Pieter has shared his plans for Sasha, the repeating crossbow!
Crafting the Essence of Death and Nature: Pieter’s LARP Druid Staff Project
Today, we embark on yet another exciting project journey from Pieter of Arcana that started with a familiar question: “Could you make something…?” And as always, the enthusiastic response was, “Sure, if you can describe what you would like and it sparks an idea.”
So here we are, with a raw sketch and a brief in hand, ready to delve into the creation of a unique LARP Druid Staff. The brainchild of the talented Pieter, this staff is envisioned to embody the essence of the All Father, encapsulating themes of death, decay, and autumn. Picture a dark, mysterious staff that, despite its ominous aura, maintains a distinctive connection to the natural world.
The foundation of this project lies in a rough sketch—a mere representation of the idea’s potential. Remember, in the world of creativity, it’s the idea that counts. Alongside the sketch, there’s a brief description guiding the design process.
Pieter’s vision is clear: a staff that is both dark and recognizably wooden. The challenge? To infuse the staff with the essence of the All Father, creating an object that breathes the very spirit of death and decay. Adding an element of the Were Bear, a creature akin to the werewolf but with a bear’s touch, introduces an intriguing twist. Claw marks adorn the sketch, leaving a mysterious tale in their wake.
The aim is to maintain a height of 180 cm for the staff, ensuring a commanding presence on the LARP battlefield. Imagine wielding this mystical creation, a tangible connection to the forces of nature and the mysteries of the All Father.
To enhance the mystique, Pieter envisions the staff featuring a recognizable sickle—a symbol of harvest, death, and the cyclical nature of life. To push the boundaries further, he contemplates the inclusion of subtle traces of blood, adding an element of grim reality to the fantastical design.
Targets
Pieter made some archery targets!
Scroll of Promotion
This isn’t a weapons build, it’s for magic scrolls! As long as the pandemic is ebbing, it may be time to think about how your group presents itself to new people. I’ll talk about scrolls. They’re magic! For recruiting.
At Dargarth, we put up flyers all over the place before our first event in the city blocks of a few neighborhoods. This worked well, we wound up being contacted by the friendly people at CHS blog for an interview, which was a great signal boost. These big punctuated efforts were helpful, but not as important as the reliable club behavior that gets a group from five people to fifty:
Over the next few years, we’d haul out a bunch of loaner gear to our just-public-enough spot every other weekend, by 11am, with people present in costume having fun, sparring, eating, crafting, and talking. We’d have a sign if there was room in the dufflebags for it, and if we were really on our game, a basketful of flyers announcing our next couple of events.
The scroll is a great thing to bring to your group for the level of cost involved. It’s just the bare minimum you need for it to be anachronistic and prop-like, it’s hand-made (in photoshop/google docs/whatever) and obviously DIY and not corpo, and it’s personal. It’s better swag than a keychain, makes a great souvenir for members and visitors alike, and it’s got your website and some cool details on it that you can talk about more to anyone who comes over to pick up a scroll. (You put them out in front of the group in a basket so people know they could grab them, right?) You don’t even need fancy paper or string, and you can crank out a new one for each event, ask the FLGS if you can post one, leave some tucked into the D&D section at Barnes and Noble, whatever.
Pieter’s Bloody Knife
Pieter writes in again from across the pond (Arcana, in the Netherlands) with a new knife he made!
The knife was a request: ”Hi, I have done all kinds of tests in the past few weeks, because I think it would be nice if there was some blood at rituals and now I have had a good idea so that I can make a cut with blood at every ritual that I find necessary, but I miss some details on how I can do that. My basic idea is a hollow handle where I can connect a tube of fake blood too and that if I squeeze something in the handle, for example, some blood will run out of the tip of the knife. A tube runs through the blade. Something like that. Is such a thing possible?”
Some technical details: the knife is 40 cm long, about 15 inches. the handle unscrews and folds open so you can easily exchange the silicone flask. squeezing the flask forces the “blood” through the hollow core and out of some small channels drilled into core right through the foam.
Thank you Pieter!
Pieter’s Cactus Club
A player at Arcana asked Pieter if he could build something…
His character went though a desert, and he only survived with the aid of a cactus. He asked Pieter if a cactus weapon could be built, and mentioned, “Oh, it would be nice if it could light up.”
Here’s a spiny light up Cactus club!
Pyrotechnics
Sometimes when someone gets a crazy idea, Pieter at Arcana builds it for them.
At the Arcana LARP, magic gets quite technical. They use fireworks and black powder mixed with milk powder or sugar to physrep spells. The combustible powder is packed in small tubes. This way, a fire spell really shoots fire, and an Ice spell spews a white puff of smoke.
Here’s a magic staff that Pieter made in the shape of a dragon with batteries, a switch, and a male din plug to ignite the spell! The eyes light up when you push the trigger.
