There were a number of conventions in NC in the late 90s and early 2000s.  My first, and my introduction to Living Greyhawk, was Defycon II.  Defycon was organized in the basements of UNC classroom buildings by Michael E.  It was done on a shoestring budget and was a Con in name only, but it satisfied the requirements of the RPGA for conventions.  From that humble beginning, I learned about others in the area.  At that time, we had a number of very active RPGA members (also ARC Fellowship members) who had a lot of experience running RPGA style events at conventions.

 

Duracon was in Durham run by the notable Winz power couple.  I think it lasted until 2001, when the hotel in which they hosted the convention went through extensive renovations and was unavailable for the annual event.  I do not think it ever came back.  It was strictly a gaming convention in my memory (although maybe it had a small vendor section).  

 

MACE and ConCarolinas were more western and were more general Sci-Fi/Fantasy fan conventions - in High Point and Charlotte respectively.  MACE ended in 2021? when its founder passed away from cancer.  FUCK CANCER.  ConCarolinas is still going strong it looks like, having (as of this writing), just finished up a run May 29-May 31 2026.  https://concarolinas.org/

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Raleigh had another convention that was a fan based Sci-Fi fantasy convention.  Trinoc*Con.  Wikipedia says it started in 2000 and ran through 2009.  Brett K. was the original gaming coordinator on the committee that ran things, but he had other priorities and passed it to me for Trinoc*Con 2002.  I was still immersed in LG and wanted a huge dungeon crawl to bring people to the Con and as a counterpoint to the Battle Interactives that were being hosted in Geoff/Va region of LG.  This would require more Dwarven Forge than that to which I had ready access.  Also, it turned out, it would be seven extra tables in the gaming space, which would make it too crowded.

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In a fit of hubris, I personally ponied up the extra funds needed to secure access to a second ballroom for the day of the dungeon crawl.  I told the rest of the committee that it was from an interested fan and left it at that.  I also put in a huge order for more Dwarven Forge.  Stefan, the founder of DF, saw the order and reached out and said something along the lines of "WTF?"  I explained what I was doing and sent in my maps of what I was planning.  Stefan may be a bit on the kooky side and may not have the best business acumen, but he is AWESOME.  He found a way to reduce the total cost to something like half what I had originally budgeted (ordering individual pieces instead of the sets, a discount for a large order, and generally optimizing the pieces I needed).  

 

Thus, the Sewers of Seneshta was born.  It was contemplated as being six tables with different challenge levels, but having interconnected sewers so that a group could stumble into a neighboring table and help/hinder whatever was happening there.  There was also introductory table that was designed to help introduce people to D&D.  Each table had its own full set of DF.  It was, in my no so humble opinion, FUCKING AWESOME.

 

With changes to LG in 03, I kind of lost my super fan status, and I passed the gaming coordinator spot to Michael M.  While Michael M would go on to be on the Triad to help run the region, I did not always see eye to eye with him and I stopped keeping track of Trinoc*Con.  Note that some of this also coincided with my move to CT.

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If/when I find my old maps and notes, I may add them to this page (or subordinate page(s) as I think about it).

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If anyone recognizes themselves in these pictures and objects to them being posted, let me know, and I will remove them/blur.

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