The Ramble

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Maintenance day update

So, I got some news the other day that is exciting and daunting all at once.  My paper that I proposed for the Great Lakes History Conference was accepted.  Now I just have to put together 20-30 pages for my session and make hotel reservations for that weekend in November.  Professionally, this is about as huge as my winning the assistantship at OU.  Personally, it’s a little scary.  The last time I did a presentation like this I was a junior (was I a junior?  I think that was the summer between sophomore and junior year) at Grand Valley State presenting on our work at 20KT275 and 20KT276 at Student Scholarship Day–a completely different animal.  I wasn’t flying solo on that one, for starters–I was presenting with two other people.  This is all me, and while the work on the subjugation of Wales under Edward I dovetails with my thesis research, it’s different enough that it’s going to take a bit of additional research to really get this together to my satisfaction.

On another note, officers and I announced that we’re shaking the RoA tree.  Some people are enthused, I’m not sure how others feel.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed, since I’d definately hate for this to fail.  I’m glad that we’re no longer working in the dark, though.  Folks know that we’re doing something, which is good.  Very good.  I have to get myself working on the charter documents based on what we have so far, since the whole IC angle of the mess seems to be my strength (well, no, is my strength).  And think of what the next set of things on deadline are going to be, since we have a deadline on some things coming up…gee….tomorrow.  And then roll from there.  I want everything in place before I start my assistantship in September.

Still haven’t told my boss at the mall about the assistantship.  I’m putting off the inevitable panic she’s going to have.  I’ll tell her in a few weeks.

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Torg Update, session of 9 July 2009

So, two weeks ago in Torg, in the session I didn’t actually write anything about since not much happened, we’d picked up Amhotep, an Egyptian mathematician (read: math wizard-priest) that we’d met while we were in Cairo (this character is a replacement for Amarant) while still in London and then picked up Molotov Dolly (real name: Mable; Terran Mystery Man) on the way into what’s left of the Chunnel, having decided that it was probably the best and safest way to get to France from England.  After weathering another reality storm, we ended up running into an Executioner on the CyberFrance side of the Chunnel who told us to turn around and leave, or die.  Of course, we can’t turn around and leave since we have to rescue DeSoto, figure out this Odette/Mariah tangle, and get the Starfire Wheel back from the bad guys (ie, the pope).  So we keep going.  (Apparently, the executioner also told Mei Lin that it was nice to see her again.  How delightfully odd.)  At the far end of the tunnel, we find a red, sharp-edged metal spade made of the same sort of material as the executioner’s helmet with the name “Carrie” on it–Carrie being the real name of our very own Grace.  This was two weeks ago.

This week, we trekked through the French countryside.  Of course, someone has informed the local lord that there are strangers in his land (I’m going to lay odds on the executioner, but who knows who told him) and he tracks us down.  Luckily, we bluff him into thinking we’re not as weird as we actually look (…of course, now that I think about it, this could totally be a trap and we just walked right into it — Ren should PROBABLY pull Grant and Mable aside and share this fear) and the local lord, Faust something-or-other, invites us home with him, assuming that Ren, Grace, and Anhotep are servants to Mei Lin, Albert, Grant, and Mable.  This results in three of us basically being left to our own devices when not needed by our “lords and lady” or being summoned to prayer (upshot of the prayer part is that Ren’s learning more and more about the differences between Catholicism and the new orthodoxy in France) and thus left us to sit back and be entertained by the social blunderings of poor Mei Lin, who is posing as a young male cyberknight.

Who got us invited to go on Crusade.  Lovely.  At least it gets us on the road to Avignon.

On the road to Avignon, Ren told Mable what she knew about gospog fields after mentioning that there could be real trouble if all the people Lord Faust had been rallying actually decided to go on Crusade against the demons–they’d just be more bodies to plant.  The next night on the road, Mei Lin gets a strange feeling and wanders out into the woods, only to run into something she described as a Techomage–something she thought was only a myth.  He had said his name was Galen, and then spouted something at her about a prophecy — apparently, we’re in the second round of a prophecy, one where we must “wake the sleeper.”  Albert suspects the sleeper is Odette.  Anhotep dropped Mei Lin into a vivid dreaming to hopefully find out more information….and waiting for her to wake up is about where we left off for the night.

So, apparently CyberFrance is going off to war against the Technodemons that were assaulting NATO forces that Ren was formerly attached to in Germany and further east.  Bloody glorious.  We’re all in scads of trouble.  Scads.

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Post-vacation update #1

Back from Wisconsin, and what a glorious trip without worrying about work calling me it was.  I got a bit of writing done, both WoWFic–including starting a new story, “Family Ties“–and work on Epsilon (Jen mentioned last night after her perusal that there was a marked shift between Sam Cooper’s attitude toward Aaron in one scene and her reaction to him the next morning.  I promised her it’d make sense later).

I’m still working in part on the revitalization efforts for Sentinels (US) — the RP community has suffered since the opening of Wyrmrest Accord and everyone has seen a sharp decline in numbers.  But at the same time as it’s brought out the lazy in some folks, it’s brought out the best in others.  One of the new blogs on the blogroll is one of those “bests” — Ravine of Lichbane has started a new blog with fiction and discussion of RP issues that I plan to be following closely myself.

Other recent addition to the blogroll is Erik’s blog.  I’ve known Erik and gamed with him for a long time (back since the days when I was almost exclusively doing things ISRP).  Lately, he’s been getting his campaign setting ready to hopefully query more gaming companies with.  I’ve seen bits and fragments of it, and while 4E is Greek to me, the flavor bits and pieces (which I think he really wanted me to pay attention to) are looking pretty good.

Also poked at Aurora Force with a stick, got set up for Michael Bullian’s tragic death at the Battle of Ithor.  I probably need to start drafting how that’s going to happen so I have it together and ready to go when we get that far.  If we ever get that far.

All in all, considering I spent several hours by a pool every day I was away, it was a pretty productive trip!  I’ll have to post pictures up here soon.

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Torg update – session of 11 June 2009 (part 2)

So Tolwyn’s awake but bad things are still coming our way.  Mei and I send Grace down to the castle bailey (she was at a heavily wounded health level at that time — a little worse off than my own wounded level, but what’re you going to do?).  We’re still down three men — Tyche hasn’t joined us from Avalon yet (we left her behind with Nicodemus) and Albert and Amarant are lost in the city someplace.  Great, just great.  Albert shows up poisoned and whimpering as a werewolf.  That gets fixed.  He has no pants and pouts as usual.

And then the crap starts landing.  Gargoyles, giant hellbats, and the Dark Lady–who looks exactly like a dark mirror of Tolwyn.

You can imagine what the first words out of my mouth were.

Epic combat ensues.  Things decide I’m tasty and chew on me.  About the fourth time, as I’m going to go stab something in the face…the something I was about to stab suddenly has its head explode.

Thanks, Grant.  I was about to vent my frustration on that.  So not only am I being rescued by my potential love interest, I’m also being shown up by him, since I’m not really a combat oriented character in the first place.  So much for somehow convincing him I’m not some sort of damosel in distress (though I’m sure it went miles toward convincing him to actually believe that I’m not Allison, his wife).  So before I can run off and stab something, he spins me around and points and says, “We have problems.”

Well, duh.

And then I notice that Mei is out of her suit and yelling in Chinese and think “Oh man.  Not again.”  So I go to her.  And try to get her to reconnect.

It works on the second try!

Of course, then there’s a dragon crashing down into the middle of the city, fighting something fugly and made of plants.

And then it decides Albert is a tasty treat and flies off with him.

Then, Tyche and the fey pull a Gandalf at Helmsdeep and come to our rescue.  The batle turns in our favor, though Tolwyn’s not in good shape and the Dark Lady isn’t anywhere to be seen.  Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.  But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Tyche has a ritual that’ll fix the seal on Draconis but at the same time seal off the Realm of Magic from the rest of the world.  I, of course, don’t like this much, especially when she says that she’s staying in the Realm of Magic.  Knee-jerk reaction is “there has to be another way.”  Eventually, I accept the inevitable, though I don’t like it.

Here’s the kicker:  There has to be a regal sacrifice.  Someone of regal blood has to become the living barrier between the material world and the Realm of Magic.  Amarant (being the Emperor a la his Tarot card) volunteered.

Of course, I’m liking this plan less and less every second.  But I’m not getting a vote.  So I get Tyche on the guilt train so she’s not happy, either.

In the end, we go down two characters — Tyche goes into the Realm of Magic to stay and Amarant becomes the barrier.  I told Tyche to kick some frog god ass for me.

And then there were four (well, five including Grant, who was scandalized that I forgot him in my protests against the plan–I countered with “Are you going to stick around?” and got an answer I could live with).

And we’re supposed to go to France next?  We’re doomed.

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Torg update – session of 11 June 2009 (part 1)

Well, crap.  I’m in the process of updating Ren’s journal after last night’s session and several weeks of not having between-game journal time (because all of our previous cut points had zero downtime involved–and I do mean zero downtime; we’ve been cutting in the middle of combat scenes, or right between combat scenes that were blending together with scant amount of time between to do anything other than patch up wounds).  It’s going to be a huge entry, because lots happened.

Aysle, when we got there, was in a state that can only be described as “totally screwed.”  London was beseiged by the Armies of Dark and the seals on Draconis were breaking down.  Oh, and the fey had all disappeared.  None of this was a happy thing at all.

So guess who drew the suicide mission to find Queen Mab, leader of the fey, and talk her into fixing the seals on Draconis?  That’s right, us.  So off we go to find our way to the Realm of Magic.  Adventures in fey lines ensue (walking through walls what?) until we come to Ys, where I banished an evil frog god back to whence it came (it’s still angry about that, by the way, and wants to eat my soul).  There were zombies there, wandering around half underwater.  So we fight zombies to get to a place where Tyche can open a doorway into the Realm of Magic.  Except there’s a problem.  Tyche screws something up and can’t open the door.  So Albert opens it.

Albert is never allowed to do that again ever.  Ever.  And I mean that.

We wander aimlessly through dark parts of unseen areas of cosms until Nicodemus finds us (he’s a half-pint of a fey that’s quite literally on speed) and leads us through the Wasteland into Queen Mab’s realm.  At which point she tells us that she can’t help us and sends us on a suicide mission to help her so she can be freed up to see what she can do about our problem.  Caught between a rock and a hard place, we head out to Avalon to fight some demons who are trying to break through into the Realm of Magic.

Demons.  I hate demons.  Mei hates them more, I think–no, I know.  Grace gets more pwned.  I get pwned.  Explosions ensue, but not before I scare myself doing some sort of crazy gun move that belongs in a Wachowski Brothers film (note to self, talk to Grant about that later).  So we manage to stop the demons from breaking into the Realm of Magic.  Great!  Three Sisters of Avalon send us back to the outskirts of London.

The seige is not going well.  The bad guys have breached the outer city and are now beseiging the keep.

For the first time since he got the damn thing, Amarant’s plasma rifle became a good plan.  Imagine Mike’s excitement.

We cut our way through the city and three of us make it to the walls and get hauled up by Tolwyn, who’s directing the seige…who falls on her head in the middle of a rainstorm when bad things are trying to eat our faces.  Of course.  It’s been raining since we left Avalon, by the way.  Lovely English weather.  We get her up on the wall and then I spot smudges on the horizon.  More bad things incoming.

Good thing I have a skill for shouting orders and making people listen to me.

We manage to wake up Tolwyn, who agreed that they were bad things.  And it only got worse from there before it got barely a little bit better.

And I do mean barely better.

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Adventures in French Hoods – part 1

So, I’ve gotten everything I need for this French Hood.  Yay!  And I’m ready to start my adventure.

I’ve gotten a pattern from Drea Leed’s wonderful Elizabethan Costuming site for a French hood dating circa 1535-1540, traced it out onto my interfacing.  Time to cut, and then bind the wire to it.

After tracing out the pattern onto my buckram and cutting it out, I proceeded to start binding wire to the buckram–I used a heavyweight embroidery thread to do this, which other than being a bitch to thread onto my needle was actually very easy to work with and did very well.

All told, it only took about an hour and a half or so for this stage.  I think I may try it with stiffer wire — I’m not sure if the wire I’m using holds its shape well enough; but time will tell.  I’ve got enough jacquard to do this at least twice.  So we’ll see what happens.  I may ask Trish about it tomorrow at game — she may have a tip or three about it.

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Because I hate myself…

Because I hate myself, I’m going to try my hand at making a French Hood.  And…well…because I think it’d be fun to make one, and if I can make one, that means I can make more.  It should also keep my hands busy during Thursday gaming when I don’t need to be rolling dice, which is even better (making jewelery during game doesn’t work as well because I actually count beads as I work, which distracts me from contributing to game).

I’ve got the wire I need and some bridal jacquard I picked up on a whim and I’ve got stuff for veils and the billements coming out my ears (I make jewelery, too, duh), I just need to go get some buckram for the base of the mess.  Maybe I’ll see if I can do that on Wednesday after work.

I’m also going to try my hand at making some masks, because no one sells masks.  Or nice hats.  I should do both, I think, as long as it doesn’t make me crazy (which it invariably will, but it’s a nice thing to try at least once, I think).  There’s a lot of stuff  I think I’m going to try.  It’s a question of whether or not I actually get to it.