Seppa's tat

Tat

The accessories of character costume that help one stand out from one's peers. In daily life, because the majority of native English speakers' garments tend to be mass produced, we have a tendency to look all the same. It isn't as uniform as a company or military uniform, but there's still a certain uniformity to it. Many of us do not personalise our garments with extra stitching or any other customisation.

In LARP, one has an excellent opportunity to personalise one's look so that there's less uniformity. Though in Empire, there is a small amount of uniformity to one's nation so that one's easily identifiable as this or that nation, but one's top or bottom is customised to the character's tastes and whims. The other is by adding tat.

A new character will often lack tat to the extent of that character several games' old. As one plays one's character, and interacts with other characters, and gains story and played history, things change. Empire's rules are that one's kit is in constant improvement. Embellishments, via embroidery or patches or visible repairs (if Imperial Orc) adds to the character's kit development.

With Ieri, who had witnessed the Varushkan Feast of the Loom Zoria parade, gained a silky friendship bracelet from a Varushkan child. It went on Ieri's belt and added to eir tat. Friendship with Antimedes meant Ieri had a jingly beaded token ey wore on eir belt. When Antimedes died, Ieri added his token to eirs and increased tat.

Seppa's tat

The following images show some of what I want Seppa to wear; however, some of this was Ieri's tat, and will need adjusting or altering in order to truly become Seppa's tat. I apologise if any of the following images are repeats from previous blog posts. I don't want to photograph them again until I've altered the items to fit Seppa. (yes, that's on the ever-growing to-do list.)

The other difference between Ieri and Seppa is that whilst much of Ieri's tat had stories attached to them, they weren't ancestral items or items-of-worth; whereas Seppa's tat will need to be worthy, even if it was, 'my parent made this when they were emancipated to celebrate their freedom.' Not as worthy as an ancestral item, but still a worthy reminder for the character.

Speaking of parent's emancipation from slavery, I thought of using the Skarsind axe-head pendant to represent that, but then I realised that the axe-head pendant is to commemorate the Imperial Orcs gaining Skarsind as their region of the Empire, which only happened a few years ago. So this is Seppa's pendant, rather than an inheritance item. Perhaps the metal sausage-like tube in the upper right corner of the above picture could be the parent's emancipation object.

The ring with the bell on it is for one of Seppa's noisy ancestors and will be going onto the warskirt.

I want to pierce Seppa's ears in order to customise the mask. These were on clearance, and they're not quite to the Skywise brief, but I can alter these to better fit into the brief and if I mess them up, I'm not going to feel bad over it.

The steel Sikh kara bracelet isn't obvious that it is a kara, so I will use it as part of Seppa's tat. It had been part of Ieri's tat, but didn't make many appearances, and I doubt that anyone will recognise it from Ieri's kit. The only question is whether or not it'll fit over all the wraps and gloves.

The two brass clasps might get some dangles attached to them to give them some personalisation. I'm considering their use in a similar way to the Viking paired domed brooches, ie attaching a few strings of beads between them and the clasps helping to hold a robe or wrap in place during colder weather events.

These had been Ieri's jewellery. I explained the kara already. The glass "diamonds" bracelet is another that didn't see too much action with Ieri, and like the kara, will need to be tested to see how or if it will fit over all the wrist wraps.

The patinated brass cuffs made occasional appearances on Ieri, but they do barely fit over the wraps; as I have tested those. I also need more brass than silver-coloured stuff, as brass is to the brief.

The brass amulet strung with wooden beads and orange cord, was a Ieri staple, though the beads and orange cord were only a recent expansion on it. I'll need to put it onto some blue cord and change the beads in some way, probably by adding some smaller wooden beads along with the ones currently on the cord.

For the antler-bone-wood-glass-brass necklace, that was Ieri's Dubhtraig loot. I'll need to restring it and change out some of the red beads for blue.

Charity shop for the win!

Back at the start of 2019, some of us went to several charity shops to look for LARP bits. I found this interesting necklace for 50p. It had been strung on some thread and that looked far too fragile to survive the field. So I restrung it with wire in almost exactly the way it came off the thread. I put in crimp beads and joins where the thread had knots. I did add one item to it: the little brass bell in the lower right of the picture; it is otherwise entirely from the original necklace. 

Ieri wore it once or twice around eir neck, but I found it too much around my neck with all the many necklaces I already wore, so it failed for Ieri's tat. It will very likely end up on the warskirt.

Conclusion

Tat is more than jewellery, but this is currently all that I have ready to show that isn't textile tat, which will get its own blog post on another day.