Apologies for my extended break.

I’ve made no secret of my chronic depression. Just when I think I’m out of the woods, there it is again. Daylight Savings change over is never easy between the chronic pain flares and the mental health toll it takes on me every frickin year. I tell myself I gotta stay positive for the blog, but it ain’t easy.

I’m starting to slowly come out of the fog again. I have so many articles I want to write; it’s almost overwhelming. I owe lots of reviews and previews at this point… Oi. If the time for a preview is past is it just a view at that point? <confused noises.>

Magic/Mecha/Mega/Monster March marches onward.

I can’t believe we’re over halfway through the month already. You blink and you miss it sometimes. I’m slowly starting to work on some things behind the scenes again. Here’s something of a rundown:

  • Material in conjunction with the OG GM’s Vigilantes for Shadowdark. (The affiliate link helps us all out at this point. I recycle all of my affiliate credit toward other creators and royalty free clip art possibly.)
  • A preview/first impression glance at Jonathan Wright’s Mecha Vs Kaiju 202X. This is a long-running passion project by the creator that I feel I absolutely must talk about.
  • Last Deux for Gates of Krystalia is still at the top of my review list. I have not forgotten.
  • That’s most of the product stuff out of the way. I’ll have in-depth looks at Arkand: City of Waves and Flames as well as The Book of Magic for Dragonbane as soon as the full PDFs are out. Right now it’s all Beta so I don’t want to put out too many spoilers.
  • The upcoming Dragonbane Book of Magic has encouraged me to go back to my own magic item/spell supplement and revise heavily to make the content closer to the official rules. Some things are treading on new territory, so that will be fun.
  • Outgunned Superheroes and Action Flicks Vol. 3 dropped on DriveThruRPG recently. I’m excited to be doing some solo play for that game because I’m a superhero gamer at heart. Outgunned Supers is designed for cinematic one-shot or mini campaign play, which is somewhat new territory for me. I truly wish there was an Open License for Outgunned, but sadly there is not.
  • I recently scrapped a Dragonbane adventure I was working on, but I might possibly bring it back at a later date. I want to add more to it and make it a sandbox within a sandbox. However that does free up project time for a very special quest generator, the magic item book, and now I’m laying the groundwork for an extensive summer project.
  • I have some campaign ideas floating around in my head for Twilight Sword when it finally becomes available. Anime/Manga/TTJRPG is one of my favorite subgenres in the hobby.

It feels good to be talking about the hobby again.

I know the world is falling apart a little more every day, especially here in the USA. Our government is out of control globally. I could start building bugout bags or planning the rebellion, but I’d prefer to stick to TTRPGs. I know it sounds crazy.

When reality comes knocking, we answer. Until then, we’re going to stay positive. We’re going to believe things will eventually get better. Hopefully this was not the sentiment of the German populace circa 1933. I’d like to think the time to rise up will become obvious when it becomes necessary because we study history and we know what will happen if we don’t step up.

The irony here is not lost on me. I’ve just mentioned talking about the hobby and then spent two paragraphs going on about the real world. Were it not for escapist fantasy roleplaying where would we be? There are just times we need that escape from what’s going on out there.

Now, that’s not to say people should tune out the real world and only focus on gaming, the Internet, movies or whatever your thing is. There are times when adulting is necessary and like, healthy or something. Sometimes we have to raise children and interact with “normal” people. Bleh.

I’m slowly getting back into the groove on everything.

Behind the scenes I’m working on projects for DriveThruRPG including a new series of quests, a magic item supplement, and then I’ll be tinkering with some other new projects for Dragonbane. For YouTube we have the In the Box Podcast Number 6 coming along with some reviews of different things. The blog you’ve seen all the stuff above. Not gonna lie, it’s a bit overwhelming.

Somewhere in the midst of all this is possibly promoting Ruttigers Almanac for Richard Whitters and my friends at Cawood Publishing. (No, it’s not a paid gig. I just like the game.) Here’s the link if you’re curious.

My YouTube numbers are improving, which is nice. We still have a long way to go. I’m pretty much just doing it for fun at this point. If it ever gets monetized I’ll party in the streets, but I’m not buying any celebratory bratwurst just yet.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!