The Resplendent Cave

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The Resplendent Cave

We believe in building beautiful friendships through collaborative storytelling

08/24/2024

The Resplendent Cave and Van Loc continue to host the Chinatown writing club for the autumn. Typically, we'd hold each writing club every third Friday, but with Comic Expo happening on the same weekend, the writing club will meet one week earlier than usual.

Join other writers, share your stories, and practice your craft! Or just hang out and vibe.

08/13/2024

What an amazing weekend at Animethon ! I'm so grateful to work with such amazing people. On Saturday, we partnered with Extra Life Edmonton and ran two d&d sessions to raise money for the Stollery Children's Hospital.

I'm so grateful to my gamemasters Nick Jewell Zack and Emily. I relied on their expertise, improv and knowledge to GM for 6 exhausting hours.

Thank you to Kelly and Gia for being excellent merchant NPCs! Especially when players rushed the table. That was crazy.

Through our efforts and the support of the community, we raised over $500 for The Stollery.

Way to go team!

07/09/2024

The last few weeks, we've been playtesting a type of game style where several parties can interact in a single game world and even gamemasters can drop in and out of they need to.

I want players to feel as if they're part of a larger world and to make it easy and fun to interact with other parties.

This game style makes use of digital battle maps, and each gm is given a laptop, tv and access to a server where the world is stored. Through it, that can see a party's progress, the world map and available dungeons.

In this video, I'll go over some of the neat things we've worked on.

We're really excited with the progress we've made.

04/16/2024

Dungeon Master meetups are back!

I'm really excited about these future meetups because we're going to focus more on improving our skillsets as Dungeon Masters.

We welcome players of all experience levels! New and longtime players of D&D. Bring your passion for writing or game design and share your expertise with other DM's!

Here's a peek at our tentative program:

7:00pm: welcome, intros, words from the host
7:20pm: writing exercise/discussion
7:45pm: break into small groups, share something about your campaign
8:30ish: free networking period, thank you from the hosts, closing words

Van Loc Vietnamese Subs
Saturday, April 27, 7pm
10648 98st NW
Edmonton, AB

01/14/2024

We're excited to announce our next multi-party event called The Vassal of Shenlong! This is a big moment for us as it concludes our year long adventure of Chinese mythology-inspired D&D quests starting with Cavern of Fuzanglong in November 2023.

Not only are we saying goodbye to our much beloved campaign, we will be celebrating the Lunar New Year! We will be welcoming the Year of the Dragon alongside the Chinatown community with an art market organized by Togather Chinatown.

This event is open to players of all experiences and ages. There's not need to have attended the previous events to have fun at this one.

We thank you all so much for your support throughout this adventure. We couldn't have done this without you.

Tickets here: https://square.link/u/ygbOsQ9l

11/03/2023

Chinese New Years D&D dice set! We received this beautiful red and gold set from Edmonton's own talented dice maker, ! Here you can see us proudly display the dice set at .ca Van Loc, in the heart of Chinatown.

10/02/2023

Do you enjoy meeting up with fellow D&D enthusiasts? Players and Dungeon Masters are welcome to join us for a monthly get-together at Slow Pour Beer Bar.

09/14/2023

Join us for another meetup of D&D enthusiasts at Slow Pour Beer Bar on Tuesday, September 26th!

RSPV here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/dungeon-master-meetup-2-tickets-716937999857?aff=oddtdtcreator

09/07/2023

I'm hard at work making battlemaps and dungeons! I recently transitioned from Roll20 to Foundry Virtual Table Top and I don't regret it at all. While Foundry has a bit of a steep learning curve, it's got a ton of features and the ability to expand its functionality with modules.

In this picture, I'm experimenting with a dungeon map that slowly fills with water over time, which makes for a creative and dynamic fight.

Do you use a virtual table top? Why or why not?

07/31/2023

What an amazing event! Yesterday we ran the Mountain of Fenghuang event at the Ukrainian National Federation. We had 8 Dungeon Masters and over 40 players for this one of a kind adventure! Congratulations to all our adventurers on their hard earned victory! We can't wait to see you for the finale.

07/11/2023

The Mountain of Fenghuang D&D event is 50% sold out! Less than 20 seats remain. Get your tickets now!

07/10/2023

Some things were meant to stay hidden. You are a team specially recruited for your unique skillsets by a mysterious benefactor. Your job: retrieve the security information from a secret vault about the night an ancient artifact was stolen. The only catch? You will have to journey across the Free Lands to get the vault all the while being hounded by mysterious assailants. Can you and your team get there and back in one piece?

Join us for this unique sci-fi and fantasy RPG set in a First Nations alternate future where colonization never happened. Register at https://tinyurl.com/pmcoyoteandcrow (and be sure to choose "Store pickup").

06/26/2023

The next major event is upon us! We're excited to announce part 3 of the Vassal of Shenlong series: The Mountain of Fenghuang!

Our D&D megagame will feature 42 players, 6 Dungeon Masters, and 1 massive dungeon. Each party will earn items and rewards throughout the adventure to trade before, during and after the game. Unlike the previous 2 adventures, the items earned during this event will be usable for future Resplendent Cave events and drop-in sessions.

The dungeon is complex and cooperation between parties will be essential in defeating this adventure's dungeon boss, Fenghuang. Our final boss will feature of hit pool of over ONE THOUSAND hit points and damage will be tracked from every table. This means that everyone needs to work together to defeat the final boss.

The event is suitable for all ages and experience levels and we will be designating 2 beginner tables to help introduce D&D newcomers to the game.

The event is scheduled for Sunday, July 30th, 1pm - 6pm at the Ukrainian National Federation. The Resplendent Cave is looking forward to playing with you!

Tickets: https://checkout.square.site/buy/OVSQ22MLUVATRGVYD3IUPBL6

06/22/2023

Today, we’re going to touch on one of my favorite puzzles, the Room Full of Tiles! Here is an example from Room 10 of The Lake of Xuanwu adventure. Now, I love this style of puzzle because it’s so extremely versatile and its basic premise makes it a perfect fit for literally all types of adventures.

The mechanism is simple. You have a room full of tiles, and some of them are good, some of them are bad, or some of them do nothing. Each tile has a symbol etched into it that represents what kind of effect it has when a player steps on it. The beauty of this puzzle is that symbols are easily swappable to fit your campaign. Want to use Dwarven Runes? Easy! Put them in! Want to design your own magic symbols! Easy! You can put those in as well. What about a Japanese or Chinese themed adventure? No problem! Easy-peasy.

VARIATIONS: Make the ceiling at about head height if you want to prevent your players from jumping over tiles, though this might not work with gnomes or halflings. Remember! Characters can jump up to their Strength score if they get a 10 foot running start or half as much if they don’t.

So what are your favourite puzzles to use?

06/20/2023

**The Chinese Fire God, Zhurong**

A little bit of lore for those who participate in our Chinese Mythology campaign series here in Edmonton's Chinatown! Here we have the Chinese God of Fire, Zhurong. As his element suggests, when Zhurong finds himself upset or frustrated, his emotional outbursts can be violent and destructive. His nature makes him a great fit for Wildfire Druids and as a patron deity for Barbarians. Aside from his temper, Zhurong is also known for teaching humans how to use the flint and steel method for starting fires. The story goes like this:

Originally, Zhurong was a human man named Chongli, who was tasked with starting a campfire after a very heavy rainfall. At the time, the only known method was to use the firebow, which consisted of spinning a wooden rod into a base and using the smoldering embers to ignite tinder. Firemaking in this way was difficult and tedious and unfortunately, the heavy rain had soaked into the wood, causing Chongli to have a hard time building up sufficient heat in the firebow.

But Chongli was a stubborn man! And he continued to spin the firebow for hours. Two hours became four, and four hours became six. Eventually, Chongli became so frustrated that he threw a rock against the mountainside. The impact caused several sparks to fly out. When Chongli saw this, his frustration instantly disappeared and he became elated. He picked up every stone he could find and threw each of them against the mountain. When he found a rock that would consistently create sparks as it was struck, he used the sparks to ignite his tinder. Chongli has discovered flint and steel!

With his newfound knowledge he began to teach everyone he knew. His teachings caught the notice of The Yellow Emperor, the ruler of all of Heaven. The Yellow Emperor was so impressed with Chongli, that he invited the man to the celestial court, where he now resides as the Chinese God of Fire, Zhurong.

06/12/2023

Do you like earning loot? Jim shows off his haul from today's drop-in session at Red Claw Gaming Corp.

Don't miss out! Join us for our bi-weekly sessions
https://checkout.square.site/merchant/ML0VDCT8FCG08/checkout/KE5BAWUMD7YGL2JTDGV6UUOH

06/06/2023

Over the course of running The Vassal of Shenlong series, we've had players join with all sorts of character concepts. While some races fit the settings, others do stick out somewhat, so what we've done is reflavour some official races to better fit the Chinese Mythology setting!

Here, we've chosen the hadozee as a base and altered their origin to come from Flower and Fruit Mountain (Mount Huaguo), which is the realm of the Monkey King. Interestingly, most of his subjects as well as himself are referred to as macaque monkeys.

We had a lot of fun making this! What race should we do next?

06/01/2023

One of my favourite things to do is to create weapons, armours and items to better fit our Chinese mythology setting. Here we have our humble but very versatile wok! It's surface area allows for a variety of foods to be cooked while using little oil. It's wide, rounded shape also allows it to deflect blows and bludgeon your enemies! Get yours now at any of our drop-in sessions!

05/30/2023

Bonus points if you play as a Wild Magic sorcerer too

04/18/2023

On April 16th, I attended a 10 hour long D&D mega adventure, based on Keys from the Golden Vault at . It featured 16 players, 4 Dungeon Masters and was an absolute blast!

The long running time and heavy focus on roleplay might be a bit intimidating for newcomers. However, I found that these events were perfect for players with LARPing or theatre backgrounds.

Several players roleplayed without breaking character throughout the entirety of the day - even in one-on-one conversations!

Investigation and information sharing are critical for this type of game style and I would describe it as similar to murder mystery dinner parties.

One of the 4 DM's took on the role of the Event Master, whose job was to coordinate scenes, information and set up between the other 3 Dungeon Masters.

The rooms were beautifully themed, and adorned with hundreds of props and miniatures. The experience at Authentic Dungeons is truly immersive and I highly recommend you go and check them out!

04/11/2023

With the Lake of Xuanwu event concluded, my Dungeon Masters and I felt like we couldn't just wait for the next big dungeon raid to happen.

We really want to take this opportunity to really explore the myths and legends of ancient China through longer adventures and a more in-depth setting.

So join us every second Sunday at Van Loc! By playing together, we can continue to do our part for Chinatown's revitalization.

Tickets here:
www.theresplendentcave.com

04/06/2023

The Lake of Xuanwu event was our most ambitious adventure yet. It was the first time we implemented a boss with shared hit points and battlefield coordination between parties.

For Dungeon Masters who want an in-depth look at how to run the adventure and the materials required, we're planning on releasing the Lake of Xuanwu event guide! The free online version will be our first priority, with a hard or paperback version in the works.

Thank you for designing the cover and layout!

03/31/2023

Here's a rough map of the local area for the Chinese Mythology series. We decided to expand the setting a bit for the upcoming event, Mountain of Fenghuang, and add a town as well as a region map.

For continuity I thought it would also be cool to have the previous two dungeons (Cavern of Fuzanglong and Lake of Xuanwu) on the map.

I'm really happy with the feedback, suggestions and overall enthusiasm my Gamemasters have had for this adventure.

03/28/2023

Love dragons? Need more dragons? Check out these cool dragon cards from ! This group of five was gifts to me by the wonderful owner of Red Claw Gaming

03/21/2023

🌠GIVEAWAY🌠

The new Dungeon and Dragons movie is landing soon at the end of March and I’m super stoked to see it! It’s like someone filmed my party’s hijinks and embellished the story with a multi-million dollar budget.

To celebrate its release, I’m giving out LOOT. However, to access this LOOT, hopeful adventurers must complete this nefarious quest - and those who do, will be entered into a contest to win a $35 gift card to Cineplex to see Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

How to enter:
1. Follow me on instagram
2. Like this post
3. Tag a friend! Unlimited entries, but it must be a different tag each time.

Contest ends March 30th, midnight. May your rolls have advantage!

03/15/2023

After a few weeks of relaxing it's back to writing the next adventure, The Mountain of Fenghuang! This time, I'm experimenting with having adventurers star out in town rather than throwing them directly into a dungeon. This could possibly mean that instead of a one-shot event, The Mountain of Fenghuang could become a 3 to 4 month story arc.

Here you can see the first draft of the starter town, Tai'an, which is loosely based on the real Tai'an in China's Shandong province. I began with sketching the mountains and the mountain path first, but quickly realized that as I started sketching the town, the proportions were waaaay off.

In the second draft, I started with roads and building first before adding terrain features like rivers, forests and mountains. After this second sketch, I scanned the image into Photoshop to do the outlines and colour fill.

It's actually my first time using a graphics tablet but I really like the way the lines turned out in the colour version. I think the most difficult thing for me to do afterwards will be to add the little details, such as texture and shadowing.

03/08/2023

While working on the release of the Lake of Xuanwu free adventure, I want to show some of my early drafts to the dungeon map and the boss map.

The first version of the map was originally a set of inter-connected rooms. You can see some elements that I kept for the final version of the map such as the entrances, the library and the plum poles. As I started to build out the temple, I found it to be visually boring as felt like a parade of room, after room, after room. At this time, the lake map itself had no particularly interesting features and I was a bit at a loss of how to improve it.

Eventually, I started playing around with adding landmasses throughout the lake. By the time I added the first island, it knew that this was the direction I wanted to go in. I felt that by segmenting a cluster of rooms over their own islands, and forcing players to cross bridges to reach them, it really gave this dungeon the breadth and complexity that I felt this map needed.

The final picture is how I first envisioned the final battle with Lo Ting would run. Players would be forced to dive down into the depths of this cavern which would be consist of scattered air pockets and a variety of obstacles. This map is particularly deep and, given the rules for underwater combat and movement, felt that this battle would have been extremely punishing - especially for new players.

Instead, I decided to shorten the map and widen it out. The hazards were reduced to the geothermal vents and the fish-folk spawning points. Water could be reduced by turning the valve. These maps are one of the few times that I had run battles vertically, and I have to say - it's pretty thrilling.

What do you think of the changes? Would you have preferred a longer dive into the depths of the lake or did you think that choosing the shorter map was the better call?

02/28/2023

I want to thank everyone for coming out for Sunday's Lake of Xuanwu event at Red Claw Gaming Corp. The atmosphere was amazing and it wouldn't be as fun as it was without you all.

There were a lot of great moments, and I really appreciate you all supporting Chinatown businesses by giving the sandwiches from Van Loc a taste. Well done to Mike's party who did the most damage to the final boss with 367 total points of damage! I had to buff the boss with extra hit points after I saw how badly they were going to rip through the enemy. You can see the table below.

Attached is the survey for the event. I've already received tons of great feedback and each comment helps me make the event a little better. Also! Those who fill it out have the chance to win two free tickets to the next event.

https://forms.gle/jC3SLshsoUsJ5dzt8

PS. I'll be releasing the Lake of Xuanwu adventure as a free pdf in the near future for those who are interested

02/21/2023

Pricing Your Gamemastering Services
https://www.theresplendentcave.com/blog/pricing-your-gamemastering-serviices

It’s awkward to talk about money. To me, there doesn’t ever feel like there’s a good moment to bring up payment. For instance, I can talk all day with a customer about the crazy NPC’s we could include, the secrets of the world’s lore and the excitement of the upcoming storyline, but when it comes to asking for money, I can’t help but feel like I’m being selfish for even entertaining the thought of asking for payment.

But the reality is that for my business to survive, I have to make money. But finding a price point that people are willing to pay while also covering my costs has felt like a treacherous balancing act. It hasn’t been an easy ride to be on, but today I want to share my thought processes on how I set my prices.

***Pricing Structures***

First let’s take a look at the different ways of charging for your services. I mainly see two ways, which are to Charge By Session or to Charge By Seat. There could be a subscription model too, but I haven’t quite figured that one out, so let’s talk about the first two.

***Pricing by Session**

In this pricing structure, you would charge a fixed rate based on the hours that you’ll be working. This pricing structure is common for other entertainers like DJ’s, magicians, and photographers, who get booked for things like birthday parties, weddings, and corporate events. I n my case, I might charge $100 for a 4-hour session. What I like about that model is that it values your time. It’s consistent in that you are paid for the amount of time that you are there.

The problem with this is that whoever is booking you might bring a party larger than what you’re used to in order to keep the cost down per person. A five-person party would pay $20 each while a seven-person party would pay $14.29 each. There is also the possibility that you might get less bookings overall because of the extra steps involved because it requires a customer to plan, book and host the Gamemaster. We all know how hard enough already it is to coordinate a small party to play D&D even without throwing money into the mix.

***Pricing by seat***

In my experience, this seems to be the most popular pricing structure for both online and in-person Gamemasters. With this pricing structure, you would run a game and sell individual seats for people to buy tickets for. For example, you would run a drop-in adventure at a local café. You have 6 seats open and each seat would cost $15. This way, the price point might be a little more palatable for the average person and it works well for players who don’t want to go through the hassle of booking a Gamemaster. All they need to do is buy a ticket and show up.

The downside is that it may or may not be worth your time. You’ve already put in the effort to set up and advertise a game and there is the real possibility that no one will buy tickets for it. If you value your time, this pricing structure can be especially hard because some nights you’ll only make 15 or 30 dollars for four hours of work. This was the reality for my early games. During the initial few sessions of a campaign I started, there were many sessions where only 1 or 2 people would show up. This can be detrimental to the experience as a customer may buy a ticket specifically looking for that party-like experience only to see that they are the only one there.

***Competition, other Gamemasters***

Another thing that I do is I look at what other Gamemasters in the city are doing. Right now, there are so many Gamemasters who are not only are they experienced and passionate, but they are also willing to run games for free, so competing on price might not be doable. I have also seen paid Gamemasters offered at places like gaming stores and board game cafes. Tickets at those places usually range from $15 to $20 depending on the type of session. In some cases, for larger events that include multiple parties, we can see tickets go up to $25 a person.

***Competition, entertainment industry***

I see running D&D sessions in the same category as many other in-person “night out” entertainment events such as concerts, cinemas, board game cafes, laser tag centres, bowling alleys, and virtual reality arcades. That means I need to compete for not only the customer’s money but also their time. The prices for a something like a movie can be $14 for a 2-hour movie. On the higher end of entertainment like the virtual reality arcade, prices can go up to $30 per person.

***Finding My Price Point***

In the creative industry, undercutting on price is a common problem for the people like graphic designers, musicians, photographers, and videographers. A common thought process is “why would I pay for X when [a friend’s cousin] could do it for free?” I think the answer to that is we need customers to understand that paid professionals can bring them exceptional value and experience that hobbyists Gamemasters can’t . In my case, I feel like I can provide value by aligning D&D with a good cause such as revitalizing Chinatown or raising money for the Stollery while also providing a unique convention or conference-style experience that other Gamemasters can’t. I also want to keep my events affordable. By looking at what the other “night out” entertainment businesses are up to, I felt like I could price my tickets somewhere in the middle. That’s why for my last two events (Cavern of Fuzanglong and Lake of Xuanwu), I’ve hovered around the $25 range.

***Conclusion***

So I can’t say that I’ve got pricing down to a science. Even now, I’m still trying to find out what works for me and the public at large. I think that by focusing on what makes my services unique and constantly innovating, people can see the value that I bring to their experience while also staying affordable for the average consumer.

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Edmonton, AB

Website

http://theresplendentcave.com/, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDu1yv5KUv7A-aKY7Gb6q7g, https://discord.gg/JdUDea6GCf

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Videos

Unyssia update 1

The last few weeks, we've been playtesting a type of game style where several parties can interact in a single game world and even gamemasters can drop in and out of they need to. I want players to feel as if they're part of a larger world and to make it easy and fun to interact with other parties. This game style makes use of digital battle maps, and each gm is given a laptop, tv and access to a server where the world is stored. Through it, that can see a party's progress, the world map and available dungeons. In this video, I'll go over some of the neat things we've worked on. We're really excited with the progress we've made.

Happy May to you all! We've got exciting events coming up for the month of May! Check them out here.

Dungeon Master meetups are back! I'm really excited about these future meetups because we're going to focus more on improving our skillsets as Dungeon Masters. We welcome players of all experience levels! New and longtime players of D&D. Bring your passion for writing or game design and share your expertise with other DM's! Here's a peek at our tentative program: 7:00pm: welcome, intros, words from the host 7:20pm: writing exercise/discussion 7:45pm: break into small groups, share something about your campaign 8:30ish: free networking period, thank you from the hosts, closing words Van Loc Vietnamese Subs Saturday, April 27, 7pm 10648 98st NW Edmonton, AB

I'm still taking it all in. Today I was invited on to 630 CHED to talk my upcoming Dungeons & Dragons mega event this weekend. Daryl McIntyre is such a great host! We talked about using D&D to support our communities and the overall mission of revitalizing Chinatown. It was an amazing experience and so grateful to have had it. Special thanks to @tamyumsoup for taking this video of me in the studio! You can listen to the podcast here: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/CORU7910437091?selected=CORU4048564391 . . . . . #yegdndevent #yeggaming #yegdnd #yeg #yegevents #yegchinatown #edmonton #edmontonchinatown #edmontondnd #edmontongaming

Thank to all that filled out the last event's survey! Congratulations to Troy for winning two free tickets to the Lake of Xuanwu!

Yesterday at Red Claw Gaming Corp., I held a playtest for the upcoming Lake of Xuanwu D&D Megagame. I'm thankful to everyone that came out to help test the mechanics, the dungeon design, and the boss fight. I learned a lot and both my players and Gamemasters has a lot of great suggestions. What I learned: By the time it was intermission, both parties had almost explored every room in the dungeon and both parties had found the majority of the Info Cards that were scattered about. This makes me think if I should return to the system I used for the Lake of Xuanwu, where the Info Cards were split between every Gamemaster. The items didn't end up being as useful as I thought. I created too many martial weapons which resulted in being unusable because too many characters didn't have proficiency in them. In addition to the difficulty of breathing, moving and fighting underwater, I was advised to provide at least some magical items that would make underwater combat easier. I will implement this change. I provided pre-generated characters for players to drop in and pick up. By their random nature, parties weren't balanced and in some parties tanks and healers were non existent. I'll be taking more care to pay attention to party balance and allow for spell casters to change their spells before the game starts. In regards to the theme, during the last event, players were allowed to bring any character so long as they were official WotC material and didn't fly. This resulted in some weird mixes like a centaur hanging out in China. I'm think I'll add theme restrictions so characters fit the settings. The players wanted more items in general, even the mundane such as rope, nails or an ink and quill. Along with mundane items, I'll be adding more spell scrolls as well - especially those that can affect water. There are a few quality of life improvements I could make as well, such as a north indicator for the dungeon map. I'll also likely use the minions rules from D&D 4th ed