Reminded of the time the organisers of The Smoke Larp festival made ID badges for everyone except ourselves. Where the system is automated based on bookings, our own names didn't appear on the database. The whole festival has changed a lot since those days, but we hope to keep the spirit the same!

Hey BlueSky. It's been a minute. We are recovering from post convention plague and a a result are broadly unable to do complex tasks. I hope your start to the year is a bit better!

So the conservative director of the BBC hand picked by the previous conservative government has had to step down because he has chosen to take the blame for an edit he authorised on another conservative and as a result conservatives are saying that the BBC was not conservative enough.

The Immersive Experience Summit was fantastic and we met a lot of very cool people there. @rebelrehbinder.bsky.social was on a panel about nordic larping while @arlohoward.bsky.social did an amazing talk about onboarding processes. It was good to see people!!

In a similar vein I have also now set up my rather lonely looking LinkedIn account. With social media on a slow decline, i am not losing a lot of sleep over being represented on it, but I am beng told more and more that people look for us there, so here we are. www.linkedin.com/in/kolford

After five years Omen Star is now big enough to justify using Slack. Guess who just found out we set up a Slack account when we started after trying to set up a new one. Fate is whimsical today. <3

Lines I have wisely ommited from emails this morning... "Having said all that, I am not beyond asking for a thousand plain white boxes containing some really cool underground boxed set, but I think this should be a deliberate design decision rather than me not putting in the values correctly."

SIGN UP FOR THE SMOKE 2026 Join us on the 9th to 11th January in London's Theatre Deli as we host an incredible 50+ larps from all over the world. Come join the magic Link to Tickets: omenstar.com/shop/ Link to the website: www.thesmoke.org 💚💛🤍💛💚 ☁️The Smoke☁️

This week we have been getting ready for the Immersives Experience Summit as well as opening tickets for The Smoke Chamber Larp* Festival in London! Which we really should mention on here as well! * also Nordic Larps, Jubensha, Megagame, Freeform, LRP, Minds Eye Theatre, Immersive Theatre and more!

The Isle of Wonders festival in Croatia was wonderful and an outstanding success for us. Introducing larp to people who have never done it before with minimal onboarding and very little interference from organisers worked extremely well! Image from TavernQuest at VoidSpace festival in London!

Our Valour Manor dystopian superhero larp was phenomenally successful with many five star reviews and lots of happy people. There will be a rerun next year!

Hitting the point of wondering if Bluesky is worth the hassle of handling another social media. I like it, and I definitely gave it a solid go, but without the ablity to really connect with my community its all a little bit meh. Any ideas how I can make this a bit better, or will I gradually leave?

A surprising number of larp orgas are inspired by the Wu Tang Clan. So I am excited to see not only a new Wu Tang Clan album is on the way, but also our personal favourite rapper at Omen Star ~ Inspectah Deck, the Rebel INS.

Five years ago the Omen Star Satellite launched at the begining of lockdown. Unable to do live events, we used our event management infrastucture to support our local community and moved into the world of online larping. We would go on to produce a new larp every four weeks until lockdown lifted.

Feeling good after KP. I encouraged those who wanted to do something in larp but wanted a bit of affirmation. This included talking about talks and articles for next year, party ideas or ideas for chamber larps or cool concepts for new blockbuster larps, I loved every interaction! Good times! <3

"This thing is living rent free in your head!" No no, I can assure you, one way or another it pays rent.

Finally had it to Oslo, resting after a long and weirdly difficult journey. Soon I will meet again with the larp community and much talking will take place. Exciting times ✨

Now the countdown to KP begins while I am still recovering from my last larp. This Knutepunkt I will mostly be on panels, hosting parties and talking larp theory in the diner. Who else am I likely to see there?

L'Inconscience was rly good. A larp that played on themes of oppression and abuse. I was Andree Char, a robotic host programmed to be kind, loving and pious and trapped in the romeo and juliet storyline so they ran experiements on him to raise his cruely, aggression and self awareness. Good times.

Ok enough negativity. I'm on my way to a Musketeers larp in Seville, Spain. What are the scenes that absolutely must happen! I want: 1. A duel 2. An intense close scene where I whisper into someone's ear that what is happening is an abomination and a disgrace in the face of god. 3. Tapas

My facebook feed is full of groups that I have unfollowed because I have followed them in the past. That's not even the stupidest thing I have seen in the last 24 hours.

I still use facebook for work, which in turn links me to Threads. I take a peak at the bate to see whats going on and good god it is getting weird out there. Conversations regressing to the level of drunks in the park. I like the tranquility here. Even the assholes are mild by comparison.

Legendary larpwright Nina Runa Essendrop can now be supported on patreon!!

I love pregenerated adventures! Mostly because a big part of my profesional life is making adventures so it is nice to run one that has already been made. So I am currently preparing to run Modiphius Fallout 2d20 ttrpg and running the commonwealth adventures. What are you all playing/running?

I finally got to go to the Arcanists Tavern yesterday. A wonderful venue with an excellent range of games. We got a tour and I had a chance to once again play one of my favourite boardgames of all time. Good times. arcaniststavern.uk

Just finished an exciting meeting this afternoon that has led to the possibility of even more of our larp events in the US. I so desperately want the maths to add up for an LA event and I am always up for more NYC.

Back in the UK and straight into admin and meetings! Facebook still has some important larp groups, most notably larpers BFF, but the new rules about links are making other groups more difficult to use. Joannas new European Larp Announcment Feed is fantastic!

Is anyone here connected to the Netherlands larp scene able to point Natalie at some contacts?

Oh Svenska, you beautiful country. 💙💛💙💛

Tomorrow I head back to Sweden for a few days to deal with personal matters. I will be staying in Stockholm which is the wrong end of the country for me, but I have enjoyed my visits there. hit me up if you want to fika

The thing I find interesting about this game is the discussion provoked about the events of Jan 6th. More of a question of "how bad was it?" than "was it bad? which keeps it in the conversation.This is very important at a time when US misinformation seeps into every corner of the media sphere.

The London Lovecraft Festival returns for it's 5th year at the Drayton Arms, during the 16th and 17th of February. Full story via @starburst.bsky.social www.starburstmagazine.com/london-lovec...

I can't believe how lucky i was to be able to watch Paprika during the Chinese New Year celebrations so there was a continious background of festival drumming in the distance. The Prince Charles Cinema in London is a treasure!

"Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy." – Ezekiel 16:49 Just so we are absolutely clear what the sin of Sodom actually is according to the bible. To have plenty and not aid the poor.

~ I can't even drive ~ 🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵

Extremely odd article about the anti fascist protests in London at the weekend that seems to enhance the size of the facists and underplay the size of the anti fascists, which "Biggest patriotic rally the UK has ever seen"? It wasn't even the biggest patriotic rally in Trafalgar Square.

I am noticing that while the quantity of responses I am getting here is lower, the quality makes up for it. With people not under pressure to engage out of fear of their own posts not being seen, the engagement seems to be more real.

Finally getting a chance to watch Nosferatu with our dinner for the evening courtesy of Monsieur Malbec.

Ok, one last work post for now; another post apocalyptic costume created for a customer attending Wasteland Weekend. Next time I’ll post some cat pics I promise 😄

Happy Lunar New Year! We enter the year of the Snake with an exciting range of larp events including Valour Manor in a dystopian superhero academy Goetia for a demon summoning banquet Cyberpunk London with deals in a basement bar And of course our beloved Sacrament Would love to see you there!

Here is the final result of the experiment. avalon-larp-studio.itch.io/discontent

This is it. The best comment on this whole situation.

Had a midnight conference call with larpers in the US last night which was cool. I am interested in running more nordic larps in the US but find myself wondering where there are functioning larp scenes with more than 100 people? Anyone able to point me in the right direction?

I am working on a more larp design that deals with a corrupt and unjust system in society that turned out to be much more unjust and corrupt that I previously imagined. It is also largely ignored since it involves communities people generally don't care about. I think an email to my MP is in order

first they came for the communists and they tried to throw me in with them as well because I speak out about every damn thing

Also our Kitchen Team for Valour Manor are incredible and wil be bringing some wonderful cuisine for our players. I love incorporating the dining into the diegetic experience and our dystopian superhuman training camp will be no different.

Cyberpunk expression of interest has gone extremely well and keeps going strong. There is a roadmap for 100 characters, several story arcs and a venue. Its going to be incredible.

I don't know anything about MAGfest but if there is anyone following me who does, do you know where all the larpers hang out?

Today we will be using our larp organisations resources to help promote and support progressive causes in London who cannot afford it due to cuts. Larp provides a safe space for lgbt folk to find their identities and we are proud to continue to support that regardless of what other people think.

Welcome wonderful new people following my feed. I want you to know that I am happy with you shamelessly promoting your hustle, epsecially if it is larp related. You can definately celebrate your LGBT and Queerness here and you are very welcome to engage with my content on your own terms. 🩷Love you🩷