Hello there! Ryan here from the Gnarly Griffin 👋

Here to tell you about the day we launched our store!

We started executing on our idea for this store towards the end of 2022. Never in my life have I had to send so many emails and sign so many documents in such a short time. The admin and paperwork seemed endless, the website took ages to get off the ground, and the email server? Don't even get me started on email servers...

But with the end goal in mind, and our passion for what we knew we were starting, we pushed through all the legal shenanigans and business-related red tape until one humble, chilly, dew covered Friday morning in Hilton, Kwa Zulu Natal...

The Gnarly Griffin officially spread its wings and took first flight during the acclaimed Hilton Arts Festival on the weekend on the 11th of August 2023. As part of our launch, we had set up a pop up stall in the market section of the festival, where we showcased many of our offerings. As humble as it was, we consider it a largely successful occasion thanks to the interest we aroused around our stall, our offerings, and our community driven focus. We had many great conversations with different people who showed a yearning for what we are trying to achieve.

Not only that, but we left many patrons smiling on their way out of our stall. These pictures below were taken on the weekend of the Hilton Arts Festival, showing people with their shiny new nerdy trinkets:

From left to right: Ryan, Happy Patron, Juan


Our valiant deckhand, Marc, overseeing the loot

Ryan (that's me!) standing next to a future Dungeon Master! (Matt Mercer beware)


I know I'm late on this one, but a huge thanks to everyone that came out to the festival and showed your support at our stall. Even just having conversations about some nerdy topic was enough to put smiles on our faces and give us hope that we are doing something worthwhile. We enjoyed every moment, made new friends and even started our very own D&D group through a DM we met there! (shoutout Nick!)

Our launch day was a great and memorable time. We hope to have many more of these types of events and get to meet more of you cool human's out there!

Thanks for taking the time to read my nonsense. 

Take care and have a gnarly day! 😎
Ryan, signing off!