Fevered Dreams of the Dispossessed Marching on the Nightland

Last night I trembled. 

I laid in bed as my body shook from the fever that had taken hold of me and hallucinated in that nightmarish half sleep of fevered dreams. At first I found myself talking with Andy Jackson about the problems of dealing with ISIS while Willie Nelson picked his guitar absently in the corner and smoked a joint; but then a thunderstorm broke overhead, sending fat droplets of rain crashing against my windows and things began to change. Jackson stood up stiffly and walked over to the windows to watch the lightening striking the lake below.

"What do you see," he said.

La Miseria by Cristóbal Rojas

I stared into the curtains and felt a cold hand grip me. "A line of refugees making their way across the foothills," I said with a tongue thick with fever, "The sky behind them was a roiling mass of black clouds with massive, dark shapes lit by lighting. The people whimpered as they heard the thunder and felt the shadow of the clouds move inexorably towards them. The women cried while children stared forward with vacant eyes. Men mumbled to themselves, pulled at their hair, and tore at their clothes as tears streamed down their faces. 

"Behind them, in the darkness beneath the clouds, the ground seethed with millions of bodies. They struck, bit, and slew each other trying to get closer to the edge of darkness yet their numbers never seemed to diminish. I can hear their shrill voices in the distance. 'We'll be there soon children. Just slow your parents a little and it'll all be over.'

"They're terrible and I hate them."

Jackson sat down on the edge of the bed and said, "Then what will you do about them?"

"Kill all of them."

Hours passed as the fever wracked my body and pulled the muscles of my back as I coughed in uncontrollable fits. Yet Jackson remained by the window watching the storm as it sent wave after wave of rain against the house.

"How will you do that," he said after a time.

"Do what?"

"Kill all of them."

I moved the washcloth off my eyes and stared at him. "With fire."

Dictionaries Are Filled With Words About How Much of a Dork You Are

I don't collect a lot of things. Let me rephrase that so I'm not a lying bastard. I don't build up large collections because once things become more than a couple shelf loads I start getting rid of things. I just don't like the clutter. Anyway, shortly after I graduated high school I was working with my Aunt and she gave me a dictionary from when she was in high school. So like I have it and since she passed it's, of course, never going to go away. But at the time it was just this cinder block that I kind of lugged about as I moved time, and time, and time again. 

In my third year of college I was writing a paper about ethics, which is one of my favorite subjects even though I don't think I've ever talked about it on here, when the power went out. I am a terrible speller, my mother is a terrible speller, so when the power went out and my word processor was gone I went scrambling for a dictionary. The only one I had was the one my Aunt had given me. Now I start flipping through the thing making sure that I've spelled everything correctly and that the words mean what I think they mean. That's when I first noticed the change that occurs in word definitions over time. It should have been obvious since I tended to read a lot of beat generation authors at the time but it just escaped me until that moment. And that was when I started picking up dictionaries to check out the differences. So like I have four dictionaries in my house right now and my wife just asked me when I was going to get rid of some of them and I told her that she could have them when she pried them out my god-damned hands. 

Perhaps I have a problem. 

Set Your Teeth, Son, This is Going to Hurt

I was lost.

I had been exploring a long stretch of woods near the house when I'd stumbled across a yellow jacket nest and had to run away from the menacing swarm. I ran with my arms up, breaking through tangled briars and tree limbs alike - not once did I even think about checking for a landmark! 

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I wondered about for nearly an hour before I realized that I was circling the same stretch of ground. Luckily, for me, I had managed to clear the adrenaline and panic from my mind by that point so that I could start thinking about how to get out of this mess rather then letting myself race about like a foolish child. The first thing I had to do was figure out where I was as there were nearly twelve miles of interconnected woods that I had been stumbling through with roads cutting through them at various points, I just had to figure out where I was in relation to them.

Easy right?

I climbed the highest hill I could find and scanned everything about me looking for something I recognized. An edge to the woods would have been great, or even one of my landmarks that would lead me out. Nothing. I couldn't find anything familiar. Well, fuck, I said as I started climbing the pine tree near the crest, looks like I'm going to have to do this the hard way. The pine sap got on my hands and on my jacket while little piss ants did their best to discourage my progress up the forty foot tree; but God what a view. I broke the canopy and hung to the top of the tree looking out over God's creation like Jove himself had made this view just for me. 

From up there I could see where the creek cut through the hills towards the lake and the distant path of a road as it cut its way through the woods and off towards the civilized world. I sighed as I measured the distance to the road from my position. Two hands breadths, I whined, this is why you don't run in the woods you dumb ass. Now you're looking at one hell of a hike just to get started going home. Resigned to my fate, I started climbing down the tree only to find three wild dogs circling the tree like they had run me up it. Two chows and rottweiler started snarling and barking at me as I came back into their view. 

My heart sank as I sat on a limb out of their reach and tried to figure out how long they would sit there. An hour? Four? More? Did I have that long? I held my heads up towards the setting sun and measured my remaining daylight. If I wanted to make it home before dark then I would have get a move on; but how? I looked up the tree trunk toward the heavens and contemplated jumping from tree to tree like a man dreaming of flying. Nope, I said as I looked back at the rottweiler, that way isn't going to get me anywhere.

The dogs were pawing up the tree trying to get me and snipping at each other when the scratched flesh. I came to a decision and looked about me as though this would be the last time and said, Set your teeth, son, this is going to hurt. With that I leapt off the tree limb and dropped right on top of them.

Only Words Can Break Your Heart

Because.

"I don't think I love you anymore," was the worst thing I ever heard someone say to me. We weren't dating; we'd never made love, but we had been close since before I could remember there being a difference between men and women. I can remember standing there while she walked back up the steps and closed the door.

I walked back to the truck and spun her about as I raced back up the hill. Neil Young was crooning his way through A Man Needs a Maid as I hit the interstate and watched the speedometer peg at 85. I don't think I love you anymore? The fuck is wrong with her? Lights were flashing as they came racing out of a highway patrolman's hideaway and I pushed the truck faster as I took the curve on two wheels. I mean, I don't want to be friends should have been enough - but I don't love you anymore? Why go that far?

I slipped up the on-ramp and down a back road as the highway patrol overshot the exit and sent a explosion of burnt tire smoke into the air. A right, a left, and two straightaways later I was pulling onto a road named for a Medal of Honor winner still trying to understand what had just happened to us. Somehow I ended up at Third Person's house. He was outside playing basketball with his younger sister. They welcomed me and I told Third Person about what she'd said. "That's fucked up," his little sister said as she climbed up next to me on the hood and slid my arm around her waist.

"Don't take it personally, Charles," Third Person said as he made a shot. "She's just got some seriously fucked people in her ear right now."

Oh?

"Yeah," he said as he watched his sister slide my hand higher up her side and nuzzle in against my neck. "Apparently the Sisters have been telling her that you were bragging that the two of you fucked."

What? Why the fuck would they think I would ever say something like that. 

"People say stupid shit," his little sister said as she kissed the nape of my neck. "You shouldn't focus on them." Third Person grabbed her hand and pulled her off the hood of my truck, "And you shouldn't be using this as a way to fuck with him."

"I wasn't planning on fucking with him," she shouted at him. "I wanted to fuck him."

Man, I said as she ran inside, this day has been so weird.

He Told Me that Stereotypes Exist for a Reason

I was sitting in a broken down truck on the edge of a local university listening to Goose Creek Symphony sing about living on the edge of reality when my friend Super J came walking up to me. His afro had been teased out to give him the extra two feet he needed to ride a roller coaster and he was attempting to perfect his strut. "What's going on?"

Not much J. You?

"Not much," he said with a smile and a cock of his head, "just trying to look fly for all these fine honies."

I looked about the parking lot and counted the women within sight without using any of my fingers or toes. J, I said, I think teasing that fro out has fried your brains.

"What?"

There's not a woman within two miles of this place. 

"Shows what you know."

Seriously though, I said after a moment, why the fro? 

He looked about us like he was about to divulge some governmental secret and whispered, "It makes the ladies think you've got a big cock."

I stared back at him as he smiled at me. "Seriously, Charlie. The ladies look over at a fine young man, such as myself, and see a great big fro like this and they just know I'm packing heat."

Give me your phone.

"Why?"

I'm going to call your mother and let her know you've been smoking weed and your brains are fucked.

"Man," he said as he fought for his phone. "Shows what you know! Stereotypes exist for a reason, Charlie! White boys can't dance; you can't dance. Indians are great at math; all the math professors are from India. Black people have big cocks," he said was a smile and trailed off. 

It's a damned shame that you've committed to this.

"Why?"

Because you're going to disappoint a lot of women.

Can You See the Problem?

I don't understand why we're waiting for him to get to the point, I whispered to Poot.

 

"Don't be like that, Charlie," he said with a grim smile, "he just feels like the game has to take on a certain tone."

 

Really? 'Cause he's boring the fuck out of me.

 

"You two on the end," the DM said, "none of that talk. What you say in this game matters."

 

Good. I'm going to the nearest bar and having a drink.

 

"We're not there yet."

 

"Seriously," Poot asked. "You've been giving us the set up for twenty minutes."

 

"Look, if you two jokers don't want to play," he began.

 

See, that's the problem. We desperately want to play. You just want to tell a fucking story. I'm done waiting. Anyone else want to go to the Dog Food Factory? It's Cinco de Mayo and they've got half priced beer all night.

 

"Yeah," Poot said, "fuck this noise."

 

"You two just don't understand how to play D&D!"

Plunder the Depths and Return with Her Soul!

I was sitting on the park bench listening to the birds raise hell on each other when an acorn caught me clean in the temple. I jumped up and started searching for the lousy mother fucker who attacked me and there they were up in the top of tree. Two grey squirrels jumping up and down, chittering away.

You think you're safe? I'll be back later with a flame thrower and I'll burn you all up!

Sadly that never happened as the dorm next door had a meth lab busted and the cops wouldn't let me burn the tree down. Next time though, next time . . .

Courting Disaster was How I Used to Talk About Sleeping with You

I was laying bed one night talking with a girl I'd never met who lived out west but desperately wanted me to come see her for a night of awkward groping when the second earthquake I'd ever recognized hit and knocked the phone off the wall, cutting her off. Well, fuck, I said as my roommate raced out the dorm in his boxers screaming "We're all going to fucking die!"

The whole dorm was moving as I stuck my head out the door and saw young men racing down the hallway, jumping floors, and panicking like a flock of chickens that just saw its shadow. I was too drunk at that point to panic so I picked the phone off the floor and started trying to hang it back on the wall. I did not succeed by the time the building stopped shaking so I figured that I must have failed the test and went back to bed. 

When the morning came some asshole pulled the fire alarm to chase us from our beds. My roommate poked his head from under the covers and groaned, "I'll pay a thousand dollars for that mother fucker's head!"

I sat up and laughed. Still won't be enough.

He got out of bed and started getting dressed. "Then two thousand - but I get to skull fuck the bastard afterwards."

We made it outside just as the fire truck pulled up and our Dorm Assistant stomped over to us. "You two should have been out here five minutes ago!"

"I'll be damned if I let you talk to me like that," my roommate growled. "Pistols at dawn you shit fucker!"

"Are you calling me gay?"

"Hell no, but the guy you blew last night sure as fuck is!"

The two were still going back and forth as I made it to Bear's jeep. Tell me you have a beer with my name on it?

"Shit," he said as he handed me a Miller Lite, "this is a dry campus sir and I'll have you know that I find it highly offensive you would even suggest that I might posses such a substance."

I leaned against his jeep sipping the beer while a group of future engineers worked on a bomb they assured us wouldn't go off until they were ready. "So did she call again?"

Who?

"You know, the girl from California."

Yeah.

"What's going on there?"

Fuck if I know. I'm fairly certain she's just trying to lure me out to California to steal my kidneys. 

"Best make them worthless then," he said as he tipped his beer towards me.

Best.

Playing with You is a Full Contact Sport

When I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in my mid-twenties the people I played with fell into two categories: people who had played since they were eight and me. So my first games were filled with the sort of devilish intrigues that many long term games tend to suffer from as players attempted to out smart one another and the Dungeon Master at the same time. They moved quickly from one plot to the next while I sluggishly made my way through the game feeling like my feet were in quicksand.

I was robbed, murdered, and on one occasion sold as a slave to a rather large and rapey hobgoblin. I lost a half dozen characters to their plots as I learned the game and drank my weight in wine while they told me the wonders of the world they were opening up to me. I listened as they spoke and made notes on how they played. After a while I was even able to predict where they were going and how they were going to try and screw me over. Some called that time "paying my dues" but I prefer to think of it as the time when I played with a bunch of assholes.

I killed the first of their characters in the fall by lining my coin pouch with poison and not telling them. The second died when he tried to bump me into a corridor to check for traps and I moved out of the way. Sessions came and went and I dropped their characters with an ever increasing frequency - often without them knowing I had engineered their deaths.

At some point during all of this I started playing with Kid Icarus, Step-up, and Biggboy. They were fun and I didn't have to be so quick on the trigger. Hell, they never tried to steal from me nor kill my characters (unless it was really funny). So I stopped killing my fellow players for several years, and then I met the tres amigos . . .

Setting the Woods on Fire.

The five of us made our way to the edge of this dungeon with heavy Gygaxian overtones that was located out in the middle of some ancient and holy woods. The Dungeon Master was sipping Doctor Pepper and I had a strong suspicion that it was spiked with rum as he looked over the top of the Monster Manual and said, "There's a bunch of elves standing guard around the dungeon's entrance, smoking and wearing biker jackets. They're giving you lot the stink eye as you approach."

Conversations were had as I finished my character and started drawing him. At some point money seemed to be changing hands and we were told to head on down. The elves seemed happy that we had paid them and I was happier that our rogue had stolen back our entrance fee and more.

Enter a room, kill a few skeletons, get raped by a dresser; the dungeon hadn't held any surprises for us so far but the Dungeon Master was slurring his words and I could see our deaths around every corner. It was the cleric who spoke up first though, allowing that we'd collected a fair amount of treasure and our fighter needed abuse counseling since his sexual assault at the hands of a 1200 year old dresser. So we turned and headed back the way we'd come only to find that the bikers at the top had discovered our rogue's theft. 

They were pissed and looking to get back what was owed them plus twelve pounds of flesh. So I slipped back as the rest of the party charged forward and made my way through a side chamber we'd explored earlier that took me closer to the entrance. The sounds of combat were echoing around me and the Dungeon Master kept trying to make me feel bad as the elves were making my companions look like the 76ers.

The elves were finishing off the last of the party as I slipped through the exit and into their camp. I kept an ear on the combat as I loaded up two of the light horses with as much of their shit as I could and mounted a third. I then lead us out of camp, but my luck had run out as the first of the elves came out the entrance and sounded the alarm. 

I turned about in my seat and fired an arrow right through the back of his neck. He garggled on his own fluids as I spurred the horses on towards town. Behind me I could hear the elves shouting and the distant beat of hooves as they made after me. So I did my best impression of Janet Reno and started throwing each of my fifteen bottles of alchemist fire I'd purchased into the woods as I raced to safety. With any luck the drunken Dungeon Master would remember that this place was holy to them and I'd make it out.

My luck held as I broke the tree line and I never looked back. When I made it back to the party's safe house I stowed away the horses and brought the chests into the living room (nice place, even had some lovely window treatments that the cleric had spent weeks fretting over). I sat on the couch and counted my loot: 230,000 gp; 1,500 pp; 450,263 sp; 7 magical rings; 10,000 gp worth of assorted jewels; and 1 magical dagger.

The Dungeon Master said, "You've got enough money to cast True Resurrection ten times over and there's a temple of Exalted Goodness just down the road so if you'll just deduct that money we'll -"

Hold on now. I'm not doing that. His mouth dropped and everyone stared at me. No, what I'm doing is building myself a great, big, fuck off tower inside the walls of this here city and I'm going to take some correspondence courses.

"Correspondence courses? What the fuck are you going to study?"

I'm going to become a wizard and then I'll resurrect them.

[Tripping Your Social Justice Trigger] Spanking

Raising children is filled with these moments where you will be completely and totally at odds with random strangers because of how you handle your children. One of the really hot button issues is spanking. On one side of the fence are these people who passionately believe that laying a hand on your children is not only a good thing, but should actively be done because refusing to do so is denying your child a proper and good upraising. The other side holds that you should never lay a hand on your child no matter what they do because the act of performing violence on your child is such a violation of the parental trust that you do irreparable harm to kid's psychological well being.

I sit in the middle at this point in raising my child because he's not even two yet. Sitting down with him and telling him that he's done wrong does neither of us any good at this time because he doesn't fully understand nor does he care about my reasoning. We could talk till I was blue in the face and he'll still try to put something in the furnace and set the whole house on fire (hopefully not intentionally, but again we're early in his life). So at this time I spank and teach him what not to do. 

Now as he gets older and is more fully able to understand what I'm saying we will be moving over to a time out chair. We'll not be sending him to his room because he's just going to play with his toys. Having a chair where he can't get down and play is the best punishment I ever got when I was a child because nothing, nothing is worse than being in the middle of all the action and not being able to participate.

I know that this isn't normal fair for this blog but I'm a father before I'm a blogger or a gamer; and on this occasion I just needed to get this off my chest. I'll be back to my normal fair tomorrow. 

She Asked Me to Tell Her a Story

I was sitting in the room watching the tail end of yet another defeat for my beloved Bears when a girl started crying outside my window. I could hear a boy talking to her and decided that it was in my best interest to ignore them; that is right up until he screamed at her. It was a dangerous, guttural scream that had me out of my seat and down the hall before I knew I was moving. I leapt down the stairwell and kicked open the fire doors, What's this shit?

He was standing over her like some sort of predator, his hand raised and a snarl on his lips. "Who the fuck are you?"

I'm the god damned light brigade you mouth-breathing fuckhead. 

"Yeah, well mind your own fucking business."

You bring that hand one inch closer to her and I'll mind your ass in the grave. 

He stared at me as I stood there looking at him. I counted the seconds, trying to decide if he would press me or if he'd break for it. The moment hung in the air and then he dropped his arm down and said to her, "So you fucking this asshole too?"

If she was god knows she'd have cum for the first time in her life. 

"Fuck you!"

I charged him and he ran. Really? You're not even going to make a go of it then you fucking yellow bastard!

"Fuck you, fag!" he shouted at me as he made for his car. I stood there next to the crying girl and watched him peal out of the parking lot screaming at me the whole way. By the time I finally looked away the girl was curled up in the fetal position on the concrete. 

There now, darling, I said as quite as a mouse, it's all going to be okay. Only it wasn't okay, not right then anyway. She cried as I picked her up in my arms and carried her to the lobby. We sat there for a long time as she told me all about Ricky; about how things had turned sour. He'd never hit her, but something seemed to snap in him today and he was just about to - then she cried again. Hours passed as she talked her broken heart away until finally it seemed like all of her tears were done. So we walked back to her dormitory where she kissed me on the cheek.

Walking back home I found that the cool autumn night reminded of fall on the mountain; where I could listen to the coyotes play in the hills and smell the leaves still smoldering in the evening air. Not here though. Here all I could smell was the hot stink of the sewers. 

A melancholy mood seemed to take hold of me as I walked along the quad and lit my cigar. By the time I made it back to the dorm my roommate had already arrived and was long since asleep. Sleep wasn't coming for me though, and it seemed I wasn't alone. 

The phone rang at 3:30 and I jumped to the reciever. It's three thirty in the morning, either you or someone I know had best be in trouble. 

"I'm in terrible trouble," came her pouty voice from across the continent, "I can't sleep at all."

Oh?

"Tell me a story."

I smiled as I said, Did I ever tell you about the time I went grouse hunting and caught a bull?

I Still Miss You.

I was laying in bed next to this crazy woman who had convinced herself that we were in love with each other when the phone began to ring. I looked over at the wall and watched it shake itself free from its bonds to strike against the floor, knocking the receiver free. From across the continent the tinny voice  of a girl I'd loved for longer than I knew how to breathe called my name, "Charlie? Are you there? I really need to talk to you."

I walked over to the phone and laid my head against the cool tile. This is Charlie, how may I direct your call.

"Stop being funny. I'm in trouble."

I picked up the receiver and walked over to the refrigerator to pour myself a glass of punch, What seems to be the problem darling?

"I think that my roommate is trying to poison me."

I snorted out a laugh, Be serious now, kid. 

"I am damn it. I came into the room two nights ago and she had made these brownies for me. She even had a big sign up with hearts and everything on it."

Sounds nice.

"I haven't stopped shitting since."

So she's a bad cook, that doesn't mean she was trying to poison you.

"You've got to believe me, Charlie, she's trying to kill me."

Why?

"Because I told everyone that she's so bad in bed that after a boy fucks her they beat off for half an hour with kerosene to get her stench off of them."

That might be a good reason to hurt you, darling, I said through a laugh that woke up the crazy bitch. So how's that fine ass doing?

"Still growing," she said with an audible pout, "how's that tiny dick of yours?"

Still saluting in the morning and writing me letters at night about the awful places I've been sticking it. She giggled and the phone grew silent as I counted her shallow breaths.

"I miss you."

I miss you too. Don't wait so long to call me again. 

"I won't."

Dude, I Didn't Know You Were Real.

I was sitting down in a China Hut back in my hometown reading the Burning Wheel system book when a tall, goofy looking kid walked over to me and started talking to me. I looked over my glasses as he started telling me about his Vampire campaign that's been going on and started asking my advice when I interrupted him.

You've got the wrong guy. You're looking for my brother, Poot. 

"You're not Poot," he asked me a bit embarassed. 

No, I'm his brother, Charles Akins. 

"I didn't know you were real."

I looked back down at the book and said, Yeah, I'm real.

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you but I've been hearing about you for years and I just kind of assumed that you were made up."

Why would you think I was made up?

"It's the stories people have been telling me."

I sat the book down at that point, figuring that this was about to become a more involved conversation. What sort of stories have you heard?

"Did you really kill your entire party by convincing them to kill each other so that you could take the treasure for yourself?"

It's not like we had been playing together for very long . . .

"Did you really use your heal checks to kill off other players?"

Yes, but they were evil.

"That's now what I heard. I was told that you killed them one by one and claimed that they had been bitten by ghouls and were turning a bit pale so you had to off them before they took the rest of you down."

Ghouls are evil.

Where for Art Thou, Hipster Child?

He sat down in the little pub and the waitress asked him what he'd like; so he flipped his stylishly quaffed hair out of his eyes and whined, "Borkum 27." 

The girl stared at him for a second and said, "I'm sorry I don't think we -"

He cut her off with a loud sigh, "Look, just because you work in this trite little bar with your predictable 'life story' doesn't mean that you should be so stupid that you haven't heard of the internet. Go look it up."

I took a sip of my coffee as the Master Planner looked over at him and mouthed the words, "I'm going to fuck his world up if he says one more stupid fucking thing."

The waitress went back to the bar and started talking with the bartender who gave her a look that deserves to be the standard for the phrase, What the what? As their over there trying to figure out how to fix this bullshit drink that never existed in the first place the little fairy slouches down in his chair and starts messing around with his iPhone giggling over how smart he is. 

Finally the girl comes back over to his table and says, "Sir, I'm sorry but the bartender has never heard of a Borkum 27."

"God," he ejaculated. "Whatever, this place is lame."

It was at that point that the Master Planner threw his chair at the little fuck. Get out now, I said with my mug in my hand, 'cause we've had enough of your bullshit.

Growing Pains

Just got the following comment on Google Plus and wanted to see it over here:

Umm... I am not particularly impressed with the analysis coverage in the article. It has facts I have no doubt, but the facts are not put into context.

The announcement of the D&D Next project should have immediately indicated to market analysts that these trends would take place. Consumers should be expected to hold off on purchases of existing products when a new product line with new rules is forthcoming. Moreover, the retailers should have expected no new products from the vendor for the same reasons.

It is interesting to see the stats on an academic level. But it should not be considered as major news.

Example: When Apple announces a new IPhone, sales of the previous version of the device plummet, with retailers dumping their inventories with dramatic sale pricing. -- +Allan Sitte 

My response: Sorry you're not impressed +Allan Sitte, but this wasn't a well financed article by a reporter being paid to spend hours on the subject. This was just me putting together several of the day's interesting stories in a single location so that others can get a start on it. If you'd like to change that situation though you can totally start paying me to do this and I'll put in the sort of professional effort you'd like to see.

 

Going back to bed now as the little boy has only allowed me three hours of sleep tonight.

Alms for the Poor.

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Run, Damn You, Run!

Standing at the end of the drive I could hear a coyote howling up on the top of the hill, and then I saw him up there. His head was pulled back and he was doing his best imitation of a wolf. Not impressed! I shouted over his howl, and then I saw his buddies. They had been creeping up around my right hoping to cut me off from help like some stray calf. 

Instinct tells you that you should run when you're getting cut off from help and that you should start screaming at the top of your lungs. But wolves, coyotes, wild dogs, and teenagers only see those acts as an invitation to violence. So I did the opposite and stopped completely. 

I kept my eyes on them as they moved about trying to get me in the center of their circle while I set my walking stick, point down, in the soft ground and pulled out my knife. The blade made a loud click as it flicked out and I adjusted it into my left hand while I pulled the stick out of the ground and walked towards the house. 

They weren't sure what to do with me since I wasn't acting like prey. My breathing was under control and I had managed to keep myself from trembling as their numbers continued going from the initial one, to four, to now six. If they came out of the field and tried to confront me this would turn from me showing them that I could take them to me trying - and I don't think I'll win that contest if it comes to it. 

The door was only five feet in front of me when the first one crossed the road ahead of me. I chucked the stick into his side and leapt onto the top doorstep as I heard the coyote give a satisfying yelp of pain.

I slammed the door behind me and sat down at the bar, with a noticeable tremble. "You okay," my lovely bride asked as she came into the kitchen, "you look like hell."

Yeah, I'm fine. Just ran across some wild dogs and had to slip back in here without letting them get me.

Spiderwebs, Not Just for Lolth Anymore; or Your Eyes, They Bleed [NSFW?]

I received a challenge from Bigboy yesterday: "I want to see you lay it all out there, just once, like you do when you're a player. Don't hold back nothing. I want to be pushed to the edge."

Before we get to the plan, a few particulars.

Party Location: Southeast of the Nyr Dyv, near some ruins.
Party Level: Total levels 20, average party member level 4
Party Make-up: 2 clerics, 1 thief, 1 sorcerer, 1 ranger

I can not tell my plans yet, that will have to wait until after the next session as some of them read me. Just know that I'm coming hard this weekend my friends, and you have no one to blame but Bigboy.

Fearing What Change Does to You, I Threw Your Keys in the Garbage Disposal.

When Fourth Edition came out I bought the Player's Handbook and started working my way through it with a view screen in the hopes that I had finally found a game that I would be able to play for decades without even thinking twice about it. You see, while I started on Third and dabbled in the others, I was never very satisfied. 

I'm still not. 

So I approached Fourth with a lot of hope and took the view that I was being given the opprotunity to jump on at the beginning of the edition and would be able to buy everything new for the first time ever (at the time I had always gotten everything second hand). But working my way through that Player's Handbook I found myself becoming incredibly disinterested. 

The classes, while different, were too similar for me. A bigger detraction for me was that the variability between the classes was limited - especially when compared with Third. Then there were the powers. 

Look I know that I don't play Dungeons and Dragons like everyone else, and I've never claimed to be the same, but I don't play fighters so that I can bitch about not having magic. I don't like magic. I really don't like being forced to have a form of magic attached to my class. So imagine my delight when I found that I was going to have powers.

And then the pages of magic items with levels attached to them . . .

Generally I'm an early adopter of change when it comes to work, children, and in most phases of my life. I'm also one of the first people to alter the way things are going when I don't like the way they're working. Yet when it came to Fourth I found so much to dislike that I walked away from the edition. That was a mistake on my part as over the years I've seen others do some amazing things with that game that I never would have thought possible at the time.

My God, the Fourthcore cats knocked it out of the park! Sersa V where are you now?

Anyway I build folders in my computer where I design my house rules, handy tables, and generally reallocate my thoughts on the games I'm playing. For years before I started this blog I would sit down at my computer and work on how I wanted the game to play and where I wanted to go with it; and lately everything that I start to work on has to do with the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons. 

I'm hamstrung and feeling like I can't take the next step because I've gotten so used to sharing everything here on this blog. It's dumb but where I feel safe talking about the older editions I feel like opening my mouth too widely on the new edition is asking for trouble. 

Ah hell, it's only a four more months and then I'll be able to start running with the damned thing in publich. 

Four months is nothing.

I can stand on my head for four months.