nordiclarpyearbook2015

The Legend of Percival: Larping in Babylon
- By Andrea Giovannucci. Translation: Wendy Columbo
In September 2015, in the city of Rome, the
Chaos League organized The Legend of
Percival (La leggenda di Parsifal); a pervasive
larp which cannibalised reality for a few
days by asking its players to play the role of
outcasts in search of their own physical and
mental place: A search conducted within
and without the self. Set in modern times
and inspired by the works of Terry Gilliam
(The Fisher King, 1991), Jim Jarmusch
(Ghost Dog, 1999) and Alan Moore (V for
Vendetta, 1982), the event was designed to
delve into the concepts of marginality and
morality.
The characters played in The Legend of
Percival all shared a painful personal history
and were persuaded to be the moral heirs of
the legendary knight Percival. Their attempt
was to establish a new community - the reborn
Camelot - on values such as mutuality,
moderation and strict adherence to the
inflexible moral code of medieval knights.
Plunged into the throbbing heart of a chaotic
Rome, they struggled against the annihilation
of humanity.
Needless to say, the underlying objective of
this larp was to stimulate an unbiased debate
about modern society - overwhelmed
by individualistic views and interested only
in the accumulation of superfluous objects
- through the fictional expedient of larp.
The style of play was 360º degrees illusion,
without interruption and without use of
meta-techniques.
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Collaborative writing
Before actually playing, participants created
their characters under the guidance and
supervision of the organisers. In outlining
their personal traits, players were asked to
give special attention to the construction of
what was labelled the “pillar collapse”. This
meant a traumatic event supposed to be the
starting point of a death-rebirth process
for each character. In layman’s terms, the
“pillar collapse” could be represented by a
bereavement in one’s family or by disturbing
experiences able to make the characters
question everything in which they firmly
believed, able to shake their ideas and their
way of life.
Simultaneously, players were asked to begin
to follow a training course, which would put
them in an exact mental and physical state
to face the larp properly. Participants were
assigned meditation and breathing exercises
(partly borrowed from the Zen tradition),
which were to be performed on a daily basis
for two weeks before the beginning of
the game. For example, some of the assignments
were based on selective auditory
drills of self-listening and surrounding environment
listening, in order to trigger an
improved mastering of one’s interior space.
The final goal of such training was to prepare
players to the rhythms and concepts
they would face during the live event, to reduce
the impact with a reality very different
from their everyday life.
The third phase of the “diffused game” (a
pre-game stage which took place entirely
online) introduced characters to the inner
workings of the game.
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