There is something spooky out tonight. Well, most of the time it is just some creepy-crawly looking for some toes to bite. But this night, this night it was different. Because it was the Miremarsh Night!

All the goblins in their settlement in the midsts of the Miremarsh knew, they felt it in their bones and teeth. A chill that the burning bone fire could not ease, a whisper in the shadows like the ancestors calling your name. All the birds hid, silent during daylight before this particular night, and all the snares were empty as nothing has moved around in the marsh.
Under the disconcerned gazes of the elders all pointy sticks were sharpened with many goblin fingers harmed in the process.
And now all the goblins were waiting for the return of their scout. The only one brave enough to venture out into the darkened swamp under the low hanging sky. Well, they more or less just pushed one unlucky goblin out of the gates and pointed him – with quite some harsh words and threats to spit roast him – into the deep marsh.
Nevertheless they were waiting, all bulwarks manned and the gate closed, just the little porch remained open, ready to grant entry to the returning scout.
And then there came a screeching noise as if all the humans sacrificed by their tribes, bound at wrists and ankles, drowned by their priesest of old, were trying to scratch with their fingernails through the gates of the Undermire to find a less dark and dampen place to rest till the end of times. The noise punched into the goblin ears with thorny fingers, pulled at their bare teeth and blew icy cold in their staring eyes.
But the goblins did not leave the bulwark, they did not give up their posts at the gate and with a grin and a last pull at their hair the screeching sound danced off deeper into the marsh.
Out of the empty silence that followed the screech the small figure of a goblin grew into sight. The goblins at the gates and the porch screamed and cheered the returning scout to be faster, to reach the settlement before the source of this awe bearing sound could reach the gates. And they noticed that the scout held something above his head, something round, glazed deep blue. With eyes wide open and gasping breath the goblin reached the porch and all the goblins gathered around him eager to hear what he has found, what he has brought.
Shivering he holds up a blue potty! And with trembling finders he pulls out a rolled parchment. On it is written: Come to me in the Miremarsh. Signed Mellekai.

We gather for the Miremarsh Night at Gemeindeheim St. Engelbert, Kassenberger Strasse 94, Bochum on Saturday the 17th of November from 05.00 PM to 11.00 PM. There you will have the opportunity to play a shiny pre-production copy of the game Miremarsh and test Museum Rush, too, before the pledge-manager for Miremarsh by Room 17 Games closes on December the 07th. And for all guests there will be a promo card, too. We can host 15 brave goblins (we are planning three rounds, first come, first served). You will only gain entrance to the Marsh if you reserve your seat here.

Always ready to serve you! We have coffee, tea and biscuits for free and there will be the opportunity to order food and drinks.

Mellekai

And there ist even more to experience if you follow the honorable goblin Kehlenschnitt. He is organising another great Miremarsh Night. I am happy to present you his message:

We are very proud to present a fresh and brand new game that is on KS right now. And the best thing is that you will be able to play the game at our Fringe Event!

Tsukuyumi – Full Moon Down is a boardgame without any elements of luck or chance, that demands specific strategic skills of its 3-5 (6) players. The modular battlefield represents the dried out ground of the former Pacific Ocean: Up to 40 hexagonal area tiles circle the moon panels, providing score points, blockades and contaminations. The goal is to gather as many score points as possible, through conquering and occupying areas – thus becoming the most dominant species on the board. Tsukuyumi – Full Moon Down’s particular appeal lies in the clash of diverse, asymmetrical factions. At the beginning, each player picks a faction. Each faction comes with their own respective abilities, units and strategies. The game therefore changes depending on which factions meet on the battlefield. You may decide between wild boars, whales, marines, battle mechs, cybersamurai and many more.

STORYWOLD

The world has changed – and with it the creatures who are fighting for survival. Whether human survivors, mutated beasts or human-machine hybrids – every faction wants to seize power, in order to finally face their greatest enemy: The white dragon Tsukuyumi.

As the moon hit the earth, it had an effect which usually takes thousands of years: land masses were moved, pushed down and raised, water was displaced, and down appeared to be up. Creaking and groaning, the face of the planet was changed. The moon however came to a standstill amid massive earth walls in the muddy floor of the former Pacific Ocean.

The moon sliced up stretches of land, broke continental tectonic plates, splintered mountains and broke its own stone hull on the icy summits of the Himalaya. Wherever Tsukuyumi’s pheromones touch life, a rapid evolution takes place. But his original plan failed. While humans who get in his way fall victim to his influence and become highly intelligent and destructive Oni, the other creatures have resisted. Thus his own creations turn against him, and become his most powerful enemies. These include the insect swarms of the Dark Seed, the pig herds of the Boarlords, the beasts of the Children of the Lion and the massive land whales of the Lords of the Lost Sea.

Our board game guild, the Dice & Mystics, play every Wednesday night at the “Spieletreff” (which roughly translates as “Gamer’s Meeting Place”) at St. Engelbert’s Parish.
On occasions the question has been asked: Are you a church club, some Christian thing?
The answer is: No.
But…​
Actually, the whole D&M enterprise was set off by a Jewish engineer named Howard Wolowitz…
Three supposedly non-gamer friends were sitting on the sofa watching that Christmas episode of “Big Bang Theory” where Howard introduces Santa into a Dungeons & Dragons session. Suddenly one says, “That seems like a lot of fun to me. Couldn’t we play D&D, too?” The other one says, “Well, now you mention it, I’ve always wanted to try that out, you know.” Says number three: “Actually – I used to be a D&D dungeon master once, but no one has been wanting to play with me for ages!”
And so it began. The new 5th edition of D&D had just come out – back to the basics – and we found a fourth party willing to venture to the Sword Coast and into our first roleplaying campaign with us. We met regularly at a local board game café, where we alternatively played some D&D and Descent and board games with similar mechanisms to get used to the concept of character sheets, stats, campaigning etc. to better train us up for the “real thing”.
The question if we are a Christian organisation may have been prompted by the “Saint” in “Spieletreff St. Engelbert”.
We know very little about the religious beliefs or disbeliefs of our members. Three or maybe four Dice & Mystics are clearly Christians, one is known as a regular church goer. There may be more, there may be practitioners of other religions or atheists among us, we have no idea. That is all we know and more than we need to know.
What we all believe in, however, is openness, tolerance, kindness of the heart and having more fun through sharing it. We want to be together, play, laugh, have a good time and invite anybody to come along and join in. Our idea was the following: We own a large board game collection and give people the chance to play games they like, or a place they can take their own favourite games to and find others to play with. Thus we also give access to great games to those who maybe cannot afford to buy them for themselves or a place for gamers or role players who do not want to be forced to keep buying drinks in a pub in order to have a large enough gaming table. And we want to be open for everybody, no matter which gender, age, ethnicity or religion or whatever. Really everybody can come and indulge in the hobby regularly at least once a week without having to spend a single penny.
We were told this attitude goes very well with Christian beliefs and values, so when our board game café suddenly closed down next Christmas, it happened that it was a Christian parish that helped us out.
We were looking for a new friendly location to meet and play. As it was, there is no other board game café anywhere in these parts. Playing at pubs turned out to be fairly disastrous, and things were beginning to look dismal. But we did not think of giving up.
One day we simply went to the parish of St. Engelbert and asked them if maybe we could play board games and D&D at their parish center. Yeah, and why not – there were nice rooms with nice tables (and central heating in winter) and it was easily accessible for everyone. Most days of the week some of the rooms were empty, it seemed. Originally we had been hoping to rent a room for a few hours every week and share the costs if they were not too high.
To cut a short story even shorter: They listened to what we wanted, asked whether we were some official club (no), whether we were commercial in any way (no), and why we were playing together (see above). They liked what we did and why, and said this was something that went very well with their ideas of a peaceful community. We could provide a great creative, intelligent, communicative, socially interactive hobby in a safe environment for free for whoever was looking for pastime and good company! And they nonplussed us by this very generous offer: We could come and use any room we needed and all facilities for free from 5 to 11 p.m. once a week. As a “payment” they would take us by our word: Anybody can come and join in, and we do tidy up after ourselves. The room and date were made known as “Spieletreff” to tell the parishioners what we were doing at their place.
Everybody can bring their drinks and sandwiches from home along if they like, and we have glasses, plates, cutlery etc. at our disposal. We bring teas, coffee and biscuits along for everybody, and often our guests bring milk, sugar and other things – even a penguin shaped gateau for sustenance during a game of Ice Cool! Thus we have drinks and snacks just like our former board game café, and we also adopted their idea to have warm meals on the premises: We have a caterer just round the corner where we can place a collective order and have food delivered right to our tables, and everybody pays individually. If the order is large enough, we even get free drinks with our meals.
We have been the “Dice & Mystics” at the “Spieletreff St. Engelbert” for a few happy years now, and what had started with three friends dreaming of the Sword Coast has evolved into an international, fairly large but still completely informal and non-commercial game club with a growing number of members and events.
So, if you want to play board games or role play, or if you are looking for nice people to play with, get creative! Look around you. Don’t be too shy to approach people and tell them your ideas. Sometimes the solution lies closer than you think. Who would have thought we could run a board game café at a parish center, and for free, too? And all it took was the asking.
Every year at the parish festival we host game rounds and raffle off a fair number of quality games donated by the D&M to all participants, to say THANK YOU to the parish, loudly and from our hearts, and – sssh! – hopefully also further increase the number of enthusiastic gamers…

Dice & Mystics are an international board game guild, in other words, we are a group of people who enjoy playing board games together.

We meet regularly on Wednesdays (except during school holidays) at our „Spieletreff“ in the parish center of St. Engelbert, Bochum, in rooms with large, well-lit tables generously made available to us by the parish. In the holidays we also gather for game nights at various locations if possible. Our members find us via information on the Dice & Mystics Board Game Geek guild, Meetup and Facebook or are invited along by those who already enjoy gaming with us.

We are not a club but an informal group of board game and RPG lovers without membership fees, officials or obligations, and no rules except those of respect, common courtesy, tolerance and careful handling of the facility and individual property. There is no flow of money whatsoever involved.

We think that board gaming is an intelligent, creative, cooperative and highly communicative hobby which allows many and very different people of all ages and backgrounds to socially meet and have a good time together. Our aims are good games, good company, and lots of fun. Our games can be hilariously simple and funny or really thinky, heavy theme-based games and – depending on their length and complexity – they are for adults and kids. We save the galaxy, swat orcs, raise monsters or kingdoms – or simply watch the bamboo grow. The game rounds are truly international; the Dice & Mystics speak English and German (and often enough simultaneously, too).

We cherish the idea that really anybody can simply come to us and play and share our great hobby.
We bring anything from old classics to modern thematic board games, e. g. of the SciFi, Fantysy and Hoorror genres, and RPGs on the table.

Monopoly, Tokaido, Lords of Waterdeep, Mysterium, Descent 2nd, Battle of Five Armies, Star Trek Panic, Dungeons and Dragons, Codenames, Zombicide Black Plague, Arcadia Quest, Blood Rage, Time Stories, Twilight Imperium 3rd, Arkham Horror, The Others: Seven Sins, Massive Darkness, Takenoko, Space Hulk, Silver Tower, Gorechosen, Lost Patrol, Abenteuer in Mittelerde, Shadows over Hammerhal, This War of Mine, Heldentaufe, Perditions Mouth: Abyssal Rift, First Martian, Adrenaline, Cry Havoc, Gloomhaven, … … …? Why, sure!

Eurogame oder Amerithrash – there are endless varieties!
All our games are privately owned. Many hundreds of different games are at our disposal.

We operate exclusively by our Game Host System (nicknamed the GHoSt) which means:

You can bring your own game and play. You are expected to allow anybody to join you and you are very welcome to join in at any other game, provided there is still room for one more player. If you do not have a game to bring along, you can simply come and join in anyway. Thus we give you the opportunity to regularly share a great hobby without any payments or costs involved.
Our Dice & Mystics group will always be present with different games from their own collections.

We are listed as “Dice & Mystics Board Game Guild” on “BoardGameGeek” (internationally) and on “NRW Spielt” (a German internet platform on gaming in North Rhine Westphalia).

Have fun gaming!