2025 has been a mixed year for me but here goes1.
My creative output this year has not been great but I was expecting that, given my health and potential for exhaustion. It meant my writing had to take a back seat for a while. Despite this, I haven’t done too badly.
Workload
I indexed quite a few books as well as getting some RPG writing done. This year saw publication of Achtung! Cthulhu: the Darkest Day (Modiphius), Achtung! Cthulhu: Operation Oberon (Modiphius), the 3-part StokerVerse Castle Dracula campaign (Nightfall) and Musketeers vs. Cthulhu (Nightfall). I also did the yearly Halloween Horrors for Achtung! Cthulhu, as well as the free mission, Containment Breach. The latter was – very – loosely based on the now-shuttered and soon-to-be-demolished Rosslynlee Hospital south of Edinburgh. I’ve updated my portfolio as a result.
In the case of Musketeers vs. Cthulhu, there was a pleasant surprise. Nominated for Best Writing in the industry’s ENnie awards, it did a fantastic job for my self-esteem and gave my impostor syndrome a good kicking. I didn’t win and there are those out there who could say the ENnies is a popularity contest anyway but it did a fantastic job on building my self-esteem. I’ve been complimented that “[my] work is a joy to edit”. I completed work on the second volume of Musketeers vs. Cthulhu and Nightfall is aiming for a Kickstarter campaign in the New Year for that entitled “All the Cardinal’s Men“.
I recently finished work on a collection of new horrors for Achtung! Cthulhu, hopefully published next year. I’m currently working on another project for Nightfall, and a side project of my own; a sci-fi setting, using the Free League Year 0 Engine.
It’s been quite a challenge this year to balance the writing and the day job – both are intellectually demanding, and ME-CFS means I have to be very careful with my energy levels. I’ve crashed with a few flare up’s this year. I’ve also scaled back my GMing of games. I ran a brief D&D campaign and also a Scotland-based Call of Cthulhu campaign – both were well-received but I felt burnt-out.
Community
I’ve been a lot less involved in the latter quarter of the year. ORC is still around although there’s a lot less traffic there his year. Still keeping it open for now and the ORC discord is still available for GMs and players. Still hate how Discord has pretty much killed community forums! At the Roleplay Haven Edinburgh Branch AGM in July I decided to not to stand again as Branch Manager. Also stood down as a volunteer. There are simply too much demands on my health, and I’d had an ME flare at UKGE. I’m not GMing at the moment so there’s been less demand on my time.
I had a nightmare time finding venues for RPH after we got a “we’re closing next week” bombshell dropped on us from our venue (not the first time it’s happened, either). That elevated my stress levels considerably. I’d like ORC to start again with Saturday meetups, perhaps in a venue like Tollcross’ Home bar. I currently don’t have the time or energy to be that guy though.
There’s been a few new games shops open but I’ve yet to have time to visit them, or attend an Indie Gamers meetup – something I’d like to fix next year.
Conventions
I’ve had a pretty quiet year attendance-wise. Joining the RolePlay Haven team at UKGE in Birmingham, I possibly helped get a few branches started. It’s great to catch up with folk but it’s intense and exhausting. I suffered a flare-up while I was there, not helped by various rail hold-ups on the way to Birmingham NEC (including an unexploded bomb). I’m not sure if I can make it to UKGE in future years: it takes a LOT out of me and there’s no way I could run multiple sessions of games to recover the accommodation cost.
I almost went to Dragonmeet this year but again, it’s too expensive and I hate slogging across London. I used to take a first class ticket for the train down and made it a bit of a treat, but the first class service is pretty poor with the new LNER franchise. London hotel prices are also pretty steep at the weekend. Both Dragonmeet and UKGE are THE places to network and/or catch up so I do feel like I may miss out on work as a result.
I didn’t bother with Claymore or Conpulsion this year but am considering Cymera (provide it doesn’t clash with UKGE if I’m going). Never been to Cymera although it leans heavily toward fantasy and SF rather than gaming. Tabletop Scotland, now based at the Royal Highland Show Centre in Ingliston was probably the highlight of my year. I participated in “So you want to be a Freelancer?” (see also https://giantbrain.co.uk/2024/09/22/tabletop-scotland-2024/). I think there’s a recording out there somewhere with me rambling away alongside CJ Gahagan (Rowan, Rook, and Decard), Jon Hodgson (Handiwork Games), and Mairi Nolan (freelance puzzle/escape room designer). Love this convention and it’s a lot friendlier than Dragonmeet. I’ll be a regular.
Edinburgh Roleplaying Archive (ERA)
What should have been a simple idea has become increasingly complex mainly due to my reduced presence in the gaming community, and scope of the project. The cost of maintaining a library on a web platform just doesn’t make financial sense: to run a library inventory software like Koha would require an Ubuntu VPS or AWS. I’d still have to upload the inventory data like a description, system, etc. It’s a mammoth task, wouldn’t be cheap, and I’m not convinced it would see enough use. There’s also the wear and tear on the books – and theft, of course.
It’s got to the stage where my collection is so large I’m not even sure what I have any more. I’m seriously thinking of selling off some of the books some people just won’t be interested in.
My current view is someone pays a deposit and can borrow a book from a list for however long. They get the deposit back (or some of it) when they return the book (or books). I’ll need to draft some T&C too.
The first step is going to be to list all the games I have available, plus their settings and systems. Some are signed copies so won’t be going on the list, others are going to remain in my collection. It’s not a bad start.
Social Media
I killed off my Twitter/X account – well before the majority did – and dallied briefly with Mastodon, Instagram, and Threads before moving to Bluesky (@billheron.bsky.social if you’re interested). Still on Facebook, but it’s barely usable unless you have FB Purity installed. FB is barely any use on the mobile App.
I also choose to merge my themandragora.com domain into my billheron.uk website. There seemed little point running two largely identical WordPress sites with blogs etc. The content is all here (I think) but it was fun moving, tidying some entries, and editing the links!
The Year Ahead
I’ve a few things to consider going forward in 2025:
- Promote/market myself more. I’ve never had to go looking for RPG work but perhaps that’s something I need to fix.
- Finish current projects – notably the Norway project for Achtung! Cthulhu and a couple of others waiting in the wings. Perhaps another Shanghai adventure for Achtung! Cthulhu.
- Get out into the community. Try to get to some of the new games shops and attend a few meetups of Indie Gamers etc.
- Join the British Fantasy Society.
- Attend Cymera (6th-8th June 2025) if I can.
- Develop more ideas and settings, not just for gaming.
- Writing more fiction, perhaps in the Oath of Shadows world. Maybe even look at getting some stuff in Shoreline of Infinity.
- Get ERA working on a basic level.
- Traditionally I did a ramble like this on themandragora.com and orcedinburgh.co.uk websites. Got to love demented footnotes. RIP GNU Terry Pratchett. ↩︎