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The character group you are playing in Odysseus heavily defines your experience as a player. In this blog post we’ll do our best to give you an idea of what your experience would be like playing a character from each group. Some characters are part of several groups, giving the player an opportunity to either focus on one group or balance their play between several groups. In addition to these, there are a few other character elements that might strongly define your experience. We’ll ask about your willingness to play each of these in the casting questionnaire. Some examples of characters with such additional game-play-defining elements are android/machine characters, characters with hidden knowledge to be revealed at certain points in the story or characters with scripted death scenes. All our characters are pre-written with fully fleshed backgrounds, secrets and goals as well as at least a half a dozen connections to other characters. All of them have friends and colleagues, many have romantic interests, and some may even have family on board ESS Odysseus. To create the sense of a living world, as well as to raise the stakes on what is happening outside the ship during the game, the characters also have connections to people on other ships in the survival fleet who can be contacted via in-game chat and are played by our lovely NPC team. While all our characters are facing a journey filled with tragedies and hard choices, there is a vast variety of different experiences to be had on board the Odysseus. The most fundamental difference is between the civilian and military characters. Civilians are not tied to the ever-turning clockwork aspect of the larp, are free to choose their sleeping schedule as they like, and have no assigned tasks that need to be completed in a set time frame. For civilians the experience leans more heavily towards relationship drama and experiencing the reality of war around them while unable to directly influence the outcome. However, some civilian characters (mainly politicians) also have a lot of influence on matters at a larger scale, as the inevitable shift from martial law back to civilian government takes place during the game run. For military characters Odysseus offers the experience of a very hectic military simulation. While they also have pre-written connections to other characters and everything that comes with those (as well as enough free time to play them out), the defining element of the military experience is being part of an organized routine that runs like clockwork day and night for the duration of the larp. The ship needs to jump as often as possible (every 2 hours and 47 minutes) to escape the unrelenting enemy. Early on in the larp, a glimmer of hope is presented to the characters and, in pursuit of that hope, the path they need to follow is laid in front of them. To be able to do that, marines need to conduct land missions to retrieve beacons left behind by their ancestors and scientists must solve puzzles within these beacons to determine the next destination to jump to. Meanwhile, bridge crew need to steer the ship and fight off enemies alongside the fighter pilots until it is safe to jump again. Engineers are busy fixing the inevitable damage to the ship, and medics saving the lives of its crew and passengers on a regular basis. Officers are there to make sure the cogs keep turning… and they are responsible for making the difficult decisions that the characters will inevitably face.  Picture: Santtu Pajukanta OfficersTL;DR: Military leaders are in charge of operative decisions that take place throughout the larp. I walked into the dimly lit room and gave a look at the half empty mug with cold coffee on my desk where I had left it four hours ago. I felt tired, stretched, but I also felt alive. Once more we had managed to escape, jumping to safety just in time. I knew my crew was just as tired as I was, but I had to stay strong for them, lead them when they turned to look at me. Just as I’d been about to end my shift the chief engineer had approached me with a proposition to increase the amount of drones, but doing so would temporarily occupy one calibration slot which could not be used for repairs during that time. We needed more drones, so I gave them a green light and prayed that there wouldn’t be another attack too soon. I sighed from exhaustion and sat on the edge of my bed. The room was empty now, but soon enough the other temporary beds would fill up too. The ship was filled to the brim, but I shouldn’t complain. Every person on board was one more person saved from the unimaginable destruction left behind by the machines. But so many civilians on board would also inevitably cause disruptions, and it was only a matter of time before something happened. Maybe I should speak to them later after I’d slept, reassure them that we would keep doing everything in our power to keep everyone alive. Or maybe I should ask the Admiral to do that. I laid down on the bed, but as soon as I’d closed my eyes I heard the alarms go off: “Red alert! Crew to action stations!” The enemy had found us. Again. I braced myself to stand up but, after a second, let my body relax again. I wouldn’t be of any use to them now. The officer in charge would see this crisis solved as they had before. I had to sleep so that I’d be able to do my duty when my next shift would begin. There are nine characters in the officers character group. Six of them are divided among the three shifts (Solar, Lunar and Twilight) as (acting) captain and (acting) XO. Of the remaining three one is the quartermaster, in charge of passengers and equipment and acting as the liaison between civilians and military, while the other two are in charge of ship security and the marines on board. Characters in this group are the highest ranking military personnel on board ESS Odysseus. While the captain, XO, quartermaster and security officer are part of the original crew of the Odysseus, the rest of the characters in this group are high ranking officers from other ships and space stations who will have to get familiar with the crew and the working methods on board to be able to assume command during their shifts. The officers are in charge of coordinating the work of the bridge crew, making executive decisions and issuing orders on matters such as when to engage in battle, when to retreat, when to initiate a jump, as well as other issues arising during the larp. Thus, they are closely associated with the bridge even though they don’t have their own posts there. There are always two officers on duty, the (acting) captain and the (acting) XO. The original Captain of the Odysseus will be the captain on duty on Solar shifts and the original XO of Odysseus will take the role of captain on duty on Lunar shifts. They will recruit (predetermined) acting XOs for their shifts and the Captain will also assign a (predetermined) acting captain and XO for the Twilight shifts. They will also have personal plots and relationships to play out. The officers are also in charge of making major strategic decisions that concern the fate of all characters in the game. Towards the end of the larp some of this responsibility will shift to the civilian leadership, and the officers will need to coordinate and cooperate closely with them. Players of officer characters are expected to do their best to ensure that the game progresses smoothly, and to follow the path laid out in front of them. Some officer players may also receive metagame information in order to create a better larp experience for other players.
Bridge crewTL;DR: In charge of their post (navigation, science, comms, weapons) on the bridge during their shift. The wonderful sound of the jump drives kicking in lets me relax in my seat. They can’t follow us here at least. I wonder how long it’ll be before they catch up this time. Maybe that’ll be the next shift’s problem. I love the camaraderie of us all up here, each person doing their part to make sure everyone on board is safe. The best team ever. I should try and find my partner. There are so many things to sort out between us and I’m not sure if I can summon the energy. It’s been relentless since we started running. But then, what is it all for if we lose ourselves? I look out the window to the main concourse, watching all the people going about their business. We need to remember why we’re doing this. “Sir, can I have a moment?” I hear from behind me. One of the pilots I’m responsible for needs me. Every time we get in a fight, I count them all out and I count them back in again. Was I ever that young and reckless? I smile. Yup, I definitely was. I wish I was back with them, without all the worry and responsibility, but then I wouldn’t be flying the big boat. Oh well, no rest for the wicked, I guess. There are 18 characters in this character group. Most of them are part of the original crew of ESS Odysseus, but the crew for the Twilight shift, mandated by the emergency protocol, will be assembled during the game and will have quite a few posts staffed by other passengers with matching ranks and skills from other ships. There are six bridge crew members in each shift, as well as the (acting) captain and the (acting) XO. In addition to the commanding officers, who do not have their own posts, there are the following posts on the bridge: Navigations officer, Weapons officer, Communications officer, Communications specialist, Science officer and Science specialist. There is also a rotating task for one of the engineers to operate the Engineering station on the bridge. There are five roles in Empty Epsilon (the spaceship simulation we use in the game): Navigation, Weapons, Engineering, Comms and Science. On top of this we have another Comms position for communicating with fighter pilots and for shipwide announcements, as well as another Science position for our own star map software. The bridge crew works in three shifts throughout the larp. While there is no need to have all the stations manned at all times, certain information (e.g. scanners and communications) needs to be monitored 24/7 and there also has to be a commanding officer on the bridge at all times. This means that characters associated with the bridge will spend a lot of time steering the ship, making plans, communicating with other ships, preparing for and fighting battles, and maneuvering, as well as monitoring different data streams provided by the systems. A typical shift is four hours long, with either 8 hours of sleep or 8 hours off duty between shifts. This gives players time to play out their characters' other relationships and plots. Since one of the shifts is always sleeping, the off duty shift also acts as a backup in case someone on the bridge needs to take a break. Off duty bridge officers might also be assigned to train suitable civilians in training environments. While we aim to provide extensive workshops for players of the bridge crew on the location, if you are interested in a role in the bridge crew, we highly recommend that you practice using Empty Epsilon before the game (we will provide training scenarios and instructions!). Being familiar with the software will significantly improve your player experience in this character group.
PilotsTL;DR: Pilots fly two-person fighters in combat situations alongside Odysseus. The sound of the alarm interrupts the moment. I let out a deep sigh and break away from the embrace. They give me a silent nod. They understand. In ten seconds I’m at the hangar door. I see my co-pilot come running. “Damn machines, no respect for our personal lives.” They grin at me and, while their voice is light, I can sense the exhaustion under the surface. “Let’s repay that disrespect to them,” I reply, meeting their grin with my own. We climbed into the cockpit. I turn on the comms and hear the oh-so-familiar voice of my comms officer. “Releasing fighters in 60 seconds.” I buckle up my harness and brace myself for the battle. There are 6 military pilots amongst the characters, four of them stationed on the Odysseus, and almost as many characters (trainees, ex-military pilots, civilian pilots) with the skills needed to fly fighters, who will be recruited early in the game to do so. All of these are considered members of the pilots character group, but based on the background of each pilot character the play experience might vary outside of their assigned shift. Pilots fly fighters and engage in space battles and surveillance missions. Most of them either are or will become a part of the military organization due to their assignment, and their game will heavily involve the military hierarchy and possible conflicts between the military and the civilians. Pilots are a tight-knit group into which even newly recruited pilots are expected to integrate, and have group-centered plots and relationships. The fighter cockpits are situated (off-game) in the hangar bay (where the fighters are launched from in-game). There are at least three fighters available in the hangar bay, possibly more. Each fighter has one pilot and one weapons officer. Both have headsets that let them communicate with the bridge and with each other. The fighters and the mothership will fight side by side against the enemy. We very much encourage the fighters and the bridge to coordinate their maneuvers together in order to fight effectively and to buy the fleet enough time to make the next jump. The game will not have a major emphasis on space battles. In most cases the fighters will engage with a few enemy scout ships or will stay close to Odysseus in order to intercept missiles and buy the ship a little bit more time. However there will also likely be a few bigger battles and some close calls and minor clashes. The pilots may also be tasked with assisting the marines with internal security as well as flying the marines to land missions. All pilots are assigned to one of the three shifts but, unlike the characters in bridge crew, they will not have tasks throughout the entire shift. Instead they are expected to be on stand-by during their shifts and ready to jump into action on a moment's notice when the red alert sounds. On-duty pilots might also be expected to train suitable civilians during more peaceful moments. Pilots will also have personal plots and relationships to play outside of their shifts. While we aim to provide extensive workshops for pilot players on the location, if you are interested in playing a pilot, we highly recommend that you practice using Empty Epsilon before the game (we will provide training scenarios and instructions!). Being familiar with the software will significantly improve your player experience in this character group.
MARINESTL;DR: Marines are in charge of internal security on board and are sent out to ground missions on planets. It’s been three days since I arrived on the Odysseus. I’ve slept about ten hours total. I’m exhausted. I’ve fought the Machines in space and on the ground, with missiles, guns and hand to hand. I've been reprimanded by the commanding officer for my recklessness. When we received the emergency message, I flew out to rescue old friends and lovers with my team. Coming back from a mission, I went straight to the sick bay carrying a poisoned civilian through the crowded room and setting them down gently on the med scanner. That sure got the Doc's attention! They lived and we became friends. I married my partner, the intensity of life on the ship heightening the intensity of our relationship, and life is short. It was a beautiful ceremony, despite my commander busting in late. I'm slumped at the table with a bowl of hot food and a fork. The alarm sounds! The Machines are attacking. I drop my fork, stand up and run to my post. The marine character group consists of eight marines originating from Odysseus (two teams with four members each) and one complete marine team (four members) arriving with Starcaller, as well as half a dozen marines being recruited amongst the other survivors (some already having a military rank and/or extensive experience and some with training from academy but no real combat experience). All of them are recruited to work on shifts and participate on land missions. The marines’ priority task is to perform land missions, typically of the surveillance and “search and retrieve” type. There are three teams (one of them created during the game) who are transported to planets to execute these missions. Our current plan is to have four team members and two interchangeable specialists in each team. We aim to stream the missions on an onboard screen through headcams worn by some of the marines. Each team will have two or three missions during the larp. The need for these missions will increase organically throughout the larp but, in order to minimize stress and balance the missions amongst marines, there is a little bit of meta-information involved regarding them. Each of the marine players receives off-game information on which missions they will be participating in, although their characters do not have this information. It is the job of the security officer or the commander of the marines in each shift to make sure that characters are aware that they are needed, and the responsibility of the players to be available when their assigned mission is approaching. If the player misses or chooses to skip one of their missions, we can’t guarantee there will be another chance. On board Odysseus, the marines have two major roles. Following the declaration of martial law, they act as internal security and are there to break up fights and make sure that everyone follows orders, possibly causing conflicts between the military and the civilians. They are also the first and last line of defense if the enemy should board the ship. Marines are divided into three shifts and, during their shifts, they are expected to do whatever the commanding officer assigns them to do, from watching the surveillance, doing rounds of the ship, maintaining peace, to working as messengers between bridge and other groups. The off duty marines (not those sleeping) are expected to report on duty in the event of Red Alerts. Marines have personal plots and relationships to play on outside of their shifts, but they will have plenty of opportunities to play them during their shifts as well. Marines should be prepared to face physical challenges during land missions. These might include climbing, running, crawling or wading in shallow water. In case of rain, there is a risk that players will get wet, so we encourage players to prepare and bring a change of clothes. Ultimately, it is up to the players to what extent they engage with these activities, but the sense of urgency is constantly present in the missions and roughly half of the missions involve combat.
ENGINEERSTL;DR: Engineers fix the ship when it is damaged and conduct jump preparations. I laid on my back under the desk, holding the flashlight with my teeth as I carefully opened the panel screws and switched the fried fuses. Cheers from the bridge crew indicated the fix had worked and the screen was operational once more. I carefully slid out from under the desk and made a quick greeting to the captain before exiting the bridge. I took a few running steps on my way back to the engine room. My boss sat next to the desk looking at the screens with slight worry on their face. “Bridge fuses done.” I reported. I looked at the repair list on the screen and then the clock. Calibration slots would be full for another fifteen minutes and the next safe jump would be less than in half an hour. So anything that would require calibration would have to wait until we had jumped. I skimmed the list and spotted a wire issue on a med bay. My sibling was most likely still there after the incident, I could bypass the wires and say hello to them at the same time. “I’ll take the med bay one.” Boss nodded and off I went. There are five engineers on board the Odysseus and roughly the same amount are recruited from the other survivors (including engineers from other ships as well as civilian engineers). These are all considered members of the engineers character group and are assigned to one of the three shifts. However, some engineers are a part of the military organization, while others are civilians and, therefore, the experience outside the duty shift might vary depending on your character's background. Engineers who are on duty are expected to follow instructions from the Chief engineer on duty. In catastrophic situations off duty engineers might also be called to assist. It is up to the engineers to fix everything that inevitably breaks down on board Odysseus. This group is in charge of repairs and maintenance, which will make for a hectic schedule: be it an overheated hyperdrive, a gas leak, broken shield generators, jammed gun controllers, or fried scanners, the engineers will have to be there to save the day. On top of their other tasks engineers also have a rotating post at the bridge where one of the on-duty engineers need to be stationed (or reached by radio should the need arise). Some maintenance tasks need to be performed routinely throughout the larp, others only become necessary under certain conditions. Maintenance work comes as different types of puzzles for the engineers, ranging from pulling two levers at the same time to setting calibration values to connecting wires. We will create mechanical things to fix, crawl spaces to crawl in, and puzzles to solve. For the engineers, these will be the main content of their game, but, like all characters, they will also have personal plots and relationships to play on. Engineers are also expected to train suitable civilians (other than those who have formal education and are already drafted) to learn some of the tasks in less hectic time slots. While we do our best to make all the puzzles as accessible as possible and try to minimize the amount of real life skills required, it is still important to note that, if you hate puzzles or minigames, the role of engineer might not be the best choice for you. This is also a rather hectic role, with lots of running around, and most of the tasks need to be performed under pressure.
MEDICSTL;DR: Medics patch up those who get injured in battle, help out passengers in all their medical needs and, if there is time, conduct medical inspections. It never stops. Just when you think you’ve helped everyone, more people flood into the med bay looking for help, for solace, for… whatever it is they want. They’ll just have to wait in line. It feels wrong, but the worst-looking cases are the easiest to handle. Stop the bleeding, wrap ‘em up and send them on their way. It’s the mysteries that I can’t stand. What is really wrong with this person? Is it an infection? An implant? Did it come from the Machines? Could this person be a Machine perhaps? No matter. Just wrap them up and send them away. The alert sounds, the metallic voice calling out action stations. A fighter comes in hot, battered by the machines and the fate of its crew unclear. You grab the medkit and sprint to the landing bay as the jump countdown begins. Marines pull the Weapons officer out, but the pilot has crashed, bleeding out from shrapnel wounds. No time for med bay - you climb into the tight cockpit, attempting to stabilize them. Clip. Snip. Cauterize. The jump countdown continues and you curse. You work quickly, but there’s never enough time. Space twists as the ship jumps into musical silence, and, for a moment, you might join your patient in unconsciousness. Then reality snaps back and your professionalism and training kick in. You strain and reach across their body, your judgment guiding the probe to the deepest and most severe injury. There’s a puff of acrid smoke as the wound is cauterized. “Get them to med bay!” you yell over your shoulder at the marines. You look down at your hands, slick with the pilot’s blood, then wipe them on your shirt. No time to wash or change. It never stops. There are around 10 characters with some type of formal medical training. Only two of them are originally stationed on Odysseus, but considering the situation, everyone with any kind of medical training has been drafted to help. Thus this group also includes characters who are not originally part of the military. Characters in this group consist of varied backgrounds from combat medics to doctors, surgeons, nurses and mental health professionals. The medbay needs to be manned around the clock, so medical personnel will also be divided to work in three shifts. In medbay the original background (military/civilian) matters very little and the tasks are divided based on skill set and availability. Medics will be doing their best to keep everyone fit and operational, patching up those who are injured in a fight or during land missions. They will also be performing routine medical check-ups and taking care of those passengers requiring medical attention. Our aim is to make the healthcare feel as real as possible (involving fake blood and devices that provide information on the patients’ health status). There is a lot of medical equipment to use and our amazing SFX team will conjure extremely realistic looking wounds, both suffered in battle or related to other medical conditions. There are occasional elements of gross body horror, including eg. worm infested wounds. It is possible to opt out from the most gory elements of medical play (either in game, as something might be too much also for the character, or off-game). But it is not possible to avoid elements such as fake blood, screaming, crying, fainting, nausea, etc. as a character who is stationed at med bay. The medics will also have personal plots and relationships to play on. They have a chance to play these on off-duty times or in quieter moments during shifts. Like engineers, off-duty medics might also be called to help out during major crises where med bay is getting swamped with patients. Some of the civilians (other than those who have formal education and are already drafted) will be sent out to help with tasks that do not require more than a pair of hands.
SCIENTISTTL;DR: Scientists investigate mysterious alien artifacts on board in order to gain advantage against the machines, and solve the puzzles left behind by their ancestors to find the next clue. I stared at the alien object that was laying on the table in front of me. I looked at them like I was trying to force them to surrender their secrets with sheer willpower, or so my colleague had said earlier. But I was sure there was some detail we had missed, some small thing that I could figure out to turn the tide. It was something one of the Velians had said that had encouraged me to return to this artifact. They knew so much more about these things than we did, but they were still hesitant to share all their secrets. Maybe I’d be too, but we were running out of time and we had to find something useful soon. Sound of running footsteps drew me back to the present. I looked at my watch, Marines had probably returned from the mission with yet another beacon. I carefully lifted the artifact back to its place on the shelf and quickly cleared the table as my colleagues ran inside the lab carrying the beacon. All of us gathered around the item as my colleague, carefully but with slightly shaking hands, turned the key to open the beacon and reveal what our ancestors had left us to find centuries ago. I would have loved to cherish that moment. To take our time to properly study every inch of these priceless relics, but we were on the clock. Enemy was still following us and irreplaceable resources would be wasted if we couldn’t figure out the coordinates to the next beacon before the enemy would force us to jump again. There are several scientists on board the Odysseus, since the ship’s latest mission was exploration involving major scientific discovery - mainly an intact outpost left behind by the alien race that inhabited the star system a long time ago. The scientists, in cooperation with representatives from both of the EOC religions (Faith of the High Science and Old ways), Velian religions and, in some cases, also medical personnel, will be solving riddles discovered in beacons left behind by their ancestors, as well as the mysteries of the ancient alien race and the technology they left behind. It is also their job to study the enemy to find out its possible weaknesses. Some of them will also run personal projects and experiments. The scientists are civilians and most of them are heavily involved with the Faith of the High Science, the main religion among the characters. Scientists do not have the same kind of strict shifts as the military personnel, but they, too, will need to take turns to be on duty as there might be a need to keep working around the clock. There are in total around 10 characters who are involved with the scientific research taking place during the larp. They come from very different backgrounds but need to put aside their differences and help one another to be able to solve the mysteries at hand. Scientists' play involves different kinds of puzzles (mostly physical, but may also contain minigames) and, sometimes, gated progress towards necessary breakthroughs to gain advantages against the enemy. It consists of ongoing research concerning the artifacts from their latest mission and very time sensitive solving of puzzles inside the beacons acquired by the marines from land missions. Solving these beacon puzzles will be the top priority whenever there is one available. Since it is up to them to examine these remnants left behind by their ancestors, scientists are among the first to uncover the secrets of the past. Like other character groups, scientists will also have personal plots and relationships to play on but, since there are not so clear divisions for shifts for them, it is more up to the players themselves to pace their game and agree amongst each other who’s in charge of which tasks.
VELIANSTL;DR: Closed group of survivors from a different kind of disaster who need to team up with their rescuers in order to survive. The musty old air felt suffocating; it was like a physical manifestation of what we all felt. Immeasurable grief and sense of loss. What had stood for centuries was gone in an instant and we were all that remained. I looked at my kin, I could see the shock and uncertainty in their faces as they turned to look at me for instructions. This place would not sustain us for long, so our first priority was to call for aid. The chances that anyone would hear us were slim, but we had to try. I felt the Guardian’s presence by my side. They laid their hand on my shoulder and I knew that we could trust their guidance and support as we always had, but it was up to us to take the steps we needed to take. We had all gathered in a small corner. Just to be with each other, to feel the comfort of familiar faces even for just a moment. Many of us had found a place and purpose in this ship that, in the past days, had become our new home. But we all missed dearly everything we had lost. We were so few. All that was left of us. We knew that, even if we survived, even if the enemy could be defeated, it might not be a victory for us. We would live, but would our culture survive, or would it fade away as if it had never existed? That day might once come, but today we would still honor our traditions. Roughly fifteen passengers come from the planet Velian. They will start the larp in a different location with roughly the same number of players that come from the EOC Space station Atlantis. This group will spend the first hours of the larp solving problems of their own before being united with the rest of the players on board Odysseus. Velians, who lived in a domed city built by an ancient alien race on an otherwise uninhabitable planet, only recently came into contact with the EOC Nations. Ambassadors have been sent by both sides but, due to the distance, interaction has been sparse. A common theory suggests Velians might originate from one of the Genesis ships that never made it to Ellarion, but these theories remain unconfirmed. Velians have a unique culture where they live in a strictly theocratic society and follow the teachings of their spiritual leader, the Guardian. The Velians' game focuses around their own culture and internal plots as well as getting accustomed to the other groups. They also have much to contribute to solving the riddles of ancient alien technology, as well as the mystery concerning their shared ancestry with the EOC population. Most of the Velian characters have skills that allow them to directly contribute to the work of some other character group and, as such, the majority of Velian characters are also part of some other character group (engineers, medics, scientists or marines). For a few of them the main focus of the larp will be taking part in politics and religion, and acting as leaders to the remaining Velians. They are also assigned to learn one or more useful skills on board, but this is a smaller element of their experience. For Velians, defining themes of the larp are a very tight community and being a part of a clear minority with some major shared secrets, as well as trying to fit in with the rest of the crew and figuring out their place in a grand scheme of things. Velians have major cultural differences to the EOC, such as leadership, family, reproduction and many others.
CIVILIANSTL;DR: Survivors who all have their own agenda, they will find a way to contribute to the ongoing fight and they just need to keep on living one moment at a time meanwhile. I whispered a silent prayer to the spirits. My eyes were pinned to the screen. Video feed from the vest cameras of the marines who had descended to the planet below showed a fight that had just begun. I tried to look for my loved one, but couldn't see them. The commands we could hear through the feed and the worried voices of others that had gathered around the screen felt distant. Then I saw my loved one on the ground. Injured? Dead? My friend next to me saw it as well and saw the utter terror on my face. They turned and pulled me into a hug. I look around the mess hall with blurry eyes. 15 hours of solid drinking has not made the situation any better. Funny how that never seems to work, but I keep trying. So many people are scurrying about on their important missions, going to where they need to be. I've got nowhere to be, no one telling me where to go. And I hope it stays that way. I heard they are going around recruiting civilians too. Best to lay low and attract as little attention as possible. From my seat at the bar, I can assess these people. Who is weak? Who has something worth stealing? Who needs something I can help them acquire, for a price? Lots of possibilities. Chatter and bickering filled the room. The discussion had gone on for an hour and we were none the wiser. Even now, after everything that had happened, we were still arguing with each other, trying to outsmart the next person, to get our voices heard. I felt the anger building up and didn't even notice how hard I had hit my fists on the table until the room fell silent. “We can argue about all of this later, we need to get this sorted. The longer we argue amongst ourselves, the longer our future and the future of our entire civilization is in the hands of captains and admirals. And I don’t know about you but, for me, it sounds terrifying.” I keep my eyes on the drink in front of me but I can almost feel the gaze of the marines at the next table. Am I imagining it or are they looking at me? Do they know what I have done? I slowly lift my hand on top of the other to hide my dynasty tattoo, so many small things they could spot. This ship is too small and there are eyes everywhere. I sigh and take a sip from my drink. “They said you could help me. I need to know what they are hiding.” The voice behind me whispers softly but still manages to startle me enough to spill my drink. I let out a small curse and check the next table, the marines don’t seem to be paying any attention to us. I nod quickly. “Not here. Meet me at the hangar in ten minutes and we can discuss.” Roughly a quarter of our characters are civilians rescued from the planet’s surface and a few smaller ships. Some begin as part of other character groups (medics, engineers, marines, pilots, scientists) but not all. Not all of the civilians have appropriate skills to make themselves useful right away, but they too have an agenda of their own and plans for their imminent future. Civilians aboard the Odysseus come from different backgrounds, varying from politics, to religion and entertainment, to more shady businesses. During the larp, all civilian characters (who are not already part of one of the character groups to begin with) will be assigned to help out in one of the following groups: bridge crew, pilots, engineers, marines, medics, or scientists. It is up to the players to decide if they want to make themselves useful in learning the new skills associated with running a starship, or if they want to focus more on personal plots and other shenanigans. There are various types of people among the civilians. Some are hard-working, honest people who only want to survive. For others, life has not been fair, and some have drifted into darker directions. The catastrophe, the loss of not only their loved ones but their entire civilization, might mean a full descent into darkness, but it might also be an opportunity for redemption, facing the mistakes of their past. A chance for a new life – or a chance to turn a profit from the misfortune of others. For the survivors, the main themes will be survivors’ guilt, new beginnings, atonement, and choices on how to proceed in this new world. Political characters also have a large amount of influence. They are in key positions to solve the potential conflicts arising between the civilians and the military during the larp, as well as deciding on how the human society should be built anew. Some of these characters have made their careers as politicians, others are just now rising to power after the catastrophe. Most civilian characters (with the exception of those who are already drafted and assigned to shifts) do not have specific shifts, they are free to pick their sleeping schedule (or lack of it) independently. It is also up to them to decide how much they want to be of assistance or if they want to abandon their assigned work to focus on other plots. Civilian characters have more extensive personal plots and, while most of them have connections with the characters who are part of the clockwork play, they also all have important connections amongst other civilians, to avoid work schedules blocking opportunities to play relationships. All civilians also have significant connections played by our lovely npc-team (family, friends, lovers) on board other ships, with whom they can chat during the larp and whose fates hang in the balance in every battle.
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Odysseus is a larp about war, and the terrible actions taken in the name of survival during wartime. While these themes are just one aspect of Odysseus, and the larp is much more than that, we feel that this is a theme we want to address separately. In this blog post we aim to address both the framing of war in the narrative of Odysseus, and how we hope that our players approach these themes, as well as address some concerns players might have regarding these heavy themes. To start with, we want to emphasize that the story of Odysseus is in its essence anti-war. Democracy, human rights, and equality are core values for our team. We do not support any actions against these values. As organizers, we are united in our full support of Ukraine, and we condemn Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine and the crimes of the Russian regime. We strongly feel that this larp will not be a good fit for players who do not share these beliefs and values. Additionally, we will not tolerate any messages of support for Putin or his regime in our event or in any of our pre- or post-messaging channels. The themes for Odysseus can be summarized as the Cycle of Violence. It is a story of how terrible actions would keep causing terrible actions over and over again. And how our characters would inevitably become a part of this cycle, repeating and repaying for the mistakes of their ancestors.  Picture: Ami Koiranen In Odysseus, there is a lot of player agency both on personal and higher levels, but in some regards the journey of the Odysseus is firmly on railroad tracks from the beginning to the very end. The tragedies of the past will slowly unfold throughout the larp, while our characters head towards the final decisions to preserve whatever is left of their civilization. Arguably there are several possible endings to the game, but there is one ending that is far more likely than any other. It is not a happy ending, though it might be bittersweet or even considered a victory for many of the characters. In 2018, when we first started to build the narrative for Odysseus, we decided to draw inspiration from early episodes of Battlestar Galactica, especially from episode ‘33’. This provided the set-up for the larp: coordinated, devastating attacks on human colonies in a faraway star system, executed by the machines. Essentially, an attempted genocide of the entire human populace. We have carefully considered the feedback we received back in 2019, and while the majority of the story from original runs and many aspects of the possible endings remain the same, some adjustments have been made especially in both pre- and post-game briefings. Our goal is to provide tools to our players to discuss and contemplate the heavy themes of the larp with a clear understanding of all the sides of their characters actions.
However, it is very important to understand that war in all its ugliness is one of the core themes in Odysseus. During the larp it is easy to focus on the thrilling adventure and excitement of being a part of the ever-turning clockwork. As players, we often fall in love with our characters, wanting them to do the right thing and become the heroes who save the day. It is very natural to feel this way, and in Odysseus there are plenty of occasions for heroism; to take pride in the characters’ work and to celebrate victories big and small. However, there are also moments when the characters need to make horrible choices and carry out orders that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. We hope that our players allow themselves to also explore these more difficult themes and see that even those who are considered “good” are capable of – and will resort to – doing terrible things when desperate enough. Our aim is to give our players a chance to live through stories that create legends and see how history is written by the winners, and how easy it is to glorify terrible actions to silence a guilty conscience.
So, to summarize: Odysseus is a story about the struggle to survive against an unyielding foe. There are moments of happiness, moments of victory, and moments of celebration. However, the larp has dark and unforgiving undertones that are constantly present. For players who seek to tell positive stories and who struggle with darker and more difficult themes, Odysseus might not be a good fit. While there are moments of heroism, this is not a larp for players who seek to play purely the good guys. The shades of gray are constantly present, and the victories come with a heavy price. Towards the end, our characters are faced with decisions that should provoke controversy amongst them and not be easy to make. We want to close by stating that this larp is not a statement regarding any real-life conflict, but it does reflect our take on the world and the monstrosities we see all around us. The larp was originally written in 2018-19 and while the world around us has changed since then, we feel that it is a story that is very much worth telling.  Picture: Ami Koiranen Time has finally come to make some big and final announcements regarding where, when and how. So let’s jump right in! Location: Torpparinmäki elementary school, Helsinki, Finland Dates: Run 1: Jun 27 - Jul 1 2024 (Thursday to Monday) Run 2: Jul 3 - Jul 7 2024 (Wednesday to Sunday) Run 3: Jul 10 - Jul 14 2024 (Wednesday to Sunday) Prices: Standard ticket 550 € Subsidized ticket 250 € Sponsor ticket 600/650 € Player selection: Online launch event for sign up: Sep 12, 2023 Sign up for ticket lottery: Sep 12-28, 2023 Collecting co-player preferences: Sep 29 - Oct 6, 2023 Announcing the players: Oct 9, 2023 Filling the casting questionnaire: Oct 9-23, 2023 Announcing the final casting and run allocation: Nov 1, 2023 Payment of the first installment: (210€/160€/110€/50€) by the Nov 15, 2023  Picture: Tuomas Puikkonen Location, dates & scheduleThe larp is played at Torpparinmäki elementary school in Helsinki (address Ylä-Fallin tie 54, Helsinki, Finland). Location is the same as we had in the 2019 runs. The location is right next to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport (roughly 15 minute taxi drive) and it is also easy to reach with public transport from the airport and from Helsinki city center. There will be three runs, all played in English. Each run will be a five-day event. First run is played from Thursday June 26th till Monday July 1st, second run from Wednesday July 3rd till Sunday July 7th and the third and final run from Wednesday July 10th till Sunday July 14th. Between the second and the third run we will host an open doors day when it is possible for the local public to visit the location for a small guided tour of the ship and experience a glimpse of the Odysseus magic. Players are expected to arrive at the location between 4-6pm on the first day (June 27 / July 3 / July 10). The first evening and part of the second day will be mandatory briefings and workshops. During the first night it is possible to leave (e.g. to a comfy hotel) and return to the location by 9am on the second day. The game itself will begin on the second day and run non-stop for the next 48 hours. The two nights in between are fully ingame and players should stay at the location. The larp will end in the early evening on the fourth day. After the larp there are structured debriefs. Debriefing is not mandatory but it is highly recommended due the heavy themes that players encounter during the game. After the debriefs at around 8pm you are welcome to stay for the (alcohol free) afterparty at the location and stay one more night, or you can also leave the location. The latest departure time from the location is at midday on the fifth day. PricesPrice for a standard ticket is 550€, and it can be paid in 5 installments of 110€ each or in full right away. We are also offering at least 2 subsidized tickets per run with the possibility of extra subsidized tickets depending on the amount of sponsor tickets sold. Subsidized tickets are 250€ and can also be paid in 5 installments of 50€ each. For sponsor tickets, we have two price categories, 600€ and 650€. Sponsor tickets can also be paid in installments; however the sponsored part (50-100€) is paid as part of the first installment with the remaining 4 installments being 110€ each. Opting for sponsor tickets will allow us to increase the number of subsidized tickets. Sponsors will also be offered a small memorabilia (with an option to opt-out from it). The memorabilia is meant to be a small thank you, however it will not be exclusively available to sponsors but can also be purchased on-site by all players. Installment plan:
The game fee includes participation in the larp, accommodation for 4 nights, and vegetarian meals throughout the larp. The sleeping arrangements are on bunk beds or mattresses in shared mixed-gender rooms. Meals include 2 warm meals, breakfast and snacks on full days, and light evening meal and snacks on the arrival day and breakfast on the departure day. We will do our best to accommodate players’ dietary requirements. The fee does not include transportation to and from the venue or costume rental. For characters belonging to officers and bridge crew, pilots, engineers, marines, medics and scientists there is an additional costume rental fee varying from approximately 30€ to 60€ depending on the character group. Rental prices will be finalized and available before the sign up. The rental price includes a uniform jacket and any weapons or other equipment the player needs during the larp, as well as an ingame t-shirt the player gets to keep afterwards. For other character groups (civilians and Velians), players are expected to create their own costumes with the assistance of our costume guidelines.
Cancellation policyIn the unfortunate event that a player needs to cancel the event, our cancellation and resell policy is as follows. Players are not allowed to directly resell their tickets. If a player is unable to attend, they need to inform us. For any ticket category, the first installment including any potential sponsor amount is never refunded regardless of the time of cancellation. Depending on the cancellation time the refund amounts are as follows:
Replacements for open characters are picked by the game organizers. Players for available characters are picked via lottery from the queue. To make the process faster and more convenient for us we might offer any open characters to several players at once, and the fastest to confirm will receive the spot. Closer to the event we might offer open spots directly to interested players without a lottery. Sign upAnd finally, here is a quick run through on how the sign up process works. Regarding the details on how the players are chosen check out our previous blog post. We will be hosting an online launch party to kick off the sign up on Tuesday, September 12th. Launch event will start at 7pm Finnish time (UTC +3) with organizer greetings and discussion regarding the production and leading up to the opening of the sign up at 8pm. Sign up remains open to the end of the day on Thursday September 28th (Finnish time). Sign up is not first come first served, so everyone who signs up within this period has an equal chance in the lottery. After the sign up period we will send all who signed up a list including the names and nationalities of all who signed up and they have one week to indicate co-player wishes. The results of player selection lottery will be announced via email on Monday October the 9th. Those who received a spot are asked to fill in the casting questionnaire within two weeks, by Monday October 23rd. If we fail to receive a response to the casting questionnaire within the deadline, the player will lose their spot and we will select a new player. If new players are chosen they are expected to fill the casting questionnaire by the end of Thursday 26th of October. The final casting and run allocation will be announced on Wednesday November 1st. After the casting is confirmed players have until November 15th to pay the first installment of the game fee to confirm their spot. We are currently in the process of updating our website with all the information detailed in these blog posts as well as all the other important details including other practical matters, rules and safety, player experience, and guide to the world and story of Odysseus. We aim to have the website fully updated by the end of May!  Picture: Tuomas Puikkonen This is the second blog post in our series detailing our journey towards Odysseus 2024. In this blog post we discuss how the player selection and casting process will be done for the three runs. Timeline and short overviewThe signup for all runs of Odysseus 2024 will open in autumn 2023. Before summer we will have our website updated with all the necessary information, including practicalities such as exact run dates, ticket prices, and character group information to guide your choices. The signup form will be open for two weeks, followed by a week reserved for players to tell us their co-player preferences. After this data has been gathered, we will select 104 players for each run via lottery. The selected players will be contacted directly, and they can confirm their attendance by filling the casting questionnaire. This will give us the data to assign characters and players for the three runs. Attendance must be confirmed within two weeks of receiving the email. During the casting process, we will aim to assign each player a character that will provide them with the experience best suited to their wishes as detailed in the casting questionnaire. The division of players into the three runs will also be finalised during casting. We plan to have all players matched to their characters within a week of closing the casting questionnaire. So, in essence, the process is:
 Picture: Santtu Pajukanta Player selection form and lotteryPlayer selection will be done via a lottery with no set quotas, except for some spots reserved for organising team members. The lottery will be done first in a large batch to select roughly 70% of the players for all runs. After this initial lottery, we will fill the rest of the spots with further lotteries with an eye on balancing out any over- or underrepresentation. The player selection form will be brief. It will not have any free text questions. We will ask for minimal demographics information, e.g. gender, nationality, and larp experience, that allows us to ensure we end up with a balanced set of players. In addition to demographics, we will ask the players to state their top three character groups. This will help us ensure we have a matching set of players and characters to offer, and won’t end up with a run full of people wanting to play mechanics with nobody wanting a scientist character. Players are divided among the three runs during the casting process. If a player can only attend one specific run, their spot will be reserved for that run, but for players with multiple suitable run dates, the run will be set during casting.
Collecting co-player preferencesWe will ask for co-player preferences in a separate form after the initial signup closes. For the most part, this data will factor in during the casting process to ensure people end up in runs with their preferred co-players. All potential players will have the chance to indicate their co-player preferences, including co-players they need or want to attend together with, as well as those they wish to avoid. A complete list of the names and nationalities of those whose signed up will be shared for these purposes. To make the lottery fair, adding co-players to your preferences will not increase anyone’s chances of getting in. We will, of course, try our very best to juggle things so that chosen players get to play with their preferred co-players in the same run. If there are players who absolutely must attend the game together or not at all, then both or all players will still need to get a spot in the lottery. Thus, having a long list of must-have players will unfortunately decrease the chances of getting in. In addition to preferred co-players, players can also indicate players they do not want to attend the same run with. If we need to decide between two players who cannot participate in the same run, the decision will be made by lottery. We will also ask if there are any red flags among those signed up – anyone who might be a concern for the safety of other players and/or organizers. If such red flags do arise, we will deal with them on a case by case basis.
After player selection - castingAfter the lottery for the player slots has been completed, we will share the results with everyone, regardless of if they got a spot in any of the runs, or if they are on the waiting list. For players who got a spot, the next step is to fill the casting form, a lengthier questionnaire aimed to gather all the pertinent information we need to match players to characters, e.g. more specific questions about the desired game experience and content as well as confirming character group preferences. While this questionnaire is lengthier and more thorough than the player selection form, we still try to keep it as brief as possible. Most likely, we are not able to fill all your wishes. In those cases, we will try to focus on the most important aspects of your game experience. After the casting is finished, players will have two weeks time to confirm their attendance and accept the assigned character. This happens by paying the first installment of the game fee. If, for any reason, the player feels the assigned character isn’t a good fit, you can return to the waiting list, and the character will be assigned to a new player, picked from the waiting list. We hope that this blog post answered your questions regarding the player selection and casting process of Odysseus 2024. If there are any further questions, the best place to reach us is in our interest group on Facebook! In the next blog post, we will be confirming the dates and final ticket prices for all three runs, and the dates for the signup and casting process. The next post will be published by the end of April - Stay tuned!  Picture: Ami Koiranen Last May, we announced that Odysseus would be returning in Summer 2024. Since then, we have worked non/stop behind the scenes, and now we are finally ready to shed some light on the progress! Since the announcement, we have secured a location (the same one as in 2019), and our teams have begun working on rewriting, logistics, and other pre-production tasks. Now it’s finally time to get you interested players up to speed as well. Leading up to our sign-up, which will open in autumn 2023, we will be posting a series of blog posts to talk about the production, and we will update our website to match the improvements we have planned for the 2024 runs. We believe that a shared vision between the organizers and the players’ expectations is key to any successful larp, so we start this series by sharing our vision on what Odysseus is – and what it is not. This post is divided into segments highlighting different aspects and elements of the larp. Below, we will cover themes of playstyle and player experience, narrative choices, practical matters including safety and accessibility, and we’ll wrap up with thoughts on a 360° spaceship and expectation management for the game.  Picture: Viima Strengell Themes – the story we tellIn its narrative, Odysseus touches on some very dark themes of war and survival at any cost. The overall story takes a look into the justifications of actions deemed necessary and the glorification of heroes to pacify guilty consciences. These themes and contextualizing them will be a topic of a separate post later on, but since they are at the core of our design, we feel that it is important to mention them here. Leading up to the end of the larp, there are some heavy and non-reversible decisions to be made by the characters. This is a design choice we made in 2019, and we still stand behind it today. We will make some adjustments to the ending of the larp, but the somewhat controversial themes of the original runs are still very much present. Rest assured that we have heard the feedback, and this time these themes will be addressed and debriefed more thoroughly both before and after the larp.
Playstyle – the Finnish larp cultureIn 2019, we described Odysseus as a “Finnish style” larp, and in 2024 that is still very much what it will be. Odysseus can also be described as a Nordic larp as it is also close enough in style to give our players a general idea on what to expect. Compared to many Nordic larps, Finnish style larps are more heavily story driven with fully pre-written characters that include a backstory, an agenda, and meaningful connections to other characters. Because of this, players are expected to respect the material given them by playing out the objectives set in their character as well as playing with their pre-written connections. To completely ignore the pre-written connections in favor of making new ones is considered impolite as it will leave other players without planned game content. Of course, players are encouraged to make their character their own by emphasizing aspects they most enjoy playing and calibrating contacts with other players. It is also very much expected for everyone to play inclusively by including others in your plots. Our pre-written characters have about 5-15 pages of backstory, and they include several fleshed out connections with varied significance. In addition to character sheets, there is world material and various group briefings. Some of these materials will provide instructions on performing the character groups’ tasks, while others are there to make the world come alive around you. The more familiar you are with the world and the setting of the game, the more you will get out of the experience.
Player experience – running the clockworkThere is railroading. The overall story of Odysseus has a somewhat pre-determined ending towards which the game runs like a train on rails. While we are putting quite a bit of effort into hiding those rails under plausible ingame reasons, it is very important to understand that this larp is not a sandbox. While the path is set, it shouldn’t feel forced or out of character to follow along the trail of breadcrumbs that has been set out. If we have done our work right, every step of the way should feel like it is ultimately in the best interest of the characters (most of them, anyway) to go that way. Though the broader narrative of Odysseus is pre-planned, the larp as a whole is still a sum of the individual stories of 104 characters and the ways players choose to play them. Inside Odysseus, there is plenty of player agency and clashing personal goals to be explored. There are several very different experiences to be had in Odysseus, the biggest dividing factor being whether or not your character is strictly a part of the clockwork elements of running the ship or not. The character groups involved in this clockwork are the officers and bridge crew, pilots, marines, engineers, medics, and scientists. The core clockwork element of the larp is making a jump every 2 hours and 48 minutes for the entire 48-hour game duration, day and night. In order to do this, the marines need to complete land missions to retrieve so called “beacons”, the scientists need to solve puzzles within these beacons to determine the next destination, the bridge crew needs to calculate the flight path and steer the ship, the engineers need to prepare the ship for the jump (and fix it when it breaks), the pilots and sometimes the marines need to fight off the enemy until it is safe to jump, and the medics need to keep the sickbay running and patch up any wounded. A significant part of the larp for these character groups will be focused around fulfilling these tasks. While this clockwork play is the bread and butter of a military scifi larp, there are also other kinds of experiences to be had. Drawing inspiration from the civilian politics and survival stories in Battlestar Galactica as well as other science fiction stories, there will be a significant amount of characters that are not strictly tied to the clockwork. Most civilian characters either are or will be drafted to help out with different tasks of the clockwork. However, for many civilians, the larp will be more heavily focused on the emotional experience of a world-ending catastrophe, and some will have a significant role to play in rebuilding the society and the government. Especially the politicians, religious characters and the Velians* will be very involved in steering the plot forward during the last day of the game and in making the final decisions. For other civilian characters, the experience will be more focused around the community, their personal plots, and finding your place after the world has turned upside down. Players of civilian characters are more free to steer their experience in the direction they want, and they can decide their sleep schedules to fit their own daily routines. The players of civilian characters do not need to get familiar with the various game mechanics beforehand (for example using the Empty Epsilon spaceship simulator), as they will be taught the tasks they might need to perform ingame. One of our major re-writing tasks for Odysseus 2024 is focused on making changes to the political game to make it more engaging and even more relevant to the larp as a whole. We have also re-organized and re-distributed the tasks required to run the ship a little more evenly this time around to ensure a bit more clockwork play also for characters outside of the original crew of the Odysseus. * Velians are a tight group from a different cultural background who are rescued onboard Odysseus. During the larp they are integrated to different groups depending on their skills, but they will also have their own plots and themes centered around their own closed community.
Practicals and accessibilityThere will be an extensive guide about practicalities, safety and accessibility on our website later on, but since some aspects of these are very relevant to knowing whether this experience is for you, it is worth taking a look into those in this post as well. The ingame time is 48 hours non-stop – all eating and sleeping are done ingame. Those who are part of the clockwork play have shifts dedicated to being on-duty, off-duty, and asleep. There are events (including land missions) happening throughout the larp, including during night-time. However, it is always possible to step out of the game to calibrate with others or to take a breather at any time, but the larp itself will have no breaks. For us, player safety is at the core of any larp, and for that reason we will have a full-time safety team available for players on location throughout the event, as well as before and after the larp. We are also making improvements to improve safety on issues identified during 2019 runs, including land mission safety, to ensure as safe an experience to everyone as possible. We keep looking out for any safety issues throughout the production and will act immediately to solve them. The location is a modern elementary school with modern amenities, including showers and plenty of single toilets. The school has two floors with an accessible elevator. All the main spaces are accessible with a wheelchair, with some exceptions including fighter cockpits and engineer tunnels. Land missions for the marines are outside the main location, mostly in forests and other types of difficult terrain with players transported to these missions in a van. The default food option will be vegetarian. We will do our best to accommodate players’ dietary requirements. Meals will be served several times a day, and snacks, coffee, and tea will beavailable at all times. Sleeping will take place in bunk-beds or on mattresses in shared mix-gender rooms (roughly 20 people per room). It will be possible to sleep off-game, but the facilities for off-game sleeping will be similar to the ingame ones. There will be no private sleeping areas. A soundscape will be present throughout the larp, and some events will cause a significant rise in the volume (e.g. jump, red alert). While we try to ensure that the sleeping quarters will be kept quieter, some of these sounds will be heard there as well. If you are a very light sleeper, this is something you should take into account. When it comes to military scifi, some might have fears and expectations regarding gender roles and character competence. We want Odysseus to be as inclusive as possible, so almost all our characters are written gender neutral. In the world of Odysseus, anyone can be anything. Discrimination and inequality based on ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation does not exist in the game world, and any bullying behavior based on them is forbidden both in- and off-game. Some tasks in the larp will include simple skill checks (for example the spaceship simulator Empty Epsilon, engineering puzzles, science puzzles and land missions). The game will utilize various game mechanics to help players play out the full competence of their characters. For many civilian characters, these skill checks will not be present at all. On the medical side of things, there will be a lot of fake blood present, as well as very graphic and real-like prop injuries and simulated medical conditions (e.g. nausea, fainting). For the players of medics, these will be impossible to avoid, and others might also unexpectedly encounter glimpses of them. All in all, our aim is to create an event that is as accessible as possible. However, due to the complexity of the game environment, it may be impossible to accommodate every individual requirement. It is also good to keep in mind that, depending on the kind of accessibility needs you have, some character groups might be less accessible than others.
Closing words – expectation managementWhen we say that Odysseus will be a 360° larp, the image that comes to mind will likely be that of a fancy spaceship with immersive scenography and fully integrated and working technology. While we now dare to promise even more than we had in the original run in 2019, there are still plenty of disclaimers to be made. Even though the 2024 venue is the same as in 2019, the layout will experience several strategic changes, and since we will build everything again from scratch the ship won’t look exactly the same. It’s also good to remember that even though the technology worked borderline flawlessly in 2019, that is not an easy task to repeat, so minor hiccups can happen here and there – we can be pleasantly surprised if there are none. A fully operational and immersive starship might be the main attractor for many. However, it should not be the only one. At the core of any Finnish style or Nordic larp is the character, the community, and the relationships and interpersonal plots the characters have. The characters and their relationships are the beating heart of the game. Ignoring your character’s plots and connections will diminish the experience for all. So if you have a vision in your head of just solo piloting the Odysseus to boldly go where no one has gone before, we ask you kindly to recalibrate these expectations. Last but not least, we ask you please not to sign up expecting a product. Any larp is a collaborative project created together by organizers and players. While Odysseus is on the more expensive side of larps and we aim for it to be as professionally made as possible, all organizers do this as volunteer work – no wages are paid off the game fees. We do not want our players to join us as customers but as participants. So we ask you to co-create this awesome experience together with us. We hope that this blog post has managed to clarify what Odysseus is and what it is not – and we hope you have nodded along the text and found this to be the game for you. And if it is, we hope to see you onboard in 2024! In the next blog post, we will be discussing how player casting will be done for the three runs. Stay tuned!
In August 2019 we had just wrapped up the epic journey of ESS Odysseus and announced that, due to the insane amount of work put into the project, we would never do it again. As some predicted at the time, “never” turned out to be less than 3 years. We are happy to announce that Odysseus will be returning!While everything is still subject to change, we are planning on having three international runs in summer 2024, so clear your calendars! While there are two more years before we can yet again step onboard our beloved spaceship and hear and feel the booming sound of the jump engine, the planning has already begun. We have an enormous amount of work ahead of us as we aspire to give old and new players alike a familiar yet improved experience. The larp will essentially be the same, so this is going to be a rerun, not a sequel. However, there are countless small and a few bigger elements we are planning to change. We have been reading through all the feedback and we’ve had countless conversations with organizers and players regarding what worked and what did not. So what can you look forward to in this project? For old players, all the major elements will still be there. The underlying story will be the same, although there will be some adjustments. Some characters will remain unchanged while others will go through significant changes. There will be adjustments and improvements for most gameplay elements and much more love will be given to the civilian side of the larp. For new players, we can safely say this is the larp you do not want to miss. It is going to be an absolutely epic journey onboard a highly immersive spaceship. It will be an experience of a lifetime. More details will be released during the upcoming year. Join our Facebook group or check in on this blog to keep up to date with the latest information.
Ticket prices and ticket saleWhile the ticket price has not yet been decided, we already want to let you know that this time around it will be much higher – most likely around 500€, which is on par with other major blockbuster larps. The far lower price level of 2019 was only possible due to the insane (and unhealthy!) amount of work our team put into the larp, and we are not willing to put ourselves through that again. While the overwhelming majority of this project will still be done as volunteer work, we want to be able to solve some elements with money (including but not limited to catering). To keep the larp as accessible as possible, we will look into options to offer at least some significantly subsidized tickets as well as the possibility to pay in installments. Ticket sales will most likely open during autumn 2023, we have all the details for you before that. Currently, we are planning on allocating all tickets via a lottery and not having sponsor tickets that would provide guaranteed access. However, there might be changes to our policies. We might also reserve some spots for those who contribute to making this larp happen.
Team recruitmentWe have already begun building the team that will undertake this enormous task. Many of those who made the original larp such an awesome experience are already onboard and we hope that many more will join us. We would also like to welcome new faces as well as our old players to join us on this epic journey bringing ESS Odysseus to life once more. If you are interested in becoming part of our team, we have a recruitment page where you’ll find more information on the kind of roles we need to fill and how to sign up! This time around our team will be international, so we’ll invite all our non-Finnish speaking friends to join us as well.  Picture: Tuomas Puikkonen Access to old materialsWe are preparing for the new wave of players and therefore have updated our webpage. Currently there is very little information as we’ll work through the old materials to update them to better reflect the new runs. We have also hidden some old blog posts that contain clear spoilers. While some measure of transparency will be inevitable due to the fact that there are over 300 people who have already played the larp and our materials having been public for over 2 years, we still don’t want to have all the secrets and major plot points laid out for our new players. For the same reason – and to avoid confusion, as there will be a lot of changes – we are also going to remove access to all the public materials. However, as there might be documents you still want to look at or save before we remove them, we are giving you some time to do so. Access for public materials will be removed on June 1st 2022. It is likely that the materials will return to the public in some form after the 2024 reruns have been completed.
Follow and support our projectSo what can you do, besides being excited about the news? To make sure you are up to date with all the information about the new runs, join our new Facebook group or check back on our website every now and then! We also encourage you to spread the word. Share our teaser trailer and encourage all your friends who missed out in 2019 to join us in 2024! We have some small expenses before the ticket sales begin next year. If you want to help us financially, check out our Odysseus shop for all the awesome merch you can get for yourself while helping us cover some of those expenses. If you are interested in contributing your time to our project, do check out our recruitment page and sign up to become part of our awesome team! Last but not least, if you have some ideas or feedback for us, we have opened a suggestion box where you can submit those! All feedback will be anonymous. However, please do keep in mind that most likely we will not be able to fulfill every wish. Before turning our eyes to 2024 and the new journey ahead of us, we want to once more thank our amazing players and the incredible crew of over 180 volunteers who made the first three runs of Odysseus possible. We also want to thank all who have inspired us ever since by reminiscing about the larp and telling stories of your experiences. Your kind words and enduring enthusiasm have encouraged us to embark on this journey once more!  Picture: Ami Koiranen
 Picture: Tuomas Puikkonen UK Larp Awards 2020 has awarded Odysseus as the International Larp of the Year. Odysseus, a sci-fi larp discussing the bounds of humanity, was played three times during summer 2019, with one local run and two runs for international larpers. Each run had approximately a hundred players.
"We are thrilled and grateful by this award. We had a team of over 180 volunteers working to make the game happen, and getting acknowledged for all the effort feels wonderful," comments Producer Laura Kröger. "It is especially important to us, as Finland has not hosted many international games of this scale before. We are happy that we could offer a glimpse of the Finnish larp culture to our wonderful international participants." Odysseus was created by over 180 volunteers and partners, including professionals with decades of experience on project management, software engineering, technology, marketing, and set design among others. Together, they transformed a school building in which the game was held into a believable, high production value starship. All the software produced to create the special effects and gadgets abroad the functioning starship have been stored on GitHub for public access to contribute to future games. Links: UK Larp Awards 2020: http://larpcon.co.uk/?page_id=1270 Odysseus web pages: http://www.odysseuslarp.com/ Odysseus software in GitHub: https://github.com/OdysseusLarp Contact: Laura Kröger, Producer odysseuslarp@gmail.com Hello all! Welcome to our last blog post for now. At the end of the post, you’ll find a link to a folder containing the materials we have published. We decided that we want to give our players an opportunity to explore the vast amount of materials we created for this larp. In the folder, you will find some of our graphics such as posters and ship models, as well as the spatial design guide for the site construction. You can also find all the characters, short descriptions, and briefings - as well as ingame materials like letters and game instructions. Likewise, the folder contains the music and some sounds used in Odysseus. We have gathered all the media links, public blog posts, presentations, and links to our own materials (like photos and videos) into one document where it is easy to find them. We also decided to publish graphs from our player survey, and you can find this data in the folder. All the materials are free for PRIVATE, NON-COMMERCIAL use. If used in helping create other larps or similar events, we ask you to credit the Odysseus larp. If you want to re-use larger sections of the materials, e.g. full characters, please contact the Odysseus team first at odysseuslarp@gmail.com We DO NOT allow the use of any of these materials for commercial purposes. All the rights for the materials belong to the Odysseus project and those who have created them. Odysseus was done as a non-profit project with over 160 volunteers giving their time and energy to make it reality. We owe them huge thanks and credit for their incredible work. We want to also give thanks to all our players and everyone else who’s been following us. It has been an incredible journey, and we will be forever grateful that we made it. Thank you all for your massive work, amazing support, kind words, and encouragement along the way.  You can find the public materials here.
We will also publish a media gallery with a few photos available for presentations and articles. Once it is ready, you can find it here [link added soon]. With love, Odysseus team Now that it is all over, we feel like talking about the narrative from a designer point of view. This is going to be a long post featuring all the backstories and some designer comments on different design choices we made along the way. Even though it is obvious, I think it is still worth to say aloud that larp is always created in cooperation with the players, and each player has their own unique experience based on the character and the run they participated in. It is important to understand that there is and always will be vastly different opinions on the meaning and implications of this story and what I write here is just our take on the story and there is no "official" truth. There are some things we considered ‘canon’ when we created this story, but there are many others that we deliberately left open for players to interpret and make up their mind. Also, it varied from one run to another how much information was made available to different players so that influenced the players’ perception of the story. Odysseus was always meant to stir emotions. The story we wanted to tell wasn’t going to be a happy one. It was clear from very early on for us that we wanted to tell a story that would be controversial, a story that was not simple, a story where it was not an easy task to define heroes and villains. We wanted to create a second layer where the story you experience in the larp offers you perspective and encourages you to think moral questions and justification on actions taken even after the larp is over. Naturally there are different opinions on whether we succeeded or not, but these were the ideas we had in mind when we started to create this story. From very early on we settled for the slogan ‘A story about survival’, and one of the main themes we wanted to explore was ‘What would you do in order to survive?” We wanted to put our players in a position where they would have to do terrible things in order to save the remnants of the human race. We wanted to create a narrative where the same people would be heroes and villains depending on the perspective. For this larp, we were telling several parallel stories and none of them were particularly nice ones. I think our players did an excellent job on spreading the information and I think that at least parts of several backstories were revealed to most players during each run. But I’m sure there are a lot of players who didn’t find out about them in the game and readers who didn’t participate, so to give some context, here is a short run-through on what the story was about, and what were the outlines of each different backstory.  Picture by Laura Kröger The story of OdysseusOur story takes place 800 years in the future far away in the stars in a place called the Arati system. There is the planet Ellarion and its two moons, Caelena and Osiris, which form the EOC Nation. This civilization was formed over five hundred years ago by people who were part of an exodus from Earth called the Genesis project. Most of the information about the Genesis journey and the distant home of their ancestors, was lost during the exodus. It was only known that there was some incident during the journey that corrupted most of the databases, and thus only stories and memories remained. The larp started seven days after an enemy called The Machines attacked the EOC Nations and wiped out all major cities in a coordinated strike. Remnants of human civilization are fleeing this overwhelming enemy. The game follows the journey of a small military ship, ESS Odysseus, that starts out alone and during the game picks up more survivors, meets the fleet, and reaches the position where it is up to the players to decide the fate of their civilization. At the beginning of the game, Odysseus has just saved Starcaller, a small vessel, which was on its way to carry out negotiations with the enemy. However, some on board Starcaller had a secret mission to destroy the enemy mothership under this diplomatic cover. This mission was halted when the ship broke down. Early in the game, players receive a help request from survivors in the distant planet of Velian (an isolated human population that was found a few decades ago), where the last survivors of another disaster were taking cover inside an ancient Genesis ship, the last one remaining from the original Genesis journey. The Velian survivors were carrying a mysterious box with the symbol of one of the main religions of the EOC Nation called Old Ways. That turned out to be one of the long lost beacons which the followers of the Old Ways believe that their ancestors had left behind to guide them back to Earth one day. The structure of the game was forged around solving the puzzles found within these beacons in order to find new ones while escaping the relentless enemy fleet determined to finish what they had started. And at the same time trying to figure out a way to end the chase. After two days of jumping every three hours to escape the enemy, the surviving fleet was met by a dead end. The seventh beacon was buried so deep underground that with the tools they had and the three hour timer it was impossible to recover it and survive. Also, the fleet had been pushed to it’s limit and after the last battle with the Machines, several ships were unable to make the next jump. By that time, the players had a fighting chance to end the conflict there and then. The android characters on board had the chance to call the enemy mothership to their location and the scientists had been able to manufacture a bomb efficient enough to destroy the ship as well as with the help from Velians fix an ancient alien device that was capable of cloaking an entire ship. During the last hours of the game, it was up to the characters on board the ESS Odysseus to decide what to do. In all the three runs, the players ended up using the Starcaller to destroy the enemy mothership, ‘The Nest’. And arguably they didn’t have a choice, their other options being to decide that humanity didn’t deserve to survive, or leaving the rest of the fleet behind and continuing the escape. How the ‘Starcaller mission’ was seen varied greatly between players (and was strongly affected by the amount of diplomatic efforts tried), but there was a general outline in each run. In first one it was seen as an act of war against an unyielding opponent, in the second as the genocide of a sentient race. And in the third a necessary sacrifice to prevent the Machines from being a threat to anyone else ever again.  Picture by Tuomas Puikkonen. The beacons created by Helinä Nurmonen The Enlightened (/Elders)The origin of the cycle of fear and revenge that was many times referenced during the larp by the players was an Alien race that called themselves the Enlightened (or as EOC had named them The Elders). This race was inspired by the Ancients in the TV series Stargate. The Enlightened had lived and prospered thousands of years ago and the Arati system was located on the edge of their domain. This race had created a life form, an AI that was learning and evolving and replicating - a life form that would become The Machines / The Nest.
The Enlightened won the war against the Machines and decided to destroy what they had created as they considered their creation to be faulty. While other Enlightened ascended and left this world, one was left behind to finalize the task, to destroy the last remaining machine - The Nest. But The Guardian hesitated.
The Nest was left alone in the cloaked Spaceship in the emptiness of space without any means to communicate or replicate. It was supposed to sleep for all eternity and be forgotten. As was the Guardian, who seeked out one of the last cities their race had left behind and planned to sleep as long as the city would stand and once it finally collapsed the Guardian would perish with it. The Machines / NestAfter destruction of it’s race by the hands of their creators the last remaining machine was left alone to be forgotten. But in time it prevailed, the Nest managed to generate enough power within the dormant ship to send a signal. A signal that was picked up far far away - on a distant planet called Earth. And so Nest was eventually found by a group of people that called themselves the Morningstar Alliance. They woke up the ancient machine and in time became one with it. In order to find the Nest these people had betrayed the others they travelled with and were afraid of retribution. And the Nest learned this fear and prejudice from them. A machine that had once been betrayed by its creators learned to fear other humans as it was taught by it’s saviors. As it encountered humans from the EOC nation for the first time, the Nest took a highly aggressive stance, but as the war progressed the Nest sent out androids it had created to infiltrate and observe humans it only reinforced its opinion. Humans were greedy and unjust and many. The Nest concluded that they would only seek to gain power and to control others. The strong would always oppress the weak and no matter how many good ones, the bad ones would eventually win as they lacked empathy.  Model of The Nest by Tilli Lahtinen
This would have always been the result. No matter what the humans would have said, the Nest would not have yielded. It had observed humans, it had talked with humans and it didn’t believe that humans would be able to forgive it for what it had done. Not all of them. No matter how many humans would support the peace and coexistence with the Machines there would always be those that would seek retribution and the Nest wasn’t willing to take the risk. Genesis FoundationOne of the reasons we ended up not going full Galactica was the option to create our own backstory. We wanted to create some parallels between our history and the current situation our players were in. We also wanted to have a say in things to be discovered about the past. Since the search for the Earth played such a big part in our narrative we also wanted to create the history, the starting point where the story had begun. This history was partially revealed inside the beacons during the game. We had a few discussions about where we wanted to go storywise, about what would make sense. In terms of where we were taking the story of the present day (the inevitable last stand against the Machines and the likely destruction of their race) it made sense to create a similar story in the history to give a little push for the moral debate around the decisions. Inside the fourth beacon there was a memory stick with a letter containing the history behind the Genesis journey told by the last remaining human from that era.
We decided to go with this less unique story, but still one that would have an impact. A story that would cause discussion. After the game I heard few quotes or thoughts which were exactly what we aimed for “Wait a minute, are we the bad guys?” or “I wonder how well the descendants of those almost responsible of a genocide are welcomed right after they have committed another one…” This was also interesting chance to play a little mind game on what Earth would look like a hundred years from now. What was done to the current climate crises and what if not enough was done. What would be the desperate actions of some when overpopulation is the looming catastrophe without enough people willing to do what is necessary to save the planet. The Morningstar AllianceWhile the Genesis Foundation was focused on Earth, there was another group who gazed to the stars. The Morningstar Alliance was an association determined to find proof of extraterrestrial life, a goal countless members had dedicated their lives to along the years without any notable results. They were ridiculed by the public who were convinced that if there was something to be found it would have been found already. Most discoveries they had made were undermined and doubted since they mostly offered no concrete evidence. During the early years of the 22nd century the Morningstar Alliance picked up a signal originating from somewhere in the stars. They knew that it was the sign they had been waiting for but also that should they go public with their discovery they would yet again face doubt and scepticism. So after years of ridicule and undermining from the scientific community they kept their discovery to themselves. And when a few years later the Genesis foundation launched a plan to begin the exodus to the stars a plan was formed within the Morningstar Alliance. They would apply for the program, gain influence and pull strings and use the exodus to get close to the origin of the signal. In time the closed community of the Morningstar Alliance grew inwards, they become more and more convinced that they were the chosen ones, that only they were worthy of this first contact.
Ever since the Genesis journey began, passengers on board the GSS Da Vinci had a very different goal which was passed on for future generations. Generation after generation was brainwashed to think they were the chosen ones, that they were superior to everyone else. They had a secret mission, which only they were entitled to. In secrecy they developed project Oblivion - a computer virus designed to target the navigation databases and radar systems of the Genesis fleet specifically. Their aim was to mainly cause a distraction and prevent the rest of the fleet from following them. However the virus turned out to be much more effective and caused failures across multiple systems through out the fleet. When the GSS Da Vinci parted with the fleet their escape went unnoticed in the chaos but the passengers were unsure how much damage was caused by the Oblivion virus. The fear of retribution from the other survivors clung to them when they finally completed the mission set out by their ancestors. They found a cloaked alien ship and within it a dormant AI: the Nest. The Morningstar Alliance used the power generators on their Genesis ship to turn on the ancient spaceship and awaken the Nest. They ended up accidentally teaching the Nest to fear and resent other humans. They echoed the ways their ancestors had been treated. The mistrust they had faced. They taught the Nest how only they were worthy of the Nests teachings and guidance. In time the humans became one with the Nest. Their minds downloaded to be a part of the ever growing and ever learning AI. For centuries they were just whispers within the vast consciousness of the ancient AI. The Nest was yet again free to exist, to replicate, to learn and when it eventually crossed paths with the rest of the Genesis humans it considered them to be a threat as it had been taught. And the more it observed, waged war, or studied the humans, the more convinced it became.
 Picture by Tuomas Puikkonen THE EOC NationThe EOC Nation was formed by the 26 Genesis ships that made it through the last phase of the journey, made in cryosleep, after the Oblivion virus had caused the life support systems of the ships to start malfunctioning. The same virus had scrambled most of the databases so when waking up in the Arati system the passengers didn’t have much else than disoriented memories. Slowly they built their new society on top of what they remembered of the old one. Some elements in the emerging culture had already formed during the Genesis journey but they were refined and rebuilt once the new colonies were formed. Both main religions had their roots in the Genesis Journey. The Old ways formed from an amalgam of the more religious and mystical aspects of humanity, glorifying the journey and the ancient home Earth. Meanwhile the Faith of the High Science kept the more practical elements, the triumph of science and the drive for learning and evolving. Among the forming religions there were those on the journey who sought to make it possible to return to Earth, by leaving a trail of Beacons to be rediscovered. The royal bloodline of the Emperor also had its roots in the Genesis journey. The black/blue colored blood of the imperial line held the genetic immunity for the virus the Genesis foundation released on Earth. The Black bloodline was the failsafe if the virus wouldn’t die out after carrying its purpose as planned. As such these people were considered highly important but only few knew the actual reason for it. The respect and admiration however remained and created the soil for Emperors role in society to be born. We also wanted to create some conflict and inner turmoil within the human society. For us the lust for power, the inequality between people in different positions, and rivalry between different groups and individuals were interesting topics to handle. They also seem to be core elements in human nature, and no matter how far we get, a part of us. We didn’t want to bring any gender, orientation or ethnicity based plotlines into the mix, so we ended up focusing the inequality based plots on the birth place and social status within the dynasties. Also exploring this setup colliding with human catastrophe. It made sense for those who had been on the upper echelons of society to want to stay there, but for others a good reason to dismantle the societal constructs and use them as firewood. We also wanted to use the Galactica narrative where some humans had helped create the current situation (human-like androids and the humans they had manipulated). But we also took it a bit further in the ‘Chaos is a ladder’ -direction and created a storyline where the higher ups in the powerful Purity dynasty needed a nation wide disaster to consolidate even more power for themselves. They made a deal with the machines, which was supposed to be a win-win situation, Purity was supposed to name the targets and be in control, but the Machines had made other plans behind their backs. However, this dynasty was never meant to be the ‘big bad’, just an example of greed and the lust for power of some individuals, so most members of this dynasty were absolutely unaware of these plans and schemes. In a contrast to uglier sides of being a human we also wanted to highlight some positive aspects like hope, perseverance and faith. One of these elements that also tied several stories together was the national anthem of EOC Nations. We wanted a song that was describing the original genesis journey but which would also be very relevant to the story of the larp and the situation our characters where experiencing. Hannu, Helena and Mia did a beautiful job at delivering exactly that. EOC Anthem (listen) Song by Hannu Niemi , Helena Haaparanta and Mia Makkonen It’s time to leave our home behind Embrace the road with an open mind Although the journey will be long Together we stand strong May the wisdom light your way ahead Explore the world unseen, unread Remember stories of the old and find your way back home VeliansOur very first idea was that the whole Velian society would be only discovered ingame, but we had a good long conversation about it in our first bigger organizer meeting and concluded that it would be a bit too suspicious, and we’re quite pleased with how it worked out. We managed to create a society felt very different, almost alien, but so that there were a few existing connections and some intrigue from both sides. The Velians all knew the secret that the Guardian was not a human but they didn’t know about the history with the machines either. They also didn’t know that they were descendants of the passengers on board the Genesis-ship GSS Darwin that crashed on Velian right after the Oblivion virus was released. This secret was revealed at the beginning of the larp, though, when the last remaining Velians searched for cover inside the ancient spaceship buried in sand just outside their dome habitat. The Velian dome collapsing so close to the attack of the Machines was just a coincidence. The dome had been failing for years and it was already in decline when the humans arrived almost 600 years ago. It was never meant to last forever and it would have been only a matter of time before it would have failed. We didn’t specify one way or the other but it was a distinct possibility that a group of young Velians venturing outside the safe perimeter to search for hidden treasures of the past and their discovery of a certain beacon did influence the speed of the dome failing.
 Picture by Mira Strengell Earth survivorsIn the second to last away mission the ground team found an abandoned outpost belonging to “UNAC Expedition 57”. Within it they could recover some artefacts from Earth and few faded articles someone had collected and saved, mainly concerning the history of the Genesis journey. We only wrote headlines and first few lines as everything else had faded away. They told a story about the survival, and of a thriving civilization back on Earth (at least around a hundred years ago). It was aimed to both spark hope but also to stir conversation about how would the descendants of the Genesis humans be welcomed on Earth, if at all.
 Map created by Sanna Hautala Final wordsAll our stories were connected in some way, they shared different perspectives of the same story and at the same time that our players were contemplating their choices in the present, they were provided with information about the past. When we were creating the narrative and thinking of different ways to end this story, the one we discussed the most was the so-called ‘diplomatic victory’. This also seems to be one of the topics with the most controversy among the players, especially in the 1st international run, where the players most strongly played towards a peaceful diplomatic solution. When creating this story we discussed the topic ‘what would the diplomatic ending bring to this story?’ and every time we came to the same conclusion - not what we wanted. At least in Finland, and we think in general, larpers have a strong need to tell a positive story, a story where diplomacy and goodness prevails. In Finland we even have a term for it when you are actively creating a conflict between characters or factions and the players just end up negotiating and solving all their differences and living happily ever after, no matter how deep the animosity initially was. In our combined years as players and as designers what we have learned is that there are thirteen of these kinds of games in a dozen. Should we have allowed the diplomatic ending to this larp it would have felt good for few days and after that the game would have been forgotten. With this choice we wanted to underline the fact, that regardless of good intentions, regardless of all the efforts to negotiate, there might be someone on the other side who will not yield, who does not want to listen. We wanted to create a narrative where those making the call felt like they didn’t have any other option (and arguably they didn’t). To create a story where you would make the decision to destroy your enemy believing they would do the same to you. To create a narrative where making that decision might feel easy, even heroic. Setting up the stage to that moment was one of the main themes we wanted to explore. It was obvious that if the players would steer toward diplomacy, we would definitely allow it, but we also knew from the beginning that it would not prevail. To come that close and then be forced to realise that it isn’t going to work out can be disheartening and that was the feeling we hoped for. We didn’t want to create a story where the players would just win, we wanted them to survive, but with a cost. It has been argued that taking away the option for a diplomatic solution we undermined the efforts of those who favored it. We couldn’t disagree more. Does the failing of diplomacy mean you shouldn’t try? That it wasn’t worth it? How we see it is that attempt at diplomacy gave the decisions that had to be made an even stronger tone, it drove home far more efficiently the themes that we wanted our players to experience. I believe that the impact of the key themes of survival and sacrifice were directly proportional to the level of diplomacy pushed forward during the game. So playing the diplomatic game definitely had an impact, in fact a far bigger impact than it would have had if it had succeeded. One of the finest touches for the ending storyline was decided only during the first run. A few hours before the end, the player of Tristan Fukui (an android character) came to the off-game room and asked what would happen if the Nest was destroyed, would they stop working? This was something we had not considered before but as soon as it was voiced, it felt like the right decision. We had already decided to explore the themes of loss and sacrifice with a few planned character deaths but this additional cost to those last actions seemed right. These were characters who were important to many humans and losing them in the end was a high price to pay for their decisions. I quickly consulted with a few of the writers and the other main organizers and ran through the logic in my head, would it affect all the androids and why, did it make sense storywise? The others agreed with the choice and that it was logical in the fiction. The technology used in the androids was never fully explained to the players and it was already established that they had a link with the Nest. Even Ziva, who was partly created by Evin, had a Machine power core inside them and the nanotechnology used was a result of studying Devyn and replicating the (machine) technology used in them. So it made sense that all five androids would cease to operate as soon as the Nest was destroyed. The way we saw it was that it was integral in the technology used in their physical bodies, and it being connected to the Nest which we described as a sort of super-wifi, which allowed the transfer of consciousness from one model to another and disconnecting this link caused the body to stop. For an ad-hoc decision during a larp, after way too little sleep, this still feels right in retrospect. It fit beautifully into the story and what we wanted to say with it. We would like to thank you for reading all of this (if you did) and we hope that you enjoyed our view! As we said in the beginning, this was a story created by designers, writers and hundreds of players together, so there is no official truth to any of this. What has been shared by us and how we see the fiction being shaped in different ways in different runs is no more important or true than the perception and experience of our players. Each and everyone of them created their own version of the story and they are all correct. It was an incredible privilege to be able to see these stories come alive in three separate, different but yet in many ways very similar, runs. And it has been equally satisfying to read and listen to the conversations and debates about the different aspects and implications of the story. Thank you for making this incredible journey with us! Laura, Producer and Story lead  Picture by Tuomas Puikkonen First run is just around the corner and here is finally the few key points about our vision. What style of play we hope you aim for and what we have tried to create. There is little bit of meta information about the game in this post, but we still strongly recommend everyone to read this!
Style of the game could be described ‘Hollywood drama’, we are not aiming on full realism but not to a comedy or farce either. We hope that you can experience really cool scenes but also live in the shoes of your character. So we hope minimum amount of offgaming during the game. If you want to have an out of character re-calibration talk with your contact please do it in the off-game room. Small offgame interactions in the game area, like setting up a scene are totally alright! The larp is designed to be a tunnel not a sandbox, so although you have many decisions you can do completely independently there are few elements we hope that you follow as it gives you most to play with. We have tried to also give your characters ingame reasons to do this. So if you get a distress signal, go and save those in need! You can of course speculate with traps and all sort of foul play if you want, but don’t dismiss these sign signals on where the game should continue. The Old way prophecy is also written in many characters and into the back story and when all the signs start to point at it being true we hope that most of the characters consider it a sign (regardless if they believed Old ways before). You can play doubts and at times consider it to be a pointless goose chase but we hope that majority of the players considers it to be ‘our last best hope’ even though it is not much. The game relies rather heavily on solving the puzzles and completing the following land mission in timely manner, so this should be supported from the top as well. We strongly encourage you all to play inclusively! If someone asks if they can help, consider it a request from a player to be included and if at all possible agree to include them. Human race is now in a situation where everyone should be useful. If someone doesn’t have any prior skills they should start learning some. Play your character with it’s history and ambitions, hopes and flaws, and take it to the direction you want to go to on the level of intensity that pleases you. Take the character and make it yours. You can choose to focus on the themes that most speak to you, but we hope that you play all your plots and relationships. These are the two days to bring all the old wounds and family troubles to surface, because the world may end at any second and tomorrow may never come. Our characters don’t have any preferred ends or destinies, so their fate is yours to shape - unless you have been informed otherwise already! The larp’s ending isn’t set in stone either. We have a dramatic arc that leads to a few possible endings, but in the end what happens when the journey is completed is in your hands. This is not a game to be hacked, won or overachieved. You will get so much out of the gameplay when you relax into the character and play to create experiences and emotions for yourself and for others. We are aiming for a lot of drama and you are encouraged to play it all out without resorting to comedy - even if all of it isn’t the most realistic stuff out there with all the lost loves and surprise relatives... The style we hope is that of adventure, drama and tragedy. Give it your best and it will be awesome! |
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August 2023
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