Origins 2026 Photodump

In no particular order, here are some pics I took at Origins.

This is Matt from Forever Stoked Creative and his shirt is dope!

The Columbus Pride parade was Saturday and locals decorated the Arnie stature in front of the GCC.

Brandon from Wet Ink Games is such a great human being. Love him!

If you love 80's/90's sleeze, you HAVE to check out Brian Shutter's work.

Doug Schute is an aspiring force of positivity in the gaming space. 

With signs like this, its easy to see why I love Wet Ink Games.

Edwin Mullavey is an amazing artist and GM I met through Lurking Fears a few years back.

This gargoyle at the Mythic Legions booth is so cool.

I brought a lot of props from my personal collection for my Honk Legions game.

This is James, aka Jimmy D. He's an artist and geek I've been friends with since 7th grade. Love this guy. 

It was wonderful seeing Mr. Dragonbane himself, Jonathon Myhre.

Justin Sirois is a friend and inspiration. It was so cool to see himi again and meet his family.

Mike and Andy from Limitless Adventures are real class acts. They are the reason I've been able to go to Origins the past few years.

I spent so much money on 1st and 3rd party Pirate Borg stuff from this booth.

Caught Matt from Wet Ink Games and Brian from Creature Curation filming a game jam vid.

My kid and I before we left for the con Wednesday. I was so happy we went to Origins together this year.

Origins 2026

Only had a few pre-scheduled posts this past week due to arthritis pain in my hand. I still have a little  swelling and pain, but I can type again. 

We're about a month away from Origins Game Fair and I'm getting psyched. Unlike the last few years, I will be attending the entire con. While I didn't get a convention center connected room, I have booked a nice room at a nearby hotel. Thanks to my friends at Limitless Adventures, once again I'll be going as an exhibitor. Stop by their booth and say hi. I'll also be running short sessions of their upcoming game. I believe this will be the first time its ran at a con.

I'm also running two sessions of 5e for my friends at Lurking Fears. If you want some crazy clown action sign up for one of my sessions of The Crooked Moon: The Honk Legion. It should be an absolute blast.

I'm excited to roll dice and see friends I only get to see at cons. Will I see any of your wonderful faces there?

Frogmen and Wrasslin'

I haven’t really posted this week because I started my job Monday. I think I’m going to like it. In other awesomeness, I’ve also found a place to move into next month. That should mean regular gaming will occur. This past weekend I attended the fifth annual Loveland Frogman Festival and GCW Presents “So Alive." I had a fantastic time at both. I spent most of my Frogman time hanging out with Eric and Josh from Bloat Games. They are the best and it's always a wonderful time when I get to see them. My friend Holly of Holly Who Art was also there (and a sponsor). I also got to see my friends Creep It Real. Check out their Frogman songs.

I probably spent too much, but I snagged some cool stuff. Y'all know I love public domain supers and I finally had a chance to grab a physical copy of one. I've not done Dracula stats, but now I have too. I also grabbed another Savage Dragon issue I didn't have. While it took me a a second to understand how to read them, I also grabbed some really cool oversized cryptid d6's from P House Games.

I also picked up some cool cryptid figures from Archie McPhee. They are perfect for D&D and other tabletop games. Here they are with a few D&D minis and some Archie McPhee glowing zombies I picked up a few months ago.

After visiting Loveland (near Cincy) I headed home and then made my way to Columbus to watch a Game Changer Wrestling show. I won't go too much into it, but I will say I had an amazing time! In addition to badass wrestling there were wrestling zombies and circus clowns. Oh and an entire ballroom full of people singing Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus.

So yeah, I had an awesome weekend. It was a great way to end my birthday week.

Origins 2025 and 15 Years At The Halls

The 50th Origins Game Fair is currently happening. While I was unable to do the whole con, I was able to attend yesterday. I thought I'd share some pics and highlights.

I was able to attend this year because of the Andy and Mike from Limitless Adventures.  I spent most of the day hanging out at their booth and laughing. I also had dinner with them and Eric Bloat and his delightful wife, Jaime. After dinner I ran the DCC adventure The Arwhich Grinder. It was fun and ended with a stupid TPK. 

It was fantastic to see Justin from Severed Books. It's been 3 or 4 years since I saw him last. While I didn't buy too much at the con, all of my money was spent on Justin's art and the wooden minis Severed Books has released. I've wanted some of these minis for a while and now that I have them, I need more. 

I always have to give a shout out to my fam at Wet Ink Games. Brandon and Matt are fantastic dudes. They are intelligent, creative, and kind. I truly appreciate the "No Nazis At The Table" sticker. These cats have never been afraid of offending folks that need to be offended. Plus, they had my friend Edwin working their booth and running games for them. 

Also as you probably guess from the title, my first post was 15 years ago today. There have been many times when posting has been sparse and best, but I'm happy that I still create and share on here. 

Goatman Festival 2023

My trip started later than I expected, but I made it down to Louisville for the inaugural Goatman Festival this past weekend. I met up with the Bloat crew (Eric, Jaime, and Josh) at the festival the first night. We hung out for a bit, worked the Bloat Games table and then headed out when it started raining that night. Eric and Jaime were kind enough to let me crash out their place for the weekend. 

Before heading to the event on day two we did a few stops. They showed me Butcher Cabin Books, which is a horror book store in the Highlands (artsy) area in Louisville. I've been wanting to check it out since I saw my friend Dieter post about it a while back. It was actually the shop's 1 year anniversary.  They had a Barbie photo op and I regret not getting a picture, especially because I was in my Bloody Appalachia shirt. We then checked out a really cool oddities shop called Unorthodox. I love supporting small businesses and the weird, so I picked up some goodies at both.

We then picked up Josh (the other core member of the Bloat Games crew) and went to Louisville's biggest barcade, RecBar. We talked about upcoming projects (like Camp Blood which is currently on Kickstarter). Many of the items were pop culture themed. They even had item called the Demogorgonzola. I went with the Porky's Totchos and they were amazing. It took me three sittings to finish them.

Eric took me on a brief driving tour of the real world Jeffersontown. I got to the the inspiration for game locations like Jeffersontown High School, The Ridge apartments, the Pope Lick Trestle, and more.

We spent a majority of day 2 at the festival, hanging out and working the Bloat Games table. It was cold and windy, but we had a great time. I got to meet Holly, an fantastic local artist. She will be doing art for an upcoming DP&D project (not sure if I can say what one). I got a button and sticker from her.

I had a lot of cool interactions with the folks from at the festival. I think I do a pretty good job talking about Bloat Games books because I love them so much. One of my favorite interactions was with a young lady and her mom. They were both wearing Ice Nine Kills sweaters/hoodies and I got to geek out about my favorite band. They also told me that the leader singer, Spencer, was super cool with the young lady and a really nice guy. They mentioned another of my musical obsessions, Chris Motionless of Motionless in White, was the same way. I saw a hand-cast resin sculpture by stexe in the Legend of Pope Lick giftshop. Seemed like the perfect Pope Lick Monster mini to me.

We left the festival before it technically ended Saturday night but the weather got nasty. I spent a second night with Eric and Jaime, hung out with them for a bit on Sunday, and then made my way back to Zaneville. On the way I stopped just south of Cincy to see my buddy, Dave "Moon Mutants" Coppoletti. We had some good za and hung out for a few hours.

I had a fantastic weekend. I was definitely tired and sick of driving by the time I got home Sunday night, but it was all worth it. Eric and Jaime are the sweetest and it was cool to see Josh too. I plan on making it back down for NerdLouvia 23 and River City Con (which will be hosted by the folks that do CinCityCon). Honestly, I think my only regrets are not getting a pick of the Pope Lick Trestle during the day and not taking any pics with the Bloat Games crew. I'll have do that next time.

Origins 2023 Recap

I had an excellent time at Origins this year. Figured I'd do a recap with pictures.

I ran 8 four hour sessions with Lurking Fears. These cats are amazing. They're friendly and just all around amazing GM's. Initially known for running Call of Cthuthlu, the group has expanded and we run games for several publishers including Chaosium, Wet Ink Games, Free League, Bloat Games, Mongoose Publishing and a few others. We also let our players vote for session MVP's which allows them to pick some great prizes donated by our sponsors. We are also an open and inclusive group. 

I ran six different adventures over the course of the con (using 5 different systems). My Wasted session was awesome. The group had a blast even if one was turned into a moonshine drinking zombie. The Arwhich Grinder is always a blast. I had folks that played in my session last year bring it up when the say me. A few folks in my session were from (near) back home, which was cool. They even got my email address and stuff so they could look for my games next year. I didn't run my planned Dark Places and Demogorgons adventure (because I'm bad and haven't finished it), but I did run two session of the upcoming DP&D OSE adventure Yer Gonna Need A Bigger Boat. Both groups had a lot of fun and one of them fell in love with the game, which is really why we run things. I also ran two sessions of a new to me game, Necrobiotic. It's a fascinating game that I don't think I can do justice here. Check out the games page and expect a review in the future. I was gifted a physical copy of the book and am looking forward to diving into it. I ran one session of Survive This!! Zombies! 2nd Edition. I used the old All Flesh Must Be Eaten adventure, Coffee Break of the Living Dead. I had an amazing group that come up with some great tactics I'd never seen before. My final session was Valor Knights: Chaos at the Hooper Dam. Going to be honest, it wasn't good. I didn't remember the rules as well as I thought I did and got my times confused and ended the session early. Most of the players still seemed to have a good time, but it was definitely the black mark on my gaming record (and the surveys we do show that).

Honestly, the highlight of the convention is always seeing friends that I normally only get to see at places like Origins. My Lurking Fears fam is amazing, but I also got to hang out with Matt and Brandon from Wet Ink Games, Dieter and Judge Jen from Goodman Games, and even had dinner with the two handsome gents from Limitless Adventures.

Speaking of Limitless Adventures, I had them sign my copy of Carbide City #1. 

I had a pretty decent haul (and didn't spend nearly as much as the images make it look like).

• Three smaller DCC releases from Breaker Press Games: two tri-fold encounters for their Stennard setting and a new class
• The Hangman's Garden DCC monogram, honestly mainly just snagged it because my dude Dieter wrote it
• A collection of amazing looking Magic the Gathering tokens from a local Columbus artist, Andrew Thompson. 
• I snagged the last copy of the DCC Free RPG Day adventure thanks to Judge Jen.
• Already talked about Horror: A Roleplaying Game and will review The Diner soon.
• Snagged several Free RPG Day books, including Dragonbane, which I knew nothing about but am super stoked for and will be posting about soon. 
• The Horror at Fort Orc'igin is a 5e tournament style adventure by DMDave Publishing that was an Origins 2023 exclusive and (obviously) inspired by The Thing. I plan on reviewing it at some point.
• Mork Corp was described by the author as the worst Mork Borg zine ever, so I got. When characters die they go to Mork Corps, an infernal company. There's content. It's funny. No Country For Old Kobolds was a free book I got for buying the zine. It's a Powered By The Apocalypse game I'm donating to the campus Nerd Club.
• I love Pirate Borg. Grabbed a tri-fold navel encounter and a map/adventure for the system. Also snagged the 5e version of game's bestiary because I love 5e pirate stuff. 

• I've had the pdf of Teenage Mutant Dirtbags for a bit, but wanted it in print. I love TMNT and the game is simple and fun. Also got a preview of the Storypath Ultra from Studio 2 Publishing when I snagged it. 
• Had to get my Origins d6. Also grabbed the GoeyCube business card which is also a 5e item card.
• Ultra Pro released some legendary dragon stat cards for Free RPG Day. 
• I know have two different Doug Shute trading cards. Doug is the US Free League Con guy and runs Victory Condition Gaming.
• More Free RPG Day stuff. I love that there's a Transformers/GI Joe crossover adventure. 
• Finally I love patches and got the 2023 exclusive Vast Grimm patch. 

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So yeah, my Origins 2023 rocked. Can't wait for next year's!

My Origins Event Schedule

If you're attending Origins next week, you should hop into one of my games. There are several open spots in each event. For more information about the con head here.

Origins 2022

My plans were somewhat last minutes as far as deadlines are concerned, but I've decided I am going to Origins this year. I'm going to experience the con in a new way. Instead of just going to play and shop, I'm going to be GM'ing eight four hour sessions for Lurking Fears. I'll post my schedule when it's finalized but it looks like I'm going to be running the following:

Never Going Home - The Lamps (3 sessions) - Going to be honest, while I know Never Going Home and the adventure is in the core book, I'm not sure what this adventure is about. LF run con games for a few companies and my friends at Wet Ink Games (Never Going Home's publisher) asked if they could run some games. The con is in June so I have plenty of time to learn more.

Dungeon Crawl Classics - The Arwich Grinder (3 sessions) - I've talked about this 0-level funnel before. I think it's my favorite written for DCC and I've ran it a few times. It's gory, gross, and a blast.

Country Meat-Grinder Classics - The Hellson Horror (2 sessions) - CMGC is hicksploitation DCC and I'm all about that. I haven't actually ran this one, but it seems like a blast and Tim Snider did a great job with the adventure. I may add some Country Crawl Classics elements to it.

Anyone else heading to Origins this summer? 

Gonna Get My Cob On?

After some discussion and contemplation, I've decided that my first convention since the onset of the global bastard will be Con on the Cob 2021. I'm a bit hesitant because of the rise in Covid rates. We probably wouldn't be seeing said rates if (medically able) people would just get the vaccine. I may reconsider my attendance once the con gets closer, but as of now, I'm going.

I love Con on the Cob. It's a weird gaming party full of freaks, geeks, and some of the most welcoming and accepting people I've ever met. 

I'm really excited to hang out with my friends at Bloat Games. Eric, Josh, and newly appointed official BG GM, Matt will all be in attendance. I definitely want to sign up for some of Matt's games when they get on the schedule. I might also run some DCC. 

Con on the Cob 2019 - Part II

You can read my overview of the Con itself here.

I ran five four hour sessions at Con on the Cob. I had a lot of fun and started losing my voice by the last session. Here's a breakdown of the sessions I ran.

Thursday

The Return of Reverend Pancake (Dark Places & Demogorgons)

Source

A group of teens in southern Ohio decide to get revenge on some bullying jocks. Unfortunately one of the jocks accidentally resurrects a puritanical zombie preacher (statted for DCC here). The premise behind this session and the setting were based on my hometown. The highlights of the session were when the nerd built a hard pretzel cannon (because he thought pretzels were the best source of salt) and the karate kid said they needed to get a boombox with Iron Maiden - 2 Minutes to Midnight because undead are weak against "pure metal."

Friday

After School Special (Vigilante City)
For this session I used premade VC characters and the pamphlet adventure Ninja Beat'Em Up!. I had a group of seven vigilantes but they were definitely challenged by the massive number of ninjas (though it probably helped that I was rolling like shit). One thing I noticed while running is that the super-soldier, mutant, and true vigilante seemed to be doing the most in the game (the first two because of their powers and the third because she kept critting). Still everyone had fun. I think if I run it again (and I'd like to), I'll make sure that all characters are non-powered.

Road Crew: The Arwich Grinder (Dungeon Crawl Classics)
A naked large man collapses and dies in an inn in the village of Arwich while grasping the bonnet of a local teen. Brave townsfolk must brave the weather and investigate, owing their lives to the family. This is a Lovecraftian funnel that I've ran before (notes here). However, this time it didn't go as expected at all! While some were injured, no characters died in this funnel. Not only that, but they took all of the cult family members alive to be tried, and killed Junior and the Sending of Sliggeth. It was an amazing session, but no one was ground but the horrific monstrosities. My friend from Columbus, Robert, played in this session too, which made it extra fun.

Saturday

Road Crew: Leopard Women of Venus (Dungeon Crawl Classics)
The Humanoid Coalition recruited grunts from the various human tribes on Venus for an importation mission. The setting is coming to Kickstarter soon and you can read more about it here. I loved it and wanted to show it off. Josh gave me his notes from the after hours GenCon session of Leopard Women of Venus game he ran and I used those and my pre-Kickstarter zine to run the session. Most of the group was made up of the red meat eating, gun-toting, God-loving Otram. The most memorable character was little Billy. He was a displaced human school kid whom the Otram adopted. Billy gained a shotgun during the adventure and used it to take out quite a few foes, before his unfortunate death by animated Martian pudding.

Road Crew: Glow-H-I-O The Museum at the End of Time (Mutant Crawl Classics)
My original plan was to run an original funnel for my new Ohio-based MCC setting. I didn't get it finished though, so I ran The Museum at the End of Time instead. I had another large group (seven players total). We had some experienced MCC and DCC players, a couple that had never played the systems, and one player than had never played a tabletop rpg before. I have to say this was my favorite session of the whole con. Everyone got into character as their primitive tribesman. There were some interesting deaths and and I even had one character who ascended to godhood and became the Star Child.

Swag
I also wanted to show off the non-Cob Crate swag I picked up. I grabbed four of these Grimtooth D6'
s. I love the character, want to use him more, and it also seemed fitting after the recent passing of Rick Loomis. I also grabbed several fan-made Critical Role buttons, because I'm a critter and I liked them. I didn't get all of the characters, but I grabbed my favorites (and a cool Zombae button).

Con on the Cob 2019 - Part I

This past weekend I attended my first Con on the Cob. The small convention is the brainchild of artist, Andy Hopp. His unique art style and kind spirit can be felt throughout the con. It's definitely different than a big convention like Origins or mega con like Gen Con. The badges for CotC are only 45 at the door. Unlike other conventions, the price of admission gets you free access to all non-charity games and events. In addition there is a room with soda and snacks throughout the entire con. Also, while I didn't partake because I had my 10 year old with me, this also gets you free booze after 9:00 pm. That actually leads me into my next observation. This is a gaming and partying convention. After nine o'clock things get crazy. There's drinking, drag and burlesque shows, drunken drawing, and parties galore (this year there was a Cthuluau and Spellhammer'd). Honestly, I think this really contributes to the general good atmosphere at the con. Folks are just there to have a good time and enjoy that with other people.

If you go with your family there are still things to do. The hotel has an indoor pool, playground, putput golf, and there are Children of the Cob events scheduled every hour of the day. My boy had quite a bit of fun. Kids can also participate in other games as long as they meet the GM's age requirement. They also have access to the vendor's hall. The hall wasn't big and I'd say there were less than 50 vendors total. Indie Press Revolution had a booth, as did a few other small game publishers. Most of the vendors were artists and crafters. I saw some really cool stuff and my son bought some art.

The convention isn't the most organized. Seems that there are still things being done day of. Because of the folks involved and the size of the con, that didn't seem to bother me much.

If you want to earn credit for your following year's con or get extra money in the vendor's hall you can sign up to run games. For every hour you run you get a Cob Coin. If you register your events early you get a bonus coin if you run a 4 hour session. At one point Andy would let you attend free for running games, but after year's of abuse of that system, the Cob Coin system has been implemented.

The hotel itself wasn't exactly the nicest, but for 100 bucks a night, it wasn't bad. I will let folks in on a little insider knowledge I gained from a friend. While Andy and folks want you to book a room at the hotel itself, if you book at the Super 8 Motel diagonally access the street you can stay for half the price. My friend said that hotel was even a bit nicer, to be honest.