When Virginia Peninsula Community College announced plans for a comic-con at its Historic Triangle Campus in Williamsburg, few people were more excited than adjunct philosophy instructor Jason Moulenbelt.
Moulenbelt, who was born in Kalamazoo, Mich., learned about Dungeons & Dragons as a child. That interest took off in high school thanks to an English teacher and family friend. He has been gaming ever since, even writing an adventure series while in college. He organized a gaming group at Page Middle School in Gloucester, just a few miles from his home, but it was disbanded because of Covid and hasn’t been resurrected. However, he hasn’t lost his love for the adventure genre.
“I still game some nights,” he said, noting his longest D&D campaign lasted three years.
For the Williamsburg Comicon, which is scheduled for March 7, Moulenbelt has offered to lead an exhibition of the game, serving as the Dungeon Master.
“We can explain what is going on. Why the players are making the moves they are,” he said. “We can do a little bit of teaching there.”
Aside from participating in role-playing games, he recently designed a card game, the prototype of which he recently received.
“It’s a very simple game built on a deck of cards. It’s basically a kind of Dungeons & Dragons in a card deck,” he said.
It’s called “Penthos” and was inspired by the game “Scoundrel.”
“I did a lot of heavy modifications to it,” he said.
Moulenbelt’s passion for games is matched only by his love of leathermaking and woodworking. He designs and creates knives, sheaths, longbows, pens, board game accessories and more.
“I don’t know why the knife thing came up,” he said.
He thinks he saw other people doing it and realized it was more accessible than he first thought. Then, he realized knife and sheath work go hand-in-hand, literally.
“Everybody wants to make a knife, right?” he said. “No one wants to make a sheath. There’s your business.”
Among the tools in his house are an anvil, small farriers, a forge, burnishers and numerous sewing machines.
Some of his work has earned him national recognition. If you look closely enough, you can see examples in the 2019 movie about Harriet Tubman titled “Harriet.” He created numerous leather props, including a gun holster and belt used by actress Cynthia Erivo, who played the lead character.
“I keep myself busy,” he said in an understatement.
He’s not sure how all those interests relate or tie into one another.
“Ithas nothing to do with the others,” he said of the comic-con, which is cosponsored by Jersey’s Gaming, Cards and Comics. “I’m a person who has six lifetimes of interest trying to cram it all in.”