Dear Diary: School Is No Place For A Necromancer

Year 331, Twelfth Age
Highsun, Day 21

Dear diary,

My father's mad at me again. It's school, of course. My report scroll came home.

Okay, so I'm behind in Advanced Treasure Counting and I'm failing Cooking. Oh, and Coach is threatening to hold me back if I don't at least start hitting the targets when we practice throwing. I mean, yeah. I guess I can see why he'd be mad. But it's not like asked to go to school.

"You're the smartest kind in your class! You could do this easily if you'd just apply yourself!" Well, yeah, but that's sort of my point. Cooking and Treasure Counting? My intellect and my time could be spent on far more important things. There are ancient books out there, just full of forbidden knowledge and waiting for me unlock their secrets. Instead, I'm staring at a pan full of scrambled eggs and wondering if I could reanimate them into some sort of oregano-flavored undead slime-monster.

But when I try to explain about how nothing we're learning in school is truly important, Dad just gets this look on his face like... like he really wants to start screaming at me but doesn't think it'll do any good. He won't listen.

I give up.

I guess I could start hitting things for Coach. I mean, I hate him. All he does is shout a lot and lecture us on how important sports are and how they Prepare You For Life. (Can you imagine, diary? I'm trying to explore the fathomless secrets of Death itself, he thinks sports will prepare me for life?) But I could do it. And the treasure stuff is pretty easy, when I pay attention. Some of the stuff with the interest and the economics is even kind of interesting.

But there's no way I'm ever going to be a decent cook. Maybe I could create some kind of undead servitor to do my cooking projects for me? There's an idea.

Later, dear diary. I have to go do research.

I hate this time of year.

We're into our second week of school for the Beautiful Wife and both boys, and naturally we're sick. (Firstborn appears to be the lone exception.) Fortunately, we're not badly sick -- I took Monday afternoon off, but made it all the way through Tuesday, if only barely -- but this is a lot more sick than I'd like to be. Especially since I'd like to be, well, Not Sick At All.

But, no: headache, low energy, irritability, occasional chills, inability to concentrate... blech. At least I'm not sick to my stomach anymore; that was what did me in on Monday. But I can feel the swollen lymph nodes in my throat, and they are not happy.

The worst part, though, is that the Beautiful Wife and I are both just demoralized. And I'm pretty sure it's less of a rational assessment, or even a reaction to being sick, than it is a direct result of being sick itself. But it's just... Ugh. I feel useless. And wasted. And stuck. It's like we've come down with an emotional head cold as well as a physical one. I feel like... I feel like I'm never going to do the things I really want to do.

And then I think about the boys sleeping in the next room, and I know that can't be right. I'm already doing the things I really want to do. This is the life I want. And yeah, there are some things which aren't developing the way I'd like, or anywhere near as fast as I'd like, but I'm pretty sure that shouldn't fill me with this weird existential combination of dread and despair.

The boys are actually doing okay. Secondborn was sick to his stomach back on Sunday (just as I was on Monday), but he managed to go to school and seems to be doing fine; Firstborn continues to watch YouTube videos while walking on the treadmill at every opportunity. He laughs in the face of illness. He, too, seems to be handling his first week of school (and his first year of Middle School - he's in sixth grade now) pretty well.

So, again: rational analysis suggests that things are actually going well, if not perfectly. But... well... just try telling that to my feelings...

A Scam I Can Get Behind

It occurs to me that if I'm ever going to go into - ahem - "business" as a scammer, I really need to come up with a scam I can deliver convincingly... or at least enthusiastic. And I think the "Spellcasting Miracle Worker" scam might be just the thing. I mean, I probably wouldn't be that convincing, but... well, look at this thing that showed up in my comments:

My names is Cathy i want to testify about the great spell caster called Scammer Amuck my husband and i have been married or 5 years now we don't have a child and the doctor told us i can't give birth because my womb have been damaged due to wrong drugs prescription this got me so worried and my husband was not happy so he decided to get married to another girl and divorce me i was so sad i told my friend about it she told me about a powerful spell caster she gave me his email address well i never believe in it that much though i just decided to give him a try and he told me it will take 24hrs to get my husband back to me and i will get pregnant i doubted him the 3rd day my husband came back to me and was crying he said he didn't want the divorce anymore 3 weeks after the doctor confirmed that i was pregnant he can also help you Email him at spellcastingscammer@somegenerichost.com or spellcastingscammer@equallygenericemailhost.com

I mean, convincing is probably pushing things a bit, but I could deliver a pitch like that with maniacal, hyperbolic enthusiasm. That'd be close enough, right? And as a special bonus, I'd throw in some punctuation.

Witchcraft in Pre-History

Ladies and Gentlemen, it turns out that Witchcraft has a much longer history than anyone previously realized. We now have photographic evidence that our earliest mammalian ancestors learned to worship the Goddess from actual dinosaurs! Behold:

The Ballad of Grimbad Willowisp, Halfling Necromancer

Year 331, Twelfth Age
Highsun, Day 14

Dear diary,

It's been three months since I took the name Grimbad Willowisp and swore myself to the study of darkness and death, and my parents are still in denial about it. My mother keeps telling the neighbors that I'm studying to be a wizard, which I guess is sort of true. But she can't even bring herself to say the word "necromancer", even though I've done everything I can to make it obvious: black robes with red trim, black eyeliner, grim expressions... Seriously, she can't think she's fooling anybody, can she?

And my father's even worse. He's started making a point of calling me by my full birth-name, Grinbroad Willowsend. I tried telling him that my name is Grimbad Willowisp now, but he just shook his head and said, "No it isn't." Can you believe it, diary? Neither could I. I became Grimbad Willowisp when I became a necromancer, but just try telling my dad that.

My sister is just as bad, but at least she keeps the other kids off me. After Merrybloom Rosewine made fun of my clothing and then mysteriously lost her homework on the way to school for three days straight, everybody leaves me alone. That's fine with me. And it's not like I don't have friends. I mean, yeah, Mopeybeard is a dwarf, but he's really good with his lute and his songs about how his father doesn't understand him and he just doesn't fit in in the Deep Halls make me feel like maybe I'm not the only one, you know?

They just don't get it. We spend our lives speeding towards death. How can you ignore that? How can you not want to know everything there is to know about it? But they don't. They're too busy worrying about what's for lunch. They'll never understand me.

It's just you and me, diary. And Mopeybeard, when his father brings him up to town.

Yeah.

Memento Mori

So, a little over a year after my mom died, my dad is cleaning out her stuff. (He's looking at renting out one side of the house, partly for income but mainly so that someone who doesn't have the same eyesight trouble can help him sort through mail and pay bills.) This is, I think, a good and healthy thing.

It is, however, turning up some odd mementos. I'll probably talk about some of the others later, as many of them relate to my childhood. For today, I'll simply remind you that I don't talk to anti-vaxxers for the simple reason that I go straight to blinding rage in about seven seconds flat. The reason for the rage? Here:

Boys & DnD, Session 6

I was going to say that this was another short session, but actually these under-an-hour-and-a-half games seem to be about ideal for us as a family.

If you're coming in late, we have:
Firstborn, playing an Elf Druid/Barbarian (2/2) and his animal companion, a viper.
Secondborn, who is playing a Human Ranger/Rogue (2/2) with a focus on archery.
Beautiful Wife, who is playing a Halfling Sorceress (4) and her familiar owl.

They have been sent to investigate a mysterious dungeon, which was discovered when a section of ground caved in near one of the outlying farms around their woodland town. As Patrollers (i.e. guards who protect the homes outside the city walls) their assignment was to find out what was scaring the family of half-elves nearest the dungeon entrance; it turned out to be a group of goblins which had snuck out and raided the chicken coop. After killing off the goblins on the top level, they found a circular ramp leading down to another, deeper level which was dimly lit by some sort of phosphorescent lichen growning in the cracks between the stone blocks of the walls, floor, and ceiling. They discovered something that had probably once been a temple but which was now infested with giant spiders, fought off a band of goblins led by an ill-fated hobgoblin, and went back to town to report.

Upon their return, they discovered a skeletal owlbear guarding the bottom of the ramp, and defeated it reasonably handily. Further explorations led them to a large room in which the goblins had evidently grown a village out of giant mushrooms. The group decided to bypass the village, and went down another passage instead.

Today, we picked up at the far end of the passage, where a battle - or at least a skirmish - was already in progress. A trio of goblins were facing off against three skeletons and a ghoul. Firstborn and Beautiful Wife decided to hang back and watch, but Secondborn snuck forward along the wall.

The goblin the center of the room turned out to be a spellcaster, and blasted the ghoul with a Magic Missile. That left the two goblin fighters squaring off against the (human-sized) skeletons; they exchanged blows, with the goblins taking some damage but destroying two of the skeletons. Secondborn chose that moment to step in and attack the remaining skeleton, and destroyed it.

That left our three heroes staring awkwardly at the three badly-startled goblins.

Two of the goblins moved to position themselves where they could watch the far hallway (the one the undead had evidently emerged from) and the hallway the characters had come down at the same time. Beautiful Wife and Firstborn stepped back to one side of the hallway, and the third goblin (seeing his way clear) ran past them and back in the direction of the goblin village.

"Well," observed Firstborn. "This is awkward."

The goblin wizard said, in bad-goblin-voice but in the Common tongue, "What you do here?"

"Exploring," said Firstborn, and Beautiful Wife immediately agreed: "Exploring."

"Exploring?" asked the goblin wizard dubiously.

"Yes. Exploring."

"You killed mushroom farmers."

Beautiful Wife answers this one: "They stole our chickens."

The goblin wizard kind of grunts at that, but he doesn't seem offended.

At this point, the goblin fighter returns with reinforcements: three other goblins and a hobgoblin. Beautiful Wife and Firstbon step into the room, staying out of their way, and the whole crowd stops just inside the doorway. They seem puzzled that nobody's fighting. The hobgoblin says something, and the goblin wizard translates: "Chief Grok wants to know what you do here."

Firstborn repeats his line about exploring, the goblins have a quick exchange, and then the goblin wizard says, "Chief Grok says you trespassing."

Firstborn replies, "...It's a valid point."

After a little more consideration, he offers: "Maybe we could make a deal? We stay on the surface, and you stay down here?"

The goblin wizard passes that along, and the hobgoblin thinks about it and then replies. "Chief Grok says that good."

At this point, the goblins and their chief are all just kind of standing around looking at our heroes, like they're just waiting for them to leave. Firstborn, though, says: "...And maybe we could say that if one group needs help, they could come and ask the other?"

"Wait, we're making alliances with the goblins now?" asks Beautiful Wife.

Firstborn, bless him, just shrugs.

"Chief Grok thinks that good idea," says the goblin wizard.

At this point, the characters decide that it's definitely time to troop back up to the surface and report in, so they move past the goblins and head for the ramp.

Folks, this is going to make the next stage of the campaign so much easier. I honestly hadn't expected our heroes to parley with the goblins; I thought they'd probably jump into the middle of the fight and kill everything. But since they have, and with some degree of success, my plan to get them back down into the dungeon was to have one of the goblins come up and ask the for help. (The goblins, as you may have surmised, have a reasonably serious undead problem.) But Firstborn has conveniently gone right ahead and boldly laid down the groundwork for that, which will make things so much easier.

Tweets from the Eclipse

A horror story in thirty-four tweets:

The darkness is coming. I can hear the first faint whispers already. And those strange, distant, dissonant bells.

— Michael Mock (@MockRamblings) August 21, 2017

Continued below:

Eclipse Music!

A Symphonic Metal cover of Total Eclipse of the Heart, performed by Celestial Decay:


The Police, with Invisible Sun:


Rush, with Between Sun and Moon:


Xandria, with Kill The Sun:


Love and Rockets: It Could Be Sunshine


The Hudsons, with Party in the Sun:


Dark Princess, with Yearning For The Sun:

Real Work Conversations: Reboot

IT Tech: "Got it!"

Accountant: "So what you did was just turn it off, and then try it again?"

IT Tech: "I think it was the turning it off and on again that made it work."

Accountant: "Thank God for IT people."

Y'all, it was a coffee maker.

My Random Poetry: Trapped

Right, so: I guess this is a preface to a preface. Sorry. Anyway: my mother died a little over a year ago. Last weekend, my father, in the process of cleaning our her things, found that she'd apparently kept a poem I wrote in the bottom of a dresser drawer. (The poem was in the drawer, I mean. I don't generally make a habit of writing in the bottom of dresser drawers.)

Among the various oddities involved in this discovery: I have no memory of writing this. None. I might have an extant copy of it in my files somewhere, but if so I don't know where and haven't looked at it in years. I had actually forgotten that it ever existed.

Having now re-read it, I think I have a vague memory of the conversation that provoked it and the poem itself. But at this point, I'm honestly unsure whether that's a true memory, or whether my brain is just putting together some kind of backfill/retcon pseudomemory. The biggest argument for the idea that I wrote it is simply the fact that the printed paper had my name on it.

I don't suppose any of that is really relevant to the poem itself, but it was interesting enough that I wanted to make a note of it -- at the very least, just in case I came back and discovered it again, and wanted some context. And so but anyway, here's the poem, complete with its original preface.

An ex-girlfriend once asked me if I felt 'trapped' in our relationship. As you might expect with a question like that, she isn't my girlfriend anymore. Still, the question got me to thinking, and what with one thing and another my answer got garbled up with something I was humming, the result being the song you 're about to hear. I call it, "Trapped."

Trapped
December 2003

What started out as just a fling
Had been going on for years,
When she asked me the strangest thing.
I guess she had her fears.

Do you feel trapped by life with me?
Is there something you'd rather do?
Do you ever wish that you were free
To find somebody new?

I'd no idea how to answer that
Not a single word seemed safe.
So I stood there gaping like a prat,
'Til the silence seemed to chafe.

I could feel the darkness closing in,
I couldn't seem to see
'til I opened up my mouth again ...
... and these words came to me.

Is my heart trapped by my chest?
Is a bird trapped by its nest?
Does the fur restrict the dog?
Does the mud restrict the hog?
I know the news is gonna hurt,
But I'm trapped like a plant in its dirt.

Well she looked at me with sparkling eyes,
And she said, "I love you too.
I wouldn't want any other guys.
I'd rather be with you."

What we both know, some never learn:
Life isn't always fun.
But even when it's bad it can still be good,
If you've got the right someone.

For the record, she's my ex-girlfriend because she graduated to the position of "wife."

Borderlands Lore from Firstborn

Firstborn: "You know, Daddy, I've noticed that in every borderlands game the intro video always has one character who doesn't get introduced with their real name. Like, with the Pre-Sequel, it was 'Claptrap as A Mistake'. Which is kind of right, I mean he really is a mistake, but he's the Fragtrap. Well, since we were hypothesizing characters for Borderlands, um, the next one, whatever it may be called... I was wondering which of the characters we thought of would actually get that sort-of privilege. 'Cause the mutated skag doesn't really seem appropriate, because what would you name it as?"

Me: "The Experiment?"

Firstborn: "Huh. Interesting.

Me: "What were our other characters?"

Firstborn: "The other characters... there was the mutant skag, there was the person who was part rakk, we had the reformed Hyperion loader, and didn't have like, the little dwarf from the desert with like the bombs and stuff?"

Me: "We could use the loader, I guess: 'Loaderboy as A Traitor To His Corporation!'"

Firstborn: "How about just traitor? Or 'The Traitor'?"

Me: "Better. Not as awkward."

Firstborn: "Actually, now that I think about it, I just thought of a new idea for the loader's ability. Maybe, like, for one of the upgrades when it does its initial transformation on one of the paths it'll hack something mechanical nearby that can be hacked. Like, maybe have somebody's laser gun nearby fire at anything and everything but the loader."

Me: "Could be cool."

Secondborn: "Actually, I think it would be cool if the characters could do combos. Like, the guy with the bombs would throw out a bomb, and if the loader had taken the Bulldozer upgrade path it could charge into the bomb and fling it enemies."

Me: "One of these days we're going to have to build our own game."

Music: Down To The Bottom

Music by Dorothy:

Boys & D'n'D Session 5

Short game again this weekend (our attention spans were, let us say, not at their most extended).

We picked up at the bottom of the spiral ramp, where our heroes had just finished defeating a skeletal owlbear. Secondborn decided that he wanted to head down the hallway where the last of the goblins "ran away like a coward". So he steps out into the spider-infested temple and immediately notices that the bodies are missing. Firstborn steps out behind him, and tries to figure out if there are new figures up in the webs - in other words, whether there might be more spiders which have come down, wrapped up the bodies and pulled them into the webbing that covers the ceiling. It's hard to be sure (everything up there is covered in webs) but he thinks there are some new bundles up there.

They turn right, following the cross-passage that the goblin fled down. It runs straight, then opens into a very large room. Like the rest of this level, the walls and floor are dressed stone, and the cracks between the blocks are overgrown with strange mushrooms and a phosphorescent lichen, which provides just enough light that they don't need a lamp. The room has a high ceiling, and there are pillars at regular intervals -- mostly intact, but some fallen. Between the pillars are some extremely large mushrooms.

I have everybody roll spot checks. Firstborn and Secondborn roll pretty well, and realize that this is a village; Beautiful Wife rolls even better, and realizes that this is a goblin village. (Yes, these goblins have a mushroom-based economy/ecology. It's probably why the goblins upstairs, who were almost certainly mushroom-farmers, were so excited to find chickens.)

At that moment, a goblin walks out of one of the mushroom-houses, utterly fails to see the group standing in the doorway, and turns and goes the other way, towards the center of the village. (The goblins did not roll well on their Spot checks this session.)

Secondborn decides that this is his cue, and sneaks towards the mushroom that the goblin has just left. He peeks in through the door -- which is actually just a fibrous cloth hung over a hole in the side of the mushroom -- and sees another goblin inside the mushroom, along with two baby goblins. He notices that even being a baby is not enough to make a goblin "cute", but that they do have cute little baby toes even if they're green.

At this point another goblin comes out of a nearby house, completely fails to notice the human peering into his next-door-neighbor's front door, and also heads off into the village. (Did I mention that the goblins did not roll well on their Spot checks this session?)

Secondborn decides to sneak back to the other hallway that leads back towards the bottom of the spiral ramp. (I really need to scan in the map for this to make sense, but basically he's leaving the large room that holds the goblin village by way of another passage that runs parallel to the one the group arrived through. In other words, he's randomly splitting the party again. Bear in mind, he's only seven.)

Beautiful Wife uses a cantrip to whisper that he needs to come back and join them, but Secondborn ignores this. Firstborn, however, has a pretty good sense of where this is headed, so he and Beautiful Wife head back down their own passage, pass through the spider-infested temple, and cross the base of the ramp room to the far side, where the parallel passage runs. They don't have any way of trying to track Secondborn except common sense, but since they don't see him they (rightly) assume that he's turned down the only side-passage, and catch up with him just as he's picking the lock on a door.

The door opens onto a small storage room with three chests against the far wall. Secondborn investigates (he really was the motive force in this adventure, even though he was dancing all over the kitchen while we were trying to play) and discovers that, from left to right, the chests are unlocked, locked, and locked & trapped. The unlocked chest contains folded cloth, of the same fibrous kind that formed the door on the goblin mushroom-hut. He picks the lock on the middle chest, and discovers that it contains goblin-sized arrows; he takes a few, even though they're smaller than he can really use. After a bit of work, he disarms the trap on the third chest, then manages to pick the lock.

It contains a war hammer, which Firstborn -- the strongest Elf you'll ever meet, remember -- promptly claims for his own. Beautiful Wife checks it and concludes that it's enchanted. And at that point, we stopped -- Secondborn having reached the end of his ability to sit still, and me having reached the end of my patience.

Knowing when to quit is an important skill. It's one of the things that helps keep the gaming sessions enjoyable.

Next weeks: A truly puzzled goblin, and more skeletons. And no, I still haven't managed to re-learn the details of the combat system.

Music: Dark Matter

How about some more Les Friction for your Friday morning?

The album is due out August 25, apparently.

Movie Review: Exile (2015)

So, I just finished watching Exile on Amazon Prime (because it looked interesting, and I'm still feeling kind of broke after this summer). Quick take? I liked it. I liked it a lot.

The reviews I read described it as a movie that makes up for its flaws by doing some interesting and unusual things very well. And I'd basically agree with that.

First up: genre. The film falls under the general category of "Lovecraftian Horror", with both some body horror and some touches of cosmic horror as well. This is a hard genre to do well, because (among other things) it's really hard to have a satisfying resolution when humanity is at best the pawns of vast forces far beyond our control, an at worst utterly insignificant to those forces. Exile handles this by keeping the scope somewhat smaller; we're not in Great Old Ones territory here, but something more on par with The Colour Out Of Space.

In some ways, it's a coming-of-age story, about the teenagers in the isolated desert town of Sunderland -- and by "isolated", I mean entirely surrounded by an electrified fence topped with barbed wire, with only one man authorized to leave town so that he can buy supplies in the outside world. The town is entirely dominated by The Angel, which "fell to Earth" some ten years previously. The adults of the town have all been "evolved" by the angel, a process which appears to grant them access to its eldritch wisdom but also seems to leave them vaguely lobotomized, at least some of the time. (The driver who leaves the town is the lone exception; he communicates with the Angel, but has not been evolved by it.) The children are taught to worship the Angel, and when they come of age they are given a choice: they too can evolve, or they can Fall and go to live in the wasteland outside the town (but still inside the fence).

Our protagonist, David, finds neither choice entirely satisfactory, and that's where the real conflict of the movie begins.

It is, in a lot of ways, a B movie. The acting isn't spectacular (though it isn't horrible, either) and the CGI is pretty low-quality (though this is mitigated by the fact that the movie uses it sparingly). It drags in a couple of places, as the kids struggle with concepts that the audience will already be quite familiar with. Overall, though, it works: it provides a strange vision of their existence, isolated and trapped in a town given over to the service of something entirely other, which can appear at any time to dispense justice according to its own laws. It's both disturbing and memorable, which is really about all I ask from horror movies anymore.

And if you're on Amazon Prime, you can watch it for free. So if that sounds like it might be up your alley, give it a shot.

It's time you knew the truth, Son.

Me: "I ask you, have you ever seen a more perfect pizza?"

Mommy & I, in chorus: "None. None more perfect."

Firstborn: "Was that a reference?"

Me: "Yes. But it was a pretty oblique reference."

Firstborn: "But at least I realized it was a reference."

Me: "It's also because your mother and I are telepathic aliens."

Firstborn: "Oh. Does that mean I'm a telepathic alien?"

Me: "No, you're adopted."

Firstborn: "What?"

Beautiful Wife: "You're adopted."

Me: "Stolen, actually."

Beautiful Wife: "We stole you."

Me: "So every time you've thought, 'I'll bet my real parents wouldn't treat me like this,' you were probably right."

Firstborn: "Oh. Okay."

Beautiful Wife: "Your real parents are better people than we are. Except we're not people."

Firstborn: "You're people, you're just not human."

...And that was where I broke out laughing and couldn't continue. I think we've been both complimented... and totally schooled.

Music: It's a Sin

Cover by Hidden Citizens:

Boys & D'n'D, Session 4

In this week's session, the boys continued exploring the uppermost level of the dungeon. Secondborn is enjoying his role as the character who scouts ahead, so he led them down a cross-corridor. This gave way to a staircase that led down to a door, which was locked. This gave him his very first experience at picking locks (which I don't think I handled according to the rules, in that I let him try several times - I *really* need to re-read the Player's Handbook and the Dungeonmaster's Guide in detail). Firstborn stood behind him and wondered if he would be able to break the door down if Secondborn couldn't unlock it. (Yes, he probably could have. He may be the strongest Elf you'll ever meet.)

The room at the bottom of the stairs is taller than the rest of this level (that's probably why it's sunken) and brightly lit: there's a big square of sunlight in the center. Looking up, the boys note a large square hole in the ceiling that leads up to the surface. The also notice that the ceiling around the hole, which is very dark by contrast, seems to be moving. Beautiful Wife throws some light up there, and they realize that they're looking at a pair of very large bats clinging to the ceiling.

There's some quick discussion. (Secondborn really wants to return to adventuring outside, but there's no way up to that exit unless you're a bat. Firstborn is all in favor of just backing away and closing the door behind them, which they eventually do.) The retrace their steps, then explore up the corridor to another room. This one seems empty, with a pool of water on the far side. A brief moment of panic ensues as Secondborn's Ranger/Thief steps quietly inside: large (and extremely dusty) mirrors on either end of the room give the impression of vague, shadowy figures moving on either side of him. They're quick enough to figure out what's going on, and take a quick look at the pool of water. It's a round pool, maybe ten feet across, fed on one side by a stream of water that comes out of a hole in the wall. On the other end, a small stream leaves the pool, goes about three feet, and disappears through a hole in the floor. The water seems to be clean. The group leaves without trying the water or investigating the mirrors, and discovered that they've now covered all of this level of the dungeon.

That being the case, they return to the ramp and begin their descent. Last time they came this way, they reached the bottom of the ramp undiscovered, and explored the northern passage and the spider-infested temple beyond (where they were ambushed by goblins and a hobgoblin). This time, they discover that there's a large, skeletal owlbear just standing there at the bottom of the ramp.

Firstborn, in a fit of "Let's just see" attempts to walk down the bottom of the ramp and out the nearest door (the northern one, as it happens). Unfortunately, as soon as he steps off the ramp, the owlbear turns and lumber toward him, bony feet clicking on the stone. Firstborn retreats back up the ramp; the owlbear follows to the bottom of the ramp but stops there.

Secondborn takes a shot at the skeleton with his bow, but barely nicks a rib-bone. (Skeletal creatures have damage resistance in this game, to reflect the fact they don't have any flesh and blood for weapons to connect with. Most standard attacks go right between the bones, with little or no damage.) Secondborn then decided to leap off the side of the ramp and head to the opposite side of the room, hoping to get past the skeleton that way. He leaps, lands, tumbles, and comes up safely, looking pretty badass in the process. The owlbear, however, just turns and starts towards him, and Secondborn draws his longsword.

At this point we roll for initiative. The sequence turns out to be: Firstborn, Secondborn, Owlbear, Mommy.

Firstborn takes a quick look through his spell list, but he's only a second-level druid; he doesn't have a lot to attack with. Instead, he rages. Stepping up behind the Owlbear, he smacks it with his greatsword. It staggers. Secondborn attacks also, and while he doesn't inflict anywhere near the same kind of damage, he does injure the thing. The Owlbear then swipes at him, but it misses cleanly. Mommy, meanwhile, is still up on the ramp -- which gives her a clean line of fire. She uses her face-melting spell, and sears the heck out of the skeletal monster.

Firstborn attacks again, and it's over. The owlbear skeleton collapses into a pile of scattered bones. The boys, for reasons best understood by themselves, collect a couple of the bones. (Secondborn says he wants to use it to make a bone-handled sword. Firstborn says he's keeping one as an emergency backup club, in case someone steals his greatsword.)

I call a halt at that point, because they've killed something and because I really need to stop and figure out where all this is leading.

NOTE TO SELF: You really need to figure out where all this is leading. Also, you need to read up on all the little details in the combat system. And calculate how much money the group got for selling off their loot. Also, check EXP values and see how close they all are to leveling up.

NARRATOR VOICE: Tragically, he would not manage to do any of that before the next game.

Real Work Conversations: Dongles

Boss: "I need one person here and one person out there. This is the only machine that has the controller installed, and it requires a license -- you have to have a dongle."

Me: "Uh huh."

Boss: "Hey, I got rid of the dongle in the server room."

Me: "What you do with your dongle is your own business. I don't judge. I don't judge."

Music: Ruin

Gary Numan:

Video: Bloodborne's Three Endings and the Cosmic Horror genre

There are spoilers, but this isn't a particularly new game. Still, watch at your own risk:

Boys & D'nD, session 3

We didn't manage to play last Friday, so I played with the boys on Saturday, instead. Their mother wasn't feeling well, so she went to bed and left me to run her character (as well as the game).

After some opening consultation, the boys decided to take their treasure back to town and sell it. It was evening by the time they got back, so they returned to their houses, slept, and met up again in the morning. TheyHead Watchman Vendik agreed that they needed to finish exploring the ruin to make sure that there were no more threats down there. He offered to send a couple of guards to watch over the farmhouse while they made their explorations, and had the quartermaster equip each of the three characters with a pair of healing potions.

With that settled, the characters set off to the market and sell their loot -- mostly equipment that they took off the goblins. Most of it is sized for small humanoids, so the humans and elves that make up the majority of the town won't be able to use it; but there are small communities of both Halfling and Gnomes here, and in any case the merchants can always find a market for decent steel.

Note to self: I need to figure out how much they got for those weapons. One of the things they don't warn you about when you agree to be the Dungeonmaster is the amount of time you'll spend on that kind of prep-work and follow up. It's somewhat like being a teacher: the time you spend with the class isn't anywhere near the whole of your workload.

Anyway, the trio returns to the ruins and enters again. They stay on the top level this time, scouting down a couple of passages that they'd ignored last time in favor of the ramp. One of them has openings onto three mid-length, dead-end passages that turn out to be some sort of catacombs. Secondborn (seven years old, playing a Human Ranger/Rogue 2/2 character) goes down one of the passages, noting the skeletal remains tucked into the shelves on either side. At the end of the hall he finds a square stone block (not unlike the one in the temple they found last week, but much smaller) with a rolled-up bit of cloth or paper on the top. (It's covered in dust, so it's hard to tell.) He leaves it alone and goes back to report to the others, and I refuse to hint at whether this was an opportunity missed or a disaster avoided.

Proceeding on, the group turns a couple of corners and then encounters a doorway with soft white light coming out of it. It isn't firelight, but it's a little brighter than the light created by the lichens on the lower level. They move carefully to the door, and discover the mushroom garden: the room inside is a large square. Unlike everything else they've found so far, the floor is dirt. Neat rows of mushrooms grow -- and glow -- in the darkness. These are quite large, varying from the height of our table to the height of the kitchen ceiling (about seven feet, or a bit over two meters). Careful inspection reveals that small feet - probably goblins - have been walking up and down the rows on a regular basis, and that the mushrooms have little squares cut out of them.

The group exited the garden and proceeded on to discover the goblin bedroom, which contained some odd square fungus-beds with ugly old blankets on them. The room also contained a small chest, which Secondborn opened on his second attempt. The chest contained 2GP, 24 SP, and a particularly nice shortsword. Further examination by Beautiful Wife's character reveals that it's a Shortsword +1. There was also a vial of purple liquid of some order. Secondborn promptly claimed the sword for his character.

The characters haven't noticed yet, but if they keep this up they're going to be rich enough to make some of the merchants rightly nervous.

The group then explores the rest of the rooms, finding four of them empty, two of them overgrown by the fungus-mattresses, and one serving as a sort of large closet. Since it was getting into evening by then (even though they were underground & couldn't tell) the group elected to bed down in the goblin bedroom.

I stopped them there, because I was exhausted and not feeling entirely well myself, so it was a short game and they didn't actually kill anything. They were a little disappointed by that, but I think they'll find more action this weekend.