Happy & Healthy New Year!

Wishing everyone health, success and prosperity

Re-gifting

This is straight out of Kim Harrison's blog. So if you don't care for her writing or are just in a "bah, humbug" mood you might want to skip this next part.

Get your tissues handy! I’ve got a little gift from me to you today, written long before I found publication and was raw with the need to reach and connect, and short on literary grace. You may have seen this last year, but it still makes me cry.

Angel’s Song
by
Kim Harrison

Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright. . . .
Humming, Kaylin held her coat close against the cold, more from habit than anything else as she dodged through the unseeing, evening shoppers. She was anxious to get home. Her work had seemed to stretch forever today, but finally The Boss had let her go. She couldn’t wait to see her daughter–it had been too long since the entire family had been together.
Slipping at the bus stop, she grasped the door to the bus, just making it on behind two tired women as the doors closed. The sound of their money jingling into the box chimed like bells, and the bus jerked into motion. Kaylin stood where she was, gripping the ceiling support as the gears shifted. Her gaze rove over the heads, looking for acknowledgment she existed. There, at the back where the heat didn’t reach, was a smiling face and a beckoning hand.
Though she didn’t recognize him, Kaylin went to sit with the old man. She smiled shyly, the anticipation of her coming evening prompting her to be more bold than usual. “I’m going home for Christmas,” she said by way of greeting as she jammed her gloves into a pocket.
“First time?” the old man murmured, his brown eyes going sad in memory.
She nodded. “Since my accident. I can hardly wait to see everyone together.” Kaylin put her hands in her lap, glad she couldn’t feel the cold anymore.
The man met her eyes. “See that boy up there?” he said, pointing with his chin. “I’m spending Christmas with him. He’s a college student on his way home. He needs all the help he can get, and my family doesn’t miss me anymore.”
Kaylin bit her lip and fussed with the hem of her coat’s sleeve, uncomfortable with the idea she would eventually be forgotten. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Make the most of the time they remember you. As it’s said, it came to pass.”
She didn’t know what to say. “This is my stop,” she said, glancing out the window to the colored lights.
“Best hurry. The door won’t wait for you.”
Giving him a hesitant smile, she hastened to the front, edging to the sidewalk past the three girls giggling about the presents they had gotten for their boyfriends.
Kaylin’s mood went soft as she took in the familiar street gray with twilight. The curb was jammed with cars. A noisy, joyful reunion on her front steps had the dogs barking. Excitement tingling to her toes, Kaylin waited on the walk, following the last of the children inside.
Her shoulders eased as she stood in the entryway, basking in the cheerful clutter and the too-noisy greetings. She waved as she spotted her grandmother in a corner, deep in the thick of it. The old woman’s eyes sparkled as they met hers. Her fingertips again had a rosy glow, and the blue tint Kaylin remembered was gone.
“Jasmine is in the kitchen!” her grandmother called over the noise. “Go on. We’ll talk later.”
Relieved her grandmother understood, Kaylin followed the smell of heated punch into the kitchen. She stopped in the open doorway as her heart clenched.
Jasmine stood on a chair before the counter, stirring a cup of green frosting. “I can’t do it, Daddy,” she complained, her high voice clear over the excited babble of relatives. “It’s too hard.”
Kaylin’s hands reached out, but she stood unmoving, forcing back the unexpected tears as her husband set aside his dishcloth and went to their daughter.
“Mommy always helped me, Daddy,” the child said around a sniff as his hand covered hers atop the spoon and they stirred together. “I want Mommy. I miss her.”
“Hush,” he said, the pain in his voice causing Kaylin’s throat to tighten. “I miss her too, sweetheart, but look. She’s everywhere, especially tonight.” Eyes bright, the man pointed to the dusty Christmas candles Kaylin had refused to burn, sitting on the kitchen windowsill. “There are her candles, right where she always put them. And the mistletoe above the doorway? She made that just last year. And the bow? Remember her spending an hour on that to get it to look just like the one in the store window? And you can smell her touch in the gingerbread men and taste it in the fruit punch. She’s everywhere.”
“No, Daddy,” the small girl protested. “It’s not the same. I can’t see her at all.”
“But I can,” he said, giving her a hug. “I can see her in you when you cut out your star cookies, I watched her hand move yours when you hung the ornaments on the tree, and I can see her eyes when I look at you. So, Jasmine, she is here.”
“I can’t see her,” Jasmine said, sniffing as she licked the frosting from a finger.
Kaylin ached. The Boss had warned her it would be hard, and she thought she could handle it. But this? This tore at her. Kaylin came close to stand behind her daughter and nudged a cookie, as if she could make the star any less lopsided. Perhaps . . . . Perhaps she could pretend.
And so she was a silent participant, each moment harder than the previous, a bittersweet mix of memories. She hovered in the kitchen while dinner was prepared, blowing on the gravy to keep it from boiling over until someone remembered it. She watched the rolls brown through the oven window with Jasmine, admonishing the child they weren’t done yet when Jasmine pronounced them finished. She stood in the archway to the living room and worried about the carpet as paper plates overflowing with food were balanced on knees. She sat at the kitchen table while the dishes were washed, catching up on the women’s gossip with her fingers curved around a forgotten cup until it was whisked away.
And then it was done. Kaylin knew the signs: the last swallows of coffee, the slowing conversation, the children collapsing in their mother’s arms. Kaylin sighed. She didn’t want it to be over.
Jasmine was slumped in her frills and white stockings in her father’s arms, too sleepy to be anything but content. Kaylin sat on the arm of the couch beside them, running her fingers unfelt over her daughter’s hair. There was one final tradition as yet undone, her most cherished part of the evening, and Kaylin’s heart fell when the first of the coats appeared. They had forgotten.
“Wait, Daddy.” Jasmine stirred as her father rose to say his good-byes. “We didn’t sing yet. Mommy always sings. Please?”
Kaylin waited, hoping.
“Of course, Jasmine,” her father said, giving her a hug. “You’re such a clever girl for remembering.”
Coats were dropped to the couch in the sliding sound of nylon. Her grandmother beckoned, and Kaylin joyfully edged closer to the piano. Jasmine wiggled down to sit on the long bench before the battered keys, her father standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Kaylin could see a glimmer of tears in her mother’s eyes as she took Kaylin’s usual spot before the piano and began to play.
“Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright.
Tears pricked at Kaylin’s eyes. Her favorite. Voice quavering, she joined her voice to her family’s.
“Round yon virgin, mother and child.
Holy infant, so tender and mild.”
“Daddy,” Jasmine whispered, her face upturned as she pulled on his sleeve. “I can hear Mommy singing.”
Kaylin’s throat nearly closed, and tears slipped down her cheeks. Angels could sing. And on Christmas Eve, they could be heard by those who listened.
Her husband knelt and gave Jasmine a tight, fierce hug. “So can I, sweetheart,” he whispered, rocking her. “So can I.”
“Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.”

Happy 50th Doctor Who

You never forget your first Doctor.

Hommlet Revisited

The group has been continuing on with the ToEE. Thus far there have been at least one to two characters per player turnover.  But their luck seems to be changing for the better the last few sessions. The party has thus far survived several serious assassination attempts and all out guerilla strikes by several factions. They have been getting a ton of experience between all of the fights and loot. There is some serious wealth and magic in the temple. Needless to say time in game has been flying along. Though they have yet to discover it while they've been busy inside the temple events in the world around them have been moving along at a rapid clip as well. Hommlet has undergone some serious changes from the raids by the ToEE and is in the process of trying to rebuild a stronger version of itself to survive the onslaught. The following map has been lifted from the Oerth Journal #10 pg. 59. Original cartography by Scott Knowles and Nathan Irving with modifications by me.

after map by Dave Sutherland

For a view of the original quaint little village go to this earlier post.

The results seem quite logical...

Your results:

You are Spock
You are skilled in knowledge and logic. You believe that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
 

Spock 77% Will Riker 70% Data 66% Jean-Luc Picard 65% Geordi LaForge 65% James T. Kirk (Captain) 60% Mr. Sulu 60% Worf 60% Deanna Troi 60% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 55% Mr. Scott 55% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 55% Chekov 50% Uhura 40% Beverly Crusher 40%

Click here to take the "Which Star Trek character are you?" quiz...


Took this quiz and to be honest I'm not really surprised overall and pretty pleased to note that my "red shirt" status is rather low on the list.

Temple of Elemental Evil - level 3

After a year long hiatus the group has gotten back together with a new player on board and they are picking up where they left off in the Temple of Elemental Evil. They are starting to get the idea that this place is dangerous, and now almost all of the players are playing 2 characters. So with the added NPCs the party is now 9 strong. This was all that saved them from being wiped the last couple of sessions. That and the fact that they are now middling levels.

This is the current player handout map of the of the infamous Temple of Elemental Evil for the 3rd level. For those wondering, the top portion with Zuggtmoy was not given to the players initially.

 As noted previously to anyone actually planning on playing/running this module these maps have been edited from the original TSR module maps. They do not contain many of the secret/concealed doors/rooms or traps illustrated on the original maps. Its one thing not to make the players actually map because of time/willingness constraints it's quite another to totally give away everything on the map. They still have to explore and find out the many surprises of the temple the good old fashioned way.

For ToEE level 1 player's map.

For ToEE level 2 player's map .

Hobbit 75th Anniversary

I missed the actual date (computer troubles) but since I'm such a huge Tolkien fan I couldn't let this slide. So better late then never. Courtesy of Wired.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) didn’t live long enough to witness modern video games, or play Dungeons & Dragons, or even to see his works turned into movies. But as The Hobbit proved popular, and Lord of the Rings (published in 1954 and 1955) later became underground hits in the 1960s, it was clear his vision of Middle-earth had struck a chord. “Frodo Lives” and “Gandalf for President” slogans began to appear on bumper stickers, T-shirts, and buttons. Fan clubs sprang up. As readers began writing him, pestering him for details, noting discrepancies in his universe, and wondering when he’d write the next installment, he began to see how fans could get sucked into his world.
While Tolkien was said to be secretly pleased by how devoted his audience had become, the attention also made him uneasy. He named his readership “my deplorable cultus.” He knew fantasy could be dangerous — a “vast game,” he once wrote to his publisher about his writings, which could be “fatally attractive.” Even to himself.
The reclusive British scholar, lexicographer, and Oxford don was, in a way, the original geek. He specialized in the rather mundane field of philology (the history of languages). Most authors of the early twentieth century were busy smashing Victorian conventions and reassembling the pieces into irony-laden Modernism.
Not Tolkien.
An amateur writer, he didn’t even read contemporary fiction. He eschewed the modern world. He had founded literary clubs with archaic names: the TCBS (Tea Club and Barrovian Society), the Kolbitars society (so named because they sat so close to the fire they virtually bit the coals), and the Inklings. C. S. Lewis, author of the Narnia series, was also an Inklings member. Tolkien hung out with these fellow egghead, Middle Ages-minded pals in pubs, where they drank ale, smoked pipes, and made up stories by firelight.

The Hobbit was published 75 years ago today, on September 21, 1937.

To Tolkien the medievalist, Icelandic sagas and 
thousand-year-old poems like Beowulf were the finest literature ever written. Domineering dragons and world-weary wizards seemed perfectly legitimate characters for twentieth-century fiction. That’s why The Hobbit made sense. And why it worked. Tolkien wasn’t bowing to literary fashion, he was geeking out on his own passion. He didn’t worry whether his novels were seen as high art or bedtime story; in fact, he was doubtful his creations would have any appeal beyond his children and Oxford colleagues like C. S. “Jack” Lewis. Surrounded by those who didn’t get it, Tolkien was ridiculed. “How is your hobbit?” his colleagues mocked. Despite peer pressure, Tolkien remained undaunted.
The Professor felt compelled to invent legends because, he believed, Britain lacked its own, true, homegrown mythology. With The Hobbit and Rings, all Tolkien wanted, he once said, was to “open the door on Other Time” and “stand . . . outside time itself.” He succeeded.
Because the fantasy genre is well established today, and so  lucrative for entertainment, we forget there was a time when the heroic fantasy was not pop culture’s go-to genre.
In retrospect, what Tolkien accomplished seemed minor. One book. But he was a trailblazer. He wrote fantasy when few others did. Most of his stories were epic in length and told in a lofty language. (The Hobbit was one of his few works not aimed for an adult audience.) Their plots unfolded over a span of many years and often put ordinary characters — like Bilbo and Frodo — in extraordinary circumstances that involved magic, battles, strange creatures, and evil forces. Their quests restored some primal balance to the world.
Of course, with The Hobbit, Tolkien did not invent the genre. But, reviving its rules for the 20th century, he  hit the literary jackpot. Right author, right time. No one could have predicted how well his heroic, romantic, high fantasy would catch on.