For many around the world, The 26th of December is a time honored holiday known as Boxing Day. Because I am from America and refuse to look up what the holiday is actually about, I can only assume that today people all over the world adorn their holiday gloves, eschew their bathrobes in favor of boxer shorts and sports bras and inflict the laws of the sweet science to their friends and families for twelve three minute rounds. I wish all of you luck in your trials by combat. May the strongest amongst your peers be named Boxing Day champion.
For those of us outside Boxing Day’s influence, the last week in December is often used as an opportunity to reflect back on the year that has passed. As CEO of Variant Ventures, I hope to lead you on a similar journey of reflection as I take a moment to review our first year as a company.
In the Beginning
For those who may not know, Variant Ventures started as an idea of Variant Kait’s design. All of us at VV believed in her vision so strongly that we banded together to make her dream a reality.
One of our first steps from taking an idea of working in the Tabletop Roleplaying Game space and making it a reality was establishing our values through our Code of Ethics. We display our Code of Ethics publicly on our site, because we want everyone who we collaborate or interact with to know who we are and what we stand for.
With our values clearly defined, we moved on to establishing our site, and some of our earliest features. We created our social media profiles, and our VV Shoppe! We have some really cool offerings that our CCO Kait has put up on the shoppe, some of which include collaborations with other artists! I am personally a big fan of our Ability Score Tank and the tote bag that is in no way secretly a mimic.
Creating our shoppe allowed us to take a look at other creators and innovators in the space. It was through our efforts to connect with others that we developed our Artisans Guild, a space where craftspersons and content creators can be featured and collaborate with one another. If you haven’t yet taken a look, I think you might be surprised at what you find. If you are a creator yourself, I encourage you to contact us about becoming a part of the guild!
The Next Phase
After getting the site, shoppe, Artisans Guild, and Social Media account situated we moved on to the next phase of our journey and started the VV Blog! Although it has only been up for a short time, I for one am proud of the content we as a team have made available through it.
Variant Kait
Kait is our CCO and chief founder of Variant Ventures. She has the most blog and writing experience of all of us and is our current blog admin. She writes about a number of topics, but I particularly like her article on creative worldbuilding she released on December 1st.
Variant Rory
Rory is our COO and a founder of Variant Ventures. His expertise lies in his seemingly endless knowledge of the tactics, weaponry and history of warfare. In addition, he is well studied on combat and other rules of fifth edition D&D. For an example of each, look both to his piece on the history of Friday the 13th, and his defense of the use of gunpowder in fantasy TTRPGs.
Variant Berry
Berry is our CMO and founder of Variant Ventures. She focuses her energy on interacting with other creators in the TTRPG space, and ensuring we all do the same. She has released several excellent product reviews and interviews, but I personally recommend checking out her interview with CobblePath Games, the development team behind Locus.
Variant Liz
Variant Liz is our CFO officer and fellow founder of Variant Ventures. As her title would suggest, she is well versed in the worlds of finance and business development. The articles she has written certainly reflect that, ranging from starting an Etsy shop to using credit cards during Black Friday.
Bugvilles
Bugville is our resident blog writer that is certainly not just a swarm of insects in a trench coat. They’re writing talent and topics they cover are both vast. For a particularly insightful post, check out their article on homebrewed worlds!
Variant J
I am the CEO and founder of Variant Ventures. I have experience in playing RPGs and TTRPGs spanning back decades, which comes with a wide breadth of accumulated lore and tropes. My writing tends to focus on collaborative storytelling, tools to assist aspiring Game Masters, and charitable giving. I am told that my articles on trauma at the table and taking the party outside are worth viewing.
Giving Back
It’s important for businesses to focus on what they can give back to the community, and Variant Ventures has taken that responsibility seriously.
On November 6th with the support of our Team at Variant Ventures, I worked with Team Pixel Damage to raise over $10,000 with the Children’s Miracle Network for the Extra Life 2020 24 hour gaming marathon! In addition, our Variant Ventures site features a page dedicated to the charities and organizations we support with direct links to donate to those causes.
We have also given back to the TTRPG community. On multiple occasions we have hosted giveaways on our Twitter pages, where winners have received Variant Ventures swag, such as a dice tray and matching set of dice. We have also released a set of holiday themed magic items for use in Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons. This was our first content release for the TTRPG space, and we at Variant Ventures are excited at the prospect of continuing to create new content for the community!
In Closing
This has been a busy first year for us at Variant Ventures. As CEO, I am proud of the steps we have taken to declare our values, interact and collaborate in the TTRPG community and provide compelling and entertaining content. Thank you for taking a moment with me to reflect on where we began.
Next week, I plan to provide some information as to what to expect from VV in 2021. See you all in the new year!
