Your role:
Our intention is that participants who wish to play real historical persons should be able to do so according to choice. (August Strindberg, Harriet Bosse, Osman Hamdi Bey and Moina Mathers are examples of roles that are just waiting to be taken!) . Several different factions with suggestions for appropriate characters will be available, but unbound roles are also desirable – participants with their own ideas are welcome to suggest them. We will also offer ready-made roles to those who so prefer with suggested background stories of relevance to the LARP storyline which will only be revealed to the taker. The LARP is open to curious first timers well as experienced costume makers and die-hard LARP:ers. We have no requirements for advanced costumes.
Gender roles: This is a fantasy world, and all roles are open to both sexes. If you want to play the engineer Alfred Nobel as Alfreda Nobel – do it. The German ace pilot Alberta von Richthofen – the “Red Baroness” – has a given place, and a male Mata Hari could charm officers and politicians in order to get access to secret information.
Presentation of the groups that are involved in the events in Gävle:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:
The learned women and men who are the linchpins of this lofty institution stands behind the secret of the perpetual-motion machine. How have they managed to do something that science so far has considered impossible? Is it true that the prototype drawings are stolen Prussian state secrets? Or could be true that they actually were found in an ancient papyrus fetched from the Valley of the Kings in Egypt? Their secrets are many, and ambition has hooked its claws deep into the hearts beating within the decorated chests of the kingdom’s top scientists. Roles appropriate for the faction could be royal patrons, inventors, scholars and researchers.
The State Security Agency and the military:
A hundred years ago King Karl XIV Johan founded a secret police called the State Security Agency. Few knew of it at the time, and many of the few believed that it was disbanded when he died. This was not the case, instead, the Agency has been working in secret for the good of King and country since then. The agents can be found in all ranges of society, and not even they know for sure who the leader is. On many occasions the Agency has supported the military by passing vital information to the army and the fleet. Now, both Agents and Military are deployed in Gävle to watch over the event and to make sure that nothing untowards happens. Among the fractions any role may be a cover for a secret agent, but only the taker will know of it.
The Spiritists
The notorious Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in Paris has had busy days and used its extensive network of contacts to amass a motley crew of individuals to a “congress on the exaltation of humanity” in Gävle. But why are they not staying in the rented City Hotel? The Police gather reports of nightly meetings in dark basements, whispered phone calls in unknown tongues and mysterious packages with strange seals. And who are these “spiritual sponsors” they have heard being mentioned?
In the faction we can find everything from occultists and mediums, mad archaeologists, anthroposophist explorers, cult leaders, libertines and blackmailed people from high society.
The Russian presence.
Russia and Sweden have had a strained relationship for a century and more – especially after losing Finland and Åland in 1809, which both are now considered a Russian grand duchy. Frosty relations or not – contacts across the Baltic are plentiful and significant – Lenin spoke to the Russian Social Democrats in Stockholm in 1906, King Gustav V’s second son Prince Wilhelm married the headstrong Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna in 1908 and Åland serves as a maritime knot between the two kingdoms. Russia is plagued by internal conflicts – are they looking to Sweden as an ally or do they wish to steal the machine in order to save their own crumbling kingdom?
In the Russian faction we can find roles like Russian officers and people from the Tsar Retinue, hemophilic nobles, personal physicians, charlatans like Rasputin, disguised revolutionaries and the like.
The Prussian presence
Prussian diplomats and military officers have sought to create discord between Russia and Sweden for a long time. Now they hope to use the new invention in order to achieve its goal. Plans have been made to steal the drawings and do so in such a way that their disappearance will cast a shadow on the arch enemy Russia. That this could lead to war is not something that concerns the Prussians. It could very open up for expansion into the surrounding territories, in preparation to create a pan – Germanic state. One of the Prussian main weapons is the agent, exotic dancer and spy Mata Hari.
The Ottoman presence
The Ottoman Empire is still a major power in the world and has an even more strained relationship with Russia over Sweden since the Crimean War , which ended in a draw. Relations with Sweden, however, since Charles XII’s days have been good. The sultan sends own agents, but why? Do they work together with their Prussian allies? Will they protect the invention from the Russians or are they set out to steal it? And what reason could have caused the deposed sultan Abdulhamid II to arrive in Gävle?
The Suffragettes
The board of an organization working for women’s suffrage has by chance laid their annual meeting to Gävle. A small committee is in place to prepare for it and a demonstration is planned.
Other roles
One can of course imagine lots of other roles. We plan to create a group with considerable room for intrigue with the roles people want to play.
Character suggestions:
This is a list of roles appropriate for the different factions interested in the perpetuum mobile in Gävle.
Royal Academy of Science:
- Alfred / Alfreda Nobel , inventor and explorer
- Sven Hedin, explorer
- Guglielmo Marconi, inventor
- Nikola Tesla, a brilliant but also very eccentric scientist
- Prince William / Princess Wilhelmina , Royal patronage
- Marie Curie, double Nobel laureate
- The Svedberg (married to Andrea Andreen , see below), a promising young chemist
- Gustaf Dalen, inventor and successful business leaders, who became blind after a tragic accident (?)
Spiritists:
- Kata Dahlström, theosophist and agitator
- Moina Mathers, spiritist
- Katherine Tingley, theosophist , immigrated from the U.S. to Visingsö where she founded the Temple School
- Madame Blavatsky, medium
- Hilma af Klint, artist and media
- Henning Akerman, theosophist and woodcarver
- Ivan Agueli, artist and mystic
- Adolph von Knigge, illuminati
- Rudolf Steiner, anthroposophist
- Harry Houdini, magician and medium
- Aleister Crowley, libertine and magician
Russians:
- Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, Swedish prince consort
- Gogol, General
- Leo Tolstoy, author and agent
- Vladimir Lenin, agitator
- Leon Trotsky, anarchist
- Grand Duchess Tatiana Romanov, Tsar family’s representative
- Rasputin – spiritual guide and eccentric prophet
Prussians:
- Mata Hari , exotic dancer and spy
- Albrecht / Alberta Red Baron / Baroness
- Wilhelm and Marie Bismarck, aristocratic politicians and military officers
Royal Police Office and the Military:
- Security Officer
- Planted agent
- Bodyguard
- Spy in His Majesty’s Secret Service
Suffragettes:
- Andrea Andreen ( by The Svedberg , see above), Sweden’s first female doctor and voting rights zealot is also a known peace activist.
- Selma Lagerlof, the Nobel laureate and writer, has a close relationship with two women (Sophie Elkan and Valborg Olander).
- Sophie Elkan, author and explorer.
- Valborg Olander, teacher and suffrage activist.
Ottomans:
- Osman Hamdi Bey, archaeologist and artist, ambassador extraordinaire of Mehmet II ( the ruling sultan )
- Abdul Hamid II, dedicating sultan
- Sheker, the deposed sultan’s daughter
- Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a member of Abdulhamid II’s entourage
- Emin Pasha
- Enver Pasha
Other roles:
- Erik Ofvandahl, pastry chef in Uppsala is known for his drivel poetry and for being an avid nudist.
- August Strindberg, demon ridden egomaniac, writer and painter. The one that provided the first clues about the perpetuum mobile to the Royal Academy of Sciences. Formerly married to Harriet Bosse.
- Harriet Bosse, singer and actor with contacts in Paris (see Moina Mathers above). Formerly married to August Strindberg.