Aesthetics Guide

What This Game Isn’t - if you read nothing else, read this!

This game is not set on Earth. It is set on another planet, in another world: Elan. As a result, none of the cultures or religions present on Earth during the era of this game (the late 1800s) or in the present day exist in this game. There are no equivalent cultural or religious analogues in this setting. Additionally, historical events as they have occurred on Earth have never taken place on Elan. Please avoid referencing Earth history as it has no tie to this game setting.
This game is not aesthetically themed for Steampunk garb, deco, or props. Please do not bring them into game.
This game expressly disallows Civil War garb, deco, icons, props, related events, and history. Do not bring these things into game.
This game is not about colonization or cultural hegemony and these themes will not be explored in this game.

While creating your character, you may wonder what kind of styles would work best for this LARP. We have compiled below a set of guidelines and suggestions to add to your inspiration for this game. Hopefully they will serve both as a starting point for player creativity and will reinforce the policies outlined in the rulebook. We offer this so that no one has to go into our game without an understanding of the world that we are building together.

You may notice that our guidelines here greatly revolve around the white culture of 1882-1893. We are not comfortable outlining the guidelines of what other cultures were experiencing in the real world, nor do we want to present aspects of these cultures as free for all players to engage with. As such, we are keeping to the below in this game.

However, if you would like to explore your own culture within our game through garments or accessories or other kinds of expression, please do so! We only ask for two things: 1) that you keep to the appropriate time frame as much as possible, and 2) that you collaborate with Character Guides or Lore Team so that we can create a complementary backstory and/or cultural history that can exist in the game's setting.

A constant issue for Frontier games is cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is defined as the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity, often but not limited to when members of a dominant culture appropriate from minority cultures. During the western expansion of colonization in the 1800s in the Americas, many indigenous styles of dress and pieces of clothing were appropriated by colonizers (this includes items such as ponchos, moccasins, and leather fringe). No cultural appropriation is allowed in this game. This is necessary in order to run a game with a frontier setting responsibly.

We ask for your understanding and patience as we seek to create a game that, while detached from the real world, is still mindful of the wrongs that were done and continue to be done outside of this game. LARP does not exist in a vacuum. If you would like to make suggestions of what could be added or further explored, staff would appreciate hearing from you. For this or any questions, please feel free to reach out to Game Runners at gamerunners@cotvlarp.com, post on our Facebook page, or reach out to the Aesthetics team through Discord.

General Guidelines

Call of the Void is a frontier game taking place during the expansion and industrialization of the country of Elan. To represent this period, we use the styles and innovations of, generally, the Americas during the late 1800’s. All aesthetics listed here fall within 1882-1893. This is largely due to how quickly fashion and innovation evolved after the start of the industrial era. Our goal is to stay within the time of game so that new technology and inventions can affect our game world the way they affected the real world at that time.

To reiterate from above:

There was a history in North America for white trappers and frontier-expanding colonizers to appropriate the dress of indigenous peoples. We do not support this in our game, so please be aware and mindful in your garb.
Please do not wear or bring any kind of Civil War clothing or iconography to game.
Call of the Void is not a Steampunk game. The only steam and clockwork inventions in the game are those found in the real world during the 1882-1893 time frame.

For this game, please refrain from using glow in the dark items as personal items, unless required for an accessibility aid. While we are aware of the use of radioactive materials to create glowing effects during the late 19th century, we have chosen to relegate glowing items to those with supernatural significance within game.

All props and deco must be LARP safe. We strongly recommend avoiding glass for small or fragile items. Please do not bring real weapons to game, even if they are props and/or will not be used in combat. Please also do not bring real candles or lanterns that require a real flame.