Diary of a Croatian larper

Last update on this blog was three and a half months ago. Plenty of things happened in that time, which I didn't write about. Not because there was nothing to write about, but because what I could write about them wouldn't merit a full article. So let's do a quick summary. Photo by ConQuest photo team First of all - ConQuest 2017. World's largest larp. It was a great experience, but you probably know most about it if you read my previous ConQuest articles (I didn't get to Drachenfest this year either, but one of the main topic on ConQuest was about the ridiculous amount of rain and mud they had to deal with the week before on Drachenfest). To make it short - the story returned to Mythodea again, and we - as bad guys - had a really nice fortress which we manned and defended (and assaulted in the big final battle when it was taken from us). The camps were organized in a different manner - similar to how they used to be back in 2012 and 2013 . There were a few ...

"Another Izgon larp?", a friend asked me two years ago as I announced the previous larp of the series. "How about doing something new?" I was stuck with these questions for a time. New stuff. Well, of course there was innovation in every Izgon larp - an urban fantasy pervasive series which I started four years ago. Some stuff worked. Some didn't. In the background, however, the same principles still did apply. There was secrecy. Long playtime of being in-character. Mana gathering to open a portal back home. It worked. Lots of people had fun and amazing experience, it became the first Croatian larp that was novelized , and as with any larp there were some people it didn't work for. But that question about doing something new remained. Izgon: Ascendancy is very much a new larp, although it shares the setting with the previous ones. There will be different structure. Different character building. Different focus. Different mechanics. And a very much di...

I already reviewed several books on this blog, but these have all been larp-specific rulebooks. This is the first time I'm posting a review for a novel. Having said that, Izgnani ("Exiled") by Ivana Delač is not just any novel - it's a first Croatian novel based on a larp - which I ran . It's hard to convey how honored I feel because of that. It's the first time something like that has been done in Croatia, and reading a novel based in the Izgon setting which I wrote, with characters I created and many of my friends played - it was a warm, incredible feeling reading Ivana's novelization of the larp and setting. This is why it's hard for me to review Izgnani purely as a novel - for me, it's also a novelization of the larp I ran, an unique take of the setting and introspective into larp design. However, it does work very well as a novel. As a quick refresher if you don't know the backstory - the plot is urban fantasy, it focuses on energy be...

Some larps can really affect their participants. Or people running them. In my personal experience, I was most affected by the Izgon larps which I ran (Izgon is the Croatian word for Exile). Without failure, all three of them so far have brought certain changes. Some friendships grew closer, others went apart. There was a lot of stress, and a lot of happy moments. A ton of bleed-in and bleed-out, to the effect that the larp became a way of life for a few of its' participants. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but then again, I've been thinking how to write this article for the past 3 months since Izgon 1.1 ended. This review is way past its' time, as the experiences of Izgon 1.1 happened a few months ago, and have already been "digested" by a lot of players, and there have been other reviews for months already - such as this one on the Fair Escape blog . Let's start at the beginning. Izgon 1.1 was a third larp in the series of urban fantasy pervasive...

Happy Easter weekend folks - and whether you celebrate or not, here's a special present for you:  Izgon RPG . It's a Fate Accelerated-based tabletop RPG system, based on a realistic, pervasive ARG-ish larp, but it also has a larp conversion into another style of larp (a homebrew Fate conversion with alternative resolution system, not unlike Vampire). Larpception! OK, it's not really finished - but what is written is publicly available now, and playable so you may consider it a form of open beta. If you're a theorycrafter, playtester or just an opinionated person and you have any feedback on it, it would be most welcome. And if you have any content submissions - especially adventures or such - they would be especially welcome. Speaking of larps, to the left you'll find a photo from yesterday's Elysium 11. I was not able to attend it due to a family situation (which makes it... first Croatian Vampire larp so far I didn't attend), but it was visited by ...

Planning to snatch a body With a total of 8 players attending yesterday, Elysium 2 was an interesting event. And it crossed role-playing genres in a way. While the majority of it was a social larp - with players discussing events that were happening behind the screen, or during online role-play - later on several players went out for a short mission played out in the tabletop form. The transition between the two modes was very smooth, and well-received by players. The storyline - grim, violent and gory, as expected from Vampire - included body disposal. The next event is the Elysium 3 next Wednesday . So far, it's a very successful series of events. However, it's not the only project crossing the genres. Almost five months after initial announcement , Izgon RPG is ready for beta. Based on Fate Accelerated (FAE) , I'm looking for players willing to GM it or write adventures for it. If you're up for it, apply here and you'll receive the rules. It is playab...

Created by the couple of Izgon 2 players who played the Amani - Ana Mangotić and Marko Brdar (who also runs the larp Bukulja in Serbia ) - as well as two other designers, Zoran Marković and Sanja Marković. It was built during the Global Game Jam 2014 event in Belgrade, Serbia - it's an event where you design a game with other participants in three days. The game simulates the players' roles, traveling around, and various interesting events happening to them. The story has been adapted from the general Amani storyline from Izgon 2, however players start without a race, and during gameplay get "defined" as Amani or Kalesti. Melki, Prophets, Hunters and Draak also make an appearance in form of the event cards. The game is written in English, with a hand-drawn board, and has been released for free under a Creative Commons licence. To play, you'll need to print out the board and event cards. In addition, you will also need some dice (regular D6), a number of pawns...

Drawing by Danijel Knežević, depicting all factions and their in-character relations Reviewing your own larps is always different than reviewing others. However, even amongst those, Izgon 2 is different. It's a pervasive larp played in real space which was probably the most ambitious larp that I've ever done, the larp I've spent longest time building - and I was excited about it. Over two months have been spent preparing this larp - handling the sign-ups, writing the rules and mapping and writing the characters themselves. That is on top of all the work done on the first Izgon larp - my review and design document from the first larp is available  here . All the info from it is still valid. The larp documentation is available here , and you may use rules and character info to get better references to what is told here. The sheer scale of this larp - not just the number of players (which is nothing unusual outside Croatia) - but the fact it was played in a large number o...

As this blog has gone a bit silent, you might have been wondering what's been going on recently. Well, to be honest a lot of that. There's been so much going on that I barely have enough time to write a post. That's mostly due to running Izgon 2, and there's a lot involved in running it. It has four times the number of people of first Izgon larp (minus a few who burned out and/or whose characters got killed) - and it left me with too little time to even talk to everyone I want to talk to. The only reason I'm writing this article now is that it's gotten a bit slower so I managed to catch some breath. The debriefing, the documentation, the analysis of everything - it's gonna be great. Expect it to start popping up in a few days. The larp officially finishes Sunday at noon - the next Krvomeđe will be almost immediately after, at 1 PM - and the Zagreb debriefing will be held afterwards. However, depending on player actions, it might end sooner for some or al...

This Sunday's Krvomeđe fighting day was a bit desolate - only three of us came, which is sadly not enough for battlegames and not nearly the numbers Krvomeđe can make (it can swing up to 20 people at times). So I'm gonna make a public call to everyone in Zagreb (and Croatia in general) who'd like to do some fighting practice - come next time, join the mailing list to be informed when the next game's gonna be and ask any questions you might have. A lot of Croatian larpers could use some fighting training - this is a perfect opportunity. Now that's out of the way - this Saturday there's gonna be another Steampunk larp from the "Para pokreće svijet" series. Due to location issues, it will be once again in the "SPK Fothia" interior climbing gym - however, it will be a social event, not the one focused on climbing. This event will be titled "Fronti nulla fides", and it will be played late at night - from 10 PM to 3 AM. Like a...

I've been rather silent lately. I haven't forgotten you :) I was just busy preparing the big one. Yes, that's the upcoming Izgon 2 for which a lot of material has already been produced, and there's still a month of frentic preparation to be done, and it's a lot of work. One part of the project is expanding the background story, which I've been doing with a pen&paper group for the past 3 weeks. Besides that, I've been busy writing rules, characters etc. The first Izgon larp had been prepared in less than a month, but that one had only 16 players signing up initially. Izgon 2 has already more sign-ups than any other Croatian larp of this year, so it's a huge project - and likely with a very different feel than the first one. But there's things to do before Izgon. This weekend is Ognjeni Mač's Jaska 12 - an autumn event organized in a similar vein to Jaska 9 two years ago, it's gonna be a first Jaska I'll miss. Because I'...

The "Sljeme 3" larp by Ognjeni Mač - which was supposed to be organized this Saturday - had been canceled - instead, the larp will be adapted to their regular terrain in Maksimir park (around 5th lake) and it will be organized there instead, as "Maksimir 71". It will serve as an introduction to the upcoming "Jaska 12" larp scheduled two weeks after. Ognjeni Mač has been testing its new rules recently - they had 2 tests on Maksimir already (I was on one of them) and their last test was a larger one this weekend in Letovanić (I wasn't present as I was on Demgard ). However, Maksimir 71 (as well as Jaska 12) will be run using the old 2.1 ruleset, not the new one. There will be an interesting twist on Maksimir 71 compared to regular events: all players will play NPCs. At the same time as Maksimir 71, there will also be a fourth event of the (freshly rebranded) Fallout Larp/Airsoft. Sine Requie, which was due next week, has unfortunately been c...

The first larp of the Camarilla Agram series that I ran and wrote about in the previous article sparked a lot of discussion - and a lot of interest. Overall I'd call it a success, even more than when I wrote the previous article a couple of days ago. We already  announced  the next event for October 26th, this one will feature Ivan Erpačić as the main storyteller. In the meanwhile, there's a RP group  that started on Facebook. The next thing going on is... today! We're having a meeting for the upcoming Terra Nova: Rise of Rashalan (which will happen on Oct 20th) in the Zlatni Medo beerhouse, from 8 PM onwards. If you're interested, come talk to us. For those of you following the news about Croatian larp recently, you've probably noticed the new rules by Ognjeni Mač - which are quite changed from what was run before, which sparked quite the controversy on their forum and on Facebook. There was a short playtest event last week in Maksimir, there will...