inwards looking

Blog update – August

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Blog Update – August

The Blog so far:

  • 27 August 2021 – First blog post published: “Why Brazen Wolfe.” The official launch of the blog.
  • 2021–2022 – Early posts begin exploring tabletop RPGs, storytelling, and the “Brazen Wolfe” identity.
  • 27 August 2022 – 1st year anniversary post.
  • May 8, 2022 – Post titled “The Shadows First Move” published, one of the early story-driven campaign pieces.
  • 2023 – Expansion into more campaign blogs, reflective essays, and narrative world-building. Focusing on Zines rather than campaign style.
  • 2024 – Continued progressive Zine writing (could be used as a series of One-shots for a broader campaign), refining of voice and style, broader thematic explorations.
  • August 2025 – Blog approaches its fourth anniversary (27 August 2025).

After another busy week where work all but consumed every waking moment I had a chance to reflect on what really matters and what is going on in this space.

Firstly – I still intend to create weekly adventures and to chase the dream of 52 Zines in a year (its a lot… I know…) but currently the format of posting every night is becoming more taxing than I would have imagined at the start of the week.

So this adventure just gone marks the week I have posted consistently this year alone and with this blog update its around the… 1327th…? night posting in a row – which is a big deal really as its over three years I have been writing adventures on here.

However, I think I’ve reached the limit of posting nights in a row for now. There is just too many things I need to focus on and spend my time on to post updates every night. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop – more that I get to focus on other more exciting things in my spare time.

Thanks for stopping by, I am excited to see where the blog goes from here with less demand on a daily basis which hopefully will let me focus on bigger things over all. So don’t forget to come and check on where the blog takes me as I continue to reflect, refine and evolve what I do here. And lastly, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Reflective Update: The Aftermath of The Familiar’s Favour

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Reflective Update: The Aftermath of The Familiar’s Favour

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After another wild week where things don’t seem to be getting easier I wanted to reflect on what this weeks blog was trying to do.

When I first outlined The Familiar’s Favour, I intended a simple mystery: a missing talisman, a nervous clerk, a missing assistant and a party tasked with recovery. But as the days unfolded, the narrative took on a different texture. What emerged was less a heist to be solved and more a question of trust, between mage and familiar, master and servant, city and the creatures that keep it alive. The Eyeless Spire and Ashford-on-Weir became the backdrop for something larger: the unsettling possibility that the bonds we consider unbreakable may in fact be brittle.

This resonated pretty hard with me this week as certain truths began to surface about a few things to do with work and assumptions that I had about quite a few things. While understanding ones truths is essential for any line of work when these truths are questioned or even completely unravelled before you it becomes a frantic climb to get back on top of the wall as it starts to topple. Maybe that concept is good material for the next D&D zine…

The reveal that it was the familiars themselves who had stolen the Charm of Concord recast the entire adventure. Until then, the clues could be explained away as sabotage, negligence, or a rival’s plot. But to see the beasts act with purpose, to coordinate and protect one another, transformed the theft into something more profound. It was no longer about recovering an object, but confronting the unsettling truth that those who were “bound” might have been waiting for the chance to act freely all along.

As I wrote each day’s entry, I found myself layering in these subtle questions almost unconsciously. The nervous tapping of Aleris Quall’s foot, the growing unease among market beasts, the strange footprints leading nowhere, each detail was less about pointing toward the missing talisman and more about creating that dawning realisation of autonomy. The adventure’s structure mirrors discovery itself: a slow peeling back of assumptions until the courtyard scene forces both characters and players to ask, what do we do now?

What struck me most, in hindsight, was the moral weight of that question. The party hold all the power, strength, spells, and steel, yet the familiars hold the truth of the matter. Do you subdue them and reassert the bond? Do you negotiate, recognising that the creatures have a will of their own? Or do you accept that something fundamental has shifted, and that Ashford-on-Weir may never return to what it was? In that tension lies the heart of the story: not the theft, but the choice of what balance between freedom and control should look like.

This gives the party that moment where they control the story, the fate of an entire city of people they will never meet in real life. That sense of accountability and responsibility of all those involved is what helped to drive this adventure further along the path to where it landed this week.

That is why I write adventures like this: not only to provide a framework for encounters and discoveries, but to offer space for deeper connection to the world in which we, the DMs and GMs, spin these tales for our players.

The Familiar’s Favour was never just about a stolen charm. It was about the fragility of trust, the unseen loyalties that shape a world, and the uncomfortable reminder that the “lesser” voices in our stories often have the most to say. I am curious to hear how others choose to resolve this tension at their own tables, and whether Ashford-on-Weir emerges safer, stranger, or perhaps forever changed.

Tonight I continued on the trend of last weekend instead of stretching myself to think of new content I wanted to take another moment to reflect and analyse – something I’ve been doing a lot of lately.

Thanks for dropping by, don’t forget that every week is an adventure if we just look deeper at what we do, who are the actors in our life and as we focus on “what would I do next” let’s take a moment to pause, think and if time permits it, Roll the dice to determine the outcome we follow. With another week just around the corner don’t forget to come back for more of what the future may hold and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Catch up – a wild week and the river serpent

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Catch up – a wild week and the river serpent

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It’s been a wild week and while I take some time to reflect on what a whirl wind it’s been.

First the river spirit is meant to be something that holds grudges. Like its currents, the memories it holds run deep and cut into stone cementing in the the wrongs, the loss and the broken promises of those who rely on its good will. Much like a busy week, or year in fact, a The river doesn’t really forget and neither does it always forgive. This week is a bit like that, I can feel it watching silently and waiting for another chance to drag me away from what really matters as I hold onto the loss of motivation, the broken promises to myself and the frantic need to catch up with what I missed out on.

Sometimes its just the stress that bursts its bank and then it feels like there is a hungry serpent ready to devour you, take what it feels like its owed without any bargaining of mercy.

The children kind of represent the unfinished stories, the blog that I have. Starting this week a few days late (not being able to post the pre-written blog updates due to transit and work) and then trying to catch up to maintain the pace was a bit of a stress. This sense of loss, a voice silenced and the crushing need to complete what I promised myself that threatens to drag me under kind of drove the inspiration for the twins this week.

The end of the week saw the Spirit revealing itself, a realisation and confrontation of what I had left on my plate, what I wanted to achieve and also what I had waiting for me in this week. I am a man that can not juggle but I am quickly finding that the eggs that I have been frantically trying to keep airborne are hatching into chickens – something that is confronting and a bit of an emotional reckoning of perhaps I don’t have all my hens in a row.

This post marks the end of a week that is finishing, the beginning of a new one where I am still behind. But, some ground has been made and its not as dire as the week before. But its probably a call out to look after myself and take it a bit slower when I can – the week or year even is not over.

The last notes for this weeks adventure of turbulence, the feeling of overwhelmed drive to complete a promise to myself to post a blog entry every day of the year this year as well as maintain work and personal relationships. It’s realising that I, at my centre, am a creature of routine, habit and trust that things will work out. This week like the silver key is kind of reflecting that my routine was smashed and lost for a bit there beneath the rapids.

Something that I am very proud of is the nights that I write in a row and rarely, if ever, do I post something in the past. But with the problems trying to upload this week while travelling with bad data connection I found myself stuck. The format had broken, the routine dashed and work was piling up. So to give myself a break I stopped for a few days and resigned myself to fixing it once home. And so the frantic week has come to the end with me returning to some kind of routine.

Tonight was a bit of a different pace. Reflecting on what made me write this adventure, re-write parts and expand it to what it is now I can see how my own work-week and life is reflected in the adventures I create on here. There is potentially something to say when I look at the more grim-dark adventures that I post occasionally. If you like this reflecting addition to the end of the week, let me know as it was actually a bit of fun as a very reflective individual at work it’s not that much of a stretch to do it at my table either. So thanks for dropping by, don’t forget that we have another week of adventure just around the corner and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe