Grateful for Twenty Years of Heroscape

Evening, Heroscapers!

I love the look of the 2.0 update. It is unfortunate, though, that I don't attend my presence here as much due to several factors. However, after seeing @Vecna bring back a nostalgic post from my younger lore-obsessed days (so wild to think it never went away; it only got quiet if I never got to play), it filled me with a reverence I can't explain. Honor for the years in the passage. A kind of reflection on the journey so far.

This Saturday marks 20 years of official days that count as "National Heroscape Day." I wanted to dedicate a post to this milestone. It is a beautiful zenith to stand on, reflecting on all the significant steps that led to this point.

Here's a fun bullet list of the most unique Heroscape experiences I can think of off the top of my head:

1. My first RotV was in 2004 in Europe! I bought it there because my dad was stationed at SHAPE then.
2. Orm's Return was my first birthday gift, which I received when I moved back to the US. It became my only possession for a while, too; our belongings hadn't finished the trip, and all we had was what we could buy, so air beds, you know, first-day move vibes stuff. But you can imagine me there, giddy as a sea lion, with my five Large heroes next to my airbed in my empty room.
3. All my first friendships made after I learned about Heroscape included me eventually teaching friends how to play, so I've had a handful of cities since my teen years where I've repped Heroscape! And the number has grown; I've played in Killeen/Ft so far. Hood, Belton, and all those surrounds, Chattanooga and Cleveland, Tennessee, Indiana for ScapeCon 22 and 23, and then can't forget initially playing in Belgium.
4. I joined the forums in 2009, and I mostly lurked. I think the 2010 excitement eventually drove me to start posting, but for context, I was still in high school then; if anything I wrote back then sounds like the yammerings of a confused child, it was absolutely. I'm 32 now and better for the experience.
5. I played in a stone foundation A-tent during a Boy Scout Summer Camp where I was staffing. We stayed in those tents for a whole month every summer, teaching all the boys merit badge classes and rank advancements. All the other staff brought consoles and handhelds. I brought Heroscape.
6. I ended up repeating this and bringing it to a winter camp, so this time, I got to play in a lodge cabin. That was quickly the best place to play Heroscape ever.
7. In late 2010, I posted on the Fanfiction Subforum a handful of entries for my story called "Chronicles of Icaria," where I decided to explore the idea of the power vacuums left behind by the Icarian dragons being summoned away from their faithful and their royal charges. It became my most extraordinary effort, blowing up into 21 chapters that I never released because I asked Wizards of the Coast if they would let me publish it, and they said they could not give me permission for a novel.
8. I hosted a Heroscape room at Geekfest 2014 at Central Texas College that allowed me to set up four tables and teach Basic Game mechanics. It was quickly the best thing I ever organized as it was a massive hit, and I got to meet @Dysole in person and learn the hard way about how good "Wait Then Fire" is. ROFLMAO:
9. Met @TalesOfValhallaOfficial in 2015 after he posted he was looking for help for his ongoing stop motion series project! I offered to consult for the lore, as it still was very much a primary obsession of mine. I've been working with him since, helped with all three seasons, I got to voice act for Vydar the Valkyrie General at the end of Season 3, and I've been helping with his ongoing podcast series since 2022, and we're at 61 episodes now!
10. I messaged the Central Wikia/Fandom Admins in 2016 after patiently waiting to see if the Heroscape Wikipedia was left unattended. After being explained what was happening, I received administrative rights. And yes, I banned Matrix Prime. He refused to discuss why he thought his vision for Heroscape was better and would frequently revert my edits if I left the site unattended for too long. I'm a Champion of Information. Truth will Prevail. So does the Banhammer. Be nice to admins, please.
11. Unfortunately, 2017-2019 is a big gap, but I always talked about Heroscape when I could. I don't think I got to play when I first moved to Tennessee due to unfamiliarity and my job absorbing every little free time I could get.
12. Then, of course, the pandemic hit. In 2020, I started getting back into fiction work that I had left behind when I was a kid, and when I launched my platform, The Essalim Collate, one of my very first leads was showcasing to my audience my experience and work with Heroscape in the past, by showing them stuff from the wiki I used to work on on Twitch. I have managed to keep that platform going since, but the Heroscape medium has always been one of its core offerings.

The crowdfund was both a massive crescendo and an exponential drop. I remember trying to hope it would be possible to hit the funding but also staying rational. The year itself was challenging, and despite overall it not working out, the fact that Heroscape decided to appear out of nowhere because of the fantastic work of Craig, the War Council, and Avalon Hill energized me with the franchise and had me making sure all my notes and stuff were all together. In 2023, I met with the store owner of Call To Adventure Games and worked out an Organized Play meet for him. I got affiliated in September, and with all my experience, I got the wildest idea ever.

From 2016 till 2023, I have maintained the wiki primarily by myself and a handful of others (this isn't bad considering how difficult it was; ask @Dandelions). The wiki pre-edit was a nightmare. But with all this work I did with the game's narrative, explaining it in podcasts, on stream, and in person to many people who want to hear it, I was inspired to email Dan and ask if they needed any more help or if I could apply to write. People were already hyping me for it back during the Avalon Hill days, and there was a potential for it back then. I decided the worst answer he could say was no, and I emailed to ask. He told me they would be hiring a producer shortly, and he'd get back to me. And that's when I got to meet Lee!

She had just started, but I figured I should introduce myself since I already knew Chris and had that history of work for the show. And then it was the wait. I realize now how I probably was the weirdest email to date at the time. A new employee joins the team and suddenly gets bombarded by the wiki admin for the product line for a writing job. But I was okay with them taking their time as I wanted to help grow the local presence at the game shop. I played my first National Heroscape Day game in person last year at that store!

And then, on August 7th, after experiencing some of the worst life events I've experienced this year simultaneously, I opened my messages to see Lee asking if I was interested in being contracted to work on the lore of Heroscape. I'm speechless. The opportunity is here now. I've always trained for the moment. I did the stretches and the workouts. Ran the length. And now I'm here, at the finish line. I got a spot where I want to be, helping an incredible tea with this beautiful narrative and connecting Classic with Modern, like composing music.

But I keep revisiting this sensation of disbelief: I'm here? This thing I dedicated countless hours to as a kid in high school, I actually can do it now? I've been telling everyone that I'm living proof to never give up on your dreams because you never know how they will be fulfilled.

I hope you all know I haven't stopped writing. I've been gathering all the old Classic information in my digital and physical storage, getting notebooks ready, and preparing all my old files to make them easier to access. And then I've been fervently working with the Story Arcs you are learning about now. I hope to have your confidence in the lore moving forward, as this has been one of my greatest passions. I promise I will take care of it well. It is precious to me. And I can't wait to share my work once I can. I hope you will see that love I've cultivated for the lore shine in each job I furnish for this game. Each piece will honor the 20 years of community and passion, and I might find burns in the hearts of every person who saw that first Heroscape box moment and just had to have it. I wish to help keep that going for as long as I can.

It's going to be a Hexcellent 2025. Happy Early Heroscape Day!

Take your dice and roll,
- Majora's Incarnation