Torn Up Character Sheet

I get really into the characters that I create and the longer I've played them the more I let myself sink into the story. This is a post about the Irraka from my World of Darkness: Forsaken pack, the one that was taken.

We went searching for him but not before I made those that work go to work since they had been neglecting to do so. Delilah went off to a meeting at a gallery who had been interested in her paintings. She was given a run around and left frustrated. Were they buying her paintings or were they just displaying them until they sold? When she got home she had no idea where to start, the two who did not work (Jayden and Mickey) were off looking for Cote and I didn't know where they were. Leila, her twin had arrived home at the same time after the courthouse had been closed due to a bomb threat (Mickey's anonymous phone call). That was when the howl was heard, it was a nervous excited howl that he had been found buy help was needed. I heard the answering howl of my beta, Jayden that he was on his way and I shifted into wolf form and sprinted in the direction of Mickey's howl with Leila following suite.

There was another howl for anyone to help and I answered this time, telling them that I was on my way. When we arrived Jayden was digging, avoiding swinging branches of a tree. He informed me that Cote was down in the hole with Mickey who was trying to pull him out. Leila and Jayden took to grabbing a large root and managed to pull it back. I shifted into near human form and started to help Mickey pull Cote out. It took awhile and we finally did. It was terrible what Dark Reaches did to him and I immediately jumped into tending the wounds. Mickey ran off to hunt rabbits for Cote to eat. As I tended to him I realized that if Cote was going to get out of this, he was going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life. Then I finally understood what he had been trying to say through his pain. "End it."

My heart sank, Delilah started crying, I started crying for real. Delilah said that there was no other choice and that I was going to do what Cote asked. She said that Mickey cannot be here when this happens to protect him. Jayden went off to stop him from coming back until Delilah said it was okay. Cote smiled at me, "Challenge." She couldn't bring herself to do it, she didn't have the will power to do this. Leila stepped up, she could bring herself to do it. "1 Rule," he said. "Rabbit is awesome," Delilah sobbed as he closed his eyes and relaxed so that it would be quick. The "rule" of the pack had been in place since Cote, who was going by the name of Rabbit then, saved Delilah's life two times in one night. Leila killed him, Delilah started hugging him and crying as Jayden and Mickey came back.

Mickey saw the blood on Leila's hands, saw Delilah broken down. He shifted into full form and destroyed the tree that had helped Dark Reaches hide Cote. We all carried him home and laid him to rest there. "Number 1 Rule," Delilah reminded the pack as she sprinkled dirt over the body.

When we had finished Mickey ran inside and started turning all the lights on as it had grown quite dark. Then we saw headlights pull up and two people get out. Jayden moved to stand between the grave and the car, Delilah walked towards the car. We knew they were werewolves too, we could sense it. "What are you doing here?" Delilah demanded. They didn't answer the question, instead the old man asked what we had been doing. Mickey came out with his rifle telling them to get off of this land. The old man stood up straight and became intimidating, Delilah ordered Mickey to stand down and he did as he was told. "Again, why are you on our land?" Delilah asked.

"What are you guilty about?" the old man asked and that sparked anger in Delilah.

"This is not a good time for you guys to be here," she stated, eyes narrowing.

"Why?"

"We lost a pack mate tonight," Jayden told them. The old man turned to Mickey and put his hands on his shoulders.

"You're going to get the one who did this and you're going to make him pay, that's what you're going to do," the old man told him. Then we noticed it got unnaturally dark, Dark Reaches was coming. We were not in any shape to be facing him. Cote's death probably fed him so he would probably be stronger.

"If you want to be safe you will get in the trailer," Mickey said before turning and walking away. We followed inside and they did as well. Night had come and we had reached the end of game time so we called it a night. There was the tearing of Cote's character sheet that night upon his death, the player tears up the sheets instead of keeps them. I however am the type of person to keep mine for sentimental value.

Delilah has proven to be quite the medic, this is the second time she has had to make rolls tending to another's wounds and has done phenomenally. I think the dice are trying to tell me something, maybe Delilah should start training to be an EMT... she has the smarts for it, she just needs to medicine to back it up.

D20 Flower Hair Clip

I try to craft as often as I can. Doing something crafty gives me something creative to do, it gives me something that I can focus on for a little while and I have a finished product by the end of it. Totally beats surfing the Internet. So this past week has been D20 Flower Hair Clips. I came across the project and knew I wanted to create one.

The one on the left was my first run though. Armored Gopher Games was out of D20s so I had to pull some out of my bag. I settled on my blue with white numbering one. For the second one, which was a request from a friend of mine she wanted a red D20, but the moment she saw my black D20 with red lettering she said she had to have that one. So I made a black and red flower to go with it. By second run through was by far superior to my first. I can't wait until the Gopher gets more D20s in so I can make more of these hair clips.

Here is a the walk through I used to get these flowers completed from Swords & Stitchery on Youtube. For the 2 color flower, I added another layer of petals, stepping those squares down to 3/4".

Happy Crafting!

Growing as an Alpha

Saturday night was World of Darkness and I should have realized it was going to be one of those sessions when the first thing that happens is that Delilah gets challenged. After stress, trying to come up with something to do, and finally saying that now is not the time for this Cote, my Irraka drops out.

What he wanted was for Delilah to show control, say something and mean it, and show her dominance. This was a lesson that Delilah needed. After this Delilah and Cote got together and restructured the pack. While before we had stuck with the typical hierarchy of Delilah (alpha), Leila (beta), then down the list to Turtle (omega). The new structuring breaks the pack into groups that will eventually become natural.

First, there's the pack, everyone. When I say something it gets done. Then we can break into two groups with the two Cahaliths (Delilah and Turtle), a Rahu (Jimmy) and our Itheur (our newest addition Mickey). Delilah is the brains, Jimmy the muscle, and Mickey our stealthy. The second group would be our Elodoth (Leila, Delilah's twin sister and former beta), our second Rahu (Jayden my new beta), our Irraka (Cote), and our "short-hair-werewolf-in-training-who-is-really-a-mage" (Delta). This group has 2 brainy members Delta and Leila and 2 who can handle themselves in combat Jayden and Cote. From there the groups can be broken off into twos. Delilah and Turtle will stick together, we are the Cahaliths we need to know each other better and discuss our dreams and the muscle is covered with Turtle. Jimmy and Mickey are together and they can work on their own easily and move from group to group based on need. Leila and Jayden covering sneaky and brains. Finally Delta and Cote who also can break apart and work alone or go to a different group based on need.

The move to make Jayden my beta was well thought out. I had made my negative opinion of Jayden known but after hearing Cote out and giving him another chance I had started to warm up to him. Making him my beta would not only strengthen that relationship that was budding and offer an opposing view point when plans were being made but it would also give the rest of the pack the chance to give him another look. He had been not accepted by a good number of the pack and I take responsibility for fueling that fire.

With that in place it was decided that we had to take care of a ridden who was in our new territory, Dark Reaches. He had murdered Mickey's parents and been hunting Mickey ever since. It was suggested to us that Dark Reaches who is a death spirit would need an area of death to feed it most likely in our own territory. We began the hunt but we spotted a spirit, a hawk. It told us that this was not our land and that it had a message for us to leave. We sent a message back that this was our land, then proceeded to declare it with that oh so special rite that would make this land recognized by the spirits and other werewolves that this was our land and any werewolf that contested were to meet us and fight for it. 4 howls were the answer and we knew we had to deal with 4 Pure packs.

We waited, most of the pack went into hiding, Jayden and Delilah stayed out in the open. We heard then surround us.

Then the alpha of the alphas arrived in his Lincoln. He got out of the back seat and offered a deal. I realized that we were seriously out numbered, we suspected 19 werewolves surrounding us, their totems, and the spirits that Edmund had doing his bidding and agreed to a private talk with him.

I got in the car and while I was nervous, I sat tall with my head up. I was offered the choice of accept his deal or my pack would not leave these woods alive. We had to kill his omega pack, make it so Dark Reaches never came back, and later down the road Delilah had to do him a personal favor. My pack was in jeopardy... I accepted.

We got out of the car, he got out whistled then climbed back in and drove off. The other werewolves around us began to leave, leaving 3 behind and the fight began. One fell and I heard, don't kill them and I gave the order that we had to end this. My orders were followed as I fought alongside my pack. We killed the three with darkness growing thicker and thicker around us... then Dark Reaches began to attack. Mickey panicked and ran for the only source of light there was out there, the light at the barn. Turtle was hit first. Thrown through trees and I began to run in his direction following his smell. He was thrown into the barn and Mickey latched on to him. I heard Turtle get hit again and I continued running, desperate to help him. Delilah was hit next. A slash across the chest before being thrown into the barn too. Cote was the next one to be attacked. He was already suffering severe wounds from the omega pack and being thrown into the trailer that we were living in caused him to black out. Turtle told me he was down and we rushed towards him only to find that Dark Reaches had dragged him away.

Cote is gone. Dark Reaches is nowhere to be seen. We don't know what is going to happen now or even if we can find Cote.

Meet Horimono

So last night was game 2 of one of my friend's Marvel Heroic RPG. I spent the day before game putting the finishing touches on Horimono my super thief/super hero. (She's a bit of a klepto).

She is a shape-shifting mutant who found a horimono katana. She had to leave it behind, having almost been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She remembered the design, it was the reason she wanted the blade. She had it tattooed onto her person and then weird stuff started to happen. It didn't take her long to realize that it was dark magic, from the beautifully named oni (demon). The only thing she knew about it was the name and that it was a hannya, her Japanese background told her that much. She buried herself in books of the occult trying to find answers to who this hannya was and how she could increase these powers. "The more powerful you are the more stuff you can take, y'know?" Here's what she looks like:

The snow white hair doesn't make it easy to blend in to the shadows, but she is all about flash. She does things with style and she likes shiny things. (One of her distinctions is Ooo Shiny). While she is better at working alone, she loves the team play. She gets an audience and potential tools to get her what she wants, purely selfish reasons. This is a character that I did a complete 180 from my World of Darkness Werewolf, Delilah, so it's a little jarring. I haven't quite figured out the game system either so I'm hoping once I get that down I can submerge myself into the character. Hopefully I can start coming up with more creative things instead of listening to the other players. I do have to admit, I was more comfortable with my Hunter character which required a lot of detective work, but that could also be because the World of Darkness system is easier than Marvel Heroic RPG, which is more story-based. You define your powers then you have to explain how you do it. I'm not much of a combat thinker, I've learned that from playing Delilah.

I don't know, I felt like I was holding the rest of the team back with my uncertainty. I haven't heard any complaints but that could just be people being nice. I think some more work on Horimono needs to be done before I can jump into this character's personality by next game. Maybe some short stories are in order, that is highly likely now that classes are over and I can start using my free time for game prep and fun stuff.

Goddess of Spring

So not long ago I finished book 2 of P.C. Cast's Goddess series, "Goddess of Spring." The book is about a baker who finds a cookbook and with it calls upon Demeter who in order to save the bakery switches her with her daughter Persephone, Goddess of Spring. Lina, in Persephone's body makes the journey to Hades to complete her part of the deal and unwittingly falls for the Lord of the Underworld.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a sucker for stories involving Hades and I'm a girl who likes smut on occasion. Of course when Hades is compared to Batman, I was hooked. So I devoured the book and moved on, but I still find my mind going back to it on occasion, such as tonight. I couldn't very well make a 11pm run to the library seeing as it's closed, so I opted to have a night of girly fun (especially after the hard day I've had today). Soak in the bath, pjs, and finally painting of the fingernails. I came up with something that was inspired by Hades and Persephone.

I chose to put gold coins on my pinky (Hades is the god of wealth and fortune), a flower on my ring finger, the Lapis Lazuli precious stone on the middle finger, a white flower a quick version of the Narcissus flower mentioned in the book on the ring finger, and finally on the thumb the Amethyst precious stone. I chose the stones because in the book Hades was fond of precious stones and used them in his palace.

So that was my night. I don't pretend to be good at painting my nails but I enjoy doing it on occasion and having nail designs inspired by books is never a bad thing.

Role-Play Games According to Caillous?

So I have been working on a paper for some time on table-top rpgs and it was suggested by the professor that I pick up and use Roger Caillous' "Man, Play, and Games." I am reading through it and I have reached a bit of a pickle.

Caillous divides games into 4 categories: Agon, Alea, Mimicry, and Ilinx and he goes on to explain what they mean.

Agon is always a question of rivalry which hinges on a single quality such as speed, endurance, strength, memory, skill, ingenuity, and so on. This is exercised within defined limits and without outside assistance. There is a winner and a loser in which the winner is better than the loser (go figure). These types of games can be found in sports and board games such as checkers or chess, and can also be found in acts of courtly war such as a duel or tournament (yay jousting!). These presuppose sustained attention, appropriate training, assiduous application, and of course a desire to win.

Alea is a latin word for a game of dice. This is up to chance. This negates work, patience, experience, and qualifications. You either have total disgrace or absolute favor. Some games combine both agon and alea such as dominoes, backgammon, or cards.

Next is Mimicry in which you become an illusory character yourself. You make believe or make others believe that you are someone other than yourself. But then he goes on to say that this has hardly any relationship to alea and that a competitive mimicry is born in the public at a sporting even or such (agon).

Finally, is Ilinx, and it is based on the pursuit of vertigo and consists of an attempt to momentarily destroy the stability of perception and inflicts a kind of voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind. This can be found with rollercoasters and the like.

Now obviously ilinx has nothing to do with table-top role-playing games, but I believe that the other three do. You are pretending to be another person, a character of your own or someone's creation, it is agon in that you compete with others (a lot of the time non-player characters) using the skills of your character on your character sheet. The results of those actions are alea in that it is up to the rolling of dice.

There I think I've got that figured out for the paper, but I keep second guessing myself on this based on one thing Caillous said. "Mimicry has hardly any relationship to alea." Does mimicry play a part in the classification of role-playing games?

The book was first published in 1913, so there was no way that he could have known about role-playing games seeing as it wasn't until 61 years later that Dungeons and Dragons first came out. Lord of the Rings, arguably the inspiration for Dungeons and Dragons hadn't even been thought of, let alone the Hobbit. So it is dated, yet it is still highly regarded within the community of those who study games.

Many things have happened since 1913, many reprints of this book moving from publisher to publisher. While many things that I have read in this book hold true today, there is one small hiccup when it comes to role-playing games. It isn't the first time these games have been looked over by sociologists and anthropologists alike, most of the studies I have been able to find on the topic skip over the table and go straight for the computer. I have found many World of Warcraft studies, a few on role-playing games that I have had to adapt to work with my paper, and very few on the table games. I knew this paper was going to be a challenge, but I wasn't expecting it quite like this.

Books, Books, Books

Went to a comic book convention today. Spent 2 hours going through books, and left with 75 books when I hit my budget limit for comics. I picked up some Dragonball Z (which I want to send to my brother), Ranma 1/2, X-Men, Star Wars, and a lot of Catwoman. I have been on the hunt for old Catwoman books, not only to collect, but I would like to use some to make comic book heels.

I then went to the game store and picked up the Marvel RPG game book so that I can finish building my super hero/super villain (she does what she wants). I have already decided to make her a Crime Master, this will help her know the ins and outs of the crime world. We should finally get to play this Wednesday, I am so excited.

I then wandered down to my favorite used book store where I decided I needed more cook books. I found The Absolute Beginner's Cookbook, and Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola. I can't wait to start cooking, maybe I'll blog about that as I do it. When I told my boyfriend about the cookbooks his question was "Comic book cookbooks?" That prompted me to go on a hunt on amazon and sure enough I found one and ordered that and multiple books from my wishlist. It truly was a day for books and it was glorious.

So I bought more books, but my bookshelves are not ready for now books. I'm still in the process of cleaning and organizing my room. So I decided it was time to tackle my bookshelves. I gathered up all of my books that were not shelved and shelved them (by author for the fiction books, the non-fiction still needs work). Then it was time to tackle the taller shelf. I pulled books out and stacked and went through them. I pulled a huge stack that weren't even mine but my dad's, so that promptly left my room. By the end of it I had narrowed 3 shelves of books down to two, leaving me with a new shelf for my gaming stuff. I used the top shelf for my rpg books and cookbooks, and the second shelf for my board games, the bottom two shelves were my non-fiction books. I don't plan on leaving the book shelf there when I start moving furniture, but it works for now.