INKYFINGERS: December Update II
Hello, all! Inkyfingers here, with the penultimate newsletter of 2025! A lot of tickets were made available this week, so let's get into it!
END OF YEAR OPENING HOURS
The Tavern will be closed from Wednesday 24th to Saturday 27th December, inclusive, giving the Tavernkeepers some well-deserved time off. We will be open on both New Years Eve and New Years Day. I offered to mind the Tavern over the break but after a previous incident involving my 'homegrown artisanal fungus' and Campari, I'm not allowed behind the bar anymore.
TAVERN QUIZ
Tickets for the final Tavern Quiz for 2025 are now live. £3.50 gains you access to the quiz and our board game library from 6.30pm until we close. Match wits with Tavernkeeper Ringo, the writer and host of the quiz in a battle to win Tavern credit. Ringo has a habit of giving me clues to add to the newsletter, to reward anyone paying attention, so he says this month's clue is a straight-up answer: 11A will be found on your right.
More info & tickets: arcaniststavern.uk/events
CALL OF CTHULHU
Our Call of Cthulhu beginners arc will be returning in January! Blackwater Creek is perfect for those looking to discover CoC 7th Edition for the first time, and will include a dedicated session for character creation.
For more info & tickets, visit: arcaniststavern.uk/events
MONSTERS: LEGACY
Monster Legacy is a 12-part monthly campaign which uses a homebrew-legacy version of monster of the week RPG.
Every session, the story will continue - taking place decades after the previous game - allowing new players to enter at any time, or returning players to build a family tree of characters who are interconnected to the larger story.
Expect a more cinematic approach to gameplay with a focus on narrative storytelling and risk-taking. An action adventure horror story that spans centuries, inspired by Hellboy, Betrayal at the House on the Hill, Control & Allan Wake, The S.C.P. Foundation, Supernatural, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Tickets for Chapter Two and Three are now live! For more info, visit: arcaniststavern.uk/events
BLOOD ON THE CLOCKTOWER
On 18 Jan, Blood on the Clocktower returns to the Arcanist's Tavern.
Blood on the Clocktower is a social deduction game filled with mystery, intrigue, and strategy. Set in a small town plagued by sinister forces, players take on roles as villagers, outsiders, minions, or the demon itself.
The goal is simple: uncover the truth before it's too late - or, if you're on the side of evil, sow chaos and confusion to evade detection.
This is a beginners friendly session that will provide a complete introduction to the BOTC system, perfect for both new and experienced players!
For more info & tickets, visit: arcaniststavern.uk/events
OFF WITH YOUR HEAD RETURNS
The interactive comedy game show Off With Your Head returns to the Tavern on Monday 12 Jan.
Two of our very own House GMs, Maxim and Tibet, may find themselves on the chopping block, while trying to rule a 12th Century Kingdom, while YOU decide who lives and dies!
A unique experience at every show from veteran performer Sam See, and video game designer Stephen Case from RGB Monster (Trust No Bunny, Not My Audience) and joined this month by Special Guest Jester Boy, Joe Mayo (QI).
To witness their fate, visit: arcaniststavern.uk/events
TAVERNKEEPER ISAAC
By now, some of you will have met our newest Tavernkeeper Isaac in the flesh and given him a warm welcome. Here's his story, in his (many) words!
My earliest memories of tabletop gaming are as a child playing Racing Demons with my aunts and uncles, who were all so competitive that they wouldn’t dream of letting me win, even at something where my underdeveloped reflexes were clearly a disadvantage. I remember being utterly bewitched by the notion of a ‘magic circle’, inside which people play the part of tyrant or trickster, while in everyday life, they are nothing of the sort. This experience laid the groundwork for a lifelong fascination with games of all stripes, but it was board games in particular that became a through-line I returned to again and again:
As a teenager, I would often suggest to my friends that we play a new ‘designer’ board game, such as Catan, Pandemic, Dixit etc., mainly to avoid playing video games that I was terrible at.
As a sixth-former, me and my best friends designed our own version of the drinking game Chardee MacDennis from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia by repurposing the components of childhood games, such as Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary and Rapidough.
As a student, I would watch reviews and read rulebooks, while waiting for lab experiments to run. And then having bought everything I could get my hands on, I would visit friends up and down the country laden with bags full of more games than we could ever hope to play.
And as a graduate, suddenly finding myself with an alarming amount of free time, I started running games nights at various pubs in South East London under the name BGX (as in 'Board Games x Brockley Brewery') as an excuse to showcase my growing personal collection of games, and turn it loose on the general public.
Then as a mid-twenty-something, after losing the only ‘real’ job I’ve ever had - data science - after spending the COVID lockdowns switching back and forth between my first proper D&D campaign - Descent into Avernus played over Roll20 - and my first proper campaign board game - Gloomhaven played with the same group of friends in person - I had an epiphany: what if I got a job at one of those board game cafés I was so fond of frequenting? It would solve my urgent joblessness problem, but it would also let me to apply my extensive game knowledge to a larger audience, backed by an even larger library of games.
I applied to Draughts Hackney, was hired on the spot, and ended up working there for the next four years. It was during this time that I met Ringo, who I immediately recognised as a kindred spirit and role model, in that he not only took great pride in recommending and teaching games, but did so in a way that primed players for self-expression and creativity. When Ringo left Draughts, I vowed not to let him get away easy and impressed upon this fact by inviting myself to gaming sessions he had arranged with mutual friends. A few years down the line, when the opportunity came along to work together again - and with the rest of the fine folks at the Arcanist’s Tavern - I jumped at it!
Nowadays, I still meet regularly with various gaming groups, which I find to be a great way to keep up with friends, especially those whose natural inclination might otherwise be to drift apart. My appreciation for board games has grown more sophisticated (read: pretentious) and while my tastes do skew towards the heavier side, I’m just as down to play a silly party game. And I still very much get a kick out of seeing my mild-mannered friends transform into conniving, two-faced backstabbers. Even if only for an evening…
Until next time!
I.
