Between OS projects, Verilog, and data science assignments, it’s easy to let everything become purely technical.

Dungeons & Dragons has quietly become my creative outlet.

Why I like running/playing campaigns

• I get to design locations, NPCs, and items (sometimes cursed).
• I can reuse that same world and iterate on it over time.
• It’s a different kind of problem-solving—narrative instead of strictly technical.

Some of my favorite parts:

• Designing a cursed trident with a pool of 50 hidden effects.
• Building out a nexus laboratory with creepy rooms and lore for my players to uncover.
• Watching players do things I absolutely did not plan for.

Tying it back to engineering

Weirdly, the skills overlap:

• Structuring a campaign is like structuring a large project.
• Tracking lore and plot threads is like managing state in a complex system.
• Both require iteration, debugging, and occasional refactoring.

So yes, this blog will occasionally have posts about D&D alongside posts about UARTs and page tables. That feels very “me.”