2025 Guests of Honour

Chris Tung is one half of the lifestyle brand Pink City. Founded alongside his brother Mike, Pink City specializes in anime/gaming inspired streetwear - with a strong love for TTRPGs, they have hosted various Dungeons & Dragons charity streams throughout the past three years. Chris Tung is also the award-winning producer/editor/current GM for the comedy TTRPG podcast Super Journey Dudes, and runs the world’s highest production Lancer show called Blink Space Blues. He is known for his wacky homebrewed concepts (including a popular Pokémon themed D&D campaign) and enjoys injecting stories with humour and heart as both a GM and a player. Find him online @lil_tungsta.

Chris is the designer of Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, Spell Smashers, and soon to be released My Little Pony: Festival of Lanterns. Sometimes a tutor, but always a tutee, and will always make room for cheesecake when there is none left.

Derek is an easy-going, globe-trotting mental health professional by day and an award-winning game designer by night.

While he got into game development the usual way—a steady diet of geek media and anime, a hatred of sleep, and way, way too much beer—his background in psychotherapy is what reinforced his love of shared worlds and co-operative storytelling. Seeing and experiencing the similarities between therapy and gaming, Derek now marries the two, and is one of the pioneers in the young field of therapeutic gaming that attempts to make psychological health more inclusive, available, and most-importantly, fun, for everyone.

Derek is a Toronto-based indie game developer who designs both tabletop and computer games. Creator of the card-based story game Hope Inhumanity, which celebrates its 10-year anniversary in 2025, Derek thinks of game design as crafting memorable experiences for players. His influences range from roleplaying classics like Burning Wheel and Apocalypse World to computer strategy gems like Civilization and Crusader Kings. You can keep up with Derek’s latest game design adventures on his YouTube channel, Dandy Barbarian.

James Kerr is a publisher, Indie Groundbreaker nominated table-top RPG designer, and arcade champ from rural Ontario. He runs Radio James Games, a publishing house of weirdo gonzo indie games, and is the Membership Coordinator for the Indie Games Developer Network (IGDN), where he champions other folks' weirdo gonzo indie games.

Julian Frid is an improvisor, teacher and game designer. He is a founder of the Canadian TTRPG 'Sine' as well as Toronto Comedy darlings Sex T Rex. Sine is currently a podcast and also in the works of being Kickstarted in 2025. Julian is a huge fan of how RP promotes organic atypical storytelling and would love to talk to you about how your favourite system does the same.

Ken Lowery is a game designer based in San Antonio, TX, publishing under the name Bannerless Games. He primarily creates solo games such as the ENNIE-winning VOID 1680 AM, Lighthouse at the End of the World, and No-Tell Motel. He used to self-publish comics for a long time, too, so maybe you also know him from there.

Marceline Leiman is a freelance New York City-based game designer, developer, and adjunct professor at NYU Game Center. She loves exploring new forms of playing games, focusing on those that draw players closer together.

Pam Punzalan is a multi-awarded Filipino queer woman best known for her work on D&D: Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, Spire: Shadow Operations, Hunter: The Reckoning, Thirsty Sword Lesbians and the up and coming Dagger Isles Supplement for Blades in the Dark. You may also recognize her for her work with Big Bad Con, where she is one half of Special Events - including their uplifting work for POC creatives in tabletop.

Reed Mascola (he/him) is a Toronto-based game designer and founder of Paranoia Rising Games. He designed and self-published Vigilante, a superhero game with hidden roles, and CATNIP Auction House, which was published by Tin Robot Games. Watch out for other new designs to hit the shelves, including the Rûnebeasts Deck-Building Game and more!

Ryan Khan is a London-based TTRPG designer and teacher. He is the author of Told by Starlight and The Festival of Deep Winter, and the sensitivity consultant on The Wildsea RPG. He loves to explore the intersection between games and learning, and how play drives creativity.

Sara Jeffers is an Indigenous American writer, designer, producer, and co-founder of the charity focused streaming channel Meadowlark Productions. They have several published adventures and more in the works.