We would like to tell you about one of our favourite LARP event that takes place in the Czech Republic. It is a fantasy festival and battle inspired by the Lord of the Rings. Every year about 600 people participate in this fantastic event full of tournaments, competitions, concerts, battles and many more. Do you want to participate in a huge battle along with nearly 400 people? Do you want to fight in tournaments? Do you want just to make a campfire and chill with your friends? None of this is a problem here. Main program takes place during 4 days – from Wednesday to Saturday. If you want to help organizers you can arrive earlier and depart later. This event has even its own wooden stronghold and they have to build new every single year, so you can probably imagine how much work just this part takes. But it is totally worth it From Saturday to Tuesday - Unofficial days, Arrival, Registration Here are a few words from my friend that normally arrives earlier to help organizers during these days: „Our Nordic squadron arrived on Saturday and pitched our tent. The stronghold was almost standing (scaffolding and stairs were built), bridges were finished. Half of the dry toilets were standing. Organizers were almost finished really early this year. These are each year main tasks plus also a podium. This year, more "slaves" arrived, so work went forward quickly. On Sunday, a podium was built, the rest of the dry toilets also and the wall was ready for battle. On Monday, everything was done, so one of the organizers thought it would be wonderful to have a sauna. In the evening it was ready too. The last job was on Wednesday to clear the playing field from sticks and other mess. In about fifty people it was done in a moment“ Me and Lumi mostly arrive during Tuesday afternoon to register, unload our car full of goods and to build our tent. Lumi is also on a mission to obtain some beer as soon as she step out of the car. Then we go out to meet with our friends which we didn’t see during the whole year. Wednesday – Tournaments Most of people arrive during Tuesday and Wednesday morning, so on Wednesday the tournaments can start. During tournaments you can win some coins in local currency, but you can also bet on match results. All your income will come in handy during the auction of magical artifacts (and also mead, wine, pendants, decorations...) during the Friday evening. Traditionally the first tournament is Mini-domination which serves to test out the quality of stronghold. During this tournament you have two groups of people which has to fight for their flags around the stronghold. The team, which hold their flags for most of the time or turns all flags at one time on their colour, wins. These teams have about 10 people. During next days also occurs a bigger Domination with teams about 20 people. The most classical tournament which takes place on the first day (sometimes also the second day) is 1v1 arena. It is considered as a place to prove your battle mastery against other skilled (or unskilled) opponents. You can pick any suitable combination of weapons (according to the rules) to defeat your opponent. Best of 5 hits wins the round and advances to the next. Only the best hunters, rangers and elven archers can become winners of the next tournament. I am of course talking about Archery which takes place in two disciplines. During the first one you have to prove your skill and hit different objectives – Targets, Swinging ball and Dummy with shield, helmet and spear (each for different amount of points). During the second discipline people will be divided into teams, each with 3 archers. Then they will be sent into arena to fight for the glory. Thursday – Tournaments, Fantasy Pub Quiz, Helmáč Got Talent My favourite tournament is „Daggers“ – similar to 1v1 arena, but your only weapon is little LARP knife. You have to defeat your opponent during the round of best of 5 hits to advance. Have you ever heard about Kekel? If not here are simple rules – it is an almost full contact fight in which you can nearly everything. Knock the enemy to the ground, hit him into helmet, punch him with the shield and many more. Of course you must have appropriate armour, helmet and weapon. Every participant has 8HP (depends on the rules, sometimes you are given specific amount of time and the referees are counting the hits) and if he get to 0HP he loses. Then there is also a little bit more brutal version of Kekel. And that is Kekel 5v5 in which are made teams of 5 people to fight until the last man stands. In the evening starts a little bit more peacefull part of the programme. It is called Fantasy Pub Quiz and organizers will use it to test your knowledge of LOTR, Anime, Sci-fi, Movies and many more. Last year we were for example supposed to come with our own original „Vogon poetry“ (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) Thursday evening is traditionally finished with Helmáč Got Talent. Every participant can come up with their own original performance to win the competition. Every year more and more singers, dancers and performers dare to participate in this competiton which is mostly supposed to be fun for the audition. Me and Lumi participate every year – this time we came up with „parody“ on Czech country song which we rewrote into the Lord of the Rings world. If you would like to hear our amateur performance, you can check it out here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Gm1j6C7CQ&t=135s Friday – Tournaments, Auction, Deloraine concert One of the best tournaments is without discussion Jugger. It can be shortly described as a fantasy version of rugby with LARP weapons. This tournament is regularly won by a team of organizers of whole event. It could be caused by that, as one of the few, they actually train together during the year. But they were also few times beaten by other teams, so everybody got a chance. If you would like to know more about the Jugger rules, you can check it out here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugger Last tournament is mostly Brutal. It is 1v1 contact fight without weapons which takes place in a small sand covered circle. The goal of the duel is to carry out your opponent out of the circle 3 times or to make him surrender. According to the rules you can agree to use choking or fighting grips. On this day all the tournaments end and you can spend your ingame money (won in tournaments or in bets) during the Auction. You can buy magical items which can give you advantage in Saturday battle (+1HP, +1 Combat power and more) but also items from merchants. We mostly do not invest into magical amulets and rather buy items that will last with us. Last year we won wooden tree of life – wall decoration, wizards’s pendant and bottle of mead (the bottle actually didnt last with us for some unknown reason for so long time). Evening is finished by a concert of selected band (we could actually vote which band we would like to see). This year it was wonderful band Deloraine, which is known by their songs and style inspired by The Witcher. Take a moment and listen to their wonderful music. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxN7vu9MTiKnxM8KMmk6qq Saturday – Battle, Lucrezia Borgia concert
Last day is focused on final battle between the dark and the light side of Middle-Earth. After approval of weapons and armour rating, each side is sent into their base. From there small groups of soldiers are sent to complete different quests. We have naval battles, conquering the stronghold, flags domination, searching for materials and many more. Before each quest the commanders consult their strategy. It is very important to complete as much quests as possible, because it will give their army benefits to the final battle. In 2019 about 400 people participated in final battle. For the light side you could find here Rohan, Dwarves, Elves and Gondor. For the dark side it was Orcs, Harad, Rhun and Khand. If any side would be in disadvantage in numbers, Auxiliary corps will balance it. After many hours, battles are finally finished and you can take a big rest before the last and very popular event of Helmáč – concert of Lucrezia Borgia. The band is really loved between people of Helmáč with its music inspired by medieval or renaissance motifs, Moravian-Celtic melodies and Balkan rhythms. They also use replicas of period instruments. The songs are mostly in Czech, but also in German, Latin, Italian and Spanish. You can be sure that the last night is one hell of a party. I am really sad that we couldnt participate last year, because the battle really devastated us as it was raining all day long and Sven was also a captain of Gondor. Sunday – Deconstruction, Cleanup, Departure Well it is finally here. The last day on the place – the only things you has to do are cleaning up your camping place, paying your debt in the pub and saying one last goodbye to your friends. Of course if you are free you can stay few more days and help organizers to deconstruct the stronghold, clean battlefield and many more things, they will be definitely grateful :)
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We are Sven and Lumi. Welcome to our blog full of fantasy events, creating, travelling and beer. Categories |