In 2021 I rejoined the community that taught me how to write, that taught me how to believe, and that taught me how to be a better person every day. I started writing about soccer again, mostly about Tacoma Defiance, but also about the Seattle Sounders and OL Reign. Putting the polish back into my words gave me hope in a year when I needed it more than ever.

The past year was also the year that established my voice around D&D. More people read Full Moon Storytelling in 2021 than they did in every other year of its existence, combined. To throw yourself into a new endeavor is hard. To do it during a reboot and a pandemic has been a struggle. The journey has been worth it because the people who enjoy my writings about Dungeons & Dragons are the type of people who always have more stories to tell and who know — deep and fundamentally — that a diverse group is a strong group.

These are my favorite writings of 2021, only originals, no updates. Just the best of what was new this past year.

Seattle Sounders

Throughout the pandemic the Sounders continued to open new mini-pitches. These small, all-weather soccer fields help ensure that all youth have access to play. Brad Evans and the RAVE Foundation opened pitches in Renton, Tacoma, and Yakima in 2021.

Covering matches gives me the platform to do more than just write about soccer — it gives me the opportunity to write about feelings. After the Sounders “lost” to Real Salt Lake I embraced the Wheel of Time.

Tacoma Defiance

More for myself than anyone else, I reviewed the Day that Sports Stopped. This gave me an opportunity to reconnect with Justin Dhillon and to think about just how much life changed from March 10, 2020 to the present day.

Centerback Taylor Mueller retired from soccer at the end of the 2021 USL Championship season. Mueller ends as one of the legends of the league, playing more than 20,000 minutes in career where he showed that there’s more to American soccer than MLS.

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OL Reign

While Cheney Stadium is no longer home for OL Reign, it was where they ruled. Powered by their success in Tacoma, Reign are moving back to Seattle.

Dungeons & Dragons

The Black Dice Society burst on the scene, sharing a horror setting sharing new ways to do communal storytelling via livestreams. They do a wonderful job at creating the disquiet of the Domains of Dread and the use of cutscenes to Strahd and others makes them a must watch.

As my skills in art aren’t good. But, I get past that through NPC art and various map makers.

Backgrounds, of course, have been very popular the two most well received were the Tinker and the Farmer. Friends are playing the Caravanserai and the Lamplighter (which also works as a Streetsweeper). Within the edition Backgrounds offer a mechanical space that embraces a character’s state of being beyond just being a killer and sometime explorer. Your D&D character should have hobbies.

For some reason, people rather enjoy the relaunch of my campaign, particularly the way that the Allies and Adversaries are presented.

ShantyTok was fun for a bit. This story reminded that if you’re trying to ride the wave of a meme do so immediately, or do it because you love the themes of the meme and don’t care about going viral. Me? I love pirates and tall ships.

Flavor

When Will Bruin made a beer, who better to write about t than the former professional coffee taster and beer salesman? The Georgetown Brewing-Will Bruin collab was an easy drinking IPA.

Podcast and Livestreams

As part of YachtCon, I was the Dungeon Master for a D&D livestream that raised a few hundred dollars for the Red Box program at the Seattle Children’s Hospital Autism Center. That adventure was themed around the South Sound with numerous references to Tacoma, Defiance, and Reign.

You can also find me as a regular on the Sounder at Heart podcast.