Alex Barrett

I am Alex Barrett, a perennial gamemaster and avid worldbuilder.

I joined the club in 2010 and have been here ever since. In that time, I have played countless games and run quite a few too! I tend to run Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder at the club but will try anything at least once! I have played in long running games of D&D, Pathfinder, Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu, and Ironsworn as well as a few PbtA things and lots of random short block offerings. I enjoy inventing fantastic worlds and have come up with more than a few homebrew systems to go with my more bespoke settings. At the club I tend to run my campaigns as “limited series” across 1-3 long blocks, and then follow them up with sequels and spinoffs in short blocks and further long blocks over the next few years.

The larger games include:

War of the Gods (2012-2013): A Short Block series throwing the PCs into the maelstrom of a divine war.

Scorched Earth (2014-2023): Scorched Earth was my flagship game at the club for a while. Set in a perilous world where the sun never sets, and resources are scarce. The games have generally followed rag tag groups of survivors, pirates, and renegades struggling to survive in a dying world ruled by a tyrannical empire. This campaign began with a long block in 2014, followed by a series of short block games throughout 2015 and 2016. Another long block reunited much of the original cast in 2021 and was followed by some sequels and spin offs outside of the club.

Age Before Ages (2015-2016, 2022-2023): A pulpy sword and sorcery campaign set in a bronze age setting filled with sinister necromancy and looming cosmic threats. I have run two main campaigns in this theme, with a handful of shorter games inbetween. Shadow of the Black Throne ran from 2015-2016 and sent the PCs on a quest to stop terrible plagues from destroying their newly liberated city state. Watchers of the Dark was an unrelated campaign in 2022 which pitted a bunch of barbarians against the machinations of a sinister shadow cult.

Utter East (2017-present): The longest running of my club games, this series is inspired by the history and myth of Southeast Asia. The PCs are scions of a noble house, engaging in political intrigue and subterfuge, while powerful mystical forces shake their world to its foundations. The original arc ran from 2017-2018, with spinoffs in the years that followed. We then ran a sequel campaign during the lockdown years (2022-2023) with most of the original cast reuniting. While not many of the players for this one are still at the club, there are plans for more games outside of it.

In the Shadow of the Pyramids (2018): This short Call of Cthulhu scenario ran for one long block. It followed two parties of investigators (both played by the same players). One group were archaeologists in 1930’s Egypt, stumbling upon a mysterious secret from ages past. We then interwove that story with a tale of their ancestors in ancient Egypt, alternating sessions until cosmic weirdness brought both groups together across the aeons.

Terra Incognita (2018-2019): This D&D game with a fantasy renaissance setting followed the crew of the HMS Intrepid as they set out to circumnavigate the globe, exploring new lands and discovering new maritime trade routes. They crew completed their journey, but at great cost losing at least one ship and their original captain. Still worse things happen at sea...

Witchfinders (2019-2022): Taking place across three seasons the Witchfinders campaign has followed the adventures of some witch hunters in a medieval setting as they’ve tangled with faeries, demons, cultists and political infighting while trying to keep their kingdom safe from the things that go bump in the night. Very much an episodic campaign a few different players have woven in and out across the three seasons.

The Edge of the Map (2019): This game was run with John Holton and others, as a rotating GM campaign to introduce others to DMing. Every couple of weeks a different player took over, throwing the PCs into a different adventure. The experienced GMs mentored the less experienced players to great success. We had some fantastic adventures from first time GMs and all had a lot of fun.

The New World (2019): The last game of 2019 sent a bunch of explorers from the Steampunk era of my fantasy world through a portal to what they thought was another planet, but which turned out to be the distant Pleistocene past. They tangled with the sinister snakemen and prevented them from destroying all warm-blooded life with a targeted meteorite strike!

Rattlesnake Pass (2021-2022): A D&D western this game saw an intrepid wagontrain full of settlers attempt to navigate their way through the titular pass, while beset by cursed outlaws, tensions between settlers and the indigenous peoples of the region, and sundry natural hazards.

All the Strange, Strange, Creatures (2023): A Spelljammer campaign following a crew of magizoologists trying to research the next edition of the Monster Manual. Their adventures took them to multiple planets trying to find rare magical creatures, while they battled cursed poachers and attempted to reintroduce a Tarrasque to the wild.

The Alchemist’s Lantern (2024-2025): This short block series has followed the travails of some travelling folklorists who have so far solved three arcane mysteries in a steampunk D&D setting inspired by the folklore of eastern Europe.

All of my D&D games take place within the same fictional universe as part of a massive Living World campaign. Along with longer games I run outside the club they make up an ever evolving canon which now spans four different time periods across two main planets and several smaller ones, supporting all possible fantasy subgenres. This overarching World of Endra campaign has been running non-stop since 2001, in one form or another, and doesn’t show any signs of slowing down!