photo saturday: halfling-in-law

So sometimes you make a character... and then make that character's family members... and then you make a character design for something else, but then decide that it would work nicely for that fiancé you envisaged for your fictional sister.

Have I mentioned DnD is fucking weird sometimes?

So Belladonna is Belben's sister. She runs the front counter in the bakery. And as I mentioned in another post, her name comes from arguably my favourite (maybe joint favourite with Rose) Doctor Who companion, Donna.

Beau is actually a character I made for a Hero Forge posing contest (which I didn't win because clearly people just like to do really weird shit with Hero Forge posing and I'm only here for understated natural posing). But then I realised that in my head canon... and possibly in something I wrote... Bella had a fiancé. And Beau just slotted into that space nicely, because I never like throwing away a really good halfling design.

This week.

I have said it... basically every time this comes up... but the only good thing about rental inspections is coming home afterwards. Because no more inspection plus a clean apartment.

But, rolling back a little. I did all of the tidying up and cleaned the kitchen on Sunday morning, giving up around 1pm. Then Monday I did my usual trick of piling all the loose items from the floor onto my bed, cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed and mopped the floor (which is my least favourite thing)... and finished up by about 2 I think. It wasn't like I was doing any of it at the speed of sound, I just pottered along, doing what I needed to do. All while listening to the first couple of episodes of Critical Role's second series over the two days.

All in all it wasn't the worst.

Tuesday I cleared out of the house in the morning and did some prep work at the library... where I completely failed to notice that I was listening to the same song from the video game Journey soundtrack on repeat for about two hours.

And then when I walked out of the library, my right calf decided to just... well, it wasn't a spasm or a cramp, it was just suddenly painful. Not fun. And, it didn't make a lick of sense. It got better over the rest of the week... but I did definitely keep asking "but why?" every time I got up.

On the up side, my apartment was super tidy.

Wednesday's DnD game was good. We finished up the module we've been playing the last couple of weeks and dipped into a new one. And I got to play around with some character background stuff, so that was good.

Friday's game was also good. But we're still early days.

Today was another cut and paste. Supermarket, unpack, YubTubs... but we did head out to Big W... although the reason we went there wasn't available yet, so boo to that.

And that was it really.

Current mood:

photo saturday: rogue gotta rogue

Rogues gotta rogue, man... rogues gotta rogue.

I love rogues. I think I may have mentioned that before. And not just because halflings make such good rogues. The idea of an acrobat/dagger throwing thief rogue is definitely appealing.

I also love Nightwing. Or at least the Grayson/post Grayson version of Nightwing. Which is really what inspired this particular rogue. And I also have a very early Hero Forge printed mini of this character.

Kohl is... maybe the third or fourth "version" of this idea. Or maybe he's just had three or four names. And honestly, Beltran is kind of a reinterpretation of the same character. Because I might want to use Kohl for something... at some time... maybe. Also, his visual look, the dark hair with the freckles was based on Cameron Boyce... so I feel a little weird about that now that he passed away.

Beltran is kind of a weird character, I initially imagined him differently... maybe even with a shitty Spanish/Inigo Montoya accent. And with a very different set of personality traits. But the first time I played him was way back in March or April last year... online... when I wasn't excited about the particular adventure... and so maybe I leaned back on vaguely sarcastic and annoyed. And a totally different character emerged. So much so that I had to rewrite his traits.

I need to play him again though... see how he turns out at an actual table. 

Anyway...

So... this week was... it was okay. 

Wednesday we had the second session of the new adventure series... with me running. It went pretty well. I always enjoy almost killing characters. Sadly, I'm not sure if the later adventures are going to be as... well written... interesting... something... as this one. We'll see.

Then Friday we actually had a game, after missing the last two weeks. And we started the new campaign. It was... good. Weird good. Because new characters who don't know each other yet, new DM, new in game location, new positions at the table. Just new. Much many new things. None of them bad.

And given that this is a palette cleanser, there's a lightness to diving into something different. Something new. Something without baggage.

Also, there was general fuckery because the Department of Wheels and Road has decided to tear up the one road we use to get to Mr and Mrs place. And we had to find a new way around... get completely lost following other people who also had no idea where they were going and eventually find a way around. It wasn't super stressful, but it was a pain in the ass.

Switching gears slightly... I have a fucking rental inspection on Tuesday... so that's a thing. I mean, it's fine, but also a pain.

Today... basically play the tape.

Supermarket. Unpacking. A little YubTubs. And then we took a little trip to Spotlight and Officeworks because we wanted to check a couple of things from the Spotlight catalogue (which all turned out to be blah), and I needed fresh blue highlighters. Because I seem to go through blue ones faster than other colours. For some reason.

And that was it really.

Current mood:

photo saturday: nature boys

Have I mentioned my fetish for halflings. Yeah... it's a thing. This is also very much new vs old. 

Apis is what happened when I first read about the Swarmkeeper Ranger from the newest book... because of course I went to halflings and bees. And sure, maybe I went a little over the top with the religious icon realness of bees. I also really need to play a redhead. For as much as I love a redhead, I haven't played one yet. Dark auburn, sure... but not a redhead.

Dal has been through some stuff. He spent a lot of time running around as a dinosaur defeating undead pirates. And as of the last time I played him, he's sitting out in the jungles of Chult on the edge of a ruined city with a ruby in his forehead, technically an undead creature. I kinda need to play another Moon Druid. I like the Circle of the Moon... changing into big dangerous animals is fun. Changing into dinosaurs, even more fun. And being a Ghostwise halfling and having the ability to communicate telepathically while in animal form. Perfection.

So there you go...

The dizziness persists. Some days its better or worse. Generally it's worse in the mornings. I have no sense of it improving, because, as I said, some days are better than others. And my knee has been acting up all week and I only remembered to actually put ice on it midway through the week.

So, you know, fuck everything.

This week Wednesday DnD happened. And yes, my brain was a little fried. But overall it went well.

Friday I had my chiro appointment, so I went off to that... did my thing. Came home. And because we weren't doing Friday night DnD, because small children are disease machines, I cooked my chocolate and cranberry bread, which was great. Granted I'm going to make the same thing next week, so this was a little bit of a rehearsal.

Today, we basically go back to the tape and throw in the "Saturday" tape.

Supermarket as usual... back here... YubTubs. And then we did have a walk over to the Village, not really to any point or purpose.

Current mood:

photo saturday: healers

Dwarves. Clerics. Dwarf clerics. Clerics who are, in fact, dwarves. Yep, I'm now invited all kinds of weird searches to end up here.

I've only ever played one dwarf character. A dwarf wizard. But a dwarf cleric is pretty iconic. Not least of all because the Hill Dwarf racial stat bonuses sync really nicely with a cleric.

These two are... sketches, I guess.

Bazik was my attempt to make the dwarfiest dwarf who ever dwarfed. So a dwarf with the dwarven focused Clan Crafter background who was a Forge cleric of the primary dwarf god Moradin. I think I ended up thinking he would have cook's tools in additional to all the smith's tools and whatnot. Which lead to the roast beast leg. But I do like Bazik. And he was the inspiration when I did a colour scheme for someone else's dwarven cleric.

Safira was one of my other first choices to send to Hell instead of my bard. And if Mr hadn't chosen a class that had access to cleric spells, I might have gone there. Which would absolutely have resulted in a very, very different game. Mostly I love her because of her goddess, Mya. Which is a dwarf goddess who appeared in older versions, but only showed up in one of the more recent books. Mya is the mother goddess to the dwarves, like Mordain is the father god. But I also quite liked how Safira's weapon came out.

So... this week.

Yeah... there's a reason I went for clerics this week.

Sunday... Sunday was fine. Until 1am. So Monday morning technically. At 1am the power went out. And either the evaporative cooler turning off OR getting a text message from the power company woke me up. Or, you know, some combination of the two. But then I couldn't get back to sleep because it was kinda stuffy in my room (hence the aformentioned cooler).

So in the end I had to pull out a trick I haven't had to do since back in the Childers Street days. Getting a face washer/washcloth wet and draping it across my lower back to enable some janky "evaporative cooling". I dozed a little... but really didn't sleep at all for about two hours.

And then when the power came back on around 3am I ended up reading my book for a little, because at that point I was super awake. Not helped by the mini power outage that happened about fifteen minutes after the power came back on. It only went out for like 30 seconds, but it freaked me out. But then I was so close to the end of my book... I just wanted to finish it. Which I did. And I think it was almost 4am by the time I got to sleep.

I was not a happy bunny for the rest of Monday honestly, even though I didn't wake up until like 10:30.

Then Tuesday happened. I don't know if some of the "unhappy bunny" from Monday was actually a spillover from when ended up happening Tuesday, but it would make sense.

When I woke up on Tuesday, I rolled over and the room kept moving. Without me. I didn't like it. Every time I rolled over, it basically did the same thing. Thankfully not so much when I stood up... but I ended up feeling a little nauseous. Which I hate.

I managed to have a shower and have some breakfast, then called my doctor's office and made an appointment later that morning.

And because of my slightly vague symptoms and, you know, the pandemic, the receptionist at the surgery somewhat understandably stuck me in the isolation rooms at the back. After taking me in through the back entrance. So, you know, no need for me to freak the hell out. At all.

But after my lovely old doctor showed up in the doorway and I talked him through everything, he was like "yeah, all good, come back to my office". I mean, not all good, he called out pretty quick that it was probably some kind of inner ear virus. He did say what it was... but, honestly, it had one of those big stupid Latin names, and I wasn't completely paying attention.

And of course, because it's an inner ear thing, and a virus, they can't do fuck all for it. So, I just have to live with it. For up to three weeks.

He also recommended that maybe I shouldn't drive. And so I didn't. All week.

Which meant no Wednesday DnD (plus I wasn't feeling up to prepping or running something) and no Friday board games (since we're between campaigns right now). In essence, I did nothing, went nowhere, saw nobody, didn't drive. Nada, nothing, zip, zilch, nothing.

And mostly, other than a general urgh feeling, I really didn't have much dizziness other than when I was laying in bed and rolled over, or going from laying down to standing up. Basically horizontal to vertical or whatever. Some days there wasn't much of it at all. Other days there's a bout after I wake up and that's it.

It's just annoying more than anything. I'm not sick enough to really feel sick or "take to my bed" like a Gothic Victorian heroine. And, yeah, sure I could have probably driven, but I'm kinda glad I didn't. Next week though, I have shit to do, so you know.

Today, I got Ma to drive to the supermarket. Because it was raining. Or it had rained, and might have rained again. But mostly, I just went "yeah, nah".

You can pretty much fill in the blanks from here... supermarket, supermarket, supermarket. Back here, unpack, watch the YubTubs... and that was it really. We didn't have any plans or things we needed to do... the weather seems to think that it's May not February, so rain. So we didn't do anything. And Ma left around noon.

Current mood: