How did we come to be, you ask? Well, it is not a wee tale, is it.

It started circa 2007 in a small city on the northern coast of Colombia, South America: Barranquilla, otherwise called The Sandy City or Colombia’s, Golden Gate; Me, I´d just finished an epic campaign of D&D 3rd Edition, which lasted more than 3 years, and was looking for my next group of protagonists. I got in contact with this group, who already played together. They were “friends of friends” and, as we were all tabletop role-players, once we got the introductions out of the way, we sat around a table with dice, books, and character sheets and started playing a new D&D campaign. Little did I know, the party before me would become my party in the adventure of expanding and propelling tabletop role-playing games in Barranquilla as well as Colombia.

We started by ascribing ourselves to Manga and Hobby-related events, preparing short-duration modules, and a very sought-after slideshow on what “Roleplaying” was. The first of these events was in 2010; Of the original group of six, only two of us Heralds were Game Masters back then, we enrolled the aid of our closest GM friends to put together at least four 4-person tables per event. We struggled on the name because we wanted to be present as THE Roleplaying Community in Barranquilla; One Group to Gather Them All, and with dice, Unite Them. We needed something that spoke of the whole roleplaying experience, so we, of course, went for something medieval, to honor D&D; hence the HERALDS.

Next, we wanted to praise White Wolf Publishing, which showed us a new kind of roleplaying. Back then we played mostly Vampire: The Masquerade, so we went for the GEHENNA of it all.

By 2011, we were having our own gatherings, which we called “Rol al Parque” (Role At Park), every month; on the first one, we managed to gather up to seven GMs between our friends. The Gnome Herald earned his Narrator Screen on one of these gatherings, so we were three GMs now.

By September of that year, and what a good year that was, we had our first City-wide Roleplaying Event, WOD themed. A total success: 12 tables, with game sessions in the morning and afternoon. A variety of games, including Star Wars, the classic Heroes Ultd., Hunter: The Reckoning, Of course, Vampire: The Masquerade, D&D 3.5, Anima: Beyond Fantasy, The Call of Cthulhu, to mention a few. People from all over the city came to learn about this weird and exciting hobby.

By 2012, our focus had shifted a bit. Our monthly gatherings migrated slowly from roleplaying to soft-combat. We brought soft-combat and LARPing to Barranquilla. We were a different group by then, some of us had gotten busy and some others joined us. We were four or five people in 2012 and eventually even I left the Heralds when the Roleplaying side of soft-combat got dull and they focused only on the sport.

One of the Heralds got really hooked on boardgames and we began taking the next step of our community: A Hobby Center. By November 2014, we opened the portal to Gygaxgard, a Hobby Store where you could find a myriad of board games and play roleplaying games with new people.

We had several Roleplaying Games events at the store and even more boardgames gatherings. The Hobby Center used to have recurrent TCG tournaments as well. Gygaxgard thrived, but the Heralds of Gehenna went into torpor for 5 years.

By 2019 we were satisfied with the experiment. The four owners (three of which had been Heralds) parted ways and the portal to Gygaxgard shut behind us.
But during those 5 years, the Community of Roleplayers around the store grew. We have are now a very large collection of roleplayers, encompassing the old and new. The Gnome and I never let go of the Standard around which the community of Gygaxgard assembled. Even if we were down to two, the Heralds of Gehenna tasted blood again and were reborn.

Since then, we have hosted 2 World of Darkness events, coordinated with the whole of Latin America. These meetings gathered people from the whole northern coast of Colombia, even if we are still based in Barranquilla.
This year, four new Heralds were brought into the fold. Four more, at last, accepted the title of Herald, with all the help they have given us over the years. We even have one of the original six to come back from the dead. Gehenna went into torpor for 5 years.