Last week I introduced two possible new characters and kind of did a dive into my idea process. And various things I said sparked off my creative juices and I ended up creating a whole bunch of stuff for the halfling character.
So, now we have Harland Honeypot (I told you I liked the alliteration idea), halfling bard and novelist of purple prose "romance" novels starting the sensual tiefling adventurer, Euphoria Phlox (and yes, I know the name isn't the least bit sexy... that's part of the joke).
Which then made me want to come up with a number of his novels. Because, you know, I like to lean into those items that make up a character's personality or backstory or history. And, I also love the idea of him interacting with both the rest of the party for the first time or random NPC's and having him say "You've never read a Euphoria Phlox novel? Oh my dear, here, you look like you'd be a fan of.... insert name of novel here... let me give you a signed copy."
And if I leaned in all the way and made little physical props, then there would be the possible look of horror on that player's face when they read the blurb on the back of the book. Because, that just amuses me.
When you're looking for a list of possible titles and blurbs for a long series of books with a female protagonist who is also something of a sleuth... where do you go?
Well, obviously, you go to the list of Nancy Drew titles. Because of course.
Brief sidebar, this week I learned, for the first time, at the age of forty whatever, that both the Nancy Drew novels and the Hardy Boy novels were all written by a group of writers under single pen names, devised by fabulous moustache owner and publisher Edward Stratemeyer. And that the Bobbsey Twins and Tom Swift were also his creations, both of which I was aware of as things that existed in the world.
I also love that Wikipedia tells me that "for decades, libraries refused to carry any Stratemeyer Syndicate books, considering them to be unworthy trash". Which just makes me love Mr Stratemeyer even more.
And sidebar to the sidebar... his daughter took over from him as publisher and novelist of the Nancy Drew books after his death... and she herself died, according to Wikipedia, in 1982 of a heart attack at age 89 while sitting down to watch The Wizard of Oz on television for the very first time.
Because life is always stranger than fiction.
But just the list of titles wasn't enough... I needed to know what the books looked like as a series. I mean, of course they're purple. Because "purple prose". So Harland also got an upgrade to a full purple outfit. And while I originally mentioned a purple skinned tiefling, I decided that was maybe a little too much purple, so Euphoria just has purple eyes and wears a signature purple neck scarf.
And of course, they're pulp novels, printed on decent but not outstanding paper and with minimal graphic design or overly designed artwork on the covers. So, of course I leaned in towards versions of the old Penguin Crime novels designed by Romek Marber. And if I had actually seen that article earlier, it might have made my life slightly easier. Then the icons all came from a site I love and have been using for various things for a while now... Game Icons. Because, simple art is good and also seemed appropriate for this.
Plus, I didn't originally intend to go too crazy with these... and then suddenly there were 24 titles all with cover art based on the those titles. Three of the titles I needed to change to make them more DnD-world-friendly. But then I made the fronts... then the backs... with blurbs... and then I made the spines. And I also put a texture over each part to make it look like one of a vintage book... even though some of them would be much less vintage. It was a vibe rather than actual authenticity I was going for.
Yeah... welcome to my brain... by this point we are well down the fucking rabbit hole. But it's the kind of deep dive project I have always and will always love. Give me a thing I can dive all the way into and really roll around in and soak up, and I'm as happy as the proverbial.
Anyway I designed my version of the cover, then took the text for various Nancy Drew novels and added a bunch of adjectives that very probably would lead to a series of cease and desist letters from whoever currently owns their copyright. So, I'm just going to leave this image here...
Also remember, that as weird as my edited version of that plot is... the original plot is somehow stranger.
Yeah... like I said... we were well down the rabbit hole with this whole project. Especially for a character I'm still not sure will ever see the light of day.
And, it also kinda makes me want to print the covers and maybe make game notebooks out of them.
But anyway.
This week was... I mean, honestly, what the fuck is up with this weather at the beginning of April. It's almost as though as soon as they announced the end of the La Nina that had been in effect since late last year, the temperature immediately shot up again. Coincidence? Yeah, probably, in all honesty.
But I steamrolled right ahead with soup season regardless. And made potato soup. A proper blended potato soup, which I haven't made in a while in place of chowders. But it was actually pretty nice all things considered.
Wednesday we had a missing player (which I knew about the week before) and two potential sick players... so, you know what, I called the game off. One person I could work around. Three people, no. Plus, we're all a little more conscious about being "being sick"... because, you know, the world.
Friday (well, I started it Thursday night as reasonable) I made the world's biggest hot cross bun. Actually that's blatantly untrue... it wasn't really hot cross bun dough, it was just my regular dough with a fuckton of dried fruit and mixed spice and cinnamon in it. Honestly, I wasn't totally pleased with the final loaf. For whatever reason, the crust was too tough for my liking. Partly because I left it in for 35 minutes instead of 30... partly because it was stuffed with fruit and any bits of it that were on the outside kinda turned to charcoal. I might need to make a second crack at it next week, since I still have some fruit left. And maybe this time put the fruit in when I'm forming up the dough at the end so it all stays inside.
Like I said, my brain is a rabbit hole.
I also made Fishy Crisps, a recipe I posted on the blog fourteen years and six months ago precisely. And the recipe itself is from approximately 33 years ago... the Easter of my first year of high school if memory serves. Because math (and weirdly, Easter 33 years ago was also on this same weekend in April).
Why is this blog post rapidly becoming a more text heavy version of the "The More You Know" gif?
Moving on. I baked things. They were both slightly overcooked but overall tasty.
Friday night was... interesting. It doesn't feel like we really get through very much in this current sessions... which isn't bad, but does feel like the Slow spell has been cast over the universe. But fun. Yeah, I don't really know either.
What I do love is those moments where roleplay just emerges organically. And Mr asked me a question in character that led to my character just laying out a chunk of his backstory. In a really natural and organic way. In a small boat, in a harbour, after having just had a conversation underwater with a dragon. Because DnD. But it was a nice conversation. In a hideous faux Irish accent that sometimes feels faux Scottish and sometimes just gets away from me entirely.
I still maintain that a bad real-world accent is a great DnD accent however.
Today was... the usual amount of infuriating for an Easter Saturday. And as always, hey, all you people that normally don't shop on a Saturday but suddenly need to because oh god the shops will be shut for two whole days and the world will end... go fuck yourselves.
Urgh. Anyway.
We did a shop, I remembered to buy things so I won't be sad tomorrow when I forget that the shops are shut tomorrow and try and go to the bakery over at the village.
Then we came back here, did the YubTubs, had a much longer conversation about Soul from last week, watched some of the other bonus features and then called it a day.
So Happy Easter... and I promise to try not to turn the rabbit hole of my brain inside out again in the blog next week.
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