Of the Darkness and Evil Regular Blogging, I Hope! Harken to the blogger’s refrain, “I know it’s been a while, but I’ll be posting more frequently now.” Yeah, we’ll see!

So where have I been? Well, I jumped on an opportunity to run the Legends of Greyhawk preview at MagicCon in Chicago in February. That rolled directly into a series of writing opportunities. Given my kids’ activities are only getting more expensive, I said yes to everything that came my way. Good for that, bad for free time, and I was surely difficult to be around as each deadline transitioned to the next. Along the way, I completed some work for Kobold Press, contributed to a Shadowdark Kickstarter with my friends (the Devouring Labyrinth! A mini-setting chock full of dungeons and viperians), wrote an adventure for the Legends of Greyhawk organized play campaign and an adventure for Ghostfire Gaming’s the Grim Hunt OP campaign, both of which premiered at GenCon, and managed to fit a few magic items into Jeff Steven’s Treasures From the Dark Kickstarter.

By that time, summer had ramped up to full speed. I drove my kids to ballet and the dirt bike track most days of the week, had a gnarly e. Coli infection that put me in the hospital for two days (do not recommend), went to Lakes of Fire (our regional Burn), made it to GenCon for one day and two nights, and wound up in the hospital again after mysteriously losing half my hearing in one ear. I got pictures taken of my brain to establish it’s not a tumor, so life goes on. But those are tales to be elaborated on at another time. Let’s turn the clock back all the way to February for MagicCon!

MagicCon! Confession: I’ve never played Magic: the Gathering. My son has played some with his friends. For a minute there they were the local store rats who got to eat the leftover pizza after in-store events. My earliest memory of the game was in 1994 when some friends of ours had just gotten into it. The best part was they were burly Motor City SHARP Crew guys, SHARP being Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, the kind of guys who went out looking for Nazi skins to fight. Anyway, somehow they got into Magic in those early days. I remember them telling the story of going to a tournament and getting whupped by the nerdy kids there. Great if you can picture it, these heavily tattooed guys (a big deal in the mid ‘90s) slinking out with their tails between their legs.

Baldman Games had put out the call for DMs for MagicCon as Wizards of the Coast wanted to have a premiere D&D presence at the event. I wondered, “Who goes to MagicCon to play a bunch of D&D?” The answer may surprise you, or not. But we’ll get there later. The coin was right. I could stay with my sister and pocket the housing stipend, so I threw my hat in the ring and was scheduled to run two XP tracks. The D&D XP tracks are BMG’s premiere D&D experience. You share a table with the same players and DM for three or four slots, allowing for the development of a more intimate game than the usual wham-bam one-shot.

Right off the bat… My first track didn’t fire because there weren’t enough players. So that’s who pays top dollar to play a bunch of D&D at MagicCon: not enough people. Alas. I helped out at HQ cutting up physical certs for the new campaign and did whatever else I could, including running some D&D Learn to Plays. Those were wildly, unexpectedly fun. A group would sit down and I would run them through a fifteen minute scenario, touching on the rules as we went. If you ever need to have your love for roleplaying games rekindled, run them for people who have never played before. The sheer delight and creativity and chaos was a genuine joy to behold.

My second track did have enough players (barely), so we got to play through the sequence of Greyhawk adventures. We returned to Hommlet, Nulb, and the Moathouse, updated for modern rules and sensibilities. When Greyhawk reappeared in the 2024 Dungeon Masters Guide, I kind of wondered why they bothered. I had some of the first wave products as a kid, but I just didn’t see why they were exhuming the corpse again. But I found the setting to be utterly charming. Of course, it was in the highly capable hands of Eric Menge, Shawn Merwin, and Greg Marks (listed in adventure credit order), veterans of the Living Greyhawk campaign, and it was just… Great! Refreshing. A modern echo of simpler times, rooting out cultists in these classic locales. We had an enjoyable weekend, and a couple of the voice actors from Baldur’s Gate 3 visited our room in full cosplay a few times.

I got the new Monster Manual and started using it immediately. Honestly, I like it. I think the stat blocks are generally better, more effective and easier to run. It’s a shame about the lore cuts, but I do like the inclusion of spark tables. I also got some Magic cards, dice, and a nifty backpack.

Every trip away from home is an opportunity to eat different things. Chicago was a destination for us in the ‘90s with restaurants like Chicago Diner and Soul Vegetarian. The ownership and name of Soul Veg have changed and their hours didn’t fit my schedule, so that was off the table. I made it to Chicago Diner Saturday night and it was… ok? Maybe I ate too much, or I just wasn’t feeling it because I was there by myself. I also went to the restaurant formerly known as Upton’s Breakroom. I’ve always enjoyed the local connection to Upton’s seitan as one of the co-owners came from the Michigan hardcore scene. But again, it was just ok. I’m not sure what was going on, maybe I chose the wrong items. The restaurant announced they were closing on short notice this summer, so I guess that’s a wrap.

Anyway. MagicCon. I ran games, I got paid, I had some fun and got a backpack of goodies. Overall, a good time, but I don’t know that it established itself as a destination for D&D. It really was wall-to-wall Magic. Who knows what the future holds though!

(Bonus points if you can identify the title of this post without searching!)