Living Greyhawk game: Played City of Malice (core adventure). Whoof. I now see why Mike made Rosemary take an oath, vowing NOT to play up (for non-gamers that means the adventure difficulty is set by the average level of the characters at the table & your character is below that average level - the average party level, or APL, of 3 1st level characters & 3 3rd level characters is 3 because the formula is (1+1+1+3+3+3/6) +1 [for a full table], which yields 3 so they could choose to play APL 2 or APL 4. Unless they're very stupid they'd choose APL 2). I played Reed, my CatTail, while Chris & Rosemary played her cousins, Grawl & Araby. We also had a halfling wizard/arcane trickster, a human bard/sublime chord & a human cleric. And this time, Grawl proved that Wall of Thorns is a wonderful, nasty spell to throw at someone (especially when you're a druid & can ignore it). Reed proved it last time.
The only problem was that Chris & I didn't leave until 12:30. That's very late for me, especially considering my late night on Wednesday, too. I was so tired, that from one eyeblink to the next I was asleep & didn't wake until the last stoplight before home. Waking up this morning was veeeery difficult.
More Living Greyhawk: Tomorrow we start Red Hand of Doom! We'll be playing most of Saturday and then Sunday afternoon. We hope that will take us halfway through it.
Heh, I forgot that I have a Frappr map. I wonder when I signed up for that.
Weather: There was actually %#$*&^%* frost on the ground this morning. Wednesday it was in the 80'sF. Today there's frost. Okay, it did rain yesterday which was almost a transition but still!
books: I'm still reading Rapture in Death. Next I'll start Held Accountable, it's one of the books that I picked up on Wednesday from the used book sale. It's a mystery set at a mental health center. The setting alone sets it apart.
tatting: I got very little done; just a couple shuttle-clearing butterflies.
clothes: black loafers (I have all the mud off from yesterday I think), black socks, black jeans, black belt (gold-tone & black buckle), black shirt (Origins), and same jewelry. I braided my hair today because it got into such a rats' nest yesterday from the ponytail.
Labels: frappr, Living Greyhawk, Rapture in Death, Red Hand of Doom, Reed, Sleep, weather
This weekends outfits: jeans & assortment of t-shirts, tennis shoes & jewelry assortment.
Yesterday's outfits: black faux-suede slacks, black polo shirt, black loafers, onyx & silver earrings (new pair), mother of pearl & silver pendant, silver band, & braid.
Today's outfit: khaki slacks; Vorkosigan brown acid-washed polo shirt; brown loafers; yellow amber pendant, earrings, rings; silver band & assorted amber bead bracelet, & bun/ponytail w/ curvy 'bone' hairsticks.
The weather apparently decided to skip straight from late winter/early spring into late spring. Today's morning low (62F) was last Wednesday's high. I am not very prepared. I still have all my turtlenecks out. I have to dig out my summer weight blouses, short sleeved shirts & light weight skirts & slacks. I have to pack up my sweaters, turtlenecks & most of my sweatshirts. I can probably keep my vests out. The office has AC and is often chilly in the summer.
I finished
The Dreamland Chronicles: In the Net of Dreams, When Dreams Collide & Woman of His Dreams. 3 books in one volume, it was very good. There were a lot of puns & little pokes at classic fanasy & sci fi. Like 'they went to Smith's Dock.' If you've never heard of Doc Smith, that line means nothing. If you have, then you get a quick snigger.
The con was great. I talked to Jill for quite a while again. She's the con organizer's wife & she's really the co-head of the con. I did not get to talk very much to Keith but I did see the people at the Game Griffon again. They have a daughter now! She was a preemie but she's healthy & doing well. I met new people, Darlene & Keith who just moved down from Indiana (they know Doug Wood), owners of the dachsund 'Rogue' & Doug, (friend of Keith B. & Carol) who lives in Hickory, plays the 1/2 orc barbarian Budd. I did not get a chance to use the pool. Chris & Rosemary went Friday evening & I was just too tired. I went to sleep about 9 pm.
Duncan was sick most of the weekend but the pepto bismol helped. He was a very sick little doggy on Saturday though. Rosemary had to walk him every hour & even that wasn't enough. So Chris & I went to Wally world after our games Saturday night (C&R played 'Sterich Burning' while I played the interactive) and got the cleaning supplies & the medicine. He was feeling fine on Sunday when he met Rogue.
Reed died, again, for the 3rd time. Nadia really died but the gm let her be at -9 hp & I made the stabilization roll. That gave other characters time to reach her & heal her. *phew* It was very close. So Nadia leveled to 9th level but Reed is 5th again.
Labels: clothes, Darlene and Keith, Duncan, Living Greyhawk, Nadia, Reed, Roundcon, The Dreamland Chronicles, weather
I am back from Hochcon (sound of much rejoicing). It was a lovely drive to McLean, Va. Which, btw, can be made in 4.5 hours, plus half an hour meal break.
I played several RolePlaying Gamers Association Living Greyhawk adventures, including one battle interactive. I played my secondary & tertiary characters for that campaign. The secondary one is now down to 1 time unit, military and has now survived 3 modules, including a double round one, at 5th level. FYI, that's Reed, my wood elf CatTail cleric/fighter, combat specialist, spellcaster corps in the Gran March army. The tertiary one, Edana Tiernan, is now 3rd level and has a leadership commendation. It's kind of a sad thing when the Combat Specialist (who only outranks the enlisted, even corporals outrank her) rogue in the Scout corps is the ranking military person at the table. So, Edana, the blond halfling on her first military mission was giving orders. That is just so wrong. I played her in 4 out of the 6 games that I played, so she saw quite a bit of action this weekend.
Driving back from McLean, I slept most of the way. I was not the one driving so you can relax. Even with that I felt exhausted through yesterday. I'm finally starting to feel better. I think I'm trying to kick another cold, which doesn't help. I bought some echinacea/zinc lozenges in Falls Church, VA before we started back. They taste nasty, but they seem to work/help.
Haven't heard from Diana yet as to why she didn't show for gaming on Monday. Since she's running, we didn't play. Instead, we talked a bit, Rosemary drank coffee to wake up for her drive home and Chris played Halo.
I went to bed at 9:30 last night. Still didn't want to wake up this morning. Since I have gaming tonight I'd better kick that. I stayed at work a little late last night. I did the in character posts for Reed to the CatTail mailing list. One of them is kinda funny. No response yet, though.
Time to get more work done. It's been a busy day. Being able to think helps.
Labels: CatTails, Edana, Hochcon, Living Greyhawk, Reed, sick
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)
Labels: Changer of Worlds, Edana, Forgotten Realms, Isolde, Living Greyhawk characters, Monstrous Regiment, Nadia, nightmares, oven, Reed, storage unit, T3, weight loss
