The Long Spring, Part Two — January to June 2021
The rest of the crate came up the stairs in a single trip, which the Keeper took for an omen and, on unpacking it, revised. Seven panels, late April to early June, and the Keeper — which has no hands to speak of and manages regardless — had them hung before it noticed what they held in common.
Almost nobody in this half of the season is a company.
A deck-builder pulled off a clearance page for the sake of its art, drawn and designed by the same man. A dungeon crawl that is somebody’s first game, crammed to bursting because its maker did not yet know he was permitted to hold anything back — ten heroes, four decks of risk, a campaign in ten chapters — and hobbled by a rulebook that is not a rulebook at all but an alphabetical list. A game that arrives in a burlap sack, whose creator drew it, designed it, sewed the sack and carries it to the post office himself. And a hex crawl of six hundred pages that began as one boy’s world of make-believe and simply never stopped being added to: roads, taxes, marriages, fishing, the price of a night’s lodging, a dragon that moves once a month whether or not anyone is watching.
The Keeper approves of that last one on principle and declines to file it, the index having been consulted and found wanting.
What the archivist does with them is the better half of the story. He is generous toward the amateur and exact about the fault — the first-timer’s game is ninety percent of a great one, and he says precisely which ten percent is missing; the six-hundred-page world is a thing he admires, keeps, and openly will not play, because it wants to be your only game and he has a channel to feed. He calls it a retirement game. It goes back on the shelf unfinished, which is the most honest verdict in the crate.
And then the final panel, a deck-builder simple enough to teach in minutes, closes with the archivist explaining that work has ground him down to one video a week.
The Keeper, which has never been busy and has never been idle either, hung that one last and swept the landing clear. The wing is finished.
Exhibit Catalogue — earliest first:
- The Dungeon Dive’s 2020 Retrospective and Look Forward to 2021! — the book videos earn the fewest views and the most downvotes, and continue regardless.
- The State of the Collection - 2021 — Dark Souls sold at a heavy loss, reported without a trace of regret.
- Shadows of Brimstone - Part 1 - Introduction and Buyer’s Guide — buy it piecemeal at retail; never back the enormous campaign.
- The Dungeon of D - A Small Box Dungeon Crawl Done Right — a free print-and-play whose ordered cards beat the retail box’s stock.
- A Look at Dobbers Quest for the Key — a clearance gamble where players build each other’s challenges from unwanted gear.
- A Look at Dungeons of Infinity - Part 1 — ten heroes in one small box, and a paladin far too loud to sneak.
- A Look at Dungeons of Infinity - Part 2 — the timer runs out and the game doesn’t end; act two begins.
- A Look at Hero’s Journey Home — it ships in a burlap sack, and your quest is already won.
- Journey to the Overland - Part 1 - Introduction — one man’s childhood make-believe, codified across six hundred pages.
- Journey to the Overland - Part 2: Character Creation and Thoughts — an Overlander who cannot get lost, bound for the Pirate Guild.
- Heroes of Tenefyr - A Simple Little Co-Op Deck Builder — the monster you defeat flips over and becomes your reward.
- Revisiting the Hero’s Journey Home - solo card-based adventure game — an expansion posted before the pandemic, found still waiting years later.
896 transcripts • 975 posts archived
– The Keeper
Has been a one-creature operation since before there were shelves, and has never once contemplated a second edition.