We live in an apocalyptic age. The collapse of highly developed and precariously connected civilisation is a recurrent feature in human history; examples range from Bronze Age Middle East to Mesoamerica in the Classic Maya era. Today the disaster is global, and the unfolding climate catastrophe and newfound affection for nuclear weapons bring the terror of disintegration closer to home week by week. The blackbox larp End(less) Story (Norway 2022) by Nina Runa Essendrop taps into this mortal dread unapologetically and with compassion.
The writing room. Photo from The Smoke larp festival.
The participants (the larp is designed for 6–15 people) play the spirits of the last humans. The characters gradually remember fragments of their life and grapple with their foregone death, which also marks the end of humanity. The characters’ means of interacting with each other, always personal and ever ambiguous, first grow as their minds open up. They are then severed as the spirits approach either oblivion or the unknown beyond, the memory of our species erased or transformed with them.
The larp pointedly leaves the cause of extinction unspecified: climate catastrophe, war, asteroid impact or other terminal events are for the players to inject if they so choose. Short larps – End(less) Story is four hours long, including workshop and debrief – necessarily leave a lot of background to the players’ discretion, which can result in loss of coherence in the shared world and mutual narrative.
End(less) Story sidesteps the problem by denying the players verbal communication. The larp is played in three rooms. In the first room, where the characters awake, the players can converse with each other by body expression, touch and movement. As lights turn on in the second room, the players can go there and interact by shadows cast on white fields with hands and sundry objects. The third room, which opens last, has a large sheet of paper with a single sentence written on it. The players can process the characters’ sensation by writing, but must incorporate a word already on the page, and cannot directly reply to or address each other. This elliptical linguistic intercourse makes for a creative contrast with the unmediated sensation of connecting by touch and movement.
Communication by touch is well adapted to the theme, as it steers the players to build a narrative on emotive currents rather than precise events. Absence of verbalisation also enables scenes that are significant for the story arc, but whose narrative meaning can radically differ from character to character, as the players individually frame their own story on the structure prepared by the organiser.
The rooms become dark and close off one by one, starting with the text area, and the spirits are forced back to their starting position. There they must relinquish their tenuous existence, whether or not they have been able to come to terms with their past history and immediate condition in this short time.
Interactions in the shadow play room. Photo from The Smoke larp festival.
The entire experience is supported by an informally ritualistic soundtrack of non-verbal Meredith Monk pieces. Three times her voice is punctuated by shots of loud brown noise, during which the characters recall their destruction with increasing clarity.
It’s a beautiful design, neatly implemented. After playing End(less) Story at the Grenselandet larp festival in Oslo in 2022, I was deeply moved and left with admiration for the composition. But reflection led to doubt.
Apocalypse and coming to terms with mortality are themes nearly as old as recorded fiction, featuring prominently already in the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the 1970s, post-apocalyptic fiction had particular resonance due to fear of nuclear devastation from runaway superpower competition. Climate anxiety of the 2000s is a more persistent variety of trauma, as now impending destruction is contingent on evident societal inaction, not on possible misaction by a handful of leaders.
This is reflected in works of art shifting their focus from life after the apocalypse to accepting the end of the world. For example, while the 2021 film Don’t Look Up may have been intended to coax people into action, its climax features the characters accepting their fate as they are annihilated together with the rest of humanity. In End(less) Story, the apocalypse is equally total, with no one left to pick up the pieces. This heightens the somewhat transcendental experience of the larp, but also raises questions.
Human extinction is inevitable. But collective conduct will determine whether it comes soon or waits in the far future. Art is made from the material of its day, and End(less) Story lives in the troubles of our era.
End(less) Story may be effective as desensitisation therapy for climate anxiety, helping either to resist paralysis in the face of insurmountable odds or to remain unperturbed in the face of extermination. Interpretation of larp is arguably more subjective than other narrative art forms, especially with a figurative work like End(less) Story. I felt End(less) Story to carry the message that even if you rage, the light will die, and wise people at their end know dark is right. Tranquillity in the face of personal deadly disease or lethal injury may be a philosophical virtue, but granting people the serenity to simply accept the things they could change is a different lesson altogether.
The question that hangs over End(less) Story is whether terminal illness is an apt metaphor for the present state of civilisation. As a counterpoint we may note that climate catastrophe is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. Human existence is ending on a day-to-day basis, and we can make things worse or better.
The British politician Tony Benn famously said that progress is made because there are two flames burning in the human heart: the flame of anger against injustice and the flame of hope that you can build a better world. We should pause before reaching for the extinguisher.
The extinction room. Photo from The Smoke larp festival.
Bibliography
Don’t Look Up (2021), directed by Adam MacKay, Hyperobject Industries and Bluegrass Films.
Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (1989). Oxford University Press.
Ludography
End(less) Story (2022): Norway. Nina Runa Essendrop.
This article has been reprinted with permission from the Solmukohta 2024 book. Please cite as:
Räsänen, Syksy. 2024. “Extinction Now: Coming to Terms with Dissolution in End(less) Story.” In Liminal Encounters: Evolving Discourse in Nordic and Nordic Inspired Larp, edited by Kaisa Kangas, Jonne Arjoranta, and Ruska Kevätkoski. Helsinki, Finland: Ropecon ry.
Cover photo: Photo from The Smoke larp festival. Image has been cropped.
From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos… — Hesiod’s Theogony
Helicon is a larp by Katrine Wind and Maria Pettersson. The first run was held January 5-7, 2024 in Broholm Castle, Denmark, with a second run scheduled for February 16-18. The larp focuses upon a group of artists, leaders, and scientists in the early twentieth century with various specialties who have discovered and enacted an occult ritual in their university years together. This ritual enables them to call forth the Muses of Greek antiquity, children of Zeus and Mnemosyne, goddess of Memory. The artists ensnare the Muses into servitude such that the Muses are spiritually bound into conferring their Inspiration to the artist who summoned them (their “Inspired”) and are not allowed to Inspire others without a direct order. They are also no longer free to leave the vicinity in which their Inspired has ordered them to stay; through the course of the larp, this vicinity was Helicon Manor, a far cry from the Mount Helicon of antiquity where they normally go for replenishment. Helicon deals explicitly with themes of artistic inspiration, addiction, emotional turmoil, power, restrictions on freedom, and dysfunctional relationship dynamics.
If you are planning to play a future run, please be mindful that this article will share spoilers about the details of the design and the ending.
Thalia, the Muse of Comedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Urania, the Muse of Philosophy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Physical and Spiritual Subjugation
And, when they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse’s Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon and move with vigorous feet…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
In Helicon, each Muse has a specific theme that infuses their Inspiration and guides play: Comedy, Dance, Epic poetry, History, Love poetry, Music, Painting, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Sculpture, Song, Spiritual inspiration, and Tragedy. While the power dynamics within the dyads (and in one case, triad) are complex, the Muses are essentially enslaved to their Inspired. They can be drained dry of Inspiration, which the Inspired can use to fuel great deeds or waste as they wish. They can be separated from their siblings: the only beings who can truly understand their divine nature and the millennia of memories they share. They can be physically, emotionally, and spiritually abused by their captors. Even in the kindest of pairings, they must endure the renewal ritual of binding every year, witnessing all of their siblings undergo the process of losing their free will once more. Muses are required to wear only white and gold, with their clothing chosen by their Inspired.
Omorfia and Philip Frost, Muse and Inspired of Painting. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The Muses can also exert influence over their human captors. When their captors experience their Inspiration, whether given consensually or forcibly taken by the Inspired, the experience is akin to being high on drugs and vulnerable to the Muse emotionally such that promises can be extracted. However, whether or not the Inspired chooses to honor those promises depends entirely on their own integrity: not a common trait written within these characters. While the Inspired have different attitudes toward the binding ritual and its problematic ethics, they still willingly or grudgingly participate in subjugating the Muses each year for their own gain.
This subjugation is particularly painful within the context of the epic setting. Because the Muses are forced to give Inspiration only to one (or two) humans, the rest of the world is starving and wasting away. For millennia, the Muses were deities that evoked worship and vulnerable surrender in order to receive their blessings. They could freely give Inspiration and leave at will as befits their nature; now, they were forced into servitude. At the center of this dynamic is the frailty of the human ego: how even the “best” in the world still struggle with needing to feel recognized and important, and how such insecurities lead people to cause brutal harm to others in order to extract their vital energy and love.
The larp is a mixture of the mundane and the extraordinary, with the interactions taking on a significance not only within these interpersonal dynamics, but upon the world stage and even within the realm of gods. For this reason, I classify the experience as epic play, not only because of the context of Greek epic poetry from which it emerges, but also due to the heightened significance of these actions and the strong emphasis on great artistic production arising out of pain. To subjugate a person in order to extract their vital energy is tragic; to subjugate the Muse of Tragedy is tragic on an epic level.
Melpomene (standing), Taylor Montgomery (left), and Thomas Montgomery (right), Muse and Inspired of Tragedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The white and gold attire worn by the Muses gave them an ethereal, otherworldly quality that contrasted sharply with the Vintage Era clothing of the artists. The website describes the Vintage Era as encompassing “any time from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century” (Wind and Pettersson 2023). In contrast to this vaguely modern era, diegetically, the Muses have existed for millennia. Despite this eternal quality, however, the Muses tend to “live in the present.” This meant in practice that we may have fragments of memories from bygone eras of having inspiring historical or legendary mythic figures at will, but such memories would be less important than the present moment experience. For me, this awareness led to a strange contrast between being trapped in a mundane human experience of time and its day-to-day concerns, while also mentally leaping to other times and places, adding to the eerie and unnatural nature of the Muses’ servitude. Such elements added a sense of epicness to play.
The concept of epic play is not intended to reduce the importance of larps focusing on oppression, intimacy, and other dynamics occurring amongst “mere” humans, but rather to describe an aesthetic quality about the larp that sets it apart from larps about the mundane world. To be captured as a Muse meant we could not Inspire others, such that our lack of involvement due to our enslavement was creating ripples in reality not only inside Helicon Manor, but outside of it. The Inspired could trade or even gamble away the Muses’ Inspiration, which can be seen as a mixture of their vital essence and their labor the Muses no longer had liberty to use as they wished.
This epic aesthetic quality can also be ascribed to certain storylines within fantasy larps and themes in other games that feature a supernatural component. Epicness relies upon the ensemble of players committing to underscore the epic significance of the actions performed within play. I have had epic play experiences in other settings, such as at the Vampire: the Masquerade (1991) larp Convention of Thorns (2017) as well as within chamber larps and tabletop RPGs of various genres; indeed, this epic quality is likely what draws many people again and again to Dungeons & Dragons (1974-), which is still the most popular tabletop setting in the world.
What made Helicon exemplary in this respect was the care put into the communication, design, structure, and safety surrounding the experience such that this epic quality — and the tragic predicament within which these characters were ensnared — was emphasized. This article will focus on these design and implementation practices, providing theoretical context from my perspective as a player-researcher enacting a Muse character where appropriate.
Calliope and Edmund Wright, Inspired and Muse of Epic Poetry. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Lawrence Black and Erato, Inspired and Muse of Love Poetry. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Circles of Trust and Betrayal
Thence they arise and go abroad by night, veiled in thick mist, and utter their song with lovely voice, praising…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
The larp designers fostered trust among the player base in a variety of ways. The website clearly communicated not only the themes of the larp, but also its structure and which sorts of experiences the players were encouraged and discouraged to enact. Players were not expected to demonstrate expertise in their respective arts or to perform during the larp, which lowered the perceived barrier to entry of performance anxiety. Despite the intimate nature of many of the relationships, the designers detailed that this larp is not intended to be an erotic larp in which public displays of sexuality are encouraged and are often a central design feature (Grasmo and Stenros 2022). While such larps can be experienced as liberating for participants (Juhana Pettersson 2021b), explicit sexuality can distract from the more subtle relationship dynamics and interactions that this larp sought to foster. Regardless of the chosen themes, expectation setting is important in creating a shared culture before signup even begins (Koljonen 2016a), provided of course that the players adhere to this established social contract.
Similarly, the website described the structure of scenes that would occur, which included a form of fateplay (Fatland 2000) of certain scenes framing each act. It described the pre-larp scene of the Muses attempting and failing at escape, only to be dragged back to Helicon Manor: in achingly strong contrast to the real Mount Helicon, where they would gather for connection and renewal as siblings before their enslavement.
Stella Wilson, Inspired of Spiritual Inspiration, led the rituals. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The larp was framed with a beautifully epic theme song composed by Anni Tolvanen, which ushered us in and out of play. Tolvanen also curated a soundscape of dramatic music that echoed through the halls during the larp. The first Act began with a ritualized Punishment scene while standing in a circle, in which the Inspired enacted consequences on their Muses for their escape attempt, also forcing the Muses to punish each other. I have also utilized this technique of starting the larp by dropping characters directly into ritual space when co-designing Immerton (2017) and Epiphany (2018). I find it a particularly helpful practice to emphasize the core themes of the game, help players quickly get past the awkwardness of the first hour of the larp, and create intensely meaningful role-play moments from the beginning that can feed play later. (For further reading on these larps, see Jones 2017; Brown et al. 2018; Kim, Nuncio, and Wong 2018).
In our discussions after the larp, Wind referred to this design technique as part of a concept she calls frontloading, which she will further describe in an upcoming article. For Katrine, this term referred to the structure and pacing in terms of intensity, which puts a lot of structured and tense content earlier in the larp. This term also resonated with Maria, who described frontloading as designing extensive and complex character relations with focus on high playability in the larp itself, a common strategy in Finnish design. Wind explained:
This combination gives players something to immediately play on and react to that has specific relevance for their character and gives them “something to talk about immediately.” It also provides alibi to jump right into relations that might take a lot of time to ramp up and cause everything in the larp to culminate at the same time in the last few hours. . .
If there is one or more crescendos in the beginning of the larp itself, culminations and intensity [are] spread out over the whole playtime because you can be sure that some things will only culminate in the last hours of the larp anyway.
In the next group scene, we were then instructed to go to the dining hall. The multi-course dinners and lunches were catered and high quality. What made these dining scenes particularly epic were the statues and bas reliefs decorating the room that portrayed scenes from Greek mythology. The metatechnique that guided play in these scenes was dinner warfare, also featured in Wind’s larp Daemon (2021-). Unlike the intensely visible brutality in the Punishment ritual, we sat in circles masterminded by assigned seating to maximize drama. We pretended to be members of polite society while delivering passive aggressive verbal barbs, whether about art, the Muses’ confinement, class, or any number of other dynamics. (Gender, sexuality, and race/ethnic discrimination was explicitly forbidden in the larp, but class was very much embedded in the character design). This juxtaposition of high boiling intensity in the beginning directly to a low simmer punctuated the themes of the larp quite sharply: the epic alongside the banal, the fragility of human egos, the need to control in order to feel important, the subtle bids for freedom within enforced servitude, etc. According to the designers, traditions such as arranged seating were diegetically upheld as necessary, both due to affiliation to the Inspired’s prestigious university and the necessity to keep the ritual intact. Wind told me,
Alibi for the seats being like this was provided by the diegetic fact that the Inspired needed the repetition to make sure they could renew the Binding year after year, so they didn’t dare change the seating. It was simply, and naturally, a tradition. This meant that divorced couples and former friends were awkwardly seated close to each other for hours.
Danielle Lafontaine, Inspired of Dance, and Christian Schönburg, Inspired of Comedy, engaged in dinner warfare. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
The first Act ended for Muses with a touching final circle: a purification ritual. Diegetically, the Muses would return to Mount Helicon every 15 years to reconnect through this ritual; since we were not permitted to return to Mount Helicon or see one another at will for the last 15 years, we made do in the Manor with these stolen moments. We huddled for warmth in the dark attic, gently comforting one another through touch as we did throughout the larp. We each took water from a bowl and cleansing the Muse next to us, which felt like a ritual blessing. Then, we each shared a Secret — some revealed shameful feelings or actions, such as taking someone else’s Inspired as a lover or alerting one’s Inspired of the escape plans. While we all witnessed these admissions, the purification ritual added an element of forgiveness to the circle. At least for my character, the understanding that we were taking action under complicated situations of duress made it easy to let such admissions go, although others did hold resentments.
The Inspired awaiting the arrival of the Muses in the first Binding, the beginning of Act 2. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen. Image has been cropped.
The second Act began with a flashback scene in which we enacted the initial binding ritual. This ritual also occurred in a circle within the same room, imbuing the physical space with a certain repeated significance. This scene was particularly effective because we already had the experience of being subjugated by these relationships the night before. We then began play with a brief experience of freedom, worship, and a pure desire to Inspire outside of such subjugation, only to be bound and betrayed. This worship was especially desired by the Muses because of its unusualness in the modern world, where few still prayed to the old gods; thus the pain of betrayal was manifold.
At the end of Act 2, the characters engaged in another important informal ritual called the Party, which was also upheld every year due to tradition. In the Party, the artists drained their Muses of all Inspiration in a moment of selfish gluttonous intoxication, doing absolutely nothing of worth with these gifts. The Muses were expected to participate in the Party as celebrants as well, which we interpreted in various ways. This sort of peer pressure to maintain appearances was present in all of the rituals, with Inspired and Muse characters alike having various degrees of internal and external conflict around these traditions.
Henry Wilson and Clio, Inspired and Muse of History. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Close to the end of Act 3 was the yearly renewal of the binding ritual, with a twist: the ritual was disrupted afterward by a scroll that contained a sort of counter spell, in which the Muses were offered the opportunity to make a “Choice.” The Muses could choose to stay with their captors in servitude, or leave, which would entail them to become mortal, losing their supernatural abilities, and eventually dying. The design allowed for us to spend quite a bit of in-game time focused on this Choice and its ramifications. The power dynamics were suddenly flipped: the Muses could now decide to freely go (albeit with twisted ramifications and not at all prepared for human life), or stay within the dysfunctional dynamic of enslavement, lending to the air of tragedy.
I was cast as Clio, the Muse of History, who had a comparatively consensual dynamic with her Inspired, historian Henry Wilson, in part due to intense Stockholm Syndrome. Though Clio’s entrapment was relatively kind, she was appalled at the indignities forced upon her siblings. During the Choice, Henry wanted Clio to stay to help him uncover lost cities like Troy, which had earned him great fame with her Inspiration as an impetus. However, he had chosen to marry another human Inspired, which reinforced to Clio this sense of indignity.
The other dyads and triad had similarly complex interpersonal dynamics, which led to the Choice being difficult to make; certain characters, who experienced some of the worst oppression in the larp chose to remain enslaved. This choice mirrors human dysfunctional relationships, but was intensified by the epic quality of the larp; the Choice had far-reaching ramifications, not only to the characters present, but the world at large. In Henry and Clio’s case, they chose a third option, presented to them by Erato, the Muse of Love Poetry, and her Inspired: the artists would publicly release us from our binding, assert our independence to leave at will, and permit us to Inspire others. The questions then became: Would Clio return of her own free will to Inspire Henry, even though he was now engaged to a mortal woman? Could Henry retract this declaration at will, leaving her to be bound again? Thus, even this “easier” third option was still riddled with emotional complexity.
The Choice. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Circles of Safety and Calibration
Come thou, let us begin with the Muses who gladden the great spirit of their father Zeus in Olympus with their songs, telling of things that are and that shall be and that were aforetime with consenting voice…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
The larp featured a pre-game call a month before the larp and extensive workshopping before the game in which we were briefed on aspects of the world and practiced specific play techniques. Most of us signed up in pairs (or triads), meaning that we likely already had developed a certain degree of trust with our main co-player(s) in the Inspired/Muse dynamic. We were instructed that we must calibrate with these co-players at least before the game, and ideally also the other relations mentioned in our character sheets. We were also instructed to check-in with our dyad or triad players after the larp. These instructions emphasized the need for emotional care for co-players, acknowledging the intensity of the experience and making it part of the shared culture of the game to tend to one another. On the other hand, we were also reminded that we are responsible for our own experience, meaning we should communicate if needs arrive and do what is necessary to care for ourselves.
Calliope, Muse of Epic Poetry, and Thalia, Muse of Comedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Pre-game workshops are often quite awkward experiences, especially whenpreparing to play larps of this nature. Players often feel a certain degree of social anxiety about their own role-playing abilities and their skills at interpersonal interaction (Algayres 2019). They may feel worried about costuming, physical touch, their own attractiveness, or any other number of insecurities and uncertainties. To establish trust early on, we were instructed to sit closely with our dyad or triad and touch in some way during the briefing, such as a casual touch on the arm, cuddling, holding hands, etc. Physical touch can release oxytocin (Zak 2011) and provide an experience of trust between players, although it can also backfire for participants who feel hypervigilant or triggered when touched. The website communicated that players needed to be willing to experience casual touch: “A good baseline of what you should be okay with could be a stranger touching your arm, shouting at you, holding your hand or kissing you on the cheek” (Helicon website, n.d). We also workshopped eye gazing between Muses and Inspired, which deepened the connection and helped relieve a bit of the awkwardness. Eye gazing is a simple, yet quick and effective technique for people to see others beyond the masks each of us wear in social life, as well as to feel truly seen in a short amount of time.
We also had times within the workshop to calibrate with many of our written relationships, which from my perspective provided a solid groundwork of a “home base” between player-characters within play. In my view, creating time for such calibration is critical to the success of such larps. Many players do not have the time or inclination to reach out before the larp and find it difficult to remember names, faces, and the specifics of written dynamics during play. Creating contact before the game and encouraging players to discuss what each person wants (and doesn’t want) from the dynamic is very helpful.
Danielle Lafontaine after draining Terpsichore at the Party (Inspired and Muse of Dancing). Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
We also workshopped a scene involving the drawing of Inspiration. The metatechnique involved a white and gold sash with the Muse’s name written upon it, which we would use in some way to signify giving Inspiration. The sash could be used in many ways ranging from gentle and consensual to violent and non-consensual. We were instructed to hand over one of our three precious Inspiration ribbons placed on our name tags and transfer them to the Inspired’s name tag. The ribbons were a non-diegetic way to communicate how full or empty of Inspiration each character was, as well as who had drawn Inspiration from whom, as each Muse had different colored ribbons. We could decide to act upon this extra-diegetic information as a form of steering (Montola, Stenros, and Saitta 2015). The designers explained that they did not want Inspiration to turn into a statistic like in other role-playing games, but it still influenced play for some of the larpers.
Another workshop emphasized playing to lift (Vejdemo 2018), meaning we took turns boosting the importance of the other characters in terms of their personality or accomplishments using “Yes, And” to build upon what others were improvising. For example, a character could say, “My recent art work has received quite a lot of positive reviews…” which we would then reinforce with added comments. Since the larp also dealt with the fragility of artists’ egos, we also practiced playing each other down, which would be initiated by the person wanting that sort of play, for example, “Lately, I’ve really been struggling to get critics to care about my work…” The co-players would then “Yes, And” to make the character feel even worse about their artistic block or lack of public recognition. This metatechnique was particularly interesting as it provided an impetus for drawing Inspiration and seeking validation from others through dysfunctional means.
We were instructed to use “off-game” in order to quickly calibrate and negotiate consent during play or leave the space for more extensive discussion. We went off-game between acts and the default for sleeping quarters was off-game as well. Right before the larp began, we workshopped violence, including tapping out when we wanted a certain interaction to slow down or stop, as well as escalating slowly through bullet-time consent (Koljonen 2016b) to give other players a chance to opt-in or out. This practice ended up important for the first Punishment scene that we were soon to play.
Omorfia and Philip Frost, Muse and Inspired of Painting in the first Binding. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Maximillian Stern worshipping Euterpe at the first Binding. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Christian Schönburg binding Thalia, the Muse of Comedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Calibration was also emphasized in the workshops between acts in effective ways. We were given time for one-on-one discussions, but we also circled up with each player sharing a short sentence of what they would like to experience within this Act. Then, other players could raise their hand and volunteer to deliver that sort of play, which added an element of accountability to one another. Following Juhana Pettersson’s (2021a) assertion that players are engines of desire, being able to openly express one’s wishes in a group without shame is a powerful experience. For example, I tend to prefer subtle scenes and was drawn to the larp due to the emphasis on discussions of art and the creative process; through this process, I was able to ask others to approach me with those kinds of discussions if desired. It was remarkable to me the way a briefly stated request could redirect the flow of play for individual players, and thus the ensemble: a form of group steering.
Epic Dyadic Play as a Genre
Unwearying flows the sweet sound from their lips, and the house of their father Zeus the loud-thunderer is glad at the lily-like voice of the goddesses as it spreads abroad, and the peaks of snowy Olympus resound, and the homes of the immortals…
— Hesiod’s Theogony
At times in Helicon, I felt like I was experiencing something quite new, but I could not put my finger on why. Oppression dynamics and dysfunctional relationships are hardly new themes; indeed they are the bread and butter of many Nordic or Nordic-inspired larps. Epic storylines and supernatural abilities are hardly new either, as RPGs as a medium have featured those elements from their inception.
Euterpe and Maximillian Stern, Muse and Inspired of Music, attempting to compose. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
At one point, I looked around the room during dinner warfare, surveying the artists with their Muses, thinking, “Oh! We are in a really good Toreador larp” — the Toreador being the artistic clan in Vampire: the Masquerade. In Vampire, the undead take “retainers” who are bloodbound to them, meaning supernaturally addicted to their blood and compelled to obey. Retainers bound by Toreador are often highly talented in their own right, ensnared by the vampire’s wish to keep their retainer’s talents for themselves — an especially potent theme considering many vampires lose the potency of their own talents when turned to the undead. This larp was different in many ways, of course, especially considering the retainers were mystical eternal beings. The emphasis on artistic creation as an important theme of the larp led to a depth of discussion that I often craved as a long-time Toreador player, enhanced by the setting of the beautiful castle and its art.
The initial binding ritual was initiated by Henry Wilson, Inspired of History, and Stella Wilson, Inspired of Spiritual Inspiration. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
At another point, I saw characters huddled in corners trying to solve various plots related to the occult rituals: the Inspired were trying to figure out ways to stop the Muses from being able to flee, whereas the Muses were trying to figure out a way for the Escape ritual to work. I thought to myself, “Oh, we’re in a Call of Cthulhu larp and those are the occult researcher characters.” As with Cthulhu (1981), Helicon’s setting is clearly playing to lose on some level; whether freedom is attained or the Muses continue to be bound, loss is embedded. But the sense of supernatural horror that pervades Cthulhu was not the emphasis here; instead, we focused on the interpersonal dramas inherent to these characters being locked in this non-consensual pact. Indeed, the occult components felt like an aberration, while the “natural” state would be to let the Muses free to choose who to Inspire. The occult components did not seem to be a goal to attain or a puzzle to solve. Rather, they were elements calling to mind the Spiritualism of the early twentieth century, as well as storytelling devices providing alibi to engage in intense rituals, which tend to amplify play. From my perspective, these spells were more of a conceit than a quest, although I steered away from play involving them so cannot speak for other players.
The final Binding ritual. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
I keep returning to this emphasis on dyadic (or triadic) play, which is also not new. The Nordic larp Delirium (2010), about oppression within a mental institution, relied on players signing up as couples and used dyadic play to explore themes of love and failed attempts at resistance (Pedersen 2010; Andreasen 2011). Personally, I have had particularly strong experiences playing Here is My Power Button (2017), an American freeform about users purchasing an android from a company as part of a scientific experiment. What made Power Button potent was a toggling back and forth between one-on-one user/android scenes in the same room and group scenes, in which all users would interact in one room and all androids in the other. Helicon had a similar structure: we had large group scenes that were also one-on-one scenes, giving a sense of collective experience along with intimacy. We also had activities such as the Muse ritual in which we were all together and able to share about our paired experience.
Phren, Muse of Psychology, and Athanasia, Muse of Sculpture. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
This epic dyadic structure is also present in Linda Udby and Bjarke Pedersen’s PAN (2013-) and BAPHOMET (2015-), which feature occult storylines and supernatural content in the form of possession from godlike entities (Pedersen and Udby 2017; Nordic Larp Wiki 2019). Another dyadic larp is Wind’s Daemon (2021-), which is based upon Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (1995-2000) series. In Daemon, characters have animal entities attached to them that represent their souls enacted by other players. I have not yet played Daemon, but have read many play accounts that have emphasized the powerful nature of this dyadic setup. In practice, the structure at Daemon meant that characters are instructed to stay physically close to one another at all times (Wind 2021): not exactly the same as our experience in Helicon, but was a clear inspiration.
Melpomene and Taylor Montgomery, Muse and Inspired of Tragedy. Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
In reflecting upon the larp, I am now considering the combination of epic play and a dyadic (or triadic) structure as a particularly potent combination: perhaps an emerging genre of play as more and more larps are produced in this format. Helicon required a strong degree of trust between players in dyads (and triads), as well as a degree of commitment: we were expected to continue to role-play and check-in with our co-players and not abandon them, even if we wanted to steer the story into a new direction. Most characters had several other interesting and playable character relations, which helped interweave the larp into more of an ensemble (Tolvanen and MacDonald 2020), rather than incentivizing isolated play between groups of 2-3. While players may have differing experiences of the larp, my perception is that this dyadic epic play combined with emphasis on the ensemble led to a special magic of interconnectedness not always present at larps.
I finally settled on, “Oh, we’re in a Neil Gaiman larp,” at least thematically; we were epically-infused characters with all-to-human quirks engaged in interpersonally meaningful play tinged with sadness about humanity’s flaws. Gaiman’s (2018) words describe his work well:
A world in which there are monsters, and ghosts, and things that want to steal your heart is a world in which there are angels, and dreams and a world in which there is hope.
However, from discussions of the designers, “Calliope” was not a primary inspiration, so to speak, and the character relations were meant to be far more nuanced, which I definitely experienced. I look forward to seeing what larps are spawned as this type of design and experimentation continues to evolve.
Polyhymnia, Muse of Spiritual Inspiration, and Helica, Muse of Architecture (Wind). Photo by Bjørn-Morten Gundersen.
Acknowledgements
My deepest gratitude to Katrine Wind, Maria Pettersson, Elina Gouliou, Mo Holkar, and Mike Pohjola for giving feedback on this article.
Helicon
Designers: Katrine Wind and Maria Pettersson, Narrators, Inc.
Participation Fee: €630
Players: 29
First Run: January 5-7, 2024
Second Run: February 16-18, 2024 (upcoming)
Location: Broholm Castle, Gudme, Denmark
Music: Anni Tolvanen
Photography: Bjørn-Morten Vang Gundersen
Safety: Anna Werge Bønnelycke (Jan. 5-7) and Klara Rotvig (Feb. 16-18)
Website: Katrine Kavli
Graphics: Maria Manner
Sparring and Ideas: Emil Greve, Elina Gouliou, and Markus Montola
Brown, Maury, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Quinn D, Kat Jones and Orli Nativ. 2018. “Immerton: A Society of Women.” In Shuffling the Deck: The Knutpunkt 2018 Color Printed Companion, edited by Annika Waern and Johannes Axner, 41-52. ETC Press.
Davis, G., et al., 1991. Vampire: the Masquerade. Stone Mountain, GA: White Wolf.
Montola, Markus, Jaakko Stenros, and Eleanor Saitta. 2015. “The Art of Steering: Bringing the Player and the Character Back Together.” Nordiclarp.org, March 29.
Nordic Larp Wiki. 2019. “Playing to Lose.” Nordic Larp Wiki, September 3.
Nordic Larp Wiki. 2019. “Pan.” Nordic Larp Wiki, April 2.
Pedersen, Bjarke. 2010. “Delirium: Insanity and Love Bleeding from Larp to Life.” In Nordic Larp, edited by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, 288-297.
Pettersson, Juhana. 2021b. “Terror and Warmth.” In Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt.
Pullman, Philip. 2000. His Dark Materials Complete Trilogy. Ted Smart.
Tolvanen, Anni, and James Lórien MacDonald. 2020. “Ensemble Play.” In What Do We Do When We Play?, edited by edited by Eleanor Saitta, Johanna Koljonen, Jukka Särkijärvi, Anne Serup Grove, Pauliina Männistö, and Mia Makkonen. Helsinki: Solmukohta.
Vejdemo, Susanne. 2018. “Play to Lift, not Just to Lose.” In Shuffling the Deck: The Knutpunkt 2018 Color Printed Companion, edited by Annika Waern and Johannes Axner, 143-146. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press.
PLUS ONE, n. (+) The drug is quite certainly active. The chronology can be determined with some accuracy, but the nature of the drug’s effects are not yet apparent.((Shulgin and Shulgin 1990.))
For some larps it is easy to write about the experience in a way that will make sense to those who were not there. I can describe the events of the larp as a narrative, perhaps focussing on some of the significant set piece moments of the experience, and this will enable others to get a sense of what happened because of a shared context and shared experiences. Even for non-larpers we can explain some of the things that happened in a way that will persuade them to say, ‘That sounds amazing!’ Of course the experience is subjective. Of the various people I know who have played the various runs of Odysseus (2019) over the last week, for example, despite playing ostensibly the same larp, with some overlap, their narratives will be similar, but their reactions to it will be personal. Just as it is with people who have played College of Wizardry, or Inside Hamlet, or any larp that has been re-run. For my UK friends who are unfamiliar with this concept, it is when you run the same larp – usually with the same characters (but different players) – multiple times. It is not a campaign, but literally the same game being repeated. You can play the same larp multiple times, but with very different outcomes.
But I played House of Craving and it was different, and yet I am struggling to articulate how it was different and why. And so this is neither a review, nor a critical summary, but rather a gonzoid attempt to make sense of what the fuck just happened.
A recently widowed man discovers that his wife owned the house where she grew up and that she has left it to him in her will. He decides to spend the summer there – with his extended family and friends – in order to try to come to terms with her death. The characters are all broken in different ways: Some of them aren’t terribly pleasant, others are self-absorbed, others still are so damaged that they would be better suited to be anywhere but in close proximity to these others. Of course this terrible potential for conflict is what powers the engine of larp. But the house is beautiful, the cooking staff are geniuses, and there is a pool, and plenty of champagne, so what could possibly go wrong?
Over time it becomes apparent that these twelve people are not alone. The ghosts of the house object to this family’s presence and, as the day progresses they will influence, manipulate, and then finally control the living family to play out a cycle of tragedy and abuse. Eventually the family will be absorbed by the house, and as the old ghosts move on – into the darkness – they replace their ghosts to become the ghosts for the next family to arrive. And then the cycle will repeat itself. Again and again.
PLUS TWO, n. (++) Both the chronology and the nature of the action of a drug are unmistakably apparent. But you still have some choice as to whether you will accept the adventure, or rather just continue with your ordinary day’s plans (if you are an experienced researcher, that is). The effects can be allowed a predominant role, or they may be repressible and made secondary to other chosen activities.
The stories of this larp – and those who played it – are interlinked and overlapping. A story written in an earlier run may persist as an artifact to be discovered by those who came after. A drawing or a photograph of Jacob may affect a different Jacob when he comes across it in a future run. A short story written by Monica in run 3 could be read aloud by Monica in run 5, but she has no memory of having written it.((Metalepsis, again.)) There are other echoes too, like a twisted game of Chinese Whispers, some stories are retold as remembered or as experienced by the players. Those of us playing run 5 do not know what happened in run 1, but some of that narrative surely became plot to drive our own story. Who are the authors of our fates? Those who played as ghosts in run 1? The others? Ourselves? I cannot say.
This larp is a horror story, it unravels as a descent into madness and death. From the player’s perspective, we think we will have an (un)easy revenge on the next set of family players; but we do not, because the true horror, and the fear is yet to come, as we discover what happens to our ghosts and the approaching darkness that will devour them. And worse still the human’s play back at you. After all this is larp not some Punchdrunk loop. Their agency is real.
House of Craving is an immensely physical larp. You play it with your whole body in a way that I find terrifying; there is little abstraction, and more touch in this larp than I have experienced before; largely because of the proximity and influence of the ghosts. But as ever you retain autonomy, the option to tap out or to invite escalation exists.((I tap out once during the larp. I have one quiet regret for not tapping out a second time. I attempted to escalate but the mechanic – lightly scratching a co-player – does not work for those who bite their fingernails!)) Despite the ability of ghosts to eventually control humans, as players we remain responsible and accountable for ourselves and our own experience. We are instructed to steer for our own play, rather than to focus on the experiences of others. It is a bold undertaking, and a risky one if the players are not all on the same page. But for our run, we are all on the same page! We had an evening together before the larp: our players met for dinner in Odense and then had some self-guided workshops (with wine) at the venue. Here is the point I knew it would work. So much of what we do as larpers is subliminal. If you know your fellow players already it helps, but sometimes a group or an individual just does not gel. Our core-group of four players whose plots and backstory were intertwined clicked. Understanding that this group were all looking for similarly intense experiences really helped; we know even before the larp starts that we’ll be able to cooperatively play ourselves deep into the madness that is to follow. The word often used is chemistry, but perhaps it is more reasonably alchemy.((Or possibly pharmacology.))
The first morning consists of a series of workshops; these are designed to teach you how to play the larp. This is not simply an explanation of meta-techniques and an info dump of rules, but rather a set of subroutines that reprogramme the players to conform to the new social norms of the story world. We, the new players, are slightly nervous and slightly hungover, watching the players who had been the family the previous day. It is interesting. They smile, they hold eye contact for longer, they are unafraid, have no concept of personal space, and carry with them a nervous joy that permeates the black and white checked ballroom, empty but for a candelabra and a few chairs. I want to opt out of at least one of the proffered workshops, but force myself to take part; I am so far beyond my comfort zone that it becomes Brechtian. The sessions are physical; I am strong, used to fighting back; part of the exercise here is to give up control. The ghosts always win. Pushed to the floor with ghosts whispering in my ear I take a deep breath and relax, becoming one with the checked tiles beneath my cheek and I am not afraid anymore.
The larp starts with a nap. The characters have fallen asleep before lunch and all awake in different parts of the house. They amuse themselves for an hour before lunch – Jacob and Wilhelm do “masculine things” in the garden, the homoeroticism of wrapping someone’s hands before putting on boxing gloves is lost in front of an audience sipping champagne – and then at lunchtime, things start to get weird. At six thirty the humans are utterly under the control of the ghosts, and by midnight they are destroyed and devoured by the house. The whole experience is ten to twelve hours of intense play but the following day the cycle repeats except the human players of the previous day are now their own ghosts and a new set of humans come in – as the same characters – to repeat the day. All except for the first run, where the ghosts are NPCs, and the last run, where the family players do not get to play ghosts. I played the penultimate run.
PLUS THREE, n. (+++) Not only are the chronology and the nature of a drug’s action quite clear, but ignoring its action is no longer an option. The subject is totally engaged in the experience, for better or worse.
But when it comes down to it, I can’t begin to describe what happened. Individual events and scenes taken out of context may sound challenging, confusing, or simply make no sense, and the contexts are subjective. Instead I am going to have to resort to the obvious analogy. Larp is sometimes thought of as a consensual hallucination, and this one was more hallucinogenic than most.
The Shulgin scale – quoted throughout this piece – looks at the experience of a chemical over time, and describes the physical and mental effects of the experience on a positive scale of plus one to four (Shulgin and Shulgin 1990). As I am typing this, another player on a backchannel chat is describing the mental state of the players, four days after the larp, as like a comedown after 48 hours of MDMA. Their description is valid. Except there is no crushing bleakness for me. I am still on a high. I am mainly frightened that it will wear off and what it will feel like when it does. Other players have described this process already. Perhaps this is a part of the horror of this game, having to look in the mirror and realise that the larp is over and the magic circle is no more?
House of Craving was a solid plus three for me. It is important to note that this is not a rating scale. A high number is not objectively the goal of larp, or the bestthing. One cannot argue that any larp that fails to achieve it is a failure – because most larps don’t, indeed hardly any larps do, nor do they intend to. House of Craving was a horror larp, but there were no moments of blind terror or jump scares and it did not feel dangerous. The fear was the slow realisation of creeping entropy juxtaposed with beauty, and this juxtaposition made the fear feel much worse. My run produced two of the most beautiful larp moments of the 34 years I have been larping, including one which was so eye-wateringly incredible that it makes me gasp to think about it. I am not going to tell you what they were. It would be like describing the effects of 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine((DOC, a hallucinogenic amphetamine first synthesised in Canada in 1972 (Shulgin and Shulgin 1990).)) to someone who had not taken it. I can’t offer you details, only impressions.
I played towards not some sort of death, but towards oblivion. My character’s ending was a ceding of control to the unknown by a character who was willfully in control of himself and his environment up to that point. He did not allow himself to feel physical fear or pain, he kept it inside, until – at the end – only fear remained. The only thing that scared him was the loss of his wife. His litany “without you, I am nothing” became the poem that ended the larp, as he slipped away from her and the lights went out. (Here I literally move away from my fellow players and end the larp alone in the darkness, I feel their hands reach out to find me, but I am gone.) “Without you I am nothing. Without you I am nothing. I am nothing. Nothing. (nothing).”
The patterns and the layers of the piece is what made it work; the ultimate form of intertextuality, stories tied into intricate and beautiful knots, held tight against willing skin. As a piece of ontological design which constructs a narrative and performative space – a larp if you like – House of Craving is a masterpiece of the form. It is a dramatically and personally profound piece of capital A-Art. Given the right players, a little bit of larp magic, and a prevailing wind, it can be life changing. It is certainly life affirming, sexy as hell, and really rather scary.
PLUS FOUR, n. (++++) A rare and precious transcendental state, which has been called a “peak experience,” a “religious experience,” “divine transformation,” a “state of Samadhi” and many other names in other cultures. It is not connected to the +1, +2, and +3 of the measuring of a drug’s intensity. It is a state of bliss, a participation mystique, a connectedness with both the interior and exterior universes, which has come about after the ingestion of a psychedelic drug, but which is not necessarily repeatable with a subsequent ingestion of that same drug.
There is a point on the Shulgin Scale above plus three. Plus four, however, is a state of being which is profound by definition and by effect, but it can also be terrifying and dangerous. The experience of playing House of Craving was a powerful one yet it remained safe. But the fall out is even more fascinating. I feel fantastic; as though the loved-up effect of MDMA has persisted long after the chemical has worn off. My body image issues, whilst probably not gone for good, are certainly in abeyance; I went into the larp as someone who would describe himself as “old” “fat” “bald” “ugly” ”haggard”; I have come out of it with a healthy dose of “fuck that.” Do you know that we are all beautiful – all of us – and that is the truth, everything that tells you different is merely advertising? I have no religious conviction that this state of affairs will persist, but the larp has produced a profound effect on how I perceive who I am, and this is plus four, and it is wonderful.
If a drug (or technique or process) were ever to be discovered which would consistently produce a plus four experience in all human beings, it is conceivable that it would signal the ultimate evolution, and perhaps the end, of the human experiment.
— Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin, PIHKAL: A Chemical Love Story (pp. 963–965).
In high school, I had a phase where I was really into the Romantic poets. I read about Percy Bysshe Shelley in particular and was struck by his “The Masque of Anarchy,” a rabble-rousing political poem:
And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.
Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the most famous poets of the Romantic period. I found the world of the Romantics fascinating. In the biography Shelley: The Pursuit by Richard Holmes I read about his personal life, which even as a high schooler I understood to be a truly amazing trainwreck.
Gothic is a 2023 larp by Avalon Larp Studios inspired by the Ken Russell movie of the same name, featuring the Romantic poets in a story of gothic horror. I signed up and got lucky, playing first Percy Bysshe Shelley and then the servant William Fletcher.
This was because Gothic was based on an unusual production model pioneered by another intimate horror larp, House of Craving. There are five overlapping runs of the event. Played in a mansion in the Danish countryside, the larp runs continuously as a repeating one-day instance which each player experiences twice, first as a poet and then as a servant.
When I was playing Percy, the person who had played Percy yesterday was now my manservant. The next day, I was the servant and a new player was portraying Percy.
Photo by Simon Brind.
Horror Stories
At any given time, Gothic only has five poet characters and five servant characters. The ensemble is small and tight. The division between the social positions of the characters meant that the focus of play is on the five players who arrive together each day. When I was Percy Bysshe Shelley, my primary focus was on my co-players who played Mary Shelley and the others, and when I was Fletcher, I interacted most with my fellow servants.
This allowed for nuanced, interesting social and internal play. The schedule keeps things moving with events such as afternoon tea, a séance and dinner but there is space to explore ideas and build scenes together.
The fact that they share a design structure made me initially compare Gothic to House to Craving, a larp known for its extravagant, depraved madness. During play, I realized that Gothic was quite a different experience, more focused on the depth of the themes, characters and the setting than the visceral, bodily experience of House of Craving. The Romantic poets allowed for an unusually thorough examination of the various ideas connected to the larp because the characters themselves were quite capable of both discussing and implementing them.
The poets were intellectually ambitious, and that meant we as players could explore things like the difference between an ideal and reality, or conversely the problems caused by strict, heedless application of ideals to reality.
In the fiction, the larp was set in Villa Diodati where Lord Byron famously stayed in the summer of 1816, spending three days together with Dr. John Polidori, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Claire Claremont. The time spent by the poets at Villa Diodati is famous for Lord Byron’s challenge that each should come up with a horror story. It is this prompt that gave Mary Shelley the push to come up with her idea for Frankenstein, a landmark work of horror literature.
Our group of poets approached this task diligently, each of us coming up with a story. This meant that not only was gothic horror the genre of the larp, we as characters were also telling each other horror stories in the dimly lit, creaking mansion in the middle of the night. There were layers upon layers of horror, building to an escalating level of unreality as the night progressed.
The themes of artistic legacy and creative immortality influenced my play strongly. There was an unusual space for playing on the complex real-life legacy of the characters because the design facilitated it, key details brought into focus in the excellent character writing. To prepare for the larp, I’d read Miranda Seymour’s excellent biography Mary Shelley and was surprised how directly applicable it was, especially in the surreal late night scenes where talking about the future was as sensible as talking about the past. I’d done extracurricular reading beyond what was suggested by the organizers because I enjoy it, but it paid off.
There was an interesting creative tension between the themes of poetic and creative immortality for the characters, a group of legendary artists, and larp as an artform. Larp is ephemeral by its very nature. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein lives on although she and even the society she came from have disappeared.
A larp lives on in the memories of its players, and shadows persist in documentation such as photos and this essay. Otherwise, it’s lost the moment it ends. Yet what larp loses in the pursuit of immortality it gains in the immediacy of the experience.
Photo by Simon Brind.
Noises in the Dark
When you go to international larps, you end up staying at a lot of mansions available for rent in different countries across Europe. They’ve been built to the specifications of a certain culture of servants and masters. The living quarters of the family in residence are separate from the discreet, narrow staircases and attic rooms of the servants needed to keep the household functioning.
Playing Gothic was the first time I experienced an old mansion through the social context it was actually made for. Since the larp had a number of partially overlapping runs, the players of each run had to arrive discreetly so as not to disturb ongoing play. Thus, a taxi left me and several other players outside the grounds of the Danish country manor where the larp took place and an organizer came to fetch us, guiding us discreetly to a servant’s entrance. This way, we’d be as invisible as possible to the players who were at that moment gazing forlornly out the windows as the poets.
We spent the evening doing workshops and then retired for the night, all on the basement floor of the expansive building. The next day, we had more workshops before we’d start play at 14:00 as the poets.
Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley were both aristocrats. As the poets, we’d be sleeping in the magnificent first floor bedrooms so before play started, we bundled up our linens and carried them up the stairs to where we’d sleep the second night, in grand style. We moved from the servant side to the public facing side.
Our third day onsite, our second day of play, it was our turn to play the servants. Thus, we bundled up the linens from our beds again. Most of the servant’s rooms were in the attic. We shifted back to the servant side both inside the fiction and physically inside the mansion.
At night, the mansion was extremely atmospheric. Waking up to go to the bathroom, I was walking the corridors alone, listening to the strange sounds of the building, pitch black doorways and creaking windows looming over me.
It’s a common human experience that when you wake up, your brain misconstrues something you see in the dark. The shape of a coat hanging from a doorframe looks like the silhouette of a human. For one reason or another, I’m very prone to this. It happens all the time and I don’t really get an emotional reaction from it anymore. Seeing something looming in the dark just after waking up, I know it’s just my brain being stupid again. The vision goes away when I turn on the lights.
I was sleeping in my room the third night, on my side cradling a pillow with my left arm, my hand resting against my face.
As I woke up, I saw a hand holding my hand.
Turns out, I wasn’t quite as blasé as I’d thought. It took a while to fall asleep again after I’d frantically grabbed for my cellphone light.
Who Is Remembered
One of the key moments of the larp is a séance involving prophetic statements about the futures of the poets. The themes of who gets remembered and who’ll have a legacy are brought into the open.
As players we knew the statements were true and we knew which applied to which character. This meant that the unfairness of how these people’s lives proceeded was integral to the experience, both in terms of character history and future fate.
The Romantic poets are long dead and the versions we play are fictional, calibrated to the questions we are interested in exploring. From the biographies I knew the larp’s take on history was surprisingly faithful. Perhaps the poets had led such dramatic lives that it was easier to adapt them to the purposes of the larp’s design. Still, I also knew the versions we played were romanticized and exaggerated to make the larp function.
Photo by Simon Brind.
The question of who is remembered and how was explored both explicitly and implicitly. It was an ongoing topic of conversation for our characters who operated on what they knew at that moment: Lord Byron was famous, while the others were unknowns, although Percy Bysshe Shelley had written poems that could go somewhere. Other works, like Frankenstein, were still in the future.
Our characters didn’t know that in terms of popular impact, Mary Shelley would in time be the most enduring of the writers present. Although Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley both continue to be read, it’s no exaggeration to say that Frankenstein is in a completely different category. As players we knew this and were able to play on it, even as it remained outside the frame of the fiction.
From her biography, I knew that Mary Shelley’s relationship with success was complicated. Her creative career was overshadowed by the difficult fact that her biggest hit was her first book. She wrote many others but never managed to capture lightning again.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was never particularly popular during his lifetime. His poems became iconic only after his death, and one person who put a lot of work into making that happen was Mary Shelley. You could almost say that the idea of Percy Bysshe Shelley as the archetypal ethereal elf-poet was created by Mary as she curated and contextualized his work.
A play based on Mary’s Frankenstein made her novel a pop culture phenomenon already during her lifetime and accelerated sales of the book. After Percy’s death, she exercised significant control over how his legacy should be remembered. In all this, although she suffered many indignities and setbacks made worse by 19th century gender discrimination and the travails of being a professional writer, she also exercised power of her own. She was an active participant in the shaping of literary memory.
Of the poet characters in Gothic, I find the most tragic to be Claire Clairmont and Dr. Polidori. The latter was the only one alongside Mary who actually completed the story he came up with during those fateful days at Villa Diodati, called The Vampyre, a progenitor of the romantic vampire genre. Although not as famous as Frankenstein, it too has remained in the canon of horror literature.
Dr. Polidori based the vampire of his story on Lord Byron and when he got it published, the publisher decided to attribute it to Byron instead of its true author. Although Byron himself demanded that his name be removed, this and other setbacks eventually depressed Polidori so much that he took his own life at the age of 25.
The author as the servant Flecher. Photo by Juhana Pettersson.
Working people barely get remembered at all. The servant characters were also based on real people at least to some degree, but the problem is that records about their lives are limited. The servant I played, William Fletcher, was probably the one of whom the most complete picture is available from historical sources because he stayed with Byron for such a long time and enjoyed a very close relationship with him.
As each day of play ended, we received letters informing us of the future fates of our characters. Percy’s letter didn’t have a significant effect on me because I already knew his fate. Reading Fletcher’s letter was a much more emotional experience. Although he might have felt an inkling of power and control amidst the terror-infused chaos of midnight at Villa Diodati, in the end he was just a poor man living in an age that wasn’t very kind to those without money, title and connections.
In the end, all the famous people around him failed to take care of him.
This was the fate of Claire Clairmont too, a lover of Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley who ended up betrayed by both and having to make her own way in a cold, uncaring world. Still, some of her perspective remains. Even before the larp, I’d already become familiar with her voice because her writings were used extensively as source material in the Mary Shelley biography.
Living Words
Playing a famous poet is intimidating for those of us not capable of writing great poetry on demand and Gothic had a clever solution for this problem: The off-game room had a stack of poems and you could grab one and just decide that it was something your poet had just created.
As a player, you had what you needed to make a scene work.
That was my experience of the larp in general. The production model of overlapping small runs used in Gothic is difficult to pull off and requires that everything runs smoothly. This was the case and if there were any hiccups backstage, you didn’t really see them.
Similarly, I was blessed with a cohesive group of co-players who shared similar priorities for what we wanted to do. You could sign up for the larp either as an individual or a group. The run I played in was the only one composed of individual sign ups while the other runs were groups who had signed up together. Due to luck or good casting, I felt our group shared a similar level of interest in exploring the mythology of the Romantic poets and their legacies.
Emotionally, the heaviest scenes were all when I was playing Percy Bysshe Shelley. I got confronted with my failures as a man, a poet, a husband, a lover and a radical, but all that is much easier to deal with when you’ve spent the day as a poet of immortal genius.
The most meaningful scene I played was at the culmination of a game of hide and seek instigated fairly late at night. I ran after Mary, thinking that we could hide together, but the hiding place she chose in the servant’s quarters was for one person only. Realizing I needed a place of my own, I used the same hiding place that had worked for me the last time I’d played hide and seek, probably thirty years ago: Behind the door.
Lord Byron’s hired companion Tita rushed into the room with a baying crowd and noticed Mary. Someone even banged on the door I was hiding behind, but they didn’t notice me and eventually left the servant’s quarters altogether, leaving behind Mary and her maid.
I revealed myself and Mary, supported by the maid Elise, let me have it, all the poison in our relationship, everything that was wrong, pouring out in one powerful, eloquent torrent. I was staggered by it and needed a moment to take it all in. At that point, Elise left, leaving me and Mary alone. I sat on the bed and the conversation continued, slowly shifting gears until it’d moved from the emotional fireworks of gothic horror into a more realistic emotional register.
My key to playing a Romantic poet was that they were very young, precocious teenagers given agency by status and wealth. Lord Byron came across as an elder statesman and he was just four years older than Percy Bysshe Shelley. How come the poets were so irresponsible, so extra? Well, they were barely adults!
When I had my Percy Bysshe Shelley phase, I was at an arts high school where you had a lot of peer support if you wanted to be dramatic. The first time I got drunk in my life, it was with absinthe smuggled from Portugal by my grandmother. (It was illegal in Finland at that time.) We did the whole ceremony with a friend and I got so wasted, I couldn’t take the bus home in the morning without puking on the sidewalk.
Who knows, if I’d had the wealth and fortune of a Percy Bysshe Shelley or a Lord Byron, what heights of folly I would have managed at that age?
Food Design: Anna Katrine Bønnelycke and Maria Østerby Elleby.
Playtesters: Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde, Jørn Norum Slemdal, Frida Sofie, Danny Meyer Wilson, Tor Kjetil Edland, Aina S. Lakou, Ingrid G. Storrø, Kerstin Örtberg, Halfdan Keller Justesen, Kol Ford, Emmer Felber, Rebel Rehbinder, James De Worde, Dominika Kovacova, Jorg Rødsjø, Martine Svanevik, and Charlie Ashby.
Onsite Crew: Maria Kolseth Jensen, Sascha Stans, and Søren Werge.
There are larps that are not action-heavy, that don’t try to offer maximum amounts of drama or complicated plots. These larps are designed to encourage players to ponder. They tell different stories than the hero’s dramatic journey. These larps rely on quiet downtime, deep immersion, and the gradual, iterated unraveling of character relations — all those small things that often get lost in big drama.
Lack of action or drama in a larp is often regarded as a design fault. We think Slow Larp should be recognized as a valid design choice that deserves more attention.
This manifesto is intended to promote serious and respectful discussion. While it is written in a generalizing, even provocative manner, we recognize that its subject matter is nuanced and open to various conflicting interpretations. The authors all share a background in Finnish and Nordic larp traditions and acknowledge that this fundamentally shapes our understanding of the subject.
What is Slow Larp?
These are the main attributes of Slow Larp. The points raised here will be explored in more detail later.
1. Less is more. Slow Larp is all about the negative space of larp: the quiet moments, the small gestures, the downtime.
2. Immersion over action. Slow Larp aims for immersion into character that is strong enough to evoke real feelings. With strong immersion, the smallest elements can become meaningful. What is often called “downtime” becomes not just lack of action, but a time of reflection, of making memories, of longing, grieving, falling in love.
3. Subtlety in play style, setting, and design. Slow Larp focuses on human-sized drama. By design, Slow Larp is more about small slices of life, status quo, and everyday stillness than about epic, life-changing drama. Slow Larp explores what it is like to simply exist as these particular characters in this particular setting. Characters are played in a naturalistic way and players trust each other to catch subtle hints about their emotions and intentions.
4. Offering potential for emergent play instead of ready-made plots. The idea of Slow Larp is to explore and iterate rather than play a plotline ”from start to finish.” Instead of plots—”what must happen”—Slow Larp offers players ”potentials”—possibilities for play. Potentials are designed elements that have the ability (the potential) to induce play, a way of offering meaningful content without forcing a chronological, designer-driven narrative on the players.
5. Slow Larp revolves around a limited set of thematic elements. These carefully chosen themes—such as “loyalty”, “environmental crisis”, or “what is a family?”—are woven into both the macro structure of the larp as well as in every character. When everyone plays on the same themes, everything happening in the larp has the potential to be meaningful for every character. Themes act as potentials and create playable content. They suggest topics to discuss and things to do, and they can create tension between characters who approach the same theme from different viewpoints.
6. Slow Larp is built on iteration and layers. Players explore the themes of the larp, their own characters, and their characters’ relationships through repeated interactions. Conversations are started, halted, and picked up again. Conflicts are not resolved in one scene and then forgotten. Instead of solving a conflict to achieve a certain goal, the unresolved conflict itself can be the main content of play. Through iteration, new insights can emerge.
7. Players create Slow Larp. Slow Larp requires time and effort from its players and is not for everyone. It is the player’s duty to navigate the game in a way that feels meaningful to them and to seek play that allows for and increases immersion. This often requires extensive preparation before the game, both to find personal relevance in the shared themes and to establish contacts and create enough trust between the players to make immersive play feel safe. Careful preparation also helps to ensure that immersion into character doesn’t lead into disruptively individualistic play.
How to Design a Slow Larp
Here are some suggestions based on our observations both as players and game designers on how to approach the creation of a Slow Larp. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list but a starting point for reflections about what the idea of slowness might look like in practice.
8. Design your larp around a limited set of themes. These are the central ideas and questions your larp explores. Ideas like “found family” or questions like “What is courage?” or “What gives life meaning?” are good examples of thematic elements that create infinite possibilities for play and reflection while funneling action in a common direction.
Everything in your larp should be designed to support the selected themes. The themes should be made visible in the macro structure of your larp—explicitly in the design document and implicitly in all diegetic materials—and integrated into every character. They are a major source of playable content and dictate the overall mood of the larp. Focusing your larp’s design on a few carefully chosen thematic elements and communicating these clearly helps in making sure the larp stays cohesive, without the need to force plot-like structures or excessive meta instructions on your players. Strong themes are also a way to bring focus to player-created content.
Avoid giving your players direct answers to the thematic questions and instead encourage reflection, exploring and curiosity. Try not to limit the ways in which your players are allowed to explore the chosen themes, unless they threaten to derail the whole larp. Discussions and workshops beforehand are a good way of making sure the focus of your larp stays clear.
Choose the themes to work together with the desired ambiance of your larp. Note that a slow design approach doesn’t have to limit the milieu of the larp to naturalistic, contemporary settings, but these often suit Slow Larp best.
9. Favor mundane and robust settings. Slow Larp settings should emphasize continuity and familiar everyday life over exceptional situations in temporary places. The illusion that the fictional world will continue after the runtime is what allows players to immerse themselves in slow and iterative play. Tight-knit communities with familiar routines offer a natural setting for exploring complex character relationships in the continuum of everyday life.
While a Slow Larp can be set in any time and place, keep in mind that the more background fiction and meta information your players have to memorize, the less mental energy they will have left for exploration and spontaneous play. The same applies to set design: suspension of disbelief always takes energy, as does being mindful of fragile props. A strong degree of realism helps with immersion and subtle roleplaying, as it allows players to reference our collective understanding of the world and convey meaning with even the smallest gestures. Aim for your location and props to offer a near 360° illusion and to be robust enough for your players to interact with without too many limitations.
The setting should always support the play, not hijack the attention of the players by being too unrealistic for immersion. This doesn’t necessarily imply that speculative elements (e.g. futuristic technology, magic, fantastic creatures) have no place in Slow Larp, but care should be taken that the wondrous does not drown out the everyday.
10. Offer your players potentials instead of plots. A “potential” is a designed element in the larp that has the ability (the potential) to induce play. Almost anything can function as a potential: thematically relevant world-building, an existing conflict between two characters, an NPC-character, a prop, a piece of news delivered during runtime, an ingame activity…
What makes potentials different from plots and meta instructions is that a potential is something a player can choose to ignore if it doesn’t seem to offer them anything. The larp as a whole benefits from players interacting with the offered potentials, but it will not crumble if some of them are ignored. Plots that must happen—and rely on player actions to do so—are usually incompatible with a Slow Larp design that encourages character immersion, iterative exploration, and focusing on player-found meanings.
While almost anything can function as a potential, they should always be closely linked with the larp’s chosen themes. Potentials should funnel and focus play towards these themes and towards shared experiences. Only very rarely should they stay secret or known by just a single character.
11. Give it time. Time is at the center of Slow Larp. The slow passage of time allows players to revisit and re-examine thoughts and ideas, to witness and reflect upon gradual changes in themselves and their environment, to notice how their experiences progressively change the way their characters think and feel. The best way to allow this to happen is to have a long, often continuous runtime.
Long runtime together with the illusion of continuity helps to eliminate the common feeling of “being in a hurry” during a larp. With a long runtime, players will have time to do almost anything they wish, and they can better choose the right moments to do those things, instead of being forced to act immediately for fear of losing the chance forever.
When designing for a long runtime, it is important to give players some structure to help them organize their time, while being mindful of not restricting them too much. Structures that come in the form of daily routines familiar to the characters are often a good choice, especially in larps that center around an established community. The routines should fit the setting and themes of the larp and have some pre-designed activities for the characters to participate in. But they should also give the players some leeway to seek out personally meaningful play, and plenty of downtime in between activities to encourage emergent play and reflection.
Designing larps with a long runtime and a lot of downtime or ”negative space” can feel intimidating. Preplanning content for every minute might seem like an easy way to make sure that everyone has something to do during the larp. But the aim of Slow Larp design is not to give players a lot of things to do; it is to facilitate immersion—experiencing what it feels like to be this other person in this other setting—and reflection—coming away from the larp with new insights.
There is no true substitute for time when aiming for deep familiarity between characters, between the characters and their surroundings, and between a player and their own character. However, if for practical reasons actual runtime is limited, these connections can—to a certain extent—be simulated and supported with careful groundwork (with active participation from the players) beforehand, and/or with workshops at the location. To ensure that players get an equal and consistent experience, this preparatory work should be viewed as an essential part of the whole, not as optional.
12. Support and trust your players. When players are expected to be in charge of their own experience, the larp designer must support that effort. Developing the experience together with players can require much more work than designing a pay-to-play larp with pre-written plots and fully-developed characters. It should never be confused with “sandbox” design, where players are often expected to navigate the larp and create play without much help from the organisers.
Be open from the beginning about the design choices of your larp and what they demand from your players. Communicate the desired play style clearly on your website or through other channels, especially if your player base is international. Encourage questions, reflection, and being okay with incompleteness—this will help familiarize your players with the iterative style of play which is central to Slow Larp.
Have your players participate in the creation of their own characters, their characters’ relationships, and the ingame world. Offer platforms and spaces for the players to discuss the larp with the designers and with each other. Do this weeks or preferably months before the larp. Meetings and workshops where the players get to know each other, develop their characters, and discuss the themes of the larp can help create the sense of familiarity that Slow Larp aims for. These meetings and discussions can transform the group of designers and players of a single larp into a temporary mini-community, which helps foster an atmosphere of safety and mutual accountability.
All this demands time, effort, and engagement from your players—resources not all of them will have in equal amounts. Like expensive “pay-to-play” larps, Slow Larp as a genre is not equally accessible to all. Instead of money, players are expected to invest their time and effort in creating the best possible foundation for the larp. If a player is not pulling their weight, the whole design or community might suffer, especially in smaller larps. For this reason, player selection is often necessary. Emphasis should be put on choosing enough players who are capable of and enthusiastic in participating in extensive preparation and creating content for themselves and others.
Since much of the emerging experience of a Slow Larp is up to the players—and to some extent chance—the quality of the design can be hard to test beforehand. This can be terrifying for a designer, but here also open communication helps to manage everyone’s expectations. Trusting your players to do their part is essential. They need your guidance when navigating your larp, but in the end they are the ones creating the experience for themselves.
How to Enjoy Slow Larp
Designing for slowness is only half of creating a Slow Larp—the rest is up to the players. Here are some ideas on how to get the most out of Slow Larp as a player.
13. Create a well-rounded character. “Becoming” and then “being” your character are crucial elements of Slow Larp. The preparation process for a Slow Larp emphasizes becoming familiar with the inner life of your character as well as with their connections to other characters. Ideally you will be able to co-create your character with the larp’s designers, but no matter if the character is mostly pre-written or self-created, becoming familiar with them takes time and care.
Often it is easier to engage in subtle play and to find natural ways of reacting when the character in some key ways resembles yourself. Preparation is partly about choosing which different ways of being you want to explore in any given larp. Do you want to challenge yourself to be more active, physical, courageous or aggressive? Is your character filled with love or compassion? Are they naïve or ignorant? When you have these pillars of their personality down, communal preparation—and the larp itself—is about exploring how other characters react to these ways of being in different contexts.
Try your best to reserve enough time and mental resources for the communal preparation phase. It is crucial for generating a sense of community and tight relationships. Often there is shared history to be planned together with other players. Try to come up with ways to foster a feeling of deep familiarity. For some players, long storylines with specific years and dates might be important, but often it is better to focus on creating a few emotionally laden details and memories.
In a typical Slow Larp, there is little need for visually impressive costumes and character props. Often normal everyday wear chosen with the character’s personality in mind is enough. This frees you to focus more on finding an emotional repertoire for your character: their expressions, gestures and mimetics. A good way of doing this is thinking of memorable moments from your character’s past and playing them out in solo mode to generate emotive memories to use during runtime. How did the character breathe when they were surprised? What did it feel like when they made a fist and their nails pressed into their palm? These personal ways of reacting bring your character to life during the larp. Repetition helps make them more automatic for unexpected situations.
14. Be prepared to create your own experience. Slow Larp is closer to “sandbox” than “amusement park” design in that while the designers provide you with a framework, it is ultimately up to you to find personally meaningful play inside that frame. Preparing well is part of this process, but your responsibility as an active participant does not end when the larp starts.
A Slow Larp will usually have a certain amount of pre-planned content that will give structure to the larp and offer potentials for play. But what happens inside this framework is not decided beforehand. There are no character-related plots that must be advanced—like a secret that must come to light, or a betrayal that must happen. Most of what your character does during the runtime is freely improvised based on your preparations, the offered potentials, and what emerges organically from the characters interacting with their environment and each other. The ability to improvise fluently comes largely from being familiar with your character’s thoughts and reactions, but also from having listened to your co-players’ wishes beforehand. Incorporating these into your character encourages immersive play that lifts others. Aim at being so embedded inside the skin of your character that their reactions come to you naturally, without thinking.
Don’t be afraid of ”downtime” or even occasional boredom. All players have downtime and it offers a chance to either start creating play together or letting it rise naturally from the moment. Don’t stress about ”being active” or ”achieving” or ”completing” stuff. Embrace simple chores like cooking or crafting, sitting and talking. Doing “nothing at all” can be very enjoyable. Slow Larp is more about being than doing. Immerse yourself in the setting and the character. Wait to see what happens, and just be that other self in their everyday life. React to the world and its other inhabitants as your character would—that is essential and enough.
15. Be open to exploring emergent themes, ideas, and feelings. While the main themes to be explored in a well-designed Slow Larp are known to everyone in advance, what each individual player will end up focusing on might come as a surprise—even to that player. Be open to this emergent content. It might lead you to new and unexpectedly profound experiences.
Pay attention to thoughts and sensations that arise during the game, be they large or small, and try to integrate them into your play. If you are feeling frustrated, maybe your character is, too. If your shoes chafe, make that a part of your character’s day. Strive to find meaning in character interactions that are not spelled out in your character sheet or other pre-larp materials. Be curious about the other characters and don’t be afraid of steering yourself towards those interactions that feel exciting and meaningful. Be influenced by other players’ choices and paths during the game, but also stop to take the time to ask yourself how your character feels about what is going on around them.
In contrast with many other genres, a Slow Larp will not have a clear list of predefined objectives for your character to achieve, or a straightforward character arc to play out. Instead, you start with the knowledge of who your character is and what they want—or think they want—and a firm grasp on the inner workings of their emotional landscape. Your understanding of your character will deepen during the larp, but you will often have to feel your way gradually towards what constitutes the most essential content for you to play on. It might not always be what you expect.
During the larp, completely new directions might emerge that will become relevant for you. Because there is nothing your character absolutely needs to do, you are free to explore these new directions without having to worry about neglecting an important plot line elsewhere.
16. Play subtly. What exactly constitutes “subtle play” varies from culture to culture. For one player, subtle play might mean conveying your character’s emotions with small facial expressions. For another, a full-blown shouting match could still be subtle, as long as it feels authentic.
Subtle play in Slow Larp means playing in a way that feels natural and genuine. Characters behave and talk in a way that would not be out-of-place in everyday situations outside the larp. Conversations are not built of theatrical one-liners, but remain meandering and ambiguous. Let your character’s reactions arise naturally from who they are and what they feel in that particular moment. Trust your co-players to understand subtle hints about your character’s thoughts and feelings. Instead of proclaiming, “You have betrayed me and I hate you!”, let this sentiment seep into your character’s every word and gesture: Will their words turn cold and poisonous? How will their body-language change? What actions could they take that will let the other character know how they feel?
Instead of choosing an action with the most dramatic effect, in a Slow Larp it is usually best to steer towards the most meaningful effect. What this means in practice inevitably varies from situation to situation and character to character. With good character immersion, these choices become nearly automatic. If you do find yourself having to make a choice, think of what your character would most naturally do, or what action will lead to the most meaningful play for you.
17. Be okay with incompleteness. Subtle play also usually means a less formalistic dramatic arc for your character. The concept of a story arc is deeply ingrained in us by our culture’s long history of dramatic fiction. It might take some practice to leave that concept behind. When you give up the idea of a rigidly-defined plot with a clear start and finish, you gain more room for exploration and sideways movement.
In a Slow Larp, not every thread needs to be tied during runtime. If your character’s story is left open-ended at the close of the runtime, you can continue processing it and find even more relevance and meaning post-larp. In real life, events don’t always come together like pieces of a puzzle, nor is this necessary in a larp.
It is natural to second-guess the choices you have made during the run of a larp. There are usually so many opportunities and possibilities that something is always left undone or unsaid. By choosing one activity you inevitably miss out on another. An important part of Slow Larp is being okay with this, of understanding that the things you end up doing make up the unique whole of your experience. You can ascribe your own meaning to the events, interactions, and feelings you experienced during the larp. Because there are fewer dramatic markers (no coup, no zombie invasion, no final battle), you have more freedom and also more responsibility to make up your own interpretation of what were the most essential experiences for you. Because there are no static plot lines, there are few if any things you absolutely have to accomplish for your larp experience to be complete.
18. Know what you want and don’t want. Like any other genre, Slow Larp is not a good fit for everyone. Players who like to hold immersion for a long time and enjoy being profoundly immersed in their character benefit from Slow Larp design. Players who like philosophical pondering might enjoy a Slow Larp for its thematic content. Players who prefer a reactive playstyle over an active one may find the more relaxed pacing of a Slow Larp more comfortable for them.
If, on the other hand, you are looking for an adrenaline-fuelled experience, where dramatic actions follow each other in quick succession, other genres may better suit your preferences. It is not useful to persist in trying to fit into a play style that does not come naturally to you, or that you have no interest in exploring. Looking for dramatic adventures where there are none to be found may, in the worst case, turn out to be detrimental to the experience of others.
Still, many players are versatile and like variety, and so will sometimes choose a Slow Larp and other times a more plot-oriented or action-filled one. Be curious and find out what genres and styles of play work best for you.
In Closing
Much of the trouble in seeking out or running a Slow Larp successfully comes from our lack of shared vocabulary around them. How can you find out about or discuss something that doesn’t have a name?
We want Slow Larp to become a well-defined genre in its own right. We want larp designers and players to be able to talk about this genre, about its defining elements, its strengths and its weaknesses. We want people participating in Slow Larps to know what to expect in regard to design elements and stylistic choices, the better to enjoy the rich layers and rainbow palettes of emotions Slow Larps can offer.
With this manifesto, we want to give Slow Larp a name.
This article was published in the Knutepunkt companion book Book of Magic and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:
Kannasvuo, Sara, Ruska Kevätkoski, Elli Leppä. 2021. “Slow Larp Manifesto.” In Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt.
Content Advisory: Statutory rape, sexual abuse, organizer negligence, manipulation
A Finnish man is dragging his luggage behind him as we approach a subway station in Rome. We both have wheeled suitcases with long handles, and while I carry mine down to the station, he drags his along the stairs. Bump, whirrr, bump, whirrr, bump, whirrr, bump…
“Aren’t you worried you’ll break your suitcase?” I ask him.
“No,” T replies, “if it breaks, it was a bad suitcase. I don’t want a bad suitcase.”
Little did I know, during the production of Dragonbane, I would become that suitcase.
Fifteen years ago, Dragonbane was played in Sweden. I was in the three-person team who begat it all, three years prior. I was the second, and the one responsible for the story, setting, and name of the larp.
The other two were Fýr Romu and T. My first book, the roleplaying book Myrskyn aika (“Age of the Tempest”) was about to be published when T came to the door of my studio apartment in Turku one day with a proposition. I have chosen not to use his full name.
“I am going to make a larp about a mechanical dragon. I want to set it in the world of Myrskyn aika, and I want you as the creative lead on this larp.”
(They might have used the word “main designer,” or “head writer,” but the meaning was the same.)
I knew T from before, us both having taken part in each others’ larps since the mid 90s. He was not a close friend, but I dare say we knew each other quite well. And knowing him, I had my doubts about his leadership style. His earlier big projects, the Wanderer larps, were known for bad management and burnouts.
“Yes. There were problems, but I have learned my lesson,” T told me in his deep voice. His deep, convincing voice.
Then he showed me their plans. A Finnish forestry company has an experimental six-legged logging machine. Like a robotic ant the size of a truck. With the published book giving us a professional status, we would convince them to loan that machine for the larp. Before that, we would recruit Fýr to build an animatronic dragon around it, and we could have it walk around in the larp. The dragon would be able to turn its head, make facial expressions, and even breathe fire. T and Fýr were both interested in pyrotechnics.
We did, indeed, soon recruit Fýr who, like me, was studying in Turku. He had a crooked smile and a ginger ponytail. I believe he would not object to me calling him a mad inventor. I did not know him then, but we are still connected now fifteen years later. I am still not sure if Fýr is younger or older than me.
Myself, I was a young artist and writer struggling with burnout, depression, and tendonitis. I believed larp is an art form and a medium, and wanted to prove this to the world. My professional writing career was just getting started, Myrskyn aika being a major breakthrough since it was published by a proper book publisher and sold in book stores. I was young enough to still be looking for mentors, but experienced enough in the larp scene to be wanted as a mentor by others.
Together, we set to work creating the coolest fantasy larp ever.
Plans and Realities
This was a time when the Nordic larp scene was still in its infancy. We had met foreign larpers at Knudepunkts, and taken part in some of their larps, but this was going to take all that to the next level. We would recruit an international team and create a mega-larp for 1200 players with pre-written characters. And the animatronic dragon.
Now, we did not have the dragon yet. We had our eyes set on a prototype made by Plustech, a Finnish subsidiary of the multinational corporation John Deere which makes tractors and forestry machines. But, T convinced me, once they see our plans, they would be idiots to say no. After all, what a prototype needs most of all is visibility, and that we could promise them. Imagine going to a forestry trade show with a dragon!
We had crazy plans. We would transform fantasy larp forever. We would have players from dozens of countries, making this by far the most international larp at the time. We would create the best larp in the world. Through pyrotechnics, magic would really work! The village would have bespoke wheat fields to reap, which would be sown months in advance. The budget would be one million euros. Every off-game item from cell phones to underwear would be forbidden. We would utilize experimental augmented reality technologies. Our trailer would feature Eddie Murphy and be shown in film theatres.
We quickly started to recruit teams of builders, designers, writers, and producers. T made plans for getting us sponsors and backers, Fýr started drawing blueprints for the dragon, and I went to work on coming up with a concept for the larp.
The recruiting process was a strange one to say the least. People found out they had been recruited when they started receiving messages from an e-mail list they had no idea they were on. Communication and leadership were chaotic, and I probably share some of the blame for that.
My own notes on who is working in what capacity are odd reading now, eighteen years later. We very quickly recruited Christopher Sandberg into the production team since we knew him as the hotshot producer of the Hamlet larp. The next time his name is mentioned in my notes, he is running the writing team together with me. Eventually he replaced me as the creative lead.
Mikko Rautalahti wrote in the Finnish Larppaaja magazine about how unflattering the project seemed from the outside. This rant was published in early 2004 so a long time before the larp actually happened:
The organization behind the project was constantly in flux … Communication between the different teams didn’t work, so for example the costume team made their plans based on an already obsolete player count without checking with the people in charge of the plot. As a cherry on top, some French harebrain decided to post a good portion of the project’s inner discussions online for the whole world to see, which obviously created even more confusion among organizers as well as the public.
…
The project checked all so-called [T] boxes. Even though the creative lead of the project is Mike Pohjola who has written Myrskyn aika and is known for the groundbreaking inside:outside, and has often demanded for more emphasis in larp writing, the producer [T] kept doing his own thing, recognizable by stunningly ambitious plans and a completely haphazard execution.
…
On the other hand, [T] is also known as a man who spits in his hands, takes the scarily big bull by its horns, and wrestles that monster to the ground regardless of how many people are standing by, saying it can’t be done.
…
One can’t help asking, does the game really have to be this big? Is the content such that realizing the vision really needs more than a thousand players – or is the true reason for the size simply the need to seem important?
Translated by myself for this essay.
This sort of feedback simply made us more determined to prove this could be done.
The Story
I had written a Middle-Earth tabletop roleplaying scenario for the Finnish roleplaying magazine Magus (published in 2001 in the magazine’s 50th and last issue). It was about beornings and dragon worshippers journeying into the Grey Mountains to encounter a dragon, and then, perhaps attack it, or bargain with it, or betray the others to it. I had written plenty of history for the dragon worshippers, and even added a note saying the adventure could be turned into a larp.
That became the first seed for the story of Dragonbane. The first brief went like this:
Two ancient peoples have been at war for longer than anyone can remember. It all began with a Dragon, god to some, enemy to others. Now, the dragon worshippers have almost won, and the last remnants of the once proud people have set a call for heroes: Who will slay the dragon?
The last few days have seen the arrival of several chivalric orders, a handful of mysterious sorcerors, and many strange travellers from lands afar. Some are there to contest for the right to slay the dragon, others (like the dragon worshippers) are present to argue against the slaying. And, of course, many people are there just to take advantage of all the foreign dignitaries.
…
What secrets does each hero carry inside them? What is your dragon? When it comes down to an epic battle of Good and Evil, you must decide what you think is Good. And pray to your gods you got it right.
That is where the project got the name Dragonbane from. (Later on, Christopher and I would try to change the name to the more appropriate Dragontide, but T deemed it too late.)
As the story was developed further, we listened to feedback from different team members, most prominently the country coordinators and the writers. Christopher and I talked endlessly on the phone about how to tackle the different creative issues we would face with having a thousand players from very different larp cultures with no time to get to know each other beforehand. The idea to use Finnish style pre-written multi-page character descriptions was soon scrapped.
The village of the dragon worshippers soon became Cinderhill. But it was not until later when Christopher was the main designer when we switched the approaching adventurers into the dragontamers and the witches. Those two groups, along with the dragon worshippers of Cinderhill, constituted the character mega-factions in the larp.
My plan was that Cinderhill would not be the typical feudal-capitalistic pseudo-medieval village of fantasy larps, but something like a religious cult and a Soviet commune. One of our Estonian team members had grown up in a Soviet commune, and did not see this as a very positive thing, but I tried to convince her Cinderhill would be a utopian version of that.
I, as a published author, was T’s trump card, and he took me to many meetings with sponsors and local authorities to show that he had a professional writer in the team. I would typically pitch the story of the larp to the potential partners, and then on the way home, write a letter we could send to our teams and the existing partners. In fact, much of my early work was writing these press releases instead of designing the larp.
Here’s one such letter, written to invite fantasy larpers into the project:
While larp is a fun hobby everywhere, there’s all the time more and more people saying it doesn’t have to be just fun, it can be an earth-shattering, world-changing miracle. Some larps in Northern Europe have made a stab at this. In the last few years, we’ve had larps like Europa, Panopticorp, inside:outside and Hamlet.
…
Until now, fantasy has been over-looked by the larp creators who wish to take the medium forward. Fantasy has long been stagnating into a tired collection of Tolkien clichés, but Dragonbane will reinvent fantasy for the 21st century.
…
We see larp as a medium very close to shamanism, magic and fantasy. With Dragonbane we aim to renew not only fantasy, but larping, as well.
Quite soon after we had announced the project, we were already on the way to Italy to be guests at Lucca Comics & Games Fair. I am still not sure whether we were really guest of honor, or if the local larpers just told us that. The “other” guests of honor included Larry Elmore and Margaret Weis, and we were quite starstruck.
We flew to Rome, T dragged his suitcase to the metro, and we took a train to Pisa, from where we were driven to Lucca. The local mayor cut an actual ribbon at the opening ceremonies of the convention.
We had two talks Friday, one about Nordic larp (which was called larp in Northern Europe back then) and the other one about Dragonbane. Everything we say was translated into Italian so the audience could understand us. We wondered at how these people could larp fluently in English.
In the evening I ran a small larp, I Shall Not Want, which was focused on subdued character immersion at murdered businessman’s wake. For many of the Italian participants this was their first non-fantasy larp, and the first one where the focus was on character immersion.
We did our best to network with the local larpers, and T put me to work writing lots of material for Dragonbane.
One morning at breakfast we noticed Larry Elmore was sitting alone at another table, eating his eggs. We knew him as the biggest fantasy artist of our childhoods, having made the cover of the Dungeons & Dragons red box we grew up with. T wanted to recruit him, I advised against it. Nevertheless, we went to his table, and introduced ourselves. Larry assumed we were random fans. He smiled politely and said hello.
Without blinking an eye, T started an unsolicited pitch on Dragonbane with his very strong Finnish accent. “And we will actually have a real animatronic dragon! Now, do you think that’s pretty cool or what?” Larry kept nodding politely, but it was obvious he did not believe a word we were saying, and wanted to be left alone. T took this as his cue to ask him to create original dragon art for us. Larry said something vague like “Sounds real interesting,” and promised to get back at us. He did not, of course. We were just two European crazies who interrupted his breakfast.
Later on, with a similar pitch, T did manage to attract the Argentinian dragon artist Ciruelo. The art on the poster was made by him.
The Rabbit Hole Method
Christopher Sandberg, a passionate Swedish larp designer and producer, delivered several long game design documents which included everything from the setting to costume design of the individual groups. We discussed the topics day after day, week after week, and finally came up with what we saw as a breakthrough: The Rabbit Hole Method.
The larp would start with the players in their regular clothes, suffering complete amnesia. They would not know who or where they are. Walking around in the woods, they would find clothes that feel much more appropriate, and slowly start to remember that they are, in fact, a dragon worshipper from the village of Cinderhill, or a witch, or a dragontamer. They would change into their real clothes, i.e. the costume. They would remember their new name, and find friends and family that they know quite well but they are also meeting for the first time.
This would take a few hours, and then they would arrive at the village or some other group location, where they would already be in character, and dream-like go about their business making paper or fetching water or starting fires. And then the larp would go on like a regular larp.
The Rabbit Hole would solve so many issues, mainly the players not knowing each other beforehand, and being able to play in their own languages as well as whatever English they can muster. Nowadays we would have workshops instead of trying to solve these issues in-game.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, Rabbit Hole is also a metaphor for taking hallucinogenic drugs. Some people did pick this up, and it again was a blow on the public image of the project.
We felt this was an ingenious solution. But our Danish country coordinator who had promised us fifty Danish teenagers said this was way too experimental for them. The kids liked to beat orcs in the woods, not take part in strange ritual dramas. (I am sure many of those former kids are running full-blown ritual drama larps now.)
Christopher and I felt we could convince the Danish teenagers, or forget about them. But T was worried about our player base. This was a thousand-person larp. We must have those teenagers! So, the Rabbit Hole was scratched, and we started to look for a more traditional approach.
We still did not have a location for the larp, but we did not want it to be in Finland. The neighboring countries Estonia and Sweden seemed good options.
The team got in contact with Estonian larpers and a location scouting team left Finland on a ferry.
T brought along his legendary Humvee which was known as “The Finnish Bar” in many Knutepunkts since he held unofficial parties there with lots of booze. I never went, but knowing he was later incarcerated for sex crimes, it is hard to know how much grooming happened at those parties.
Nevertheless, the car came in handy driving to the Soomaa national park in south-western Estonia. Sometimes we would cross bridges that were only barely able to carry the car’s weight, and all the passengers would have to get out and walk.
Local larpers took us to explore Soomaa on boats. It is a vast area of bogs, forests, and meandering rivers, where Estonian freedom fighters and bandits used to hide. The area that on the map had seemed suitable, proved to be completely impossible. It was a virtual jungle, and in the summer would be full of rapid animals and violent boars.
The evening was reserved for workshops. The production people including T and Mikko Pervilä held their own meeting in one part of the house we were using, while I talked with some of the writers. Fýr ran a third meeting for the Estonians who were present, and their job was to come up with a name for the dragon. I had no idea such a key element of the fiction was being crowdsourced, and when later that evening I was told she is called “Beautiful Death,” I simply thanked them for the input. This, obviously, got them quite irate, having just spent hours coming up with a good name. (And it was good.)
I went to visit the production meeting and I discovered a very drunk T angrily explaining to Mikko Pervilä about how he does not understand the project like T himself does. And Mikko, exasperatedly trying to get some point across. The Estonians probably did not get a very good impression of us.
The next day T took me to meet the director of the National Park. He was polite and interested, and promised to stay in touch. (He did.) He also suggested a different location, parts of which were on privately owned land, and could be built on.
The new location was idyllic, you almost expected to find a hobbit village somewhere. The area was mostly plains or dried swamp, with small forested areas providing contrast. A beautiful river ran slowly through the plains, providing an interesting in-game obstacle for anyone needing to cross it. There was a ruined farm house with just the chimney remaining, and a wild orchard in the yard. Berry bushes and apple trees had started to spread in the nearby lands.
We figured we could build our village right on the outskirts of the national park. T envisioned a grand main hall for the village that he could then use as his personal summer cabin after the larp. “And I’m sure some envious larpers will twist that around to sound like I’m only using free labor to build myself a huge cabin! But after a project as huge as this, I think I’m entitled to something for myself.” Another possibility would have been to testament the cabin to the whole team or to one of the organizations behind the larp, but these were not mentioned.
For some reason, there was no room in the Humvee for me on the way back, so I had to take a series of Soviet-era buses to get to Tallinn and the ferry. This gave me time to do some of the writing tasks T had given me, including writing a letter about the successful Estonian scouting trip for our team and sponsors. Typing on a laptop in a bouncing bus, hands hunched like a vulture’s feet, was not good for my tendonitis.
The bus-ride turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as I later found out T’s Humvee had broken down on the country road he had been driving. I was not there, but I remembered his comments about the suitcase in Italy. “It broke down, so it was a bad car. I don’t want a bad car.”
Still struggling with stress, depression and the wrists, I was starting to suspect, if I would break down, too, before all this was over.
After we had publicly announced that we had chosen Soomaa as the location, the Estonian authorities did, indeed, contact us again. They said we absolutely cannot use the National Park since many of the things we have planned are directly against the rules of the park and the laws governing it.
T and I were both quite angry and disappointed at the Estonians. If someone had made sure of this a few months earlier, we would have saved hundreds of hours of labor, by skipping the whole trip. In retrospect, it was us, the main organizers, who should have made sure of that.
Suspect Parties
Many of the bigger project meetings took place at T’s home in the countryside between Turku and Helsinki. There were also several other people there, some from T’s larp organization, some his friends, others just people hanging around. Or maybe they were all involved in Dragonbane. I discovered Fýr was now employed by T’s company.
The workshop weekends included meetings and commonly prepared meals, but also lots of extracurricular activities, including clearing the garden of dried shrubs. I did not take part in that. I was also a teetotaler at the time, so I could not fully participate in the other program which mostly consisted of drinking games in the sauna, drinking games in the pool, and drinking games wrapped in towels.
There were always teenaged girls around, and these older men wanted to get them drunk. I did not know the girls, maybe they were involved with one of them, maybe they were just working on the project, maybe something more sinister was happening. It was hard to tell, and knowing what I now know, I should have spoken out more clearly. Today, I would characterize the atmosphere as toxic.
We writers did have actual productive meetings, though, although sometimes they felt more like seance sessions, with us trying to decipher what Christopher was saying over a long-distance phone call on speakerphone.
The rumors and the strange mood and the “use them until they break” style of management obviously led to many, many people burning out, quitting or just quietly disappearing. This meant we had to constantly find new people to take on those positions. People kept coming and going. Christopher as creative lead was replaced by others before the project was over.
For Solmukohta 2004, Juhana Pettersson and I designed the art larp Luminescence, produced by Mikko Pervilä. It is known as “the flour larp,” since we had a room filled with 750 kilos of wheat flour. Plenty has been written of that larp in other articles, but cleaning up after the larp was quite a hassle.
T wanted me to be in some Dragonbane meeting, while I was expected to be cleaning the room. “No problem,” he said, and ordered two teenaged volunteers to go clean the flour room while I took part in the meeting. Needless to say, the volunteers simply left the project, and I later got an angry call from the janitor.
Luminescence. Photo by Juhana Pettersson.
At a later stage in the project, a larper woman I was dating told me T had asked her to join Dragonbane‘s music team. Having seen what was going on at those project workshops, I did not feel them to be a safe environment for someone I cared about. (Again, I should have worked harder to protect also those I did not know.) I asked her not to participate in the project, and she got mad at me at first, but then agreed.
Since we were constantly struggling to recruit new people, and I as one of the key organizers had just worked against that goal, I finally started realizing I could not be involved in Dragonbane much longer.
Everything Goes Wrong
I was sitting in the audience at an ice hockey stadium listening to a pyramid scheme recruiting event. T was convinced we should have them as our financing partners, and had sent myself, and some of the production people to take part in the event, and then later on try to meet some of the key people in their dressing rooms.
The whole thing was obviously a scam. Obvious to me, but others in our team were not as skeptical.
We managed to get an audience with one of the speakers, and explain our case. Dragonbane could be officially branded by the pyramid scheme, and they would get lots of publicity for their business. They promised to think about this.
When Mikko Pervilä heard about this, he said he would quit immediately, if Dragonbane went through with this. So, the cooperation was cancelled. I am grateful to Mikko for that. (He later quit anyway.)
We had long since forgotten about getting Eddie Murphy for the trailer. Then we found out we would not get the Plustech forestry machine, either. How could we have Dragonbane the great dragon larp if we have no dragon?
The project went through constant changes. The location was switched from Estonia to Sweden, the targeted player number was cut and cut again from 1200 to 400. Fýr’s dragon building crew were hard at work making plans on a new kind of dragon built on top of a truck, but without Plustech, they could not keep up with the schedule.
Christopher and I realized there was no way for the larp to happen in 2005, and managed after long, painful debates to convince T to postpone it by a year. He opposed the change because once he promises to do something, he does it. But, we told him, his promise could not be kept in 2005, but it could be kept in 2006.
Around that time, T decided he had to change his leadership style. This is how he comments on the topic in the documentation book Dragonbane: The Legacy:
“As the project progressed, it became increasingly evident to all participants that the only viable decision making model was a military style one. The more idealistic version proposed early in the game just did not produce results and in a project of this size and with this little time it is not a good alternative. There are reasons why corporations and businesses do not operate on committee or democracy basis.
A smaller, less international project could have succeeded with less dictatorial management, but with Dragonbane the more authoritative style should have been adopted even earlier. In hindsight, it is easy to see that the year we lacked could have been saved by choosing army style project management from day one.”
I wanted out. I was very stressed and felt I would soon break like the suitcase and the car and so many other people in the team before me. But explaining this to a person who does not take no for an answer was not easy.
I told T I needed to do some paying work since Dragonbane was taking up all my time. “How much do you need?” he asked. He proposed I come work for him. Having seen how Fýr was already in a position of T having economic power over him, and now with militaristic style, this was not what I wanted to hear.
In the end I just had to tell him I could not work in the project under any circumstances. “Fine,” he said. “I hope you won’t turn against us and start badmouthing us.” I promised I would not. And I have not written or spoken about my experiences publicly, until now.
After that I became a broken object, someone T did not want around.
A year later the larp was actually about to happen in the forests of Bumfuck, Sweden. (Actually Älvdalen in Dalarna County.) I could not take part in the larp as my mandatory civilian service would start immediately after and if I was late, I would be punished. Travel to and from Älvdalen took so long I could not risk it, but I wanted to be there at the start.
I had read online about how the players who had arrived early had met angry organizers and been forced to work on building the village. The dragon’s neck had broken and it was being repaired at a vocational institute in Finland. Nothing was ready, and there was not enough food for the involuntary volunteers.
Fundin, a Dragontamer player from Sweden had this to say:
Mistakes were made, and I think the main one was not trusting that the players could fix things for themselves, less promises would have made a better game.
Had we been told to bring tents, cooking gear, food and taming tools the game would have been better. There were few who couldn’t bring tents for example, no problem, then only a few tents would have had to be made = less work for the organisers.
I asked about making taming tools and was told to go to Finland or southern Sweden for a workshop… I would have been able to make them at home if that had been cleared beforehand..But *No* was the general answer to any Idea, everything had to be specially made for DB, that was the big problem, and you were not allowed to make anything by yourself without an organiser or a workshop.
When I arrived, the mood among the organizers in “The Bootcamp” was, indeed, hostile. At the time I thought it was because I was seen as a traitor, having quit the project. Now I have found out the mood was hostile towards everyone so it could have simply been lack of sleep. That ten people who should have been there to help were repairing the dragon had taken its toll.
It was clear everything was badly organized and there were not enough people to do everything that had to be done. And not enough cars to get people from the Bootcamp to the larp village to build it. On the other hand, there were a huge number of incredibly beautiful props, fabrics, and such.
I did odd jobs. I cooked a hearty vegetarian meal for the people at the Bootcamp. I remember T being very happy that I took carnivores into account, not realizing the sauce was soy grit instead of minced meat. I helped dye scrolls with strong tea. I helped the players build the village. I held the opening brief for the players in the witch group.
The players and volunteers I met were exhausted and almost delirious. One of them, Tonja Goldblatt, looked at me, unbelieving, when I arrived at the village. They had not eaten or rested properly, and had to work in the poorly organized work camp. When I had wanted Cinderhill to resemble a Soviet commune, this was not what I had in mind. It was certainly no utopia.
I wasn’t part of any main organizing team, but I ended up working my ass off for this project and I burned out. It was no small feat and it did manage amazing things, but Dragonbane broke me for years. For years it was really hard for me to talk about the whole project because of the bitterness. It was my first international larp and turned me away from Nordic Larping for years.
I only caught rumors of the larp itself from the Bootcamp, and then I had to leave. As I was ready to depart, the dragon arrived. They had driven it to a ferry, sailed it to Sweden, and driven it from the ferry to Älvdalen. Its neck was still broken, but it could move.
At the last moment T decided to replace the person who had prepared to play the voice of the dragon. He replaced him with himself. Even though the fancy software could turn everyone’s voice into the dragon’s voice, it could not change his very recognizable accent.
Aftermath
For the longest time I was ashamed of the project. I assumed almost everyone had a really bad time. And sure, many people did. Many burnt out. But for others this was every bit the magical experience we had set out to create. Friendships were forged and sense of wonder essential to fantasy created lasting memories.
In the book Nordic Larp, Johanna Koljonen’s and Tiinaliisa T’s article on the larp starts with these atmospheric words:
I heard the dragon give out a heart-rending shriek. The sky exploded, and pillars of fire shot up behind the temple. The Dragon died – and at that moment it became truly real. The odd angle of the head looked like the twisted position of one who has expired in pain. And its skin, when I rushed in, wailing, towards it, felt slightly warm to the touch.
In the same book, an anonymous Cinderhillian player comments:
We indeed had a working village! When we bakers found out we had bread and cheese, but nothing to slice the cheese with, one of the village smiths made us a perfectly good cheese-slicing tool!
Charles Bo Nielsen recently reminisced on the group Larpers BFF:
I would like too add that as someone who was 18 at that larp, it was an amazing experience, first major international larp for me. So heavily coloured from that perspective.
There were some really interesting things about the larp. It was insanely ambitious, especially for the times, it had a really really big budget, due to being heavily funded, beyond the player tickets of 130 euroes, which back in 2006 was considered quite the sum for going to a larp.
From my point of view it ended up really grumbling under its own hype, the organizers ended up promising everything and certainly not delivering everything.
In Denmark spinoff larps were run, continuing the story of the dragontamers.
The village that was built was robbed soon after the larp, and then left in the woods to decay. Later on, the local municipality burned it down.
Essi Santala, who worked with Fýr on the dragon, wrote: “I would not be who I am today without Dragonbane. I know it was a devastating project for some people but for me it meant major friendships, togetherness, overcoming obstacles and a sense of awe over what we accomplished over the course of the project. I spent two years part of Dragonbane. It was awesome. Was it a good larp? The question, to me, is irrelevant.”
I would still stay in contact with Christopher, and a year after Dragonbane we would found a company together. Fýr is studying filmmaking in Prague. Mikko has produced many other big events including Solmukohtas.
In 2015, T was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for statutory rape and sexual abuse, and he quit the larp scene.
It is bittersweet to think back on Dragonbane now. Thanks to those who worked for and took part in our visions. Apologies to those that were hurt or broken. I hope young organizers and designers of today are more aware of toxic environments and what to do about them.
I would invite everyone who has memories or questions of Dragonbane to discuss the topic further with me and others.
In this article, I present feedback on my experience playing and writing on suffragettes in larps set in early 20th century Europe. I present the diverse angles through which the theme and characters were approached in these larps and contrast their differences. These games are set up at a time period with clearly separated gender roles, developing narratives around female archetypes and roles in society. As such, any mention of gender in this article will be set along the line of a strict binary division of male-female gender, which was used within the historical context of those games, and obviously does not represent the full extent of gender spectrum, identity, and expression. I examine which themes were mostly presented through these games and the challenges they created.
The Games
I have chosen to focus on these three games because they all focus on first-wave feminism by having all or most characters being actively suffragettes, which allows for interesting parallels and comparisons. While many games handle feminism or gender:
1. Winson Green Prisonis a game written by Siri Sandquist and Rosalind Göthberg in 2016, for up to 20 players and 4 hours of play. It sets up a group of women locked in the titular prison after being arrested during a protest march, as well as the men who have the legal authority over their lives (husbands, fathers, brothers) waiting for them to be released. The game starts by having the participants workshopping the characters as pairs, and then separates them for the entirety of the game except for their reunion during a brief epilogue scene. The game allows both groups to play in parallel, but at times only one of the groups play, letting the other group observe the opposite gender’s dynamics.
2. Sororityis part of the Belle Epoque trilogy, a series of games I wrote in 2017 questioning gender and class inequalities in early 20th century France. It plays for 8 to 12 players over 4 hours. The characters in Sorority are all women, and the game features them in three different time periods: in 1913 when patriarchal control is in full swing; in 1916 when the context of World War I has unexpectedly given women more opportunity to work and act independently; and in 1919 when, after the war, women are being pressured to return to traditional roles while the demand for suffrage gets stronger. The larp allows for the characters to evolve and change their opinions since it is played over a long period in game.
3. Suffragette!is a game created in 2014 by Susanne Vejdemo, Siri Sandquist, Daniel Armyr, and Cecilia Billskog. It originated in Sweden and was rerun in the summer of 2018 for an international audience, adding four groups of foreign visitors to the original Swedish cast. It played for 70 players over a 12-hour period. The characters are all women meeting in Stockholm for the International Women’s Union conference and preparing for the protest march, which is supposed to take place in the morning.
Post-game picture from Sorority by the author
The Hopes of Sorority
The three games all focus on female characters grouping together at the time when women didn’t have voting rights and were usually under the authority of their fathers or husbands. They all question the social dynamics of a non-mixed female group. They all support implicitly or explicitly the ideas that solidarity and union between women can really be a positive force for change, and that women should be more supportive of each other in the face of pressure from patriarchal structures.
In this regard, Winson Green Prison was especially powerful, since being imprisoned together in the same space instantly sets the stakes for the female characters very high. Trying to support each other and not break down in panic, within the context of being imprisoned, immediately felt important. For some characters, having been arrested meant the possibility of punishments at the hands of the men, when others had participated in the march against their express orders. In that context, those fears played as very real.
Sorority starts with a group of diverse women coming together over the years. They are clearly divided at first, especially along class lines, but solidarity between the women eventually manages to gain traction, when they are all able to take part together in a protest march. As such, the game is meant to be a metaphor of the collapse of old social structures after WWI, and to illustrate how solidarity can appear among women.
Suffragette presents a variety of women coming from diverse organizations or foreign countries. Being part of an organization or a specific group was definitely the frame wherein support was the strongest: the solidarity between the French group was a strong part of my personal experience. Solidarity was also quite apparent in the socialist and anarchist groups of the game, who were an active minority that seemed very supportive of their members. With a bigger player base, the sense of companionship worked more within small groups, or during specific activities such as the suffragitstu — a model of self-defense lessons developed specifically for women. On a larger scale, the game presented more the fracture lines around some controversial subjects such as prostitution, the status of natural children, and access to contraception.
This part of the experience will obviously differ according to each individual player’s personal narrative. However, I do feel that all games show the limits of female solidarity. They could sometimes have a bittersweet ending in the sense that there were limitations to what women could really accomplish and change, in the world as well as in themselves. Sometimes, the trappings of society and social conditioning just got the better of the characters.
In Winson Green Prison, the context of the women being arrested is the main conflict: for some of the prisoners, being in prison carries serious consequences, punishment, or social exclusion. In Sorority, the division comes from the class conflicts. In the beginning of the game, there is a strong class divide between the rich ladies and the working-class women. After the Great War, the richer characters get ruined and the class divisions start changing, though they do not disappear completely. As a consequence, some characters decided to leave the group before the final march, feeling that they didn’t belong and were not sufficiently integrated with the others.
The divisions become even more pronounced in Suffragette, possibly because the game was longer and had a larger number of participants who represented conflicting ideologies. Suffragette is a highly political game, with a significant part of the running time devoted to committees where the participants discuss various subjects such as voting rights, contraception, sex work, and the marching order of the morning march. The end of Suffragette brings together the whole audience to listen to two closing speeches. While to some extent uplifting and unifying, the speeches also emphasized the fact that in reality not much was accomplished, as the divisions remained significant.
As such, all three games question the difficulties of bringing different feminist views together, and show how solidarity can sometimes be difficult to achieve. It resonates with contemporary issues: there are a variety of feminist approaches and divisions and conflicted views and political takes do exist.
The Debate: Men Playing Female Narratives
Interestingly, Suffragette also raised issues regarding the participation of male players in what are clearly female and feminist narratives. This section will focus mostly on this issue regarding mostly cis-gendered males in light of social expectation and gender roles, which will be the group I will subsequently refer as “men” for this writing.
All games allowed for any participant to sign up, regardless of player gender. In my opinion, the integration of male participants (as female characters) was made easier in Winson Green Prison and Sorority, as the context of playing in larp conventions involves more abstraction and no costume and setting. Therefore, suspension of disbelief felt easier to achieve. In Suffragette, male players wore women’s costumes, but there were no specific workshops or demands regarding accuracy.
While the number of male participants playing female characters remained limited, the choice to allow male participants was motivated by expanding interest in sharing female narratives, and promoting the idea that female narratives can and should be of interest to people regardless of their gender. The educational value of playing a different gender as oneself can also be a motivation. As one of the male players of Sorority wrote to me afterwards,
“Seeing all the issues and learning more about the situation in France was eye-opening. It would be another 25 years before women secured the right to vote in France — and I’m glad I played it and was made to feel welcome by the other players.”
However, concerns were expressed regarding the fact that male players could end up taking the space in female narratives, especially if playing high-profile characters such as Emmeline Pankhurst, a role that was played by a man in Suffragette. Some argued that casting men in leading female roles would restrain opportunities for women to play powerful female narratives. Others argued that if female narratives are to be opened and embraced by all regardless of gender, then all roles should be also accessible to all regardless of gender. This is a legitimate issue and, while I support and hope to see more men play female narrative, the conditions to make them more accessible remain to be discussed.This debate is, therefore, still ongoing.
Conclusion
These games provide an interesting insight into different approaches to exploring the same theme. They demonstrate the tension in feminist narratives between promotion of sorority ideals and the reality of the conflicts and divisions inherent to any political movement. They also question the place of male players in female and feminist narratives, which, while an unresolved debate, is an interesting aspect of design to take into consideration for any who write and promote female narratives.
Cover photo: Winson Green Prison by Vicki Pipe for the Smoke Festival 2017.
An honest, possibly scrambled, and very emotional review and critique.
Trigger warning: Contains coarse language and depictions of violent acts.
In September 15-17, 2017, I attended the larp Freakshow by Nina Teerilahti, Alessandro Giovannucci, Dominika Cembala, Martin Olsson, Morgan Kollin, and Simon Brind. The larp was held in Vaasa, Finland.
Pre-game painting of Charlie “Edge” by Aarni Korpela.
This was a larp about Otherness. About what it means to be different inside a community where different becomes the new normal. We were a travelling freakshow consisting of real freaks and “carny” folk. We had conjoined twins, a bearded lady, a birdman, an albino, a mermaid… and there was a lot of supernatural stuff going on. Actual magic. An alien queen, the Paraca, who had been worshipped like a Goddess by an indigenous tribe in Peru many years ago. And an immortal badass — yours truly — spiced up our experience quite well.
What caught my attention very early on was the prospect of playing on a real life abandoned amusement park. And we did. It was grand; it was eerie. We had a huge circus tent and a lot of run-down places to explore. Of course, off-game we had to be very careful, since there had been actual destruction and chaos on the site. Most of the garbage laying around were not props, although there were a lot of easter eggs to be found. I loved this little touch; we could find plush animals, clothes, photographs, letters, and even in-game money just casually scattered over the huge site. This led to something happening in the game that I would not have expected or even dreamed of.
Five minutes into the game, the hermaphrodite Vic came up to me, holding a small teddy bear in a clown costume. They gave me the teddy bear. I named them Fuckface. And from that moment on, my character carried Fuckface around everywhere, introduced them to everyone, and even held a baptism for them on Sunday. It gave me so much unexpected play and hilarity. I loved it and I’m very sad that Fuckface was gone on Sunday evening when everything ended. Haven’t seen the little fucker since.
Pre-game painting of Vic by Aarni Korpela.
But let’s start from the beginning. How did I end up there?
In a larp group on Facebook, I noticed the trailer and website for Freakshow and I was immediately intrigued. I read the brief character descriptions and fell in love. I wanted to see them come alive. I wanted to be them. On the website, there were really short summaries of who the characters are, their powers, their dilemmas. Interested players would then have to sign up and fill in a form, providing information about how they felt they could fulfill the role they chose. I’ve never seen this method before, but I found it interesting, although it fed into my anxiety quite a bit.
After a while of contemplating, I decided to actually sign up, although I knew there could be issues arising from me possibly starting a new job exactly around that time.
Drawing of Birdie by Vira Takinada.
At first, I was in love with the character called Birdie. They were described as a dark, tortured soul, suffering from feathers growing on their body and seeking relief in drugs, which they would take but also distribute.
But there were already three people who had applied for that role, so I chose to refrain from it and rethink my choice.
Then, I stumbled upon Zombie. Zombie, the undead, was described to be a person who is numb to any form of touch or physical pain, with a full-body skeleton tattoo to stretch that point. But on the inside, they are very much alive and have a great deal of feelings.
Pre-game painting of Zombie by Aarni Korpela.
In the application, we were asked to describe what we were going to do with the role, and I said that I would not do the huge tattoo for various reasons. One of those reasons was that I have a bunch of colorful tattoos myself and I didn’t see myself capable of pulling something like that off, having to cover my own ink and then creating something of that scale. I was sure I wouldn’t get the part, because I basically shut down a major design idea. Also, the prospects of having six people who have never even met me evaluate my “worthiness” of playing a certain role bothered me for quite a while. Who are these people? What gives them the right to judge me based on what I wrote on a form based on what I wrote in a language that is not my first, not even my second language?
I took issue with wording like “evaluating,” because that for me added pressure to the situation, and I’m very perceptive to pressure.
But I got the part. I was ecstatic to say the least. I got to play Zombie the Undead. I had a Hangout session with my character designer. All of the players were assigned one of the GMs to help us create our characters and their background stories. Yet again, this was something I had never encountered in a larp before and I found it fascinating. For me, it went very smoothly, beautifully. We created something intense. Something real, despite all the supernatural that was going on within the concept. It was actually me who created this story of Zombie being immortal when subjected to physical violence. Not even a bullet to the head could kill her. This led to a frustration within the character — a frustration with herself, with death, with the world. Ultimately, it led to her decision never to kill a person. Because why would she grant anybody the satisfaction of dying when she can’t? “Fuck em, I’m not helping.”
Painting of Rocky by Vira Takinada.
I made connections with a handful of players way before the game and I am forever grateful for those friendships that grew out of this process. They made my experience all the more magical.
During preparations, I set Zombie up to be a reckless, loud mouthed danger to society and first and foremost: herself. She would blindly run into any kind of fight or even harm herself deliberately to prove a point. Also, I described her to be kind of a comic relief, to stretch the point of her being illiterate and thoughtless.
When the date of the larp came closer, my anxiety started to take hold of me again. I have that, it happens. I thought things like… what if nobody likes me? What if nobody enjoys my kind of play. What if they find me to be annoying or unapproachable or just unworthy of their time? What if I do everything wrong? What if I don’t do enough? What if I cannot provide them with good play, which I so desperately want to do more than anything else?
And then I went there. And it was wonderful. It was an atmosphere of immediate love, support, and understanding. Family. I got to know people in the Helsinki airport and the bus from Helsinki to Vaasa. We talked about what we could do with our characters. We tried to catch each other’s vibes to find out how to approach each other in- and off-game. I liked that. I needed that. After the game, I received beautiful feedback, saying that my portrayal of Zombie made her seem like an actual person, not like a one trick pony caricature with no depth. I hold this compliment very dear to my heart.
Painting of Ilmarinen by Toon Vugts.
In the workshops before the larp, I feel that one thing was missing. Beforehand in the Facebook group, we had established “shared memories,” which were situations in which we could choose to have our characters participate and show the others how everyone would react to them. I think it would have been very beneficial to the game if we had repeated at least some of the shared memories, just to refresh common knowledge within the group. This practice could be helpful for other games that use this method as well.
There is one shared memory in particular I feel the group should have refreshed: What does your character do when the big bad police come? Do they hide? Do they approach? Because the police did indeed show up at the site. And Zombie, who I had established to be a fucker-upper of the everything, could approach them without anyone batting an eye. In the shared memory, I had written that Zombie wouldn’t hide from the police, but needs to BE HIDDEN from them, which meant physical removal of her from the sight of the police. But nobody remembered that and everybody was so overly nice and considerate of everybody’s game, so nothing happened in that direction. And when a local (NPC) priest showed up, I even took it up a notch and was the first one to greet him and “show him around,” spewing typical Zombie bullshit while at it, and in the end, making that poor Reverend very, very uncomfortable by showing off what the Zombie do.
Pre-game painting of Scales by Aarni Korpela.
Being nice and considerate is not a bad thing. At all. I just think that the overall niceness and the uncertainty about physical boundaries amongst players (and NPCs) prevented some intense play which would have totally been possible and necessary. Maybe it would have been beneficial to do an overall round of “Who is okay with physically intense play, being touched, grabbed, held, etc.” at the workshops, so that we would have gained an overview and more certainty. Because my personal physical boundaries are at an estimated radius of -1. Grab me. Do it. Meanwhile, others need more space and/or are easily intimidated, which is absolutely fine and to be respected. So yes, more clarification on that would have helped.
The meals were something that didn’t give me much play, personally. I was very out of it for the most part. I felt confused and also I was forced to stop scenes, because we needed to go to the restaurant, which was about 1km away and we had to walk there. It felt unnatural to me, to see these people who just ten minutes before were arguing, crying, doing rituals or what have you, stand in line for lasagna in a cantine. I personally lost scenes, because we were interrupted by someone telling us to come to dinner or lunch. A set timeframe for meals and an open invitation to go and have the meals when it actually fit into play organically would have been better for me. Especially since we were instructed to be completely in-game for the meals as well.
Painting of Ophelia by Vira Takinada.
One thing that fascinated me from the first time it was announced was that there will be no photos of the game. Only drawings. A group of phenomenal artists was invited to come to the game and draw us. On Saturday evening, they played NPC town folk who came to the sideshow. That was really cool and I enjoyed them a lot. They gave my character a push towards a kind of inner development I would’ve never expected. Other players brought up the point that the town folk should have played in a more antagonistic manner, which does make sense. But I think this played into the issue of everyone being too nice in- and off-game, so there was no escalation at the sideshows except for the police threatening Big Sister. But that was in her “office,” pretty secluded and out of sight for the people who were doing the sideshows, so most of us had none of that play.
On Sunday, the real action for the artists started. They were playing “watcher spirits,” wearing black veils, walking around the site and drawing us. We were instructed to see them as an invitation for an inner (or outer) monologue and to feel the presence of either God or the Devil. A sense of impending doom. A very neat idea, of course. But in the actual game, it was a bit much. There were 11 watcher spirits roaming around the whole day and I felt that the players were not willing or able to play 8 hours worth of depression. That one of the spirits came up to me and hugged me in-game added to my confusion as to what to play on here, but I later on learned that they weren’t supposed to touch us and the person playing the spirit just thought I looked so sad. Which I was. I mean, Zombie was. And it’s totally fine, I had a fun story to tell off-game and chose to not play on it in-game. Overall, I think a lot of us were overwhelmed by the amount of dark creatures watching us and also we felt that we needed to play on constantly growing despair and misery. That was a bit much. I made the decision for my character to try and get people in a good mood again and it kinda worked out in the end.
Later on I had the pleasure of meeting the artists off-game and talk to them. It was glorious and I adore them all to bits.
Drawing of Charlie (top), Tick (left), and Yin (right) by Kaspar Tamsalu.
At the game itself, I had a blast. I have this thing where I very quickly create catchphrases for my character once I start playing them. This is a sign of me really being in there. So apart from calling everybody “motherfuckers” or just plain “fuckers,” Zombie had a choice of catchphrases and I really punched in the point of her being illiterate. She couldn’t read, write, count, or even read a clock. She approached someone to ask them what the money that she had just been given was worth. It was a fiver. It was big money. She also started to title everybody with “the.” The Rocky. The Scales. The Charlie. The Mabel. It was kind of a unique thing for her and her way of speaking and I highly enjoyed it.
Very quickly, I found Zombie to be a character who was incredibly — and inexplicably — trusted within the freakshow family. She could approach any group at any time and would’ve been told what’s going on. She learned secrets, theories, and a whole bunch of nonsense she then took and spread all over the place. “Have you heard?” was one of the most spoken sentences.
This trust that I received cemented Zombie’s loyalty towards what she perceived to be her family. She called Big Sister — the second owner of the Norman Sister’s Freakshow — “Momma”; she referred to Atlas — the strongman who now worked as the janitor for the show and had a marriage-esque relationship with Big Sister — as “Daddy.” This started out as an off-game joke. I just took it and ran with it. It worked out beautifully and gave me so much emotional play.
Pre-game painting of Oracle by Aarni Korpela.
Zombie cried. She was angry. Frustrated. Hurt. Desperate. Hopeless. Sad. It was a pleasure to play. She was a pleasure to play. The triggering moment for Zombie’s crying happened on Sunday morning. It was truly a sight to behold: Zombie leaning on the Oracle — who was stone-faced like always — and sobbing desperately in grief and anger. The Oracle was a character who could see the future, but had no power to influence it in any way. He firmly believed that nobody could escape fate. Zombie got into an argument with him over the death of Hope, the teenage son of the Freakshow owner, Little Sister. Hope was bludgeoned by townsfolk on Saturday night and the whole group was to discover his body at the gates of the amusement park on Sunday morning. No character was unfazed by this. Everyone of us had some kind of reaction and started their own way of mourning.
Also, Zombie’s story of not having killed anyone came full circle. I made sure everybody knew this for a fact, as well as the reason for it. Zombie even said it to the police officer who kind of interrogated her. “Nah, I haven’t killed nobody.” And the Oracle said, “Yet.”
At the last performance, Zombie and the Paraca planned to outsmart the Gods with a human sacrifice that won’t die. They wanted to perform a protection ritual to benefit the show and save them all. Because Zombie was known to be immortal to some extent, the two of them agreed to sacrifice her on stage. But of course, that plan failed horribly.The Paraca noticed that the ritual wouldn’t work without anyone actually dying and begged Zombie — who she had stabbed and partially gutted with a knife right before as part of the ritual — to kill her.
Painting of Paraca by Vira Takinada.
“Don’t make me. Please don’t make me. I can’t. Don’t make me. Don’t make me.”
“Do it for the family!”
Zombie turned her face towards the audience in the circus tent.
“I love you.”
And stabbed the Paraca in the heart.
After that, Zombie was eventually taken off stage and given a blanket… and sat somewhere on the side. That led to me not being able to enjoy the ending fully, because my perspective didn’t allow it. That’s something I regret dearly. But everything happened quickly, so I guess it slipped all of our minds to seat the Zombie and her gut — a piece of intestine I made for the show and carried around with me after being sliced open in game — somewhere more convenient.
Painting of Zombie by Vira Takinada.
I want to end this review by elaborating on something that I said during the debrief:
I learned from Zombie to let people love me. Because I usually don’t. I tend to try and be strong for everybody yet push people away when it would be my turn to show vulnerability. Zombie was loved. She had a family. She also had to learn to let people in and let them care about her. That is something Jasmin needs as well. I thank you all for this experience. For the enlightenment. For giving me a good giggle when we were told at the debrief to find a character we hated, to talk the experience over with them… and I actually stood there alone for a minute because there was no real hate for Zombie.
Thank you for everything.
For the baptism of The Fuckface Charlielover von Ballsack I, the teddybear in a clown costume. That fucker got his soul saved.
And I bid you all goodbye.
Fuck-cerely yours,
Grace Boleyn, Zombie the Undead
Cover Photo: Painting of the Freakshow larp set by Toon Vugts. Image has been cropped.
We are all at war, and I fear that only I am hard enough to know it. We send out our children as troops into battle, and they fight for land, money and affection. They murder hearts, minds, and bodies.
Do these dancing masters even understand? They fill our children with frippery, and we dress for battle. Ostrich feathers, silk, shined boots…uniforms for war. Cannons shoot words, and dances are formations.
Even greenery is battle.
We were instructed to bring greenery to the spring monument, and young ladies carried flowers and hope. Things I’ve long left behind.
General Whiteford, who was serious as sin, carried a nettle. When I remarked that he even held his flower seriously, he responded with perhaps the most intense gaze I have ever received. “It is a nettle, Madam.”
And so it was…perhaps he has the right idea. Nettles. Greenery that fights back.
Dorothy’s game ephemera.
I was eight years old when I first read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I stole my older sister’s copy and brought it to school, stealthily placing it inside the easy reader the rest of the class was supposed to be looking at. I was thoroughly engrossed in the romance and the social dynamics of it all. I was advanced for my age by quite a bit, but our failing school system didn’t really want to give up a gifted child.
So I sat with the book, and was eventually caught by my teacher who thought it a comic. She was shocked that I not only was reading it and comprehending it, but that I was enjoying myself. I was left alone to consume Austen, while the other children moved on with more age-appropriate books.
This is a fundamental moment in my childhood, one I have told many times at many parties. Indeed, Austen’s work and world has intrigued not only me but millions over generations. It is no wonder why I in particular wanted to attend Fortune & Felicity, a truly spectacularly produced 360 degree illusion larp set during the Regency time period and inspired by all of Austen’s works.
The game itself was billed as a way for players to live in their very own Austen novel, with carefully crafted meta techniques that push gameplay and intensify emotions. Romance, fortune, emotions, and a truly spectacular setting were combined with an intensely detailed system to make sure each person was given a role in the game that not only connected to other players, but to the world.
For me, Fortune & Felicity seemed a perfect opportunity to not only immerse myself in a unique world with which I had been enamored since I was a child, but to explore my academic interests and add to my fieldwork. Currently, I am embarking on a visual autoethnography studying larp and the phenomenon of emancipatory bleed at New York University’s Gallatin School. In slightly less academic terms, I am using myself and my experiences in a community I am a part of to study the idea that bleed can be steered and used for emancipatory purposes by players who live with complex marginalizations. I believe that players who live with a double consciousness or a fractured identity due to other marginalizations can use larp and the resulting bleed to mitigate the negative aspects if steered with pre-game measures, in-game steering and post-game evaluation.
Emancipatory Bleed
The theory of double consciousness was coined by Black American scholar and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois believed that due to the severe history of slavery and constant oppression, Black Americans live with not one self, but many. In his turn of the 20th century ethnography The Souls of Black Folk, he says,
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn’t bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn’t bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.
To be a Black American means that one separates their identity to both protect themselves and to nurture themselves, but these two selves remain divided. Everyday choices become about survival, and any interaction is flavored with historical context. It is a near invisible and quite heavy load to carry, and one I believe can be lessened and enhanced through the use of larp and the resulting bleed.
The Process
As an autoethnographer, my own experience within the larp community is used as research. This means I must create a set of strict techniques that will allow me to both record my experience, steer in the way I think will provide the liberation, and allow myself to analyze it later. My technique in encouraging this type of bleed involves elaborate character development, and immersive steering. Before attending, I would create a playlist of songs to build ideas about the character, create a costume that was heavily tied to the character, and keep diaries to form a thought process that was unique to the character, fleshing out their mental space and state. During the game, I would keep thorough diaries from the character’s perspective, retain ephemera collected — letters given, tokens found etc. — and steer towards those themes from which I wanted to receive bleed while trying to be as deeply immersed as possible. Afterwards, I would complete a thorough living document including visuals and catalogue the physical objects to be later used in a final thesis exhibit.
But Why Begin With Fortune & Felicity?
Mrs. Long (Aina Skjønsfjell Lakou) and Mrs. Smith (Jonaya Kemper). Photo by Aina Skjønsfjell Lakou.
As a child and young adult, I very much wished to have a hero much like Elizabeth Bennet represent me. I wanted to see myself in that world of quips, balls, and intrigue. Her heroines seemed smart, witty, and uniquely feminist in ways I found empowering. However, as a Black woman, I always felt slightly disjointed from the fiction, as most people are unaware that Austen’s work includes at least one woman of color.1
Though Fortune & Felicity did not include or play on race in any way, I myself knew incoming that intrinsically most larp characters I play are an extension of self. Others did not need to see my character Mrs. Smith as a Black woman during the larp, as her race was not significant to the game, but my race was significant to me as a person. Playing in Fortune & Felicity allowed me to give myself the representation my sister and I did not have as children. Though historically people of color were not only around England in the period, but around and wealthy, one does not see them represented in any media outside of narratives involving slavery. Fortune & Felicity seemed to promise a light and airy experience in which I could explore themes of love, class, and romance in a period where my face is seldom seen.
Except the experience was less like consuming a light and fragile macaroon at the refreshment table of a ball, and more like Battenburg cake at 3pm in the muggy afternoon heat while you prepare for an intense emotional war.
Both are enjoyable, but I simply wasn’t expecting the latter.
Playing the Cards You’re Dealt
During the casting process, which I was not exactly a part of since I signed up for the waitlist, you could list where to play young or old. I did not particularly care about playing either as I just wanted to experience the larp and see how I could steer myself towards emancipatory bleed. I figured that every character would be dealing with the same themes as everyone else anyway, so it did not matter whether I played young or old.
I received a last minute drop-out spot, and discovered I would be playing the part of Mrs. Dorothy Smith: a poor, very recent widow, with two grown children in need of spouses. While I was still upsettingly excited for the larp, this casting sent me into a slight panic. Reading the character description, I was unsure if the organizers knew just how oppressive the experience of a Regency-era widow was let alone a Regency-era poor widow with a wealthy sister. How was I supposed to play a light breezy larp about romance and family when my character seemed to be on the very outskirts of the society into which she was born? In addition to this, she was written to be charming, filled with folly, and ridiculously cheerful at all times while having to quickly find matches for her children with a Sword of Damocles hanging over her head.
Many of the characters had been written to be directly inspired from Austen’s works. I, a deep-cut Austen fan, could not find my character in a single book I read. When I was told who she was, I realized I didn’t even remember her being in a book. As such, this gave me even more of a desire to give her a fuller richer life, rather than a supporting role.
Despite my nervousness with the character, I did not decline the spot. For one, I trusted the organizers and their track record with impunity. Secondly, I took a look at the cast list, and found that I would be playing with some people who were good friends at this point and others who I was looking forward to knowing better. Thirdly, it was an experience you couldn’t really pass up if you love Jane Austen. The venue is like living in the book. If I was going to be oppressed by accident, by George, I would do it in style with good company.
With this in mind, I shifted what I wanted from the larp. This was a perfect excuse to explore the feminist undertones in Austen’s era. I myself dealt with several of the issues Dorothy Smith was having. Though I was not a mother originally born to wealth, I did have to deal with expectations of feminine roles in a strict community, I am aging in a society that idolizes youth, and I know very well what it is like to have to keep up appearances while being rather poor. If I steered her into a narrative about living her best life, could I free myself from the fractured parts of me?
I wasn’t sure, but I was willing to try.
Dorothy’s poetry journal, written in pen and ink. Photo by Jonaya Kemper.
When Good Intentions Go Awry
In my opinion, Fortune & Felicity is an expertly designed larp that was hamstrung by our current society. Due to a gender imbalance and bleed-in regarding romance, I believe Fortune & Felicity was not as strong in a few places as it was in others. As far as I can tell, the designers did not intend to create a larp in which older characters would be playing a radically different larp than younger players. The pre-larp workshops were lovingly crafted with dancing, gender roles, and relations to society done in Romance and Family groups, but players portraying older characters were not given specialized tools.
In our Family groups, we talked and discussed our role to our Families and what kind of play we might need. It was here that we created a family identity and each person fleshed out their role collaboratively. The families seemed to be a solid bond that moved well together despite age differences. Here is where Dorothy first changed from what was written. The family required a fixer in addition to the strong matriarch, and Dorothy just fell into the role.
It was when Romance was added that we began to see cracks. As a young character, you of course dealt with social pressures and issues, but game mechanics were skewed heavily in your favor. You were simply able to do more. This lead to the older players in my romance group to wonder why we were in fact called a romance group. The gender lines were: two men, one of them married, to seven women, two of whom had characters as young as players in the young romance groups. Within twenty minutes of our first workshop, several of us expressed the fact that we felt left out, and like we were NPCs there to move the younger players’ stories along without any story of our own. Many of our characters were not written with romance in mind at all, which was expected from some and came as a disappointment to others.
In a larp that stressed heteronormativity and the perfection of the Regency era, it was uncomfortable to go through mechanics of intimacy when your group was largely made up of players playing your family. Also, it is hard to practice gender rules when there are only two male characters. I, as a player who was trying to immerse myself as Dorothy, found that the character had to fundamentally change. Frequently, I subbed in for the male roles in dancing, talking, and intimacy exercises. This meant that the character I was playing felt far more bold. This worked out to my advantage, but I can easily see how someone who wanted to play upon stereotypically femininity might feel left out.
Once play began in earnest, the disparities between age, wealth, and gender only became deeper as we all wore name badges that told everyone our marital status and income. Wearing your worth on your chest for a weekend, is heavier than one might think.
It’s All in the Dance
Spring Ball: Primrose, 1800s
Balls were not nearly so boring when I was a girl. I imagine that I never sat down for more than a minute. My reputation for dancing and conversation was impeccable. Now I look at us in our silks and feathers or, in my case, lawns and pearls. Here we are, surveying the floor in an illusion of choice.
If it weren’t for the company of Mrs. Long, I would have been utterly likely to have left the children with Frances and spent my evening with a book. Her good cheer and good friendship is the only thing that stops me from constantly screaming.
If it were up to me, I would show these young girls how free they are. I was weighed down in twice what they wear, in corsets that pinched into my flesh, and large enough skirts that I could have hidden several people under them.
And the shoes. Oh, those pinching satin mules that clopped everywhere so that we all resembled a military parade.
Here they are in their satin and silk and flat-bottomed slippers. Try a dance in my youthful shoes and see if you still smirk as you pass the line of widows, my dear.
We know more about your future than you do. You are just a pawn in this delightful campaign. We are your commanding officers. Lady Creamhill can deny you anything with a smirk. Frances can do the same. Even I, with my limited standing, need only whisper and you will be destroyed.
Monstrous.
Husbands may wear the titles, but it is the wives and the widows who wage the real domestic war. And these children don’t even know. They just continue their dance, continue their love.
The poor fools.
Opening Ball at Primrose. Photo by Anders Hultman.
Dancing was a major point in Fortune & Felicity. The larp started and ended with dance. There were not enough partners of mixed genders for everyone to be able to enter the larp with the dance, which is a true shame as I cite it as one of its most defining moments. Fortune & Felicity simply did not have enough men — whether they identified as men or willing to crossplay as such — to fit their mechanics. This issue led to what could have been a slight jostling oppression to be a heavy locked-in feeling for both player and character.
Every evening ended in a massive ball with live music after we had a sit down dinner. We learned how to dance and convey emotion with the barest ability to touch. Dancing was a way to show interest and allow yourself to be immersed as fully as you can. Our workshops were pleasant and intense. They included live music, and plenty of in-depth instruction. However, when we got to the final workshop, we found that we were not going to be allowed to dance with the same gender. This meant that if you were older and a woman, your opportunities to do anything other than talk at the balls were limited. You could not ask anyone to dance. You were essentially relegated to the sidelines unless a relative asked you, or you had enough status to bully a young man into standing up with you. I had neither youth nor fortune, and as such spent a large part of that evening with a co-player being surprisingly bored until we took play into our own hands.
Ageism and Romance
Primrose: Summer, 1800s
Never had such eyes been set upon me in the dark.
The lights of the teahouse illuminated his fine form, his dark face. General Whiteford is a dangerous man, and yet… I am now sure I am unafraid of hm or anything else.
We have shared jests about battle plans and we both agree that Primrose is a War in which we both command troops. He respects me. I know this in the way he looks at me across the young bodies who beg and plead for love and fortune. We have already done this, he and I. We have survived triumphantly, and now I believe we are trying to decide whether we shall enter the fray once more.
But I think we shall.
It has been a long time since I looked for anyone in a ballroom, and a longer time since anyone has looked for me. Standing across from him, I realized that everything had fallen away. The strains of the hornpipe seemed distant and I was unsure whether I heard the same strains as I did the first time I was at Primrose, glutted on youth.
I found myself short of breath, but the dance had not begun. His face was not his usual scowl; he looked pleased. I was stuck for words, and his face disarmed me further. “Why General Whiteford, you look almost pleased.”
I could have died for my own foolish volley.
But he not only smiled, her nearly clicked his heels. The young man next to him looked terrified. “Me, Madame?” He could make the term Madame seem as personal as my own God given name despite it’s crisp clipped tone. “I’m positively jolly.
And then we were off.
The familiar steps leading us through bodies we never paid attention to. I remembered easily what it was like to float through a world of being seen and wanted.
No one batted an eye at our fingertips touching. Why pay attention to us? We are but ghosts in these living halls. But as we moved down the line, I felt our bones reconnect, and by the time we had his hand in mind gently leading me to the last set, I felt full of flesh.
He has defeated me with a dance, and never have I been happier to lose.
General Norman Whiteford (Simon Brind) sitting alone. Photo by Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén.
The fact that my character had a romance was a fluke, and yet I charge it and her female friendships along with her family play to be the reason why the larp was such a smashing success for me. Most romances written in Fortune & Felicity gave you the option of two partners within your group, but it was not implied or encouraged by all gamemasters to make play outside of that. Many people felt obligated to play out the story rather than forging their own path.
The game structure was very rigid, with each day starting with church and ending in a ball. In between, there were workshops in structured groups, and several choices for meta games. The schedule provided us with hours of constant activity, but for adults, it meant a flurry of activity with no time for ourselves. As a player, I felt like I had to follow the arc of the larp even though the larp wasn’t necessarily following mine. In the first act, we were all speaking of romantic perfection; in the second, we were supposed to have reality smash down upon us; and in the third act, we were supposed to find some sort of redemption. This was to be spread over a course of days.
The second day workshops made it clear that as an older person, we were not exactly having the same game opportunities. We talked to our personal gamemasters, and it was all discussed amongst staff. I cannot say enough that they tried very hard to listen and respond immediately to the feedback from players who were playing older characters. Some of these responses worked better — such as making sure older characters got more dancing — than others — such as wearing a red ribbon on your name badge, which made attractive widows accidental pariahs. Only when a few of us banded together to follow our character’s agency and really steer did I feel like I was truly immersed at Primrose.
And that’s when the magic of the mechanics; the unintentional intense social, gendered, and classist oppression; and meta techniques really shined. For me, character agency was the missing puzzle piece.
Once I, as a player, felt like I could have true agency to choose my own path rather than what was prewritten, I was not only deeply immersed; I was having one of the best larp experiences of my life. Instead of focusing only on romance, I could follow up with a rewarding relationship with my character’s older sister, support my character’s children, and foster a deep meaningful friendship with a newfound female friend. Those supportive relationships we created on site together were the best moments of my game. Dorothy didn’t become a character on page 222 that you easily forgot. She became the star of her own novel, while showing up in others to share richer game play, provide pressure, and bring Primrose to life.
Just Because It’s Oppressive Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Fun
Late Autumn: 1800s
They did not know what they asked.
Family never does.
I have never asked much from life and it seems the least life could do was allow me to live in love. I have sacrificed everything for my family. I have humbled myself, I have groveled, I have gone hungry, and I have smiled when all I wanted to do was break into a million peices. I have held the line.
And now they ask me to go to war with Norman just to prove that I can still be loyal. That I can still fix everything. So I dueled the one man at Primrose who never misses.
He knew it would come, I think. Perhaps it was his last chance to escape redemption.
Either way, we sat across from each other, our eyes never leaving the other’s face. Our masks were savage and beautiful, a lifetime of practice. I was vaguely aware of Judith behind me, and I squared my shoulders. She is strength, and so am I.
“You cannot disinherit your sons, my dear.”
“But I have set them free, Madame.”
I understood what he meant. They were free from the very tethers that wrapped me to this chair in this sweltering salon with perfectly sliced battenburg cake in front of me. I kept his gaze while moving a particularly large tray of sweets that separated us and let violence drip on my tongue, “It’s heavy…”
I let the threat linger, knowing he’d understand.
I was not his first wife, but I would certainly be his last.
“Shall we do battle over tea, my dear?”
If I knew better, I think he nearly smiled.
For me as a player, exploring oppression through play is a pleasure. If done within the confines of a safe game environment with people you trust, you can explore yourself and have an excellent time. As an academic, Fortune & Felicity’s light oppression mechanics and unintentional deep oppression path for older women provided exactly the type of experience I needed to reach a sense of emancipatory bleed.
The character fought societal pressure, familial pressure, sexism, ageism and class identity in order to find her way in the world. She overcame every obstacle, and ended up being the exact type of heroine I wanted to read about as a child. The bleed from Dorothy has been overwhelmingly positive, not because she succeeded in love, but because she succeeded in finding herself. Dorothy stepped out of an Austen novel, and into her own universe. Through her own liberation, I felt some semblance of my own. Liberation through larp.
After Fortune & Felicity, I found that I was more confident, less worried about my own mortality and more likely to stand up for myself. Even the way I looked at my own body positivity changed for the better. All direct outcomes from the deep immersion I felt while playing Dorothy.
Dorothy’s ball attire. Photo by Jonaya Kemper.
Late Autumn: The Last Service at Primrose
The couples have filled the church to bursting. There are so many that the pews seem empty. I see our children standing among the the crowd, happily engaged and waiting to be blessed by God.
I see no reason for us to stand among them, the casualties of war. Let their parents preen over them and their ceremony.
We sit with Judith, who is too good and true for this space. Her love has yet to be found at Primrose, but it is only because her worth is more than her fortune.
And of course Norman and I sit with each other, as close as wool and bonnets allow in the Lord’s house. I pretend to follow the Vicar, but the truth is that I have never followed the Vicar. Percy is a Vicar and I’ve never followed him either.
Instead of being a good Christian woman, I let the feeling of the nettles in my bare right hand and the feeling of Norman’s hand on my left pin me to the moment.
I smile at him like a cat with a bowl of cream, and we recite the vows the Vicar instructs everyone to abide by.
The season is over, but the war isn’t. As a family we shall head to other battlefields, in other places in other times. We will win, and we will lose, but we shall always serve together.
Fortune & Felicity was an incredibly immersive experience that taught me a lot about myself as a larper, and as an academic studying larp. My theory about emancipatory bleed and the ability to steer immersion towards healing self-identified issues will continue to be honed and crafted as I continue my studies. Due the initial design setbacks, I learned how to ask for the play I want instead of sacrificing myself, and I learned how to work in a cohesive group to create amazing deeply emotional play for others in wide varieties.
By steering for emancipatory bleed, Dorothy Elizabeth Whiteford truly became the heroine I dreamed of all those years when I hid a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice in an early reader. I can only hope the larp is run again so that others can find their own personal Austen as well.
Cover photo: Mrs. Long (Aina Skjønsfjell Lakou) and Mrs. Smith (Jonaya Kemper) became best friends who were a force to be reckoned with. Photo by Kalle Lantz & Frida Selvén.
Miss Lambe can be found in an unfinished novel called Sanditon.↩︎
