For most of Hidden Dragons, Norfolk’s first year, it felt as though the world was getting bigger every week.
What began as a simple idea, hiding small dragons across Norfolk for people to find, grew into something stranger, richer and far more alive than we ever expected. Over 200 dragons were hidden. Hunters joined the Guild.
Flights were formed. Stories unfolded in real time across woods, ruins, churches, streets and strange corners of East Anglia. It became more than a hunt. It became a social ARG. A living game with real consequences. The choices made by hunters affected the direction of the Dragon Hunter Guild. The Flights shaped the story. Points mattered. Discoveries mattered. Allegiances, clues, relics and fragments all pushed the world forwards.
For a while, it felt like we had found the thing we had been reaching for. A game that happened in the real world. A story people could walk into. A reason to look at Norfolk differently. That first year was intense, chaotic and deeply rewarding. It proved that Hidden Dragons Norfolk could be more than a collection of handmade creatures.
It could be a shared mythology. It could be a way of turning familiar places into something stranger. It could make a walk through Norwich, a ruined church, a quiet lane, a coastline, or a forgotten patch of woodland feel as though it belonged to an older and more secret world.
After that first year of expansion and growth, we took a short month of rest. Then the new dragon year began properly in October, and it began well. Really well. We launched subscriptions. There was genuine interest and early uptake. We introduced the reputation system.
The Rust Scale Chronicles began, opening up a different side of the story and lore. It allowed us to explore quieter, stranger and more atmospheric parts of the world, away from just the thrill of finding dragons. It also gave us a chance to do something we have always wanted to do. Make Norwich feel like an interesting place to visit. Not just a backdrop. Not just somewhere people already know. But a city of hidden history, old stone, strange corners, half-forgotten symbols and stories waiting to be noticed. 
For a brief moment, it looked like the next stage of Hidden Dragons Norfolk was beginning. Then everything came crashing down. Someone very close to us caused a great deal of damage.
The full details are not something we are going to drag through the public square. That is not what Hidden Dragons Norfolk is for. But the impact was real. It was personal, financial and creative. Worse still, the situation did not simply end when the damage was done. We remain financially tied to it, and for the time being, there is no clean escape. That has left HDN in a strange place. Not gone. Not finished. Not properly alive in the way it once was.
Purgatory. For the past year, we have kept creating what we can. Dragons have still appeared. Collections have still been made. Posts have still gone out. The world has not disappeared. But anyone who was here during the height of the Flights, the puzzles, the choices, the strange little story fragments and the sense that something was constantly moving beneath the surface, may have felt the difference. We have felt it too. The creatures are still here. The Guild is still here. The history, the folklore, the ruins, the old roads, the strange Norfolk light, all of that is still here.
And all credit must go to Mr Hollow for that. Through all of this, he has continued to make every single collection and every single huntable dragon better than the last. While the story machinery struggled, the creatures themselves kept growing stronger. The forging, the painting, the strange little details, the sense that each dragon had stepped out of some older corner of the world, all of that has continued to improve. He has held up his end magnificently. That deserves to be said clearly. 
But the deeper machinery behind the story has been harder to keep moving. Puzzles take time. ARGs take energy. Consequences require planning. Living stories need space to breathe. And when your life is being pulled apart behind the scenes, it becomes very difficult to keep building a world that asks people to believe in wonder. Multiple times, Mr Magpie has felt the frustration of this.
Multiple times, he has tried to stand, return to the road, and put things right. Each attempt was made with love. Each attempt fell short of what we wanted it to be. Not because the ideas were gone. Not because the world no longer mattered. But because Hidden Dragons Norfolk takes a ridiculous amount of effort and creativity to run and maintain. 
It requires planning, writing, hiding, making, filming, answering, posting, plotting and imagining, all while making the real world feel as though it has a secret layer underneath it. And for a while, that was simply too much to carry. HDN did not fit the shape of what needed to be created in order to move through the damage. That is a difficult thing to admit. Sometimes the thing you love most is not the thing that can save you in the moment. Sometimes the world you built becomes too heavy to carry while you are still trying to survive the one you live in. 
So Mr Magpie wandered elsewhere. If you know where to look, you may have seen it. The strange works. Wild Works. The pieces of story that did not quite belong to HDN, But now it is time to come back.
Not because everything is fixed, because the fixing isn't a sudden thing.
Not because the damage has vanished, because it probably never will.
Not because the road ahead is suddenly easy. It never has been.
But because some things are worth returning to before they are lost completely. The door is still there. The road is still there. The Guild is still waiting. The dragons are still beneath the roots, behind the stones, under the old roads and in the places where Norfolk remembers itself.
To everyone who has stayed with us through this strange and difficult year, thank you. To everyone who found a dragon, bought a creature, joined a hunt, solved a clue, commented on a post, shared a theory, supported a launch, or simply kept watching, thank you.
You helped keep the world from going dark. HDN has been in purgatory. But purgatory is not the end of this story. So I swear.
