The Homebrew that keeps Growing...

The year was 2016. 

I had only been playing D&D for about two, maybe three years at this point and something interesting occurred.

I. Had. An. IDEA!!!

It was very vague still. There were going to be these heroes who have lived long lives and then died. Then they're going to come back while only slowly regaining their memories and it's going to be a big, great thing. I had only two settlements in mind, no pantheon, no map and it all was... not quite glued together. 

It's from this half-assed campaign that I attempted an email story game. It didn't last long but it began solidifying the things in my mind. And then it faltered in the same year... turns out time zones suck. Plus I had never run a play-by-post game and never been in one and it probably sucked. haha 😉

As the years moved on, the idea grew and reformed. Why take away their memories when you have that backstory to mine from? Why not have a character in a level 1 body with a level 15 mindset? 

I started running Dragon Heist online and the idea kept percolating in the back of my mind.

And then I started playing on Inkarnate and Roll20 and the Cartographer's Guild icons on there and a half-assed map was born.

The early version map of Rheas (2021)

I started documenting the progress here on this blog and yeah... it's spiralled and grown into one helluva ride. I feel my map making skills have improved and the story also began shifting into something more concrete. I attempted a couple of game runs (going on four so far, with only two surviving) and throughout, the lore kept accumulating and I haven't scratched the surface of this world that I'm creating. 

A portion of Rheas (2023)

And now, as the year 2023 too quickly draws to a close, I've hit the milestone of 40 sessions with the South Africans... I don't know how that happened. We've explored maybe 30% of the island/continent(?) of Ocruan. I'm both excited and daunted by the thought of churning out more content. I have it in my head somewhere, but getting it to spill onto paper is sometimes quite challenging. Maps are easier to make, I've found. 

Anyway, I felt to document it here. I am excited at my little homebrew that could. It keeps going despite setbacks and is growing into a rich experience that I am enjoying thoroughly.