The Discovery of RPJs and a New Raven Themed Journal

Last night, as I was working on my latest journal cover and binge watching YouTube, I stumbled across the world of RPJs, short for role-playing game journaling.

It was a very exciting moment because I realized what I’ve been doing for years actually has a name!

Before learning about RPJs, I was battling with world building and story plotting in notebooks with no direction really. It could be a game, I would think, and then But it’s a journal, I would immediately think next. Now we don’t have to choose! It can be both, and there’s apparently a whole community of journaling gamers out there to connect with!

What is an RPJ?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, have no fear because neither did my husband Ray lol. 😂 Fortunately, I have a few Gen Z kids who did immediately know what I meant. (Why didn’t they tell me about this sooner!?!)

Basically, we have Role Playing Games, known as RPGs. A role playing game is pretty much what it sounds like - you choose a character (or role) and you develop that character, along with other characters and the world they live in. Then the game plays out - you create a plot or challenges or a quest for your characters to follow.

The most popular RPG I can think of is Dungeons and Dragons but there are thousands of others. Some are analog, some are video games, some are a hybrid of both.

An RPJ (role playing journal) is basically an extension of that - just in notebook/journal form. The book becomes your game board. And you don’t have to use dice or anything like that unless you want to. It’s a very much “make up the rules to suit you” kind of game and that’s exactly why I’m so drawn to it!

RPJs are like the cozy mysteries of the RPG world - you don’t have to go to battle nor do you need to have an elaborate story plot unless you want one.

Over the years I’ve created tons of journals that fit into the category of RPJ, I just really never knew what it was called. This is perfect timing because I just started a new journal and I wasn’t sure what direction it would take - now I do!

My Raven Journal in Progress

I started working on the cover of this journal last week after ordering some Halloween fabric. It had these ravens and I was immediately drawn to them so I cut them out and put them on the front and back cover.

Here’s a look at it again to save you from scrolling:

I didn’t really have a complete vision when I started, I just knew I wanted something with October and Halloween kind of vibes.

Now that I’ve discovered RPJs are a thing though — I know this most definitely will become one!

Creating Papers For the Inside

I already started making papers to go inside of this new journal!

Here are some “key resist” papers I made:

Basically I laid out some old vintage keys I saved from the many estates we cleaned out and sprayed some ink on them to make the papers. I love how they turned out!

I made a green one too!

In addition to these, I also have tons of coffee dyed and tie dyed papers to add to the journal so I’m really excited to hopefully have it all put together by next week.

And…now that I know about RPJs, I have all kinds of ideas for what I might do with this journal!

I Have Always Wanted to Befriend a Raven

One thing I’m leaning towards is making the journal about a story about befriending a Raven, which is perfect for Halloween time but also just fun anytime. I’ve always wanted to make friends with a Crow or Raven who brings me trinkets lol. I even subscribed to Crow Box for a very long time and wanted to build one!

For this journal, I’m envisioning a trinket pull that becomes a prompt for the story - so for example maybe we pull an aluminum pop can tab or something else shiny.

If you‘d like to play along with me, I will have the game and journal making details available sometime next week. And don’t worry, you can make it as elaborate or as simple as you like! You don’t have to hand bind your own journal to play along unless you want to - this would work just fine in a composition notebook!

If you like all things corvids and trinkets and collecting things in notebooks, let me know in the comments or email me hello@chellestein.com - I think this will be fun on my own but even more fun if some of you might like to create one along with me!