Standard Caveat
This is my opinion on what I experienced. Others will have had different experiences (especially for this event). If I am not certain of something (aka – do not know it for a fact), I will start it with “I think…” or “I believe…” If a reader knows something I said is, for a fact, not true, feel free to correct me in the comments. I truly welcome it.
TL/DR:
- Went to Bicolline 2024 and hurt myself so I couldn’t fight.
- Delved into the world a bit more where I could.
- Had a great time.
- Would go again if I could do it cheaper
I went to Bicolline 2024 with a group called The Voyage North. I will review TVN in another blog post as covering both of them in one article would make it quite a slog to get through. For the short of it, I doubt I would have had nearly as much fun as I did if I had tried this alone. And their support especially for this event for me was invaluable.
But this post will be about Bicolline the entity itself. The title of this review is “The Wounded’s Review of Bicolline” because on the very first day of the weeklong event, I wound up injuring myself that reduced my mobility and forced me to opt out of all combat. For me, though, combat is more of an accent than it is the main course of larping, so I did my best between needed rest to throw myself into the world. And with that, let’s throw us into this review.
Bicolline In a Nutshell
Bicolline is a larp that takes place 162km from Montreal (that’s two hours away in US distance). The site was developed specifically for fantasy larping. It is situated on 100 hectares of woods as well as cleared areas and has hundreds of permanent buildings including a fully functioning inn, churches and countless cabins. They hold monthly weekend events as well as workdays to improve the area and even some in-game geopolitical events. I believe there’s also a huge online aspect to this as well.
One a year, they have the “Grande Bataille” which is a seven-day event. Three days have major engagements that the entire attendance can join, with the major battle being around 4 hours long on Saturday. In between, there is political intrigue, quests and other things to do while there. I think there are also some minor battles that happen that are set up between the various guilds. Most of the RP and action that happens is player driven. In fact, I don’t think there’s any NPC’s in this game unless you count the people who play monsters (usually very tall costumes with referees helping deal with the fights) from time to time. This year, it was reported that they had 5,300 attendees.
The Site
This was the main selling point for it and I seriously doubt that you’ll find any other fantasy or medieval larp site that has the size and look that this one did. And I’m including the two yearly German larps: Conquest of Mythodea and Drachenfest. I already mentioned that it was huge. Because of my injury, I was told to keep moving to help it heal so I’d spend about three to six hours a day just walking around and seeing what there was. And I still think I didn’t see it all. But that’s not the most impressive part. For me, it was the authenticity, what they call ‘Decorum’, of the place.
Other than half a dozen of those large, white plastic tents with plastic windows that you often see at outdoor weddings (and all of them were for vendors), everything fit in with the setting of Bicolline. They have buildings that reach up to four stories, an area with vardos in it for a Romani themed guild, standing stone circles, Fae woods, military barracks, functioning forges and I could on. Other than when someone was taking a picture of me with a beholder mask hiding the lens, there were only two times that I felt I wasn’t in a medieval setting.
The first is whenever I had to deal with personal issues. The food on site was incredible but most of it was served in modern containers, which is understandable as it probably has to do with health codes and cost. There were also hot showers available in out of sight areas as well as the porta-potties that I believe were cleaned twice a day. There is also an area in the woods for non-decorum camping so you can bring your modern tents, they’re just a distance from the main area. The second thing that pulled me out a bit I’ll get to later.
Fighting At Bicolline
First, although there is magic in the world, there isn’t any during combat. Magic here brings tsunamis, locus plagues and other “natural” disasters. It isn’t another way to beat someone down. And I like that idea. There are healers who can bring people back up from the dead on the field but it is a timed system, so you have to protect the healers.
As for the fighting, it’s very simple. All weapons do 1 point of damage. If an area of your body gets hit, it can no longer function (a hit to the upper arm means that entire arm is useless). If you get hit in the head or body, you die. If you have flexible metal or rigid leather, you get one point of armor on that area. If you have overlapping plates or significant rigid metal covering (such as a helm) you get two points in that area.
You can have a shield which is considered indestructible. As such, I believe you can strap it to your back and any hit on that shield will be ignored. Unless it’s hit by a siege weapon. In which case you die. Siege weapons are an insta-kill.
All weapons need to be approved by Bicolline via Homologation – basically a weapon checking site that then tags if your weapons are good. They strongly recommend store bought weapons as they often will fail home made ones. They allow flat headed, open cell archery and specifically crafted javelins. Smaller thrown weapons are not allowed on the field.
I did not see any fighting happening outside of the major fights unless it was an assassination attempt, but it was a big place, and I could have easily missed them. Oh, and I didn’t go to the big fights as they seemed to be out in the open, the sun and I had issues with just standing around. But I felt having been to other similar events, I figured I knew what it would look like.
Not Fighting at Bicolline
This is what I want to focus on though I’m not certain I’ll do it justice.
As there are days where there aren’t any battles scheduled, there are other things to do. I really can’t list all of them but when I went out, I always found something to occupy my time. Whether it was figuring out how to open a wooden lock box for my house to searching for some components for people on quests from the Mage Tower (a literal four-story building). There were many food vendors there, from pizza to more interesting meals. I found a Performer’s Guild that allowed me to create contracts with other guilds to perform for them and not only would I get paid for it but upon completion, I received a Population Card (Pop Card) that has some major power to sway political angles, and they would pay a good amount for it. The Performer’s Pop Cards were going for 50 Solars (the currency at Bicolline).
I should note that when guilds would create events to happen, from the Most Impressive Beard competition to a talent night at the tavern, Bicolline would supply the coins and Pop Cards for them. They really support the players in their creativity and help make the experience enjoyable for everyone.
Then there was watching a couple games of Troll Ball (Google it if you want as I think it is what you probably think it is), music concerts on the stage, attending a summer court meeting of the Fae, being given tours of one of the larger buildings on site. I stole from neighboring guilds in a consensual thievery game and gave someone a set of Japanese stone carving tools that I have had for three decades and never used. They used them as an introduction gift to a Feudal Japan themed guild and they absolutely went crazy over them – in a dignified manner. Had a travelling seamstress stop by and fix a hole in one of my pouches.
I did more, which I’ll discuss in my TVN review, and I’m sure I forgot some things while writing this, but I was never bored when I was about. There was always something new to see or explore. There were even more things to find out there to do, I just didn’t have the mobility or the time to do it. I even got a fantastic massage to help my injury and my sore feet but had to first do my fire performances to make enough solar to pay for it. This required me to go to the fire department (yes, they had actual fire fighters on site), fill out forms and I was required to find a fire safety person to be at my shows. Speaking of which…
Staff at Bicolline
I have nothing but good things to say about these people. The medics of course were fantastic, and I went to see them a few times thanks to my mild hypochondria but each time when I apologized for bothering them, they said, “No. Please, bother us!” When I decided it was best for my health to leave a day early, the staff was happy to call me a cab (as my phone coverage sucked).
Attendees at Bicolline
Have to mention them as well. Everyone was fantastic to me. There were a couple of people that I felt were giving me a little American bigotry, but it could have been because they didn’t have all of the information at the time and thought I was trying to be a Kevin about things. However, in both cases, the issue was quickly fixed by someone who knew what was going on. I did hear of an incredible case of “Karen” that a good friend encountered which might have had me permanently ejected from Bicolline if I had been there. Though I’d like to think Nigel (my character) would have found a better way to humiliate them. And this is where my second pull from the setting would happen. Although the vast majority of people were in Decorum kits the entire time, there were one or two people that would be wearing something like black drawstring pants, flip flops and wrap around sunglasses. One such person was in my guild, and I would see them regularly like this. I don’t know if they had an eye or foot issue or not, but it felt more like a bro kegger whenever I was around them. I suppose that’s a risk with larps that focus on fighting all day and drinking all night.
On another couple of occasions there was a language barren (including with the fire department) but nothing that couldn’t be overcome. But anywhere I went and anyone I talked to was more than happy to chat with me, with a smile and, quite often, offering me a drink of my choice.
Conclusion
This was a great event. I’m sure I would have boosted this up to ‘fantastic’ if I wasn’t limping around and catching a cold (not the ‘vid) at the end. I got to see some old friends there who I had no idea were coming until after I started posting on Facebook that I was going. I hope to attend it again when I am healed though I do have a bit of a schedule already planned out for a couple of years of other larps to attend. Also, this trip was rather expensive for me, which I will explain in more detail in my TVN review, so I would like to find a cheaper way to attend while still being able to have my own place to sleep. I’ve heard that Bicolline rents out tents, but I haven’t found that anywhere.