2025 was the year I leveled up my TTRPG skills (no pun intended). It started off with my participation in New Game Master Month in February. Kobold Press was a sponsor and had a coupon for the core books so I moved off the free rules and onto the main, published rules. I consumed lots of TTRPG content on YouTube, reddit, and enworld - lots of it focused on being a better GM or a more creative GM. This may have come out already if I published the other end of year blog posts before this one, but TTRPGs ended up eating up a lot of free time and reducing the time I spent on reading, video games, and programming as the year progressed.

Between the two choices for this week’s trial, I went with Grimrot Slinktail, the Ratling Plaguebringer. I liked his story about collecting others’ trash and using it to build himself up.

Story

15 Jan

I am doing my job as a torturer in the dungeons when I hear the sound of battle. The castle is under siege. The dungeon keeper comes in and tells me to leave the torture behind. I must find the Dark Overlord or the High Mage.

We have begun our second Tales of the Valiant home game campaign. Since everyone was trying out new classes they’d never played before, I decided to do a Session 0 scenario (something I learned about in the last few months). That is, “everyone” knows about session 0 to set expectations, see how the characters know each other, etc - but this is using session 0 as a way to try out the characters and be able to change things up without penalty.

Story

12 Jan

I run and dodge through the chaos of the battlefield. As I charge forward a goblin stumbles in my periphery. I have a split second to attack his attacker. I slam into him and send him crashing into the goblin’s blade. (+1 minion)

As I continue on, the battlefield is crazy. I need to find a safe path through the wreckage. I slip and crash into a catapult. (-1 HP)

I chose to go with Kargoth Stormcleaver, Orc Battlemaster. It was a tough choice, but I liked the idea of the guy who looks like a brute, but actually hones his mind.

Story

8 Jan

I fight along with many goblins. The little ones around me are fierce, one should not underestimate them. The wall falls and arrows rain upon us. I use my training and naturally avoid the arrows. They are as harmful to me as the rain itself.

Since we choose a new character on 8 Jan, I chose to have this post cover my remaining days as Severin Mortis.

Story

Day 05

My master the high mage directs me to prepare the spell for the Overlord. He explains that the Soul Crystal was imbued with power by devouring souls when the Dark Overlord activated it. Now we will reverse the operation and give that power to the Dark Lord. My master is perhaps a bit nastier to me than usual because I betrayed him in front of the Dark Lord. I assume he has not tried to kill me because we are both necessary for the spell.

Gameplay

As the city bells go off, the heroes arrive at the town square. They see a rare sight - elven folk - surrounded by the Ironguard and an unruly crowd forming. The town hasn’t seen elves in decades and is scared this might be an invasion. Tris stops the riot and calms the townfolk. She speaks with the elves and finds out that they are under attack by giant spiders. Their pact not to harm forest life means they can’t do anything about this. The group agrees to help the elves.

Last year I backed the Kickstarter for the Quest Calendar by Sundial Games. This year is called Souls of Saraku. It’s a Solo TTRPG played as a daily calendar. This year the player chooses to play as a minion for a Dark Overlord (my first year, so I don’t know if it’s always like this). I’ll be blogging about it here as I do with all my TTRPG campaigns. The first 3 weeks of the calendar are a tutorial that allow the player to play with 3 of the minions so that the player is making an informed choice. For week 1 I chose to go with Severin Mortis, a Human Deathweaver.

I previously reviewed the first half of Dungeon in a Box as two separate blog posts. (Q1 and Q2). Since I fell behind with the other two quarters, I’ll review the rest all at once.

Important highlights from the first two posts:

• I get the physical subscription. It also comes with digital assets for each box as well as access to their Wonderous One-Shot digital assets.
• The digital assets include a Pathfinder 2e conversion
• each box comes with a gridded map for the dungeon portion of the adventure, skinny minis, and 1 or 2 3D printed minis.

This post is intended for dungeon masters. There are story spoilers below.

Gameplay

As Grumpy, Tris, and Sasha were at the local tavern getting some cinnamon rolls, they noticed a goblin nailing something to the notice board. It turns out to be one of the kids of the owners of the Pits of Perild, an amusement park and beginner dungeon. They agree to help him. On the way to the park they fight some vampire bats while camping.

When they arrive they learn from the matriarch that Troglodytes are not honoring their agreement. They were supposed to stay in the lower levels (away from the starter dungeon first level) and only eat any unlucky adventurers that went in deep. Now they have infiltrated the first level and are attacking the guests. The team decides they will help figure out what’s going on. Also, they are to keep an eye out for her husband.