Snapphaneland

This article originally appeared on the author’s blog: https://norper.wordpress.com/2024/06/19/snapphaneland/

I’m back from waging guerrilla warfare from deep in the Swedish woods, desperately trying to keep Scania under the rightful Danish King and not the usurper Swedish crown at the larp Snapphaneland, by Rosalind Göthberg, Mimmi Lundkvist and Alma Elofsson Edgar.

Pew pew, yours truly and his trusty musket – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

The scenario was based on a very dark period in Scandinavian history, building on actual events, but set in a fictional place. A small farming village in the woods, trying to survive being caught in the middle of a fight between armed “Snaphane” resistance fighters and occupying soldiers. Taking place in two acts of increasing paranoia and brutality as the fight becomes more desperate for both sides.

It took place at Berghem, a primitive village built by larpers, specifically for larping, out it in the gorgeous Swedish woods. It ran from thursday morning to saturday afternoon, plus cleanup and afterparty. Thursday was half workshopping and preparations before play itself started. Friday afternoon there was also an act break to calibrate and escalate. So two full days of ongoing play time, with planned start and end scenes, but otherwise open, autonomous structure.

Organizers Rosalind, Alma & Mimmi brief the players before play – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

The style of play here, is one of ongoing calibration and a focus on making sure the other players are having a good time with where the story is going, by taking a moment to talk offgame if an inflection point needs it, plus a few classical tools for quicker signaling. Combined with everyone knowing how the overall story will turn out and some directions on how to handle things, in each of the two acts, it is a matter of individual stories being driven by both chance and intent.

It featured a cast of characters, that is divided between a dozen Swedish soldiers, two handfuls of rebels and the rest of the eighty or so participants being villagers caught in the middle. In a lot of ways it was three quite different larps in each of the groups, villagers playing out stories of powerlessness to proctect themselves and their loved ones; soldiers trying desperately to take control while outnumbered and out of their depth; and the rebels fighting a losing battle to retain the loyalty of the villagers and evict the occupiers. My personal story was with the rebels in the woods, I played as Klaus, an outcast drunkard from the village, who had no other choice but join with them.

Some light plundering of the starving families in town – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

The game took place in Swedish and Danish languages, the soldiers all being Swedish players, the Snaphaner all Danes and the villagers were a mix of the two. There was minor troubles at times, with getting the details right across the language barrier. But as the languages are mostly the same and a lot of us Danes have picked up a good deal of Swedish, it worked rather well overall. I also know a bunch of players chose to take language lessons ahead of play, which is a lovely commitment. I personally love the additional nuance you get from people playing in their mother tongue and can heartily recommend it as a design choice for Scandinavian games.

The experience

It’s been nearly two decades since I last went on a multi-day action scenario in the woods and I must admit that I was in doubt if I was in fact too old for this shit. But I already had the perfect costume, from a previous larp, Den Utan Synd. And this felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I had no choice but to go. I signed up for any kind of character, since all three of the groups had themes I would love to explore, but luckily I got cast as a Snaphane and was able to take part in the experience for which the larp was named.

Hard choices all around – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

That meant a whole lot of time out in the woods. Most of the other rebels had opportunities to spend time in the village during the first act, but my character was a known drunkard and troublemaker. So I only had five minutes, before I had my ass literally kicked out of town by my brother in law. But then again, the woods were absolutely amazing to spend time in. We had a primitive camp hidden in a thicket, but also a walled off section of town that functioned as an undiscoverable hideout where we could go to warm up and sleep in doors if needed, but quite a few of us chose to sleep it rough (or in my case on a field bed under a modern tarp and mosquito netting, middle age does come with concessions).

Snaphaner out on patrol – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

Besides some lovely camp play, our main activity was sneaking through the woods to harass the occupiers. We mostly had the woods to ourselves, as the soldiers tended to stay in town where it was safer and reinforcements were quick to arrive. They only came out to stomp about in large patrols or when we provoked a response. In the first act the villagers were mostly on our side, helping hide and feed us, but in the second act (after a timeskip of two months) the majority had turned against us and would call us out if seen and help the Swedes instead.

As the pressure went up, fractures grew everywhere, including among the partisans. Drama and desperation increased along with the realization that we could do nothing to help the villagers, except try to hurt the soldiers, which would in turn lead to retaliation against the civilians. But by then the rain was coming down constantly and our big attempt at a three pronged attack was partially defeated by confusion and wet powder in the guns. We scattered into the woods. A lucky few escaped, some died ugly deaths in the woods and others were captured. The last of us made it back to camp, only for it to be surrounded and all of us taken prisoner. The larp ended soon after with a set scene where we were mercifully lined up and shot (real history is a lot uglier to partisans), our collaborators in town strangled and a third of the men in town killed as punishment, because the village had “helped” us.

Moments before the end – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

The game was capped by the organizers retelling how the historical resistance ended and the bigger political motions afterwards, followed by light structured debriefs in smaller groups and general socializing into the night. I was soaked, tired and the rest of my ride home also wanted to get a head start on going home, so we left early. Anyways, I’m no good with extended socializing in large groups right after larps, a long ride home and the smell of the sea is the best reset for me, once I’ve had a chance to look everyone in their real eyes.

A man of the woods

Trekking through the woods turned into the largest part of my fun. I wasn’t sure how well I’d handle it, being a chubby, middle-aged nerd. But I’ve worked as a landscape gardener these last few years and it turned out it has given med a wonderful range of skills to traverse rough terrain: Automatically ducking under branches, sure footing, spotting animal trails and even at one point tracking a group through the undergrowth by reading broken bracken and flattened grass. I was able to outpace my compatriots and outrun the soldiers. It’s been a long time since I felt physically awesome and it was in amazing surroundings. Most of the terrain around the village was wet and hilly pine forest. Some sections were rocky, some open woods, some swampy ground and a large hill had been cut clear recently. It was wonderfully varied and spacious enough to be able to actually hide our movements and our camp out there. I really enjoyed having uninterrupted time in nature without modern distractions and all my senses in play, I kind of want to find a way to larp like this again.

Tension among the Snaphane partisans – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

Bearing arms

Another thing that impressed me, was how well the guns worked (and how well they didn’t!) They were all prop guns, made to work with various loud things from pop caps to starter pistol rounds. They were impractical to load and especially to keep loaded as you stumbled through the woods. Often they would stop working in the rain, just like guns would, back in the day. The loud bangs were such a thrill and truly scary at times. Everyone would stop and listen tensely as they went off somewhere out in the woods. And hearing them go off behind your back, as you ran for your life was terrifying. Having guns did wonders for how fighting worked. You’d most often engage at a distance from a couple to a dozen meters depending on terrain and surprise. Since you’d likely only get one shot off, or the other side could score a lucky hit, there was always a reason to try and end the fight before it began. This led to some very tense moments of shouting and intimidation. Game rules were that the person being shot at, decided if they got hit and how. Any injuries had to be played on at the very least until the end of the act, so there was a lot of surrendering or fleeing instead, but it didn’t reach unrealistic dimensions. I loved how this form of fighting replaces the offgame skill and athleticism of boffer fighting, with a much more roleplay and story based form. I knew that a fight would only be humiliating or heroic, if I chose to make it so myself, not because of offgame factors.

Soldiers ransacking a home – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

On a song and a prayer

The players of the Danish soldiers who were part of our guerilla force added a little bit of ritual in camp, where we’d be read scripture, pray and sing a patriotic song, before we went out on our operations in the woods. It really elevated the feeling of fighting for something, of believing in the fight, God and our divinely appointed monarch. Without this, it would have been pretty much indistinguishable from just playing bandits or robbers. Which we probably ended up being, more or less, in act two. But there was something more to it for us. I normally zone out during rituals and have little skill at singing, but this wasn’t the drawn out thing that usually plagues larp. The same went for the big town scenes where the evil Swedish overlord, Gyllenstierna, could have monologued us all to death, but instead the scenes went on with brutal efficiency instead. It’s one of the many ways my co-players made great choices, that always had the enjoyment of everyone else as the ultimate goal.

They got me… – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

As things escalated in act two, I caught myself growing a slow offgame anxiety attack. The woods had gone from a fun playground to a terrifying hunting ground and the consequences of getting caught were so much worse. I took a long solo hike circling far around the village to get my thought in order and the thing that really pulled me back down, was realizing that the players of my enemies would always want to steer any scene in a direction that I was part of choosing, as they had done all through act one. With this in mind, I tracked down my compatriots and got back in the game, fully confident in my co-players.

This war of ours

While all the running through woods and shooting muskets was very romantic and fun, it was also futile. We could do little to actually help our friends and family in the village. And so very much more to hurt them. Mostly we could just lay at the edge of the woods and impotently watch them be mistreated by the occupiers. I had a handful of interesting relationships in town, that I wanted to play on. But since my character was a well-known outcast, so I only managed three heart-pounding and heart-breaking stealthy forays, hiding under houses waiting and hoping for my sister or lover to be home alone. Others had better opportunities to play in town. And while my special situation made for some great scenes in other ways, I just wished I could’ve had that direct play too.

A flogging in the town square, for example – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

But what really stuck with me, was the hopelessness and powerlessness of the situation. How there was no real way to stop the soldiers, someone who operates with overwhelming force and sees no value in you. How this was the exact same dehumanization, genocide and wanton cruelty that crushes the best of us, throughout all of history. And does so still, so many places in the world. How everything we played out, to reenact our history from 350 years ago, is happening right now, somewhere to someone, with just as little choice or reason. I don’t think I can ever really be black-and-white about those civilians, who end up supporting rebels, occupiers, or both, ever again.

Civilians always end up with the short end of the stick – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

But I also take a hope with me, from having done this: These people were our direct ancestors, we came from both sides of the war we reenacted (from the two countries in the world, that have fought the most wars against each other). And we came to explore our shared past with sensitivity and gentleness. Together. To see the humanity of everyone involved. To grieve what innocence was lost in these dark days. But also to see, that through who we are now, there is a chance to end the cycles.

Civilians always end up with the short end of the stick – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024

This was the second and most likely last run, according to the organizers. The premiere was supposed to be June of 2020, but was pushed to 2022 due to the pandemic.

The larp sits solidly in the “Swedish Misery” subgenre of Nordic Larp, it can be seen as a sequel to Den Utan Synd ([He] Who Is Without Sin) by the same organizers, set in the same period and place, but focused on the peculiar horrors of the Scandinavian witch trials. Swedish Misery larps tell tragic stories of people and communities under unreasonable pressures. Like this larp, they are often inspired by history. They are expressly feminist and often centre the experiences of women and other groups without power, but with a focus on playable verisimilitude, self-direction and collaboration between players of oppressors and oppressed.

Cover image: Soldiers and villagers – Photo by Tindra Englund 2024