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.
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