Since this is the first run of Vanitas, characters will be written from scratch and designed specifically for players in the first round of casting. The sign-up form will include a long list of questions pertaining to the type of experience you would like to have and how you would like to engage and experiment with different art forms. In addition to general character and storyline preferences, the Majors, Minors, and Artistic Hyperfixations players opt-in for will heavily inform the design of the characters, friend groups, and dynamics between them.
Reserve or replacement players will receive characters that were designed for the original player, but alterations will be made to the best of our ability to personalize each character for new players.
Each student will be assigned a Major and Minor, and has the option of choosing an Artistic Hyperfixation. There are three available majors, all falling under the “visual arts” umbrella (Drawing/Painting, Sculpture, and Fiber Arts), which will need to be evenly allocated. For Minors, however, there is a long list of options, primarily (but not exclusively) centered around non-visual art mediums, and the Minor assigned will almost always be the player’s first choice. Artistic Hyperfixations are open-ended and left entirely in the hands of the players.
Disclaimer: a player’s artistic abilities will not affect casting in the larp. It may affect role-selection, but artistic ability will not decrease or increase any applicant’s chances in the lottery. This larp has been designed to create an environment of free artistic creation and experimentation, so no skills or previous training is required to participate.
Majors and Minors
All students have a declared Major within the visual arts. These are the disciplines they have devoted their entire lives, minds, and bodies to mastering. There are three majors:
- Drawing/Painting: Encompassing almost everything that can be created upon canvas. Includes sketching, charcoals, _____.
- Sculpture: Includes ceramics, origami, mosaics, woodcarvings, stonecarving, _____
- Fiber Arts: Includes fashion, embroidery, sewing, knitting, crocheting, the textile arts.
Minors are an excuse to blend other, non-visual art forms into the creative works and processes of the characters. (Though there are a few visual disciplines mixed in.) It is also an opportunity for a player who is skilled in an art form outside of the three Majors to incorporate their personal talents into the character.
Artistic Hyperfixations
Is there a certain relationship you write into all your stories? A feeling that you are trying to evoke with every painting, every sketch, every penstroke? Something—anything—that inspires you to create at its mere mention?
Artistic Hyperfixations are the personal obsessions of the artist; the concepts, themes, or dynamics that awaken their creativity and inform a great deal of their work, whether consciously or unconsciously.
If desired, we would like to incorporate the Artistic Hyperfixations of the players into the formation of their characters. Whether the player has certain artistic inclinations that they would like to extend to their character, or has an idea of the types of concepts/feelings/themes/dynamics they’d like their character to obsessively try to capture with their art, we’d like to include it all in the construction of their character.
The sign-up form has a write-in section for Artistic Hyperfixations, but the organizers have compiled a list of possible Artistic Hyperfixations, as both suggestions and examples:
General Subjects:
- History
- Ethics
- Literature
- Psychology
- Philosophy
- Linguistics
- Math
- Science
- Astronomy
- Feminism
- You know general subjects.
Relationship Dynamics:
- Mothers and daughters
- Mothers-and-daughters-to-lovers
- Friends-to-lovers
- Siblings
- Childhood friends
- Missed connections
- Cannibalistic love
- Right-person-wrong-time
- Enemies-to-lovers
- Enemies-to-siblings-to-lovers
Spiritual/Religious Concepts
- Purity
- Forgiveness
- Fate and/or destiny (which might mean different things, depending on your interpretation)
- Immortality
- Morality
- Catholic guilt
- The afterlife
- God(s)/Creator
- Karma
- The soul
- Soulmates
- Magic
- Witchcraft