Dream House part 2

Okay, so this last week has sucked pretty hard core, and yeah, I could give a hundred reasons as to why it sucked, and I would probably spend most of my time bitching about my mouth. I’m not upset at the dentist, which would be stupid as he’s not the one that caused the problems in the first place. That responsibility falls squarely on my head and the poor hygiene decisions I’ve made in the past. I’m getting better now and getting the work on my teeth done is a part of that. But, GD it hurts.

And, that enough whining from me.

What I wanted to talk about right now is one of the things that made this a good week amidst all the hell: Our dream house.

My post yesterday was about this absolutely beautiful house, and it included a wide array of pictures depicting this house. While I find the house is a fascinating topic, I don’t think there’s really much more to say about all of it until I’ve been inside it. What I do find fascinating is the concept of the Dream House.

What is a dream house?

A simple answer: A dream house is the ideal house for a person/couple who can see themselves living in that one place, contentedly, for the rest of their lives.

The difficult answer: I don’t know.

The Dream House is a symbol of status and stature. It’s a way of saying “Look Mom and Dad! Look! I made it! I’m living the American Dream!”

It also seems as though there’s a great deal more psychology. I mean you could easily look at the size of the house and judge just how successful a person has been in their chosen field. Look at doctors and lawyers for instance. They don’t live in palatial homes, but I can guarantee they typically have houses that have ten plus rooms. Some of their houses even come with guest houses instead of just guest rooms.

And, I lost where I was going with this.

Either way, a person’s house is like a castle. Its size represents the strength and success of the one who built it. It’s positioning (especially in a mountainous area like WV) could be another indication of how a person sees themselves. If they’re building a big house on the crest of a mountain it’s because they want to feel powerful. They want to be above other people, and they want to be looked up at.

This even works in the opposite direction. Peole who build huge castles with thick walls are insecure and vulnerable. They don’t feel like they’re able to protect themselves or their family, so they build this big house to look strong and impressive. They set their houses up high on the mountain because they feel looked down upon, and weak. It’s Little Man Syndrome with houses instead of cars/trucks.

Now what does a dream house mean to me? Well, it means I made It! Lol. But, yeah, I told Melanie yesterday or the day before that our lives would be “okay” once we had the aforementioned house; once we could fill our gas tanks up instead of cringing at the twenty dollars we dump in every couple of days; and once we could fill our cabinets with mountains of food and still have money to spend on the things we want to do, the little frivolous pleasures in life as it were.

That’s my idea of what a dream house means. You can take from that what you think I’m saying and we can go from there.

Laters.

Ryan

3-30-14

Dream House Part 1.

Melanie and I have found the absolute most perfect house that has ever existed. We want it. Bad. We want it so bad we can feel the need boiling deep inside our stomachs. It’s an interesting feeling to fall so in love with a place, one that we’ve never even physically been inside the house. We’ve only seen the outside of it, and at great distance at that. But, recently, due to a lot of hard work and digging on the internet I found pictures of the inside. And, oh… my… god!!!

 

I like circles, don't you?
And, the lighting is fabulous. Lol.

Needs a little renovation, and the previous owner's
belongings need to be removed.

The Kitchen.
I pray to God there's not food in those cabinets...

The outside and a three car garage.
One for me.
One for Melanie.
And, one for our armored zombie smasher tank.

The front hall.
The circles on the door makes it feel a little bit like the shire.

The Grand stairs.

The front door from the outside.
It looks heavy.

I can't really tell what's supposed to be in this room.

Indoor Pool!!!
And, the water's still there.

Top of the staircase I believe.

Now, there are a couple of interesting things about the house. Certain rumors say there was a murder suicide while others say the owners up and left after their daughter hung herself from the top of the stairwell. And, of course there are others. All of them agree, however, that the house is haunted, which makes it even better for me and Melanie! Lol.

Though we might need to befriend a Catholic priest, ya know, just in case.

As for its location, that is something I cannot reveal at this time, mainly because this is a perfect zombie fortification location. So, when we buy it, we might tell you were it is, just because we like you enough to protect you from zombies.

Ryan

3-28-14

MIA

I’ve been out of touch for the last couple of days, and I guess what I need to do now is explain why. Well, I probably don’t actually have to explain why. I just feel like I should since I don’t like leaving things unexplained.

Monday, I didn’t write a blog post to put up for Tuesday. Part of the reason for that is because I typed my last blog post, Spring, right after I got home from work, and thus felt like I’d already written my blog post. I guess that’s kind of a trap I set for myself, because I more or less did the same thing either last week or the week before. I can’t remember. I would write a blog post for that day, and type it before I did anything else on my list.

I don’t like that I did it, but I can’t go back and change it now. And, I can’t go back to Monday to make myself write a blog post. I don’t have a TARDIS. If I did, though, I would go back and make myself do a lot of things differently, but I’m pretty sure that in the act of doing that I would create a temporal paradox and the universe would come crashing down around me.

Might be entertaining to watch.

Either way, what’s done is done.

Now, I have a better reason for not doing stuff on Tuesday.

I went to the dentist on Tuesday. Normally, that’s not such a big deal. But, this is the first time I’ve ever had to get a tooth pulled. And, I really had to get two of them pulled.

One of them they got out. It took some work, but they got it out. The other one didn’t go so smoothly. They couldn’t get it to come loose, or it was stuck on something. I’m not sure, but it wouldn’t come out. And, now the bloody thing hurts. It wiggles every time I chew something, and if I bite down on it the wrong way it feels like I’ve been stabbed in the face.

It makes me want to cry.

I don’t know how I’m going to be able to handle work tomorrow, but I really don’t have a choice in the matter. That’s part of being an adult, I’m afraid.

Oy vey.

Anywho, I’m going to quit bitching, take about 1600 milligrams of ibuprofen and go to bed.

God, be with me, I’m going to need you tomorrow.

Ryan

3-26-14

And, just to throw a DnD reference in there I'd rather fight one of these:

www.conceptart.org

Than have another tooth pulled. Or maybe I'd rather have this thing being the one to pull my teeth. Then I know it wouldn't hurt for very long.

Spring

The topic for today’s discussion is spring. And, while I’m not sure if cupcake meant for the conversation to hover over the season, bed springs, or the leaf springs one might find in the back of a truck. I am, however, certain that this conversation will leave out my favorite type of spring, the slinky. Why am I sure of this? Because I believe if she had wanted me to talk about a slinky she would have said a slinky. So, instead we’ll talk about spring.

And, taking a dart and throwing it at a random topic (OW! Oops, sorry Erik) I’m going to go with the season. Spring is the time of year when the earth quite literally comes back to life. The fall and winter are the slow death of the earth. Think about it, everything is shutting down. The leaves are falling off the trees. The grass stops growing. Many mammals go south for warmer climes, and many others curl up in nice cozy caves and sleep through the winter.

Spring is a period of awakening. Hibernating animals wake up, things begin to grow and migrating animals move back in this direction (like ducks… oh god how I loathe ducks).

Spring also kind of refers to Daylight Savings Time. This is an America only thing (I think. Google would tell you for sure.) and spring refers to springing forward one hour (yay time travel) so that we would have more daylight in the evening hours then we would in the mornings. Mother Nature sort of does this herself as well.

The earth as it rotates around the sun also spins on its axis, and that cockeyed, meaning the earth is angled, and at any one point in the year the earth could be pointed towards or away from the sun. As things are rolling around to spring in the northern hemisphere (our hemisphere) is pointing towards the sun. This means that more of the northern hemisphere is lit up and lit up longer than it is during the winter. This makes summers at the North Pole extremely interesting, seeing as the sun never sets.

In the context of something I understand a little better than science, spring exists in Dungeons and Dragons just as it does on earth. I don’t know why it wouldn’t, unless the DM has you playing on a planet that greatly resembles Hoth. And, even Hoth would have a period of spring like weather. It’s probably more like spring in Antarctica than it is around the center of the earth.

And, yes, there are rules as to how things apply to the world as there are with weather. Take a muddy road for instance. It’s just rained for a day and a half, everything is soaked, and the streets (which are little more than packed dirt) are muddy. People have trouble walking and running in it, thus reducing travel speed, and it sucks down and holds tight to wagon wheels, increasing travel time. And, remember the runner I mentioned, he’s going to have to make balance checks every ten to twenty feet to see if he slides in the muck. If he fails that check he has to make a reflex save to avoid falling, and depending on how the save goes he might have to roll for damage as well.

Then there are allergies. I still haven’t looked to see if there are rules for allergies or not. Meh.

And, yes, all of that does sound extremely tedious, and I’m not the sort of dungeon master who’s going to demand those checks whenever a PC moves ten feet. Nope, the only time that would matter is during a combat encounter, or some other strenuous event where the rolling of the dice is important.

Anywho, that’s all from me for the day.

Beware the Dire Squirrel.

Ryan

3-22-14

Owls

I’m sitting here at work right now, wondering why I have to be stuck at work. I wonder why I’ve not succeeded yet, why I haven’t been published and am living the lifestyle of a fabulously wealthy author. I meant successful, not wealthy, but it will do. And, over the years I’ve come up with several answers to those questions. Some of the answers make sense, while others have come out of left field. The only thing they’ve all got in common is the fact that they’re not complimentary to the person asking the questions. In fact, I’m sure I would be beaten, severely, with a wet noodle should I write even one of those answers here. It’s best to just not do it. So, instead I’ll ask a question I can answer.

“Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?”

Mr. Owl takes the lollipop and licks it, “one, two, three,” and he bites through the rest, getting to the center of the tootsie roll pop.

So, why would the little boy in the commercial go and ask Mr. Owl for the answer? The answer to that is symbolism. The owl, with its regal bearing and luminescent eyes has been a symbol of wisdom for many, many years; centuries in fact, if I’m not mistaken. Like the wise old man on top of the mountain, the owl, and those who identify with the creature have been sought out for their wisdom and advice.

In my own experience, I feel that the owl is my spiritual guide (it’s either that or a squirrel), and I base this belief on the one time I’ve seen an owl.

The animal was standing in the road as I was driving along. There wasn’t roadkill beside it, it was just waiting and watching me come closer. It should have been blinded by my headlights, but it wasn’t. It looked past my headlights, and locked eyes with me. In that moment I felt stripped naked, bearing the whole of my soul out to this one creature. The truck continued on, but the owl took flight, spreading its great wings and rising up above the truck like an angel. I knew then that there was more to this world, more to this life, and this owl had been sent to me as a message to bring that home.

I try to keep that message in my mind every day. I try to bring the wisdom of that one owl to everyone else who reads my work. We are not alone in the universe, there are many other people in many other realities, and those focused on the arts are our glimpses into those realities.

Remember, the next time you’re reading a book. Those characters are real, their feelings and hopes and failures are real, and so long as you keep them in mind they will continue to be real.

And, to ruin all the nice poetic things I just said, I wonder what would have happened if the owl didn’t fly out of the way. Would it have been a satisfying crunch?

Ryan

3-21-14

Friends

This is an unusual topic, considering the fact that I am a supernerd, and therefore have no friends. Instead, we’ll talk about the greatest sitcom of all time. Nah, I’m kidding. I have a truck load of friends, and I love all of them. My best friend of the last 18 years is my roommate and that’s pretty badass. And, I play Dungeons and Dragons/Pathfinder (I don’t really see much difference between the two) with another great group of friends. I consider all of them my best friends too (with certain exceptions because I’m kind of a dick), and being able to sit down with them once a week is fantastic.

Then there’s Cupcake. If I had to say anything at all, I’d say she’s my very best friend. The one I love above all others, the one I would give my life for if it came down to it, she’s also the one I sleep with at night, so it’s best not to upset her.

Me and Cupcake at her mom and dad's house.

But, on another note, I’ve not always had a wide array of friends, and I’ve not always been the obnoxious asshole I am now who gets bored and likes to torment his friends.

Yeah, growing up it was hard to make friends as I was always the outcast. The one bullies picked on in grade school, and everybody else avoided me because they didn’t want the same sort of treatment.

Me and Erik in a Bitstrips comic. And, I just realized I don't have a picture of me and Erik.

I found Erik (my roommate) in the fifth grade. We got stuck in afterschool detention a number of times. Not because either of us were delinquents. I was always behind on class work, and he moved to West Virginia about halfway through the year and we were both in detention catching up on class work, and we started talking. We found we liked the same things, Power Rangers, Transformers, and other things I’ve probably forgotten about at this point in my life.

Our friendship was always solid. We practically lived at one another’s houses until the time we got out of high school. We were always making up stories, and playing them out with various action figures. I even remember the two of us using lighters and matches to disfigure one or two of the figures. We made it look like he’s suffered some serious battle damage.

I’m smiling now, as I think about this, maybe even tearing up a little. I wonder from time to time what happened to those kids. When did we stop being kids and start being adults? When did this wall of responsibility come crashing down around us?

It’s like I said in that excerpt the other day. Things change. It’s the way of things.

And, there’s a lot of irony there too. How much time did we spend as children wishing we were grown up? And, how much would an adult give up being able to go back to being a child? I would give up almost everything. Everything I own, everything I’ve done, except for being with Melanie. I would take a tight hold on her, and bring her back to my childhood, because, even as a child she would fill the empty spot in my heart.

I wasn’t whole until I met Mel. And, I’m still missing a few things (sanity is one of them, but I’m a-ok without that) but with her I am complete. I guess that’s what a wife, or a significant other in general, is meant to be. The puzzle piece that completes you makes you whole. That’s why she’s the best of my friends. One of the two I will hold close and never let go.

Now, I’m trying to think of a way to incorporate this concept into the game, but it’s already there. Without friends, without my Damn Dirty Dungeon Crawlers, there would be no game. So, yeah, I love all of them too.

That doesn’t mean I won’t summon Cthulhu on their asses if they piss me off. Just saying. Lol.

Ryan

3-20-14

Crazy Weather

http://shop.theoatmeal.com/collections/the-blerch
This is not mine. It really isn't. It's just free advertising for The Oatmeal. 

Is it me? Or has Mother Nature suddenly developed bi-polar disorder? I’m going to think it’s that, instead of the possibility that Mother Nature is going through puberty again.

I mean, don’t you see it? The constant hormonal shifts (hot, cold, hot, cold) and the temper tantrums (the days when all of the continental United States had a temperature below freezing and the snow that fell stopped the world from running). I mean, seriously, something is out of whack with her.

Or maybe teachers everywhere cried out and offered up their candy as sacrifice for a few snow days.

Thanks teachers… >.>

I had a long stretch there, though, during the bad days when I didn’t have to get out of the house for anything at all. Except maybe the need for cigarettes, but I do longer walks then the trip to Canada’s Cash Store and back every day. It’s something I happen to be proud of.

Oh, and I’m thinking about competing in a half marathon. It’s the Beat the Blerch 10K, Half Marathon, and Marathon. It takes place in Carnation, Washington on September 21^st. Setting this as a goal for me is a huge step (as will be finding the money for plane tickets and a spot in the race). A half marathon is 13 miles, and that’s not walking, that’s running. Right now I do 2.5 miles a day walking. I’m going to have to look into an intensive exercise program to get even close to being able to do it.

Maybe.

I don’t know, that would depend on the weather too, and Washington is a really rainy state. And, I’m afraid to set any funds towards doing it as I often really get into wanting to do these things. Then I flake out, and I’ve wasted my money for no GD reason.

I’d get about a week into the training and be like this is too hard for me, and rage quit and there goes that money.

What’s worse is the participation tickets go up for sale on the 24^th, and it’s likely that they’ll have been bought out by the time I make a decision.

And, I don’t like where this is going. Instead we’ll get back to the weather.

To put it simply the DM/GM is god when it comes to their world. They control every aspect of that world, including the weather.

Since I’m the DM, if I wanted to create the weather we’ve been having recently, I can have an Epic level NPC spellcaster cast the spell Dire Winter. This creates a 1000 foot vortex like a hurricane or a tornado that deals 2d6 cold damage for 20 hours.

Or I could…

That list would go on forever, and that’s just the spells I could use to affect the weather. It doesn’t touch what the rules say about how the weather and the world of Dungeons and Dragons coexist. I need to refresh my memory on that chapter.

It might be time for the skies to rain brimstone.

Enter maniacal laughter here.

Ryan

3-19-14 

Why Didn't We Start In A Tavern?

So, I’m being a little lazy today. This is something I wrote for my current creative writing project Why Didn’t We Start In A Tavern?. It’s not the first scene, but it’s my favorite scene thus far. I always like baddies like this. Lol.

Ryan

3-18-14

The air in the cave was unlike any else there had ever been. It was eons old swirling in and over itself for all eternity.

Infinity.

A pair of snakes, one eating the other locked in a great loop.

This was how the air thought of itself. It thought it would never change, though that everything about the cave, the paths to and from it, and the clefts that gave it shape and form would never change.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

Some say that the face of death changes with every tick and tock from a clock. The face of death in this cave was pale, white sunken flesh near to translucent and with eyes as solid orbs of cerulean. The face of death had a crack, twisted and broken for a mouth. It was screaming obscenities that even the wind couldn’t hear. Its hair was frozen in thin strands, sticking out in every direction, and the ears were curved and pointed like the cruel tip of a scimitar.

The wind had known this face for eternity. It had always been down here in the depths of the cave: always and forever since the goddess Gaia gave birth to the bastard face of death. Lady Celita, she who is the moon made flesh, ave this face a kiss, a crescent on its brow and made it sleep forever more.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

A hand that had never known the warmth of life flexed inside the ice. The fingers bent and what had once been solid broke free.

The cave and the wind trembled then, as the face of death and the body attached to it moved. First the hands, curling into fists, then the biceps bulging, muscles contracting, and the arms came free. They moved through the ice, were one with the ice, as if it were water, and the fists slammed out through the thin pane of ice and rock.

The wall split, and rock and ice flew like shrapnel, cutting ribbons through the air that thought nothing would change. The hands and arms worked back and forth, clearing the path as it sent rock after countless rock through the air. The wind cried and moaned in pain, but couldn’t stop what came next.

The face of death came free from the ice, and it filled its lungs for the first time since birth. The face of death inhaled, savoring the little joy of killing all that remained of the air that thought things would never change.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

The face of death was free from the wall and from the ice. It stretched and flexed and learned how to use parts of itself it never knew it had. The face of death turned to face the void it had been trapped in and there hid his armor. It was frosted full plate mail, made from an alchemical mixture of black ice and black iron. There was a shirt of chainmail made from the same material, each of the links fashioned to look like hail stones. This the face put on first, then each of the great plates of shaped ice and metal. The face had no need for aid, as the suit knew its master and responded to the call. It smiled as it pulled the gloves and gauntlet tight and at long last drew its helm from the ice.

The helm was a masterpiece, ice and metal shaped into a great polar bears head with a crown of ice sickles rising from the peak. The snout came down to cover the face’s cracked mouth and nose, the bear’s teeth cutting into its flesh. The face of death smiled, relishing in the pain. And, it took one last item from the ice.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

This item was massive with a long rod of adimantium and coiled mithril, spiraling up in a hellish dance till it met the head of the sledge. This was the heart of all ice. It was blacker than coal with a cold that sapped the strength from what air remained. This heart had been mined from the depths of Niefelheim, and fashioned into a weapon fit for the gods.

The face smiled as it caressed the heart of ice with a lover’s touch. The depths captured within the ice gave a start as the ancient magics worked this way and that. The face’s smile grew wider. It turned to the side, swung the great sledge back with all its might, and drove the great hammer back into the void it came from. The world cracked.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

Water swirled behind the ice in a great tornado as a hole was rent in the die of existence. The face of death pulled back and swung again. And, again. And, again.

Things change.

The army was there, standing ten thousand and more strong behind the void, behind the face of death. Long have they awaited this moment. Long have the ice elves kept their hatred burning in their frozen souls. They had been denied the earth, denied the air, and the light of the sun.

Now, they would deprive all things of life.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

It’s the way of the ice elves.

Hannibal the Cannibal

In Grr's Voice: I made it myself!

Hannibal the Cannibal, the star attraction of the books Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising (all by Thomas Harris). He’s also the star of the movies of the same name portrayed in the first three by Anthony Hopkins. Then portrayed by Gaspard Ulliel in Hannibal Rising and I thought he did a very good job in that position. And, now there’s a television series out based on Hannibal starting Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal. He’s also doing a fantastic job so far as I’m concerned, and from what little I’ve watched of the television show.

Anyway, if you’ve lived under a rock for the last 33 years, Doctor Hannibal Lecter is a brilliant psychiatrist (though in the movies, show, and books he acts much more like a psychologist, a therapist). Who has a cultured taste for rare delicacies, namely those delicacies are his fellow human beings, thus the nickname Hannibal the Cannibal. Makes sense now, doesn’t it?

So, Doctor Lecter eats people, he murders them in interesting ways, and he does so without getting over excited. It was stated somewhere in The Silence of the Lambs that during an attack on a nurse at a mental facility he was kept at that his heart rate never went above eighty beats per minute. If that’s not the definition of cold calculated killer, I don’t know what is.

That and the attack on the nurse was random, a just because he could thing. There was no calculation to it. No time to think about it. It was a spur of the moment attack. And, he bit her ear off.

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t bite a person’s ear off without my heart rate going over eighty beats per minute. I don’t think my resting heart rate even goes below eighty beats per minute. That’s probably not a good thing. Just saying.

Now, incorporating Hannibal Lecter into my game would be copyright infringement, and would bring a big fat lawsuit down on my head that I don’t want to deal with.

Ghoul--Dead and Hungry
wizards.com

Ghoul, Necromancer
by Butterfrog

With that being said, I would make him a ghoul necromancer. A ghoul is a relatively intelligent undead creature that was cannibalistic in life (or bitten by another ghoul) that continues to feast on the flesh of humanoids after death. And, necromancer is a wizard that specializes in the necromantic school of magic. (I’m sure somewhere in one of the books there’s even a Necromancer prestige (or core) class.) I would also heighten the intelligence from the ghoul’s typical level by fifteen or so points to give it Lecter’s mental superiority. I’d do the same with his charisma, giving it Lecter’s charm.

And, that would be interesting to see; a suave, debonair ghoul with blood dripping out of the corners of its mouth.

I might have to create a creature like that in the near future.

Ryan

3-15-14/3-16-14

Kool-aid

Grape drink, or as I always called it, dinosaur slobbers. As a kid (I hate that phrase all of a sudden) my favorite type of Kool-aid was always grape flavored. Not because it stood out as being any better than the rest, but because it had a little purple dinosaur on the packet. It was a brachiosaur or a brontosaurus or something like that, one of the ones with a long neck. He was purple and he had green polka dots on his hide. He was smiling.

It’s funny that I remember all of that, I mean I don’t know if that dinosaur is still hanging around somewhere, or whether or not he’s still on the grape flavored Kool-aid packet. I don’t even know if Kool-aid is still available.

I know that Kool-aid style drink mixes are still hanging around. You can buy them in little packets with tubes to flavor a single bottle of water, or you can get the bigger packets that can make one or two quart jugs just like you did with the Kool-aid packets. Only now they come presweetened. You don’t have to add a small mountain of sugar to make it taste the way it should. Which is good and bad, but that’s a discussion I’ll leave for another day.

Now comes another thing that seems to have become a theme on Thursdays. I’m not talking about anything to do with the blog, but rather with Facebook and Twitter and all those lovely social media sites: Throwback Thursday.

The idea for Throwback Thursday must have spawned from two points. One, Throwback Thursday is alliteration making it fun to hear and fun to say. Two, somebody started uploading their old photos on Facebook on Thursday and it caught on as a trend.

Well, Throwback Thursday caught me at an odd point, as I have been feeling very nostalgic for one reason or another and the Kool-aid thing really brought that to mind.

I miss being a kid. I miss being a ten year old. Things were safe back then, figuratively speaking. I didn’t have to worry about any adult responsibilities. I could do whatever I wanted, be it Sound Effects on the platform or if I was going to stay inside and play Nintendo or Sega (I don’t remember which one I had at the time). The other big question, should I play with my Power Ranger toys or should I play with my Beast Wars Transformers toys. Those are questions I didn’t have answers to back then. And, that’s a lot different than it is now.

Do I pay this bill and not have money for groceries?

Can we afford to pay for internet and television?

Can I afford a mobile phone right now with all the debt piled up over my head?

Those are the questions I don’t have answers to nowadays, and I would trade all of that to go back to being that ten year old boy.

Maybe that’s where my safe place is. That warm earthy smelling platform, like it had just rained, the place where many stories were born, grew old, and died. It was there that I felt safe from everything.

I want to go back to that platform. Back to that year. I want to forget all my adult problems. Alas, things don’t work like that. So, I’ll keep dreaming, and I’ll keep writing, and maybe I’ll find that ten year old again, and he can tell me what it was really like.

Ryan

2-13-14

PS: I put Sound Effects in italics because that’s what I used to call it when I went out to the platform to make up my stories. I would pace across that rough concrete surface, and I would see these wonderful things all of them behind my eyes, and I would make the noises that went alongside the stories. Fighter jet sounds, guns, occasionally the sound of someone else’s voice talking. Something like that. And, that’s a deep enough scab. Lol. Maybe I’ll tell you more about it later. For now. It’s bed time.

Caffeine

Ah, such an absolutely wondrous thing is caffeine. Caffeine is probably the number one most addictive drug in the United States. Hell, it’s probably the number one most addictive drug in the world. And, there’s no form of regulation on it whatsoever.

Pop. Coffee. Tea. Chocolate. Soap. It can be put in just about everything, and human beings will consume it by the gallon.

Why is that?

I honestly don’t know. I would assume it has something to do with caffeine’s effect on the body. It’s a stimulant, it wakes you up and keeps you awake. It helps you focus. It decreases the amount of sleep you need each night. Well, depending on consumption it will keep you from sleeping.

I don’t know what else to say about caffeine. I’m not a chemist or a doctor who can tell you exactly what the effects of caffeine are. Nor can I tell you what the chemical make-up of the drug is. I really just know what it is I wrote above. And, most of that was a shot in the dark.

I do know something else about caffeine. Caffeine Intoxication is a type of mental disorder caused by excessive use of caffeine. Say, drinking four or five Monsters a day. It causes sleeplessness, difficulty concentrating, muscle spasms, irregular heartbeat, and a lot of other symptoms I don’t care to mention. (I actually looked up an article about it.) And, the only reason I know about it is because I was diagnosed with it back in the middle part of 2013. It got pointed out along with my abuse of over the counter pain killers and drinking excessive amounts of Mountain Dew.

After that, I cut my consumption of soda and energy drinks down to one or two a day, and I replaced a lot of it with drinking water.

Now, however, my use of caffeinated beverages has gone back up. It’s something I need to stop, mainly because I don’t like feeling like I’ve been stretched out as far as a human sized rubber band can stretch. Still, I know all this, I can see it from the outside, but like a lot of other things, I do nothing about it. It’s pattern.

I’m not even going to go with how caffeine can work in Dungeons and Dragons, and instead I shall leave you with this video regarding Dungeons and Dragons and Mountain Dew.

  

Later kids.

Ryan

3-12-14

Allergies

It’s such a wonderful thing that 99% of the Earth’s population has them; that’s right boys and girls, allergies. Who knows why some people are allergic to penicillin? Or is there a reason as to why people are allergic to certain foods or fauna? There probably is, and it is probably just a Google search away. But, I’m having one of those lazy days where I feel like I shouldn’t do anything, but since it’s not F*** it Friday there’s no excuse for me not to do these things.

So, why won’t I do a Google search? The reason is I don’t care enough about the answer to pursue it. Put forth the effort to find it. However you want to say it. So, instead of worrying about the answer to the question, I’m just going to talk about how allergies affect me and mine.

Allergies hate our family, me and Cupcake, and they hate us in the way mosquitoes hate us. I’m like a walking all you can eat buffet when it comes to mosquitoes, and for allergies I’m allergic to pretty much every type of pollen. If the pollen count is high, my nose is running, my eyes are burning, and I’ll have sneezing spasms with up to 20 or more sneezes. Yes, it’s possible, and yes, it hurts like hell.

Now, Cupcake has a lot of allergies, but hers affect her in a different way. She has near constant sinus infections. Her lungs are always full of gunk and she’s sneezing and coughing and really has the whole I’m miserable sick sort of thing going on. I try to pamper her during these weeks long infections, but sometimes it gets really icky. (Love you Cupcake!) Anyway, filled with sinus problems or not, she’s my Cupcake and I love her.

I also like to make fun of her other major allergy. Cupcake is lactose intolerant. She can’t drink milk, eat cheese, drink anything with the word cream in it, and even milk chocolate bars give her problems. But, guess what… She eats these things anyway. Lol. I’m not sure if she just loves dairy products, or if she’s some kind of masochist.

Who knows?

How do allergies affect my game world; I would have to say I don’t know. I’ve never cared enough to think that much about it. It really seems to be one of those things you can just gloss over, unless you’ve got a character that has allergies. But, still, that’s more of a character trait then something to do with world building. I dunno.

I could incorporate magical allergies into the game. It would be like character xyz has an allergy to polymorph spells. Polymorph spells cast on this character are subject to a d% failure/success chart, and the effect on the character is subject to a randomized effect, plus 1d3 points of constitution damage or something like that.

Who knows?

There are probably rules for it somewhere, but I’m not going to go digging for them.

And, I’m going to call it there.

Later kids.

Ryan

3-11-14

The Undertaker

This is an odd one. Lol. It’s like with CM Punk, Cupcake gave me a wrestler to talk about and now I’ve got to figure out what to say. Lol. Honestly it should be easy though, as the Undertaker is one of the most recognizable wrestlers in the professional wrestling industry. At least he used to be. Now, he’s kind of dwindled down to doing one match a year. The match at Wrestlemania, the match he always wins because the Undertaker has never lost a match at Wrestlemania. In fact, that streak has become material for whoever it is he’s going up against to use in their promos.

Taker’s opponent this year is Brock Lesnar, a beast of a man who has more in common with a rock than a human being. He’s using this whole “conqueror” thing as his take on the match with the Undertaker. Lesnar’s manager, Paul Heyman, comes out to the ring at least twice an episode to announce that Lesnar is going to conquer the streak.

The match will be pretty good. The Undertaker’s matches are always damn good. But, one must look at it like this. The Undertaker is probably the oldest wrestler climbing into the ring at Wrestlemania (he’s 48 and that’s damn old for a professional wrestler) and he’s going up against the human equivalent of a semi.

I might actually have to sit down and work up stats for these two wrestlers just to work out a good probability of who will win. I know it’s going to be the Undertaker. Let’s face it, if Lesnar wins Taker fans will riot in the streets. But, just knowing the statistics of the match will be entertaining.

Something else interesting to note, it was CM Punk who went up against the Undertaker this last Wrestlemania. That was a fantastic f***ing fight.

And, now for requisite information.

Making the Undertaker work as a Dungeons and Dragons character wouldn’t be too hard. I’m not sure how the template is worked in Pathfinder, but the Undertaker could fall under two undead templates. First, and most likely, he could be a death knight (a grave knight or demonic knight in Pathfinder). I say this is the more likely of the two as the death knight/grave knight is a martial combat template. While the other option would be a lich; I could see some justification for this template through the way the character is portrayed (particularly when they made a big fuss about the Undertaker’s urn), but I’d still lean towards a Death Knight. As for a race…I think I might put him as a half giant or an ogre, something big and powerful, but still carrying plenty of speed (to some extent intelligence, though that would be a bit of a stretch when it comes to the ogre).

And, one more fun little thing.

I am absolutely positive that when the Undertaker is beaten at Wrestlemania it will be revealed that he is a time lord. His regeneration cycle will kick in, and upon completion of that Undertaker 2.0 will finish mopping the floor with whoever his opponent is.

So, now that all that has been said (including the Doctor Who reference) it’s time for me to go and get in bed.

G’nite all.

Ryan

3-10-14

PS: When I was talking about the Undertaker with my wife, earlier today, I told her he was going to be a fighter/barbarian death/grave knight of level 13 or higher. I also implied that they might have to face off with him. Lol.

Dire Cheshire Cat

The Cheshire cat is a wonderful agent of confusion in The Alice in Wonderland stories, and when I say stories I mean all of the ones that’ve been written, and filmed, animated, and played via video game. All those stories are based on the original story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Lewis Carroll is a pen name for the author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Why he wrote under a pen name I don’t know. Although his name is a pain to say. Anyway, we seem to be straying from the topic.

I’ve touched on the Cheshire cat, for a few moments at least. Now, I’ll discuss the dire.

Dire: means extremely serious or urgent, and Dungeons and Dragons takes this word and creates Dire Animals. Take a wolf, for example. It’s a pretty big threat as it stands, but take that wolf and make it the size of a horse… Yeah, now you’ve got a dire situation caused by an animal of unusual size.

And, D&D didn’t stop with just a dire wolf; they went and made a whole slew of animals dire, from bears and boars to dire rats and dire bats. They’ve gone and made the whole damn forest full of squirrels that could send men running and screaming out of the woods. And, that’s not that I’ve seen a dire squirrel in any of the rule books, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there.

Fear the Dire Squirrel.

Anyway, back to the Cheshire cat. The cat according to D&D rules wouldn’t be so much and animal as it would be a magical beast. (Magical Beast is the type of animal that has features that can’t quite be explained by nature, such as an animal that can talk and disappear on command. Just because it’s a magical beast doesn’t mean it can’t be dire. I found a dire template somewhere, I just don’t remember where.

Anyway, to make a dire creature you increase its size. A Cheshire cat is a tiny creature, and I want to make it into a large animal. So, starting at Tiny our Cheshire cat has a strength of 3, moving it up to a small size would increase its strength by 4. So, at a small size Cheshire has a 7 in strength. Then we do it again. Moving Cheshire from small to medium adds another 4 points to str, for a total of 11, but that’s not the end of it. We want our Cheshire cat to be a large creature, and to get from medium to large she gains 8 more points in str, leaving her with a total of 19 points in str. This change also reduces her dexterity.

This makes our Cheshire cat unhappy, and quite ready to rend the flesh off of someone’s face. And, she can do it without ever having to worry about anybody seeing her doing it. Why? Because the Cheshire cat can make good use of the greater invisibility spell, and attack actions don’t cause her to lose her concealment.

And, I’m back to not understanding what my brain is trying to tell me. So, I’m gonna stop this here.

G’nite kids.

Ryan

3-9-14

Pixies-Damien

I really wish I knew how to draw... This looks nothing like Damien.
http://wolverine041269.deviantart.com/

Or to be more accurate I should say Damien, since I’m dedicating this post to my miniature titan of terror.

Damien Trollbringer is the name he gave himself when he decided the run of the mill pixie shit wasn’t for him. Sure, he enjoyed causing chaos, and he enjoyed causing it even more due to his demonic heritage. It was a miracle he even survived his birth. The younger pixies, in spite of the elders’ decision, wanted to destroy him. The elders protected him though, using powerful illusions cast on both the other pixies and on him. Even now, Damien maintains the ability to switch from pleasant looking pixie to his true half demon form.

Now, the chaos he causes is much more of the evil variety. Most of the time he won’t fool with little pranks, believing them to be childish and beneath him, but when he does he’ll set powerful spells, such as a planar gate (opened to a random lower plane) placed directly behind a door. Or he’ll scatter a box of fireball beads along a forest trail, then wait and watch for some poor fool to step on one.

Then there are the rage filled moments where Damien will fly into a village and just start killing. He’ll burn the whole town to the ground in one night. Maybe he’ll take two, and find a way to make the townsfolk kill one another.

Damien does run into problems though. Not goodly aligned player characters or NPCs that want his head. Nope, luck is his problem. That planar gate saw to the end of an evil wizard’s reign. The fireball beads were stepped on by bandits who were attacking a passing caravan. And, the villages he’s burned down and slaughtered everybody in town. Well… One was a cultist cabal and each soul in the town was tarnished by murder and sacrifice to a dark god. The other was a lawless village and haven for the malign.

These are facts that bother him to no end.

Damien has been touched by Locestra, chaotic goddess of luck and chance. This touch twists Damien’s actions. When he tries to cause evil and act as he feels a villain should act, his intentions turn into positive results. This infuriates him to no end and he’s pledged to kill Locestra because of it.

He has had projects that were successful beyond his wildest dreams, as well.

1     Tiny- Tiny is a half-ogre half-giant (uses the half giant race from Expanded Psionics Handbook) that Damien modified. He accelerated Tiny’s growth from infancy to adulthood and poured ever ounce of power possible into making Tine the strongest beast he’d ever seen (uses the paragon addition to his strength and charisma scores) but this caused extremely unsatisfactory results with Tiny’s intellect (Int 3, Wis 8, Cha 4). So, Damien created The Monocle, a semi-artifact that increases Tiny’s intellectual scores by two-thirds the paragon addition (+10 to each). This gives Tiny a true split personality, and the ability to just Hulk out.

           Revenire- Revenire, which means troll in Romanian, is considered the Troll King, and the very reason Damien uses the surname Trollbringer. Revenire is a troll Damien experimented on after Tiny escaped, and instead of focusing on the troll’s strength, he focused on its intellect. A troll knows nothing about combat tactics or military maneuvers, they’re lucky if they can speak. Damien knew a real threat in a troll was a smart troll. So, he reversed what he did with Tiny. He made Revenire brilliant, taught him the intricacies of magic. He taught military tactics to him, and everything he could think of. Damien literally made Revenire the most brilliant mind on the face of the planet. But, Damien didn’t put in a control switch. There was a great battle between the two, Damien versus Revenire, survival versus freedom, and magic was the weapon of choice. The two of them expended their most powerful spells and destroyed the tower Damien had built deep in the swamp. Damien woke up, days after the battle, but when he searched the towers remains he found no evidence of Revenire. He assumed Revenire died in the explosion.

Damien was touched by Locestra, the chaotic goddess of luck and chance, who finds Damien’s actions and the results of them entertaining. So, what’s the likelihood that Damien achieved something truly evil in the creation of Revenire? And, what’s the likelihood of Revenire walking away from that battle? Who knows? Sometimes, a mystery is the best type of chaos.

Ryan

3-8-14