52

 I've stumbled in the last steps of my sprint to complete my 52nd blogpost of the year. A moderate sickness of aches and headaches is making long stretches looking at the computer tiring, and it's hard to focus on composition for the hive dungeon I've been working on in the hopes that it could be my 52nd. Rather than fall just shy of an arbitrary goal I've set myself, I've decided to give out some thank yous and do some surface-level reflections on the year.

A year ago, I was in the latter stages of a wild west OSE duet game with my husband, and when that ended, we played Traveller for a few months and then started a very intricate game of Vampire the Masquerade which I should write about more some time. I was losing hard in my brother's renaissance noble family intrigue play-by-post. I was about to start running Gem Quest, a Deltora-like regioncrawl that used Hilander's Lost Fable rules. That same group proved the nucleus for a game of Mythic Bastionland, run by Hilander, which I have much enjoyed. And all that time, my in-person Endless Eons OSE game has been going strong, with the party rising to prominence in the kleptocracy of Dansa through graft and daring. My October was swallowed by Cataphracts.

Notably, I didn't play much GLoG at all! I'm still in Locheil's Ashes to Ashes play-by-post, and I was in a few very lively one-shots. It is my hope to get to play more GLoG in-person, either running something or enticing Regalia to run his Lizard Lords of Zapotec for me. Or something.

2025 has been a year of much hardship for many. Foul omens and cruel words have been the signal of the age. But it's easy for me to be hopeful because I get to know so many creative and kind people. It's just so sweet that people have seen my work and put it in their games, or wrote a response or spin-off. I'm not going to be overly saccharine, but the OSR people have been really good to me, and I appreciate it.

May we remember Alex well. May we do good and learn. May we be grateful. Happy new year.