Emily "Em" Sazima groaned exhaustedly as she sat on the floor of an apartment in Mount Pleasant, the weight of the day's traveling wearing on her. 

Her friend asked whether or not Lucy is dead.

"I'm going to tell you that I don't know," Sazima said, sitting on the carpeted hallway floor.

Though she's a 37-year-old library assistant by day in Grand Rapids, Mich., she often spends her nights playing a vampire or working on a plot for the next weekend. 

"I get up, and I go to work," Sazima said. "I play with my parrots, and I go to bed. And, that's pretty much it during the week." 

The most famous of Sazima's characters is Lucy Strychnine, a slightly sociopathic vampire known throughout several cities in a game called Vampire: The Requiem. 

Vampire: The Requiem is a Live Action Role Playing game that is sanctioned through the publishing company, White Wolf. 

The game invites people to create characters to explore different perspectives and realities. 

Vampire: The Requiem is a sanctioned game that has several "domains" played throughout cities in the United States, Canada and parts of Europe. 

A player can choose several venues to play; they range from werewolves to vampires, fairy-type creatures called "changelings" and wizards called "Mages."

The people who play games from White Wolf become members after the first six months through a fan club called the Camarilla. 

"Non-larpers don't understand larpers," Sazima said. "I think they just don't have a good concept of what they do, but I think that it's slowly changing because so many people do it. There's just this stigma that we're weird or have multiple personalities or something."

For some, the separation between character and creator can be difficult through the time, energy and acting that occurs. Sazima finds it easy with distance and costumes. 

"I know what happens when you don't separate player from character," Sazima said. "I mean, everybody's got their character in them because otherwise you wouldn't be able to play that character if it doesn't have any connection to you. But, if you don't have that separation, you get kind of crazy."

Though some might describe Sazima as unusual or bizarre, she leads a fairly normal life outside the 12 years she has role played. 

She joined the military and served for several years; she now holds a regular job. She has a boyfriend who she met through games in Detroit.

Emily Sazima gets into her larp character Lucy Strychnine.

Sazima describes Lucy Strychnine as a publicity whore searching to feel something regardless of the consequences.

"The basic character concept was that she was a super villainess. She never leaves the house without a full set of makeup and fully dressed," Sazima said. "I think that characters take on a life of their own. They take on their own personalities."

The other women around her agreed, including her friend, Trina Nilson.

"Characters evolve over time from when you create them," Nilson said. "They just react to the situations and the people around them." 

At one point, Sazima pulled up her black shirt to reveal a scar.

"I have Chron's disease, but it's really mind over matter," she said, smiling as she let her shirt fall down. "I know that Lucy isn't sick, and that helps me."

Her character, however, has been accused of being part of a story conspiracy known as "VII." The fear and paranoia surrounding who is or is not "VII" is like the communist accusations of the 1950s. 

"It doesn't matter if she is seven (VII) or not, she'll always be connected to it," Sazima said.

Lucy Strychnine's fate is still up to the discretion of the storytellers which frustrates Sazima. Until Lucy Strychnine's fate is decided, Sazima created a new character named Sanchari Crow, a vampire with an anger problem who loves animals and builds motorcycles.

"If she isn't dead, I know there are a lot of people who would still try to kill people," Sazima said. "I think she is dead, though."

GCM photo by R.E. Whipple.

By R.E. Whipple

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