Last August, I lied to my employer and called in sick while sitting in Belfast City Airport.

Why, you might ask?

Well, the TTRPG pantheon had called to me.

They spoke of a magical place where fellow nerds could gather and game together. A place where there would be dice rolls, comedy, music, live games, a lil’ day drinking and, most importantly, lots of good vibes.

So yes, I lied and took a day off work to go to World’s Lair.

And I regret nothing.

World’s Lair was a four-day fantasy and TTRPG festival held from 26–29 August 2025 at Between the Bridges on London’s South Bank. Its tagline was “Unite. Play. Imagine.”

Rather than being a conventional expo, World’s Lair felt more like someone had taken a fantasy tavern, a tabletop convention and a small music festival, rolled a Nat 20 and somehow combined them into one event.

The festival divided each day into two main sessions:

• DAWN — 12:00–5:30pm: Workshops, games, roaming fantasy characters and dragons, puzzles, photo opportunities, panels, quizzes and other activities.
• DUSK — 6:30–11:00pm: The evening programme, aimed at an 18+ audience, featuring music and headline actual-play/TTRPG performances.

The venue itself had much more of a fantasy tavern/festival atmosphere than the traditional rows-of-stalls convention setup.

While I was there, I had a fantastic day listening to bardcore covers of Depeche Mode, winning a fantasy pub quiz and seeing the awesome folks from Oxventure take to the stage.

I also had the joy of getting to play Force of Extinction, a game I would later go on to help crowdfund.

So yeah, World’s Lair ended up becoming one of my favourite side quests of 2025, and I’ve been hoping ever since that I might get the chance to roll for initiative again in 2026.

And that brings us to now.

My point is, World’s Lair was an awesome event. One that, for a while, I worried might have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

But perhaps not…

Because it seems the team behind World’s Lair are planning something.

Apparently, at 10am this Wednesday, they have a big announcement coming.

What could it be?

Could World’s Lair be returning?

Could the TTRPG pantheon once again be summoning us to London?

Could this be…

World’s Lair 2: Dice Rolls and Boogaloo?

I should hope so.

And if it is?

Well…

I suppose I should probably start thinking of a better excuse for work this time.