The Arcanist's Tavern

East London’s Shoreditch has seen some strange sights over the years, but the latest addition to the area that the Evening Standard will forever append the adjective ‘trendy’ to is cut from a quite different cloth to the usual pop-ups and brand activations. 

Opening earlier this year The Arcanist’s Tavern is a fully specced out gaming venue and all round immersive experience for the capital’s aspiring rangers and rogues to get their game on in, whether that’s playing on one of their custom wargame tables, hiring a resident dungeon master or taking advantage of the extensive board game library. To find out more we caught up with the Tavern’s co-founder and director Luna...

So you've recently opened and it looks pretty special, what can you tell us about The Arcanist's Tavern?

Thanks! We’re an immersive tabletop gaming cafe, themed to feel like an otherworldly multiversal tavern. We also have a lot of bones, which I’m quite proud of. The initial vision was to create a space to lose yourself in tabletop roleplaying games, which then spiraled into a full on immersive experience with set dressing and fetching costumes. We want the space to feel like a living world where you can always drop in and find a new adventure. Beyond our roleplaying and wargaming spaces, we have an ever-expanding board game library and a retail space with lots of independent releases. 

Can you tell us a bit about your own background, it seems like a pretty full on venture so had you been involved in anything like this before? 

Not really, which seems concerning to admit now. I come from a creative background working as a writer and designer, and my business partner Benedikt has managed immersive bars before. 

The idea was that if I could make the space look and feel captivating, Benedikt could then ensure that it didn’t burn down around us. I think the Tavern came from a place of burnout and disillusion for the both of us. We’d been caught in the churn of meaningless work for a long time. The Tavern was and remains an insane idea, but it felt so necessary to us. We needed to create something that mattered, and felt like there was so much potential to tabletop roleplaying games that wasn’t being explored. 

It sounds like getting the place ready wasn't plain sailing?

It sucked majorly. Locking down the venue and transforming it was the most grueling part by far. Just conveying the vision to contractors was always difficult, and then you’d get tangled in legislation for weeks, only to find out that the wall you really like and have grown quite attached to needs to go. We had to make compromises constantly, it was a real fight to keep the initial vision intact. 

After months of empty promises and delays, we got screwed over by our contractors and had to tackle the downstairs space ourselves over the Christmas period. This was not a good time for anyone involved. It’s only thanks to the amazing generosity of our community and a lot of help from the folks at Tandem that we were finally able to get the space open. 

You describe it as an immersive experience, do you have to dress up to get in? It's been a few years since I was a Shoreditch local but there were always more than a few characters around who looked like they'd stumbled out of a fantasy novel.

Costumes are not required for entry, but are appreciated! If you rock up wearing a nice cape, we will all be very happy. Shoreditch does feel like it was built over a fissure in reality. We’ve had to contend and bargain with some very strange entities,  which is at least thematically appropriate. 

Can you just roll up or do you need to book?

We always recommend booking ahead, especially for our TTRPG booths due to the time slots and the fact that they fill up fast. For the Apothecary (our board game library) you can definitely just pop in for a quick game, but we do recommend that larger parties book ahead just to ensure we have enough space for you. 

So once people step through the door, what happens next? Are there specific events happening on different nights?

Their first destination will be the Apothecary. There we explain the experience and help orientate them to our strange little world. From there, adventurers are free to play in our board game library or can descend below to one of our private TTRPG booths or wargaming tables! 

We just began running regular events, including a paint night for those possessing an abundant pile of shame and Dice Cult, an open table night to help people find a board game party. 

We also have various D&D events for players of all experience levels, and will soon be running intro character creation workshops for those looking to play for the first time. 

The website mentions Aeturnum, what exactly is that?

Aeturnum is our living world of adventure, intrigue and accursed undeath. Players have to contend with the maniacal council of sorcerers who gave them life, in a world on the brink of oblivion. 

It’s an original setting to tell all of our stories within, and will be shaped by our players. 

We’re currently running a drop in D&D 5E campaign, where you play the Prologue and are then able to play any session with zero commitment. We have a Quest Board which will refresh regularly, with weekly games (currently being held on Wednesdays). 

Big narrative events and finales will be held on the weekend, with epic stories being told across multiple tables. Our big focus is immersive storytelling, and reflecting the actions of our players in the space itself. Particularly notable PCs might appear as wanted posters, or perhaps a certain in-game relic they’ve retrieved will suddenly appear amidst our shelves. In the future we plan to branch out and run games using other systems in different parts of the universe. 

And we see you even have private GM’s available for hire, how does that work?

We have a few packages available, all you need to do is fill out the contact form and we’ll arrange for one of our veteran GMs to run a quest for you. Then you just rock up and prepare to experience an unforgettable adventure. 

It’s perfect for newer players who want a guided intro to D&D. What better place to discover the joy of collectively hallucinating over dice, than a real life tavern? 

Now you've been open for a couple of months what's the reaction to the place been like? 

The support and feedback from the community has been absolutely incredible. We had a rocky launch, but they were there supporting us from day one. A lot of players are absolutely bewildered that such a space exists- and have already made it their regular gaming spot. Finally launching Aeturnum and having some returning players from our first pop-ups back in 2022 was a personal highlight, and a really emotional moment for me. 

It’s all still utterly surreal to me. Watching players connect the dots and realise that all these little pieces of environmental storytelling are tied into the sessions they’re playing is endlessly rewarding. 

So what can you tell about your plans for the rest of the year?

We’re still hard at work putting the finishing touches on the space, and have a lot of additional immersive decor and features planned. 

Virtual tabletops for the Archives are coming very soon, and we’ve kicked off Aeturnum with Season of the Lost. 

We plan to run all kinds of special events, including Murder Mysteries (and other social deduction games), creative workshops, and launch events. A big focus for us is putting the spotlight on independent TTRPG releases, and we have some very exciting collaborations to reveal in the future.  

The Arcanist’s Tavern, 87-91 Hackney Road, E2 8FE
arcaniststavern.uk

This feature originally appeared in Wyrd Science Vol.1, Issue 6 (August '24)