Quest Log
Innkeeper: Why Didn't I Think of This Sooner?
A private Discord bot and an admin helper built in two days: Claude drafts each server change and waits for my go-ahead, nothing can be deleted, and a dwarven tavern keeper fights Discord's five-field form limit.
Chronicler's Companion, part 2 of 2
Chronicler's Companion: A Campaign Memory That Has to Keep Secrets
Discord admins can read every private channel, so passing D&D secrets needed a different design. Whispers over bot DMs, voice notes that catch only people who opted in, and a console that never gets data it should not show.
A Cheap Yellow Display That Tells Us What to Wear
Bringing up an ESP32 touchscreen from WSL2: a USB path WSL2 could not see, a touch library that would not compile, and a weather screen that suggests a coat or a T-shirt.
Fizzwick Sparkmender: Cleric of the Morninglord
The origin story of my newest D&D character — a gnome tinkerer turned barbarian turned failed tomb-robber, who died chasing a cursed book and came back changed. Plus a reusable CharacterStatBlock component for dropping any TTRPG sheet into a post.
Storybook Events Inspector, part 2 of 2
Every Event, No Exceptions: Setting Up storybook-events-inspector — and Catching a Real Typo With It
A spotlight on the addon from the last post: the actual shadow-DOM bug it exists to catch, a real install-to-MCP setup walkthrough, and what happened the first time I pointed an AI agent at a real Storybook with it running.
Storybook Events Inspector, part 1 of 2
From a Copy-Pasted Debug Hack to My First Open Source Package: Building a Real Storybook Events Inspector
The scrappy debug component I kept carrying between design system projects, why it never quite worked, and the day it became a real Storybook addon with a test suite, an MCP server an AI agent can drive directly, and five actual npm publishes.
No Docker Desktop Required: Getting Drupal Running on Windows via WSL2 and Lando
Testing whether a gaming rig running WSL2 could stand up a real Drupal site with Lando and Docker, no Docker Desktop involved — and the two very-Windows hiccups that showed up along the way.
One Attribute, Four Themes: How This Blog's Design Tokens Actually Work
How a three-layer CSS custom property system lets this site recolor, reshape, and refont itself from one data-theme attribute, why none of that costs a re-render, and the real bug that taught me how Astro scopes styles.
Root Meridian, part 7 of 7
Root Meridian Part 7: Solving Problems That Do Not Exist Yet
Got a personal Fusion 360 license, opened the software, and immediately spent the session researching custom PCBs, panel-mount SD slots, and product viability for a prop I haven't printed yet.
Root Meridian, part 6 of 7
Root Meridian Part 6: The Cardboard Box Before Fusion 360
Measuring the confirmed electronics stack with calipers, sketching the housing footprint, and building a cardboard mockup — because it turns out a month of dreading Fusion 360 is easier to survive with scissors and painter's tape first.
Root Meridian, part 5 of 7
Root Meridian Part 5: First Solder, First Light
Learning to solder for the first time with a Pinecil V2, wiring the NeoPixel ring, and the moment all four gem quadrants lit up together — topaz, emerald, ruby, diamond — on a real bench for the first time.
Root Meridian, part 4 of 7
Chronicler's Companion, part 1 of 2
Root Meridian Part 4: The Compass Gets a Voice
Building Chronicler — the Discord bot that lets the DM control the Root Meridian from a slash command. Adding a WiFi web server to the ESP32. And the moment /compass east moved a physical stepper motor over WiFi from Discord.
Root Meridian, part 3 of 7
Root Meridian Part 3: The Needle Flies, the Speaker Speaks
Fixing the stepper motor speed bottleneck, wiring up a DFPlayer Mini with five CC-licensed sounds, and hearing the compass come alive for the first time — motor and audio running together on real hardware.
Root Meridian, part 2 of 7
The Stepper Motor Finally Moved: A Hardware Debugging Story
First real hardware session on the Root Meridian — flashing firmware to an actual ESP32, debugging a stepper motor that refused to move for two hours, and the moment it finally spun.
Root Meridian, part 1 of 7
Building a D&D Prop with an ESP32: The Root Meridian
How I secretly built a physical compass prop for one of my players — complete with a spinning needle, NeoPixel LEDs, audio cues, and a Discord bot only the DM controls.
Stormwreck Isle: A Campaign Chronicle
The story of our Dragons of Stormwreck Isle campaign, told session by session. Four adventurers. One new DM. An island full of dragons, mushroom folk, and kobolds with ambitions.
Rolling for Initiative: How AI Helped Me Learn to Run D&D
What happens when a first-time DM pairs a $25 starter set with an AI collaborator — and discovers that good storytelling is about the ideas, not the execution.