Awakening my Blog

Regenerative Culture Social Technology
#1

I’ve started up my blog again after a good winter’s sleep. But i need your help. Im in a position where im not sure what content could be interesting for everyone because my main interests in life are each part of a couple of "super-niches " which do not at first glance have anything to do with eachother.

So here are my main interests:

Anarchy & Rewilding Stuff
Games: Boardgames
Roleplaying games / Story games

These topics are a difficult mix-match, because they attract different type of people.

While most gamegeeks are friendly and social people i don’t have the feeling they, in any way, are more likely to be anarchy- and rewild-friendly.

Most self-styled anarchist are much to serious and busy being revolutionary to enjoy games and time with friends without interfering with some fckng latest political bullshit. So busy being angry all the time and whatnot.

Primitivists, hmmm this is pretty diverse. Some want to see skills and the dirt under my nails and some are more about exploring rewilded world-view.

I love Willem’s College of Mythic Cartography, its truly unique and if you haven’t yet explored its wisdom you should call in sick and explore its topics. What interests me ofcourse are its story-games exploring posts that combine an animist perspective with story-games and story telling in general. I dig that as you might have figured.

Some other things about me

I live in the Netherlands
I lived as a squatter for 8 years now
I work at the post, delivering mail
My friends are from all over the spectrum
I practise jiu-jitsu
I love reading
I have a tendency to ponder large scale issues and thoughts and forget about the everyday things
I have not finished school and don’t intend to ever do so

Some things i want/need/goals and so on

I want to escape CiV, BUT not just venture out somewhere. I have friends and family in there with me.
I want to find a way to earn some money without contributing to much to the overall system
I want to live somewhere on the edge of the modernworld with people i know. NOT with people I have never met. We might talk the same talk on abstract issues over the web, but it might just not click in person.
I want to be able to openly grief, be silly and explore deep issues with close people around me.
I want to play games !
I want to become more self-sufficient on all levels even whilst still living in the midst of the industrial killer machine cities.
I want to have fun!

My dream:

The cities are grown over. The night sky is clear. A fire and stories.

Hey looks like im already helping myself out typing this !

So what do you think?
Any ideas?
What would you like to see?

thanks & take care all

#2

I don’t know if this will stimulate any thought on your part, but here’s my situation.

My friend and I are moving to the mountains in a couple of weeks, where we will living in a tipi without internet access and limited electricity (mainly to power the well-pump and a phone). We’re going to spend our time gardening and fishing and trying out different projects, musically, artistically, and otherwise. About a month ago, my friend says to me that he wants to look into games we can play, from simple board games we can put together ourselves, like mancala and chess, to more complicated affairs like dungeons & dragons style games, storygames, and the like. However, neither of us knows the first thing about the latter group and have no clue where to start. And, as the move approaches, we have less and less time to spend researching these things.

Anything that relates to helping beginners find cool games to play that don’t require much in the way of pieces or experience would prove helpful. Like recently I heard about a board-game that harkens back to the time of vikings called Hnefatafl. Learning games like that would rock our world.

#3

Games after the Crash !

Thats a VERY good subject. I think a lot of people have no fucking clue how to entertain themselves. Especially when confronted with a picture of post-crash societies. How will they be entertained?

The answer is ofcourse that one becomes an active participant in one’s own entertainment. A very good subject.

#4

TimeLESS – I hear you on most of those fronts. I share some pretty similar tastes, and have found that anarchy/rewilding and gaming are not often comfortable bedfellows.

Anyway – I’ve heard of Hnefatafl, myself… never got around to getting a set (it didn’t occur to me at the time to just freakin’ MAKE one… durrr…). I DID see a cloth-board set once, which makes me think that it wouldn’t be too hard to make one on some nice, clean buckskin… I found a nice site that describes the game here: http://www.gamecabinet.com/history/Hnef.html

I also saw a couple of neat-looking stick-and-bone games when I went to the Chicago Museum of Natural History a couple weeks ago: buckskin with painted patterns, and sticks/bones shaped into smooth tokens and dyed on the ends as well. A quick google search brought me to http://www.nativetech.org/games/boardgames.html site, which has a couple of the ones I saw in the museum, plus basic rules of play :slight_smile:

Also at the museum I saw a bunch of different “snow snakes”, which look kind of like bent arrows, with a club-like head. Evidently they’re tossed horse-shoe-like to land on the snow, and the person who tosses it (sliding on the ground – I believe there’s a “foul-line” that the snake has to land in front of) farthest is the winner.

Inspired!!! I’m going to try to make a re-wilded frisbee!

Edit: Added the Hnefatafl link

#5

Thanks for the link on Hnefatafl, Starving Wolf.

I might also mention that on my “rewilding to-do list” I have “put together a chess set, but with an ecological theme rather than a medieval one.”

Whoa, just now I had a moment of inspiration. I’ve been struggling with how to rewild chess with two teams that people would be happy to play. A “rewilding folk” vs. “civ folk” theme would turn people off – who wants civilization to win? who wants to play that side? not me! but what if the theme turned into Forest Succession. imagine a chess board that’s not a battlefield, but a piece of land that has recently experienced a disturbance, say a fire. And now it’s approaching spring and all these different species are making their best attempts at establishing roots there. Well, except that you have two competing bioregionally appropriate “climax ecosystem” trying to make a go at it. So each team has a set of species – bird, insect, mushroom, herb, mammal, tree – that represents their “climax ecosystem.” Then the teams compete and attempt to become that land’s ecosystem. The game ends when the other teams “King” species (obviously we’ll ditch the monarchist language) is knocked off.

Since species from both teams will still remain standing at the end of the game, perhaps players could use the game to come up with new polycultures to try to plant…

This sounds like fun. I feel I need to flesh this out a bit more…

#6

BTW, you could probably pretty easily make a Go-board out there. Get some different types of stones and you’re all set!

Few rules Lifetime to master and an ancient game to boot.

#7

I love Go

A game about living land and pattern recognition

#8

Yessss a rewild role play game! Good way to experiment with possible situations.

As far as entertainment post collapse… Just ask grandma or grandpa… there weren’t always computers, DVDs, or playstations.

Anyone that can write a good short play is someone I would value…
A few people in simple costumes around a campfire can be very entertaining if the material is worthy.

Kick the can?

Chess?

Just a few thoughts.

#9

timeLESS
and wildeyes
get in touch
primalparent@hotmail.com

#10
I want to find a way to earn some money without contributing to much to the overall system

I’v been thinking about that one, and what I came up with is selling handicrafts! I mean, during winter we will have plenty of time to just sit around and work with whatever we wish, so why not spend the time making knives, cups, spoons, vowen baskets, things from leather etc etc.

Atleast up here in scandinavia theres these town festivals in the rural towns, and people love things carved from wood, bone and such, whatever looks “authentic” you know?

So we could stock up on material, knifeblades etc in the summer, make stuff in the winter, then travel to a few towns and sell them in the summer again. Here in norway people gladly pay ridiculous prices for a nice knife.

http://www.knivmakeriet.no/uk/

This guys knifes start at 2500 nkr(420$) and he has max 200-300(30-50$) in expenses for the materials needed!

Making and selling bows might be an option too.