LARP

post concerning Live Action RolePlay

Holy long time without a post batman!

 

it has been 7 months! seven… S-E-V-E-N… I ought to be ashamed of myself!

but then, I am not, I’m just lazy. So there, now you know it.
What you can do with it? Idaknow… shout it to the world? or perhaps write it on some paper and mail it to me, so I am reminded of it?

anyways, a lot of things have happened since the last post in March(hell, with the time passed I could almost claim the last post to be in the last millenia or something…. perhaps I should ask some archaeologist?).
I can’t remember all of them even if I wanted to, so just a short summup of what I can actually remember:
– I went to this new LARP called Aragnes. It is a nice concept they are making there; instead of getting points at the end of an event(which is rather the standard) you don’t get them, instead, if you want to learn a new skill, you actually go and request a teacher(or kick one of the other players who can teach it) and you practice on it for 3 days, and then you can use it. I know it doesn’t sound reasonable for a thing like that to be that short, but you have to strike the balance between realism and playability as you only have 2 events a year(quests not counted in). it also has a food system, eg. you have to get 5 food by the end of a big event, or else you will starve!(not OC, but IC of course). anyways, went to the event in may I believe and I liked it, but not sure what to think of it. and a couple of weeks back I had the second event, and now I absolutely LOVED it! They did this end boss ‘battle’ which was the most awesome one I have ever seen and the best part: hardly any fighting involved! only 2 mobs(for me) in the beginning, after that only traps and the final encounter. which was very awesomely done(can’t stress that enough). Kudos to the NPCs and Gamemasters!
– I went to the Summoning. it’s the biggest LARP in the Netherlands(afaik) with about 500 players(so about 700-750 people in total if you count everyone else working on it, if not more). now on this scale a lot of things shift, you can forget the person to person diplomatic crap, now it’s group vs group. A lot more diplomatics(and I mean a lot more). Bluff-checks(you don’t know what the other can do, are you ready to test it?(read: to every kiddo you do the Dirty Harry’s(Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?) thing and see if your bluff get’s checked(which is loads of fun, and I seem to win a lot of them, strangely enough))) and just Big Cojones esé! Best part: Playing a Khaladan there! We are a tight group of 11(or as we are now: 15) and we have the habit of picking the stupid most idea(not to be confused with suicidal, which we don’t do…mostly) and execute it. and we get away with it, why? see the bluff-check for that. example: one of our team was stricken down by 6 man. I storm at them(that is, with shield first, weapon drawn and in a heavy armour), position myself in between them and bluff them on attacking me. which was an awesome action. not the best of ideas, but hey it worked, I won that fight without even dishing out a blow.
– work and all that jazz is same old, same old
– Kung Fu Panda 2 and X-men: First Class were as enjoyable as my partner in crime was(we really ought to pick a new movie some time)
– Music was found
– Lost
– and found again
– Epic Rap Battles of History
– and much, much more.

Now, On to ze music Maestro!
Imma starting with a Disney song(yeah, Disney) because my partner in crime posted a reference a few days ago that made me find it… plus, it’s too happy 😉

Next is another Disney song, cause everybody wants to be a Cat:

now, above song made me want to listen to that kind of jazz, behold: Louis Armstrong vs The Duke(Ellington that is) and It don’t mean a thing:

Found this one some time ago, Rondo Veneziano – Musica Fantasia:

and through above one I found Emma Shapplin, and her song Reprendo Mai Più

and I found this old classic again: Margaret Singana – We are growing:

I can remember this song(dunno how I found it again, but it was lost to me a loooong time) from my childhood. An older friend at the time(read, me being 4 years or so, he was the son of some acquaintances from my parents) made this tape for me and My First Sony because I always pestered him about these Synthesizer songs to be played when I was over at theirs. Theme from Rain Man(originally composed by Hans Zimmer, not sure whom played this particular version):

and to close off: some more rock-y songs, because I wouldn’t be me without them 😛
Billy Talent – Devil in a midnight mass:

One of the most awesome songs ever, by Queen:

don’t ask how I found this one: Five Finger Death Punch(kudos for he(or she) who knows the reference) – 100 ways to hate:

and thanks to Salvi(you metal bitch! m/): Sabaton – Ghost Division:

and I close this post with a classic(seriously, that guitar♥): Still got the Blues for you – Gary Moore

Lands of the Pharaoh 4

 

Last weekend I had this awesome LARP event, Keeper of Dreams: Lands of the Pharaoh 4. Do note that the word awesome is only a substitute for when I find a better, more fitting, word for it.
I have not experienced many LARPs, but compared with the other ones, this one is in it’s own league. it’s that awesome. Continue reading  

A spoiler spilled when spoiled

 

interesting title no? I bet your feeling like you want to know why and how. But, I am going to be the evil laughing maniac this time.

What’s going on? not much, not much been a fun few weeks though. with the absolute height being the Tavern LARP ‘Den Geniepigen Draak'(The Sneaky Dragon) which was a first Tavern LARP for me.
It’s basically a small LARP event like I have described before, but then minus all the fighting and in a Tavern(so it’s all Roleplay). It’s kinda fun, but your character needs to fit in. I brought in Boris.

Turns out he is rather hard to play in a LARP with his broken common(not his motherlanguage) and his tendency to just sit and ponder. Yet the Elvenmaid whom he followed(yea, she’s an Alchemist, he needs to protect those, et voila, my reason to be there. Hers was a lot harder to concieve xD) to the Tavern just dragged him along and sat him in a group of curious folk.
First there was a local monk(claiming the wine was good, but of course Boris thought it was absolute rubbish, only the drink he grew up with is proper stuff) who came from a monastery nearby. They all had, save for himself, made a Vow of Silence. but he made it up by his endless(but fun!) talks. I bet the other monks never got the chance to actually speak.
Then we had this small, frail woman, who made Jewelry out of chainlinks, not much of a talker, but still a very pleasant companion.
Third off there was this, I believe, Vampire woman who turned to be friendly.
That and the Elven maiden, I believe I have them all, unless my mind is really playing tricks on me.
Aside this group there were 2-3 more groups(and a random assortment of various folk), one group were a bunch of local folk, who apparently lost their parrot(and more then just that if you asked us) and a group called the Atlantians. The bunch of locals where prominent and fun to interact with(or just look at for that matter, more then once I had to hid a grin and stop my head from shaking)
Also, there was live music by Kelten zonder Grenzen, they had a violin, two harps and a hurdy-gurdy and there was dance. oh yea, there was dance. to be precise; Balfolk dancing. and guess what, the Elven Maiden loved to dance. also guess what? She has these great puppy eyes. irresistable. and so I danced. and I liked it much(even though I found it also scary :P)
Balfolk is basically just dancing simple dances, you don’t have to have good talent to participate(which is a good thing). Here an example, we did this dance. The speed shown is rather low, in my experience we went faster anyway(but hey, it’s my experience). it seems easy, but after a few spins it’s really hard to find the way to your right to join in for the second partner and such(I am very surprised how everyone somewhat managed not to bump into each other)
So all in all, a very awesome night which I would recommend to all who read this. To throw in a little teaser: the Webcastblog Goed Folk(Good Folk) was present a bit later on the evening, here is the cast(In Dutch) the part begins at 16:00.

it actually became quite the rant, which is good if you held on so far. Because, no matter how awesome that night was. It was outshone by the event that afternoon. The Elven Maiden I keep refferring to is Ashley, which I now may call my Girlfriend 😀 I lack the words to actually describe my joy about it, as well as the nervousness that went before that 🙂 So there, it’s out.

Lands of the Pharaoh

 

right, so, last weekend the Keeper of Dreams event hit, Lands of the Pharaoh 3.
and I’m going to be very critical at it. After a very long thought I have, with the necessary trouble, found a word for it.
Many words have been reviewed, lots fitted somewhat, others not so. And even after all this though I still find this word lacking.

The word I am picking for this even is: Awesome!

Even tough I am only LARPing for a year, this event is, by far, the best I have enjoyed. Even though I found it hard too interpreted some of the RP events happening to me/us(sorry Ronald! I really ought to have been screaming after that vision of Bofang(in hindsight, but hindsight’s a bloody bitch)), probably due too my lack of experience in this field. Up till now most, if not all, we have done is basically clubber people, well, clubbering them with latex swords that is. And not so much RP. But I am pretty sure that is going to change coming year(s).
On with the event. As I have described before, Egul is part of the Traders Guild that hit East Dragon Inn(the Inn we have settled upon) and we had one heck of a Smithy/trading post. we had dragged up some logs to rise our anvil, we had a table and two benches we could sit at, various items to fill said table and 2 tents to complete it. I believe that we were one of the most complete posts in the camp. Then again, we spent over 4 hours to build it up. So yeah, well worth it.

Anyhow, I’m drifting off. Back to the event, on Friday everyone was coming into his or her role, mine was warmage, protector of the Master smith and Cartographer. with the latter not getting the attention it needed(only drafted up some rough sketch of the camp) the first and second role got more of their worth. I believe(not sure now I’m thinking back, bit fuzzy there) we had some Returned(undead, but with more brains) that were bothering us, but the real treat were the Howlers. Now, I am going to let you dream up what they looked like(will see if I can score some pictures from them) but basically, think Werewolves. They even had red lights aside their head and claws to ‘tickle’ us if you get my drift. Let me tell you, a dark forest, some howls and red lights moving about fast is scary as hell. and then we had to fight em. I thought I could have one and in the dark I thought they had weapons, you can imagine the surprise when I found out they scratched at us(and at that point I almost made love to my shield for catching all of them) We drove em back with fair ease and thought it to be that. The rest of the eve went by fairly calm, I believe our Returning friends came along for a visit afterwards(or before, it’s all bit of a blur) and then we went too bed. As I wasn’t bothering myself with making deals between various camps, Yabir, our guild leader, and Bram, our impulsive Master smith, were there to do just that. and from what I reckoned they made quite the deals, as we had loads of cash at the end of the evening.

Saturday is, as always, the longest day in any LARP event(save for those week ones) and as such lots of things happened, most of the attacks we suffered were from the Returned but the best ‘event’ on Saturday by far was the visiting Satyr, played by Ronald. it’s suit was just awesome, and well played at it, it was first encountered in the forest, accompanied by a Green Warden(kind of Druid from what I gathered) and immediately some folks wanted to squish it. and I must admit I walked towards it with my weapon drawn and my nerves on ‘ready to squish at the first wrong move’. but when I found that it didn’t do anything and no one had troubles with it we listened a while to the ramblings of the creature(it was a story I’m sure, but I missed most of the beginning and was too far away to make out more then half the words) until our curiosity was satisfied we returned to our camp where we sat and chatted(oh right, I forgot the mention, Ashley(the elven maiden) had joined our group as Elena, healer) with Elena a bit about everything happening at the camp and where she was from and such(we met a day earlier IC). then the Satyr scared the daylights out of me by walking up to our camp and grumbling things. With my hand on my dagger(futile weapon against it, I’m sure, but it soothed my scared soul) I carefully watched it as he turned his curiosity to the little gong we had on the table(it made sound!) after it was satisfied with the hammer and anvil. Lady Elena was a lot braver then Egul, she showed the satyr how things worked.
After this event there was the other BIG thing of the event. Mariska, Steven’s Girlfriend, came to watch the game on Saturday, see what it’s about. Or so she thought. Steven had other plans. So unknowingly she had been dragged around and around until after the Satyr thing. it was then that Yabir and Linx Drago(Steven) started a ritual(Yabir is a ritualist). Let me tell you, if you knew what it was really about, the words were clear, if you didn’t, they could be interpreted completely different. Steven had asked Mariska to tape it all as he claimed that ritual was going to be awesome. The ritual was awesome, as it was a perfect cover of the ceremony of asking one for her hand. Needless to say, Mariska was completely blown away by it. but she said yes. so Steven is going to get married 😀
The aftermath of the asking was quite big and lasted well into the evening for those involved.
the evening was filled with acquiring a mysterious cup, more Returned(even one that could speak!) and our beloved/feared Howlers. I believe some folk were even kidnapped(or was that on the Sunday?)

The Sunday was a short day(from what I am used) but a very filled one at that. there was loads of plot but even asides the plot I found some time with Lady Elena. We sad some ways away from the road watching and chatting. there came the first adventurer followed by another, some while later the latter came running towards the camp(they moved away from it) then back to where the other was. it looked like the other one was carrying something until he collapsed, then the other one ran to the camp again and finally began shouting for a healer. This all took place over the course of half an hour and I had a healer directly aside me. we could have been there within 5 minutes, but no one called us. it was fun.
After this the whole camp went out to somewhere, only to find out followers of Bofang were taking over the camp(yeey! hiking back the way we came) there we fought them and were finally struck down and hit by the vision of Bofang mentioned earlier.

Sorry for the rambling of the Saturday and Sunday, but I’m not sure how much I can tell without spoiling stuff others aren’t supposed to know 😉
the other thing I wanted to tell you lot about(and half the reason of this post) is that my map is approved! so either visit it here or go to the gallery to see it.
the map is far from complete, the colours aren’t supposed to be there(I have had no chance of making and scanning some graphics for mountains and forests yet) and some names have to be filled in and some more added. but the idea is there! So enjoy!
also of note, this map is only one fourth of the actual size of the thing. and because of it’s high Dots per Inch level I can stretch it up to a meter by a meter(3′ by 3′) without a problem or ugly part. so plenty of space 🙂

Yet Another Update

 

indeed, another update!

basic reason is that I am at home and to sick for work, but too clear in the head to lay in bed and hallucinate the day through.

so while I’m getting bored out of my head with 38.7 Degrees(Celcius) I might as well do some update work I was thinking(see post below).
When that was done I was pondering what I could do next, and guess what? it was blogging.
I have quickly browsed through my posts and found two things:
1. I had said I had found a song long ago but there wasn’t an online version of it, well, there is now!
2. I happened to notice that I failed to give you an update from Pascal after the second LARP I went too, Omen.

So, to start off with the Omen thing:
As I have said we went there with a party for a Mercenary group. The group consisted out of 4 folks: Me, Steven, Arjan(met him at Dwaler) and Wim(a neighbour/friend of Steven).
I had the ‘faithful’ job off tank, Steven was my polearm damage buddy, Arjan the plate meatshield and Wim was our healer.
We weren’t liked by the camp(IC) as it’s a refugee camp and we charged coin for our services, you can imagine why. Still, we got an assignment. We were hired by the local Cemetarykeeper Jacques (don’t ask where/how he got the gold, it was solid :P) to march with others to a nearby town off Stoppeldorp, which was said to be raided by Satires(half-beast, half-men, protectors of the forest). So we were dispatched to find out along with a warband. We were in charge of the band as we had the most military experience, but halfway another small group took over (not without discussion I might  add) and as they did the band became uncertain and such.
As we approached the village a dark looming presence took upon us and send us to be paranoid and with a short fuse, yet we carried on. It was not for long until we found out that the village was now in the hands of the Undead and that they had prepared necromancers and Death knights to counter our band.
As we faced them we were uncertain what to do as the bickering over control was still going on, needless to say we were completely butchered, but somehow a good few of us got away. It was also at this point things became hectic, and in the middle of the figth we lost sight of Steven, thinking he was captured/wounded by the enemy we made our way back(carefully) to see if we could find him. It was then we found out that he had some accident involving a sword catching him(by accident) in the eyes, at which he sat dazed on the side of the figth, so ICly he was still with us.
At that point we decided to take the OC shortcut back to the camp as it was warm, it was here that things became unpleasant. The head necromancer and some of his party cam walking by with their hands up(meaning they are OC and not there ICly)but those hands went down as they spotted us. That was point number one. Next we were captured and converted to their God Kalitee(not loved back in the camp) and then we were escorted back on the shortcut to the camp.

It is here that the biggest point comes(and the reason of the long story above): The headnecromancer told some Elves(OC!!) that we were converted, and with that information the Elves used IC!! to hunt us. This thing is called META-gaming and is a VERY big nono in LARPing. Yet it happened. But what’s just as worse is that even though we could be saved by a ritual the Organization pushed the Elves to kill us.
Which happened.
I still can’t say how pissed we were about this fact. In fact, coming event(next week) is a make or break for us. The reason we still try it is because of the setting and some of the guys we met(Jacques and Mok/Count Gray/Mok being the biggest ones for me)
This all happened halfway the Saturday, so I rerolled a different Character: Sanders. An Ice Mage. Not much to say about him as I am not very reluctant to deepen him out for obvious reasons.

but let’s not hang at the sour thing that is the META-gaming. Music Meastro!

Let’s start off with the song I promised you:
Junkie XL vs Saffron –  Crusher

The second set of songs all come from Vienna Teng. She’s an artist discovered through Ashley, the Elven Maiden I referred to a few posts back.
I’ll start off with my favourite: Eric’s Song

Next up is Antebellum:

Third off is My Medea:

and she has lots more! and all jsut as awesome, be sure to check her out!

enjoy!