In Which Our Heroine Recounts The Events Of Last Weekend And A Minor Update
So, I'm going to start with Friday, mmk?
Friday night was the new and lovely Do or Dice/MegaLAN hybrid. It was poorly advertised but fairly well attended nonetheless. Some of my gradumatated guy friends (like Colin, who got glomped by Liz because he was wearing a Dalek shirt) were there, but they were in the pit doing their computer gaming stuff. I was off to the second floor for tabletop gaming chaos.
I played a campaign that involved one INCREDIBLY stupid character named Tor of the Hanna Barbarians (he did sense motive on a dust mote) and another character based on Magical Trevor of flash video fame. The whole campaign was nuts. Tor spent most of his time stubbornly avoiding anyone but "shiny head man," except when he shoved Magical Trevor's weasel familiar into a healing potion because it "needed healing" (it didn't) and the weasel's head was stuck in the bottle for the rest of the game, there was a pot roast golem that tried to nom us, one person's steed got eaten by pudding, there was a randomly magical fountain that turned people colors and even pulled a sex change on one of them. And then Magical Trevor got ahold of a rod of wonder. A rod of wonder does random things. As in the dice decide.
It summoned smog. Then an anvil, over MT's head. Then invisibility. Then another anvil. Then made him blind. While blind, he tried to heal himself, failed his INT check, and ended up using a rod of fireballs on himself instead.
It was mad fun.
Roundabout eleven o clock PM, I looked over and noticed somebody was staring at me from a game of Settlers of Caton. Mike. Yes, THAT Mike. I was surprised, but then went back to my gaming. It was my night with my friends, after all. Hell if I'm going to let him ruin it merely with his presence. The weird thing was, he looked surprised to see me, too. I mean, I openly play D&D, go to geek nights, etc. I've NEVER seen him at any of the ones I've attended (which is a lot)
I went to bed at 6:45 AM.
That afternoon, after I'd slept some, my semester long campaign had our first D&D session in weeks. It was INSANE. We got babysat by some paladins, delivered a very powerful magical artifact book thingy into the hands of what we now recognize (and I did a long time ago but never mentioned…) as the crazed Gollum-wannabe patriarch of a racist stick-up-the-ass paladin order, and then got arrested and put in a little room. They had originally decided to probe our minds to make sure their secrets didn’t escape with us (sounds awful, but better than having party members die on the way out) but then decided that a better course of action was to just keep us locked up and maybe feed us… sometime… eventually… I guess… The crazy guy who we got the artifact from (ex-paladin with the same Gollum-wannabe issue to a lesser degree) broke through the door and saved us, so we had to charm some random minion guy to lead us out, bash through a window, and fight some paladins before escaping into the city and running to the gate.
There’s one issue with that whole “escape into the city and run to the gate” thing, though. Paladins are freaking EVERYWHERE in that town. We ran out there and, while the crowd giving one a wide berth is great for running, it’s not so great for the hiding thing. Our half-elf cleric had a hat of disguise, so she put that on and blended in with the crowd. Our Halfling rogue is gifted in the art of hide and sneaking, so she absolutely disappeared into the crowd. Our druid turned into a bird and flew away. Our gnomic bard was only cut up in a minor I-could-have-done-this-in-a-bar-fight kind of way from faceplanting into the remnants of the broken window, so he was rather inconspicuous as he slipped off to go shopping.
I’m a female dwarven fighter (dwarves are scarce in the area) with an enchanted masterwork greatsword, and at that point I happened to be clad in my full-plate armor, cut up pretty badly and covered in copious amounts of both the blood of paladins and myself, running like hell through the streets with absolutely no skills in hide or move silently. Subtle I am not. I was totally fucked, right?
Well, after making a B-line for the market sector of town, miraculously only followed by two of the five mounted Paladins riding by, I started looking through my inventory for anything that could possibly save me, and I noticed an item I had totally forgotten that I had.
Caltrops.
I basically shouted “Oh. My. God. I HAVE CALTROPS!” Everybody had up and left me, but they felt bad about it and were watching to see how long I could keep up the running thing. William, the DM, had been looking at me with pity in his eyes, trying his absolute hardest to make sure I
lasted for at least a little while because he felt bad that my party had abandoned me, but then a look of glee spread over his face. We had to explain what caltrops were to the rest of the party, but that is by far the best 1 gold I’ve ever spent in my life.
This is what they are, in case you are unaware:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop
I booked it through a narrow alley, dumped the caltrops, and ran. They took out one horse, which stopped the one behind it. I kept running like hell until I found an apothecary who helped me take off my armor, patched me up, and dyed my hair which I subsequently cut with my
flaming greatsword. I had to roll to see how my hair turned out. I rolled a 5 on a D20. Translation: exactly how you’d expect it to look with a hasty dye job and cut with a flaming greatsword. But it got me the hell out of the city.
Yes, I am a complete and total dork. But how many other people do you know that will flail with girlish glee over the forgotten presence of caltrops in their inventory?
On an unrelated note, How To Train Your Dragon is a really epic movie, considering it's made for kids. I went to it Easter afternoon with a few friends, and I'd highly recommend seeing it. Shit blows up! A lot! And there are gratuitous adorable scenes involving a very huggable dragon.
Other news: My friends have started to call me "Mom" because I am the group mom.
Another friend is getting dictatorial about his presence in the cluster. We have to plan around his schedule rather than attempting to find the best night for the most people. Mommy is not happy.
I finished my Creative Writing story, but am not particularly pleased with it as of yet.
I'm finding out just how few people know about guns from above CW class.
I went to the library booksale and got six VHS tapes. Only two are in color. One of those is French. I am most pleased with this. I also got a nice shiny copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.
I ate cake, cheese, and grapes for breakfast this morning, and it was good (leftovers from a retirement party last night in the building I clean for work).
I found out that The Music Man is the cure for my insomnia. It doesn't put me to sleep, but it makes me all chill before bed. Yay!
Must go now. lunch time.
~E
Friday night was the new and lovely Do or Dice/MegaLAN hybrid. It was poorly advertised but fairly well attended nonetheless. Some of my gradumatated guy friends (like Colin, who got glomped by Liz because he was wearing a Dalek shirt) were there, but they were in the pit doing their computer gaming stuff. I was off to the second floor for tabletop gaming chaos.
I played a campaign that involved one INCREDIBLY stupid character named Tor of the Hanna Barbarians (he did sense motive on a dust mote) and another character based on Magical Trevor of flash video fame. The whole campaign was nuts. Tor spent most of his time stubbornly avoiding anyone but "shiny head man," except when he shoved Magical Trevor's weasel familiar into a healing potion because it "needed healing" (it didn't) and the weasel's head was stuck in the bottle for the rest of the game, there was a pot roast golem that tried to nom us, one person's steed got eaten by pudding, there was a randomly magical fountain that turned people colors and even pulled a sex change on one of them. And then Magical Trevor got ahold of a rod of wonder. A rod of wonder does random things. As in the dice decide.
It summoned smog. Then an anvil, over MT's head. Then invisibility. Then another anvil. Then made him blind. While blind, he tried to heal himself, failed his INT check, and ended up using a rod of fireballs on himself instead.
It was mad fun.
Roundabout eleven o clock PM, I looked over and noticed somebody was staring at me from a game of Settlers of Caton. Mike. Yes, THAT Mike. I was surprised, but then went back to my gaming. It was my night with my friends, after all. Hell if I'm going to let him ruin it merely with his presence. The weird thing was, he looked surprised to see me, too. I mean, I openly play D&D, go to geek nights, etc. I've NEVER seen him at any of the ones I've attended (which is a lot)
I went to bed at 6:45 AM.
That afternoon, after I'd slept some, my semester long campaign had our first D&D session in weeks. It was INSANE. We got babysat by some paladins, delivered a very powerful magical artifact book thingy into the hands of what we now recognize (and I did a long time ago but never mentioned…) as the crazed Gollum-wannabe patriarch of a racist stick-up-the-ass paladin order, and then got arrested and put in a little room. They had originally decided to probe our minds to make sure their secrets didn’t escape with us (sounds awful, but better than having party members die on the way out) but then decided that a better course of action was to just keep us locked up and maybe feed us… sometime… eventually… I guess… The crazy guy who we got the artifact from (ex-paladin with the same Gollum-wannabe issue to a lesser degree) broke through the door and saved us, so we had to charm some random minion guy to lead us out, bash through a window, and fight some paladins before escaping into the city and running to the gate.
There’s one issue with that whole “escape into the city and run to the gate” thing, though. Paladins are freaking EVERYWHERE in that town. We ran out there and, while the crowd giving one a wide berth is great for running, it’s not so great for the hiding thing. Our half-elf cleric had a hat of disguise, so she put that on and blended in with the crowd. Our Halfling rogue is gifted in the art of hide and sneaking, so she absolutely disappeared into the crowd. Our druid turned into a bird and flew away. Our gnomic bard was only cut up in a minor I-could-have-done-this-in-a-bar-fight kind of way from faceplanting into the remnants of the broken window, so he was rather inconspicuous as he slipped off to go shopping.
I’m a female dwarven fighter (dwarves are scarce in the area) with an enchanted masterwork greatsword, and at that point I happened to be clad in my full-plate armor, cut up pretty badly and covered in copious amounts of both the blood of paladins and myself, running like hell through the streets with absolutely no skills in hide or move silently. Subtle I am not. I was totally fucked, right?
Well, after making a B-line for the market sector of town, miraculously only followed by two of the five mounted Paladins riding by, I started looking through my inventory for anything that could possibly save me, and I noticed an item I had totally forgotten that I had.
Caltrops.
I basically shouted “Oh. My. God. I HAVE CALTROPS!” Everybody had up and left me, but they felt bad about it and were watching to see how long I could keep up the running thing. William, the DM, had been looking at me with pity in his eyes, trying his absolute hardest to make sure I
lasted for at least a little while because he felt bad that my party had abandoned me, but then a look of glee spread over his face. We had to explain what caltrops were to the rest of the party, but that is by far the best 1 gold I’ve ever spent in my life.
This is what they are, in case you are unaware:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop
I booked it through a narrow alley, dumped the caltrops, and ran. They took out one horse, which stopped the one behind it. I kept running like hell until I found an apothecary who helped me take off my armor, patched me up, and dyed my hair which I subsequently cut with my
flaming greatsword. I had to roll to see how my hair turned out. I rolled a 5 on a D20. Translation: exactly how you’d expect it to look with a hasty dye job and cut with a flaming greatsword. But it got me the hell out of the city.
Yes, I am a complete and total dork. But how many other people do you know that will flail with girlish glee over the forgotten presence of caltrops in their inventory?
On an unrelated note, How To Train Your Dragon is a really epic movie, considering it's made for kids. I went to it Easter afternoon with a few friends, and I'd highly recommend seeing it. Shit blows up! A lot! And there are gratuitous adorable scenes involving a very huggable dragon.
Other news: My friends have started to call me "Mom" because I am the group mom.
Another friend is getting dictatorial about his presence in the cluster. We have to plan around his schedule rather than attempting to find the best night for the most people. Mommy is not happy.
I finished my Creative Writing story, but am not particularly pleased with it as of yet.
I'm finding out just how few people know about guns from above CW class.
I went to the library booksale and got six VHS tapes. Only two are in color. One of those is French. I am most pleased with this. I also got a nice shiny copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.
I ate cake, cheese, and grapes for breakfast this morning, and it was good (leftovers from a retirement party last night in the building I clean for work).
I found out that The Music Man is the cure for my insomnia. It doesn't put me to sleep, but it makes me all chill before bed. Yay!
Must go now. lunch time.
~E