Lotka-Volterra: Acheron – Run 1

Acheron is a small larp set in the Lotka-Volterra universe, organised by Atropos & Sebastian Utbult in the July of 2024, and played at Tredje Våningen in Gothenburg, Sweden (the site of earlier Atropos larps like Androids and Collateral Emotions).

At LV: Acheron, you will, over the course of a day, live the life of a group of people stationed together in an all-too-small space. You are there to analyse alien signals and guide the surface team, but you will also argue over incomplete card decks, deal with daily routines and try not to get on each other’s nerves in such a tight, isolated space. You will be playing either members of the “military” MISCON team, handling planning communications, tactics, geospatial guidance and signal intelligence for the surface combat team, or members of a scrambled-together collection of scientists tasked with supplying crucial knowledge of Enemy technology, behaviour, and capabilities – and attempting to codebreak the enemy communications.

Lotka-Volterra is a “naturalistic” science fiction setting, in which a technologically superior and incomprehensible alien enemy has almost wiped humanity out. A few survivors hide in an underground colony and wage a slow and clandestine war of resistance against the alien threat, while teetering on the edge of collapse themselves as supplies run low. The larp Lotka-Volterra was run in an underground bunker in 2018, and this larp is “companion piece” to that larp – but you do not need to have played the original larp in order to play this one.

The larp is designed for roughly 20 pre-written characters and takes a full day including briefings, on-site familiarisation, breaks etc, and is designed to be run multiple times. Through various means you will be given the tools to perform your specific tasks and responsibilities, with design focus on making you feel competent, knowledgeable and in control.

Acheron is a larp of sharp contrast – the stress and pressure of “mission-time,” and the anxiety, interpersonal friction and soul-crushing boredom of waiting.