Admiral:
When I gave a buddy of mine some left-over wall paint I wasn’t sure where it would all end. It resulted in the finishing touches for this equipment which he crafted for a recent Swedish post-apocalyptic LARP. It’s low-budget and genuinely scavenged, but labour intensive and requiring access to workshop and basic crafts skills:
Do you have any of your own to share? Or perhaps equipment belonging to a friend of yours?
Dînadan:
How does he see out of that helmet? O.o He must be a worse shot than Stormtroopers :o
Admiral:
How does he see out of that helmet? O.o He must be a worse shot than Stormtroopers :oI'm sure he is! There's a minimal gap between face plate and helmet.
Dînadan
Dînadan:
Do you LARP yourself Admiral, or just your friend?
Admiral:
Do you LARP yourself Admiral, or just your friend?That's just my friend, though he's trying to convince me and some others to join him for the next round of that post-apoc event, which probably comes next year.
Dînadan
Dînadan:
Well, if you do go in for it, make sure to blog it here for us 
Would love to give LARP a go, and personally if I was to try LARPing I think I’d prefer a Fantasy LARP, but I don’t have the money to afford decent equipment (shakes fist at toy soldiers taking all my money), or anywhere to store it(shakes fist at small closet and lack of floor space for display rack); and I’m the sort of person who’d want to source costuming and equipment from say historical re-enactment sources if possible to make it look as ‘realistic’ as possible rather than the sort who’d hand make everything. Plus my health is pretty crappy, so I probably wouldn’t be able to take part anyway :c
Admiral:
Me too! I'd prefer historical or fantasy LARPing, and I'd sure as hell go for keeping things similar to re-enactors' stuff. With a little purity seal and Sigmar mixed in, of course.
Well, if you do go in for it, make sure to blog it here for us ;)[/QUOTE]
I sure will! I have a simple, pretty fast but probably brutal thing planned for the costume or unit banner. It's a tiny, little bit similar to the flayman concept, but first I need to collect as many discarded work gloves as possible... ;)
I've thought it through and made the purchase of protection gear for myself and my brother. It'll stay us in good stead if we want to go paintballing or airsoft shooting, too. Weapons will have to be bought/crafted later on, and the shield/s will have to be home-made. Logging of the crafting will probably have to wait until sufficient materials have been collected, but you can be sure it'll be a tad eccentric.
Dînadan
Bloodbeard:
I love the whole post apocalyptic theme and it’s the only kind of LARP I still attend. Usually go to a single scenario or campaign a year. The last ones being City of Cities - a 300 person 80s inspired scenario, held in a quarry over an entire week. And Odense Post Pandemia - a series of three scenarios, set 2 years in the future, in my home town, with a weight on politics and the shaping of society.
Her pictures of some costumes and some of the stuff I’ve done. Unfortunately I cant find pictures of the crossbow I made of junk or the armor of tires. Both are long gone and sold.
Burners for cooking. Far left: Made of two cans. Will heat up 1 liter of water faily quicly. Will hold a candle, burn small sticks, pinecones etc. Has also made a larger version of this one. Middle top: Can of tuna with a coil of wire. For putting atop of other burners, the coil will heat up and work as a hob. Middle bottom: For making a smaller flame on a burner like the left one. Left: A burner made from alufoil and a soda can. This is a fuel saving one, the top part with the small holes can have a large hole. Works as a Trangia.
A robot arm made for a Firefly Larp, but it would work well in some post apocalyptic settings.
Survival in a tin can. Bandaids, water cleaning pills, lighter, 2mm stainless steel multitool, strong string and two fishing hooks, 2 meter of 250kg paracord, condom, needles, duoderm (fake skin for blisters and burn injuries) and alcohol wipe. Still have some of these for sale. 13,5 euro plus postage.
The m1 steel helmet has been used as a cooking pot. Just put it in the flames. Added the chain for versatility. The goggles are made from broken ww2 alpine goggle and leather.
The first picture of myself on CDO. You can try to guess which one is me. From City of Cities. We played a tribe from Pripyat in Ukraine. Bassically spend a week driking vodka in a quarry.
And here’s one for a competition. Slapped on some gear, went to the basement. didn’t win anything.
Dînadan:
Nice creative use of household items to make survival gear Bloodbeard; and if that’s you in the bionic arm pic, your username is well earned ;p
@Admiral: I think it’d qualify as healthy - it is exercise after all :p.
Bloodbeard:
Bloodbeard's the one in the middle. Your name here is Bloodbeard. My friends called me Barbarossa. It boils down to the same thing. A red beard. Got ya?Actually I'm the one on the left. Two weeks earlier my beard had been just like my friend in the middle. But I was in Holland to get my para wings and got so really annoyed because we wore tight helmets for 5 days. So I cut it of. So at the point there, it's slowly getting grown out again.
Herby
Bloodbeard:
Threadomancy. I know Admiral will sooon have soom cool gear to show.
And today I just made some nice stuff myself.
My branch cutter broke while using it. There was one plastic part on it and that’s what broke. Fiskars make some rather nice blades however (all my kitchen knives are from Fiskars). Just as I was about to trash it, I had an idea.
I Denmarks there’s rahter strict laws against carrying knives. Maximum 7cm long blade, any folding knife is illegal. Regular hobbyknives have actually also been made illegal (though it wasn’t the point with the law).
Well.
Here’s my new Fiskars nice and competely legal. Made from the scissorblade on the branch cutter. Grip is made from paracord, roughly 2 meters. Great for an emergency and enough for both fishing line and building a shelter.
Just boiled the leather to make it hard - not pictured. Have a very dark (almost black) colour now. Plan on adding a compass and a magnesium rod for starting a fire.
Admiral:
@Bloodbeard: That is one neat and practical home-made knife. Very clever use of a broken tool! The paracord grip is a classic among hikers, hunters, military people and other survivalist types who like the outdoor life - and a classic for a very good reason. Might have to copy that in the future, since my own knife is just a plain carpenter’s, borrowed from work. A smaller one would let you carry it with you while jogging in the woods, for one thing.
However, it looks real clean and to-the-point. Haven’t you played Warhammer for years on end now? Don’t you know that skulls make everything better!? 
And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s step out from the sensible realm of practicality and well-crafted sanity, into clutter and shoddy craziness. For this is what the post-apocalyptic live action roleplay Blodsband Reloaded 2015: Celestial Vengeance, was all about. The setting and theme is an overly-romanticized post-apocalyptic world akin to Fallout or Mad Max, where survival is secondary to style and goofiness.
A friend of mine (the one seen up at the start of the thread) talked me into joining him for this year’s event. Even though it wasn’t my cup of tea to the hilt, it was nevertheless great fun, especially when things got tumultuous. There were about 300 participants plus functionaries and arrangers of the event, and boy did lots of people bring impressive gear and/or acting to the table! I’ll try to remember to share a link once some kind of photo collection has been compiled, but it will take a while.
I spent most of the LARP working as perhaps the most heavily armoured postman in living memory, serving a boss who believed me to be his most trusted underling while all the time betraying him, spreading desinformation and sowing chaos.
The chaos culminated on the last day, when I and two other guys went out hunting for Chaosists (basically Warhammer/40k Chaos Cultists) at the behest of the Swedish Church (basically the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition, judging from the equipment). We exaggerated things a bit, and stirred the hornet’s nest. When I came back to town from roaming the wilds, the vengeful victims of our violence lay ready in ambush. I was shot down from behind, whereupon a fight almost ensued between the different parties which wanted to punish me… Lots of crazy stuff ensued.
The L.A.R.P. was worth the effort and money, though I won’t invest as much time in preparation for the next one as I did for this year’s event. Next year, our group of two will probably double or even triple in number.
Now, my gear was relatively time-consuming to make and I did not even have time to try it out properly, but had to adjust things on the spot, such as removing excess or nonfunctional armour plates, to be fixed until next time. Functionality and ergonomy were key this time around, to create a stable foundation to build upon for future bouts of violent live theater. Looks and details will improve in years to come, though the set will always remain pretty heavy and warm to wear. It was necessary to take a primitive shower with a water bottle every now and then in that armour. Surprisingly, I was able to run both quite fast and long distances in the gear.
Since shields were impenetrable to all but heavy weapons (missile launchers), the key to in-game success proved to be a flanking maneuvre in the woods, to avoid head-on fire. Then, while running at the enemy, make yourself small behind the shield before falling upon them, sword in hand. You’ll probably only get one or at most two, however, because by then you’re in the midst of their lines and have foes shooting at you from various angles. Great fun, though the overly heavy shield (floats in water) will be replaced with a larger and lighter plate shield until next year. Upper arm armour will probably get fixed to remain in proper place, too.
Most of the materials used were found by the wayside, and thoroughly washed before construction and dirtying-down began. The wacky glove cloak was the brainchild of my mate, and my creation. It was left on the location as a tapestry ornament, too heavy and clumsy to remain in place - though it did have its moment of whirlwind attack glory in the great arena… The limb armour was made from hard rubber mats, discarded from cars, there are some LED-flashlights on the helmet and medals scattered about, and the rest is quite self-explanatory on the pictures below.
Also seen on the pictures is the buddy from first post, who this year has been infested and mutated. Desolation wandering picture courtesy of Cajsa Lithell. The at-attention picture shows me shortly before I had figured out a working way to strap on the waistbelt around the breastplate.
And the best thing of all? The armour works. In the darkness, I fell up toward two metres down a treacherous hole (those will be much better marked out by next year), head first. The MC-back protection absorbed all damage as my back crashed into a standing log while all other armour made its job, and after a moment regaining my senses, I realized I wasn’t even hurt in the slightest. Now let’s hope my Dwarfs and Chaos Dwarfs can roll that good for their armour saves…
Pictures up!
And just a few highlights from the event:
Mecha-Viking video.
Probably more to come later on, there really was a wealth of skillful creations out there.
Thank you for watching, and feel free to upload your own post-apocalyptic L.A.R.P. equipment! :hat off
Dînadan:
Welcome back Admiral, sounds like you’ve had fun with your time away 
tjub:
Looks really cool!
Admiral:
@Dînadan: Thank you! Fun indeed.
@tjub: Thanks!
And here’s a short video with a true monstrosity. Incredible build, by the chilled-out Viking group.
Dînadan:
Think it could do with some armouring up - that way he can use it for Soace Marine cosplay/LARP too
@Dînadan: Thank you! Fun indeed.
@tjub: Thanks!
And here's a short video with a true monstrosity. Incredible build, by the chilled-out Viking group.
Admiral
Admiral:
I’m off to raid as thuggish henchman and shield for a crew of spoiled rich brats which no other mercenaries, scavengers and freelancers can stomach. Cheers!
Abecedar:
My first chuckle for today. Thank You
tjub:
Haha, “Dalarna” has always been known as a rebellious region. Fu*king traitors to the crown if you ask any of us scanians! But I didn’t know it had went all apocalyptic there… :mask
Admiral:
We defy the Danish crown!
The four corpses in the crater were victims for my sword. Rushed at them betwixt sandy holes under fire, took cover, waited and leapt into their hole, hewing madly. The shooters didn’t stand a chance. Onward for more blood in the woods.
