Theses

To graduate from DePauw Univeristy, each student must complete a thesis for their respecrtive department, which is published and kept through the university's library. Additional programs, such as Honors, result in an additional thesis.

Eli began working on his theses in January of 2022, completing both projects in early April of 2023. He recieved the highest possible grade for both theses.

All PDFs may be downloaded by clicking on the underlined title.

Ealdspell, Draft 1

First being born under the title "One Final Descent Into Darkness," the project that later became "Ealdspell" first began as a campaign module for Dungeons and Dragons 5e. The module contained a core city location, two different plotlines with dungeons, various ancestries and classes, and ended up around a word count of 100,000. For the process of first self-publishing, this project was split into the various Zines that are in the process of being designed.

The Emotions Behind the Screen

As the Writing thesis portained to the TTRPG, this thesis detailed the writing of said project, along with drafting and running a campiang set in the module and how community affects TTRPGs as a whole. Topics such as community forming under fandoms such as Critical Role and the prospect of independant and collaborative ownership under the newly changed OGL were focused on. This project earned a Honors with Distinction grade, the highest possible honors for the program's thesis.