Necessity is the mother...

 ... of invention. Right?

I've long thought of it as the mother of creativity. Sometimes, at least.

I'm all about creativity. To me there's no other point to life or to being human. But being creative doesn't mean that your imagination produces things out of nowhere. A mind does not just come up with random material. It thinks up things for reasons whether you can follow the causality or not.

Many times I know I need to add elements to a story but my mind is blank. What to add? Nothing occurs to me. But there's a very useful engine for creative imagining and its when there is a problem to solve.

I needed to work on a novel a decade or so ago and did not have a concept in the bag. I did have many short story ideas clamouring for attention though. So I picked three compelling ones; three simple premises I had previously come up with and listed them on the page. Three ideas. And then I said "How to bring these together into one novel?" I logically worked at the problem and what was born was probably my most excellent novel outline I have ever managed: The Transneptunians was the working title. That word, by the way, refers to any astronomical member of this star system which exists beyond the orbit of Neptune. 

I have never finished the first draft because it is still lacking a thing or two. It was about the lives and relationships of a father and daughter who never knew each other beyond the girl's toddlerhood. Every other chapter revealed the father's life from his own childhood until the defining life-changing event in his prime adulthood. And every other chapter revealed his life in reverse, from death, backwards in time, as learned by the daughter who researched his life by seeking those who knew him, as she was compelled to understand what appeared to be a tragic life after learning her biological father had died. At the end of the book the two timelines meet and the truth is revealed. The title comes from a cosmic idea concerning the process of his death, but also concerns the relationship; father and daughter whose lives revolve around each other without them meeting, like Pluto and Charon, once considered planet and moon, which revolve around each other without ever touching.

The first youth writing club I facilitated in my school volunteer days; they wanted to co-write a novel; the most ambitious option I presented to them. I had them each create their own character and their own simple story about their own character, so they could each be writing separately at home on their own early chapters of the book. My promise to them was that once we had each character on the move; their problems and pursuits rolling along, we would then figure out how to bring them all together; how to get every character into the same space in a situation; an event; that would bring about their defining moments; the climax of the novel.

Two problems: 1. They were not working fast enough as the school year swiftly ran dry. And 2. They didn't trust my promise that their seemingly unrelated stories could possible come together. And this eroded their enthusiasm without my knowledge. By the time I realized what was going on it was getting too late. I knew with certainty that we would have been able to bring it all together. And the seemingly unbridgeable distance we'd have needed to close; the apparent stretch of it, was exactly the reason I knew it could be done and be excellent. The great necessity would have been the mother of great creativity. It's too bad perhaps, that I was not more determined and didn't push harder, and didn't find a way to show them and convince them.

As I work daily on getting my new business to the launch state, I will be leaning heavily on the concept. Have I mentioned I'm going into the Dungeons & Dragons hosting business? There is a boom in D&D playing and a shortage of dungeon masters which has spawned a nascent industry: DMing for cash. I'm working on a whole new set of rulebooks; a best-practices formula which considers all previous versions of D&D resources and my own innovations; a very considerable collection of improvements. My goals are big and doable: the ultimate D&D experiences for my clients. Fun, challenging, compelling. Campaigns that are fully immersive; not glorified obstacle courses. Not a formula for player characters to fit into my story, but a fully prepared 360-degree world with possible adventures, resources, allies, opportunities and clues in every direction, where players determine their own objectives and are the prime movers in an evolving story which I discover at the same time they do. It demands a ton of preparation but I am very well-positioned for that. I've been collecting ideas and story concepts and creative elements for a long time. I have over 4000 names in my personal fantasy-themed name collection for instance.

Now, anyone could make the same claim by simply subscribing to an online resource. But it's not the same. Mine are all gold. Mine were all created or acquired within the context of my worlds. They all work. They all will resonate and not seem random. This is one example of a great many that are going to make my product fucking kick-ass.

And whatever gaps in my resources come to apparency through this evolving process: they will be created marvelously... out of necessity.

Back to work... 

Levelling up

 Here's a neat tool I've been using for a couple months, rarely missing a day: lvluplife.com

At first glance it's a cute way to turn life into a Dungeons & Dragons styled role-playing game and a motivation tool with regards to your goals, whether it's getting out of bed in the morning, acquiring your MBA degree or everything in between. But you'll see it's more than that.

A selection of fairly simple goals are available, sorted into categories such as Creativity, Social, Health etcetera, and each goal has an experience point (XP) value plus one or more ability points in one or more of the six categories above. You'll find three of those ability categories familiar but with Culture, Environment and Talent in place of Wisdom, Dexterity and Constitution. With each level increase, more goals are unlocked and at increasingly higher values.

But you can create custom goals any time, at a maximum value commensurate to your level at the time. 

Collecting XP moves you up levels. But your ability scores are not really numerical and move on a floating scale. Your most-exercised ability is automatically 100% and the rest are at the appropriate ratio. So volume of achievements moves you up levels but only life balance improves your ability meters, which is very wise!

Balance is also encouraged as follows: The higher the goal's point value, the less frequent it can earn points. The minimum goals are each once per day. Some of mine now are once per week. This stops you from loading up on "Play Grand Theft Auto for one hour" and scoring it eight times a day!

So it serves as a daily planner. You can mark which goals are "current" (intended) and filter on those as a to-do list. Any goals that are not point-scorable are greyed out. So the goals available for points are the goals that are "due."

It's so much more useful than it looks at first glance.

a·crop·o·lis /əˈkräpələs/

The Acropolises were the fortified heights of Greek cities way way back before Yahweh came barging in and did away with all the cool gods who are now reduced to Marvel action movie heroes and such. How degrading, right?

A handful of years back, some plot-building exercise led me to create a fantasy world scenario for fun, where a fortified city of great import (like today's Vatican but relating to the chief Norse gods) faced a dire circumstance. Religious artifacts had been stolen by a great witch from another plane of existence in a plot to expose the city to destruction from its neighboring volcano, from which they were, til then, protected by said Norse gods, but to then concoct a scenario where a new-in-town temple saves the day and purports to expose the historical rulers as corrupt and evil. The new temple was controlled by the witch who presented herself as a god.

But how to make the good guys win? Where do the heroes come from?

I told the late Liberal Theologian about it (my then-housemate) and we agreed at once to recruit a crew and run the thing as a Dungeons and Dragons adventure. The players were an acolyte and kennel master of a good guy temple where the head priest was kidnapped, a young dwarf who's engineer father had disappeared while contracted to head a major renovation to the (ultimately evil) temple of the witch, and a Frost woman who's brother disappeared when caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. In her search for her brother she got herself unfairly pegged as a suspect by the citadel master of the guard and had to be rescued, in effect, by the others.

They won the support of the Gjall; the great leader of the citadel (like a pope) who had been brought visions of the young would-be heroes by the Norns (divine Norse messengers who do such things - kind of like the three ghosts in Dickens' Christmas Carol).

Together they discovered that the Frost brother had been killed unfortunately but they raided the evil temple and rescued the Dwarven father who'd been set aside as eventual monster food because he knew too much, and they found their way through a tower portal network to a gateway world (literally an upside down world - and this was well before Stranger Things!) where they confronted and killed the witch monster without having to go all the way to her own plane. There they also discovered the Frost Brother in living form and there the Gjall, now murdered but returned in Revnant form, was able to help them all understand that he was in a kind of purgatory and could never return to his material plane but would be going to the Nirvana; the paradise, of his own kind and soon. And one day brother and sister (and all their kin) would be reunited there.

In the process they saved the Ruling counsel of the holy citadel by stopping the witch from ascending to the Gjall position in the false form of the successor which she had covertly executed.

The adventure was a great success and I started writing the novel according to our shared blueprint.

In Part Two they would go after the remaining artifacts in a race against time to shut down the volcano. But my housemate had become sick with cancer at this time and it did not feel like any kind of priority to any of us.

The Liberal Theologian then passed away and I stopped writing the book and haven't touched it since. Her D&D character was in essence the central character of the book, and there was a lot of herself in there, and everything feels different now. Maybe one day I'll pick it up again. Who knows.  

Jobvious

JOBVIOUS: This is where you need income but can't figure out what to do and then it turns out that your favourite hobby has become a marketable talent and people are trying to hire folks with your experience and having trouble finding available providers but somehow you don't know what you should do.

Case in point: I love to Dungeon Master D&D games and consider myself pretty advanced at it. Almost unbelievingly, it turns out that while the participation rates of D&D players is growing the number of willing DM's is not keeping up, and yes, people are paying well for DM service! And yet I feel reluctant to look into this as an income opportunity. Why not, you ask? I don't even know.

Question J: What JUNK food item could you eat every day?

Easy: a large Dairy Queen blizzard: the cookie dough variety with add-on Reeces PB cups. I've never ordered any other kind for twenty-five years and I remember being tickled to see Jack Nicholson's character order the exact same concoction in the quirky entertaining film About Schmidt, where one of his other special treats was getting to see Kathy Bates stark naked!

A Fool's Gold

When I was a kid a found tennis ball was gold. It meant insurance. It meant we'd be able to play more sacred street hockey once the current ball got lost or fell apart. Yes they fell apart after awhile. Quicker if it was a newish ball when we'd obtained it and were forced to puncture it in order to tame it a little. Too much bounce was not good for a hockey ball.

But as we grew our boundaries grew and we enveloped a couple new kids who were serious tennis players and then we had all the balls we wanted and then we hit high school and grew deeper pockets and bought proper hockey balls.

A song you loved was gold. You'd wait a week before managing to catch the song on the radio when you were ready with a blank cassette tape to record a crackly version, the intro missing or dulled under a DJ's chant. These days kids grab any song they want, I guess, from the internet.

A James Bond movie was gold to a young kid. And once or twice a year City TV would host a James Bond festival. Two or three a night for a whole week! It was paradise. These days kids grab any movie they want, I suppose, from the internet. I don't know what they do for gold.

Once every couple months I would manage to scrape together eight or ten bucks plus bus fare and journey to the mall.  I might get a vinyl single or an album or, right across from the A&A was the hobby store, Leisure World. And there they had the Dungeons & Dragons campaign modules; at least a dozen to choose from at any given time. I would peruse each one at great length, just the front and back covers through the clear plastic wrappers. The art work; the synopses; titles like The Curse of Xanathon or The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh!

I collected about a dozen of these over the course of my entire childhood and adolescence. As the Dungeon Master I'd study these adventures carefully and then creatively insert them into the ongoing campaign which my friends; the players always enjoyed.

In the last three days I acquired... two hundred and forty more of these modules... and counting. All the classic modules from the eighties are now available on the internet, downloadable for free.

It's raining gold. An embarrassment of riches. I don't know what I will possibly do with them all but knowing they were out there and for free... I couldn't possibly not have them.

Gold

Help Helen Naslund, victim of abuse... and the justice system.

Christmas gifts for my Minecraft friends

The Planets Minerva: Episode 3: The Walled Town of Sealedge

The ranger Catherine and her Half-orc companions Armigus and Gu’ro’Baen have left the encampment of the brothers and sisters of Osiris, gratefully equipped by them with water skins, a few coins, clothing, footwear and such; and with belts which, in the absence of sheathes or scabbards, managed to contain their bared compact swords, though awkwardly, and at least allowed their hands free. They have followed a well-beaten track through the strange hot savannah, their hoods a shelter from the large red sun.

At the tall brown stone wall of the town of Sealedge the windowless gates stand closed. Before it some merchant and his guards and horses wait patiently with their loaded covered cart as town guards patrol high above. The merchant assures the party that these outer gates will open soon while the inner gates close instead, and that this will leave the outer ring quarters of Sealedge at their disposal.

“And what sort of little hate-goblin is this?” asks Catherine, gesturing toward the tall grass where a mousey, almost doggish face glares at them. She slowly approaches the short creature who scurries backward and upright away from the ranger.

When the sturdy gates groan and swing ponderously outward, the merchant shows papers to the guards within; there are many of them in sight, all garbed in charcoal-coloured capes and red helmets, and the merchant and his men are waved on. The party, with no papers, are redirected toward one of the four large buildings which abut the inner and outer walls on either side of each gate, leaving a single well-trod road bisecting the dense outer “ring” community.

There are banners posted on their left and right hand sides of this intersection; one with a westward arrow hailing the Horse’s Ass Ale House and the other plugging the Thirsty Bastard Ale House to the east. The former bears a crude drawing of a horse looking back over his shoulder while the latter depicts a gentle-eyed bearded man staring placidly at the viewer. Catherine is startled at the image. Her hand goes to the hilt of her sword where the saint’s name is inscribed. “Look familiar?” she says. The others follow her gaze.

“It’s the same image Brother Leotho showed us,” says Gu’ro’Baen.”

“Saint Montreal,” says Armigus. Saint of the abandoned, they each recall. “We must pay this place a visit.”

“Guard,” says Catherine, “I must report a matter of possible concern.”

“Go on.” She tells him of the presence of a little ‘hate goblin’ hiding in the grass outside the gate. The guard thanks her and vows to have this investigated.

They are then ushered through a door below a sign reading Intake wherein guards relieve them of their weapons with the promise of their return before leaving Outer Sealedge, whether inward or outward as their fate yet avails.

Guro, as his orcish friend calls him, is separated from the others and interviewed well along the narrow room, within their sight but out of earshot.

The interrogator demands his name and those of his companions. Guro complies and that much goes well. “And where have you come from?”

“From the encampment down the road. We were guests of the pilgrims of Osiris.”

“Since when? Did you enter the Verge with them?”

“No.”

“Where is home then? Not Orikland.”

“No.”

“You are part Orik though.”

“I… yes.”

“From where originally?”

“We’re… wanderers currently.”

“Perchance you were born somewhere?” The man seemed irked.

“Of course. The city of Renown.”

The guard shook his head. “I’ve not heard of this city before. To what land does it belong?”

“It’s a long way from here.”

“Clearly. But what land please?”

“I know not how to answer that. It’s an independent city, with it’s own rulers and army.”

The guard stares at him unpleasantly. “How can you not know in which land it lies?

“It is it’s own land.”

“Are you enfeebled then? Or a lunatic?”

“No sir!”

Eventually the guard loses patience and Guro is taken and detained while Armigus and Catherine are each interviewed. They respond cleverly with geographical references gleaned from the clerics and are permitted access to outer Sealedge for the time being, but with the burden of sponsoring the suspicious Gu’ro’Baen and unburdened of their weapons. They are each assigned permanent unique visitor numbers which index their entry records. They are told when to return to this barracks where they might be approved for entry or else bedded for the night.

“Have you ever seen such a tight-guarded town?” says Armigus upon their release. “What are they so protective of, I wonder.”

“Unspoiled water?” says Catherine. ‘It is rare apparently, in this land at least.” They are outside staring again at the Thirsty Bastard Ale House banner.

“Saint Montreal,” says Guro, echoing the others’ thoughts.

“Whoever left those swords for us...” Catherine muses.

“Do they mean to direct us there?” says Armigus, “Where they perchance await?”

“Let’s find out,” says Guro.

“And hope they’re friendly,” says Catherine. “We’ve no weapons now.”

“Something tells me that guards will be present,” says Guro as he looks around.”

“They do seem everywhere,” says Armigus.

“I suspect we’re being observed,” says Guro. “Tested as it were.”

Hmmm. I’m a little concerned about this exercise. It was meant to serve as a concise record of game play but it has taken a turn for the prosaic. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Perhaps it is a symptom of the stage of the story. It is still very much in introduction mode and a lot of subtleties are significant. Perhaps as this world gains familiarity the narration will gain some speed and concision.   

The Planets Minerva: Episode 2: The Encampment

The ranger Catherine has introduced herself to the two half-orcs and found out that they are all from the city of Renown though they do not recall her face nor she theirs. They stand on a well-travelled track overlooking the great drop to the sea as the red sun inches higher, revealing itself to be a larger sun than they are accustomed to (or one they are closer to?) That it is rising instead of falling reveals that what they thought was dusk is instead dawn and the direction they had just pegged as East has become West, and North has become South. Are they in another part of the world? Or a different world altogether?

They stand barefoot, adorned in nothing but robes, each holding a compact sword in a heat they would normally associate with an unusually hot summer afternoon.

Eyeing the raised stronghold in the distance they realize there is perhaps some festival taking place as a gathering of bright green tents partly surround the base of the rocky hill.

They all agree they are in much need of help and the orcish pair outvote the ranger and so they head for the festival and not the walled town. En route they realize suddenly that a large tusked and trunked beast is standing still off beside the road, staring at them. Its wrinkled hide is a brownish grey much like their robes. One mentions the word elephant and the others agree that this is the name for the animal although none of them can recall ever seeing one before nor where they would have learned the word from. The beast blasts a trumpeting noise at them which the party cautiously ignores and they move on.

The green tents, they now find, are each adorned with a dog’s head icon in a slightly darker green shade. And the environment here is not busy or festive. The only sign of life are horses who wander in and out of the shelter of tent coverings devoid of side panels. From one of the more complete tents a man emerges in multi-green robe with white trim.

He is Brother Kurgan and he introduces himself and then his associates Brother Cornelius, Sister Rhianna and Brother Leotho. These are the leaders of a pilgrimage to their holy land which is still three thousand “wheels” away. They come to figure out that a wheel is roughly the same as a mile. Brother Leotho seems to be the high priest and is very impressed with the threesome of visitors commitment to their own pilgrimage as they bear nothing but a robe and sword.

He invites the party to breakfast with them where they explain that their trek began in Doxtoria and Flaurus before meeting up with Saripho and Zofo delegates respectively. They then moved on to Bakavat, then Gandolin where the Ivernese, Isylls and Islandians joined in and where Brother Leotho began his turn at the helm.

They are camped at this monastic temple of Osiris for several days garnering support (and numbers) from their hosts: food, supplies and support in terms of maintenance and health. Afterward they will proceed east through (or around, as per scouting and acquired advice) the villages of Libja, Cricketsong and Foxtangle, then a night or two in the city of Two Lions, then onward to White CIty and then through the remote reaches of the Verge and on to their destination in Osiriland.

The party reveals the truth about their strange appearance here; a kidnapping it seems to them, in this land referred to as The Verge; a borderland which separates Demonland from the Azure Sea.

They learn that they are in a “world” that is sometimes called Itaania which is separated by The Great Sea from the West World (sometimes called Maalia) and that both worlds reside on the “great orb” called Minerva.

Leotho reveals that claims of visitors coming from another world altogether; another great orb, are not unheard of and that he considers these claims possible and does not disbelieve their tale. He has never heard of a place called Renown nor any of the other places or landmarks the party relates to them.

The brothers and sisters of Osiris give them gifts of clothing, belts and footwear and a special magic cup studded with many ornamental (non-precious) stones, each coloured clear, blue or green. They’re told it can be used to purify water and warned that pure water is rare here and there are many dangers: fecal or saline contamination, some common diseases including a “desert” disease revealed by a green tint in the eyes, and something called “radio mutation.”

With regards to the inscription on their swords Leotho explains that Saint Montreal was a mortal from more than 50,000 years ago.

“In the Age of Chi, the monster Chi ruled Minerva, stole fire from the sun and set the sky aflame. He then sent great floods to kill all the most noble and heroic peoples (men and women – and elves and half-elves). These martyrs, not all of them “mogi” (human), were sainted by the gods and are the only mortal Minervans which people are welcomed by the gods to pray to. The saints are said to provide aid within their prescribed circles of influence.

He tells them that Montreal is the saint of “the abandoned.” He recommends the party may wish to pray to St. Montreal. He shows them a drawing of him. He is depicted as a man with a kindly bearded face. He also recommends prayers to Manhattan (Saint of Wanderers) and/or to Rio’Jeinero (Saint of Travelers) for help in their circumstances.

The party is invited to join the pilgrimage either as followers or just as co-travellers and told they would be given appropriate chores in order to pay their way and that they had several days to decide before the journey resumed.

They party also learned about the nearby market town called Sealedge and what times of day the gates open to allow entry and the nature of entry requirements as administered by a robust contingent of town guards.

The party decides to explore Sealedge before committing to any travel arrangements with the priests.

Wheels instead of miles is a translation taken from the Dark Tower series. Osiris is a god from Egyptian mythology. Everything else here is my own creation.

The Planets Minerva: Episode 1: The Beach

The burly warrior, Armigus, sits at the bar table waiting for his friend, a tenant of the inn, to join him. The ales have gone to his bladder and so he rises and heads for the back door which leads to the outhouse. He’s aware that folk are glancing his way, eyes drawn to his pronounced mandible and slightly exposed canines. Not all in the city of Renown are entirely accustomed to the presence of orcish half-breeds.

He shoves open the door, feels the cool breeze of late evening and steps over the threshold. His momentum carries him forward even as he loses consciousness.

Gu’ro’Baen has a similar toothy countenance with a slighter, but still sturdy, build. He gallops down the stairs of the inn and as he passes through the doorway to the common room he meets the same blackening fate.

Catherine de Montreard had stepped through a threshold of her own, she is now recalling, and though her mind is fuzzy, as if awakened from a long sleep, plagued by the strangest dreams, she is confident that her locale has significantly changed. The evening sky is still dim but everything else is wrong.

She is without clothing and standing barefoot in warm sand with the sound of lapping waves beside and behind her and before her a cliff face at least a hundred feet high. More immediately before her there is a sword partly buried vertically in the sand and pooled around it is an ample quantity of grey-brown fabric.

She turns to see a wide horizon of sea and sky beyond the threshold from which she no doubt emerged: a scintillating metallic rectangle of little or no substance; perhaps only the glimmer of a portal in the act of vanishing; a tool of some great sorcery no doubt. Through this portal no sign of her origin is visible; only this new sea and sky.

 

To her right another portal glimmers some fifty feet away and before it stands a naked man and before him an apparent welcome package alike her own; sword and cloth. For miles beyond that lies more vacant beach and cliff side, concluding at some far promontory, and beyond that the reddish glow of setting sun.

To her left lies a similar sight; a similar headland in the distance, well beyond another glimmering framework and another man. Further on she spies a fourth station; no living person but just a framework and another arrangement she presumes the same as that in front of her which she now moves swiftly to. She pulls free a hooded robe; only slightly smaller than her ideal, and dons it. There is no belt. She clutches it closed with one hand while examining the sword in her other hand. It is smaller than her own sword and engraved on the hilt are the words Saint Montreal.

The men have likewise equipped themselves and converge on her now and as they approach she recognizes their telltale orcish features. They recognize one another and call each other by name: Armigus and Gu’ro’Baen. They seem as slow and dazed as she feels but attempt an introduction with her which she ignores and instead marches away toward the unattended portal.

She pulls up short though, when a chittering sound alerts her to a presence emerging from the water at her side. The culprit is some unpleasant beast resembling a lobster in some ways and in other ways something insectile or even lizardish. She prepares to defend herself with the sword as the men come swiftly her way. But the creepy insectile chittering noises amplify and suddenly more and more of these creatures begin appearing from out of the sea.

“This way!” cries one of the men. “There appears to be a break in the cliff wall.” And so they flee the chitterers, jogging toward the sun. At the break in the cliff face they find a wide alcove with steps hewn into the rock and earth, arcing upward to the top. They climb these while the sea creatures gather on the sand, clicking and waving their claws. But they do not ascend.

At the top they find themselves on a savannah-like plain. To the west there stands a rocky solitary hill topped by some sort of stronghold and to the north a larger walled community. As they stand taking this in, they grow more unsettled at this unexpected journey and bizarre destination. The air is so much warmer than it should be and It seems like the sky is slowly growing brighter, not darker, and less blue, and more red.

The adventure is inspired by Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and this introduction to the campaign comes from the book The Drawing of the Three wherein portals on a beach draw Roland Deschain’s companions from another time and place. The “lobstrosities” come from this same source, modified little. As per D&D convention I assigned these Chitternids all the necessary statistics to conform to the D&D Monster Manual: hit dice, armor class, attack and damage details, alignment, morale etc. As it happened, no battle or further interaction occurred but that doesn’t rule anything out for the future. The players are about nine episodes ahead of us already (by thoroughly arbitrary measurement) and have already encountered beaches several more times.   

Other features from King’s epic series will be borrowed, but the plot is very different.

The Planets Minerva: Introduction

So I’m engaged in a very dynamic and thus far successful Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I am the Dungeon Master - or D.M. (campaign referee), being the one with by far the most experience. The four character players are all somewhere in the 19 to 21 age range; all in university and are blessed with keen intensity, curiosity and imagination.

It is my hope that they will all take a turn being D.M. and creating their own stories of a scope that is appropriate to their more limited role-playing experiences. It would be a delight to see them grow in this capacity.

This campaign of mine, meanwhile, is rather epic. And of course it is only mine in terms of the world it takes place in, the background details and the choices that all of the non-player creatures make. The starring characters belong to the players and as such they are co-authors of this story as well.

The characters, like the players who created them (unimpinged by me), are all young. They are:

• Gu’ro’Baen; a blacksmith and nascent mage/fighter of half-human, half-orcish blood,
• his friend Armigus; a hugely strong fighter, fresh out of the military and also of half-orcish descent,
• Catherine de Montreard; a human ranger,
• and Zontar the priest, in service of Hastseltsi, god of racing.   

I intend to tell their story in this space, likely in more brief, summary form than regular prose, and perhaps also to add optional appendices to demonstrate the geneses and tools behind the results which make up our collaborative story.

The usefulness of this episodic blog pursuit is that it creates a record of shared DM/player perspective for our own use (we each maintain our own records of course). Perhaps it will also be of use to other D&D enthusiasts who may wish to witness the results of a particular brand of D&D: one with an old-school, highly-adaptable approach, loosely based on the original AD&D version, where many of the “rules” are a matter of interpretation by a D.M. who embraces a wide range of tools and possibilities from multiple D&D versions, and who firmly believes that there are no limits other than those of the imagination; and to witness the possibilities in terms of large-scale world-building that is possible when a referee has a lot of time to devote, a lot of experience, a lot of imagination, and a knack for combining original ideas with ideas borrowed from film and literature.

I suppose it may also be interesting to anyone who enjoys telling or reading fantasy stories or who has pondered getting into D&D as a hobby.

Others may learn to skip these episodes!