Monday, May 11, 2009

Saga was great

Back from Saga and I must say it was a great one for me.
I had just little dark looks due to what happened last week so I had little difficulty enjoying myself.
As I was NPC-ing I got a role handed by the team, and what a role it was. I was able to play the father of my late character, this allowed me to feel how it would've turned out for my former character (if he wasn't turned undead at the previous event).
It really felt good to hear IC from all the players how well Hakeem (my former character) was liked by them. I heard stories that I myself had forgotten.

As is always the case with Saga the game area was again well transformed into a nice IC area. They really surpassed themselves in the decoration of the local 'inn'.

Here's a picture my good friend Vince took of me at Saga (I'm on the right :-) )

Friday, May 08, 2009

Dark clouds

A couple of weeks ago I informed the Oneiros board that I wanted to stop volunteering for them as I was having too many disagreements with them and didn't like the rules they wanted to impose on me (one of those rules will directly influence how 'cool' the Inn looks at each Manticore event). I told it to them as to make the break easy and to stay friends: 'we agreed to disagree’ and then move on.

I used to have a lot of respect for the board of Oneiros, but after events of this past week I was shocked by their disrespect towards me.

For more than 10 years I was a volunteer for Oneiros. I attended almost all stock-cleaning days, I was for a couple years their webmaster and editor-in-chief, I promoted Oneiros on numerous game fairs (sometimes I was the only one present to promote Oneiros), used Oneiros as an example of a good way to organise Larp (when giving a lecture at Knudepunkt in Denmark) and I made Manticore such a successful event that it earned an awful amount of money for Oneiros. In all the things I did I was supporting Oneiros (and not just my own project) in ways other volunteers didn't. I used to think that those things counted for something with Oneiros.

But it all turned to dust as if it never happened as I've just experienced the worst kind of backstabbing possible.

I want to tell more about the how and why, but that would mean I'd be lowering myself to their level, which at this point is not my intend (yet). Suffice it to say that I'm deeply disappointed in those I used to call friends.

This evening I'll be attending the very excellent Oneiros larp SAGA and I expect to get some dark and evil looks. But I'll try my best not to change my playing habits and will do everything to try to enjoy the game.

Outlore was GREAT

Last weekend it was Outlore in the South-West of the UK.
For me it was the first time that I participated in it and I must say it was AWESOME. At this moment it's nr2 on my Best Larp List (nr1 is still Dragonbane).
The visual realism was excellent (despite the very visible 'plastic camp') and the atmosphere was magical. Great battles were had along great songs and storytellings by the bards.
I can only say that if you want to try a larp unlike anyother in Belgium you should check out Outlore at http://www.dumnonni.com/ you will not be disappointed.