Did you hear that? It's probably the Crabs....

Recently I had the opportunity to play in, you guessed it, a D&D campaign.

Now what's different about this one in particular is as follows;
The game world is a strange mixture of rules from Warhammer, D&D 2.0, D&D 3.5, D&D 4.0 and maybe some GURPS thrown in there too.

Essentially the DM took the best of all the rules and squished them all together and out came the single most enjoyable gaming experience I've ever had.

I played a turnip farmer named Clementine from the small village of Hoardale. The group of us (3 farmers and an apprentice blacksmith) were inadvertently recruited to be part of the local Duke's mercenary company. We went to the training camp and spent 6 hours of real time going through the day to day of being trained as a warrior. What was especially interesting is that unlike any other gaming system, instead of choosing what we want the character to be and assigning points, stats, feats etc. We were given improvements to our character from the DM based on what we did during the game. Which meant that if I wanted my character to grow stronger, I had to roleplay it. It was loads of fun, and I'm looking forward to playing again.

The whole experience has opened my eyes to new possibilities within table top RPG's. Since I've always enjoyed the roleplaying as opposed to power gaming, this system really fits with my style. I hope that in my future endeavors as a DM I can put this system to use.

The most memorable part of the game was a town song created by one of the players in reference to the towns favorite activity (sung to the tune of 'Oh Christmas Tree');

'Oh bashing crabs!
Oh bashing crabs!
It's fun until they bite you!'

"Crabs don't bite..."

Followed by the traditional Hoardale response...

"Shut Up!"

Peace.

So a Rogue, a Cleric and a Fighter walk into a bar...

Greetings all!!

I've been horrible at keeping up with this thing. So apologies for that. It would seem that my life is far too busy to allow me to catalog it O_O

Anyways, so lately I've got the D&D bug. And before you get any strange ideas what I mean is I've been playing it a lot. And when I'm not playing it I'm plotting for it. Or looking up videos about it. And while doing so I found this little gem. If you've ever played D&D I'm sure you'll appreciate the advice in it.

So my characters as of late have been much more colourful. I've been trying to push the limits of my acting skills to make the experience more challenging and more fun.

This first started with a conversation about, wouldn't you know it, D&D with a friend of mine. We talked for a long time about DMing, and then proceeded to talk about the different characters we had played. It was then brought to my attention that most of my characters had the same type of personality. Namely, my personality. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing, however it is a role playing game. And playing yourself constantly does get a bit tedious. I mean, we do that every day, all day. Well most of us do. Except perhaps the crazy ones. Regardless being yourself 24/7 does occaisionally leave something to be desired, hence the creation of the aforementioned roleplaying game.

So I created Jayne, the female human fighter. She was (by other players description) a lecherous, gold digging, man/gypsy hating thug. Did I mention she was also the anti-hero of Canton? Purely coincindental if anyone was wondering.

She was a blast to play and quite the challenge, as normally my characters are problem solvers with decently high intelligence scores. This one just loved to hit things that were in her way. Or that annoyed her. Or were there.

Next I created Honey the Druid. She was a hippie. A bit of a stereotype I know. But believe me, stereotype or not, it is not at all easy to play a character whose every waking moment is spent in dreamland or trying to get into dreamland. She was a lot of fun, though she inadvertantly destroyed an integral part of the plot in the form of a letter. By smoking it.

And most recently I made Magick Raef. (Whose supposed actual name was Faith Roswell). She was a Rogue. A Rogue of blue blood who stole only from those who could afford to be stolen from. That's right I made a noble thief. She was great, Rogue's are incredibly fun to roleplay if they're not the typical thug/ne'erdowell.

So all in all I've had a great time experimenting with different character styles. And it would seem those I play with have had a great time interacting with these characters.

And as far as the Evil Campaign is going... well. When given the opportunity to explore the deepest recesses of your dark desires the most apalling things come out. And funny. There's always funny things in there too. Our players now have the local militia, a community of militant elves and the royal guard after them. All over the course of 24 hours. I'm so proud of them.

So what next? A barbarian who moves at half speed constantly to avoid squishing bugs? That could be interesting... I'm open to ideas so if you've got some post them and I'll let you know how it goes.

Trolls and Goblins and Elves... Oh My!

Greetings!! I would like to introduce you to one of my favourite hobbies. Belegarth.

Belegarth, in short is a fantasy role-playing game. It is also a sport. It is Medieval combat reenactment with foam weaponry fashioned to look similar to real weapons. The world is loosely based in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. If you're interested in learning about the sport more in depth than please go here. For if I were to explain it all here, this would be a novel, not a blog.

In this game I am Lady Lily Volentia, Elven warrior of Thunder Guard. (Thunder Guard is my realm) I was first introduced to the game about 2 years ago. And quite honestly having only heard stories of it up till then I was inclined to think it was silly. That is until I had a weapon in my hands and started playing. It's a truly exhilarating experience running towards your foes, axe in hand (as in my case, I am primarily a two-handed axe user), with no other thought that to decimate the opposing team. The combat part of the sport give you many things, an exercise workout to be rivaled by an gym for one, increased awareness of your surroundings, a sense of team work and above all fair play. A myriad of different types of weapons are available for use, javelins, maces, swords, axes, shield and even bows and arrows. To name just a few.

And that's just the combat part of the game. I recently attended an event in Illinois at Stone House Park called Oktoberfest. There were 1000+ people there all acting out their persona's, wearing garb and some of them decked out to look like different races (myself included). It was a grand time. You meet some really amazing people at these events, there was a group of people that flew all the way from Puerto Rico just to attend! All in all it was fantastic. There are many events during the year including; SnowBall, WolfPack Opener, Spring Wars and Ragnarok. I hope to attend them all this year, though sadly I've already missed SnowBall II due to ride complications. Not being able to drive does have its down sides.

So that's a little bit about the crazy world of Belegarth. It's a great sport, full of great people and great fun. If you haven't been to an event, go to one! It's something you'll remember forever.

Oh and last night we had our second D&D session for the evil campaign. Our players are astounding at the amount of evilness they're able to come up with. Should I be worried?

An Introduction

First off, this is my first Blog. I hope anyone that reads this is not expecting literary genius. This is a place for me to post my random thoughts, hopes, dreams, psychoses, well you get the idea. I've been wanting to start one for a while... so here goes.

This is posted in my Facebook profile. But I thought I would like it to be here as well, just so everyone has an idea of what to expect from me.

I'm Magical.

I'm a nerd and damned proud of it. I love my family and friends fiercely, they are amazing and have helped and supported me more than I can ever repay. I love life, I live for the many wonderful adventures that life can bring. I sing pretty well all the time, I love music, and I have been known to break into song and even dance on random occasions. I am opinionated, not about politics or anything nonsensical like that. The really important stuff, like the best way to make chocolate chip cookies. Just kidding, I also have a strange sense of humour, I love to laugh and smile, usually not AT people. I hate monotony, mean people and drama. If you fill any of those categories, don't bother with me. I'm a pretty easy going person, but most definitely not the door mat type, so don't even try. I like what I like, if you like that too well then great! If not, don't try to change me, I like who and what I am, and I'll be damned if I'm going to be untrue to myself. I enjoy anything fun, and hate anything boring... a pretty simple concept but one people tend to forget. Oh, and I'm a smoker, and I enjoy it, so if you don't that's fine, but I don't want to hear about it. No bigger turn off than being told how unhealthy you are... really people, don't you think I'd call you doctor something or other if I wanted your advice on my health? And if all this doesn't scare you off, then we may perhaps be friends =D

So that's me. Well in a nutshell anyhow. I write this after waking up from a well deserved 14 hour sleep. In preparation for session of D&D I pulled an all nighter cleaning and decorating my apartment. It looks damned pretty now. Well I think so, but then I suppose I'm biased seeing as I have to live in it. And I feel very accomplished, it's one more thing I can scratch off the seemingly endless 'To Do' list I've created for myself. Among those things are; learning the Japanese Tea Ceremony, creating a House, working on a database, working on my army, making garb, re-learning the piano, and re-reading the LOTR trilogy. /sigh I could literally go on for hours. But I'm not gonna!

Last night's D&D session was great. Well, it had a few technical difficulties. One of our players lives not in this city, so we had him on a Skype video call, as it turns out, my apartment needs more light. Though it did work out. Oh and second rule of fixing computers, always wiggle the cables. My friend and I are co-DMing the campaign. First time either of us have tried that. It worked well. Thankfully we both have pretty much the same vision for the campaign, so there was only one minor power struggle =P Ok not so much a struggle, it went like this;

player: so where's Mailea's room? (Mailea is my NPC)
Dungeon Monster: She hasn't picked one yet
Dungeon Mistress (me): Yes she has! She's in room 3!
Dungeon Monster: No she hasn't
Dungeon Mistress: Yes she has, are you arguing with the DM?
Dungeon Monster: I am the DM! oh, wait, ya you're right...
player: ooooooh first power struggle!!

Ya, so that was the extent of our arguing. It was entertaining. Or at least I thought so. We get along great, so it was much fun. Lots of laughs and spirits were high. We're running an evil campaign. So it's really interesting the depths to which our players will go to fulfill their evil heritage. They're pretty creative actually. But more on that as it progresses.

At some point today I will have in my hot little hands... yes that's right... WoTLK!!!! Huzzah! I'm so excited! (For those of you who have no idea what that means, it's the newest expansion for World of Warcraft; Wrath of the Lich King.) Level 80 baby! So no one's going to see me for a while. Or like, ever. Or until I get bored of it. Don't judge me, I told you I was a nerd. A Big Nerd.

Alright, I think I'm done, if I don't stop soon this will dissolve into mindless babbling, which although amusing does not paint an accurate picture of the sorts of things I usually talk about.

Seriously.