character saturday: my winter walker

I swear... this is... probably... the last time a Bo Bafflestone variant shows up as a DnD Character Colouring Book entry. Yeah, who the hell am I kidding. But this eleventh version had to exist because the Winter Walker Ranger from the recent book is just too damn perfect for him.

This is more Bo in his... 200's, I guess. Hence the muttonchops. And the outfit is absolutely the same one that his mentor, and my previous character, Leif wore. My headcanon is that it was a gift from Leif. It also fills in the Winter Camouflage mundane item slot that this set of characters have had.

I do tend to flick between whether or not his prosthetic leg is visible or not visible. Or whether he has one of those "blade" prosthetics or not.

And, of course, I signed him up to be an Emerald Enclave member.

Anyway...

This week's soup was Potato and Bacon... and I tried a thing I saw on Instagram... but without, you know, double-checking it and going mostly off vibes. Which is taking a portion of the soup out once it's done, blitzing that and putting it back in in order to thicken it up. And while it was... good... it didn't work like I thought it was going to. But again, vibes, not actually following the instructions.

Soup was good anyway though.

This week's Mini Media Reviews kind of stretch out a little. 

I started with an unsuccessful attempt. I got about halfway through the movie and the disc just kept stuttering and jumping and became unwatchable. And it was a 3 hour movie, so it drove me insane enough that I couldn't finish. But, trust me, the 2024 French version of  The Count of Monte-Cristo will return, because what I did see was amazing.

I followed that up with the first season of Murdoch Mysteries. I am genuinely surprised that that show has 19 seasons. Because it's... well, it's solidly average. The premise of Mystery of the Week set in the 1890's, I am absolutely here for. A number of the characters, I'm absolutely here for. The plots and the scripts... yeah, that's where this show kind of falls on it's face. Oh, so both Nikola Tesla and Arthur Conan Doyle show up? And ghosts are... real? But it's not a supernatural show in any way. Except psychic predictions and ghosts, they exist. It's also very much doing "call forwards" to things that will be developed after the timeline of the show, and it's very much "yeah, you can stop now".

But it's mostly simple and straightforward mystery stories. That I assume will probably improve over the course of the show. Hopefully.

We're also at the week of the year where the vroom vroom cars come and make vroom vroom entirely too close to where I live and eventually the vroom vroom planes will make all the windows rattle and I hate everything involved with vroom vroom. 

Oh good... we've just reached the vroom vroom planes. Urgh. 

There wasn't any Friday Night DnD this week, due to reasons. But Fluffy and I did Movie Night instead.

And I have to issue a rare correction. We watched a couple of older movies, the first of which was Predestination. Now, I have nothing but positive memories of this movie, but before we watched it I had a look at my old review from 11 years ago. And for reasons that I can absolutely not explain, I rated it 2/5. Which would have been either 4 or 5 outta 10 in the old system.

I was incorrect.

Or else it was a typo when I was updating the score system. Because in no way was this a 2/5 movie. So I have officially updated it to a 4/5. It absolutely deserves it.

I think I pinged it hard at the time because the twists and turns of the script were obvious to me, but looking back at it and rewatching it last night, the script is tight and well written, the performances are incredible and the production design and costumes are top notch. I also noticed so many additional details last night based on being in the room with somebody else experiencing it for the first time.

I still stand by everything I said about Sarah Snook... also while I know that she's worked pretty consistently, I really don't understand why she never hit it big or found that one thing that really put her on the map. I mean, maybe that was the TV show Succession, but I haven't seen it. She is outstanding though.

We followed it up with one of my comfort movies and an old standby, Jumpin' Jack Flash. I can quote large portion of that movie verbatim. It did kind of make me realise the fact that that movie has a lot of people who went on to be very famous in it or making it.

But an enjoyable night all up.

Anyway.

Today was fairly uneventful. We did the supermarket. I got the matching Dutch Oven casserole dish to the fry pan I got last week. Hopefully I end up with enough points for the baking tray before either they run out of them or we get to March.

Otherwise, not much to report. 

character saturday: astronomy boy

This week's DnD Character Colouring Book was one of those scenarios where I wasn't sure where the character was going, but throwing random items into the mix kind of came together in a way that made me completely fall in love with him. 

So, Olan aka Skymapper was born. I will admit that he's technically a genderswapped version of Zovi from last year. Or at least started out that way. I might have tweaked a few bits and pieces, but at this point I've made so many minis that have gone unused that it's easier to grab an old one and tweak a couple of details rather than starting over. The slightly blushy cheeks that, let's be honest, pops up a fair amount in cute nerd boys with glasses, was definitely an addition though.

I also very rarely use those pants without boots to partially cover them. But I went for the very low matching shoes this time. The little cropped puffer jacket really helped tie everything together. And the glasses are definitely inspired by Zahir from a few weeks back. Plus, he's also a big old book nerd who reads too much.

I rarely use the tower shields, or anything other than the round ones, honestly. But a tower shield made sense for this boy. And while, on the mini, the front is actually blank, the character has a shield with a "human sized" bas relief of his goddess on it, plus a prayer to her inscribed on the back.

I think there were some vague backstory ideas floating around when I made him, but I also did a little bit of backstory on a different character since then that might have actually used some of the same basic ideas.

The idea that's kind of left swimming around in the fishbowl right now is of him travelling with his father, a wandering druid/cleric/ranger type who was aligned to no one clan, but travelled between clans and the wider world, bringing news and stories and who caught Olan the names of the stars and their stories. And at some point young Olan was left an orphan in [insert name of town/city I haven't used 300 times already] at a temple to Selune, where he realised that the stars had an entirely different set of names here.

Something like that, anyway.

And, because all of these characters get some new piece of gear from the new book, Olan gets the "locking spellbook". Admittedly, I'd already given him the book, just because it made sense for a Knowledge Cleric, before I doubled down on gear. And, honestly, a locking spellbook that you don't put spells in is just a book. The item description does say that "this 100-page leather-bound tome can be used as a Spellbook"... so, just a book then. Sadly, Hero Forge doesn't have any book items that appear to be locked, so I'm going to handwave that a little.

Anyway...

The soup for this week... spicy chicken noodle soup... but with bowtie pasta for the noodle component. Really, really good.

This week's Mini Media Review... Sinners. Wow. Just... wow. It's a very slow burn. And I feel like it's a movie that you kind of need to know is a vampire movie going in, because it makes the slow burn more effective in my opinion. Basically knowing that things are going to get fantastical instead of waiting for, you know, racism, to happen, relieves the bad kind of tension. It's also a fascinating take on the vampire mythos, is a movie that is ultimately about community and gives you a lot to unpack the more you let the movie sit with you. 

And amazing performances throughout. Michael B Jordan, obviously, for playing identical twins. But my personal shoutout goes to Wunmi Mosaku as Annie. But, really, nobody in this is bad. And kudos to Ryan Coogler for once again making a movie that has a point of view (see also Black Panther and it's sequel) that is more nuanced than you might expect. If I had any minor, minor, minor quibble, it does slightly suffer from Lord of the Rings syndrome in that it has like 6 endings one after the other, and every time you think it's done, we roll over into another ending. But I'm also not mad at it for that.

Cannot recommend enough. And if it had come up in a normal review, it would have gotten 5 twin brothers out of 5.

Friday Night DnD was... complicated. You know what, I wrote a whole bunch about where we're at right now and my frustrations with same, and I just ended up circling the drain. Some of which is entirely my fault, some of which is entirely DM choices. But I also have two weeks to... circle the drain in the opposite direction maybe... who knows.

Anyway.

Today was yesterday. That's right, today was cancelled and we todayed yesterday. Because we reached that weekend where the Norwood Christmas Pageant blocks off the easy route between my place and the supermarket and is generally a pain in the ass.

Although I was pleased to see that, as I said to Fluffy in 2022, "my pact with the Eldritch Things Between the Cracks" is still in effect. Because it rained again this year. Not enough that it drowned the bagpipes, but clearly enough for the Eldritch Things.

But rolling back to yesterday that was pretending to be today... I mean it was mostly the same old same old. I did trade in a lot of the stamps that I didn't actually realise that I was still collecting on the supermarket app for an incredibly, incredibly heavy cast iron and red enamel frypan. And I have enough stamps still to get a red Dutch Oven pot next week. And if stocks do indeed last, maybe even a red rectangular casserole dish. 

Which is good, because I have definitely been in need of a new frypan.

As always, it made this morning slightly odd, where I didn't have anywhere to go or anywhere to be. 

character saturday: nasty girl

So, of course, the one time that I have a set of characters locked and ready to go between two points on the calendar, something else pops up that could have taken precedence. But I stayed strong... 

And thus, for today's DnD Character Colouring Book, we have Pain, another character inspired by the new book. And a rogue. Because I love a rogue. Although I don't know that I fully have a handle on how I'd actually play this subclass. Making her a Zhent kinda works though. I think as far as I got with backstory for her that was she was born into a cult and the cult got destroyed, but she ended up as an orphan with the Zhents. That all tracks.

Also, I've absolutely gotten to the point where I've made so many Hero Forge minis that I've started reusing some of the ones who never went anywhere as starting points for other characters. Pain started out as a character from Dax's backstory, who I thought that I'd posted, but I can't find. And I changed her a little... but it was really the horns that brought her together.

This is absolutely a character base I will come back to at some point. Not least of all because she isn't at all signalling to somebody over your right shoulder, there's absolutely no reason to worry and you haven't at all pissed her off. It's all fine. Normally I wouldn't go to green, but this just worked. So the armor/clothes went to dark purple over blue or black. And no, I have no idea how she gets that hood on or off. I suspect it involves buttons perhaps.

I am always slightly amused any time I find a good use for that breastplate too... because I wasn't hugely enthusiastic about it when it came out.

And, again, Pain gets one of the new mundane items... the Devil Mask which lets you hide your identity. Should it be a full face mask? Yeah, probably. But I liked that design more than any of the full face ones.

Anyway...

This week's soup was... technically stewp. Stoop? Half soup, half stew. Mostly due to the large amount of rice I put in there. Also, it's November and still I'm making soup.

The Mini Media Reviews this week... Peninsula, the "follow up" movie to the very, very, very excellent Train to Busan. And where that movie was emotional and impactful and scary and absolutely one of my favourite zombie movies... Peninsula is... a lackluster heist movie where people make a lot of questionable decisions when they definitely should be running. And an 11 year old girl somehow knows how to pull off driving moves that would impress the extended cast of The Fast and the Furious. It was...okay.

Then I watched the Fallout TV series. Now, I've watched a lot of Fallout 3/New Vegas and Fallout 4 content. I've played a small amount of Fallout 4 before realising that it really wasn't my type of game, so I'm familiar with the universe. And everybody in production design, costuming, effects, make up, all that good stuff... doing excellent work. The place where it fell down for me? Script and characters. By the end of the 8 episodes, there was only one character I actually liked (Norm, played by Moises Arias), most everybody else quickly became either insufferable (Maximus) or pointless (Lucy), both of whom are supposed to be our "main characters". And it feels like it's both trying to aim for people with no knowledge of the game and also people who know it very well, and kind of failing both of them.

Also, eight whole episodes and not one single Deathclaw. I'm just saying.

Friday DnD was... not what I was expecting. Thankfully, we got to sidestep the previously discussed nonsense story. As that all happened off screen. But we can vaguely guess the results of that, given that Fluffy is now up to Character #3. Still not his record. That was the Avernus campaign where he technically made it to four... but the third one was mostly just a fill in character and not actually intended to stick around for any length of time. Regardless.

That was the character who nearly took Pain's place as today's image. But I get the feeling that the version I've made thus far might need a couple more pokes with a blunt stick. It's like... five tweaks and maybe a different set of boots away from being done. Possibly pants not boots. I am unsure. He's not camera ready, let's put it that way.

Anyway...

Today was... almost pointless, but worked itself out in the end.

We started, obviously, with the supermarket. Nothing amazingly thrilling there.

But last week Ma said that she wanted to look at some dresses or skirts or some other clothes basically. Which is perfectly fine. The problem comes in when the stores always assume that women are a certain height, and make the dresses either thigh length or floor length. Neither of which works for an old lady with her butt to close to the floor.

So, we tried Big W, we tried Target... and nothing. Also... and I ask this as someone not really keeping up with women's fashion. Are skirts not in right now? Or, you know, skirts that are longer than about a foot. Because we say about three, and those were mostly in the "workwear" section.

We did eventually find one of those little "boutique" stores, that sold a little bit of a hodgepodge of stuff really, and found a few things that fitted nicely and were about the right length. And not the first time that I've seen what mostly looked like a shapeless sack on the hanger and convinced Ma to try it on, only to have it be in regular rotation for a long while. Whether this will be the same or not remains to be seen.

But at least we have a better idea now. 

character saturday: oathkeeper realness

Remember how I said last week that ideas where percolating over the new subclasses that dropped in the new book... yeah, after a brief instance of Hero Forge Character Block, I came out the other side with enough minis to get us to the Advent Calendar.

Yeah, let that percolate for a hot second.

But after several failed ideas, I got to Arzu Oathkeeper. And is Oathkeeper a less than subtle dig at the fact that nobody understands what the hell it means to break your paladin oath in D&D. But it also showed up organically one one of those list generators for orc names.

So, I got to mix one of the new backgrounds, Genie Touched, with the new Noble Genie subclass... double genie. The thing I like most about the subclass is that it's the first paladin that doesn't require armor. And I'm always down for that. And then, one of the other things I love about the new book is the small list of mundane items, which we really haven't gotten before for the most part. So this month's characters all get one of those items.

And what better for the Genie background Genie subclass character than an item that gives him advantage on talking to creatures of a specific element.

I don't really have backstory for Arzu, I have a location and probably a city, and a type of Genie, but I think I'd need to properly read the updated location lore in the new book before actually coming up with something.

And that Hero Forge outfit still doesn't make a fucking lick of sense. Explain to me where the crossed over section in the top half goes. And I've seen the original concept art... and it doesn't work there either. Likewise the yellow cord. Admittedly that actually goes all the way around the waist in the concept art, it doesn't just stop for no reason. But honestly, I'm not mad about the whole look here. We can just pretend that it all makes sense.

Oh, and, yes, the text at the base of his sword blade does say "Phenomenal cosmic powers! Itty bitty living space!", thanks for asking.

Anyway...

This week's soup was an invention. I'm calling it Chicken Minestrone. It was basically most of the things I'd do for minestrone, but I added shredded chicken. And white beans. Very good actually.

The Mini Media Reviews this week are an eclectic mix. First we have The Legend of Ochi. The most 1980's movie made in the 2020's. Because it has a little creature in it that is almost exclusively done with puppetry. And some of the sets feel very set-like, but in that 1980's way. The movie in general is kinda weird. It also does not surprise me that the director/writer did music videos for Björk. Story checks out. Good though.

Next up... The Bad Guys. On the surface, a decent enough kids movie. However, it's also about a furry with a praise kink. And I'm not exaggerating. That's literally the plot of the movie. Basically the more I paid attention to it, the more it seemed like somebody took a list of kinks and added them all into the movie. But the animation/art itself, gorgeous. And a lot more complex than it appears on first appearance.

I was constantly surprised that two of the main characters were not actually voiced by Owen Wilson and Danny Devito... but instead Sam Rockwell and Marc Maron. Again, do with that what you will. 

I might watch the sequel eventually... even though I know that there is a scene where a snake makes out with a bird. And that image is as disturbing as that description indicates.

Last up was the first season of the TV show The Alienist. Looking back, I didn't completely love the book. The show is very beautiful to look at, and clearly I'm on a late 1800's detective kick. The show actually improves some of issues I had with the book. My main issue is that either Datoka Fanning is a terrible actress or else she was directed to play the character terribly. Or the writing was questionable. An interesting show though. Again, there's a second season, but I didn't really like the second book... but who knows. Maybe.

Friday Night DnD was... probably supposed to be more than it ended up being. We mostly did some clean up from last week. Up until a certain point were we kind of fell off the cliff into the nonsense side story the DM concocted. I'm not here for it, clearly. Thankfully, my character can also not be here for it and just walk away from it.

On the downside, I had the first bread fail for quite a while. I think it's because I mixed the last of the old yeast with new yeast... I think the yeasts fought each other and didn't bother to make the bread rise properly. 

Anyway...

Today was mostly standard shopping. Although I did show up at the supermarket with literally no idea what the hell soup I was going to make this week... so we'll see how that goes.

Afterwards I wanted to do a run to Kmart to look at what their options where for Christmas mugs... because the one I have from last year is cute as hell but hard to drink from. Did they have cute Christmas mugs? Yes. Did I actually like any of them enough? No, no I did not. But I'm here for the very "traditional" Christmas vibe that Kmart is doing this year. It's all Santas and red bows and trees and gingerbread folks. So there was much Looking At Things. But nothing caught my eye enough. Until I saw the discounted/leftover Halloween candles. And surely the price on the shelf was for the little candles, not the big ones... but no, turns out, big Halloween candles, and the scent is supposedly "Blueberry and Spices"... 50c. Sorry... what? Yes, I bought two. I considered buying four. It was honestly more about carrying them all.

That's it really...

character saturday: war mama

I was going to go in a different direction for today's DnD Character Colouring Book...because a new book with a collection of new subclasses just dropped, and there are a couple of ideas brewing around in my back brain. But it only dropped yesterday, so the ideas are still percolating.

Instead I went back to one of the very short lived (literally) characters, who I really wish I'd had more time with. So we have the revised version of the revised Littlefoot. Not gunna lie, we still need an updated version of that helmet though.

I do like the updated sword and shield though. And the fact that I can actually make it look like her nose is broken.

Anyway...

Soup this week was a return to Lasagne Soup. Always a good plan.

Mini Media Review is all four seasons (aka 11 movie length episodes) of Vienna Blood. It reminded me very much of Paris Police 1900 (and also Paris Police 1905). Which makes perfect sense, because it's another detective series set in the same time period (1900-1910) and in Vienna this time instead of Europe. Vienna Blood has more of a "screened on TV" vibe vs Paris Police, which always felt like a streaming show.

But I was fully obsessed with Juergen Maurer and Matthew Beard, who played our police detective and psychologist respectively. Slightly more so with Beard and his wonderfully narrow shoulders in the 1900's menswear. Obsessed.

Sadly, the character that they decided would be his love interest throughout the series I absolutely loathed. I don't know if it's the actress, Luise von Finckh, or the way the character is written, but their relationship was completely toxic and I wanted them to run in opposite directions from each other. It's also very frustrating because Beard's other love interest not only undergoes a change in actress (the first version, Jessica De Gouw, is the clear standout), but then just vanishes at the end of the second series. 

But I thoroughly enjoyed it even with that.

Friday was Chiro Day. And I basically did the same loop I always do afterwards.

But, also, guess what... Friday Night was actually Friday Night DnD. For the first time in a whole month.

Did my character both learn that he could understand a language he didn't know he knew? Yes. I mean, I've known this the whole time, but an opportunity came up last night where I actually understood a word we'd heard a few times was actually in another language. So I took the opportunity to lean into the idea and have a little bit of a moment out of that. And did my character have a little bit of an emotional breakdown over the death of an NPC? Oh hell yeah. That one I didn't expect. Although I did fully expect that people we'd spent a lot of time with would be targeted once I understood what was going on... I just didn't expect that particular moment.

That good good roleplay juice. Gotta love it.

Anyway...

Today was a slightly odd supermarket wander. Nothing majorly exciting, just one of those things where I assume it's going to be a light week when we're 80% of the way through the store, and then the last 20% just goes a little nuts.

Afterwards we took 20 minutes to do what should have been a five minute job, but it was something to do. 

character saturday: hot nerd boy

This week's DnD Character Colouring Book went through some iterations. I think it originally started with a Reel I saw on Instagram that saw in passing about making male characters vs female characters. Where you make a range of body shapes and sizes and ages and weirdness when you make female characters, but your male character roster is mostly Hot Boy, Hot Boy, Hot Boy. I felt seen and I didn't appreciate it.

And it's not 100% true. Sometimes they're a Hot Halfling. But my male characters do tend to default to things I find attractive vs my female characters. Flip and reverse that as needed for your own gender identity and sexual orientation.

But Zahir yn Hamza el Sadhara yi Memnon (or Zahir, son of Hamza, of the Sadhara family, from Memnon, based on Calishite naming conventions), who would probably put the title of Ynamalik (or lesser prince) at the start of that if he was feeling formal, doesn't contradict that idea in the slightest.

Because I really need to play a warlock in a full game. And I really want to play a male tiefling. But Zahir started out as a remodel of Alby Abeowan, because that's a face that I still adore. And pulling from Riddle a while back, the Sphinx Celestial Patron and the Sphinx of Wonder familiar. Although I did some Photoshop fuckery in order to make a monochrome/grey Sphinx cat. Because that really just suited his Zahir's vibe. He did start out with both purple skin and a dark blue pinstriped suit... but when I decided on Celestial, he ended up in white and then the purple looked a little too over the top. 

I did, however, go back to the idea of a tiefling with a succubus lineage that I keep coming back to. Hence the pretty.

He did start out skinny like Alby and Riddle, and then at some point I gave him the full KPop Demon Hunters Saja Boy makeover. And added in the glasses, because I don't use glasses on my characters nearly enough. And then added in the very skinny tail art, because Hero Forge doesn't have skinny tails.

Finishing up with a walking cane/rod arcane focus. Honestly though, if Hero Forge let characters actually hold a book like a normal human being, I might have been tempted to give him both the Pact of the Chain and the Pact of the Tome boons and use the book as his focus. I might still play around with the idea of some point. Because the idea of him being the hot nerdy bookworm is appealing.

And did I just stop, flick through the book assets and find one where he can hold it properly and then redo the image... yes, yes I did. Does that hand/wrist still look a little... funky? Yes. But red leather Book of Shadows. I'll live with it. Might he end up with all three Pact Boons... I mean... maybe.

I tossed the idea of either a Noble or a Charlatan... but they come with the same feat, so I think he's actually a Noble but using that and his relationship with his family in order to be a little stinker and his actually a Charlatan. Because he really hasn't been in touch with his family since he was sent to The Lady's College in Silverymoon to become a wizard, but instead just read a lot of books until he stumbled on some particular magical secrets that led him down to the Frozen Sea Desert and his patron.

See... this is what happens when a fucking backstory just flows out like fucking water. Not like the pulling of teeth that a number of my barbarian character concepts were. 

So we'll just leave all this here if it turns out I ever do anything with Zahir. It all very much depends on what's actually available by the time we've finished both the next campaign and then the campaign after that which will be my turn as DM. So it's going to be a hot minute. 

At worst, I will reskin him into a new character. 

Anyway...

Soup this week... Mostly counts as Shit I Made Up. But it was kind of Chicken Caccitore if we just count the caccitore as me thinking about remembering what caccitore is. And without olives. And with a lot of rice. And, honestly, I made too much of it. But it was very tasty, so I didn't mind all that much.

Mini Media Reviews... Firstly, a revisit of The Mitchells Vs The Machines from New Years Eve 2023. I don't really disagree with anything I said back then. It's very Not For Me, and a bit too random to be completely successful. But pleasant enough.

The other movie couldn't have been more different. The Age of Innocence. I have a complex relationship with this movie. Well, less the movie, and more just the fact that I know that it's the movie that I was watching when Ludo declared a "Family Meeting" and informed me that he and Lownee had decided that I was moving out of the house we were sharing at the time. Suffice to say, by the time I came back to the movie I was singularly uninterested. Plus I think it was actually on TV at the time, so it's not like I just stopped it and could pick it back up again. I honestly couldn't tell you what I did for the rest of that evening, other than perhaps cursing his name repeatedly.

Admittedly, watching it this time I remember none of the movie. Partially because it has been at least 25 years, partially because I think I literally saw the first three minutes of the movie. But the movie itself, divorced of all other context, is actually really good.

It's all very angst and yearning and repressed high society and whatnot. But within the genre of that, it's very well done. Not least of all because Michelle Pfeiffer is in it. I mean, a lot of good actors are in it... but I always think that you can't go wrong with Michelle.

The weather this week has been Cuckoo Banana Pants. Big fat rainstorms multiple times, including as we speak.

Still no Friday Night DnD.  I think we're back next Friday. At the very least the week after. But if it was any longer I may legitimately go insane.

Anyway...

Today was less of a headfuck than I thought it might have been. The supermarket and everything was fine, but I needed to do some things for Ma online and wasn't sure how simple that was going to be. Turned out, a lot simpler than I expected.

So we rewarded ourselves by taking a drive out to my old stomping ground in North Adelaide and getting a bunch of stuff from Perryman's. Because sometimes you need a Thai Chicken Sausage Roll and an Apple Turnover.

And to drive past places you used to live while singing the song you continually think it Memory from Cats but is actually The Way We Were from the movie of the same name... but like Macy Grey was singing it. And only like three out of the first four lines. It's a very complex performance. With layers.

character saturday: piratical woman

Yep... we're back in the Barbarian salt mines for today's DnD Character Colouring Book. Welcome to the roster, Pearl Yarwood. And, I know I've said this a couple of times, but I think we might have found the actual character for the next campaign. Maybe. At the moment.

My issue with previous characters have been the backstories. Because I was very much leaning in the direction of the original Havoc, but any backstory I came up with got too complicated too quickly as I tried to circle the square of his background mechanic and his look. It just wouldn't come together.

So I started again from scratch. And went a different route somewhat. Admittedly, she did start life as a tiefling called Anarchy ("call me Ana"), and I liked that version, but I kept circling back around to aasimar. And when I dropped in the silver skin I used for last week's Ayda, it all started to come together. I did go for more of a midway point between gold and silver for Pearl, which in the end became the inspiration for her name. I've continued to fuss and fiddle and finesse her for the last week more or less. I've changed the eyes several times, I added in the makeup basically yesterday. There might end up being a version with a more defined muscular body at some point. Just little tiny tweaks here and there.

I'm not going to lie though, there's a non-zero amount of crossover to the backstory of Masika, my Storm Sorcerer. And also a non-zero amount of the fact that I watched all four seasons of Black Sails. And her look is somewhat inspired by both Charles Vane and Billy Bones.

But at least I made it all the way through the first draft of her backstory and had it still make sense when I was done.

Also, the idea of a dual wielding barbarian is appealing. I did toss around the idea of giving her an axe and a cutlass, but none of the smaller axes on Hero Forge are right. If they happen to update that between now and when the campaign happens, well, all bets are off. Likewise with certain costume elements.

We'll see how long this lasts (very much fingers crossed). I do need to have a conversation with Fluffy about her though, or at least certain aspects of her backstory that I pulled from the wiki, but I don't know how much that actually features in the campaign we'll be doing. 

Anyway...

This week's soup was not soup but instead was Tuna Noodle Do. And not a terrible version of same. Possibly because I added more of the wet ingredients, so the whole thing worked better than the last couple of the previous versions have.

The Mini Movie Reviews for this week were very lucky choices. Because I didn't have anything come in last week, so just picked a couple of options from random.

Firstly, there was Weathering With You, by the same writer/director as Suzume that I watched late last year. He has a very specific point of view in his work... a weird one, but specific. He does enjoy taking a simple story and adding a supernatural or strange element to it. I definitely need to watch more of his stuff I think. But without spoiling anything, the ending of this was the bit that got me. Let's call it a unique ending. Certainly not how I thought it was going to end. But excellent.

Then there was Babylon from 2022. Which is a three hour movie about the end of the silent era in Hollywood starring Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie that I had never heard of. And it's very good. Yes, some of the sequences go on just a touch too long for me. And the movie could do with being a little tighter, because three hours is a lot. But it's a hell of a movie. It would also make for a really, really fucked up double feature with Singing In The Rain. Also, maybe also throw The Artist in there. Because they're all the same time period.

Although Babylon is the most... adult of the three.

Two very good random pulls.

Still no Friday Night DnD.

Anyway...

Today started out like all the Saturdays. But because my car hasn't had a proper run for a few weeks, it was being a little temperamental this morning.

So we ended up taking a drive down to IKEA, just to work all the kinks out. And because it was at least a place that we had things we wanted to do. But we decided that there was no point doing the upper floor since we didn't really need to wander around the large furniture, we just wanted the Marketplace.

One set of drinking glasses for Ma and one new doormat and a 100 new tealight candles for me later.

And entirely too much time going "ooooooooooh" over kitchen utensils. What? They had nice wooden handles. I will also say that the Christmas stuff this year is probably better than the last couple of years. More Christmas colours and less weird Scandinavian aesthetics.

character saturday: light as a feather

Last week's post led pretty directly into this week's DnD Character Colouring Book.

I played around with some character ideas based on that, although I kind of took a left and ended up here. And for some reason I just want to play Aasimar as very tall folk. Probably because both the Solar and the Planetar are Large creatures in the game.

Ayda ended up more than a little bit Genasi-coded, especially since I figured that both her Aasimar lineage and her monastery are connected to Akadi, the elemental goddess of air. There was another god I was considering, Shaundakul, even though technically he disappeared a couple of editions ago.

I don't have a full backstory for her yet, but I know that she acts as a guide and protector for travellers, merchants and caravans. And her reason for getting involved in the campaign would be that she's the one who knows the way there or she's been there before. Something like that.

I also decided that I was going to theme her Warrior of the Elements powers, because who says you have to use all of the damage types. I can totally theme her as a cold/thunder/lightning monk. 

It's also always interesting to me when a character just quietly announces their sexuality to me. And maybe it's because there's a slight visual similarity to my Storm Sorceress with the close cropped hair and also because I was looking through similar names. But at some point I just realised she had a female partner. And I ended up thinking about a gold dragonborn, but honestly, brass might be a better fit. There was a moment where I thought about adding a kid to the mix. But I've done the partner and kid vibe already fairly recently. But I haven't done just a partner. So there's that.

And I found it amusing that the clown pants from, I think, last April Fool's, were what I ended up going with. Because I just wanted loose "harem pants", and those were the best fit. And had a belt. Which too many Hero Forge pants just lack.

My main issue right now is that while I'm excited about this character right now, I don't know if I actually want to play a monk in this campaign. Yes, I want to play something melee based. And yes, I'm still leaning in the general direction of barbarian. I just haven't found a character yet that really excites me. There's the original version of Havoc. I just don't know how he'd actually play at the table. Like many other character ideas, he'd really need a full backstory.

I think the other problem is kind of that I'm not really that excited about most of the 2024 Barbarian and Fighter subclasses. And it doesn't seem like a lot of point not playing a 2024 subclass.

So, I'm just going to keep playing around with ideas until I get somewhere. Maybe Kordela from last week would work as a different subclass.

Anyway...

Firstly, fuck you Blogger. No I don't fucking want to have you force "search links" into my posts using, presumably, AI. I would love to turn that fucking option off. And never have to see it again. I will definitely never be clicking that button. Not even to test how badly it works. 

Moving on.

My toe is... fine. Technically. The fact of having tape across two toes for like three weeks means that the skin is wrecked. So I've had to unstrap it. And it's not really any worse than when it was strapped. So there's that.

I am still on my shorter walk though. Just to be safe. 

This week's soup was Chicken Noodle. Partially to make up for last week's disappointing noodle soup. And partially to chase away the end of the cold I had from the week before. Even if the chicken and the noodles didn't help, the slight excess of black pepper and cayenne pepper certainly chased it away. Also I decided to use some linguini noodles that I had, broken into four pieces, and I'll be doing that again, because they were amazing.

Mini Media Review for this week... was something of a failure. I had grabbed the first series of The Originals. Without knowing that it was a spin off from The Vampire Diaries. And it was about vampires and werewolves and witches and set in New Orleans.

And also fucking terrible. I mean it wasn't unwatchable terrible. And not as bad as the Van Helsing TV show I tried to watch back in May. It was just... overly dramatic and very much a WB drama that they threw a vampire story over the top of. I made it through two episodes before I gave up.

So we're not counting that.

Nothing much else to report for the week really. Still no Friday Night DnD.

Anyway...

Today wasn't much of anything either. We did take a slightly pointless trip to Spotlight after the supermarket this morning. But while they have both Halloween and Christmas stuff out, nothing really caught either of our eyes. 

character saturday: golden buttons

I did say that this was going to happen last week. So this week's DnD Character Colouring Book is Kordela Buttons, but in golden yellow. I did also make a pink version, which might work better for story reasons, but a kind of orangey-yellow is a colour I hadn't really done for a character at this point.

Admittedly, predominantly grey is also something I haven't really done in a long time either.

The problem is... as much as I like Kordela... and the Path of the World Tree is the subclass I keep gravitating towards... all this has really done is make me thing about other possible characters. And as much as I've only really done Barbarian a couple of times, I've only really done Monk once. And Fighter, or at least melee Fighter not really much at all.

So... and this is really only for Future Me... let's look at what I could play. Honestly, of the four Barbarians, it could be any of them. Wild Heart I've done before when it was Totem. Berserker and Zealot are going to be simpler than World Tree. Fighter, I just default to Champion, because I don't care about most of the other ones. Maybe Eldritch Knight would be in there. Monk... I mean, all four of those are potentially good. But we have a Monk in this campaign. And as much as I like all of the Monks it's probably either Shadow or Elements, mostly for story potential.

Then we come to species (née races)... and it's either Aasimar, Goliath or Tiefling. Mostly because I haven't played the first two before and have only played the last one once. I just don't currently have any strong character ideas right now.

I dunno... maybe I need to put the barbarian idea to one side for a bit and poke other melee classes with a stick for a little bit. Or think about other combinations that I haven't already done. Aasimar Zealot Barbarian is potentially interesting. Goliath Elements Monk likewise.

The other issue I have right now is really wanting to play a female character again. So I feel like that might be impacting my thought process.

And also the fact that I kind of still have Rin in my back pocket. But she was never supposed to be a full campaign character.

Of course there is also a book with new subclasses coming out at the end of the year, but that only has one Fighter and neither of the other two classes. And, honestly, I don't really like any of the other ones that have been announced.

I have character block/decision paralysis... can you tell?

Next week might have to be the line up of Friday Night characters since we started. Maybe that will shake something loose. 

Anyway...

The foot is... fine. I mean, it's not fine fine... but it's not causing me any additional problems. I changed the taping a couple of times this week. Once because the original version was too damn tight, but then I redid the replacement so that it worked better. I'm still on the short walk. And probably will be until the end of the month, just to be safe.

I'm already bored with it, but in a different way than, say, having a cast on my hand when I broke the thumb equivalent. This is more "this is just dumb and pointless" over "this is a giant obstruction on my hand that stops me from doing things".

The Mini Media Reviews for this week are the fourth and final season of Black Sails and KPop Demon Hunters.

Did I get emotional more than once in the last few episodes of Black Sails? Yes, yes I did. Did it end how I expected it to? Yes... and also no. It didn't go as full on Treasure Island as I was expecting it to or hoping it might, because all the elements were there.

And without spoiling anything, a quote from one of the characters right at the very end of the final episode really summed up the total ethos of the show...

A story is true. A story is untrue. As time extends it matters less and less. The stories we want to believe... Those are the ones that survive, despite upheaval and transition, and progress. Those are the stories that shape history. And then what does it matter if it was true when it was born? It's found truth in its maturity... Because what's it all for if it goes unremembered? It's the art that leaves the mark. But to leave it, it must transcend. It must speak for itself. It must be true.

And very much made sense from a show that took "real life" pirate characters (as in people with those names existed and are part of the historical record) with the characters from Treasure Island. So, this is their version of those things. That, to me, transcended, that spoke for itself. That became true.

I did very, very much enjoy it. 

KPop Demon Hunters, by contrast... is taking a lot of well worn tropes and doing about what you'd expect from them. It's not bad, by any means. It's entertaining, the music is stupidly catchy (and has been all over Instagram for several months at this point, so I already knew bits of songs I didn't realise were from this movie). The animation is strong... even if, occasionally, translating 2D anime faces into 3D animation feels... weird. My issue is more that this is all well worn roads in a shiny new coat. And I don't even know how you actually make these story tropes feel fresh at this point.

But I do like the shiny coat of Korean KPop/Mythology.

What I didn't realise until I was looking up stuff afterwards is that the lead actress is also Kira from Teen Wolf. Which was fun.

And for those of you who have been around and know my tastes... Saja Boy Abby. Just because pink haired himbo. Hmmmm... maybe that's the Aasimar character I need to make... pink haired himbo.

Oh, and the crochet project is done. Is it perfect? No. Could I have made better decisions? Absolutely. Am I going forward with it anyway? Yes. The end result has the vibes I wanted it to have. And I will post some pictures and do a full breakdown once I've given it to the person it's for.

Soup this week was... lackluster. Well, that's not really fair. It was very tasty, it was just the vegetables that annoyed me by the end of the week. Which is why I ended up just dipping bread in the broth on Friday and making that dinner.

Speaking of Friday... Friday was Chiro Day. Which was good because since the last one there way Toe Gate and also the Rental Inspection and the aforementioned crochet project. Things needed resetting.

There was not, however, any Friday Night DnD... and won't be, until the end of the month, because Fluffy is Currently Overseas. So that's what's going on there.

Anyway...

Today was a relatively chill supermarket visit. It was one of those weird ones where I didn't get a lot... and will probably come to regret that by about Wednesday when I realise I forgot X, Y and/or Z. But right now I don't know that I did.

And that was it really. There was some faffing, but that's about it. 

character saturday: big blue berserker

I'm absolutely blaming Reddit for this week's DnD Character Colouring Book. Because there was a post about what characters do you have that never made it into a campaign for various reasons.

Of course, my answers were Alby and Lucky, and then I brought up the metric ton of barbarians I've made for the next campaign. That is mostly down to two at this stage... Kordela Buttons and Havoc. But the original, albino version of Havoc.

But the problem there is, visually, my choices for the next campaign are either albino character in white/grey or old lady character in white/grey. Which sent me back to the original inspiration for Havoc... which was technically Wrath. And Wrath's original inspiration, before he got turned into an albino, was actually Raze Darkholme. I don't even remember where I saw the image of Raze originally, Tumblr maybe?

So the blue skin/red hair combo was Wrath's original look. And then I just tried out the albino version.

But I figured, what the hell, let's try Havoc in that colour variation.

What I kind of realised is that, with the tattoos, he kind of ends up coming out like a full sized Nac Mac Feegle from the Tiffany Aching Discworld books. And, you know what, I'm not mad about that. It would definitely be a theme for his personality.

I do think, having lived with this version for a few days, that the correct answer might be actually putting Kordela into a coloured dress instead. The default would be green, but I've had a few characters with green as their colour palette. The ones I haven't really dipped into are probably pink or orange/yellow. I might need to have a play around with that honest.

You'll know that went well if that's next week's character.

Anyway.

This week was Tuna Mornay... although, once again, technically this wasn't a "mornay" since I always forget to add cheese to it. But, to be fair, that's the way we've always made it, sans cheese... but I might have gone a little hard on the spices... mostly because I found some of the spice mix I used last time, after I'd already mixed up a new batch for this time... so I just threw it all in. It wasn't the worst idea I've ever had in relation to this dish... but it was a little intense the first couple of days.

I also did add more rice in this time and that continues to work well.

This week's Mini Media Review is the third season of Black Sails. They're definitely leaning further into combining real historical figures (John/Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Charles Vane, etc) and the cast of Treasure Island before the book (Flint, John Silver, Billy Bones, etc). And it's still incredibly good. I'm very excited to watch the final season this week.

The crochet project continues... I'm almost finished. Then I need to work on some border details and do all the finishing details.

My toe is... fine. I mean, it's still busted, and I changed the tape on it twice this week. Once because the tape they put on at the clinic really wasn't doing a hell of a lot, but then I used too much tape the first time, so I had to adjust. I do suspect that, unlike the thumb, the toe is probably not going to bounce back in the same way, so the end of my toe may be permantly a little crooked. And it is what it is. It'll just be interesting to see where everything ends up. So long as it functions and isn't sore, I'll cope.

Friday Night DnD was... interesting. We cleared out a bunch of the dungeon we've been in the last couple of weeks, but by the time we got to what should have been the Final Boss, we decided that no, we weren't ready to fuck up his shit, and would come back at a later point. Even though that was supposed to be the end of the first half of the campaign, and we should really have wrecked his shit. We'll come back to it, probably.

But now there is no Friday DnD for a month while Fluffy goes off and Does Stuff.

Anyway...

Today wasn't really much of anything. I mean, we did the supermarket thing. And came back here and did the usual faffing about. But that was really it.