Welcome

Published on: 2026-03-19

Welcome to my new blog!

I’m GrunkleDev, or just Grunkle. I am a huge nerd who loves losing himself in fantasy and sci-fi worlds.

Professionally I am a backend software engineer who codes in java and works in data interchange. While I truly do love the physical act of coding, corporate software can be mind-numbing and soul-sucking. I take pride in my work, but it can be hard to talk to anyone about what I do without eyes glazing over (mine included). Pair this with a mounting dissatisfaction of the direction that the internet and the world has been moving and I needed a change.

I have been building websites, apps, cli’s, and anything in between for years. Most of what I’ve made is a weekend deep dive to explore a topic or understand a technology. But never anything of substance or permanence. I tried to find a niche online where I could make something useful for people, but solving a novel problem is hard. Around the time I started developing an interest in coding, I had my first introduction to tabletop RPG’s. Pen and paper D&D 4.5e was my start, but even session 0 had an old Toshiba Satelite present as a rules glossary. Despite technology being a part of my tabletop journey from day one, it was always just a book or note taking replacement. Eventually I, like most other TTRPG players, was forced into the digital realm and it was there that I was exposed to virtual tabletops. I went from having some colored paper circles and on-the-fly, wet-erase drawings to custom digital battlemaps and dynamic fog-of-war. I loved how my party could go from full narative “theater of the mind” roleplay, to high detail, immersive exploration and combat. My only problem was the tool being used to achieve the goal.

Every asset upload, every membership fee, and every bug encountered was friction between the story my players wanted to build and the tool being used to build it. Then one day I was poking around YouTube and saw a title and thumbnail I simply couldn’t avoid. “Can construct 3 run a DND campaign?” This singular video proved to me that building a simple VTT is not only possible, but someone showed how they did it in 10 minutes.

Why did I bother to type all that out? Aside from giving a bit of a rambling background on myself and my TTRPG experience, I wanted to explain how seeing that video was a bit of a turning point. I wasn’t locked into a VTT I hated, I had the skills and ability to make my own. That one thought started permiating my life, “I can do it myself”. Jump forward to present day and I have a solid homelab setup built from the ground up from scavenged PC parts and raspberry-pi’s, I have my own virtual tabletop web application that is fully self-hosted and has been working wonderfully in my D&D games, and I have done what I can to try and bring the joy back into my time here on the internet.

Now What?

If you’ve made it this far, I am so sorry you had to endure my writing… But here is more.

I want this site to be my corner of the internet. I want to build it for me so that I can have a place to show off and share. Not only my stuff but also to bring eyes to others who are also pursuing interesting and creative endeavors. I hope this is just the beginning.

I will talk to you later,

GrunkleDev