That’s a wrap on 2025, folks! Whether you’ve been through the year with us, or if you’re looking back on this from the distant future of 2026 or later, thanks for dropping in for this round-up!
We started the year shipping Seven Sealed Spirits and kickstarting Doom Desert in the Decanter of Delirium! Our first adventure is now, also, one of our best-looking ones. Shout out to Cussa at Hod Publishing; the superslick VTT module wouldn’t exist without him. We ended by Kickstarting a Privatized Little Hell. No doubt shipping it will open our 2026.
We went to the Terminal City Tabletop Convention and the inaugural Protocon BC. We made a lot of new friends! I’ve never felt better supported by the gaming community, both online and in meatspace. Thanks ,gang!
Game Jams were joined! I won Iron DM 2025 by cranking out some superfast adventures for Troika, Mothership, and 5e. We made WakeSide for the annual (possibly final?) PocketQuest jam. We released Millennium Trail for Mothership and Old School Revolution for any game where you’re raging against a machine. Finally, as a solo act, Gabriel put out Curse of the Conquerer for the Fun with Fang jam. Check it out, it’s got some pretty good dragon stuff in it.
QuestCrawl finally shed its old AI baggage in favour of an all-human version. Art was supplied by our friend Kate; check out their linktree! We also added some underwater rules for the game. We’re hoping to get a nice box set cooking soon (possibly with some help from our friends at Gravy Boat Games? Stay tuned!).
Yochai Gal reviewed Seven Sealed Spirits. Although he didn’t love it as much as we’d hoped, we’re huge fans of his. Honestly, it’s just encouraging to be noticed by such a big podcast. We’re hoping he likes the next one better! Ol’ Sev got a little attention from Questing Beast as well; we’re making those waves, bay-bee!
Gabriel
Gabriel had a hell of a year.
First thing to mention has to be the YouTube. I’m not 100% sure, but I think we doubled our subscribers this year? Check out the flip-through reviews if you haven’t already. There’s nothing reviewed that isn’t first played, which (as far as I can tell) puts us a damn few meters above most RPG review outfits.
From there, ol’ WatcherDM went on a wild Drawtober run (featuring Arthur Chuffbeck) that ended in a Shadowdark class called the Beacon. Kelsey herself commented! There were not one but two new bookmark dungeons and an Egyptian-themed one-pager literally centred on a pivot. And for heftier entries, we have Shutirah (hot off the presses) and Thunder Speakers of Buzhou. He even brought the Bar Hak’s Orc Printer to a wider audience.
All this writing! What can I say except, HEY THAT’S MY JOB!
Well, rumour has it he’s whipping up a room a day for a megadungeon in the New Year. And I, for one, wish him well. Eventually, he’ll no longer need a writer hanging around, and I’ll be free to explore what I’m sure is a thriving job market for creative rpg writers.
Play Hard
We played a ton. We completed our eight-player 5e campaign. I got to play through Humblewood as well: pretty good stuff! We slogged through A1-A3 using OSE. We played a ton of Mothership (shout out to Dave at Magnum Galaxy Games). We tried new games like Dread and Mythic Bastionland.
Campaign of the year? For me, when we played the hell out of Cursed Scroll #2 for Shadowdark. I’ll always remember my Ras Godai, even if he had a hell of time finding water to walk on.
We’ve also been playtesting Blood Prairie, our horror-western TTRPG. And when I say playtested, I mean playtested. There were almost as many campaigns that didn’t get recapped!
Year of the Blog
We were blogging away all year! In January, we feuded with Feudalism, the 1st-level Cleric spells list, and PC poverty. Although our Instagram and Twitter accounts are shuttered, we brought the Mad Moors back from our Encountergrams series for a little expansion. There were wizards, pirates, trolls, more trolls, and gamemasters.
My cousin got me reading the Cosmere books, which has been awesome. We’ve advanced some adventure hooks, talked about torches, and celebrated the Goblin Parade. We saw vampires, stylites, and gamblers. Once, we even sunk into arrogance deep enough to tackle the core topic of our little blogosphere: DM advice.
There’s been lots of Shadowdark: Magic Swords, vengeful PC ghosts, light-eating spirits, and a monster collection. After eight months, we delivered on the LotFP Sumo Wrestler class we promised back in August. We also touched on Treefolk tests, creepy combats, world-building, and one-shot adventure recipes.
I may have talked a little shit about OSE; say what you will about being positive, but controversy does get people reading the blog.
We made a ton of content for Troika. We had the Farce rule, d66 Provisions, Magic Items, Monsters, Fallout classes, Fallout monsters, more monsters, some (non-Troika specific) Fallout raider tables, Star Trek classes, a Goblin Depth Crawl, Spells, and theories of urban movement. Keep an eye out for Megamidden, coming next year from Melsonian Arts Council, with writing from yours truly!
Believe it or not, that’s not an exhaustive list of blog content from this year. It doesn’t even scratch the surface of Gabriel’s Patreon. Scour the archives, if you dare!
Well, it’s been a hell of a year, and this has been a hell of a blog post. So many links! I’m sure there’s a ton of games and people forgotten here. If you didn’t get the shout-outs you deserve, I’m sorry! I’m just one fool. Love and respect to you all. Here’s hoping 2026 is a kinder year, full of games and good times. Play and be friends! Stay Weird!