Blog

Sensitivity and InclusionHello! My name is Sereia Spinner, and I am the sensitivity consultant for Saturnalia. I’m a historian, consultant, writer, and of course, LARPer. I’ve been LARPing for almost 5 years and like many of you, Vampire the Masquerade was the first LARP I ever participated in. It’s an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to consult on a new take of the first LARP system I ever played, and doing so alongside Reverie and By Night Studios has been immensely rewarding.As …

Organization and VenuesOrganizing, designing, and executing blockbuster larps is no easy task, even in the most conducive circumstances. Orchestrating an event the scope and scale of Saturnalia, from twelve states and one time zone away, has proven to be a herculean task. We’ve spoken across several different mediums as to why New Orleans, of all other cities, would be the most ideal for an event of this nature. The connection to the occult and western vampire mythology is inexorably tied to the …

Growing up in small town in the South, there wasn't a lot of room self-discovery and expression. It you didn't fit into what most people considered normal then you were quickly ostracized and bullied relentlessly by your peers. Hiding my feelings and my blossoming sexuality even from myself lead to many years of depression, anger, and self-loathing. I was afraid to explore certain aspects of who i was in fear that my peers would treat me even worse than they already did. However, my life chang …

When I first joined Miami by Night in September of 2020 I had a decent idea about my identity. Bi and Genderqueer. Simple, clean-cut, nothing to further question. I used she/they pronouns because it made life easier for those around me as I tried to ignore the sting I felt inside anytime someone said "she" or my deadname. Becoming a part of the team at Miami by Night and bonding closely with the staff and players, I finally felt the courage, and in turn, the drive, to proclaim who I am loud and …

CharactersOne of the most important things in larp design (outside the major themes and potentially venue selection) is character design. To help design an experience that had so many venues, participants and potential event flows, Reverie Studios worked with Juhana Pettersson on coming up with what we think is an ideal system for this style of larp.What We've Done PreviouslyFor many of our experiences, Reverie did what we consider to be a more traditional Nordic character design: we sent a char …

"I starkly remember a user's words in the World of Darkness discord community. About how, no matter whether a company really meant it or was simply trying to appear respectable, it felt and was safer to know that its official channels cared to support and protect its lgbtq+ members. And moreover, about how it reassured them to realise that the care is genuine. As a moderator of that community, who is part of the effort to provide that protection and support, that means something to me.The vampir …

The KickstarterIn full transparency, Reverie has never actually done the ‘Kickstarter model’ of larp development before. It was totally new ground for us to come up with a concept for a larp, without actually doing things like scoping out and building the larp itself. However, since we were contracted by BNS to work with them as the primary, it was a bit of a chicken and egg situation as to the development of the experience and the funding behind it.We also wanted to do a V5 Vampire larp by …

Saturnalia is, in a lot of ways, an ambitious dream project for us as a studio. When Reverie was founded in 2016, it was actually after our first time playing End of the Line. A vampire experience by White Wolf, and was written for them by Bjarke Pedersen, Juhana Pettersson, and White Wolf's lead storyteller Martin Ericsson. It was there we met Bjarke and Juhana, and really got into understanding more about Nordic larp. We were completely enamored with it and we wanted to bring larps like i …

By Night Studios, LLC, (“BNS”) is a multimedia game publisher and the exclusive licensee of Paradox Interactive for Mind’s Eye Theatre (“MET”) World of Darkness© games. Originally founded in 2012, the current BNS team took over in 2019 and is led by me: Ryan Aughtry. In addition to publishing and game development, BNS manufactures and sells memorabilia and merchandise for fans of MET and the wider World of Darkness© universe.While I am the President of By Night Studios, for me MET Larp was trans …

Saint Petersburg, FL -By Night Studios, LLC, has announced a Kickstarter campaign to publish Mind’s Eye Theatre: Vampire: The Masquerade - War of Ages. This new book is the next evolution of live-action Vampire: The Masquerade live-action roleplaying (“Larp”) and features the writing of Finnish novelist and game designer Juhana Pettersson of the award-nominated Vampire: The Masquerade Nordic-style Larp “End of the Line,” as well as the Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Anarch sourceboo …