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Why Would You Want to Hire Me as a Dungeon Master?

Hello! My name is Toren and I live in East Vancouver! I’ve been running and playing D&D since 1985! I’ve played every edition. My preferred edition is “old school” which comes in many forms, from Basic to Old School Essentials to Shadowdark (kind of sort of). I’ve also run 5th edition with dozens of groups.

MY BONA FIDES:

I’ve designed an award winning TTRPG called Spaceship Zero
I’ve worked for Wizards of the Coast as an illustrator
I’m a professional actor and voice actor
I’ve run games and tournaments at conventions, including GenCon, and at two animation studios in town.

HOW IT WORKS

I prefer in person around a physical table – but you provide the venue
I have some miniatures, terrain and battle maps if that is the kind of game you like (I do) – I even make my own terrain!
I have a car so I can drive and potentially give other players rides if need be
I welcome and can provide consent checklists to avoid any uncomfortable awkwardness
I write adventure summaries and track noteworthy items after each session
I charge $85 (CAD) for a 4 hour session with up to 4 players. Over four players is another $15 per additional player up to 6*.

An encounter with horizontal AND vertical dimensions! From my post-apocalyptic campaign

MY DM STYLE

I’ve been Dungeon Mastering since the 80s, but I play it fairly loose with the rules.
I like to start with mini-adventures that can be completed in a single session, but if the group vibes well, longer multi-session quests are a natural next step.
You can expect memorable non-player characters with distinct quirks and vocal stylings.
I welcome any help/advice/correction with regards to rules and rulings. 
Typically, I don’t worry about alignment, but advise that reputation is important with regards to interacting with civilized society (which is the source of most quests in the realm). Criminals are treated harshly in the medieval-type world! 

The Great Gingerbread Dungeon of 2015

CAVEAT
My schedule can be a challenge. I have a full time job, a wife, a dog, a rock band that’s working on a new album, freelance illustration gigs, and another ongoing professional DM gig. So I won’t be able to meet weekly, but once or twice per month is feasable.

Interested? Reach out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F_JzutLhl0

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Overdue Who Review: Shada – the Recently Completed Episode!

Season 17 (1979) – Fourth Doctor (TV movie)

The Doctor, Romana and K-9 are summoned to the lair of a dottering old Time Lord friend Professor Chronotis (get it? Chrono means time!) at a contemporary (1979) British university. He’s lost an important book that is the key to accessing the titular Gallifreyan prison asteroid. The evil Skagra, with inimitable fashion sense, is trying to access Shada to complete his ultimate plan of putting the entire universe into one mind – his – with the help of a cryogenically frozen inmate named Salyavin.

Skagra’s path towards this goal involves stealing the minds of important people with the aid of a floating grey sphere. His muscle is the monstrous, lumbering, silicon-based Krarg. Along for the ride with The Doctor is a student of physics who accidentally borrowed the Gallifreyan tome.

Shada was intended as the final serial of the season but filming never completed, owing to a strike. The completed version of Shada was finally released in 2017, with missing dialogue newly recorded by the original cast, using the same audio equipment employed in the initial shoot, and animated by the team that undertook the reconstruction of the 1966 serial The Power of the Daleks. 

Although this 2h18m movie could have been cut down by at least 18 minutes (just with the animated characters looking left and right alone), this is a well-written story, as Doctor Who stories go, by our good friend Douglas Adams. There are lots of his trademark witticisms delivered perfectly by Tom Baker. The Doctor manipulates the bad guy’s spaceship AI with “logic” a la Captain Kirk. There’s a chase scene where he’s riding a bicycle without a helmet. He has his memories stolen by the floating sphere when it touches his head (could this have been prevented with a bike helmet?) He has a mind control battle with the bad guy.

Sadly, Romana does precious little except to remind The Doctor of various plot points. I also had a problem with the mysterious Salyavin revealing himself for absolutely no reason at the end, to the benefit of no one but the bad guy. Animated jelly babies appear. The TARDIS goes exactly where everyone wants it to go for a change.

Oh, and the music is quite good for a change!

As a student of animation this reconstruction interests me. The animation of the human characters is stilted with fairly flat light and color, but the 2D stills of ships and backgrounds exceeds the live action sets and models. K-9 has never moved so fluidly in his CG form and even the alien Krarg are rendered in 3D to excellent effect. There’s a blog

There’s an online Doctor Who magazine called Nothing At The End of the Lane that takes a hefty, serious, thorough look at this reconstruction. I find this extremely interesting and if you watch Shada (which I recommend) you might look into it https://www.endofthelane.co.uk/Shada-Blog-1.html

Next: The Leisure Hive

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Kurashiki “Town of Storehouses” – Bikan Historical District

Kurashiki (倉敷) is located in Okayama Prefecture, not far from the prefectural capital of Okayama City. Kurashiki has a preserved canal area that dates back to the Edo Period (1603-1867), when the city served as an important rice distribution center. In fact, the name “Kurashiki” can be roughly translated as “town of storehouses” in reference to the rice storehouses.

Many of Kurashiki’s former storehouses have been converted into museums, boutiques and cafes. The Ohara Museum is the most impressive of Kurashiki’s museums, exhibiting a large collection of works by famous Western artists. The canal area is a ten minute walk from Kurashiki Station.

HERE IT IS ON GOOGLE MAPS ->[CLICK IF YOU CARE]

Shopping Arcade

Several blocks of open air covered walkway with all kinds of shops and restaurants

BETTER LIFE – a housewares shop where I bought an ogre towel

Chez Kobeya for katsu (they had lassi!)

Fun Gachapon (toy machine) shop – I bought three (none of them pictured)

Imagine if you will a shop in Japan dedicated to American kitsch. That shop is: Golden Nugget Buddies, named after the MacDonaldland characters

Strange purple yam ice cream to delight and offend the senses

Toy/Candy store run by a nice little old lady included tons of Ultraman figures I haven’t seen in the new stores – bought one! This place is called おくだ商店

Achi Jinja Shrine

It is located on the top of Mt. Tsurugata, a perfect viewing spot overlooking the Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter, and has a Noh stage and an ancient garden based on Horai philosophy within its grounds. The natural monument “Achi no Wisteria”, which is estimated to be 300 to 500 years old, is also worth seeing.

Unfortunately we didn’t explore this much, due to bad knees.

reverse angle courtesy Fred Bremmer

Saw koi and swans in the canal

OHOARA MUSEUM OF ART

Where you can find Rodin, Picasso, Gaugin, Monet, Signac, Lutrec, cezanne, Klee, Kandinksy, Pollock. No photos allowed inside unfortunately.

DENIM STREET

Where you can find blue cream soda flavor soft serve and blue bao.

LIVING MOMOKA peach croquette and Ghibli merch

Miffy Bakery

Momotarō (桃太郎, Japanese pronunciation: [mo.moꜜ.ta.ɾoː],[1][2] lit. ’Peach Boy’) is a popular hero of Japanese folklore. His name is often translated as Peach Boy, but is directly translated as Peach + Tarō, a common Japanese given name. Momotarō is also the title of various books, films and other works that portray the tale of this hero.

There is a popular notion that Momotarō is a local hero of Okayama Prefecture, but this claim was invented in the modern era. This notion is not accepted as consensus in scholarly circles.

Kurashiki Ivy Square

Formerly a spinning factory, now a hotel (with another koi pond)

ASOBOUYA Variety Store – lots of kaiju toys, M.U.S.C.L.E. men (Kinnikuman), Owner smelled of cigarettes. Cluttered and awesome.

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Overdue Who Review: Nightmare of Eden

Season 17, 1979, 4 parts, Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)

Due to poor navigation, two different space ships (a cruise ship and a trade ship) are interlocked, and The Doctor offers to help. However a zoologist on the cruise ship, recently back from the planet Eden, has a device that stores portions of planets on crystals and displays them as projections. A euphoric drug is making the rounds on the ship and monsters loosed from the Eden projection – which is less of a projection and more of a gateway – are the unwilling couriers of the drug running scheme between two baddies.

This one’s a bit of a slog. As is often the case, there’s a fair amount of technobabble workarounds to shore up the plot. The zoologist Tryst is played by an Australian actor who I think is trying to do a German accent? It’s all very weird and he reminds me of a high school teacher for some reason – at least that garnered my interest.

Next: The Horns of Nimon

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20 Minute Monster Series: Monster Manual II

This is the third in a series of annual timed drawing exercises. They were livestreamed on Sunday mornings on my youtube channel. First I went through the AD&D Monster Manual, choosing one monster from each letter of the alphabet. Then I did the same with the Fiend Folio and finally, here, the Monster Manual II (1983).

ABOLETH

Blue Behir upon a bisected boulder bravely defending her brood of babies, breathing blasts of lightning

Choke Creeper as seen in the D&D cartoon episode “The Garden of Zinn”

Drunk drider drawing a drowsy drow druid

Elderly elf with ELECTRIC EEL escapes with an enlarged EAGLE egg

Friendly fulvous FROGHEMOTH foisting frogurt on four frightened flumphs

Genuine ginger GIBBERING MOUTHER gently gesturing in a gibbet

Hoary host of heavenly HOLLYPHANTS hoisting a hungover halforc hierophant

Jade jumping JANNI with a jambiya

Kraken

Lithesome lady LYCANTRHOPE luring a lascivious low-level lyrist in a lavender labyrith (Foxwoman)

Millions of mechanically marching MODRON minions magnificently mismanaged by a monstrous malfunctioning master

Nereid on a Nautilus

Ork on an olive Oliphant (featuring Venger)

Phoenix

Quickling queen questions a quagga about the quartz quail on the quarterdeck

Robust red rancorous RAVENS regard rappelling ranger ransacking the rookery (featuring Hank the ranger from the D&D cartoon)

Speedy speckled SPECTATOR supports a spunky spellcaster spraying sparkles (featuring Zandora the sorceress from the D&D cartoon)

Titanic tangerine TARRASQUE tasting a templar at the temple of Tefnut.

Uncanny urban URCHINS upending upset unicorns (featuring Uni from the D&D cartoon)

Black velvet VEGEPYGMY veteran with a voulge

Weaponless warduke gets a wet willy from a watchet WOLF-IN-SHEEPS-CLOTHING while a wapiti watches in the woods

Xenagogue x-rayed on a xenolith by XAG-YA AND XEG-YI

Yellow YUAN-TI yogis at a yajna with a yummy yaffingale amongst the yucca

A zomp zendik saps a zaftig ZYGOM ZORBO zombie on a zuche

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Naoshima, Little Island with Lots of Art!

As wikipedia says – Naoshima is an island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, part of Kagawa Prefecture. The island is best known for its many contemporary art installations and museums.

Don’t visit on a Monday! The galleries are closed! We learned this the hard way.

There it is!!

Getting there

The closest city with a JR station is Okayama, a cool place with lots of its own destinations (like a castle) which I will blog about another time.

If you happen to be doing a day trip from Okayama, you’ll want to leave as early as you can because it will take at least 1.5 hours transit time to get there, and the ferry schedule is limited. And be sure you plan your trip back as well to ensure you have enough time and aren’t rushing.

Uno Station

There are two ferry docks, one that takes cars and one for foot passengers only. The food passenger one is smaller, obviously, and I think it’s faster, and is actually less comfortable.

Getting Around

If you arrive in Miyanoura Port, make sure you check out Marine Station, they had a special pumpkin cream puff/macaron type thing. You’ll have to buy the ticket at the vending machine and hand the ticket to the clerk to get your sweet treat. We’ll check back later to see how that went for me 😀

Macaron, not macaroon!

Right at the ferry port, you can see artist Yayoi Kusama’s red pumpkin. You can go inside it!

Another piece of art!
Different perspective of the red pumpkin

I expect you could rent a car or something but we went with bicycles. During the off season (December/January) the only Bike Rental place that’s open is Ougiya. Make sure you check the tires, brakes, etc – mine required a bit of tweaking before we rolled out.

map is provided by the Ougiya bike rental place.
I thought this was an villains lair but turns out it is a high school
Found the heron from that Miyazaki film!
Glam trucks are a thing in Japan

On the opposite side of the island, at Honmura Port, you can find some giant bubbles in which to park your bike, if you are so inclined. Designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nihsizawa. Fun stuff!

Naoshima Noodles

Right next to a supermarket (Mitsubishi Materials Naoshima Co-op) there’s a little ramen place called Naoshima Noodles [google link]. We arrived just before lunch and the place was completely empty. We struggled a bit trying to decipher the ticket machine that you use to place your order, but there is an English menu available to help you translate – just ask for it! Just a few minutes after we got our ramen, hordes of salarymen came in to crowd the place.

From here we rode our bikes up a winding steep hill to get to the “Amazing View Spot” on the map above. It was a bit rough, even with electric-assist bikes! But we made it! There’s an orange pumpkin down there somewhere….

Down the hill (scary slope and curves – ride slow) we found Tsutsuji-So Seaside Park. There’s a bus stop here and a beach! Must be nice when it’s not JANUARY!

Yes you can get beer from the vending machine! I guess you don’t need ID?
Do you see the giant pumpkin?

Time to try my pumpkin macaron – pretty good! Very rich and sweet, a bit of a trial to finish the whole thing by myself.

Artsy

Plants!

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Akihabara Tokyo (Toren’s Travels)

Previously: Jimbocho (Book Town)

The area in tokyo gained the nickname Akihabara Electric Town (秋葉原電気街, Akihabara Denki Gai) shortly after World War II for being a major shopping center for household electronic goods and the post-war black market. The name Akihabara is a shortening of Akibagahara, which comes from Akiba, named after a fire-controlling deity of a firefighting shrine built after the area was destroyed by a fire in 1869.[

Akihabara is considered by many to be the centre of Japanese otaku culture, and is a major shopping district for video games, anime, manga, electronics and computer-related goods. Icons from popular anime and manga are displayed prominently on the shops in the area, and numerous maid cafés and some arcades are found throughout the district.

2025 – my second visit to this neighborhood! (First time was 2019)

Right next to the JR Train station, YODOBASHI CAMERA Akiba is the largest electronics store in Japan and has 9 floors including restaurants and a batting cage – but the 6th floor is where I spent most of my time for obvious reasons:

Here’s a walkthrough video (not mine)

No less nerdy is Akihabara Radiokaikan, just a five minute walk to the West

I bought a few Ultraman monsters and I don’t regret it! Here’s a walkthrough video (also not mine)

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Booktown, Japan (Jinbocho, Tokyo)

So you’re in Tokyo and you’re wondering where’s a good place to get used books? Well by golly I’ll tell you –

KANDA-JINBOCHO (aka JIMBOCHO)

Jinbocho has its own subway station and is 2 stops away from the famous Akihabara station, it’s about a 16 minute ride.

It’s about a 15 minute walk from Tokyo Dome! Which has a theme park…

The roller coaster actually pokes out over the building above the sidewalk which, as a pedestrian is… disconcerting

Fun things we saw on our walk included stumbling across Anitouch petting zoo, where you can pet capybara, ring-tailed lemur, meerkat, and more typical farm animals (it was a bit sad seeing meerkats who wanted to dig in the dirt but they were trapped in a plastic area) and the Cappy Cafe – where it looks like they might be selling capybara burgers? Nah… probably just the name. Right?

There’s a Mos Burger nearby! Try the matcha shake, it’s not too bad! And of course the rice burger (the bun is made out of rice, there were only 2 on the menu and they were hidden out of the way, but they had them). There was also a frozen dessert that was really REALLY frozen and I had to let it melt a bit in my warm hand before the tiny plastic spoon could dent it

tokyo jimbocho mos burger
tokyo jimbocho mos burger
tokyo jimbocho mos burger matcha shake and frozen dessert
tokyo jimbocho mos burger matcha shake and frozen dessert

There’s tons of book stores around…

But the best one was definitely:

Komiyama Bookstore Tokyo

Which had multiple floors packed with cool books and tons of amazing art!

These photos are NOT from Komiyama Tokya Gallery, which is another location a few blocks to the East.

Around the corner we had tonkatsu at Butadaigaku Tonkatsugakubu, where you order at the machine by the door and they have a delicious mustard you can put on your tonkatsu! I forgot to take a photo of my meal before I ate it, but you can imagine

And here’s a photo of a random old style storefront, which I find aesthetically pleasing

Just your average old school Tokyo store front

Next: Return to AKIHABARA

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See You At KamCon 2024!

Woohoo! I’m a special GUEST OF HONOUR at year’s KamCon! Check out the art I provided of our Dread Lord Cthulhu

It will also be available on this amazing dice tray thanks to Crits n Bones

WHAT I’M DOING AT THE CONVENTION:

Firstly I’ll have a table in the Vendor Hall, where I’ll be selling some of my original D&D art, The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets CDS and paraphernalia including some Spaceship Zero comics, and prints of this handsome entity:

SCHEDULED EVENTS:

SATURDAY 11am RPG Writers panel With Seth Skorkowski, Jon Hook, Toren Atkinson, Douglas Lloyd, William McAusland, Connor Heighton and Moderated by James Droucker.

SATURDAY 6:30pm TASKMASTER!

SATURDAY 8pm I’m running SPACESHIP ZERO THE RPG in the Mountain Room, Table K

SUNDAY 11am: YouTube and Content creator panel  With Seth Skorkowsky and Toren Atkinson, moderated by James Droucker

SUNDAY 5:30pm GM Styles and World Building panel  With Seth Skorkowsky, Toren Atkinson, Jon Hook, Lee Ann Spiller, Nigel Beardwood, Marcus Pelletier and moderated by James Droucker