Perdido Street Station / The Scar / Iron Council trilogy by China Mieville

A lot of the races would be difficult and/or imposible to physrep but the world is so detailed and fasinating I keep finding myself wanting to try and turn it into a larp. Is New Crobuzon a "do-able" idea, or am I mad?

Discuss.

crazy yank

Races that could be phys-repable are:

HUMANS - D'uh. A few are magic-users, usually dependant on the culture.

REMADE - Usually human but often another race, the Remade are invariably the victims of cruel and unusual punishment. Rather than imprisoning criminals, the city of New Crobuzon will send them to a ReMaker of the punishment factories, where their bodies are warped and twisted in a variety of ways. Some are combined with machines, to enslave them to one particular purpose. Others have bizzare limbs or organs grafted onto their bodies, making them a freak of nature.

CACTACAE - Humanoid cacti. The Cactacae are enormous plant people, often towering over human beings. Cactacae grow flowers in spring and usually shave off their spines where flesh rubs against flesh. Although their young grow out of the ground, they nurse them as mammals do. Cactacae have wooden bones and sap for blood. They sleep standing up. They bristle with needles that they often style like hair, or pluck altogether. They are known for their strength, and are often employed as laborers and bodyguards. Cactacae are notoriously difficult to kill or wound with normal weapons, even to each other. The Cactacae community in New Crobuzon is based around The Glasshouse, and is allowed to exist as a nominally independent community within the city.

KHEPRI - The khepri are a race of humanoid scarab beetles. Female khepri possesses bodies very similar to that of a human female, except their skin is crimson in color and they possess large scarab beetles in place of heads. Some khepri are known to communicate with humans via sign-language, using their "headlegs". The female khepri are noted artisans, using a biological excretion blended with "colourberries" to sculpt breathtaking works of organic art. Male khepri, on the other hand, are lobster-sized, nonsentient scarabs, without the depending humanoid body.

VODYANOI - The vodyanoi are an aquatic people. They are fat and froglike, with webbed feet and toes. They are skilled in water magics, able to create temporary objects out of water. Vodyanoi dock workers once held a strike by creating water walls in the river, essentially "carving" out a 10-foot wide hole in the water. Ships could not pass, and thus trade and shipping was ground to a halt. Vodyanoi will often make pacts with Undines, the water spirits. They cannot survive out of water for more than a day, and do not swim in salt water.

SCABMETTLER - Stocky, gray-skinned human-like beings whose blood, when shed, congeals into metallic armor. They practice a unique form of martial, arena combat called mortu crutt.

HANDLINGERS - Sentient parasitic disembodied hands which control the mind of their host. There are two types: sinistrals, the noble caste, and dextriers, the soldier caste. Sinistrals are left hands and dextriers are right hands.

crazy yank

Erm... So just female Khepri then and I'm not sure how you'd do a disembodied hand.  Also, "host"? :-?

Yep, just female Khepri.

The Handlinger's host is one of the above races. The handlinger themself is a joke-shop hand attached to the host's body (usually around the neck if memory serves).

crazy yank

Citys are always very hard to physrep in LRP, if you have a possible venue in mind I'd love to hear about it. In scope and style any game set within the city its self would be almost Cyber(steam)punk, with characters striving for social change against the corrupt and totalitarian regime.

or You can go further afield and try runnign something further into the wilder wilds of Baslag.

The only venues that spring to mind would be some sort of hostel that you could use as an "inn" or something simmilar.

I love that description!

crazy yank

Fire Support - because the Marquis of Queensbury never had to go door to door in dispersed tactical formation, with multiple engagement zones and the threat of recurring lateral ambushes.