Help Grand Mastress Renee Rebuild Dragons, Dungeons & Drinks

My name is Renee. Last week, someone broke into Brühaven — the Minneapolis brewery that has been home to Dragons Dungeons & Drinks for three years — and stole practically everything we own.

Over 500 hand-laminated character sheets. Every Game Master binder. Every token, every sticker, every piece of material that makes our adventures run. Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of work — mine and that of countless volunteers — gone in seconds.

I'll be honest: I have been feeling wave after wave of grief. Not because of the cost of what was taken. But because I watched our volunteers sit around tables laminating and binding those sheets. They gave their time, their care, their Saturday afternoons to make sure a stranger walking into their first D&D night would have something beautiful to hold. None of that can be replaced by a receipt.

And yet — when I told our community what happened, you showed up immediately. Messages, offers to help, outpouring of love. It reminded me of something I shared at D&D Prom in December: our guiding value this year is Heart. This is what that looks like in action.

No one can steal that. No one can take the friendships built around our tables, the laughter from our sessions, or the sense of belonging we have created together. Those things are ours. They will always be ours.

We are not stopping. We are not slowing down. We are rebuilding stronger and launching bigger — at the same time — because of you.

WHO I AM AND WHAT WE BUILT

In May 2023, I posted a single Facebook event because I believed Dungeons & Dragons could be a cure for adult loneliness — if we made it truly accessible. No experience required. No gatekeeping. Just a table, some dice, and people willing to show up for each other. I expected a handful. Thirty strangers came.

Three years later, Dragons Dungeons & Drinks has 2,500+ members and 150+ Game Masters running adventures across Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth.

I am a relationship therapist by training. I built DD&D because I know how hard it is for adults to make friends — and I knew D&D could fix that, if someone just made it easy to walk in the door. That is still what we do, every single week.

I had no idea three years ago what this would become. I had no idea how much all of you would become family to me.

Every person on our leadership team — Business Barbarian Marcus, Design Druid Mitchell, Finance Fighter Mitch, Multimedia Monk Matthew, and Progress Paladin Nicole (+ myself) — does this work unpaid.

We built this because we believe in it, not because we're being paid. That hasn't changed.

THE NEWS WE HAD PLANNED TO SHARE THIS WEEK

This week was supposed to be our biggest announcement yet. My Co-Founder Marcus and I have been sitting on it for months.

In June 2026 — just after our three-year anniversary month — DD&D is launching its first out-of-state events in Boston. Social Hours, new tables, new adventurers who have never had a place to play. Our goal is 20 major U.S. cities by end of 2026. The blueprint has been proven. The break-in is not going to stop what's coming.

We are still making this announcement. We are rebuilding and expanding at the same time — because that is who we are.

If you're in Boston, we'll save you a seat.

WHERE EVERY DOLLAR GOES

I want to be completely transparent. Here is exactly what your support makes possible:

$1,500 — Replace What Was Stolen

The physical cost to replace our materials is around $1,500 — and our community is already volunteering to do the laminating and binding themselves. At this level we are back at the table.

$3,000 — Rebuild Better

Everything above, plus the ability to grow beyond what we had before. This means commissioning new art. It means experimenting with upgraded tokens. It means building a backup stockpile so a future incident doesn't put us back at zero. And it means we can feed the volunteers who keep showing up for us — beer and pizza is the least they deserve.

$7,500 — Rebuild + Publish Season One

Everything above, plus the cost to hire copy editors and designers to publish our Season One campaign as a real, professional campaign book. 12 original one-shot adventures written from the heart, tested by hundreds of adventurers at our events. Three years of collaborative storytelling deserves to live beyond our tables — and this makes it happen.

$10,000 — Rebuild + Publish + Go National

Everything above, plus seed funding for the Boston launch and the start of our national expansion — plus on-site merch so attendees can take something home that same night. This is the announcement we planned to make this week. Your support means we do not have to choose between recovering from what was taken and building toward what comes next.

A PERSONAL NOTE

Starting over is hard. But there is a kind of clarity in it. We get to rebuild with intention. To refine what we’ve made, strengthen what matters, and create something even better than what we had before.

What this week made clear is simple. This community shows up for each other.

We have Game Masters ready to run. We have adventurers ready to walk through the door. We have something real here.

So we’re rebuilding. Because there are tables to fill, stories to tell, and thousands of people who still deserve a place to belong.

ONE LAST THING

If you are not able to donate right now, please share this page with three people who might. Every share reaches someone who would give if they only knew this story existed. Sharing costs nothing and — I mean this — it helps just as much.

We'll also have volunteer rebuilding parties listed on our events page.

If DD&D has ever meant something to you, this is the moment to help us rebuild it. Give what you can. Share if you can't. And know that every single one of you has already given me more than you know.

With so much love and a whole lot of fight left in me,

Renee

Grand Mastress & Founder,

Dragons Dungeons & Drinks

dragonsdungeonsdrinks.com

Big thanks to Liam Spillane for the footage of one of our adventure nights. You can watch the entire DDD Documentary - You Meet In A Tavern here