Grellcon 2026

tl;dr 

Grellcon was a full success! London is expensive but please do not sleep at NX hostel. Disclaimer: Write to me if you want your name removed, changed or added to my report. Sorry for not writing down all the names of the players! There are some mild spoilers for the played modules. For context: Grellcon is a small OSR / fantasy adventure gaming convention in London, with a pre-event at a pub on Friday (3rd of July) evening (maybe 30ish people) and the main day on Saturday (4th of July) at Stanley Arts with around 70 attendees.

Prologue 

It started for me with a conversation about C. A. Smith and his weird sculptures at Cauldron 25 (as far as I know the biggest European OSR / fantasy adventure gaming con, near Frankfurt, then in its 3rd year). Andrew came up with the idea of hosting Grellcon while talking to Mitch and shortly afterwards invited me. Cauldron was in October 25, Grellcon on the 4th of July 26, so I was hyped for months. During this time, Andrew sent a couple of informative newsletters and pictures of the poster & t-shirts he designed. I wanted to run an AD&D game and started with the Realm of Terror box that I bought at the auction of Cauldron. I am into castles but not at all into vampires, so I thought that I could maybe reimagine Ravenloft in a more science-fantasy setting (I usually run Hyperborea games). The box didn't convince me enough but the idea stuck and I turned to I6 Ravenloft. On top of that I had some discussions on discord about funnels. I have never run a funnel before, I haven't played in one, although I read a couple. I thought the idea sounded great and well fitting to try out at a convention. The manor was too big, I wanted a circular moat around it and didn't fancy the isometric maps, so I spent a lot of time xeroxing together bits and parts from different castle books and LotFP's "Staffortonshire" map book. I really like the look of the map but should have spent more time with the actual inhabitants, traps and layout. Work got in the way and I could only squeeze in an hour here or there for preparation. The playtest date with my home group had to be cancelled because I still hadn't completed the key for 37 locations. So my module wasn't playtested.

Arrival 

I flew in Friday and arrived at Gatwick before noon. My hostel, the NX hostel, seemed okay at the time, me and 4 roommates, but I am a deep sleeper and wouldn't be bothered too much (at least that is what I thought at that time). I worked a bit more on the module in a cafe and then went over to Shirkers Rest, which is an exceptionally nice place with great beer (thank you James for introducing me to London Black). Unfortunately I had to skip the first session (which went from 4 to 7 pm) because I still had to prep: I laid out the map & keys together. The print shop around the corner wasn't open but Nick was really nice and printed the sheets at home. We ordered some nice pizza to the pub. Over some beer I really enjoyed the banter with Mitch, James, Nick, Niko, Dennis, Alex and some of the other guys.

The First Game 

It was finally game time! From 8 to 11 pm, I played in Dennis' game. He offered "The Ruination of Tenamen" for Delving Deeper (OD&D clone). I played a 3rd level cleric. Our job was to infiltrate a cave and kill the Grom, the orc boss, which we did. I never played OD&D before that but I had a blast. It was funny hexing Grom through some little holes in a wall, murdering the cooking staff and causing a lot of ruckus. We picked a side entry and I feel we went in quite proficiently but also with a lot of luck in the beginning. After the game, some more banter, some more beer, but I was in bed before 1 am. The night turned horrible though. We had to keep the windows open because of the heat and there was a lot of commotion on the street until 3 am. New Cross seems to have great parties! I had just slept a couple hours when my roommates had breakfast at around 6 am. I tried dozing for 2 more hours and then went to Stanley Arts where the bigger part of the convention was to happen.

Saturday Morning 

At Stanley Arts there was also another event at the same time so I got lost for a bit. But when I got into the right room, everything was really neatly organised: I got handed my pre-ordered poster and t-shirt and there were lists with the games. Andrew prompted us before arrival to sign up for the first game on Saturday, so everything could start as smoothly as possible. For breakfast, I had the first Tesco meal deal of the weekend (two more would follow). My first session from 9:30 - 12:30 was an AD&D tournament module offered by Mitch. "The Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire" (WD#22) was from the times when White Dwarf was still readable. It was a small hex crawl and it all started with a riddle. I feel we wasted too much time interpreting it (I felt really dense while playing) so we had to rush in the end and couldn't successfully secure all the wonderful loot in the spire. A hex crawl at a convention game is ambitious but Mitch managed it extremely well. I blame us for moving too slowly. In the one-hour break that followed, I bought the first draft beer of the day and the second Tesco meal deal.

Comets and Castles: My Game 

Then at 1:30 pm my session followed: "The Night the Shattered Star Came to the Citadel of Skulls". Nick, Graham and Niko showed up to play. The story was that a strange meteor hit a creepy castle and all the farmers and workers around couldn't shake the urge to investigate, so all of them gathered to check in on the meteor. The players had some issues at the guardhouse, then directly crossed into the keep, made friends with the brigands who let them down into the dungeons where they went straight for the shortest route through the crypts into some old silver mines where the meteor had hit. All in all it took them less than 3 hours of the 4 allotted hours. It was a 0-level AD&D funnel, so I gave every player 4 out of the 140 prepared 0-level characters. We lost maybe 8-10 characters total and I had to hook up Niko with two more at some point because he ran out. I learned a lot of things, but most importantly: funnels aren't my cup of tea (or stein of beer?). Because you are missing any meaningful differences in class abilities or equipment, you have almost no choice but to introduce revisionism in the form of attribute checks (ironically I6 already has a couple of STR and DEX checks...). I also noticed some critical map issues because the group of brigands that should have guarded the entrance to the lower levels was charmed by the group with two 90+ reaction rolls and good arguments, so three quarters of my module went unused this time. I just didn't spend enough time to prepare and this also showed in the placement of monsters: the players only ever encountered brigands, skeletons, green slime and an evil cleric who had to run from them. The crazier monsters were hidden on the other side of the castle or in the wandering monster tables and never showed up. If everything is deadly in a funnel, nothing really is and it doesn't get scarier but death becomes meaningless. Consequences do not really matter and you can die from a 1d4 hit the same way as from something really big and scary. I would like to beef up some parts of the module and run it as a mid-level (4-6 range) adventure instead, maybe at Cauldron 26. I also have to rework the map a bit, so that more of it actually gets seen in play. But overall the players made the best of it and we had fun regardless! We were done at around 4 pm, we then drank some beer, I shit-talked OSE and Basic and we had a lot of fun. At some point I grabbed a falafel sandwich with Dennis, Alex and SandboxSorcerer (sorry, I can't remember your first name!).

The Last Game 

At 7 pm, I played in another AD&D session offered by Dennis: "Tomb of the Twice-Crowned King". I played a half-orc F8 / C4 with 5 Cure Light Wounds prepared, which I thought I would use on myself but had to use them all up on the other players as I wasn't frontlining as much as I thought. We called it quits at around 11 pm, had some more beer and I was at my hostel before 2 am. It was a glorious day of gaming! The night was shit again, similar to the one before.

Epilogue 

I was properly sleep-deprived and a bit hungover, but I managed to visit the Wallace Collection to look at some cool weapons and suits of armour (Andrew's tip), ate my last Tesco meal deal of the weekend in a park, had a last pint and then almost missed the flight because I am built like that. I take home a bunch of wonderful memories and some goodies (including the impressive "Beneath the Black Pyramid" zine by Andrew & Mitch: I will write a short review soon-ish). I thank everyone I interacted with over the weekend, it was a great bunch of people! And special thanks to Andrew & Mitch for organising and Dennis for two great games, all three of you are incredible!

Until next year.