Themes
What is this larp?
Unnatural Allures is a Nordic-style, erotic horror larp about members of the British High Society during the Gaslight Era succumbing to their base desires. While unwrapping an ancient stolen corpse in a “Mummy Reveal Party“, the attending guests collectively imagine themselves under its unnatural allure. They will shed all pretences and descend into shared delusions fuelled by their own lust for exoticism and transgression. You will embody complex pre-written characters, each with intense predetermined core relationships. You will explore the inherent tensions and cruelty of a repressive, imperialist society.
Scope and themes of the larp
Unnatural Allures contains sensitive topics and is only suitable for adult (21+) players. We will have consent and calibration mechanics to allow safe exploration of these topics. Even if your character loses control, you as a player will always be in control of your own body and can always leave a scene or opt out from topics you are not comfortable with. However, you might still see others engage in these topics.
What you may encounter in this larp
- Erotic play (simulated with theatre style sex): A good baseline for portraying intimacy is that fellow players are allowed to hug you, lightly touch your arms, back, head and face and to use a “stage kissing”-technique (kissing your own thumb placed on the other person's lips; we will demonstrate it in the workshop). However, the larp supports levels of consent both below and above this baseline via calibration techniques. You will be at all times in control of your own body.
- Witnessing nudity
- Simulated cruelty and violence (incl. psychological, physical, sexualised)
- Drug abuse and addiction (via drug props)
- Psychological horror (the spreading effect of collective delusions and psychosis)
- Necrophiliac attraction (the imagined allure of the Mummy)
- Othering experiences through sexism and queerphobia, ableism, nationalism, colonialism and orientalism (as part of the repressive norms of Gaslight Society)
- Historical inaccuracies (portraying a heightened version of British High Society of the “Gaslight” era)
What we do NOT accept in this larp
- Real (as in unsimulated) sex and violence
- Aggressive or offensive racist remarks/slurs
- Disparaging comments about bodies
- Aggressive or offensive sexist, queer- and transphobic remarks
Disclaimer
We, as larp organisers, do not condone or support colonialism, sexism, queerphobia, racism, cultural appropriation and exploitation. We are also not looking to glorify the exploitative practices of past and current imperialist systems and individuals. All bodies, experiences and identities are welcome.
This larp is not a celebration of the “good old days”. This is a fictional space filled with frankly pretty terrible people doing, thinking and saying terrible things in a terrible system that they benefit from. We are trying to make it possible to experience and explore these difficult themes in a temporary fiction – deliberately and never uncritically.
We are aware that there is enough oppressive shit out there that people might not want to roll around in it in their free time. We understand if this is not for you at this time.
We take consent from all sides seriously and consider it essential for good play (find our safety mechanics under How we play).
If you are interested in a critical view on colonial and Orientalist perspectives and their ongoing reproduction in Western culture, we recommend you check out some additional academic writing (see the Appendix of our Design Document). A special thanks to our cultural consultants for their thoughts and recommendation on these topics and the larp.
Inspirations
Unnatural Allures’ content and mechanics are heavily inspired by the larps of the PAN TRILOGY designed by Linda Udby and Bjarke Pedersen for Participation Design Agency.
It also draws inspiration from the German larp 1919 by Strange-Land e.V. - TraumArtA team. Further inspirations found in literature, film and TV are The Beetle by Richard Marsh (1897), Dracula (1897) and The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903) by Bram Stoker, She by H. Rider Haggard (1887), “Lot No. 249” by Arthur Conan Doyle (1892), The Mummy movies (both 1932 and 1999) and the Netflix series Penny Dreadful (2014-2016).