This week’s Dungeons & Toast theme is all about irrational fears the kind that make absolutely no sense and yet still crit fail your confidence.

We’re not talking about dragons or dungeon traps (those are reasonable). We mean escalators, empty swimming pools, clowns, mirrors at night, or that weird feeling someone is watching you when you know they’re not. If your brain has ever invented a threat out of thin air, congratulations: you’re on theme.

Come share, laugh, and roll for emotional damage. No judgment, no jump scares just good company, bad fears, and maybe a Wisdom save or two.

To celebrate No Shave November, Dungeons & Toast is raising charitable funds for myasthenia gravis research. To make things fair, members will be separated into two groups: fresh-faced and established (as of November 1). Judging will take place on December 5th, at the first guild meeting of the month. Members who grow, continue to grow, or pretend to grow beards throughout the month of November are eligible to compete in the following categories:

• Established Beard (grown prior to Nov. 1)
• Fresh-Faced (started growing Nov. 1)
• Artificial (painted on, a wig, etc.)

The world didn’t end overnight. It started with a whisper—a glitch in the system, a shadow across the sun, the faint smell of smoke drifting from what used to be the Shire. Tonight, Dungeons & Toast invites you to peer into the ashes of what once was and speak bravely amid the ruins.

The theme: Dystopia.

From Orwell’s 1984 to the crumbling Capitol of The Hunger Games, from the sterile halls of Gattaca to the haunted dreamscapes of Blade Runner, dystopias show us what happens when humanity’s best intentions go terribly wrong. Even Middle-earth isn’t immune—remember Frodo’s nightmare vision of the Shire burning under Sauron’s reign? Every utopia teeters on the edge of something darker.

So bring your voice, your courage, and perhaps your ration card, as we explore how language and leadership survive when the world has gone sideways. Will you rise like Katniss, reason like Winston, or resist like the Fellowship clinging to hope in the darkness?

📅 Tonight — 7:00 PM
📍 Dungeons & Toast
🕯️ Dress Code: Post-apocalyptic chic encouraged, but not mandatory.

The microphones may crackle, the lights may flicker—but the revolution begins with your next speech.

Join us this evening for our Halloween-themed meeting (costumes welcome and encouraged), tonight at 7 PM PT.

Join us this evening at 7 PM PT as we celebrate Oktoberfest!

On-theme backgrounds provided below:

Tonight’s Dungeons & Toast theme is “Home is Where the Hearth Warms the Heart,” a celebration of the simple yet powerful magic that makes us feel truly at ease. After all the adventures, the perils faced, and the quests completed, even the bravest heroes seek a place where the fire burns gently, where stories are shared, and where laughter echoes more brightly than steel on the battlefield. Tonight we gather like travelers around a common hearth, not to chase glory or treasure, but to savor the warmth of fellowship, the comfort of shared tales, and the reminder that home is not just a place it’s the people who welcome you back to it.

As the world outside shifts from one season to another, we’re reminded that change is not just part of nature, it’s part of us too. The falling leaves of autumn, the chill of winter, the blossoms of spring, and the warmth of summer each mirror the cycles we experience within ourselves.

In Dungeons & Dragons, adventurers often find themselves at turning points: moments where old habits are shed, new paths are forged, and growth demands both courage and adaptability. Just as seasons teach us that endings make way for beginnings, so too do challenges in our journeys become opportunities to evolve.

Tonight, we celebrate these seasons of change. This is a chance to embrace transformation: refining our voices, strengthening our leadership, and stepping into new roles. Like heroes who grow from novice adventurers into legends, we, too, can honor the shifts in our own lives and see them not as endings, but as doorways to growth.

So as the world transitions into autumn, let’s welcome change together, both in the stories we tell and in the people we’re becoming.

It all started with an Eldritch Horror. As a Dungeon Master (DM) I had a great idea for an encounter in my leg of the Dungeons & Toast guild (club) adventure in the previous year’s guild campaign, Heirs of the Dragon, and it involved an Eldritch Horror. The idea was sound; the execution was not. (At the time of this adventure, the Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition [5e] ruleset was used.)

I struggled with how to create the creature that I wanted and to make it fair, yet still a challenge, to the Player Characters (PCs). What got in the way and tripped me up was game mechanics.

Another thing that got in the way was my execution of the idea and the encounter. First mistake, I should have reached out to the players involved and asked beforehand if it was okay to have something potentially bad, and violent, happen to their characters, even if only temporarily. I felt bad doing what I planned to happen in the encounter to one of the PCs, so I did it to my own character in the campaign, who probably got the worst of it, all things considered.

In service of telling the story during this encounter, I took some agency away from the players to be in control of the destiny of their characters.

If I were to run the encounter all over again, I would do it differently, to address the aforementioned things. This is how we learn, right, from our mistakes?

Fast forward to this year’s Dungeons & Toast guild campaign, the Prophecy of the World Eater, where I am again serving as a DM. Yes, I’m at it again with creature and encounter design. In my leg of the campaign adventure, players will have more agency and be more in control of their character’s destinies than in the adventure with the Eldritch Horror. I intend to accomplish this by having more communication with players before the adventure and a redesign of encounters, based on my experience with the previously mentioned Eldritch Horror encounter, to allow for more player choice, control, and determination of what happens with their characters. This time, however, I completely dispensed with game mechanics in the process of encounter design to create what I envisioned. Then, and only then, did I turn to game mechanics to assign those in game statistics and mechanics that are necessary and that powers any RPG and makes them go; always with an eye towards making it fair for the PCs. More I cannot say, as I don’t want to give away more than I already have to the players. (Since the players may be reading this, perhaps it’s too late for that!)

At tonight’s meeting, we will be joined by the mysterious (and often confused) Sofrona Skyseer, a prophecy-woman of Grimsfjord.

Some say she has real power. Others say she is only pretending. Sofrona herself says… well, many things, not all of them consistent. Regardless, she is certain of one truth: all good adventurers go into battle prepared by first having their fortunes told … or was it all good adventurers go into fortunes prepared by first having their battles told? No matter—the point is clear: if you want to succeed, you must peer into the mists of destiny before stepping forward.

A crystal ball, the leaves at the bottom of a teacup, or perhaps a strangely shiny coin may reveal fragments of your character’s past, present, or future. She may not always get it right—but you will certainly have fun setting the record straight.

Guests and members alike are encouraged to come ready to play along, lean into the fantasy, and perhaps discover a bit of your own story along the way.

To set the atmosphere, we invite you to select one of the on-theme virtual backgrounds below before the meeting begins. Step into Sofrona’s candlelit parlor, or gaze into the stars as your destiny is revealed.