I Love DnD and Fantasy
My friends and I have been in an epic DnD campaign since 2021. It started as a pandemic-era virtual holiday hang for us to catch up, which then turned into wanting to make it a monthly thing. Soon after, the idea of turning it into a monthly DnD hang was brought up by Peige, and everyone was in, with Peige being a masterful storyteller as DM ever since.
During our several storylines within the larger quest, we've called our party the Blood & Guts Brigade (named after the AEW match and show of the same name—my way of combining my love of DnD with pro-wrestling).
Considering that we all live very different lives, in different counties or countries, single or married, with different obligations and goals, we've stayed surprisingly consistent about making time to play. Sure, a few folks in the campaign have come and gone, but the core six of us, who've known each other for more than a decade, are still going strong.
Not only has DnD kept us all in touch strongly throughout the years, it also has led to some unforgettable memories, such as when 5/6 of us were able to go on an epic southwest road trip in 2022. For me, it was not only my first trip since the pandemic, but also my first big trip with a group of friends. A photo post of this trip is coming to the blog's travel section for sure.
They say the good friends you have in your 30s and 40s are likely the friends you'll have for the rest of your life, and I'd be a lucky guy if that turns out to be true.
Screenshot of a recent battle room on Roll20/Discord. For this post, I replaced everyone's video screens with our character avatars.
My history with DnD goes back a long way. I previously played for a few sessions way back in 2005 or 2006, which consisted of my Target co-worker buddy, his girlfriend, and I going to a small comic book shop in West Covina, where one of the owners would be our DM.
I wouldn't play anything similar again for over 10 years until 2018-2020. It was then where I had a consistent weekly tabletop role-playing game night with some friends during my years living in Beijing. But it wasn't DnD! We played Mage: The Ascension, a supernatural-themed game set in modern day, and Eclipse Phase, which is a science-fiction themed game. I would have preferred a fantasy selection, but it was still a fun weekly hang, usually with takeout food and beers for all.
No matter what game I played, my character was always named Ecniv—read it backwards—whether he was a halfling like in that original comic book shop DnD campaign, or a man with magical powers like in Mage, or a wild, beer-drinking, womanizing, laser-gun toting, anthropomorphic talking-squirrel like in Eclipse Phase. My secret head canon is that these are all part of a multiverse of different Ecnivs with maybe the same soul.
The latest Ecniv of the Blood & Guts Brigade is a return to my halfling roots, now as a rogue. He lost his memory at some point in the past and is on a quest to regain it. In between that, he loves drinking pints wherever he can and talking his way out of fights whenever possible.
Beyond me really enjoying our ongoing story and staying in touch with my friends, playing DnD has re-sparked my love of fantasy. One of the two recent standouts was getting into the anime series Record of Lodoss War last summer, which was originally a manga initially inspired by the manga artist's, Ryo Mizuno, own DnD campaigns. It's something one can totally see considering the main character crew consists of a knight, an elf, a sorcerer, a priest, a rogue, and a dwarf (named Ghim lol). I loved the initial 13-episode OVA and want to continue checking out the other shows set in that world.
I also picked up my first fantasy novel series in years as well, Mistborn. It feels great to be reading these kinds of books again after years of reading other stuff. I grew up on the Narnia novels as a kid and in my 20s, read Harry Potter and REALLY read Tolkien—reading The Hobbit three times and Lord of the Rings twice. I tried to give Kingkiller Chronicles a shot back in 2019, but struggled when it roped me into another magic school storyline. And it seems the author has gone full-George R.R. Martin and is not finishing the series anytime soon.
Brandon Sanderson, however, is known for writing up his works to completion and cooking up well-reviewed books like he was a master chef. And what I find pretty nice about Mistborn is that it hasn't been adapted into any other mediums yet—though with recent news that may change. It also has a cool magic system involving controlling metals, and most importantly: the main protagonist is a girl named VIN.
Brandon Sanderson described the setting of the first Mistborn book as: what if the dark lord archetype in many fantasy books had won and had already ruled the world for over 100 years? The first Mistborn book takes us into that situation, where a cunning thief is gathering a crew for the greatest heist ever into the dark lord's keep, with an additional plan for revenge as well. There are two more books to go in the original trilogy and a second trilogy that is apparently set in a time jump.
Just like the DnD campaign I am part of, I'm excited to be in this world for a while, both with Mistborn and fantasy in general.