![[blog banner.png]] # Grim Tokens: Journeys in the Astra Obscura Grim Tokens is like a book of grudges, with slightly fewer grudges and a lot more mad rambling. Solo and co-op tabletop games, played to whatever end they manage — an epic campaign, a one-shot that went sideways, a dungeon that has killed better people than me — then tortured afterwards and written up while I still remember which dice betrayed me. Long **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Ironsworn: Starforged]]** campaigns, a **[[Five Parsecs from Home]]** crew that keeps making the same mistake and dodging the repo-man, a **[[ShadowDark]]** crawl I might slowly learn to survive, a weird mix of Cthulhu and Rocket Punk if I decide to break out **[[Loner]]**, and a shelf's worth of others. More than thirty years at the table hasn't made me an *authority* on any of it. It has made me opinionated. Possibly grumpy. Definitely cantankerous. It's a blog, because the writing is the point. It's also a wiki, because every game I mention has a page of its own — what it is, how it plays, and whether it's worth your money. The [[thoughts|shorter pieces]] and the [[articles|longer arguments]] live in between. Everything here starts at a table and ends up in "aggressive discussion." ## Recently What's most recently crossed my table, newest first. | Title | Kind | Date | | ------------------------------------------------------------- | ------- | ---------- | | [[For Good or Ill]] | Thought | 2026-10-20 | | [[So Let's Talk About Critical Role and Theater Kids, Then]] | Article | 2026-10-19 | | [[No Scenario Required]] | Thought | 2026-10-17 | | [[Adventures Are Expensive]] | Thought | 2026-10-16 | | [[The Bactrian Camel]] | Thought | 2026-10-13 | | [[D&D Never Worked From a Pacing Standpoint]] | Thought | 2026-10-10 | | [[You Don't Need a Feint Rule]] | Article | 2026-10-09 | | [[What IS Storygaming - Pt IV\|What IS Storygaming? Pt IV]] | Thought | 2026-10-07 | | [[What IS Storygaming - Pt III\|What IS Storygaming? Pt III]] | Thought | 2026-10-03 | | [[What IS Storygaming - Pt II\|What IS Storygaming? Pt II]] | Thought | 2026-10-03 | %% GENERATED — never hand-edited. One merged dated table across Thoughts, Articles and Game Play, newest first (~10 rows), session notes included as first-class entries. Kind: Thought / Article / Session / Play. Date from frontmatter `created`. %% ## Where to Go Almost everyone stumbles in from deeper within — a session, a monster, a moment of illumination. ### On the Table Campaigns and one-shots, dice and all. ![[game-play]] %% Keeping the ![[game-play]] embed: three campaigns, short enough to read as content rather than as an index. %% ### Fresh Ink [[Thoughts]] are the short ones: one idea, lightly explored. There are 200%%{{thoughts}}%% of them. [[articles|Articles]] are the long ones, where the idea gets to sprawl — 239%%{{articles}}%% of those. The multi-part runs are gathered into [[Collections|collections]]: **RPG a Day**, the **Character Creation Challenges**, and a few one-offs of their own. ### The Shelfie Every game with a page in the garden, sorted by what it actually is — **RPGs**, **wargames**, and the adventure-wargame hybrids that refuse to sit still — [[Games|in one index]]. Call it 430%%{{games}}%% of them. %% [[Games]] now exists at `Core/Games.md`, generated by `tools/garden/inject.py`. It groups by category, so the handful of reference notes that aren't games (or aren't tagged as one yet) don't appear in it. %% %% The 200%%{{thoughts}}%% / 239%%{{articles}}%% / 430%%{{games}}%% tokens are filled by the generator, which leaves them in place inside a hidden comment — so the numbers stay live instead of freezing the first time they're written. %% ## Acknowledgements **[Obsidian](https://obsidian.md)**, for making one of the most convenient data archival and presentation systems known to man, plus providing the publish interface. **[Shawn Tomkin](https://tomkinpress.com)** for giving me an excuse to get off my ass and get back to writing. Once in a while. Sometimes. Occasionally. **[The Forge](http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php)**, for accidently making me the man I am today. **[Obsidian Vaults](https://vaults.obsidian-community.com)**, For linking to a variety of exciting and inspiring examples of *Obsidian Publish*. --- ## Donations Yes, I'll take your [[donations]]. --- ## Contact You can contact me via: - <a rel="me" href="https://social.vivaldi.net/@lextenebris">Mastodon</a> - [Facebook](https://facebook.com/squidlord) - [Twitter](https://x.com/squidlord)[^1] - [Keet](https://keet.io)[^2] ![[Keet QR.png]] [^1]: It'll always be Twitter, not X, dammit. [^2]: Extremely high privacy and a distributed network? Sure. Of course I have an outpost there.