Revelation 2026 - 14th - 15th February

1. Why I Went

This is the first time I’ve attended this particular convention. It is one of several conventions held each year at The Garrison Hotel in Hillsborough near Sheffield.

Reports on several of these can be found on the legacy version of this blog. I’ve been attending these for years. The last one I attended was Furnace in October 2025. The next one will be Northstar in April of this year.

Revelation is devoted entirely to story game TTRPGs using the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) and adjacent systems. I’ve heard of and occasionally played such games but don’t Referee them.

I wondered if my own “Code” games were close enough to PbtA games to qualify - which would allow me to Referee at the convention. After a brief exchange of emails I was told they didn’t.

So, with no other conventions on that weekend, and given the quality of the venue, the organisation and the other attendees, I decided to attend as just a player. A rarity for me.

2. The Shape of the Convention

The Garrison Hotel is in Hillsborough a short distance outside Sheffield. It’s a historical site. A Napoleonic Era Garrison Fort has been converted into a shopping centre with the adjacent Arsenal and Gaol now making up the Garrison Hotel. I have always said that it feels like a motel built inside a Castle.

This is one of the smaller “Garricons” - as they are affectionately called - having just under 40 attendees.

This year the event was on Saturday 14th February - Valentine’s Day. It runs from 9:45am on Saturday until 6:30pm on Sunday. Many people arrive Friday evening to make a weekend of it, usually meeting for a chat and socialising in the bar. Since Sheffield is an easy journey from Birmingham, I choose to travel up early on Saturday. That saves me a night’s accommodation costs, which I can spend on other conventions.

Since the event takes place at the hotel, it makes sense to stay at the hotel. It’s a nice hotel and if you look on-line it isn’t one of the cheapest. Cheaper options, however, are either a lot further away or a lot less nice. And if you ring the hotel direct and say you’re coming for the convention you can get it at a special low price. This committee books so many events at the hotel each year, they’ve negotiated a special deal.

The first thing you do in advance is to Register for the event and pay for your ticket. Then you ring the hotel, say you’re coming to the event and reserve your room. You need to do this quickly as it is a popular venue and rooms can sell out.

The organisers keep in touch via a Facebook page - and, I suspect, Discord. Potential Referees submit their proposed games. These are all put on a spreadsheet. Referees are then allowed to select games to play in slots where they’re not running games.

Then the spreadsheet is opened up to all the attendees. You look at the games offered in each slot and choose several you’d like to play, listing them in order of preference. This takes some time to do.

Then the game “Tsarina” goes through and allocates people to games being as fair as possible. This must be a MASSIVE job.

I didn’t bother checking what I was allocated against what I was given. I trust her completely.

As I wasn’t Refereeing at the convention, and was only staying one night, all I needed was dice and writing stuff and a change of pants. Packing was really easy.

(To be honest, I didn’t even need the dice and pens. Referees provide everything.)

My journey up was delayed by an hour due to serious disruption on the train. But I still got to my first game on time. It just meant I had to catch my usual taxi to the event from the station rather than using my free bus pass for the first time.

As a smaller event, the entire convention fitted into the upstairs function room. 3 tables on a raised area in the middle - separated by screens. Along one side of the room 4 actual gaol cells. These feel like actual Dungeons and Dragons dungeon cells. They each hold a table and soft benches and are fun places to play. A bit snug and the lighting needs a bit of a boost but some of the Referees were ready for this and brought their own lamps. At other times we just used mobile phones to read our sheets if things got a bit dark.

The unfaced stone and historical decoration of the room makes this a memorable place to play.

The end of the room had hot water in urns - plus a supply of cold water - and infinite coffee sachets and tea bags. All included. The bar was available downstairs for drinks and restaurant quality food. (The organisers had sorted out pre-ordering for food, of course.)

Personally, I bought a meal-deal from the Supermarket next door and had a couple of meals from McDonald’s down the road over the weekend.

3 Games Played and Games Run

As mentioned above, I didn’t Referee any games at this convention.

Slot 1 - Saturday 10:00 - 13:00

I arrived at exactly 10am - missing the opening speech. I grabbed my badge from the table by the door and went straight to my table. I knew exactly what table I was at and who I was playing with because of the master spreadsheet which had been communicated to all attendees.

All the games at the convention were PbtA but the actual rule-set varied. This first game was called Nefas. It was basically Lovecraftian Horror set in deeply researched Roman times. The Referee was an experienced games developer and this game is - apparently - in development. It seemed finished and extremely well constructed to me.

Despite almost consistent failed die rolls, expert Refereeing allowed us to fail forward and stumble towards the ancient ceremony which was going to bring down the Roman Empire. Even though our squad of Roman Legionnaires were soundly thrashed by a rag-tag group of revolutionaries, the battle caused sufficient distraction for our physician to slip into the Temple and despoil the blood and entrails needed for the ceremony. We were defeated and the bad guys escaped but we still saved the Empire.

This was a short slot but gave us a long lunchtime - 13:00 to 14:30. Enough time to nip over the road to Morrisons, get a meal deal and some biscuits - to go with the infinite coffee - check in and eat my lunch in the comfort of my room. Buying lush bar food with a drink in the bar was also on offer.

Slot 2 - Saturday 14:30 - 18:00

This game was in a cell but there were only three players plus the Referee and it was still light so everything was fine.

This game was called Flotsam. I THINK it’s meant to be a collaborative game without a specific Referee. The guy who’d offered to run it had clearly read the rules and - as far as I can see - they spell out exactly what you’re supposed to do. They just don’t work when you get it to the table. Add in the fact that none of the three of us who’d signed up for the game remembered the background published on the pre-convention spreadsheet - if we’d even read it in the first place. We’d just signed for a game for fun, not much bothered what it was about - it seems to me. I’ve just re-read it and now realise that if just one of the four of us had read it out at the table, things would have gotten off to a smoother start.

So we had a ropey beginning. But the situation and characters the Referee had set up were great - once we got a handle on them. Though the rules didn’t support things as well as they might, we side-stepped the bits that didn’t work and through excellent role-playing - my fellow players were great - we created a memorable story worthy of a Hollywood movie. I actually felt emotional.

Again we had a 90 minute evening break. Food could have been pre-ordered from the bar before the convention but I chose to get something from McDonald’s to bring back and eat in my room.

Slot 3 - Saturday 19:30-00:00

This slot can be four and a half hours long. I think this may be a holdover from other Garricons - particularly Furnace - where some Call of Cthulhu Referee liked to hold marathon sessions. I hoped my game wasn’t going to run until midnight. I’m old and like my sleep.

Same cell. Same guy as my afternoon game but this time clearly as a Referee, not a facilitator.

This game was Kult: Divinity. It was a great little scenario with teenagers getting together for a game party to play the latest gore and splatter video game - Lycanthroat!

Only it turned out there was more to the game than that. I don’t want to give spoilers but it was EVIL and NASTY.

I think Kult is probably meant to be a really horrific TTRPG with lots of depth and the Referee was keen to give us opportunities to explore all of those depths. But the players just wanted to play “Kids on Bikes vs. Cthulhu” so that was what we did and found a way to save the world using just an X-Box by 22:30.

A lovely action packed slot with memorable role-playing again. I felt a bit sorry for the Referee. He’d clearly prepared so much more he wanted to showcase.

And the cell got a bit dark with us having to resort to using our mobile phones for light rather too much.

Slot 4 - Sunday 10:00-13:00

I’d purchased the hotel breakfast along with my room which I thoroughly recommend. It’s a good one.

It was the first time I’d come across such a high grade coffee machine. After you’d selected your drink from the vast range available you then get to choose the strength of coffee you want and the temperature you want it served at!

First game of the day - Candela Obscura. This was not a PbtA game but was permitted because it was based on an “adjacent” system - Forged in the Dark (FitD).

It’s a turn of the century horror and paranormal investigation game. You may have heard of this. It was written by the members of a highly successful Actual Play web-series when they decided to stop using Dungeons and Dragons and write their own rules instead.

The world is an alternative early 20th century. It has all the tropes you’d expect without any of the inappropriate baggage of the real world at that time. It’s a charming, engaging and highly saleable setting.

Personally I am not sure FitD is the perfect match for this setting but the rules didn’t get in the way. Especially in the hands of such a charming, ebullient and expert Referee. Again, all the players wanted was a chance to role-play and have fun and he was the perfect ringmaster.

Slot 5 - Sunday 14:30-18:30

For lunch I again went to McDonald’s. It’s just so convenient. I ate in the “restaurant” this time as I’d checked out from my room.

Because there is no Slot 6, this slot is half an hour longer than the equivalent Saturday one - a full four hours.

This time the game was Monster of the Week. If there is any game that is a perfect fit for PbtA, this is the one. It contains all the tropes of American Weekly Horror series. I offered to read out the list of available playbooks and we all knew the TV characters they were based on and the series they were drawn from.

Everyone knew what they were in for and the Referee didn’t disappoint. She delivered a very standard scenario plot - apparently lifted directly from an actual TV episode. She knew full well that was what we wanted. Nothing clever, just a chance to relax and role-play. Which we did. Not a single item of scenery went unchewed. When the portcullis to the gates of the Underworld is wedged open by a classic Nokia phone - and is released when someone dials the number, it vibrates and the portcullis falls to pin the big bad demon - you know you’ve had a good time.

All lean meat, no fat. Finished in three hours giving time for an early taxi and to buy food at Sheffield station to eat on the way home.

4 Play Reflections

This series of conventions at the Garrison Hotel - Garricons, mostly organised by the same group and having the same format - attract a very high quality of Referee and players.

And everyone just wants to have fun, so they’re also very relaxed and welcoming to new players and Referees.

I got to develop my skills as a player. I am still a much better Referee than I am a player but I think I’m improving. I also got to experience 5 completely different games using the same framework. I am still not 100% sympatico with the Powered by the Apocalypse framework but I think I understand the ideas behind it a lot more. Each set of rules is tied to a highly specific setting with the options designed to support rather than restrain the Referees and players.

I now think I could RUN a PbtA game at a convention - if I can find the right one. I might even consider trying to DESIGN one at some point down the line.

5 Cost, Time, and Value

This section looks at what the convention cost me, as a participant, and what that worked out as per hour of actual gaming. It is intended as an illustrative case study rather than a universal guide.

I do not include routine food costs, as I would incur these whether or not I attended.

I do report on the cost of a pint of lager as this is an important metric for some of my readers.

My travel costs reflect my own circumstances (travelling from Birmingham and making use of available rail discounts), so readers should treat the numbers as indicative rather than directly transferable.

Headline figures

Convention cost (ticket): £30
Travel cost: £21.49
Accommodation cost: £95

Total convention-specific cost: £146.49

Total hours of gaming played: 18

Approximate cost per hour of gaming: £8.14

Cost of a pint of Lager: £5.60

6 What I Took Away

I would happily attend Revelation again, even though I didn’t get to Referee any games. The venue, the organisation but mostly the people are just perfect. This is the second convention in a row where - good as the Referees are, great as the Organisers are - it’s the excellent Players who made my weekend so memorable. All they want to do is to role-play and have fun. And they know exactly how to do this.

I may even - at some point - try running some PbtA games between now and Revelation 2027 with a view to offering the Referees a game or two next time around.

If you live anywhere where you can travel to Sheffield, I would recommend any of the “Garricons” as well worth your time. If you enjoy PbtA games then surely Revelation must be in your diary for 2027?