#RPGaDay 5

All the questions (1 image)
What stories do your group tell about your character?
Um, I'm not sure. One of the few I can recall is from that same overpowered AD&D game, and the guy who played the paladin talks about threatening my character if she kept throwing area of effect spells (like fireball and snowball) in his area.

Or the same Living Greyhawk character who was 4th level before she made it through an entire combat still conscious. Nadia had a tendency to follow her friends, a paladin and fighter/cleric, into the thick of battle. And she'd get hit a couple times, fall unconscious, the paladin would stabilize her, and then heal her after the fight.

I could ask them what stories they tell. I usually play a support character and such characters rarely shine.

Chores: I spent the evening doing laundry & getting my Living Greyhawk characters ready for the weekend. In one case, that meant updating the character sheet to 3rd & in two other cases, it means preparing the character sheet for the next level; just in case.

TV: Was a mix of a Criminal Minds re-run, Ninja Warrior & X-Play (which really sounded like they were ending the show; I really hope that was just a season ending & not the show finale).

for grins & giggles:

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clothes: navy loafers, navy faux jacket (shawl collar, two buttons, tied belts & very short sleeves), striped navy, white & light blue tank under it, silver & blue bead bracelet, Celtic knot ring, Triskele pendant, knotted earrings, fem/dancer ring, & hair worn loose (I washed it this morning).

Books I took almost 30 books to the used bookstore & brought back less than 10. I bought 3, picked up 5 free ones (most of which will be set free). I took back 2 (trade paperback & another). I bought Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain & 2 manga. I also moved some books around (like the immense amount in the bathroom went to the closet). I listed all the ones in the stacks closest but not next to the bed

Living Greyhawk: In today's I'm playing my barbarian, Kayla Swordspinner, and it's only her second time outside the territories outside the Bright Lands. She's a little puzzled, it's very different from what she's used to.

Hair oddities: I pulled my hair up into a knot with rest of my hair in a ponytail. I have two frosted blue acrylic hairsticks with 4 tiny rhinestones to hold the knot into place. Most of my hair is pulled back smoothly. Except. Except two strands that form little loops that flop to one side. Very odd.

Addendum: weatherwise we dodged the bullet. We had some sleet & freezing rain yesterday but the ground is still too warm for the ground level water to freeze. And then it warmed up just enough for the rain to remain liquid, not frozen. It's less than pleasant but it's not dangerous.

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Saturday December 2nd
It's almost 7 am & I've showered & dressed. Oddly enough, although I had a bit of signal last night, this morning I've got nada. So my actual posting will have to wait.

Rosemary is back from walking Duncan. Since he insists upon grass for his business, they're having to go a littler farther, there isn't any near this hotel. There are trees & flowers, in planters, but no grass.

Oh, yesterday someone mentioned that she'd seen my blog. She has something active that alerts her anytime a blog mentions Living Greyhawk, so she saw my post about prepping for the con.

BTW, if you dream about going to the bathroom, you should get up & go.

Clothes: grey/blue jeans, grey 'against the giants' Geoff t-shirt. White tennis shoes & braided hair (too windy for anything else). Today, jewelry is Celtic; earrings, ring & star/tree pendant, plus fem-power ring & flat-rope band.

After midnight & we're back at the hotel. My two-round mod only took 4 hours, at least my table. In fact, we got done early enough that we played another mod. Chris & Rosemary had enough time to go walk on the beach while I played.

We went to a great seafood place, Higgins Wharf for supper & then back for the Battle Interactive. I played Nadia, my Bard 13/Ranger 1 (Beast of the Air Dispatcher) so she could get one of her two Geoff Region only purchases. She now has a helm of command with an impressive rack of antlers, that gives her +3 to charisma checks.

Let's see, towards the end, one character & the hobgoblin he'd been wrestling, had both been turned to stone. One character had died due to con damage from a dread wraith & was coming back in @ three rounds as another wraith. My character was insane, not permanently. Someone else was stable at -46 hp, for another 10 rounds or so. Yeah, it was kinda bad. But some people used favors & we got out okay. Although the really dead guy got reincarnated. Nadia thinks he's kinda cute (cha 18, she made her save).

Isolde levelled to 6th after the second round of the day's play. Which would have been fine, after all, I had planned ahead & figured out what changed. Except. Except I forgot to choose a feat. We talked about that at supper.

Good night. Off to bed. The internet signal is off & on. I finally managed to post yesterday's entry. Who knows when I'll get tonight's. It's taking forever to respond & I just don't have the patience.

Christmas Card Exchange: I've started addressing the envelopes & learned that I'm short a couple cards. I think that I will find some local color Christmas cards to send to the 2 ladies overseas (Spain & Pakistan). That means that I will have to re-address those envelopes, but that's no big deal.

Gaming, Living Greyhawk: Looking over my characters, preparing for the con this weekend, I realized that my 1st level character is actually 2nd level. She has the experience, I just hadn't made the changes. So I've started creating a new one. This will be my 2nd out of region character. My first one is a Bright Sands, so I'm not certain she counts.

My characters: Nadia Xianalannae, a high-level half-elf bard with a level of ranger, a knight
Reed of the CatTails, elf, almost as high a level cleric, with a couple levels of ranger & a level of sorcerer
Edana Tiernan, halfing Rogue & ranger, mounted scout-type, mid-level
Isolde (no last name), human sorceress with her raven, Tristan, low to mid-level
Kayla Swordspinner, human desert barbarian, low level
Brenna (can't remember last name), human fighter, cavalry

New one: no name yet, half-elf druid from Geoff. She'll be an arcane hieraphant, at about 8th level.

I may not need that 1st level character but for one slot there are only 3 people signed up. It requires 4 players to make an LG 'legal' table. Therefore, if we don't play that game, we'll go play the intro (1st level characters only) adventure. That's why I'm making up a new character.

Currently, I have characters that can play every APL. Except that Edana (APL 10 & 8) is out of non-military time units. She's in the Gran March army so that limits how many core mods & other 'vacation' adventures that she can play. It's a trade off. She also doesn't have to pay lifestyle cost.

What religion is your favorite comic book character? Do you know? Do you care? Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to examine what religion several comic characters are, both heroes, supporting cast & minor characters. Everything from agnostic to Catholic to Yoruban to Zenn-la is listed. Most are real-world religions, some are not; as to be expected by fictional characters with otherworldly origins.

Holiday shopping: Wondering what to get that hard-to-buy-for zombie in your life? Why not some brains?

Art fun: Drag your mouse to get a Jackson Pollock-esque piece. Click your mouse to change colors.

Music: It's been a day for random webpages, huh. This one is for a bluegrass band. I haven't had a chance to listen to the clips that they've posted, but I love the name; Black Swamp Bootleggers. Coincidentally, there's also a brewing supply store in Ohio by the same name.

Do you drink coffee? Do you like to be environmentally conservative? Then try bird-friendly coffee. Find store near you that carries it.

My weekend: stay up a little late Friday night (don't even remember why). Tried to get going early, I had errands to run. But I got caught up in a discussion about which characters I could play at Hochcon. My primay RPGA Living Greyhawk character, Corporal Sr. Obedient Master Nadia Xianalannae, veteran of the Cleansing of the Oytwood & the Siege of Gorna (wow, what a string of titles), is down to 2 time units (vacation). Between her training as a junior squire, staying with the Fey king & then having a daughter, plus actually playing games, her time units have been eaten up. She's 7th level, almost 8th.

Then there's what started as my tertiary character but she's now my 2ndary: Combat Specialist Reed of the CatTails. She has 4 time units left. I've just played her a lot, and spent some time units with her clan as part of her qualifying as a clan protector (rank w/in the clan).

The other two characters are Edana Tiernan & Isolde. Edana is in the scouts; she's a 2nd level halfling rogue & has about 38 military & 11 vacation time units left, maybe more. Isolde is a human sorceress & has 39 military units left. I've only played her once.

Nadia is a half-elf bard/ranger who's a senior squire with the Knights of the Watch & Dispatch. Reed was a human cleric/fighter. Then she died & was reincarnated as a wood elf. She's still a cleric/fighter, though. All of my characters are in the Gran March military. Frankly, in my opinion, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Back to what I was saying, since my two primary characters are so short of time units that meant I was probably going to play Edana. Since she's 2nd level I had to check because not all the games had APL's low enough for me to play her. So I canceled one game (Rites of Spring, a double rounder - I want to play Nadia in that one because she played in the 1st one in that series) & signed up to play one of the core modules with Edana.

All told, that took about 2 hours, including email. So I ended up driving through part of the early game day traffic at Carolina on my way to Pittsboro to pay the rent on my storage unit.

I made it to Southpoint, bought the stuff at Victoria's Secret (yeah coupons). Then I passed by The Body Shop. But I had spent more than I had planned at VS so I didn't buy anything there. After that it was into Barnes & Noble to spend my $25 gift certificate. Ran into 2 people I knew. I managed to resist Monstrous Regiment by Pratchett. It's still in hardback.

Chris & I picked up Rosemary (yeah it was out of our way but she's having brake issues) and we all went to see T3 at Blueridge. In some ways, a predictable movie but it did have 1 or 2 surprises & it was well-done. Definitely worth matinee prices so we got a real bargain. We still plan to see The Medallion & Matris Reloaded, both of which are also playing at Blue Ridge. After the movie it was Ten Ten Diner for the buffet. Yum, great buffet. But I did not like their crab rangoons. I loved their sesame balls (with red bean jelly inside).

I finished one book I'd bought that day & started another one.

Woke up Sunday with a headache. We went to Pizza Hut for their buffet & I dosed my headache with food, caffeine & an ibuprofen. They never did have a chocolate chip pizzert, much to my sorrow. I had some salad, apple pizzert & blueberry pizzert, though.

Then we went to Southpoint. Chris wanted to see how much Sears was charging for ovens. Ours took 30 minutes to heat Friday night, averaging about 10 degrees per minute. He wants (& I agree) a double oven. We looked at Maytag's Gemini but the Sears' Kenmore with the tri-use drawer (storage, warming & baking) was $200 cheaper and had a half-removable rack for cooking tall items, say a roasting pan with a lid. It had 2 double burners on the range top. It has one of those flat top ranges instead of the burners we have now but that's a common feature.

While there we also checked out dishwashers (ours is probably as old as the oven so could go any day) & small fridges for when we have the game room aka the basement done. We decided that the 4+ cu. foot was bigger than we needed. And that there are a lot of dishwasher features that we just don't like.

Then it was home to finish working on our characters for Rosemary's Forgotten Realms campaign. I had lost my character sheet & the part of my notes that had the stats I'd rolled up so I had to start over. I remembered what sword I wanted; I need to make 2 notes on my character sheet though, -1 damage on the sword & that my character reacts less-than-well to sudden bright light (part of the whole 1/2 Drow, Darkvision thing). Chris had his stats & notes, he just had to fill out his character sheet, equip & name his character.

I picked up the living room a little. Disposed of the box (recycling) from Wizards of the Coast. I kept most of the stuff they sent, other parts of it ended up in recycling too. I finished another book that I'd bought Saturday (that's 3 read plus 1 additional book: A Gentleman's Honor, to Sir Phillip, with Love, Blood Price, and Blood Trail). Was up until almost 11 between finishing that book & picking up around the living room & kitchen.

Kept waking up with nightmares all night long. Most of them were different, too. Apparently I turned off the alarm clock at some point 'cause I woke up at 6:45. Only about 45 minutes late, & I needed to weigh myself, pick out clothes & pack my lunch. It was a little close this morning & I was 10 minutes late to work. On the bright side, I've lost 2 more pounds.

Ran into Shaw again, on the bus. He lives in Cary & parks at the same P&R lot. I saw him on the bus home Friday, too. He was late for an exam in his African-American History class.

Wow, this is a long post. I'm reading one of the stories in Changer of Worlds, again. It's the 3rd of the Honor Harrington anthologies. I picked up the 1st one on Saturday. I bought 5 or 6 books. If I actually stop & think about it, I'll remember how many & what their titles were.

Now I have work to do (I've been working - I started this post at 9 am & finished at 10:15 plus 10 minutes for editing)