Community Update - DOCE, Writer's Block and What's Next

Hi everyone,

it's been a few months since my last community update, and I think now it's been more than just due.

April Fools 2025 - Departmento of Chaos Efficiency

For the past two years, my annual April Fools homebrews have been received rather well by the 40k TTRPG community. With low expectations, I was just happy to bring a few laughs and maybe pick up a new fan or two along the way.

But this year, for 2025, I went out of my way to create something tuned to the current zeitgeist, especially to humour our US-American friends. Thus D.O.C.E. was born: Black Crusade acquisition through overtly flawed bureaucracy, just as the British intended.

Never, in my wildest dreams, did I expect this April Fools joke to explode the way it did. I certainly didn’t expect it to be featured in a Wargamer.com article, or to receive such glowing praise. Thank you, Alex!

And truth be told, I never would have guessed this would lead to the biggest traffic spike in Athenaeum Heretica’s history since its launch in February 2024. April 2025 alone accounts for nearly 60% of all Patreon traffic to date; insane!

So, to all the new faces here: welcome! I hope you’ll find as much joy in reading (and playing!) my homebrews for Black Crusade as I did creating them.

Before I forget, yes, my pledge still stands: Any DOCE request for 2025 will be processed within roughly 1 week!

So far we’ve had 3 requests, and DOCE's average response time is a snappy 11 hours. Keep it up, Khyros!

Liber Prospero 0.28

My last update was a few months ago, and in several of my recent posts, I mentioned being close to finishing the next update for Liber Prospero. That was, admittedly, quite some time back. While I did note that the first third of 2025 would be stressful, I can now at least say: that period is behind me.

Unfortunately, Liber Prospero hasn’t seen much progress since then. That’s mostly down to a mix of writer’s block and my relentless perfectionism, which, unsurprisingly, tends to further feed the writer’s block.
I bit off too much at once, trying to incorporate additions to the armoury & the Pyrae's discipline, balancing updates, and revisions all together, until I found myself stuck in the middle of it all.

Thus I’m refocusing. 

I’ll be aiming for a more streamlined and coherent Liber Prospero 0.28, with a new target deadline of May 1st, 2025.

What's Next

So, what’s next? Beyond Liber Prospero 0.28, and the occasional DOCE request, I want to shift more of my focus toward working in a community-driven way. Of course, that’s easier said than done. The reality is: most media is consumed passively, even on platforms like Reddit, and to a certain extent, even here on Patreon. That passivity extends to how my work is engaged with, which makes gathering useful feedback or seeing encouraging participation, a bit tricky.

While asking directly for suggestions on how to improve community involvement might yield some helpful insights, I suspect it won’t be the most effective way to truly understand what would motivate and engage more of you. I’ve got some reading lined up on adjacent topics, and I’ll be working through that to help shape a better approach.

In the meantime, I’m simply declaring my intent here, and if any of you fine folks feel like sharing your thoughts or ideas on how to build a more collaborative creative space, I’d be happy to hear them.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

- Ryjza