Thaddeus Nowak's Blog: Thoughts and Observations, page 5

Music

The sounds that make harmony in our minds

Music can be an inspiration for many people. It has been part of human history since before we kept history. It is something almost everyone can relate to at least in some part. People have even tried to quantify the most pleasing sounds scientifically, and as a person with a degree in chemistry, I applaud the endeavor to better understand the human brain and how it functions.

When I am writing, I almost always have some music playing in the background. Sometimes it is the same song on an endless loop, other times it is a playlist on the loop. I admit that as I am working, I pretty much tune out a conscious awareness of the music, but it does allow me to set my mood for what I am working on.

But that got me thinking about what my brain really is doing with that sensory input and how I am treating it very much like a machine. I push in a specific input (the chosen music) to achieve a specific output (a particular mood).

Switching gears slightly. Something that you may not have heard of is Hatsune Miku, which according to the Wikipedia article and Crypton Future Media translates into “the first sound of the future.” She is a hologram with a computer-generated voice developed by Crypton Future Media.

Below is a YouTube video from an Expo in 2016 where people watched the hologram performance.

While I know some people will scoff at the idea of people paying money to listen to a computer, I actually find it fascinating to see just how far computer technology has come since I got my first computer. Plus, I will remind you that we joke about pet rocks while wishing we had come up with that ourselves.

The idea of machine learning, and the eventual rise of our new masters (I fully support you), is not new to writers and storytellers. We’ve had tales of our eventual downfall to the machines (or other advanced/magical constructs like golems) for thousands of years. Some of my favorite modern examples are things like Terminator and Terminator 2 (okay, not exactly modern as they are getting older, but still great).

There are other subtle hints of more sophisticated and cunning examples of computer technology impacting our lives and fooling our eyes and ears. This again is not new in writing or movie; however, the CGI ending with Princess Leia at the end of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a great example of being able to make a very real representation of a person outside of their time and place. Compare that with Max Headroom, an AI from 1984 (and worth a watch).

A possible implication of all this is framing someone in the court of public opinion when so many people are easily swayed by first impressions and skeptical of evidence. In the future, I imagine a period of time were digital forensics might have a hard time telling truth from fiction if one technology outpaces another.

And getting us back to music, this weekend CBS’ Sunday Morning talked about the fact that several stars that are no longer with us today will once again be making an appearance on stage, which relate in part back to Hatsune Miku. Here is a CBS news article about bringing back Maria Callas as discussed on Sunday Morning.

I find the technology fascinating, and as a reader and writer, I see the fantasies of yesterday becoming today’s reality, and from that, my mind jumps to the next great world ending scenario (because dystopian stories have always had an audience). I just hope that in the future, when I come back as a hologram, they give me Dwayne Johnson’s abs.

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Campaign Log: 1.26 – And for one, it ends in fire

Campaign Log

Last Wednesday at Pawn & Pint several members of the party threw caution to the wind and tempted fate. One of them has learned, perhaps a bit late, that witches and warlocks find the white-hot flames of a purifying fire. For those that want to go to the beginning, here is the post that started this campaign.

We resume the session with the party heading south. Already several days out of Vantar, they continue to pull Tyr’s stolen cart and the heavy steel cage. Unfortunately for Tyr, the people in the smaller towns lack the funds to purchase expensive plate armor and weapons. However, this does not stop Tyr from trying to sell her wares. Nor does it induce her or Quai to conceal their identities.

Wilby and Cynder had scouted ahead as the rest of the party lag behind and so the party is uncertain if Wilby and Cynder are aware of a disturbing trend in the smaller towns along the road.

On the outskirts of a town about halfway between Vantar and Avet, they find several bodies displayed as evidence of a burning. When they get into town, they learn that the local priest died in his sleep about ten days prior. Two priests of Felis from the distant north (perhaps even near Midland) had come through the town. They spoke of rumors of the Senzar recruiting witches and warlocks south of the border in Comir. These two priests, with funny accents and names (Olm and Du’en) tested the town’s people with a holy relic and found several people were guilty of worshiping Elrin. Despite their protests, they accused were executed with fire.

During the time of the executions, a couple other members of the town disappeared, presumably heading south.

Tyr decided to bury the bodies, but saved a skull that she locked into a small steel cage. With the skull secured, she summoned a spirit to inhabit the skull. Several other members of the party had some qualms about the activity with the dead, but they continued traveling south after staying the night. Tyr used the animated skull to warn her if any living creature came near (and then had to adjust down the sensitivity).

The following day Tyr lost control of the skull and she destroyed it.

The next town they came to had a similar story as the first. This town spoke of the priests going off into the woods to check some towns to the east after more people were cleansed with fire while a couple more fled. However, instead of pursuing the priests (which were a couple of days ahead of them) the party continued on to Avet with the cart.

Tyr decided to check a portent before entering the walls of the large city of Avet. The reading told her that she would be safe as long as no one recognized her. Armed with that information, the party drove the cart into the city by the lake. Rowan broke off from the main group to see if he could find any news from potential contacts in the city. Tyr, Quai, and Unferth decided to go up to Duke Nartel’s keep and demand to have an audience with the duke.

Fortunately for Wilby and Cynder, they were still scouting ahead of the party and had not entered the city.

After Tyr explained who she is, she is allowed an audience. The three of them, minus their weapons (and Quai does not get to play an old Gandalf with his staff) are eventually escorted to an audience chamber full of guards (they waited for a long time before being announced). The Duke wants an explanation and Tyr says she needs to report corruption with the church to someone outside of the church. The Duke wants to know more and Tyr explains that Master Priest Kern was a working with a crime lord and that she had to kill him and the soldiers that were with them.

Since word had reached Duke Nartel about Tyr being a witch, he questioned the party with his priests using their powers to ensure truthfulness. Both Unferth and Quai successfully resisted the effort and offered little condemnation of Tyr, but added suspicion to themselves.

Tyr willingly submitted, however, her mouth was working for the prosecution. She answered the questions and then added other details like her party members didn’t trust her and talked of having some of Kern’s bones so that they could speak with the dead to get the truth out of him.

The Duke was noticeably bothered with such talk and had them escorted to separate rooms to rest while he consulted with others.

Unferth made small talk with the guards and then was later escorted back to the Duke for a conversation by himself. He quickly opened up about some of what had happened with Tyr (seeing as he had only known Tyr for a couple of days) and then asked for a job with the city watch. The Duke, amused by the request, refused to offer him a job, but gave him a letter of recommendation as a court jester.

After Unferth was returned to his room, Quai was summoned. For Quai, drink loosened his tongue and he proved to not be a great character witness for Tyr. When Quai was returned to his room without the high-quality alcohol, he used his powers to escape through the narrow window and went to the nearest public house to get drunk.

Tyr was brought back and questioned some more and was turned over to the church so she could be taken to Antar to report her complaint about Kern in person. However, when Tyr was in a cell in the temple, she used magic against one of her guards and then tried to escape through a wall.

The fact that she was in the middle of the temple caused her to return to the cell, where the holy warriors confiscated her holy symbol. After which, she used magic without the holy symbol, proving concretely that she was a witch. A finding that only a purifying fire can resolve.

In the city, Unferth found Quai and convinced the monk that he should not go back to the keep because the Duke thinks he is a warlock. They eventually meet up with Rowan and they all update each other on events.

The post Campaign Log: 1.26 – And for one, it ends in fire appeared first on Thaddeus Nowak.

Campaign Log: 1.25 – A Midnight Party

Campaign Log

Last Wednesday at Pawn & Pint the party fled Vantar because of the destruction they had left behind. Though, perhaps their quick and quiet getaway was neither quick nor particularly quiet. For those that want to go to the beginning, here is the post that started this campaign.

We resume the session with several members of the party wanting to head south toward the mountains and the border with Comir, since they already know that Comir is itching to send over invaders. However, Tyr wants to get the steel from the cage, and so while the rest of the party leaves the city and waits for her, she goes to the guardhouse and tries to negotiate the release of the stolen goods into her custody. In the end, she does manage to sway one guard to help her steal the evidence. The trouble is, it takes about half the day to get the cage and cart out of the city, which puts them behind schedule a bit. Since they have only angered a major crime lord in the city, that shouldn’t represent a problem…right?

They head south on the southern road out of Vantar (since they are unable to navigate the cart off road through the dense forests). Wilby keeps way to the front to look for trouble and Rowan stays to the back. As they get close to camping along the side of the road for the night, Rowan spots a group of men on horse coming down the road. He recognizes the standard of the priests of Felis. A quick warning to the rest of the party is followed by Rowan taking off into the woods, followed by Cynder, Unferth, and Quai also rushing into the woods.

Before long, the soldiers of Felis catch up to the wagon. In this group of soldiers is Master Priest Kern and Lord Trenton (an almost Master Priest). Both the these empowered priests are wearing plate armor. The two priests are accompanied by five soldiers in leather armor. They greet Tyr, who is part of the church of Felis in Vantar, and inquire about where she is going and what happened to the people they saw with the wagon.

Tyr says they are all shy, but that she is heading south to make weapons and armor for soldiers protecting the southern border. She also mentions that she thinks one person she is traveling with might be a witch and is keeping an eye on him.

Wilby, seeing the priests with the wagon heads into the woods, warns Cynder to stay away, and the comes back from his forward position. Master Priest Kern says he is heading south as well because of the rumor of strange events happening. He’d like to share their campsite if he might. To which Tyr agrees happily.

The rest of the party finally turn back up, giving various excuses for their sudden flight into the woods. All except for Cynder, who remains in the woods and away from the rest of the camp.

Master Priest Kern offers to help the party keep watch and they agree. Quai becomes the only party member on the second watch (Tyr has also melded herself into stone for the night).

As Quai is walking his watch with a couple of the soldiers, he is caught by surprise in the back by bolts of white-hot light. The sudden burst of light gives a signal to Master Priest Kern’s men, and as a result, Unferth and Rowan each take a sword wound. Wilby managed to survive his attacker unscathed.

Quai takes a few more hits of white-hot light before he rushes forth to attack Master Priest Kern.

Wilby has better luck than the others as he uses his hand axes to slaughter the man who attacked him. Unfortunately for Wilby, Lord Trenton takes over the place of the dead soldier.

Unferth and Rowan both damage their attackers, but do not manage to kill them.

The battle with the two priests in plate armor continue and after Unferth and Rowan kill their attackers, they rush over and surround Kern. Tyr, roused from her slumber in the stone, joins the battle. However, Kern blasts them all with a thunderous wave of energy, knocking one of them back.

Eventually, Kern falls, through Tyr spares him with a quick spell to avoid him dying.

For Wilby, Cynder has joined the fight and Lord Trenton raises a wall of fire to push Wilby back. The flames also block Cynder and Tyr from seeing him. Cynder lobs more magic over the flaming wall. When Trenton emerges from an opening at the end of his wall, Cynder drops a fireball and Tyr drops a flaming wall around Trenton.

Unferth, moved over to Wilby for healing, with others chase after Trenton. Eventually, Cynder manages to drop Trenton with another blast of magic missiles.

Tyr brings Trenton back to the edge of death and then drags both of the priests to the cage. She strips them and then binds them in the cage where they cannot use their hands. Tyr then revives Kern and begins to interrogate the Master Priest. As it turned out, Kern utilized Hector for certain task and the party’s attack on Hector’s business was an attack on Kern’s interests as well.

Kern asks to be allowed to go, but Tyr has different ideas. Tyr kills Lord Trenton, then raises the body, and orders Trenton to eat Kern’s face off. The two priests in the small cage are bound and can’t make use of their hands, so the zombie’s attack is not effective, but it does force Kern to struggle against the attack.

The rest of the party have a great deal of trouble with this dark turn and several of them move away, leaving Tyr and Quai to stand by watching the result. However, Kern does not need his hands to generate another blast of energy or to heal himself. The attack destroys the undead Trenton and hurts both Quai and Tyr.

Kern again asks to be freed, offering the party money, as his holdings are vast. He warns them that he can’t give them any of his holdings if he were dead. He also offers to rescind the proclamation that they were all witches and warlocks (which he made to the church and others before leaving because of the fire damage done in the city of Vantar).

In the end, the party overrules Tyr’s torture and they give Kern a quick death.

They load up their gear, take the horses, drag the bodies off the road, and head south through the night. They arrive at a small community in the morning, but only Tyr, Unferth, and Quai go into town.

Unferth goe to find a bed and bath as he has been bloodied. A local reeve asks him what happened and Unferth offers a story about traveling with friends and then getting attacked and running away, uncertain where his friends have gone. He begs to be allowed to rest and get cleaned up before having to make a statement. The reeve allows it.

Quai finds the public house and starts getting liquored up, buying the whole town (or at least anyone who comes into the pub a drink).

Tyr announces her presence and starts to look for people who want weapons or armor made. Unfortunately for her, the town is not rich and so she ends up healing people and making tools.

Rowan and Cynder stay with the horses and cart. A few people come by and wonder about what they are doing. Cynder leaves them feeling very comfortable. Which causes the people to head back into town.

Eventually, Wilby rejoins them and suggests they depart. Rowan, having had some rest, heads into town to find Unferth, Quai, and Tyr. He also runs into the reeve and provides a slightly different story of events, but locates Unferth and Quai (Tyr has gone back on her own).

The party, aside from Tyr and the very drunk Quai, head around the outside of the town, while Try and Quai ride the cart down the road announcing their death wish—I mean intended path—to anyone they meet.

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Campaign Log: 1.24 – Free at Last

Campaign Log

Last Wednesday at Pawn & Pint the party was joined by a new barbarian who agreed to help Erik free Jessica, as long as the thief would pay back the five gold he owed her. For those that want to go to the beginning, here is the post that started this campaign.

The action picked up with a very injured Unferth heading out of the small store to find a safe place to recover while the others continued to try and free Jessica (fortunately, we have a new stand-in barbarian for the night).

Tyr had locked herself behind a wall and now faced a multitude of people on her own (or at least with an injured and weaponless Jessica at her back in a cage).

Wilby, Rowan, and Quai had a 7’x7′ stone wall standing over the top of pit blocking their way to the north there Tyr had gone.

Cynder remained in the shop to watch for trouble.

And Erik, out in the street, brought in a friend named Kava, a barbarian from far away who simply wanted her money back.

Back underground, Tyr summoned a cloud of specters as she met three men on the other side of the door. In the process, she takes some damage, hurts all three of the thieves in turn. The large room to the north appears to be a torture chamber and office.

Rowan and Wilby notice that the wall is fairly unstable as the stone was sucked up out of the floor, leaving a pit below it. Together, with the help of Quai, they manage to push the wall enough that it falls into the pit, scratching Rowan in the process.

Outside, Erik and Kava burst into a small shop across the street from the one where Cynder stood watch. recognizing one of Hector’s men running the shop, the two of them take out a pair of thieves guarding what Erik hopes is another route into the underground lair.

Tyr continues to fight the men in the torture room with her magic as Rowan and Quai come up behind her. Unfortunately for the two of them, Tyr’s magic starts harming members of her party.  The three of them move into the room and continue to fight the guards who had held Jessica.

Wilby, staying outside of the cloud of spectral spirits, frees Jessica from the cage and escorts her back out of the way they came in.

Kava and Erik find a trapdoor and a ladder going down into a dark room. Kava climbs down to find a small pack of mastiffs guarding the room. One of them bites her, but she quickly wins them over to her with her magnetic personality.

On the other side of the locked door, Tyr, Quai, and Rowan kill the three men.  Rowan and Tyr go to the door on the west while Tyr moves her cloud of harmful specters away from her two party members.

Rowan and Quai unlock the door and burst into the bedroom to find a man and woman who had been hiding inside. The two thieves that were hiding out immediately attack Rowan and Quai. They end up killing the man, but the woman surrenders before she is killed. On his way out, Rowan locks her in the cell.

Tyr opens the east door and her specters fly into the room, killing all five of the dogs instantly. This angers Kava and Erik, who are also both suffering damage as well. However, Tyr does not drop her magic, even after Erik asks for it to stop. This leads to a bit of a confrontation between Kava and Tyr. Of which both survive, but there is little love lost between the two of them.

Upstairs, Cynder finds himself faced with a couple of enforcers. Magic ends the confrontation with the two men dying.

While Quai and Tyr (who finally dropped her magic) search the larger storage room, Rowan and Kava examine the smaller vault to the south, next to the stairs going out. The two of them walk away with a sizable sum of coins while Quai and Tyr hall off a couple of casks of wine from the storage room.

They all regroup at in the shop, Erik and Jessica are relieved the other is alive and the two of them plan to leave town as soon as possible.

Fearing city guards and the crime lord, the rest of the party disappears into the city to hide for the night so they can leave as soon as the gates are opened in the morning.

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Campaign Log: 1.23 – Rescue

Campaign Log

Last Wednesday at Pawn & Pint to try and rescue Rowan’s friend the action went underground (and inside a building). For those that want to go to the beginning, here is the post that started this campaign.

We pick up from the prior session at the farmhouse south of Vantar. Dead bandits and thieves littered the scene (with one prisoner taken by Tyr). The snow cat was gone and Eric had nothing to use to get enough money so he could pay back Hecktor and free Jessica.

Tyr, however, claimed to be an expert blacksmith (please see the full plate mail she is wearing) and she could turn the steel cage into several suits of armor and make a small fortune doing that. They could then use that money to rescue Jessica. As to the fact that it normally would take a year to do that and Jessica and Erik had but a handful of days … well, Tyr has the favor of Felis and can do the work in a matter of hours instead of months.  (This is the point where you ask, what can go wrong … and then the DM smiles.)

With that plan in mind, they buried the bodies (to prevent the spread of disease), loaded the cage on the cart, and headed back to Vantar. By the time they arrived, it was late in the evening and the guards at the gate asked about the cage.

Tyr, being an honest person, explained the whole event. He even turned over the man who thought he was going to be Tyr’s servant. That led the man to accuse the part of being thieves as well. What saved the party from being taken into custody was that they summoned Tyr’s supervisor from the temple. However, the guards declared the cage as evidence and confiscated it for the trial.

At this point, Erek departed so that his bad position with the local crime lord would not taint the rest of the party, which went back to the public-house and the inn. Tyr, however, makes a stop at his former blacksmith master to see if he has a customer willing to pay 1,500 gold for plate armor (Tyr has some additional steel available). Rowan, Wilby, and Cynder get some rest while Unferth and Quai spend part of the night drinking, and for Unferth at least, he spends the time listening to rumors.

What Unferth learned is that some great explosion happened in the mountains and that much of the Senzar army was crushed in a landslide. The Prince managed to survive and is on his way back to Antar with many other soldiers that were being used as slaves to mine for lost artifacts. Unfortunately, Duke Burdger is not happy with this event and is vying for the barons to declare him king in place of the Prince. With the country’s wealth stolen by the former Queen and taken north to Kynto, Burdger is hoping that his personal fortune will sway opinion.

On the Jessica front, the next day Tyr finds out that there are no current customers looking for a suit of full plate armor at the moment. He also cannot get the church to pay the money they are looking for. So he convinces Erek and Unferth to take him to Hector where we will try to sell his services to the crime lord.

After a bit of work, they are permitted an audience, but the conversation does not go as expected. Hector is angered that Erek would involve a priest in what is a matter of a personal debt. Hector says “The psychotic man has lied about having a woman involved and is trying to take advantage of the situation. It is just a personal debt, nothing else.” As a result, Tyr negotiates a bargain of her own where Hector will attempt to find a customer looking for plate armor for a 40% cut of the price, but that deal has nothing to do with Erik’s debt.

Afterward the meeting, Erik now has to pay 1,500 gold and has three days to do so.

Rowan attempts a different tactic and starts asking around on his own about places where Jessica might be held and of the three locations that Erek suspects, Rowan narrows in on one two-story building that is a small curio store acting as a front for stolen goods.

With little to no planning, Unferth and Tyr go inside the shop to cause a distraction by picking a fight with a young man and an old woman who were working behind the counter. The rest of the party remained outside the small shop.

It did not take long before they caused trouble and Unferth’s axe handle was connecting with the man’s face. The man and old woman turned out to be tougher than they appeared and the noise draws another man from the back room.

Unferth ended up getting poisoned and the toxin made him feel as thick as a whole pot of congealed bacon fat. But Tyr noticed the impact of the poison and used Felis’ power to counter the toxin. Quai comes in from the back window as Unferth kills the first man. Then combat moves into the backroom. Tyr spares the dead man with aid from Felis and starts demanding Unferth stop the bloodshed. Quai then punches Unferth and the barbarian takes a dive.

Tyr heals the nearly dead man as she apologizes for the prank gone wrong. Then she drags Unferth out the front door while Quai tries to claim he works with the city watch to track down those two. The people in the shop appreciate the help but would prefer he leave.

Rowan snuck into the shop’s front room and hid behind the counter and listens to the conversation that takes place after Quai leaves. The old woman says she will check on the woman while another is told to report the event to Hector, leaving just the original man behind.

After the man from the backroom leaves to report to Hector, they decide to go back into the shop, believing this is the location where they can rescue Jessica. This time Tyr temporarily blinds and silences the original man using Felis’ powers. He then ties the man to a chair while Wibly checks out the door in the back room leading to the narrow hall. In the hall, Wilby finds a trap door under a rug.

Unferth ends up using his axe on the trapdoor latch (since the area is silenced) while Rowan picks the lock to the reinforced door (finding a storage room with good). Quai takes a seat in the outer back room and Cynder watches the man who is tied to the chair.

With the trapdoor opened, it reveals a set of stairs going down, Wilby, Rowan, Tyr, and Unferth go down into the passage underground. Lamps and voices can be heard and at the end of the passage appears to be a room with a table and some cooking equipment.

Wilby moves to the end of the passage, while Tyr (in plate armor) makes noises behind them. Suddenly the voices stop.

Wilby’s peak around the corner is rewarded with an arrow that just misses him. Combat quickly ensues with the four of them rushing forward into the room. They are engaged by a man with a short bow (down the narrow hall to the north), the old woman, a younger woman, and another man all on the other side of the table. The combat is fierce as their foes are not simple men that fall easily.

Wilby and Rowan move deeper into the room, while Unferth and Tyr rush toward the northern passage and the man with the bow. Eventually, the man with the bow reveals some witchcraft and shoots bolts of energy at Unferth and he electrocutes Tyr as Tyr runs past him to the door at the far end of the passage.

Wilby, Rowan, and Unferth damage and kill three of the four people as Tyr uses more of Felis’ power to shape the stone floor and walls to form a barricade between everyone else and the door at the end of the hall. This seals Tyr off from any support.

Upstairs, Cynder and Quai, though they can now hear the commotion below, sit tight and remain where they are.

The man with the bow (and magic) gets past the others and manages to make it up the stairs with Wilby and Unferth pursuing. Quai sees the man coming and decides to use one of the firestones he acquired from the Senzar. He lobs the rock toward the narrow hallway, but misses, and the stone bounces off the wall and lands in the room where he is still sitting in the chair. As a ranger I know says, you have to be willing to fireball your own position. Normally, that ranger has enemies surrounding him when he does that. In this case, Quai, Cynder, and the man tied to the chair are the only ones to get burned.

The Bowman continues to fend off Unferth and Wilby as he makes his way toward the window on the back of the shop. With Cynder’s help, and the significant damage others have done, Unferth manages to finally remove the man’s head and an arm with his axe. The unfortunate thing is the man had a stone in his hand that falls to the ground. A moment later, the room is filled with lightning. Quai manages to avoid the energy, but Unferth and Cynder take significant damage.

Downstairs, Rowan is blocked from pursuing Tyr, so he unlocks the reinforced door leading to another storeroom with goods. No Jessica present.

Tyr, manages to get through the door and finds a room with an iron cage. A woman is locked inside and he asks if her name starts with a “J” (as the party, aside from Rowan and Wilby, were having a hard time remembering “Jessica”). The woman responds, no stupid, Jessica starts with an “I” in the Cothish alphabet. (Which for Wilby and myself was very funny because we remember Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.) After a bit of work, Tyr breaks the lock from the cage and starts work on the other door.

The rescue is to be continued in the next session …

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Campaign Log: 1.22 – Snow Cat

Campaign Log

Last Wednesday at Pawn & Pint is really two Wednesdays ago. For those that want to go to the beginning, here is the post that started this campaign 21 sessions ago.

On Wednesday, Rowan encountered an old acquaintance and agreed to help him with a particular problem. When Rowan told the rest of the party about the possibility to hunt down a Snow Cat from the north, they all decided to join in the fun (some for different reasons).

While Rowan was gathering supplies, he was spotted by Erik, a man in his mid-twenties who had known Rowan when they were in Antar. A mutual friend named Jessica had been their common link. Back in Antar, the three of them had engaged in less than legal activities before Rowan had been “recruited” into the Antar City Watch.  Therefore, Rowan was not surprised to know that Erik and Jessica had continued that line of work. Unfortunately, Erik had got himself into a spot of trouble and dragged Jessica down with him.

Erik had owned Hector, a local crime lord over 300 gold coins due to prior debts and a failed exchange of goods where Erik had lost the valuables. Jessica had heard of an exotic Snow Cat that was held by a Lord Gillian, who lived about a day south of Vantar. Lord Gillian was planning to sell the animal because he was leaving for safer locations to the east.

It was common knowledge that a local Lord Dailon collected exotic animals and Erik already had a relationship with the man. With Jessica’s help, Erik negotiated a price of 1,200 gold from Lord Dailon and a purchase prices of a mere 500 gold from Lord Gillian. All they needed to do was get 500 gold and transport the cat from Lord Gillian’s mannor house.

Erik asked Hector to borrow the 500 gold to purchase the cat and Hector agreed with the understanding that Erik would pay 1,000 gold for the prior debt and the interest on the new loan.

Erik, Jessica, and three other men traveled south to get the cat from Lord Gillian and were on their way back to Vantar with a cart, horse, and the huge cat in a cage when they were attacked on the road. Erik had been struck from behind and he had been knocked out without seeing who attacked him. When he woke, the three men who had been with them were dead, Jessica was nearly dead, and the cat, horse, and cart gone.

When word came back to Hector, the crime lord took Jessica hostage and Erik was given ten days to pay back the 1,000 gold. If Erik failed to do so, both he and Jessica would be executed very painfully. That was two days ago and Erik was down to eight days left.

Rowan asked several questions of the events and Erik is certain the cat is somewhere outside the Vantar’s walls.

He had already talked with Lord Dailon since the cat was taken and no one had yet approached the Lord with an offer for the cat and no one had seen the cat come into the city. He also has a couple of ideas about where they might have Jessica held, but trying to free her might be rather difficult. He thinks Hector must have betrayed him because only Hector, Jessica, the three men they took to get the cat, and Lord Dailon knew. However, Lord Dailon did not know the specifics of where the cat was coming from.

The party, flush with coin, considered just paying the fee, but they decided to find the cat first. Some thought to sell the cat and use the proceeds to pay the debt (which is what Erik wanted to do) others thought to keep the cat for themselves and pay the fee out of their own pocket while some thought they would need to free the cat and then free Jessica since Hector could not be trusted.

Erik did warn them that this cat, whose fur was white as snow in winter and a dusty brown in summer, would look you in the eye and you would know it was considering ways to kill you, despite being caned around the neck and locked in a cage.

With all that in mind, the party left Vantar and headed to the ambush site, which had been just a spot on the road through the forest. Wilby and Unferth looked around for tracks and Unferth managed to find the trail of the cart and horse. They managed to track the cart to a side ride leading to the east. After following the narrow side path, they came upon a small farmstead.

Howl used his glass eye and his witchcraft to spy upon the buildings and found several men in the farmhouse as well as a handful of men in the barn. In the southeast corner of the barn was the cat in a steel cage. The cat seemed to follow Howl’s remote sight, looking the former priest of Felis in the eye, despite Howl’s sight being impossible to see.

The rest of the party, standing near the edge of the farmstead and just inside the woods, continued to discuss how they should approach the house. Half the party decided to go after the barn, kill the men in there, and then try to sneak out with the cat without attacking the men in the house.

In the end, Howl (hiding as a tree) decided to stay back at the edge of the forest while Rowan, Unferth, Quai, and Tyr (another friend of Quai), went to the east of the barn. Cynder, Wilby, Erik, and Gemma (invisible) went to the west side of the barn and planned to watch the front door of the house.

Unfortunately for the party, they had spent too much time discussing their plan and someone in the woods saw them and started shooting at Wilby, Cinder and Erik.

Cynder, Wilby, and Gemma quickly start engaging their attacker with magic and bow, but the noise draws brigands out of the house and their task becomes more complex.

Howl also starts to move toward the archer and works to use magic against the opponent while keeping his person hidden with illusion.

The others move around the back of the barn and rush inside. Rowan, Unferth, and Quai get into the barn and kill the men guarding the cat. After a bit of an exchange, with injuries on both sides, the party is victorious and the thieves are dead.

Tyr, a holy warrior of Felis, continues around the barn and starts heading toward the men who have come out of the farm-house.

The near dozen men give the party a challenge and Gemma and Cynder take a fair amount of damage before they overcome the thieves. Tyr takes one man prisoner and demands his loyalty in exchange for his surrender.

Unrefth decides to use his natural talents and has a brief conversation with the cat and decides releasing it is the correct thing to do. Rowan was not certain this was safe, but Unferth was convinced it would be.

After they released the massive cat, nearly everyone in the party became momentarily distracted, and by the time they turned their attention back to the cat, it was gone.

Erik recognises the men as being part of a group belonging to Marcus, who is a lieutenant of Hector, and less than friendly with Erik. The new servant of Tyr says that Derry had betrayed Erik and had expected to join Marcus’ group, but Marcus doesn’t like traitors so he had Derry killed in the ambush. They had planned to sell the cat once Marcus had a chance to arrange the exchange.

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Minimalism 2017 – Wrapup

Minimalism, the year in review

Well, I started 2017 with an aggressive goal: get rid of 2017 items in one year. Was I nuts? Did I fail? Was I a success?

I will have to say the results were mixed. I managed to get rid of 1017 of the 2017 item target, so by the numbers, I failed. However, I learned a lot and that cannot always be quantified by a single score.

In case you were wondering, here were the rules I set for myself at the beginning of last year.

What didn’t work

Well, to start with, 365 days to get rid of 2017 items is 5.526 items per day. No holidays or weekends. At the start of the year, I had a fair amount of low hanging fruit to purge and so I made some good progress, even getting ahead of schedule for quite some time. However, as the easy items disappeared, I had to spend more and more time going through things to evaluate them. Which meant that the early days of removing 30 items in 20 minutes turned into spending 30 minutes to get rid of 1 item. (Based on my rules, a folder with 150 sheets of paper to scan was 1 item.)

I also may have overestimated the amount of clutter I have. My original goal was never to get down to 100 items, or what I feel is extreme minimalism. My goal was to simplify and reduce the noise in my life. As a result, I am not sure I had 2017 items to purge. Do I still have clutter and noise? Yes, some, but I will say I have a lot less than when I started.

What did work

I got rid of 1017 items in 2017 (yeah, once I hit a certain point in the year, I aimed for that specific number). It was no small feat, especially when I have a lot of other things going on that consume a significant amount of time. Therefore, I am proud of where I ended up and don’t consider the number to be a failure. The original number was something of a stretch goal anyway and my result is an average of 2.786 items per day, no weekends or holidays.

Another thing that worked for me is that the very act of going through things allowed me to find some items that actually had some meaning, but were buried in boxes in the back of the closet. Those items I pulled out and have actually put on shelves so I can see them (after I got rid of things I didn’t need that were clogging up the shelves).

An additional result of this exercise is that I can take a more clinical look at things and decide if they really are items I need and want or if they won’t really bring me any long-term pleasure. Am I perfect in that? Heck no, I still have some things I wasn’t ready to give up, even though I doubt I will do much with them in the long run. But in the future, I may finally decide to get rid of them and that is a start.

Valuing time over money became another lesson. I had held on to certain things because they had monetary value and I wanted to sell them for a profit. As I moved into the period where it was taking me more time to review the items to get rid of, I started to realize just how much time was involved with trying to extract value. Sure, I might make a few dollars on this or that, but if I spend hours doing so, I won’t be making a real profit. Therefore, unless there was a significant delta in the value to time, I simply got rid of the item (donated it or sold it for pennies on the dollar at the one yardsale we did do this year). This lesson may be one of the most important of the year: Your time is worth more than a few bucks.

Finally, with what I gained by taking a good hard look at my stuff is that I now have a framework for getting rid of more things over time. Something I buy or keep today, perhaps tomorrow I won’t need or want. With this mental adjustment I made, I won’t have the baggage that forces me to hold on to it indefinitely.

What’s next

I intend to continue to purge. I might even set up some additional target goals for 2018 (though not as aggressive). I expect that my sentimentality will continue to diminish over time and I will end up with less and less as the years go by. My inner editor continues to comment on my choices of what to keep, even now as I write this article.

Another area I will focus on in 2018 is my digital clutter. When I first had computers with hard drives (and I even had several before hard drives existed in the consumer market) the drives were very small and I pruned out the junk regularly. Now my systems have multiple terabytes of storage and I do a very bad job of cleaning things up. So, bookmarks, files, software, and other things stuck on those drives will become a focus as well.

The best part, I actually look forward to getting rid of things.

Happy New Year to everyone and good luck with all of the goals you set for yourselves!

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Galvanizing Events

Galvanizing Events

A galvanizing event is one that fixes thought process, emotion, or decision to some particular course of action. Events that galvanize can be subtle, having built slowly over time, until a mere phrase or observed action will become the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back, spurring action. Or galvanizing events can be sudden and powerful, such as experiencing an unexpected loss or dramatic change in a person’s life.

Not all people experience truly galvanizing events in their lives. Others may experience them, but not be consciously aware (either due to the level of intensity of the event or as a result of a lack of self-awareness). Some who are more clinical in their appraisal of their own thought processes may recognize the exact moment in time that an event fixes a course of action in their mind and know that was a galvanizing event.

From personal experience, I can say the more subtle events come with a certain cathartic release. The sudden focus and weeding out of alternative possibilities can bring a great deal of pleasure, even in the face of something unpleasant. The idea of laughing at a traumatic experience can make sense when you realize that you now have a clear path to follow. The joy of losing the indecision is powerful.

As a characterization device, these types of events can be used to drive a person’s behavior. Give a protagonist or antagonist a galvanizing event and what might have been a gradually moving direction can suddenly become a priority for the character. Depending on the story, the event could consume their life or simply convey a new sense of urgency.

For less significant events, the decision and motivation may be so sublet and internal that is it not obvious to someone not inside the person’s head. And for these more sublet events, time and other factors may later change the person’s mind. These lower intensity events allow a person to utilize the knowledge and understanding that had built up to that moment and pick a course of action. It can give them the spark they needed.

For the drastic life-altering events, the suddenness and brutality of the event will convey a much more deeply entrenched focus. A great tragedy will not easily be forgotten or forgiven, and so a person will not be easily swayed away from the resulting conviction. Often, these events take away a person’s rational thought and decision making and push them into a reactionary mode.

As a writer, one must not overuse the great tragedy device. Truly galvanizing events don’t occur on a frequent basis (unless the person’s life is a chaotic mess and they have no continuity from day to day). They should also never be a replacement for actual character traits, real human motivations, and thoughtful decisions. And even when they do occur, seldom do people actually drop everything else and become so single-minded that they become cartoon villains.

People are flawed and behave oddly—spend any time people watching and you may find yourself more confused than anything else. However, that is mostly due to a lack of visibility into other motivators and drivers, the largest of which is perception. I often say that reality and perception seldom converge and that perception beats reality every time. (A bit of an exaggeration, because the approaching train will smash through perception, but you get the idea.)

The point is, we have to understand each character’s perception of reality along with their motivations in order to understand their behavior. It is more work and it does require more thought, but it makes for a much deeper character who takes a more thoughtful approach to life. It can make for more powerful villains and more powerful protagonists.

Instead of just throwing significant life events at the characters, we must also show a character’s motivations (including their perceptions of reality) and allow the character the chance to decide on a course of action instead of getting pushed into reacting. This is because characters that take action are more powerful than ones that are simply reacting.

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Campaign Log: 1.21 – The Drunken Monk

Campaign Log

Last Wednesday at Pawn & Pint, Wibly ran into someone he had not seen in a while and Quai allowed a moment of idleness to impair his judgment.

The party had returned to Vantar the prior week. Rowan, Unferth, Howl, and Gemma had gone in search of some replacement equipment. Elrik left to find a playhouse for her play (leaving Rowan’s affections unrequited). That left Wilby, Quai, and Cynder to take care of their own supply needs.

As Wilby was walking through the city, and getting ready to head back out to the woods that surround this city in the western part of Cothel, a voice from his past stops him. He turns and finds Sergeant Alisar standing there. Wilby’s old commander is out of uniform and looking worse for wear.

Sergeant Alisar is glad to see Wilby and after a quick confirmation of Wilby’s status, Alisar asks Wilby if he would be willing to assist him. Alisar, a loyal man of the late King, is trying to help a popular Baron protect his family.

Baron Tentry is an old man, who is also loyal to the late King’s family and does not support Duke Burdger’s claim to the throne. The Baron’s son, Callen, has not returned from the war, but his daughter-in-law died in an assassination attempt on their family. The Baron had taken the precaution to send his granddaughter and grandson away to be kept in the care of a trusted retainer, an old Ranger named Douglas. Word had reached the Baron that Burdger’s men (who wish to use his granddaughter and grandson as leverage to force his support) know where the two are being kept and assassins have been sent.

Alisar, and nearly a dozen other men, had traveled from Antar to retrieve the children and bring them to Baron Irik, the lord of Vantar. Baron Irik is also a staunch supporter of the late King. Unfortunately, on the way to Vantar, Alisar’s party was attacked by assassins, some of which he was certain were Priests of Mertor. He suspects that if he were to leave the city, he would be followed. So if Wilby can retrieve the children, he would be most grateful.

Wilby, also a loyal supporter of the Marn family, accepts Alisar’s request and gathers the members of his party that are immediately available (namely Cynder and Quai). Quai is in the company of an old companion named Edronoch, a man of perhaps a questionable profession.

The four of them set off almost immediately, leaving from the east gate and then heading north through the woods before returning to the road several miles north of the city. Their target is a small community of about eight farmsteads nearly a day’s journey north of Vantar. They travel until dark and then set up a campsite and eat a cold dinner. In the morning, they continue traveling until they reach the small community.

The people of this nameless hamlet are wary of the strangers. Wilby has his three companions wait in the middle of the community until he has a chance to ask after Douglas and the children. This is where Quai seems to have succumbed to unhealthy temptations. Edronoch and Quai start to play a board game and then Quai starts to drink strong spirits until he is completely pissed.

Wilby is unaware of his companion’s activities and starts asking around after Douglas and the children. He receives little assistance from the people he talks to at first, but then he manages to convince one man that he may not be a threat. He then is taken to Douglas and gives the old Ranger the passphrase Alisar had provided: “blue trees, green water.”

Douglas then accepts Wilby and asks what the threat is. After a bit of explanation, Douglas and Wilby decide it would be best to leave immediately and Douglas goes to retrieve Rebie and Jeken from relations of his that live in this remote part of the country.

As they are leaving, Douglas begins to question Wilby’s judgment in companions: Quai is very drunk. However, this does not dissuade Douglas from leaving with Wilby.

Wilby takes up the lead, using deer paths to take them south from the community. Douglas, whose eyes have gone bad with age, will take the rear to cover their tracks. The children stay close to Douglas for safety while Cynder, Edronoch, and the staggering Quai (who just threw up) walk between the two rangers.

They travel for a couple of hours before a couple of the party hear a noise. Then Douglas whistles and sends the kids forward to Wilby.  A moment later, Quai moves off into the woods. The sudden movement causes him to throw up again.

At the back of the party, Douglas is hit with two crossbow bolts. The men in the woods also shoot at Quai, and despite his drunken hinderance, manages to catch the bolt in mid-puke.

Cynder, in love with fire, unleashes a ball of flames in the forest, burning two of the attackers. Edronoch, having seen one of the men get burned, rushes forward and stabs the man, dropping him to the ground.

Douglas, using his longbow, shots the other man who had been in the fireball. The arrow drops that assailant to the ground as Wilby shoots multiple arrows at another target hiding in the woods.

Quai, feeling better for purging the contents of his stomach twice, uses his powers to bounce between shadows and attempts to attack the man Wilby just shot. However, his ability to actually hit a target has been greatly reduced and he misses with every punch (he is not a drunken master). His target, however, is not impaired and the light crossbow bolt penetrates Quai’s side. The pain of the bolt is compounded by an additional burning.

Cynder is struck by multiple beams of burning light while two additional men shot bolts at Douglas, one of which strikes the old man. Douglas returns fire, but the old Ranger is growing weak.

Cynder, unhappy with being struck, shoots multiple bolts of energy back at the man who hit him. Wilby and Edronoch also turn their attention to what they presume is a priest of Mertor, the god of assassins. Wilby hits with one of his two shots while Edronoch strikes with his sword. The priest of Mertor lashes out with his powers and Edronoch finds the man’s touch unpleasant and the man moves away from the thief.

Quai, disadvantaged by the drink, finally manages to land a blow on the man in front of him. However, the spirits appear to not have impaired his ability to catch arrows and Quai snags the bolt from the air. Though the poison in his system continues to eat at his strength.

Douglas is shot at twice more by the men further in the woods. One hits and one misses. Douglas fires an arrow at each of them. All three men collapse after the exchange.

Cynder unleashes another fireball, this time on the priest. Wilby shoots twice at another man in the woods and drops the assassin.

Quai moves in close to the priest but is unable to land a single blow. The priest responds by stepping back and surrounding himself with a massive circle of flames. Edronoch, deciding that he can survive anything, runs through the flames, stabs the surprised priest, and then rushes back out of the flames.

The flames disappear and Cynder ensures the man is dead with more bolts of energy.

Wilby tries to heal Douglas, but the poison on the bolts has already done too much damage and the old Ranger is no more.

They bury Douglas, with Edronoch taking his swords and the poisoned bolts from the assassins. They leave the holy symbol of Mertor hanging in a tree, no one wanted to risk drawing the ire of the mysterious assassins by taking it.

The children are obviously impacted by Douglas’ death and are worried that Cynder is a warlock. When they get back to Vantar, Cynder goes a different direction and conceals his appears. Wilby, Quai, and Edronoch go to the keep in Vantar and ask to see Baron Irik. Wilby is allowed in while Edronoch turns over the poisoned bolts and informs a soldier that there are assassins in the woods.

Wilby meets the Baron and the children are taken into his care. Irik will ensure Baron Tentry is informed they are safe. In return, the Baron asks what Wilby would like as a reward. Wilby says nothing for himself, but his companions would likely accept coin. The Baron arranges for some money to be provided and says if Wilby ever needs something, to let him know.

Next Wednesday, the whole party will be back together to learn what Rowan has discovered during his time in the city…

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Campaign Log: 1.20 – The Mad Druid

Campaign Log

Due to the lack of a time machine, last Wednesday at Pawn & Pint will be abreviated this week.

The party, having left Gemma’s Cave and the abandoned city (because they didn’t want to release the “World Eater”) decided to head back to civilization and the city of Vantar. On the way, they encountered three Senzar soldiers who were frightened and fleeing a pack of wild animals.

Rowan agreed to accept their surrender and take them back to Vantar. However, as they camped for the night, a couple members of the party (or perhaps just Elrik) decided he would rather kill them and convinced Quai to do the deed. After which, the two of them tried to place the blame on Rowan.

As the two were in the process of placing evidence on Rowan, a group of bears and mountain lions attacked (the two murderers were supposed to be on watch). Soon to join the attack were also some dire wolves. The bears also tore into the Senzar, distrupting the evidence and then started on the party.

The comotion woke several members of the party and they began to fight the large animals. Gemma and Howl were in Howl’s hut and Gemma started blasting the mountain lions that were near the two of them with crackling energy. Once she realized they were real animals and not something else, she turned her tactic to scaring them off instead of killing them and she and Howl managed turn the three mountain lions away.

The others did manage to kill three brown bears and some dire wolves. The large cave bear turned out to be a druid that had gone made for some reason. The party managed to subdue him after he was forced back into human form. They then discovered a necklace around his neck that had Senzar writing on it and was magical.

Elrik, who had already determined there was madness in the druid, tried to identify the necklace (asking the others to knock him unconcious if he should act oddly) and lost his battle with the intelligence. He then turned on his party (even more than normal). They managed to knock him out, though not all of the damage was non-leathal.

During the commotion, the druid turned into a small cat and escaped.

Afterwards, they tried to bury the necklace, though Elrik (who turned out to be a woman who is always appearing as a man), dug it up and became affected by it a second time. After which, they knocked him/her out a second time buried the necklace in a more seculded place.

They then ventured to Vantar, where the party decided to use some of their money to resuply.

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