El Dragón Cojo
Board game, tabletop RPG and video game community in Mallorca. Read our story and our rules, and write to us to join the table.
The Story of the Dragon
To tell the story of the Dragon, we have to go back in time, to before it even had a name.
My name is Malkev and, back in 2016 anno Domini, I founded a small group of board game enthusiasts called Jugones Mallorca, a humble name that did exactly what it said on the tin: gamers in Mallorca. Over the years, that group would grow, change and eventually become what we now know as El Dragón Cojo.
Back then I was a wandering lad, repatriated from faraway lands, and I was looking to meet people to enjoy a few games with. I took part in some gatherings that, sadly, only brushed against games in passing and were rarely repeated with any regularity.
One day I asked why more games weren't being organised, and the answer was curt, but revealing:
“Why don't you organise them yourself?”
Sometimes all you need are the right questions, and this was one of those questions. So that's what I did.
With a table, a great desire to play and no real idea of how far it would all go, a story began that has now lasted a decade.
Alea iacta est. The die is cast. That was the motto.
We set off without really knowing what lay on the other side, and since then more than five hundred people have passed through the group. Some stayed for just a few games; others have been part of this small community for years and have become people I hold dear. People who arrived, people who left, friendships born around a table and hundreds more players who, I hope, are still to come.
In ten years there have been better and worse games, highs and lows, light and shade, times when we could barely fit around the tables and met several times a week, others that were much quieter, and even moments when I thought it was all going to end. We have changed venues, names and ways of organising ourselves; rules and commandments have been written; there have been arguments. The Dragon was born and grew little by little through hardships, defeats and victories.
CLAUDUS SED INVICTUS. Lame, but undefeated.
We're still here. Ten years after that first table, the Dragon keeps spreading its wings.
The Dragon’s Mission
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since 2016 and many things are different, but inside the Dragon there is one thing, a glimmer of an unbreakable force that refuses to disappear and will stay alight until the very last second of its existence. Its purpose:
Nobody who wants to play is left without a game.
It doesn't matter if they've never opened a rulebook or could explain one from eidetic memory. It doesn't matter whether they're looking for board games, role-playing or video games. It doesn't matter if they come alone, if they don't know anyone or if they don't even know yet what they want to play.
If they want to play, the Dragon will help them find their place.
Because, for us, playing has never been only about putting a game on a table. It's about creating the place around it.
A place you can arrive at without knowing anyone. Where you can learn without feeling you should already know how to play. Where you can teach that game you're passionate about. A place to meet people you might never have met otherwise, and where you feel welcome.
And now that we've achieved that, it's time to go a little further. A new mission.
The El Dragón Cojo association is beginning a new chapter, working with Mallorca's town councils to put playing within everyone's reach. We want to work so that people with disabilities or special needs can also find a table, discover games and become part of the community.
And let's not forget the one that, sadly, is forever forgotten: Mallorcan, or indeed any other small language group on the island that cannot find a space to express itself in its native tongue and wants to. They deserve their space too.
Because, after all these years, we have learned something extremely important:
A game rarely begins when a box is opened or the cards are dealt; it begins when a group of people find a table where they feel welcome. We want to keep bringing together, around the same table, different people with different experiences and different ways of enjoying this hobby.
And as long as there is a single person on the island looking for a table, the Dragon will keep spreading its wings.