anyways, FER is a big improvement over hotel International. Bigger, more roomy, with plenty of space for sellers, associations, etc. and their stalls. It was like a regular SFeraKon on steroids - bigger, better, with more rooms open, international associations and their stalls, and more people. The attendance changed drastically from Thursday (as expected, since Thursday was free for everyone in masks). LARPers no longer visually owned the convention. As conventions go, SFeraKon is usually overwhelming. And how wouldn't it be? If you were to see everything, you'd have to be on 20 places at the same time - so everyone's experience is rather unique. And as Eurocon, this simply grew bigg...

So there it was, the first day of Eurocon. Free for everyone wearing a costume, so I went there with my wife in our Terra Nova costumes - and we brought our son along. Costume-wise, us fantasy LARPers pretty much owned the place: All of us running Terra Nova LARP were there in our NPC costumes Full Ognjeni Mač setup was there - everyone from Management Board (myself included), Game Organization Board, and plenty of other members and regular players too. In the best gear they could find. Ivo, who runs Krvomeđe / Rajski Vrhovi was there as his regular character Zlatko Kramparić. Most of the rest of his group was also here (again including myself there... I gave myself plenty of work this year). Siro, who runs Lubena LARP. Though he portrayed a Team Fortress 2 character. SRP folk, playing various characters Other costumes also appeared. Apart from the Team Fortress 2 team, there were plenty of Steampunk characters, some anime cosplayers, Pikachu, Wolverine, a ...

It was a weekend before Jaska LARP, but it was not filled with preparations for it as usual - instead, lots of us LARPers went to SFeraKon, largest & oldest sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention in Croatia. Next years' SFeraKon will also be Eurocon . Yes, we had a quite attractive stand there. Guys from Ognjeni Mač, Croatian LARP association (which I'm a part of) who were keeping the stand did a good job in getting the visitors interested in LARPing. It's probably our most successful con presentation ever. Reason 1 is purely a great job they did. Reason 2 is... we just re-started our convention attendance. Until last year, we were regulars on every SFeraKon and Istrakon (second largest convention in Croatia, but considered by many to be more fun), but for various reasons we missed last year's SFeraKon and Istrakon, as well as this year's Istrakon, which is kind of a shame - but probably a reason we were so successful this year, we gave some people chance to rota...