The great hall is filled with merriment. Cups never go empty and platters of food steam invitingly at the gathered host. There is much darkness outside the keeps walls, however, and even this is not enough to keep it at bay. Women and Men at each table tap into human’s oldest arcane rituals and tell tales of adventure and glory, of love and loss. They find life in these stories and warmth enough to drive away the chill of the stone walls that encase them.
Crumbling Keep is, at its heart, a group of friends who likes telling stories. More often than not, we like when our stories involve dice.
After telling each other stories for years, we wanted to share them with the world. This birthed the Isles of Samsarras Podcast, the home of our ongoing AD&D 2E game. We’ve put a lot into the world and hope you enjoy it half as much as we do. You can find plenty of Samsarras lore and fiction here. There are modules and other stories in the works that take place in this land.
You can also enjoy our weekly video stream on Twitch called Tales From the Tower, in which we play an assortment of games, or find gaming tips with our vlog, Crumbling UpKeep. To support these projects, go to the support section of our menu, or click here.
James Crane can still remember his first dungeon, even if he doesn’t exactly remember how old he was. There was so much wonder when the party ran into a gelatinous cube. Being his first game, James didn’t know what it was or why there were a bunch of weapons floating in it. He’s still certain those swords inside were magic, but he didn’t risk the borrowed characters life to find out.
D&D is largely responsible for his current love of writing and stories of all mediums. He is the GM in Samsarras and has crafted pages upon pages of world history. Sometimes he thinks he lives as much in his created world as he does in the real one.
You can reach him at crane.james@ymail.com
Twenty five years ago a young Brad Kishbaugh met a young James in middle school. He was intrigued by the game James was playing, and a friendship grew from a common interest in 2 Edition AD&D. They both soon realized the similarity between role playing games and theater, and acting became a wonderful artistic outlet for Brad’s punk rock angst.
Years later, a brief military career put acting and games on ice. Though, throughout his experience Brad always felt like he was portraying a role rather than being authentic.
Fast forward about a decade, and Roll20 launches their virtual tabletop. An invitation from James brought role playing back into Brad’s life, and his love for storytelling has been reinvigorated.
You may contact him via email at RadBrad.Kish@gmail.com
When she first started visiting her Friendly Local Game Store, Emily Kamm looked at the RPG section with curiosity and a little hesitation. A collaborative game where the goal is to tell the best possible story? That seems perfect for an overly-imaginative kid who grew up to be a similarly-imaginative adult.
Her first introduction to the world of RPGs was through GM-less story games like Fiasco. But once she tried D&D for the first time with a group of coworkers, it was all over. She was hooked.
Emily loves to write detailed character backstories, work through tricky dungeon puzzles, and try to talk her way out of anything, even a confrontation with a dragon.
She can be reached at emily.kamm@gmail.com
If he’s not crawling through a dungeon, Frank Bolin is probably playing drums or trying not to suck at League of Legends. He hasn’t been on the tabletop gaming scene for incredibly long, but his love for RPGs dates back to when Final Fantasy 6 was still called 3 and cartridges roamed the Earth. His first experience with tabletop action was with the futuristic sci-fi game Trinity from White Wolf around 8 or 9 years ago, with the illustrious James Crane as his original DM, no less (it was a handful of years before James showed him the ways of Thac0).
Ever since then, Frank has hardly missed a week, and he still isn’t sure what his favorite thing about tabletop gaming is: Could it be the Zelda-esque puzzle-busting? Is it those epic, no-dice dialogue scenes where you get to truly slip into character, or imagine a new city? Or is it narrating that perfect sword-stroke and watching it come to life?… Or maybe it’s all just an elaborate excuse to gather with his friends every week to have a beer and some good times?! Tune in and find out!
Or just ask him at frankbolin7711@gmail.com
David Thornton has always loved immersing himself in fantasy worlds, from Ender’s Game and Zelazney’s Amber series to Harry Potter and Animorphs. A casual background in theater coupled with his envy of fantasy protagonists should have been a ready recipe for role playing games. However, though he had dabbled in some popular video games as a teenager, he never really had the chance to jump into the tabletop landscape.
That is, until he met James and Frank while they were working as NPCs at a local inn frequented by traveling heroes and adventurers. David started role playing with the gamers he worked with, and the rest is history. Through various campaigns, David has caused two TPKs and is currently plotting his third.
It all started with Walden Bookstore and Dragonlance novels. Erin Delaney has been in love with fantasy novels ever since Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman introduced the Majere brothers and D&D meant 2E. As a writer, she loves the integration of poetry in fantasy novels and believes in the amazing storytelling power and connections people make playing tabletop games.
Despite the fact that she’s always played an elven or half-elven wizard in D&D games, she recently created a band of child street urchins, and only two of the five characters actually have magical powers. #winning #ChangingItUp #TimesTheyAreChangin
As a parent of two boys, she’s been saving all her Dragonlance novels (much to her husband’s dismay… Magic the Gathering players don’t understand) with plans to pass them down. Until then, she reads The Fellowship of the Ring and Dragons of Winter Night at bedtime and makes mini D&D spellbooks for LEGO adventures. In her spare time, she also unabashedly enjoys being a PC gamer. Her favorites are Fallout 4, Dragons Age: Inquisition, The Witcher 3, Skyrim, and BioShock Infinite.
Send her story ideas for her street urchin characters at erin.delan@gmail.com
Justin Giuliani started playing RPGs at the tender age of eleven, and has never been the same since. Like many people, he started with the gateway game of D&D and went from there. Fast forward twenty something years, and his passion for the game (and mentality) have not changed. Justin firmly believes that the most powerful character you can play is a halfling rogue, will happily sneak attack anyone who disagrees. His favorite pen and paper games include D&D, Toon, Aberrant, and really any game that allows him to sit down and co-op with friends.
Justin has managed to turn being a nerd into his livelihood, and is an avid board, tabletop, and video gamer. He is currently writing an RPG based off a video game he is also designing, and has side gigs as a professional DM. Justin even has a D20 tattoo, and brings dice with him wherever he goes on the off chance a game breaks out. You never know when someone will want to roll for initiative. He met Emily and James while working with them at their Friendly Local Game Store, and has had the honor of playing games with them ever since. His biggest RPG claim to fame is once giving The Devil a “good game” ass pat before being brutally murdered.
If you ever feel like talking to him, Justin can be reached at jgiuliani42@gmail.com .