Caligo Mundi

Caligo Mundi

A Melbourne LARP community

Location

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Genre

Pan-genre club. Campaigns, one-shot freeforms, and other experimental formats.

Established

17th July 2007

Website

Caligo Mundi website

An Australian LARP group based in Melbourne. Games cycle between different campaigns and oneshots of all genres, primarily a blend of social or theatrical roleplaying, multiforms and Australian freeforms. Attendance anywhere between 10-60 players per game, every month.

Mission statement

Caligo Mundi is a non-profit volunteer organisation, run by its members, for members. Limited by guarantee and registered under the Corporations Act 2001. Dedicated to the running of role-playing events, board game days, and other social gaming activities for adults, 18 years old and over.

History

The official start of the club is in 2007, but the club draws many stylistic and historical influences from the local history of roleplaying prior to this point. Many founding members were involved in the Australian freeform scene which began in the early 80's, and draw its beginnings and style influences to back then. Later, in 1996, a US World of Darkness LARP group and official fan club of White Wolf – known then as the Camarilla – established an Australian branch, including a chapter in Melbourne, which drew in many of these seasoned convention roleplayers.

Then in July 2007, part of the Melbourne chapter broke away from the international Camarilla organisation in pursuit of more creative freedom in telling stories, and founded this club.

At the time, the club dedicated itself to an expanded World of Darkness campaign, and this is reflected in the club's chosen name (Latin for "world of shadows/mist" or other connotations, depending on your translation source.) But over the years, the shape of the club has changed.

Since the hosting of the first "Caligo Presents" in 2010 at Northcote Town Hall in Melbourne - a 'taster' of different one-shots in the style of Australian freeforms - the club expanded to other genres and styles and became a home for games that many locals couldn't find anywhere else (simulated combat excepted). Each month Caligo played host to between 1-3 ongoing campaigns, spanning usually anywhere between 4 sessions long to 2 years long before different storyteller teams took breaks to rest and consider what they wanted to run next. Many of these games were multiforms, combining social roleplaying with text roleplaying elements, board games, wargames, or in one case a phone app designed specially by one of the storytellers to interface with players as a 'ship computer' in a sci-fi game. In 2015 these experiments led to the club's first weekend camp event. This was inspired by a popular ongoing campaign that sought to expand beyond its usual format, and then became another home for one-shots in a new setting. The camp continued on annually for another 4 years until the Melbourne lockdowns put a pause on all larping activity.

Since resuming, the club has returned to running two campaign larps each month.

Volunteer GMs can be found by looking through the archive or other special events. Current list of board volunteers is on the Position Holders page.

Games and Events

While some earlier dates are unknown due to the loss of the Caligo Mundi yahoo forums in 2009, the club has kept extensive record of campaigns and other games and events run across the decades.

Game	Type	Start Date	End Date
nWoD Games 2007	Campaign	July 2007	Late 2012
Changeling: The Lost	Campaign	Late 2007	2009
7th Sea: Buccaneers Blade	Campaign	January 2008	2009
Deadlands	Campaign	2010	???
7th Sea: Frieberg	Campaign	January 2009	2010
Shadowrun: Downtime	Campaign	July 2008	April 2009
Houses of the Blooded	Campaign	2012?	2013?
Vampire: The Masquerade	Campaign	February 2012	November 2014
Firefly	Campaign	March 2012	March 2013
Imperium Bel Canto	Campaign	January 2013	November 2014
WoD 2013	Campaign	March 2013	Late 2014
7th Sea (2013)	Campaign	October 2013	March 2014
Legend of the Five Rings: The Obsidian Council	Campaign	January 2015	Early 2016
Legend of the Five Rings: The Ashen Empire	Campaign	February 2012???	June 2013??
Cadwallon	Campaign	July 2012	May 2013
The Imperial Society	Campaign	January 2013	October 2013
For Queen and Empire	Freeform	12th December 2014	-
Cyberpunk: The Oni's Smile	Campaign	January 2016	July 2016
Dollhouse: Puppets and Masters	Campaign	February 2014	July 2014
Libretto	Freeform	August 2012	-
Generation X: Tomorrow’s Heroes	Campaign	April 2014	July 2015
Game of Thrones	Campaign	April 2015	April 2016
Laundry Files: The Vespertine Amendments	Campaign	July 2015	July 2016
Cyberpunk: The Dragon's Path	Campaign	February 2016	July 2016
Planescape: The Lady's Sigil	Campaign	March 2016	February 2017
Mage 20th: Ascension Training	Campaign	August 2016	September 2016
Colony: Antares & Antares: Prequel	Campaign	December 2016	May 2017
7th Sea: A Great Star Falls	Campaign	July 2016	June 2017
Snapshots	Freeform One Shots	July 2017	November 2017
Vampire: Sangfroid	Campaign	October 2017	August 2019
Changeling: Threehold	"Nordic-style" One-shot	June 2018	-
Changeling: 12 Nights in the Garden	Campaign	July 2018	March 2019
Altais: Seasons of Ash	Campaign	June 2019	October 2020
Four Nights in Alexandria / Typemooniverse	Campaign	November 2019	November 2020
Shadowrun: Melbourne Freestate	Campaign	July 2021	November 2023
Manafont University	Campaign	January 2023	August 2023
7th Sea: The Kings Court	Campaign	October 2023	May 2024
Babylon 4: Journey in the Dark	Campaign	February 2024	December 2025
Tavern Tales	Freeform	April 2024	-
Usurper!	Freeform	May 2024	-
Vaesen: The Heirs of Harkaway Hunt	Campaign	May 2024	July 2025
Eastward Ho!	Freeform	June 2024	-
Pride and Extreme Prejudice	Freeform	August 2025	-
Revenant's End	Campaign	August 2025	July 2026
Spire: The Masks We Wear	Freeform	February 2026

Other special events include:

• Caligo Presents 2026
• Caligo Presents 2021
• Camp Caligo 2019
• Camp Caligo 2018
• Camp Caligo 2017
• Camp Caligo 2016
• Camp Caligo 2015
• Caligo Presents 2014
• Caligo Mundi Presents (2013)
• Caligo Mundi Presents (2012)
• Caligo Mundi Presents (2011) - Held at the Rendevous Hotel
• Caligo Mundi Presents (2010) - Held at Northcote Town Hall

These events primarily acted as showcases of Australian freeform by local writers, as well as more casual events in ongoing campaigns that allowed new people to try them in a more accessible format and special setting.

Significant events

7th Sea: Buccaneers Blade

The first game run by the club outside of the World of Darkness setting, run by Fi. This began to establish the club as something with more to offer than just being a splinter group from the Camarilla.

Generation X

A campaign set in the X-Men comic universe, at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, revolving around all the students of the school. This became the largest campaign that Caligo Mundi had ever run up until that point, with approximately 60 players signing up. Once that limit was reached, no new players were accepted, and late applicants were encouraged to join the game as "Teachers" who had partial duties of crowd-management, moderation, and storytelling, to assist the main storytellers deliver the game to as many people as possible. Regular numbers of attendees fluctuated, but stayed relatively high compared to the number of GMs. By the final event, approximately 43 players attended.

The main Storytelling team included:

• Richard S - took a step down at the end of Season 1.
• Nat R
• Paul S
• Aaron Fenwick

It ran for two "seasons" (approximately 2 years) and was considered a Multiform due to the combination of regular theatrical larp events as well as an ongoing text role-play portion, which took place over Facebook groups and comment threads. This game also spawned the beginning of the Camp Caligo full weekend events; as the first one was pitched and organised by Simon (one of the players, character name "Click") as a 'school camp' for the superhero teens to relax and bond at. Several "RTR" or 'real time roleplay' (mini-session) events were also run, which offered social events in-character with less or no GM-driven plot; as well as an in-character "prom" with photography, as a special event.

Gen X has also for many years been referred to by past players of the game as "The War", due to complex experiences of the game and community around it: particularly regarding the intensity of the text roleplaying, which was sometimes taking place nearly 24/7, and management of mature content. Text roleplay was considered "canon" within certain bounds - for example, mainly text scenes revolved around social day-to-day interaction, as any significant development of powers and plot had to take place in-session. Often, the frequency of roleplaying was considered inaccessible to players who did not have the same amount of time and energy to engage, difficult to moderate, and created more polarised experiences of inclusion in the game and story. Storytellers had to create a rule against being contacted between the hours of 12am-8am to minimise disruption to their personal lives. Player-character bleed ran high, with some friendships, romantic relationships, and enmity in-character noticeably affecting out-of-character relationships, both for good and ill.

As a result of these experiences, in 2015 the Code of Conduct was updated. Caligo Mundi games for many years avoided including any text roleplay as part of games, as well as games where significant numbers of adults were cast as teenagers or children in school settings, as this was perceived as a cause of negative bleed experiences. Despite the negative experiences that did occur, many consider this game to have been an important learning experience for many roleplayers, and something that significantly shaped the community through reflective discussions and friendships that emerged from this game.

Changeling: Threehold

In 2018, Penny Sullivan and Jason Chappel travelled to Melbourne to run a one-shot offered to introduce "Nordic-style negotiation" to the club, to allow for reflection, discussion, and learning about different styles of games. This game was preceded by a 1.5–2 hour workshop, which allowed players a chance to try the specific style of negotiation using "Off-game" signals, and abilities that used the code phrase, "I really really (do something magical)" to indicate special effects without requiring players to break character.

While some players were unsure of there being significant benefits of using a different negotiation system from the local play culture, the community was very happy to have a guest share their experiences and ideas gathered from other places across Australia and the world, and Penny's ideas in particular have continued to linger and influence storytellers in the club as they experiment with game format and framing.

External links

• Caligo Mundi mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald, a local newspaper, on January 26, 2023.
• Caligo Mundi on the Of Science and Swords blog