I CAST LIGHT ON 2025

Reflections on the Year Behind & Ahead

OLD BUSINESS

How did I do on my 2025 goals? Well, let’s see:

• Post more “good enough” adventures 😃

• Finish Serpent Psalms to complement Serpent Song Hymnal 😐

• Run another “family & friends game” 😐

• Run Daisy Chainsaw 😐

• Learn to paint miniatures & play more wargames 😃

Hmmm... 2/5 is not very good but it’s a hobby so who cares! Let me talk about what I did do.

Post More “Good Enough” Adventures & Appendix N Jam

The “Wine Dungeon”: In 2024, I talked about running 10 sessions of “Wine Dungeon”, well I’ve been sitting on that thing for one more year. Mainly because I really like it and want to improve it. I shouldn’t do this. While not perfect, the dungeon is good enough for a blog post and as I used to say in my academic days, “The impact factor of the hard drive is 0.”

Tabaldak’s Geas: However, I DID participate in the Appendix N Jam 2025 and got an entry out there that I was pretty happy with: Tabaldak’s Geas, which is a 23-room dungeon, tersely keyed, a nice list of beasts, and includes a beholder and a Deck of Many Things. Check it out here!

Learn To Paint Miniatures & Play More Wargames

This year, I made significant headway in creating an environment to paint and wargame with more serious intent. Why this interest in wargaming above and beyond that which exists for anyone who plays a fantasy adventure game like Dungeons & Dragons?

The “INQ28” movement has really given me a jolt of creative energy in a way that reminds me of the early OSR scene. This scene is composed of games like Mordheim and Necromunda, which place an emphasis on small skirmish-sized bands fighting it out over ruined landscapes. This aesthetics of ruin share a lot of similarity with the old-school scene. And it even has a Mork Borg varient called Forbidden Psalms 28. Check out on the preminer (free) ‘zines of the scene 28 and a really cool creator in the space The Gardens of Hecate.

More specifically, I completed two goals here:

Honestly, the zenithal priming looks pretty rad on its own

Painted Villagers: For the Nightwick Abbey con games I ran this year, they set up was each player had two villagers they were trying to use to escape the abbey. I notice grey plastic wasn’t helping the players differentiate, so I worked do get a bunch painted up.

This had the knock-on effect of forcing me to set up a nice painting area with a paint stand, good chair, and a good light. This had been fantastic for allowing me to take advantage of a spare hour to really practice the techniques I have picked up from cons.

I’ve worked on a paint scheme from Stay Frosty and got some really cool models for it. And I’ve worked on another paint scheme from Gardens of Hecate for specters.

Its really relaxing and I get a really grounding sense of accomplishment when I have finished a model. Far better than when I play video games online.

Church of the Immaculate Eraserhead Baby

Mordheim Terrain & Kitbashing: This was completed in the last ~2 weeks. So, if I’m gonna get into narrative wargaming I need some boards to battle over. Sure I could just throw some stuff on the table, but I thought I could put a little effort toward building my own stuff. So I found this great video on $7 terrain from Summon Lesser Maker

Its been awesome! I was able to easily put together something cool with literal cardboard, popsicle sticks, and hotglue in about 3 total hours, but also can see how I can cut time down now that I have a better idea how to do it.

How To Kill A Party In 30 Rooms Or Less

The surprise of this year was working on Designing Dungeons with the creator of His Majesty the Worm Josh McCrowell. It was nice to work on a project to help advance the scene in terms of help maintain dungeons at the center of fantasy adventure gaming bit via a d20 or “d78”.

The project was kicked off by recognizing that while there were many different resources on being a game master, few of them really dung into what makes dungeons work. Furthermore, there were really 0 resources that were easy to access (free) that help people understand how to make a playable dungeon in just a few steps. A lot of this information is spread across many different blog posts. Easy to find if you know the scene, much harder if you are just starting out. Many kudos to Josh who was the engine behind this!

A related surprise was being asked to be on the Direct Sun podcast featuring Puzzle Dungeons! Also a really cool experience and wonderful to get an opportunity to rep the Dungeon Design course as well as hopefully provide a useful perspective to designing getting their own creation out into the world. Its a nice series to check out!

The Horrid Halls of Nightwick Abbey

Of course, I won’t close a review of 2025 without reflecting on the fantastic experience that is Miranda’s Nightwick Abbey. As a player, I have now delved this devil-besotted place 137 times. As a DM, I have run it for 46 sessions. Still one of the best megadungeons out there, and if this blog piques your interest in this hell-haunted place, then get thee to the Patreon!

NEW BUSINESS

So how do I frame 2026?

• Finish keying Dyson’s eastern third of Winter Tombs as a Dolmenwood-themed dungeon

  • Run it as a “Friday Night” Family & Friends D&D game

  • Post it here on the blog as an example of “playable but not perfect.”

• Complete a full 2 X 2 wargame board; that’s four 1x1 boards

• Paint a skirmish band (5 dudes + 1 “dog”)

• Play a game of Forbidden Psalms 28 mixed with Mordheim

• Run a game of Daisy Chainsaw

• Run a game of Stay Frosty

• Post 52 times in 2026, which is at least 1/week

• Get the “wine dungeon” published in some form

Cheers! 🥂