ONE YEAR. OUR STORY.BY KAI / FOR ALL OF YOU

ONE YEARLATER.

A year of characters, choices,
and people worth writing about.

A note before we begin

Well. We actually did it.

One year of this rendition of History’s Retribution.

September already got a little ahead of itself with the reflection and thank-yous, but I wasn’t going to let the actual anniversary pass without giving it its own issue.

Putting this together has been harder than I expected. There’s a lot I want to talk about, and trying to fit a year into one newsletter is a pretty stupid task to give myself. Especially when reading everyone’s interview answers keeps making me stop writing for a minute.

Before we get into the Creation Gauntlet, Wish Chronicles, and everything coming next, I want to start with the people connected to this campaign.

That feels like the right place to begin.

01 / IN MEMORY

A place in
our history.

FOR EDSEL.

I want to make room in this anniversary for Edsel.

I didn’t get to know him as well as I wish I had. But before he passed, he had started to care about History’s Retribution, and I want that to have a place here. He never formally became a player, but he became connected to this story, and to people who mean so much to me.

Edsel was a great DM. I wish I’d had more time to know that part of him, to hear his ideas, talk about our worlds, and learn from him.

I’m still learning how to be the DM I want to be. There are things I need to handle better, things I want to improve, and more I want to give the people at my table. I want to carry something of Edsel with me as I do that. I’ll try to become a better DM for him, too.

And Drake, I think a part of that future is with you.

In your own way, you’re picking up his pen. You’re making your own world and carrying it forward in his name, with everything of yourself that you bring to it. I think of you as a successor to him in that sense. You get to decide what that means and where it takes you, at your own pace.

I’m glad there’s more being written. I wish he could be here to see it.

When I say I want people to know our story, I want there to be room for Edsel in it. For the worlds he made, the people who loved him, and the part of him they carry into whatever they make next.

So I want to put his name somewhere that will stay. Somewhere we can return to in the years ahead and remember that he was here, that he cared, and that his work meant something.

Edsel has a place in our history.

We’ll keep writing with him in mind.

02 / THE PEOPLE

Seven voices.
One shared year.

I can spend an entire newsletter talking about what this year has meant to me. I probably could spend several.

But I wanted some of this anniversary to come from the people who have actually been playing through it.

I asked each player three questions about their experience with History’s Retribution. For this issue, I chose one answer from each of them. Some made me smile. Some gave me things to think about. A few were harder to find a response to than I expected.

Here’s a little of Year One from the other side of the screen.

Mystery

The interview

Before joining the campaign, what did you expect it to be like, and how has your experience compared to those expectations?

I really expected this to be like a standard DnD campaign. Most of my experience being that I expected an ease in beginning like ‘kill some goblins’ but boy was I wonderfully wrong. This campaign honestly keeps surprising me every single week, and genuinely has become my favorite DnD experience I’ve ever experienced

From Kai

“Kill some goblins” feels very far away at this point.

I love that you can still be surprised after a year of this. There’s a lot of preparation that goes into a session, but I never really know how something is going to land until you’re all there. Watching an idea become something people are excited about is one of my favorite parts of running HR.

Calling this your favorite D&D experience is a pretty ridiculous thing for me to get to read. I don’t have a particularly composed response to that. It makes me happy, and it makes me want to keep making things worth being excited about.

Thank you for giving so much of that excitement back to the campaign. I notice it.

Lurrin

The interview

What do you think makes this campaign different from other D&D campaigns or tabletop games you’ve experienced?

the whole mechanic about switching from D&D to your own created system of the hollow world. The overpowered characters and all their amazing abilities. The whole jump from normal dnd to other things was another and how fast the level up system has been going. A little overwhelming but sometimes fun

From Kai

“A little overwhelming but sometimes fun” is something I want to take seriously.

I get excited about making new things. New abilities, new systems, new ways for an encounter to work. From my side of the screen, I’ve usually been thinking about those things for a while before anyone else sees them. You’re meeting them when they arrive, often alongside everything else happening in the session. That’s a different experience, and I need to remember that.

Thank you for being honest with me about it.

And Lurrin, I want to say this plainly: I’m glad you’re here. You don’t have to be the loudest person in the call to have a place in this campaign. Your thoughts matter even when it takes a little longer to find the space to say them.

I want Year Two to give you more room to settle into that space, and more moments you can look back on as yours. There’s more I want for your experience than “sometimes fun.”

Zeru

The interview

If you had to describe what playing in History’s Retribution has meant to you personally, what would you say?

Being a Player in History's Retribution has honestly helped re-ignite the spark in me for being excited for dnd again as, before then there was quite a large gap between the last campaign I had felt like I was able to express myself without worry and now, which certainly hampered my ability to make characters and jot up interesting backstories or just- stories in general, the campaign certainly helped bring those flames back and I can fully see that in due time, I'll be able to do not only my own character justice, but possibly even assist in furthering the lore of this honestly wonderful adventure, even the people I've met while, odd in their own right have been honestly wonderful to get to know and laugh alongside, even if we do sometimes butt heads and whatnot, there's a lot I could go into detail about but this is just an answer, not an essay, so I will just leave it off with, History's Retribution so far shares the spot for my favourite DND Campaign I've ever been a part of, and there's still so much more to come, it's certainly the gift that keeps on giving.

From Kai

You say “this is just an answer, not an essay,” and then hand me something I could probably spend an essay responding to.

The part about being able to express yourself stayed with me. Knowing that HR helped you feel excited about making characters and stories again means a lot. I love making this world, but getting to share it with someone who finds that spark again through playing in it is a very special thing.

And you already help further the story. Every time you give me something to think about, make a choice I have to respond to, or care about a detail enough to keep looking at it, you’re helping shape what this campaign becomes.

You’re very special to me, Zeru. Getting to share this ridiculous adventure with you has been one of the best parts of making it. I’m happy it’s given you something back.

Also, “odd in their own right” is an extremely polite description of this group.

Storm

The interview

If you had to describe what playing in History’s Retribution has meant to you personally, what would you say?

I would say it has been a great place to have fun with new people along with being able to enjoy playing a character and growing the character as I experience all that I do, while having like minded people doing that as well, creating this wonderful environment with different ideals working together to just survive. When I get to play Marwen it's such a great part of my week it keeps me looking up and forward.

From Kai

That last sentence means a lot to me.

We’ve had our disagreements, and figuring each other out hasn’t always been straightforward. But over this year, I’ve gotten to see how much this group and Marwen’s place in it have come to mean to you.

I’m glad you found people here you want to keep spending your weekends with. I’m glad that playing Marwen gives you something to look forward to. Those are things I want this campaign to be able to give people, and it’s easy to lose sight of them when I’m buried in preparing whatever comes next.

There’s something very fitting about your description of different ideals working together to survive. That applies to quite a lot of this party.

Thank you for sticking with us, Storm. I’m glad you’ve become part of this group’s history.

Stygian

The interview

What has been the most memorable moment of the campaign for you so far, and why did it stick with you?

I would probably think that the ambush on the sanctuary is the session that I still think about. So much happened in those sessions, Garret getting pact marked, the ninjas, the triad, Drake’s abstraction, Atlas’s death and being revived as Priori, Flynt nearly getting some of us killed from provoking Athena, Kiran’s spectral awakening. It’s probably one of my favorite sessions

From Kai

Seeing all of that listed together makes me appreciate how much happened during the sanctuary ambush.

Any one of those things could have been the moment someone remembered from a session. Having them all tied to the same stretch of the campaign makes it a pretty good answer for an anniversary issue. It’s the kind of thing that makes a year feel much longer when you start looking back through it.

I also appreciate how you engage with HR, Stygian. You have your own opinions, you question things, and you’re willing to push back. We still butt heads sometimes, but I value having a player who brings that much of herself to the table.

You’re a great player, and I love having you here. Thank you for caring enough to remember the details - and for making me work for some of my answers.

Flynt provoking Athena apparently gets to remain part of the historical record. Congratulations to him.

Drake

The interview

If you had to describe what playing in History’s Retribution has meant to you personally, what would you say?

It's been an experience, to say the least. For me personally, it has been an excuse to make, and subsequently hang out with, new friends.

From Kai

This is the shortest answer I picked, and I think it deserves its space.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what happens inside HR. The characters, the fights, the things I’m preparing, the stories I want to tell. Your answer brings it back to something that matters just as much: getting to spend time with people.

I’m glad this campaign helped bring new friends into your life. I’m glad we have a reason to keep getting together.

And I’m glad you’re here, Drake. You bring a lot of yourself to your characters, and I appreciate getting to share the table with you. There’s room here for the person playing them, too, including on the weeks when things outside the campaign are difficult.

Thank you for spending part of your year with us. That matters to me well beyond anything that happens in a session.

Rhanni

The interview

If you had to describe what playing in History’s Retribution has meant to you personally, what would you say?

Personally, it really has been life changing. I don’t know if I ever will get to play a game like this again in my lifetime. Especially not one where I don’t even know most of the group going in. Seriously though, it actually gave me a reason to look forward to the weekend every week and because of that I actually started to do more then just laze around all day letting time fly by. Is it the only thing I look forward to anymore? No, not in the slightest, but it was the first. I truly am unsure where I’d be right now if I never decided to ask you about it when you first set your status to “looking for players in my dnd game”

From Kai

“The first” is the part of this answer I keep coming back to.

It’s hard to know what to say when something you made becomes that meaningful to someone. I’m very glad you asked about that status. I’m glad it led to you joining, and I’m glad that first thing to look forward to eventually became one of several.

You’ve also given a lot back to HR. In another answer, you talked about starting to learn game design because you wanted to help with the scale of the campaign. That means a lot to me. Knowing how much effort it takes to sit down and learn something new makes it mean even more.

You’re one of the people who inspires me to keep making things, Rhanni. The care you’ve put into Craia, the excitement you bring, and your willingness to put work into helping this campaign all stay with me.

I love you to death. Thank you for answering that status a year ago.

03 / FROM KAI

My side of
the screen.

After a year of running History’s Retribution, what have the people at your table come to mean to you?

I’ve been trying to figure out how to answer this, and honestly, just writing the responses to your interviews has already been tearing me up.

I care about every last one of you so much. Trying to put that into something that feels worthy of you is hard.

I can talk about HR’s story for hours. I can talk about the fights, the characters, the systems I’m making, and all the things I’m excited for you to see. But when I try to explain what it means to have spent a year sharing it with you, I don’t really know where to begin.

Reading your answers made me stop and think about what happens on your side of all this. What you look forward to. What you remember. What’s been difficult. The friendships you’ve made, and the things this campaign has helped you feel excited about again.

I’m going to be thinking about those answers for a long time.

We haven’t had a perfect year. We’ve disagreed. There have been things I could’ve handled better, and times when I’ve struggled to understand what someone needed from me. I care about those parts of our year, too. I want us to be able to talk about them and make the next year better together.

And I hope every one of you knows how glad I am that you’re here.

When I think about this campaign now, I think about the people playing it. Your reactions, your ideas, the things you decide to do that leave me figuring out what the hell happens next. The moments you care about enough to bring up months later. Reading these interviews and finding out that something has stayed with you in ways I didn’t even realize.

That means so much to me.

I want more people to get to know History’s Retribution. I’m excited about Wish Chronicles, opening the Discord, and the possibility of people watching someone’s experience at our table. And when they do, I want them to see what you’ve brought to it. I want them to know the characters you’ve made and the choices you’ve made with them. I want them to understand why I care about this group so much.

Because when I say I want people to know HR, I mean our story.

I’ve put so much of myself into this campaign, and you’ve each given me reasons to keep going with it. Getting to make something you care about, with people I care about this much, is monumental to me. I don’t have a less dramatic word for it. It just is.

Thank you for this first year. Thank you for letting these characters and this world become part of your lives, and for becoming such an important part of mine.

I love you all. I’m really glad we get to keep doing this.

RIGHT.

I should probably talk about the game now.

↓

04 / A YEAR ONE HIGHLIGHT

The Creation
Gauntlet.

Several months. One boss rush.

I love boss rush modes.

There’s something about getting through one fight, seeing what comes next, and realizing you still have more to deal with that I’ve always enjoyed. So getting to make something like that in HR was exciting before we even reached it.

The Creation Gauntlet felt like my first actual, proper boss rush.

And after nearly several months of building toward it, getting to see the climax and the story come together was awe-inspiring.

That probably sounds dramatic. I’m leaving it in anyway.

I had been carrying so much of it around in my head. Preparing something over that long a stretch means spending a lot of time imagining how it might feel when it finally happens. You can plan the fights and work on the setup, but there’s still a point where you have to put it in front of the players and find out.

Getting to reach that point with the Gauntlet was incredibly satisfying.

The boss rush itself was something I’d wanted to make. Seeing the story arrive at its climax alongside it made it one of my favorite experiences of the year.

I wanted to make a boss rush.
Watching the story come together around it was the part that stayed with me.

It also gave me something I want to take into future encounters: a clearer sense of how much the buildup matters to me.

I want to keep making fights I’m excited to run. I also want to keep earning the point where they happen. The Gauntlet is one of the things I’ll be looking back at when I’m thinking about how to do that again.

05 / BEHIND THE SCREEN

How one fight
became three people.

Since this is the anniversary, I wanted to include a little of the work that happens before something reaches a session.

The Mayette fight in Hollow World 1 is a good example.

Originally, I was planning for it to just be Archy.

That eventually became Archy, Apala, and Iris.

It’s a small sentence describing a fairly significant change to an encounter. Once the cast expands like that, you have to look at the plan again and figure out what the larger version needs.

After the revision

The fight grew as the idea developed. The final version had a different cast from the one I started with, which meant the preparation had to change with it.

I like showing this because it’s easy to look at something after it’s happened and assume that was always the plan.

Sometimes there was a very different version first.

Sometimes I’m confident about an encounter early. Other times, the idea that makes me excited about it arrives while I’m already working on something else. Then I have to go back through the notes and see how much of the old version can survive the change.

Archy becoming Archy, Apala, and Iris is one of those changes I wanted to keep a record of.

06 / WHAT COMES NEXT

Wish
Chronicles.

SYSTEM DEVELOPMENTMostly put together.

A lot has been happening with Wish Chronicles since September.

For anyone who needs the distinction: Wish Chronicles is the D&D system I’ve been making - the one that will replace 5e for what I’m building here.

And at this point, it’s mostly put together.

That’s exciting to be able to say. There’s still work to finish, but enough of it exists now that I can look at the project as a whole and see how the pieces are coming together.

A lot of the recent work has been continuing the Markdown conversions and getting the material organized as part of the system. There’s a difference between having something worked out in your head, having notes about it, and having it in a form someone can actually use.

Getting more of Wish Chronicles into that last state has been a big part of the work.

It’s also a strange anniversary milestone to look at. A year into HR, I’m here talking about the system I’ve been making to replace the one we started with.

There’s plenty left to do before I can call the whole thing finished. But I’m happy with how close it’s getting, and I’m excited to get the remaining pieces into place.

The public Discord

ALMOST READY / ROUGHLY ANOTHER MONTH

The Wish Chronicles Discord is also getting close to opening to the public.

My current estimate is roughly another month.

I want to get the remaining setup finished before opening it up. There are a few things to settle so that, when people arrive, there’s somewhere useful for them to start.

This is one of the next steps I’m most excited about. I’ve been putting a lot into Wish Chronicles, and I want to give more people a way to follow it, see what’s being made, and eventually get involved.

I’ll have more to say when the opening is ready. For now, consider this the heads-up that it’s getting close.

A player’s view

TWITCH / AN OPEN INVITATION

I also want to start talking about streaming HR on Twitch.

If someone wants to step up and stream their player experience, I’d be interested in making that happen.

I don’t feel like I should be the one streaming the campaign from the DM side. There’s too much on my screen: preparation, information, and things you aren’t supposed to see yet. Getting a stream ready around all of that would be its own job.

A player’s perspective is the version I’m interested in sharing.

Someone watching could experience the reveals as they happen. They could follow the party trying to figure something out, watch a fight unfold without having my notes beside it, and get to know the campaign through someone who is actually playing in it.

There’s a lot I like about that possibility.

The interviews in this issue are a good reminder that everyone experiences HR a little differently. A player stream would give people one of those perspectives in real time.

If that sounds like something you’d want to do, talk to me.

We can figure out the practical side together before making it a regular thing.

07 / THE NEXT CHAPTER

Into
Year Two.

I’m looking forward to getting more of Wish Chronicles ready, opening the Discord, and seeing whether we can bring a player’s experience of HR to Twitch.

I’m also looking forward to getting back to the table.

Making this issue has reminded me how much there is to carry forward from the first year. The things that worked. The things that need more attention. The encounters I want to learn from, and the answers from these interviews that I’ll keep coming back to.

There’s more story ahead of us, and plenty more I’m excited to make.

For now, we made it to one year.

Thank you for being here.

YEAR ONE COMPLETE.
HISTORY CONTINUES.