News update

It's been a month since Manticore took place. The lack of any news from my side doesn't mean that the event wasn't good. From the replies we got on our forum (manticore.oneiros.be/forum) it was considered a very good event.
From an organiser point of view there were some small things that could've gone better, but all things considered we did very well. Great atmosphere in our game HQ, almost no stress etc.
So get ready for Manticore 15 in mid-February 2008!

In the meantime I got confirmation that we can use the terrain that I mentioned here. We won't be using it for Banapsis, but we will use it for a new event that we hope to be able to start in July 2008. More about that event later.

Banapsis is at this moment postponed to 2009. Reason for this is that we still haven't found a suitable terrain for it. We keep on looking, but anyone who might know a forest that is at least 20ha and that can be closed for the public may contact me at jeremy at banapsis dot eu That's it for now. Also be free to contact me to talk about your larp experiences.

Manticore XIV: Illuminati drawing nearer

Tension is mounting as this week will end in Manticore XIV: Illuminati. The team is working great and at this moments we are ready for a smooth start of the game.
For me it's always a small bit stressfull as I need to make sure we don't forget anything. Luckily the gamearea is 3 minutes riding from our stock, so if we forget anything we can quickly go fetch it.
I'm looking forward to it. Almost more than a year since last full-weekend Manticore. Our players are getting very anxious :)

Lord of the Rings fanfilm

Not really larp, but while surfing the net I found the following clip:

It's a fan film about the father of Aragorn, Arathorn.

The trailer was filmed in 2006 and was just a test. For a test the result looks awesome.
I'm also curious about the costumes, I might be able to 'steal' some ideas for larp costumes :-).

More info on : www.bornofhope.com

Bye bye Google Video, welcome YouTube

Just some days after uploading the Manticore briefing video to Google Video it became unavailable.
After recieving 3 mails of Google Helpdesk telling me that it should work I decided to go to YouTube. I re-encoded the clip and split it in two.
I hope that this time the clip stays online.

Manticore players rule!

I already knew that the players at the Manticore larp were from a different breed :-)
Most of them go for high-quality costumes, make medieval style life-size balista's, accept changes that make the game more IC than ever before, etc.

But today when I went to have a look at our forum one group outdid themselves again.

I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves :-)







These are the kind of tents that I'll be using at Banapsis.

Manticore rules movie online

The last two weeks a friend and I have been busy with creating a clip that shows the basic Manticore rules.
Last friday we finished the clip and started compressing it (we filmed in HDV 1080i). Saturday I posted it online using Google video.
After Manticore 14 (9 - 11 nov 2007) we'll start making an update of it, implementing remarks that people posted on the Manticore forum.
But all things considered I'm happy with it.

Tunica made

Here are pictures of my under-tunica and tunica.
I made them using an example made by a friend of mine.
This kind of clothing will be common in Banapsis. The belt is one that I bought yesterday at Spiel in Essen, Germany.

New terrain found

Last week I had an appointment with the son of a landowner. We scouted their 42ha of land to see if I could use it for Banapsis.
My first impression is that we certainly can use it, but I'll be needing a second scouting with the rest of the Banapsis crew to see if it's usable for Banapsis (it's mostly gras with some trees, but there's also a small forest).
If not we'll use it for our other upcoming larp projects.
The son of the landowner was very sure that we would get a good price to rent it for our larps.

I'll keep you informed.

No more part of the board of Oneiros vzw

After years of being part of the board of Oneiros vzw (the largest Larp organisation in Belgium) I resigned today. Due to a recent conflict that started last week, I was stressed 24/7. For my own sake I felt that it was better to let it go and focus myself on my upcoming Manticore larp.
Time will tell if leaving the board was a good move or not.

Time for an update

While I've been rather quiet in the Blog-sphere I've been rather busy in the Real World. In the beginning of September I went back to the UK for the last Maelstrom of the year. Again it was a great larp and I met some new people who made the weekend a fun one to be. Each night we visited other groups' IC bars and as a bard I got free vodka's in the Cossack Bar (they have great games in Cossack bar, like crotch game :-) )

For Banapsis we are still looking for terrains, but I got a meeting planned the coming weeks for a possible terrain.

In the mean time I'm making a lot of new costumes and a scale-mail for Manticore (most costumes will also be usable for Banapsis), 'cause since our last mini-event we crossed the border and are now in Marksgraaf (think Rohan). So we need some costumes that fit the Celtic/Norse culture that they have in Marksgraaf. I hope that my scale-mail will be done by beginning November.

And yes, I'll see that I hold a new photo shoot to finally put another image on the Banapsis website. And yes, I'll do my best to put someone else in front of the camera :-)

Till next time.

In search for a terrain

Last week we went to the Wallonian department of Nature in order to see if we could use a part of one of the largest forest in Belgian (2000ha big) for Banapsis. Sadly we were turned down, due to the fact that our event would disrupt natural life in the forest. Certainly since all the forest life is already disrupted during hunting season.
This again shows that larp in Belgium really needs a dedicated terrain where people acknowledge that we are certainly not more disruptive than hunting :-).
Anyway, using Google satellite maps we are again looking into nice big forests for Banapsis. We've found a few that in 1st instance look good, so we'll have to check them out in real life.
Also our trip to the Wallonian department was not a real loss, we were given info about magazines wherein we might advertise to ask private property owners to let us use (in exchange for a fee) their forest. But the department people did state that chances in success with this approach would be minimal :-(
So if anyone reading this blog has a forest of at least 20ha let us know, we need to talk :-)

Larp summer over for me

Well, it's August, Avatar and Conquest of Mythodea are over.
While I didn't go to Avatar I heard positive and negative feedback about it. On the positive side it was deemed much more professional than previous editions. On the negative side it's still an expensive larp and sanitation installations weren't that good (i.e. for some camps it was a long walk). If something is done about the price I might go back to Avatar next year, but I'm also interested in the Weave of Fate larp in Sweden that'll take place at the same moment.

Beginning August I did go to Conquest of Mythodea as an NPC and it was great!
Low price for participation (29 euro) and I could even get meals from Tuesday till Saterday for a total of 28 euro. That are far better prices than what one would pay for the same at Avatar. Yes I was an NPC, but that meant only 4 hours of duty a day. The rest of the day I was free to do what I wanted. Being an NPC at Conquest actually means you are canon fodder, but I had some great fights and even a very nice one-on-one duel.
Also the look of the camps and the city is so much better at Conquest than at Avatar. Almost no OOC tents seen in the PC's camp.
Negative about Conquest were the Dixie toilets, they weren't emptied too often, but after 1 day I found next to the Dixies (a bit hidden) real water toilets, so that made up for the stinking Dixies. Also good showers with (at some times) very hot water.

All in all, I'm certain to go back to Conquest next year (they announced that NPC's would get more RPG instead of just hack 'n slash), Avatar is something I'll have to see. I'd love to play again with my Avatar group, but I won't stand paying alot for a so-so larp.

With Conquest my Larp summer ended, next larp on my agenda is Maelstrom (UK) in September and my own Manticore in November and of course lot's of work for Banapsis.

Avatar and Conquest of Mythodea are coming

At the end of July the Avatar larp will take place in Belgium.
I've been playing in this fest larp for 4 years. Last year I couldn't participate due to Dragonbane and this year I won't out of principle.
I've always been part of the "Vlammende Adelaars" (Flaming Eagles) faction. And while I had some good moments I always remember the bad parts. The way the rules sometimes change during the game makes me angry about it. But also the way the organisers throw away money on stupid stuff is just crazy. The Avatar organisation publishes their bookaccounts every year, so we can see where all the money goes to. E.g. I strongly have my doubts about the need to spend around 500 euro/year on internet hosting.
I once read a report where they expected to get about 80'000 euro IN (reasonable amount of money) and then calculate that they'll spend 75'000 euro (most on stupid stuff), reality then showed them the numbers were changed: 75'000 euro IN and 80'000 euro out!
And then they increased the participation fee to cover the costs (at least 60 euro's for just a laminated card, some pocker chips money, stinking toilets and a patch of grass to put my own tent on).
Having done a lot of larps in- and outside Belgium made me realise that Avatar is actually no longer a larp (at least 2 years ago it wasn't), it's just an expensive camping site where people have a BBQ and wear Larp clothes. So no more Avatar for me, unless someone can prove to me that they changed.
This is an example of what I never want to happen to Banapsis. All the money gained from it should be invested back into it to improve the experience of the participants. Also Banapsis should be self-sustainable, this means that we'll never spend more money than we get from the participants fee.

So since I won't be doing Avatar this summer I'll be going to Conquest of Mythodea. Instead of the outrageous fee of AvatarI just paid 24 euro's. Conquest is run by a company and it's clearly visible, lot's of high quality larp props, good terrain, ... All the things I hoped Avatar had. Of course Conquest is your typical boffer larp, meaning it's mostly fighting (as Avatar is). I don't mind that since they advertise it as a boffer larp. At Conquest I can play the warrior I always liked to play, shield charging is allowed (never got a complaint about it :-) ), while in Belgium it would earn me a warning. Of course in Germany most warriors wear steel armour, so that might be the reason why hitting hard and shield charges are allowed. I.e. in such armour you don't feel it when someone hits hard. Only negative comment on Conquest is that the ref's direct the NPC's to much and are in OOC clothes.

The rules also apply to the organisers

That is one of the most important rule of Banapsis. Whatever rule we set upon our participants will also be followed by the organisers.
One of those rules will be that fabric of the costumes must be natural, that means no synthetic fabric. There are a number of reasons for this; one is that synthetic fabric is not really authentic to the look we want to achieve, but the most important reason is that Banapsis will have open fires (aka campfires). Since people will cook at those fires their clothes will come close to the fire. Synthetic fabric will melt and possible burn the flesh under it (I once had it happen to me, so I learned that lesson the hard way).
So now that we have 400m of fabric I checked them out and it seems that there are a few synthetic fabrics amongst them, not that many, but still these fabrics will not be used by us in Banapsis. So now that we removed those fabrics we still have a rather big amount of fabric. The coming weeks will be spend making costume designs and making the costumes themselves.
As said before, we won't open our website unless we have at least one costume of each race/faction.

400m of fabric is now ours

Yesterday I collected the 400m of the fabric.
Most of the fabric is usable for Banapsis costumes, others will be used for other stuff.
I also had a talk with their PR guy and they sadly won't sponsor us, but we are still allowed to buy extra fabric if we need it. So all in all not a bad deal.

In the meantime we've gotten international feedback. One person already joined the team (a Swede) and another (a German) is on the brink of joining. Both of them were at Dragonbane and therefor know the goal we're trying to reach with Banapsis.
In the summer we will make some videos about Banapsis. Some will show the way of life, others the way we want you to fight, etc.

Affordable fabric

Last week we made a deal with a big international fabric manufacturer. Thanks to them we got all the needed fabric for Banapsis at an excellent low price. Since I'll be contacting them for a possible sponsorship I won't give their name yet. But I hope that soon we'll have them as one of our sponsors. Which in turn will result in us being able to extend the deal also with our participants. That way our participants will be able to get their fabric at a cheap price.

Making it affordable

As a former student, I know how difficult it can be to get the right gear/costume when you are on a budget. Since Banapsis sets high standards on costume and gear the costs will be higher than for a normal (Belgian) larp. Cause for a normal (Belgian) larp black modern shoes are ok, while for Banapsis you must have medieval style shoes.

First of all we are at this moment in the process of contacting shops/manufacturers/... to get stuff as cheap as possible, this goes from fabric, latex swords, mugs/goblets to shoes. Our goal is that for some 100 euro the Banapsis participant on a budget will be able to get all the needed stuff to make his/her costume and gear.
Of course with 100 euro you'll have to make almost everything yourself (including the shoes). But we will provide guidelines on how to make it all yourself.
Furthermore we will make sure that those with a bigger budget will be able to buy stuff at reasonable prices. For example good shoes starting at 50 euros, decent latex sword at 60 euros, ...

That way Banapsis is not a larp for the rich, but a larp for the dedicated roleplayer.

PS: if any of the readers here has any contact for buying stuff, let me know at jeremy at banapsis dot eu

It's been quiet

In Belgium the larp season is over for the first part of 2007 which is one of the reasons I don't have much to talk about besides Banapsis. Since I don't want to give away to much information in advance, I just kept quiet. But here is a small update without giving to much away ;-).
First a friend of mine helped out with writing the letter (in French) that I'll sent to the owners of the forest that we want to use for Banapsis. The letter is written in such a way that the owners normally will invite us to let us persuade them to use the forest for Banapsis :-), so it'll be crossed fingers the coming weeks.
Next we continued working on the concept of Banapsis, fine tuning the details. Most of the rough edges are now defined and we are now starting to work on the details of everything.
The design and backbone of the website is also starting to become finished, so soon it'll be ready to be filled with lots of information.
Besides that I also contacted the organisers of Dragonbane and we'll be able to get some of the stuff they bought for Dragonbane. This as a goal to provide affordable gear for all participants. Cause we know that Banapsis will demand lots of effort from our participants and we want to make it as cheap as possible for them to buy/make the right stuff.

Banapsis costumes

Since we will set very high dress code standards for Banapsis it's only natural that we make sure that our npc costumes follow the same standard.
That's why with the Banapsis crew we will make all our npc clothes ourselves. Last Saturday I made the basis of our Elven costume. In the coming weeks I'll keep working on it and I hope that by mid-June it'll be finished so I can post a picture of it here.
Our goal is to have for each faction at least one example costume ready when the website goes online. That way our participants will be able to use those costumes as a guideline when making their own costumes.
While making the Elven costume I also took some pictures on how I made the pattern of the costume using a tshirt, this to make it possible for those with no sewing skills to make a pattern themselves.
So when our website goes online you'll find pictures of costumes and guidelines on how to make them yourself.

Most memorable Dragonbane moment

This time I'll tell you my most memorable Dragonbane moment, a moment that I've never experienced during any other larp before and after Dragonbane.

It happened during the 3rd day of Dragonbane. In the village Cinderhill people were getting more and more afraid of what the Dragon (their former protector) would do when it found out that the villagers had used the whole Dragon's treasure to buy extra food for the village over the years.
When evening came the villagers believed that the Dragon would come that night to claim all the children of the village as repayment. I and 2 other Dragontamers opposed the sacrifice of the children and we promised we would keep watch over the children. If the Dragon came we would take them to the forest where the Dragon would have a hard time to find us.
So when night came we went to the children, we prepared food for them and since they were clearly scared (very good roleplay of those children!) we told them stories of our adventures to make them less scared. It felt very satisfying that during our stories the children's eyes started to shine with excitement. When the children started to fall asleep we gave them our own sheepskins to sleep on and use as blankets¹.
During the night we talked amongst ourselves about the Dragon threat, to where we would go in the forest and such. When it was getting really late one of us went to sleep while the other two kept watch. After a couple of hours we woke the one asleep and another would get to sleep some hours. We continued this until it was morning and we were certain the Dragon would not come that night.

The story just told really made me feel the hero of stories. We didn't get much sleep (we really did a 24hour watch), we made sure the children were safe, we kept the fire going (it was very cold at night) and we told them stories to make them less scared. Especially when their eyes started to shine when they listened to our stories made me feel the hero ;-)

Moments like this are what I want to recreate with Banapsis, such moments are what I want Larp to be.

As always comments are welcome, you might even tell me what your most memorable Larp moment was.

¹ as tamers we were obliged by the organisation that everything we would need we should be able to carry ourselves, since as adventurers without horses everything we need is carried by us, this included sleeping gear. I had 4 sheepskins sewn together as a mattress (I could roll it up and fix with IC strips to hang from my shoulder) and another huge sheepskin that I used as cloak was used as blanket.

More about Dragonbane

Yesterday one of the Banapsis guys made a small notice on the Manticore forum (click here) about Banapsis being a new kind of larp for Belgium and this generated a discussion about the possibility of a larp without experience points (xp) and without skills.
One of them asked about an example on how it's possible so here comes a short example about how it was at Dragonbane.

At Dragonbane the choices we got were the following: choose your faction, create your background and play it.
Factions: Cinderhillians (villagers), Dragontamers (adventurers, they all had a large dagger (50cm)) and witches (they could do magic). Everybody could use a weapon, but only the tamers had one for themselves, the cinderhillians had a couple of weapons but not enough for everyone, the witches had no weapons.
The witches could do magic, but only one spell per day (the game lasted 6 days). They could do any spell they wanted as long as it was something that would be believable.
The cinderhillians had no special skill, but they had their village, witches and tamers lived in tents in the (HUGE) wood.
During the game there were NO fights (as in battle), only at the end of the game one player executed another for a matter of honor.
Mostly we just 'lived' our character: sleeping, getting up, bringing the fire back to life, cutting down a tree for wood, cooking food, fetching water, going to Cinderhill to trade our meat for food they had that we had not. At night we celebrated with story telling, singing, dancing, duelling. When we were at the Cinderhill village we helped them with their chores, told stories for the children etc.
At not one moment did I feel bored, I wasn't looking to become someone important, I just played my character. There was no worldsaving plot, the plot was just about 3 totally different factions trying to live together without killing each other (there was also the minor detail of the Dragon wanting to destroy Cinderhill).
When someone got wounded the medic (only people with OOC medic skills could play a medic), would bandage their wounds, make a potion (OOC tea) and that would heal them a bit but NEVER fully => getting in battle would make certain that any wounds would bother you for the rest of the event.
When duelling we considered any hit as a scratch unless the one inflicting the wound really tries to hurt you badly.

My vision about Banapsis

Last time I talked about my reasons for starting the new Larp project Banapsis. But while giving the reason I actually didn't say anything about what I tried to change in Manticore.
With Banapsis I want to make the participants start to believe that they are really living in the world that we will create during the Banapsis event.
I already hear someone say: it's not possible. Well sorry to disappoint you, but it is, I and many others had that feeling during the Dragonbane larp. During many moments of the Dragonbane larp I actually thought I was really walking in the world of Dragonbane.

This was accomplished thanks to a simple rule: What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG). If everything you see actually looks real (or even better is real) then you have less trouble being you character. You no longer have to 'imagine' that there is no car, the car won't be there in the first place!

WYSIWYG is the easiest way to describe my vision of Banapsis: make everything inside the game area look real: IC sleeping area, IC sleeping gear, IC eating kit, IC costume (including shoes and underwear), ...
One other important item of my vision is: STAY IN CHARACTER! I just hate it that in most larps I play people start to talk about OOC stuff, now when I hear OOC talk I just leave that group of people, their OOC talk also takes me OOC while I keep trying to stay IC for the whole event (I only succeeded in that at Dragonbane).
Next in my vision is the game system. There I apply the following simple rule: make the system support the game, not make it more complicated. For this I believe the best game system is the following: Freeform, i.e. if others believe what you do, then you can do it. This means: NO SKILLS!
Example of simple freeform: you want to heal someone (remember there is NO healing skill), you take some bandages (in your hand you hide a small flask with fake blood), while pressing the bandages on the wounded person you pour a small bit (or large depending on the wound) of fake blood on the wound. You are now roleplaying that you are cleaning the wound, next you take some thread and needle and you roleplay that you are stitching the wound. After that you use your bandages to wrap the wound tight. If the others believe your roleplaying of the treatment of the wound then it succeeds, if not it doesn't work, you might even have made it worse (depending on the roleplay of the wounded person).

Next time more about how we plan to make it affordable for people to fit our vision (yes, IC shoes can be found at prices as cheap as 30 euro).

Oneiros vzw gets new board

Oneiros vzw is the non-profit organisation where the Manticore larp has it's home.
Yesterday was the annual General Meeting where the old board stepped down (due to the end of their term) and a new one got elected. I'm still part of the board and now become the secretary, this means I'll have to do all the administrative work and make minutes of the board meetings.
I was a bit saddened by the low turnout of members, but this made sure the the meeting was concluded quickly.
More info about Oneiros can be found (in Dutch) on their website at: www.oneiros.be

Why Banapsis?

One of the questions some of you will ask is why am I creating a new larp, aren't there enough already?
You are correct there are a lot of larps, but most are exactly the same in a different wrapping. With Banapsis I not only want to change the wrapping, I want to completely change what's inside.

It all started in 2005 when I went to Sweden to help out in the Dragonbane larp. They were actually building a medieval style village in the middle of nowhere just for a larp! Talking there to the organisers and volunteers, like myself, made me realise there is so much more to larp than what we do here in Belgium. In 2006 it was playtime for Dragonbane and while it wasn't perfect it made such a big impression on me that to this date (more than 6 months later) I'm still in post-Dragonbane rehab.

As some might already know I already run a larp in Belgium, Manticore. When I first came back from Sweden in 2005 I tried to change Manticore to what I heard of from the Swedes/Danes/Fins/... but I only half succeeded. The reason for this is that Manticore is a running larp (started somewhere in 2000) and people don't like it when the concept changes in midways. So I only changed the stuff that was accepted by the participants. Most important of those changes where the (partly) abolition of Time-Stop moments (battleboarding in the UK).

So, since I couldn't bring the Dragonbane atmosphere to Belgium via Manticore I started a new project, Banapsis.

Next time more on my vision of Banapsis.

The curtain will lift a bit

In the coming weeks I'm going to spill some details of the Banapsis larp. It will contain some high level info about this new larp as well as some more pictures.
We are also starting the development of our website (at www.banapsis.eu), from the moment we have a fix on the game area we will open up the website. The goal of the website will be to be 100% functional containing all the info, so no site under construction.
You're always free to use the comments to post questions about Banapsis, I might give you answers in my next blog :-)

Got girls interested in Larp

On monday I was at a birthday party of one of my friends (Evelien). One of my Larp friends (Kristof) was also there and at one time we started talking about Larp. Some friends of Evelien got really interested in the concept and asked me to keep them informed. I was amazed how well they received it, cause if they come to play at e.g. Manticore that means at least 5 extra female NPC's (who are rather good looking :-) ).
So I'll see that I'll be able to get them to participate in Manticore. Only problem is that Manticore does tend to have lots of fighting going on and girls generally don't like that. That means I'll have to talk Vince (scenario guru of Manticore) into making the plot also girl-friendly :-)

Caege Renaissance 2 was great

Last weekend I again became Findulas Lasgalen, a woodelf of the Lasgalen clan from Kell'terrah. Caege Renaissance (CR) takes place in a fantastic Europe set in the Renaissance period. The world thus looks like Europe, but with different names and the addition of the Fantasy element.

Kell'Terrah is actually Scotland, so we talk our English (aka the Elven tongue) with a Scottish accent (or what we think a Scottish accent is :-) ).
In this larp we are not the kind of Elves that don't come out of the forest. We mix with the humans and use sign languages to make them understand what we mean. We enjoy live and love to watch pretty girls (at least my Findulas does, the other two Elves might not do that :-) ).

As said in my last post, in CR you need to find a teacher for every silly little skill you want to learn. This event I had an idea what I'd be going for, but that all changed when I was so badly wounded I ended up on the surgeon's bed. Since Findulas is already proficient in the making and repairing of softleather clothes I was interested in how the surgeon sew me up (I drank lots of alchohol (IC and OOC :-) ) in order to be a little immune to the pain :-) ). I talked a lot with the surgeon and ended this event with the basic surgeon skill. So I'm now also able to stitch up people :-).

The overall feel of the weekend was superb, I managed to stay IC most of the time, mostly got pulled out OOC by OOC talk of other participants. I also had a great talk with my friend Nico (IC: Yorrick Monroe of the clan Monroe of Monroe Island), he's actually thinking of buying some IC shoes and making himself some IC underwear. Just got to say: that's the spirit :-)
The only thing I didn't like at CR was the photographers in modern clothes and the fact that it was a public domain and due to the excellent weather about 15-ish tourists were there.

Pictures ©Kris Bultereys (kris.bultereys at gmail dot com)

Caege Renaissance 2 coming weekend

Next weekend it's Larp time again, Caege Renaissance.
This is one of the many larps that vzw Oneiros runs in Belgium.
In this Larp I play a Wood Elf who is a craftsman. Caege is one of the few Larps in Belgium that tries to go for more roleplaying than fighting. At their first event I saw 2 fights during the whole weekend, while normally a larp in Belgium has a least 6 fights per weekend.
While I love the roleplaying aspect of the game I'm still abit saddened that so many good roleplayers with excellent costumes still tend to use bright plastic eating utensils. At my current Larp (Manticore) plastic is forbidden and for the upcoming Banapsis the eating utensils must be 100% authentic looking. I hope that in the future Caege will have 100% authentic feel.
The one thing that I really hate at Caege is the need to find a teacher during the game for every stupid little skill. Last time I spent almost my whole event trying to look for a tanner. I do hope that they get rid of that rule and only have teachers for the special skills.

PS: I have opened the leaving of comments to everybody.

Banapsis location scouting

Yesterday I went on a location scouting for the Banapsis larp.
I found the location using Google Earth's satellite images.
I will of course not say where the scouting took place, but this scouting gave me the feeling that we found a very suitable terrain for Banapsis, it's almost a 2000ha big forest that can be closed for public access.
In the coming weeks I'll check with the landowners if we can use it for Banapsis. I'll post an entry in this blog the moment that I get a confirmation that we can use it.
While wandering through the forest I felt the same feeling I had when I was in the forest of Dragonbane.
So it's now fingers crossed :-)
And here are some pictures of the forest










All pictures © Jeremy Naus

Maelstrom pictures

Here below are some pictures of the Maelstrom event.

This is Roos (IC: Lizzy) and Kristof (IC: Robert) before my tent.


This is me (IC: Arutha) stepping out of the tent


And this last one is again Roos and Kristof

Manticore 13.5: Reisgenoten

Last weekend the one day event of Manticore (which is the larp I've been running for some 7 years now) took place.
The event was actually a hiking trip through the Belgian Ardennes (our mountain range).
The idea was that during the event we actually simulated the trip player-characters normally take during two events
In total people walked for about 7 hours with about 30 minutes of break for lunch.
This was our first try at such an event and while we made some errors (e.g. game started 2 hours too late) it was considered a big success by the participants.
We are thinking of organising more such events in the future.
One drawback of a Manticore right after Maelstrom is Belgians still tend to come to our events without proper IC clothes. I was really embarrassed when one of our npc's came with blue jeans. Luckily he was only a monster during the game. I'm thinking of having some 'penalties' for people who don't wear correct IC clothes, but I'll have to think about it some more.

Back from the Maelstrom

Last weekend I was in the UK for the Maelstrom larp.
For two of my friends it was their first UK event, they liked it a lot. Especially the high dress standard of the game was well received by them.
With our players group "Morgan Enterprises" we started a 'restaurant' were we sold (for IC money) food. We were very popular and hopefully our group will be able to use the earned money to pay of the IC debts we have.
What I also like about Maelstrom is that their skills are more oriented to do things between the games, that gives the game also a tactical part. Where the game itself is the diplomatic (or militaristic) part of the whole game.
We also had a drawing made of me and my friends. I'm of course the tall guy on the left :)

Maelstrom, UK

Tomorrow morning I'll be driving to the UK for the Maelstrom Larp.
It's a Larp set in a renaissance fantasy setting where people are colonising the New World (a bit like the colonisation of America).
What I like about this game is the rather high dress standard and the real metal money used in the game (there are about 6 different currencies with each currency having 6 different coins).
The one thing that I don't like is the fact that the high standards are only on costumes, not gear like tents and the like. Still, modern tents have to be put in the OOC area. In the IC area only medieval style tents are allowed (although some people do bent the rules somewhat).
I'll see that I'll post some pics when I'm back.

First entry

In this blog I'll be talking about my views on Larp (Live Action Role Playing).
I'll give examples on what I find good about current Larps I play in and what I find bad about it.
I'll also will give some hints to my new Larp project called Banapsis.