Last week, after a protracted illness, we lost an icon of the RPG industry, Jennell Jaquays.
Up until a few days before she got sick, she was regularly posting pictures of miniatures she had painted. She actually had tackled her pile of unfinished minis in a systematic way that gave me hope for dealing with mine. Hope is something she represented to me on multiple levels.
She was an accomplished designer, writer and illustrator of games, and much in demand in our little corner of the world. She was able to live comfortably while in semi retirement.
She had found her true self, and found true love in the person of her wife, Rebecca Heineman.
She is important enough to me that I had cut ties with people who refused to call her by her name, and her loss has affected me profoundly.
There are currently two well organized initiatives to help with both the sudden financial burden of her medical bills and to memorialize her;
You can contribute financially to this Gofundme that Becky has organized
and with game design to Doctor Violet’s Memorial Game Jam over on Itch.
She was an awesome, giving person. May her memory be a blessing.
One of her design sensibilities was making non-linear, non-railroady dungeons, where player agency had value. This principle for some years was named after her (improperly initially) and became known as Jaquaysing a dungeon.
naturally, someone wants to take that from her. We shall not let that occur. (read about it here-https://diyanddragons.blogspot.com/2024/01/xandering-is-slandering.html?fbclid=IwAR1vE2owYO8W4JHbFnSwmmmSRyBdPrblvseyeNbFnAg-nPehwe8HADQQoCk&m=1
Northport 