LARP is a new hobby. Although playing roles goes back to time immemorial what we know of as being a Larp is realistically not much more than 30 years old. This means that not many groups have achieved big anniversary milestones, much less thought of good ways to mark the passage of time.

Well Curious Pastimes in the UK have made the 20 year mark. Starting in 1996, 2016 see’s their twentieth year of larping. They have chosen to commemorate this with a website. One that allows us to dip from the current moment and back to the origins of Curious Pastimes.

If you want to see it – this is the site:

https://curiouspastimes20yearsofheroes.wordpress.com/

Actually I say website as right now that is what it is and for many people interested that is all that can be seen. Attendees at this years “Renewal” event however will see this transformed into a physical display. That should be something to behold!

It’s arranged in chronological order – starting with the most current moment worth mentioning (in this case Vollsanger from the Crimson Moon), and each page takes us further back in time through the history of Curious Pastimes

Navigation is simple – you just drill back in time page by page. Unless you either take the search option. (So I duly typed in 1996 to see a smaller number of pictures than for a modern event (I think that is to expected), but they were good pictures. Try it and you’ll find UK Larp Fashion (and a lot of green skin paint), from the mid 90’s.), or click on a month and year from the Archives list at the bottom of the page. (So I duly clicked on August 2006 to go back 10 years – and ended up looking at the scene of a large battle).

It’s easy to spend an afternoon doing this. Come to think of it I did spend an afternoon going back and for through the Curious Pastimes archive. It was compulsive. I particularly like the review from Adventurer Magazine in 1997 that mentioned a Sheep/Koala. But that’s just me.

If you’re wondering how this timeline was made – well its all to do with the membership of Curious Pastimes chipping with items from their personal memories, old magazines and photographs. After all back in 1996 no one really thought about what would be going on 20 years later.

I do think we think we should thank everyone behind this timeline for putting it together. It’s a rare treat to be able to pour through the collective memory’s of a major larp gtoup and all involved deserve all the applause we can give them. I first discovered this project at Larpcon when EmmyLou Laird showed me the work in progress. Thank you EmmyLou!

The picture used in this post is by Oliver Facey – thank you Oliver. He’s a well known British Larp photographer and this is his website: http://oliverfacey.co.uk/