Pirates at Bezkrálí

After multiple years Bezkrálíreturned. I’d attended this larp even before it had a name and when it was a just a side project at our New Year’s party. I’ve attended Bezkrálí as a player, NPC, GM and a photographer over the years.

Bezkrálí hasn’t had much luck with me as a photographer. It lived thought my first digital photography experiments, my pneumonia (and therefore my inability to arrive), or times when my work didn’t allow me to be there for the whole game. Like this time. I missed the first day of the game, and when I managed to arrive my arthritis bound me to the camp for most of the time. So I was just sitting in the middle of everything and taking pictures from there, not participating in the pirates’ adventures on the sea.

The sea was virtual; there hasn’t been any sea in the larp village Čisovice for many thousands of years. But it was essential for all the pirates in Tortuisa (do not confuse with Tortuga, that’s a different world), almost as essential as a bottle of rum.

As usually the game had multiple plotlines which intertwined with a lot of legends which usually went against one another and therefore added more to the mystery of the setting. You can probably imagine a lot of conflict between various ship crews, both pirate and non-pirate ones. But the main reason why the game took place on Tortuisa and why Tortuisa was important for most of the world was the fact that it was exactly in the middle of the way between Kitája and the Empire – and there would be war between them very soon. To this mixture you can add a few dozens of personal storylines and about eighty players and they will do the rest.

Bezkrálí isn’t one of those high budget games, where you get a costume and everything. It has never even tried to be so – it’s a regular sandbox. Everyone is allowed to bring their own sand, and can play with it, or with the sand of other characters, as much as with the organizer-provided sand. The characters were always created in cooperation of the GMs and players (or groups of players), but mostly on the players’ ideas.

From what I’ve heard there, and I must agree with it – it was like a reunion of an elementary school class (after ten or more years). I haven’t seen many of the players for years and was happy to see them after this long. But it wasn’t only about these dinosaurs; there were also people for whom this was the first Bezkrálí.

No one knows whether or when the fifteenth Bezkrálí will take place, but we all are looking forward to it. There is even an idea in my head, that I should do something for, so ithappens again.