Final day of Blaugust 2024 and it has been a good one this year, folks. For me at least! I started out with my usual expectation of writing an introduction post, maybe a follow up a few days later, and perhaps a Humble Choice review type thing and that’d be it. As I’ve already covered, writing takes a lot out of me and it’s tough to make myself sit down and do it when my brain just struggles to string words together, y’know? And yet here we are, 31st August, and this is my 17th post for the month! I haven’t had a blogging month this strong in years.

Of course I will be slowing down more going into September. I need a rest! I have streams to fit in, and I have to prep a TTRPG adventure to trial the Tales of the Valiant system!¹ And hopefully some other things to start, harder things. We’ll see. But I’m also hoping this Blaugust has kickstarted a new semi-consistent blogging thing for me. Maybe? I don’t have a lot of steam these days and you may be able to tell I’m struggling today because I’ve already used the word “thing” twice. Going great, folks!

I’m happy though, and very proud. I became a Mentor in the Discord this year to help the others out a little. I’m always on Discord so I’m only happy to help, and I’ve been doing this blogging thing for nearly my entire adult life by this point. And we’ve met some great new people! It’s been really lovely seeing some new faces in Discord and around the blogosphere, exploring what they do and getting to know them a little. You’ve all done a great job, too, by the way.

At its core, Blaugust has always been about the blogging community. Yes there are prompts and themes and awards for blogging a lot, but we do it because we all get to come together for a shared event, and we all do it in our own ways, and I love that. Some thrive on pushing themself to blog daily, some enjoy just blogging a bit more, some barely scratch the surface, and we all have our methods of how we do the thing. It’s just awesome to see everybody doing their thing.

And of course there will always be those that feel they must reach some kind of target, that Blaugust puts a pressure on them whether they mean to take that on or not, and I do hate to see people getting stressed over it. That’s why I wrote about how you don’t need to overdo it the other day. But inevitably, words can only do so much and I just hope that the end of the month brings a load off and you’re all able to take a breath. If you need a break, please take one! We’ll still be here when you’re ready. But keep plugging away when you’re able because we do need you!

So for my last post, I wanted to revisit the naming of the mascots, kindly suggested by Roger earlier in the month. I received a few great suggestions for names for the lil guys in my header image and I’m going to pick my favourites from the bunch, so here goes!

Our cheerful spirit is Peter Geist, suggested by Roger. Our curiously mischievous kitty is Jiji, named for the Kiki’s Delivery Service catto, suggested by Eldae. And our recently summoned magical wyvern friend is Lunaris, suggested by Stargrace.

Thanks for the idea, Roger! And all the great suggestions everybody. Hope you all enjoyed this little thing. And of course, thanks as always to Belghast for  creating and continuing to run Blaugust year after year, allowing our little community to grow and live on. We appreciate you and all that you do!

1. Kobold Press’ answer to the OGL scandal a couple years back. It’s basically 5e, with their own improvements, and I really want to see how it plays as I backed the Kickstarters for their Player Guide/Monster Vault set and the following GM Guide, both in physical copy because I was that excited about it. Oh this is a long footnote. cough [↩]