Diary of a Croatian larper

After almost two years , I was talking about larp on national TV again, together with a larper colleague, +Ana Rajner   :) This time we got slightly under four minutes of programming. Here's our story - and a couple of larp trailers played along: If you don't understand Croatian, it's basically a general description of what larp is. It was shown this Friday afternoon on HRT2, and it had a rerun today around noon on HRT3. In better resolution than what they released for online viewing, but I digress. You can watch the entire show here  if you're interested. Just select the 8.3.2013. date. Also, a digression - a friend of mine dug up some old photos. Including the photo of me from the first larp I was ever on. A 17-year old me playing a young barbarian on Kutina Summer Session 2001... My first larp Which was really cool. I thought there was no surviving photos from that era. Here's another from the old Motovun larp (after it was done and before we went ...

It's been talked about for several months, but now it's been officially announced. Maybe a bit last moment, but here it is: PoRtaL, the first larp convention ever to take place in Croatia. And in the region. Program will come soon, but there will be plenty of interesting presentations - both from local larpers and guests from the region (Hungary, Bulgaria, etc), larps, panels, workshops and much more. Entrance to the convention will be free of charge. If you want to participate in a panel or write other content, please let us know - I'm one of the coordinators so you can message me directly as well. For all other info, please check the event on Facebook.

After the larp had been run three times - on a private playtest and two times on a convention yesterday - both with positive results, I've decided to release the larp to the public in full, with all its documentation - including versions in Croatian, English and documentation of all the runs. Use them if you're interested in reading - or run this larp yourself with your friends. 2023 update: Wow, this larp has certainly been run a lot of times over the past decade! Updating the page with a Polish translation by Laura Piecha. Basically, Smrt japanskog cara is a modern one-shot larp about murder, prison and friendship with a 2 hour running time - of that, there's a 1 hour larp time and the rest is preparation and short debrief. Get the Croatian version here. Get the English version here. Get the Polish version here. Building relationships between characters on Run 1 If you're interested in hearing how it was on all those larps, click here . That docum...

Yesterday evening was quite exciting. The presentation of Tragači zore was given, and the larp was discussed, as well as our experiences. Ana and Božo also gave an overview of what they tried to accomplish, and we went once again through everything for people who were not there. We all shared our moments of play and suggestions. Sanja Lovrenčić, the author of "Zmije Nikonimora" trilogy was also there, she was touched that we brought her world to life and held a small speech. Two projects by Lateralus for 2013 were also announced. One of them will be a larp convention on Filozofski fakultet (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences) in Zagreb, scheduled for March 1st - 3rd, 2013. It will be open to all interested participants (domestic and international larp groups) who sign-in prior to the convention. It's planned to be more of a "by larpers, for larpers" in content, to advance larp among larpers, not a what-is-larp promo to the general public (t...

Ognjeni Mač association's larp Jaska 11 has unfortunately been canceled. Three reasons cited for cancelation are the following: bad weather (though the forecast is better than for the last year's Jaska 9 ), a shoulder injury of one of the organizers (have a speedy recovery!), and emergency situation at work causing another organizer's days off work to be canceled. This means that the next Jaska larp - probably in May 2013. - will be named Jaska 11 instead. Instead of Jaska, Maksimir 62 will be organized as a longer than usual Maksimir larp. It will be held on October 20th. Unfortunately, that means it'll clash with Chronicles of Demgard in Hungary. The Croatian team going to Demgard is being formed, although it's rather smaller than expected - three people so far. But it's a first Croatian visit to a Hungarian larp, after they visited Terra Nova this June, and there will certainly be things to write about. It's not the only thing clashing...

It's one of those larps where I'm not sure where to start. There's many things to write about, I'm not sure where to begin. Perhaps from the beginning, which was some two years ago when Ana Rajner and Božo Špoljarić decided to make this larp. It was then organized, scheduled and re-scheduled several times until it was finally scheduled on this weekend as the first larp of the newly founded Lateralus association. A one-shot fantasy larp hasn't been done before in Croatia. After some talk with Croatian fantasy autors to secure rights to use elements from their books in larp, Tragači zore (Seekers of the Dawn) was slowly being formed, planning to be a very different style of fantasy larp than what is usually played in Croatia. Players preparing for the game. It's important to note that the game itself wasn't photographed . All photos are from either before the game started or after it ended. You can see the full gallery here . One huge dif...

The first larp organized by the Lateralus association, Tragači zore (Seekers of the dawn) starts today. If you don't know what it is, check my announcement of 2 months ago, but basically it's a new fantasy larp in Croatia, organized in its own game world based on literary works of several Croatian authors. Unlike Criatian fantasy larps so far, it will be a one-shot larp, meaning characters and game world exist for only this one game. There's plenty of stuff about this larp that has already proven different from other Croatian larps so far, but I'll reserve it until the full review afterwards. Earlier weather forecasts showed some rain, but today's forecast shows clear weather for the duration of game play, so we should be good (knock wood). If you're going - see you there. I'm off to resume packing.

It had been unofficially announced and postponed for over a year, but now the date has been finally set. Tragači zore - which would translate to "Dawn Seekers", the new fantasy larp and the first larp by the new Croatian larp association Lateralus . It is to be held on the first weekend of October (6th-7th) this year. After Terra Nova , it will be the second fantasy larp in Croatia that is removed from the usual common, shared world of Croatian fantasy LARP. Its setting has been inspired by works of several Croatian fantasy authors, most notably those of Sanja Lovrenčić's " Zmije Nikonimora ". Countries from the book will be available for your character's background, and there's a description of countries (together with book excerpts) on the website . With the character choice locked into backgrounds from one of the countries, this will give Tragači zore a very strong thematic feeling. Which is only reinforced by the fact that character cre...

If we look at the history of Croatian LARP and how it developed, we could divide it into several distinct time periods, eras, ages, or however you want to call it. This is not an "official" division or anything - I will explain the criteria which I used to divide the periods further below. The First Age (1997 - 2001) The first age was about one larp only - Summer Session (also known as Kutina LARP), a fantasy LARP organized in Katoličke Čaire near Kutina. It was organized once a year, and it was the game which unified pretty much all Croatian LARPers - a game which was basically synonymous with Croatian LARP, and pretty much defined what mainstream LARP looks like in Croatia now. LARP was spreading around and getting more popular, and events were getting better and better. Summer Session 2001 had a population of 60-ish players. The Second Age (2002 - 2006) I put the start of the second age in 2002, the year first non-Summer Session LARP (Motovun LARP) appeared in C...

This has been a hectic evening, and I'm probably insane for not going to sleep and blogging instead... But oh well. Most of the stuff for Terra Nova tomorrow is ready and packed. Few final things to do in the morning and good to go to the terrain. The game starts today afternoon, and there's a lot of work to be done before that. And apart from packing, I've been to a SRP class about Nordic larp and Lateralus association as I mentioned in my previous post. Nordic larp class was long, detailed, and very interesting. I did know most of the stuff that was said (not all of it though), I even added a few details myself, but it was very interesting looking at how some people reacted to several ideas that would be considered quite radical in our environment. Photos were shown, movies were played, and overall it was a huge and well done presentation of some 2 hours in which plenty was covered, and Ana was very prepared in giving the lecture and answering the questions. ...

Terra Nova starts tomorrow! Whew. The last few days of preparation have gone really fast, and I'm somewhat amazed and stunned that it's actually happening tomorrow. We planned a lot of things, and I can't wait to see how they'll work out. If you're coming, you might find this document useful. It's not as finished as I hoped it would be, but this means only that when I do the next version it will be after the player input and RP on LARP itself :) That's not all news. Ana and Božo from SRP are giving a lesson tonight about nordic LARP, and new LARP association, Lateralus, that they founded. It will be tonight at 7PM in D5 at Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb.