The RPG fan movement gathers people with different views and goals. And not all of them are "harmless daisies". Of course, there are no outright outcasts among role-players, but there are enough of those whose actions cannot be called anything other than "hooliganism".
A small group called "Mushroom Elves", from the very beginning of its existence, gained fame as brawlers and destroyers of other people's games. Members of the movement at least feared them and tried to isolate them. But were the "mushroom pickers" the way the rumor describes them, or just "fear has big eyes"?
The origin of the group and symbols
The first information about "Mushroom elves" appeared in 1993. It is known that the group was formed on the basis of the role-playing movement of St. Petersburg and when asked about the name, its members cheerfully answered: "We eat mushrooms!"
The association had its own uniquesymbolism, which quickly became widely known among roleplayers. The elves gathered under a black flag with the image of three white Psilocybe semilanceata enclosed in a circle - a symbol of unity and brotherhood of the group members. In Russia, this mushroom is sometimes called "veselushka" due to the fact that its pulp contains strong hallucinogens.
The band members used music for their "going out". March of the "Mushroom Elves" is a song of three verses interspersed with Russian obscenities, which sounds very militant even with a simple reading. Subsequently, many hymns and ballads were written, but only the first song became recognizable by role players from the very first lines.
Main milestones
"Mushroom elves" managed to mark themselves in all areas of activity that could only be available to active young people of that time. They were most active in the following:
- Acceleration of role-playing games held in the open air. Moreover, the nature of the events and the number of participants did not matter. The "mushrooms" themselves claimed that they were supporters of the realism of the scenario played out. Roleplayers must be prepared for the fact that the situation will begin to develop in a direction that is dangerous for them. They shouldn't be able to step aside and say, "I'm in the cabin." Soon "mushrooms" became so famous that they had to hide their names and travel 100-200 km to other people's games. Often, only after the start of the brawl, the masters found out about who complained totheir activities. Bad jokes on players were often accompanied by drinking, bullying, beatings and embezzlement of other people's things.
- Environmental activities in the Forest Committee (Leningrad region). In 1997, "Mushroom Elves" on a voluntary basis began to patrol the Polistovsky Reserve. Protecting state property from poachers was closely linked to various outrages such as the destruction of equipment or the unexpected firing of a shotgun. In 1999, in connection with the request of the deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and the increasing complaints to law enforcement agencies, voluntary patrols were disbanded.
- Activity in the network space. Since the beginning of the 20th century, elves have been actively "trolling" their opponents on the Internet, ridiculing and slandering them with offensive posts and poems. They have created several websites and forums, of which the Mushroom Elf Library resource is the most famous.
In 2009, with the release of a special "Manifesto", the group began to wind down its work "in the field", moving almost completely to the Web. To date, the "Mushroom Elves" act as a creative team and do not show themselves in either political or social activities.
Composition and leaders of "Mushroom elves"
According to the rumor, the group of hooligans had hundreds of members and had branches in all major cities. But this is a huge exaggeration. The main composition of the "mushroom" consisted of 10-12human, their nicknames and appearance were known to many roleplayers.
Of course, in 2016, few people already know what "Mushroom Elves" look like. The photos published on the Web are mostly from the last decade of the 20th century, when they were all very young. At the moment, the following is known about the main defendants:
- Johnny - in the world Ivan Petrovich Faulkner, born July 25, 1977. According to the testimonies of acquaintances, he has a good literary talent. The monograph on the adventures of the elves almost entirely came out from under his hand. There were rumors (and Johnny himself confirmed this) that in 2000 he was convicted of robbery on probation.
- Strori - the main "voice" of the group Konstantin Mikhailov. It is this guy in the vest who sings the song "March of the Mushroom Elves" posted on YouTube.
- Crazy - Anton Ostrovsky, born February 11, 1976. For a long time he was the leader of the group, but in recent years he began to distance himself, which was noticed by outsiders.
- MacLeod, or Sergey Maklaud Zotov, is still a fan of role-playing games and sometimes takes part in them.
In addition, among the "Mushroom Elves" there were such characters as Elephant, Eve, Goblin, Barin, Queen, Crimson and Skeeve. For some reason, it was assumed that the members of the group were marginalized, fit only to drink and use drugs. But this is another mistake of frightened roleplayers. "Mushroom pickers" were city kids, and almost all of them either studied or were going to enter universities.
Years later, Mushroom Elves still haven't revealed their full identity.
Musical and literary creativity
Despite the swear words, bloody bravado and ugly antics, "mushrooms" were and remain creative people. They have created a lot of music, one way or another related to the theme of role-playing games. The albums "Unexplored", "Steps on the Curve" and several songs performed by Goblin have been published on the current site "Library of Mushroom Elves".
But there are many more songs authored by "mushrooms", although not all of them can be performed when small children are around. It wouldn't be a big exaggeration to claim that they had a hand and a hand in much of the role-playing folklore.
In addition to music, some members of the group became famous for their literary work. In particular, authored by Johnny (Ivan Faulkner) there is a book "Tales of mushroom elves", which describes the most striking adventures of hooligan role players. Despite the abundance of Russian obscenities, descriptions of drunkenness, brawls, hooliganism and outright crimes, the work still describes the realities of games at the turn of the century quite well.
Frighteningly evil stories "Saint Greta" and "No Forgiveness" by Olga Slavneisheva (Queen) can be found on the same site.
Consequences for the role-playing movement
By 2016 "Mushroomelves" became part of the folklore, but at one time they "spoiled the blood of all role players" a lot. Now it seems strange that only a dozen people could put almost several hundred players to flight and disrupt the event being prepared for months. And for this they needed only appear at the edge.
"Mushroom Elves" behaved in the spirit of the time, and for most roleplayers it caused a stupor. After all, the latter were not the most socially active people and used games to escape reality. From the point of view of modern players, they were passive and for some reason never asked themselves the question: "And if 40 people take a piece of logs and these "mushroom" ones?.."
However, by their actions, the "mushrooms" rendered an invaluable service to the role-playing movement of the Leningrad Region, in time revealing its main weaknesses - disunity, hindsight and fear of punishment. Already at the beginning of the 21st century, the situation began to change for the better. Players established communication between clubs, began to take care of security and information exchange. There is a known case when the "mushrooms" were expelled from the Slavic games by well-organized security.
So the actions of the "Mushroom Elves" group still served to the benefit of all parties, launching a kind of evolution of the role-playing movement. And one can only be glad that no one was killed in the process.
