Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 30

Late post today.

Yesterday, I fought hard for an easy, early day, and got an hour of it.  Then I got another 10 of counterproductive toil.  Later today, I plan on kicking off my D&Desque Bestiary, with wolves.  Then read all the posts.  Then comment on all the posts.  Such is my plan.

Here be Pigs!

Our heroic trio is tearing around their new home nibbling the hay, the pellets, the corruplast, the pigloos...
It's so nice to hear pig noises again.  The house was too quiet after Parsley.

Accessible Dorkery?

I wonder if escitalopram gives people more memorable dreams than they would normally get.  I seem to be having them, including one that woke me up at half past 4 this morning with the notion that I should remember it, and that I had accomplished something.  I have not remembered any more than that, surprising no one.  This morning's dream involved a riverboat trip with Fenris and Anders from Dragon Age 2.  I need to cut back on the video games, clearly.

Today I get to pick up the piggehs!  The German name for guinea pigs translates, directly, to "sea piglet," which is the cutest thing godsdamned ever.

So last night, I was reading a pdf made from threads where some guy was reading the D&D 2nd Ed Monstrous Manual.  I love RPG bestiaries, even (especially) for games I never played or never want to play, and when I was not a gamer, I owned that book (I think it's, appropriately, in mom's basement).  The 2nd Ed bestiaries were kind of unique among D&D supplements in that they contained a lot of interesting trivia about their monsters, instead of just their stat block (an increasing problem in later editions) - meaning they actually had things interesting to non-gamers (3rd and 4th edition, not so much).  Little tidbits like what things you can turn into armor and which burrowing terrors are good for the soil.  I think I made it as far as the Cs.  Anyway.

This kind of inspires me - I love that stuff in games, and the system that I am working with doesn't really have stat blocks, and I am eying the notion of making a bestiary for the game I am currently running (a horrible, terrible game that takes a lot of it's cues from Adventure Time - there was a Queen-themed volcano dungeon with a golden statue of Freddy Mercury bearing the motto "volo eam omnia, et volo nunc" which my players regarded as pretty much the most memorable gaming experience ever, though I think I missed an opportunity in not introducing the Fat Bottomed Princess).  So maybe I will try putting together a sample entry and see how it goes.

Not this morning.  I am serving two masters, and they are getting to be more than a little demanding.  Back this afternoon, maybes, with pigs!

Story Meme.

I haven't done a meme in a while, and asakiyume did this one to amazing results, so I'll give it a shot:

Tell me about a story I haven’t written, and I’ll give you one sentence from that story.

It's not meant to be a dream journal, but this week, dreams are what I got.

A teacher at a school for magicians on my last day.  It's not meant to be my last day, but people have come and shot up the school, could still be shooting, for all I know, and I am frantic, looking for my students among the living and the dead, directing them to "the main building" because somehow I know they will be safer there.  The search goes on, and contains many horrible discoveries.  I never once see a shooter.

Cut to months later, I have not shaven recently, I have gained weight, and I have not held down a job.  I have become an amateur investigator in my own right, as none of the perpetrators have ever been identified, let alone apprehended.  I am hungover, and going to the police station to be put in some sort of bureaucratic hell, intimidated and needled by beefy cops with beefy mustaches, while one young idealist of a detective tries to get information out of me so she can investigate.  I want to talk to her, but she keeps getting called away and I keep getting called names and threatened with penalties to arcane laws.

This morning, I opened up a blank tab and saw the box for fivethirtyeight, and while I was grateful to it throughout the fall, I am even more grateful that I don't need to look at it anymore.

Dreams and Groceries

1. Dreamed up a board game.  Going to have to write it down today so I can keep some of it.  It was about ghouls and swamps.  So, nothing unusual for me.

1.5 As it turns out, shopping for groceries is downright pleasant at 8 in the morning.  Almost no one at the Price Chopper.  This is a thing to be remembered.

2. Also, my not being bothered by Christmas music seems to be a thing, now.  I got the acid test in the form of Wilson-Phillip's "Hey Santa," and while I did sing "hey Satan" instead when I was unpacking the groceries (who doesn't?), I felt no particular rancor toward the song or the notion that I would be dealing with a solid month of its ilk.  Go me?

3. Yesterday, we went to the Branford animal shelter to visit a trio of pigs.  They were very sweet and we are in the process of adopting them (just called the landlord for his okay).  Calico, they are, a mom and two daughters (though all of them are around the same size now, so it's hard to tell which one is mom).  One is smooth coated, the other two have whorls and cowlicks.  We've got names picked out - Sassafras, Meryl and Aveline.  I hope my landlord doesn't decide that since we have no pigs, it's a good time to cut us off from getting more.  They are really sweet girls.
 
4. Saturday, I went to see some hockey.  Something that I suppose is not obvious to anyone who doesn't spend a lot of time with me in person, but I am sort of a hockey fan.  Been going AHL games in Hartford for 3 years, now, one year of the Wolf Pack and two of the Whale (which I have cleverly renamed the Fail).  I hear that the minors for baseball is a place to see better baseball than what they play in the majors - more interesting games with a little more left to ... I don't know, sports magic?  AHL doesn't seem to be like that.  AHL is a place to go to see bad hockey played by people who don't really want to be there.  I don't know what it is, but I suspect it's a combination of the NHL lockout and the fact that a lot of the players on the AHL teams seem to have been NHL players put out to pasture.  At the very least, you can spot them in an instant on the ice.  The Whale has notoriously bad puck control and cannot produce on a power play if their lives were at stake, but sometimes, it seems like they would play decent hockey, if it weren't for one to two guys on the ice who are clearly giving no fucks at all.  The beat Norfolk on Saturday because Norfolk managed to generate a sort of anti-fuck that drew the puck into their goal through no fault of the Whale.

4.5 All this makes it seem like I don't enjoy watching the games, but I do, I really do.  Bitterly complaining about the team and their failure to complete a pass, let alone make plays, is part of the enjoyment.  Hell, I am even okay with the local section cheerleaders New Haven and Tacos.  Well, okay is a strong word.  I would miss them if they weren't there, but the game would be more pleasant.  It's a weird sort of enjoyment.  The sporting equivalent of eating something too spicy for you, or something. 

And the Hits Keep Coming

Industrial park in Dream New Haven (It's got it's own distinct architecture and geography which does not match with the waking city, but it is New Haven.  At least it's closer than Dream Stamford, which is what the Emerald City would be if Hastur built it on Lost Carcosa), with my sister, Liam Neeson, some kid who looked a little like a live action version of Teen Titans Robin, and ogres.  Lots of ogres, and refugees.  And me without my "top shelf" weapons considering whether to go after the ogres or not. 

I need to stop playing video games before bed.

Too Much Sleep, Too Many Dreams

Too much in 2-3 hour increments, punctuated by crazy dreams.  The one that I think, remains memorable now was my being a youngish wizard put into a Disney mash-up against Medusa from The Rescuers, Snow White's stepmother and a third, who was a little like Maleficent left too long out in the rain - clearly the ringleader of the three.  I was tasked protecting an older version of the Darling kids from Peter Pan.  I got nothing.

There was also the ninja assassination dream, but that one had fewer musical numbers (someday I will tell you about my dream of Disney's Musashi and it's musical number with the singing skulls in kabuto).

Golden Foxes in Yellow Robes

In keeping with the day and its significance around here, I am thinking of the things for which I am thankful.  Listing them seems daunting.  Honestly, this month, listing anything, putting words into order seems kind of daunting.  Autumn is the time in which I do very little; it's around a third of a year I seem to take off from doing more than my minimum obligations - Mid October to late January, like clockwork.  This used to distress me more than it has come to, but I know I've been quiet, uncharacteristically so, for a little while.  My week's mental vacation became three, post Sandy, post election.  That's not to say things have not been happening, I just haven't been around for them, but to observe as they pass.

I am looking forward to eating turkey.  I normally don't (turkey is fine, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't excite me), but today I have a hankering.  Shortly, I am going to start work on the monkey bread and start calling the family.  For now, though, just writing things down.  My head has been full of notebook thoughts - things to write down longhand in my notebook, things I want to come back to later, like supermassive planets, and the titular foxes (you must ignore them, or else you end up in their world, and that's no good), grave robbing moles, local killers who can't be killed for good.  Stuff.  Things.  Nothing useful for blogging about.  And other services are draining LJ of its utility.  Tumblr lets me in on memes.  Facebook lets me have bare-minimum updates that, hell, even my family gets to see.  Google+ seems to be the place to talk about RPGs, and I am not currently writing or running, so that's for LJ. 

I have a goal for December, which is do a little more writing and running and blogging, as much as I can manage, without making it into a huge, daunting pile.  Wish me luck.

[DORK] Advocate Move

This is more for me than anything - translating something I want to make happen in one system into another.

When you seek the gods or spirits involved in a bad situation in ritual or mediation and interpret what they think will make it right, roll + Weird to see what they ask of you in return.  On a hit, I choose one.  On a hard hit, you choose one.
- They demand something offered to them as sacrifice.
- They demand a ritual performed or ordeal undertaken.
- They Require a certain enemy or transgressor to be defeated/killed/brought to justice.
- They require you to truthfully answer a question which I can then use in play as part of any move against you in the future.

On a miss, you've offended them, and require a second thing of you in order to make amends from the list above.