Writing Freeform Larps now has a website

Writing Freeform Larps has a website! writingfreeformlarps.larps.org.uk

The owner of the larp.org.uk domain offered to host any larp-based website as a subdomain from it. He already does this with Gods and Monsters and Cyberpunk, which are both laser-tag sites built using Blogger.

As I use Blogger for this site, I thought it might be a good idea to create a mini-site just for Writing Freeform Larps.

Using Blogger to build a mini-site

I find Blogger much easier than Wordpress to build a website. It has far fewer features, no plugins and everything seems much more straightforward.

I'm sure Wordpress is more sophisticated, secure and flexible. But for a small mini-site dedicated to a particular project, it’s fine.

Why a mini-site?

I decided I wanted a separate site for Writing Freeform Larps because it’s not always clear what I am talking about when I say “freeform larp”. So this gives me a public-facing page to explain what a freeform is, along with links to a few examples and photographs.

I also explained the process I use for writing a freeform, hopefully providing just enough information to whet the appetite of an interested visitor.

I also moved a few posts from this blog over to the new site. I had several posts discussing suggestions and ideas for a second edition, so they are now there.

Going forward, I’m not sure yet how I will manage the split of information between here and Writing Freeform Larps. I expect I will write it in one place and link to it from the other.

Other mini-sites

And having done this once, I’m wondering about creating mini-sites for Other London and for The Harvesters, my series of first-contact larps. But if I don’t want …blogspot.com as my website address, I may have to look into learning how domains work. Ugh.

Writing Freeform Larps

Click here to visit Writing Freeform Larps.

The Department for Irregular Services – design notes

Three years ago, I had an idea for a Liminal crew assigned to Historic England, and responsible for dealing with Hidden World situations associated with scheduled ancient monuments and other historical buildings.

I wrote this up for the blog (here), and it sat in the back of my mind for a while.

Then, about a year ago, the temptation of mixing historical sites (which I love visiting) with modern horror/fantasy rpg grew too much, and inspired by Neil Gow’s Case Files Patreon, I decided to expand the article into an unofficial supplement for Liminal. 

Expanding the department

So I needed to develop the Department for Irregular Services (DfIS). Here’s the full team, NPCs and PCs:

• Bernard McTavish, who leads the DfIS. (NPC)
• Hester Babbage, the wheelchair-bound archivist. (NPC)
• Cecil Philip Mayhew, a dead academic archaeologist “living” in a ghost realm.
• Dr Cassandra Blackwood, occult history specialist (PC)
• Titus Stone, expert in paranormal engineering and protective wards. (PC)
• Grey Calderwell, the DfIS’s fae expert (PC)
• Erik Grimsson, cryptozoology specialist. (PC)
• DI Yasmin Burton, P-Division’s liaison officer (PC)

In my head, the youngest characters are in their fifties – the oldest are past retirement. (McTavish is 71.) Of course, players can play them at whatever age they want, but I like to think of the DfIS as a bunch of old folk.

Tools of the Trade

I decided that the DfIS probably has a store of occult artefacts – including a hand of glory, blessed weapons and other mysterious devices of limited use. My favourites are probably the Nails of Wem:

Nails of Wem: 17 bronze Roman nails were discovered with the famous Wem Hoard collection of coins and silver. To anyone with The Sight, the nails were clearly occult – and the DfIS took possession of them. When hammered into a doorway, a single nail will prevent the passing of any fae. The DfIS have only 11 nails left. 

One of the things I’ve tried to do is suggest that the world is wider and stranger than just the things that directly affect play. So I’ve dropped in hints and suggestions that can be expanded upon if a GM wishes. (For example, what happened to the other six nails?)

The investigations

I created three investigations – one of which was an update of an investigation I’d published previously.

The Hairy Hands involved the famous Dartmoor legend – they’re back! I wrote this after visiting Dartmoor and realising that we had been driving along the famous “hairy hands” road.

Hardknott Roman Fort Ghost Realm consists of a ghost realm new to the DfIS. This is the investigation I had already published, so it just needed updating to suit the department.

The Wherewell Cockatrice is a longer investigation that ends with the PCs face-to-face with a cockatrice, which I decided was a fae creature.

I ran my online group through these adventures, and we took about ten sessions to work our way through them all, which was about right. I’m not sure I’d use any as a convention one-shot, so that's maybe something I should work on.

The ghost realms

I figure the DfIS has records of dozens of ghost realms, and I thought it would be good to describe some. 

So I conclude with a description of four ghost realms: Machrie Moor stone circles, Rushton Triangular Lodge, South Stack Lighthouse, and Bilton Viaduct. (I’ve visited all of these, which probably gives you a sense of what I do on my holidays…)

One thing that I found I needed to pay attention to was making sure that the ghost realms aren’t too easy to get into. I like to assume that the world of Liminal is pretty much like our own, and since people aren’t being regularly swallowed by ghost realms (if it happened often it would be news and we would know about it), I made the ghost realms tricky to access (requiring specific times or activities to be performed).

AI input

Given the current furore surrounding AI art, I decided not to use AI for character portraits. Instead, I found suitable public domain and Creative Commons-licensed artwork.

However, I did use ChatGPT for brainstorming, so I acknowledged that.

Approval from Mr Liminal

Once I had everything formatted, I sent the pdf to Paul Mitchener to ask for permission to publish it, which he kindly granted me.

Purchasing The Department for Irregular Services

You can purchase The Department for Irregular Services from itch.io or DriveThruRPG.

The many, many trains of our Switzerland holiday

This summer we visited Switzerland, and I thought I'd take a photograph of all the trains we travelled on...

(The trains in Switzerland are very nice. Much nicer than ours.)

York to King's Cross. Our first train, an LNER Azuma, arriving at York.

Eurostar from London St Pancras to Paris Gare du Lyon. This is once we arrived in Paris.

TGV from Paris Gare du Lyon to Geneva. This is at Paris, where the temperature was a blistering 38C.

I didn't take photos of all the metros we travelled on (we used the metro a lot), but this is the one we took when we visited CERN.

From Geneva to Lausanne, where we spent most of our time.

From Geneva to Neuchatel, at 5:35 am! We had to be in Adelboden by 10 am.

Neuchatel to Bern. (At Neuchatel.)

Bern to Frutigen, in Bern. (After this we caught a bus to Adelboden. I didn't take a photo of the bus.)

Frutigen to Bern. This is as the train arrives at Frutigen, and I have that slightly pained I'm-trying-to-work-the-camera-and-compose-the-photo-and-get-the-timing-right-and-smile expression. I should have let Megan take the photo...

Bern to Neuchatel, at Neuchatel. (I have no idea what model these trains are, by the way.)

Neuchatel to Lausanne, at Neuchatel.

Okay, so this isn't a train either, but it's the ferry we caught when travelling from Lausanne to château de Chillon.)

Veytaux-Chillon to Lausanne. (At Veytaux-Chillon.)

Lausanne to Palézieux, at Lausanne.

Palézieux to Gruyères (yes, the place with the cheese!), at Palézieux.

Cheese!

Gruyères to Palézieux, at Gruyères.

Palézieux to Lausanne, at Palézieux.

Lausanne to Nyon, at Lausanne.

Nyon to Lausanne, at Nyon

Lausanne to Grandvaux, at Lausanne.

Lutry to Lausanne, at Lausanne.

Starting our journey home. Lausanne to Geneva, from Lausanne.

TGV from Geneva to Paris Gare du Lyon. This was more exciting than it needed to be, as it was 1 hr 40 mins late into Paris, leaving us with a stressful dash across Paris to catch the Eurostar. Which we luckily did!

Eurostar from Paris Gare du Nord to London St Pancras. At St Pancras (because there really wasn't time for taking photos at Paris).

And finally, LNER Azuma from London King's Cross to York, at London.

Phew!