And yet I'm again finding myself without time to write. Well, I HAVE found time to write, I just haven't been using it for novel-writing.
The ball is slowly but surely rolling over on the X-Future boards again. We'll see how the fresh blood works this time. I'm hoping for a successful transfusion. The board needs it!
I've been running around as Colette. Formerly celestialTyrant's second character, when his work kept him too busy to play anymore, Colette became an NPC almost exclusively played by me. Basically the same thing as with Crystal, except Crystal was always an NPC. I just get stuck with all the 15yr old girls, I guess.
Eh, either way, it's been fun running around as Colette; finding her character. Sadly, I've been neglecting all of my other girls in the process. I JUST played as Willow and Lia this morning just to say I've done so in the past month. Trish, I'm still figuring out her next move. I may just have her "go with it" simply to move things along in the Brotherhood thread. And the aforementioned Crystal? Frankly, I forgot about her. Mainly because I was focusing too much on the other characters, and Tyler hasn't really been doing much on the board. Let's face it, that's really the only person she's around for.
Anyway, as I was saying, I've slacked off for a while, but I'm back into the swing of posting frequently as Colette, and I'm having fun with her and the two new players. She even has a bit of a crush on one of them, who seems to have a crush back. Ah, budding romance. Super sweet considering they only met each other about fifteen minutes ago game-time.
What can we say? Puppy-love at first sight, coupled by the whole "We're mutants, we can be killed off any minute now; YOLO" thing.
So there's that. At least it's creative and writing. Heck, the player who runs Colette's crush Joseph even joked about how much me and Zebey - the other new player - writes. Can I give myself some credit for that?
I also FINALLY started up my first ever D&D session where I ran it as the DM. I cheated and used a "boxed adventure" - one that was pre-written and sold with a map so the DM just needs to read and do rolls accordingly - but I wanted to supplement it. I didn't want to just be like "Alright. You four are in a party together and are doing this quest. Go." I wanted it to be at least mildly organic. Give them the option, and hope and pray they all decide to go. This was the main reason I told everyone that I needed basic character motivation for adventuring. That way I could present the quest in a manner that would appeal to all the characters, based on their motivations.
It was a bit rough go at first, but they all headed out, and are having a grand old time it seems. But, as I mentioned, to make that organic introduction to each character as they meet up and bond into a party, I needed to supplement the "boxed adventure." I did this by creating a tavern and neighboring town for them to all meet up in. To try to get SOME writing done before the end of last week, I spent Friday and Saturday working on said tavern and town. I created rough descriptions of both, as well as broad histories for both. Problem being, I completely destroyed the concept of the town while presenting the quest, and I didn't even pick up on it until after the session was done.
The whole concept of the town of Ashitar was that it was a merchant-town run by a baron, because the "boxed adventure" had the baron asking the party to retrieve his ring from some lizardfolk called Kobolds. Well, the wealthy merchants that lived in Ashitar didn't like that the baron ran the joint instead of them, and so they plotted to assassinate him and his family for a generation or two. Stopping these plots created a "weapons war" of assassin guilds, thieves dens, and cityguard barracks. All competing against each other to either keep the baron in power, or put one of the wealthy families in charge.
I built all of this, only to screw it up by having the baron overtaken by the kobolds, kidnapped, and leaving his 12yr old son pleading for the adventurers to help him. He wants his father returned, but the tavern owner suspects the baron is already dead and eaten by the kobolds, and so he secretly asks two of the party members - they lagged behind - to at least bring back the baron's ring so the kid could use it to prove his rightful place as leader of Ashitar.
So, here we are. Level one characters who are going up against some of the easiest monsters so they don't die while trying to level up and become stronger. These kobolds are experience fodder to help grow the characters. These are the things that eventually got to the otherwise superbly protected baron? What. The. Heck!? If the bodyguards are THAT bad at protecting the baron, what prevented the assassins all this time? Are they just THAT bad too? Is Ashitar filled with incompetent morons? Or was the baron overtaken because he didn't have his bodyguards for some reason? If so, then what was the reason? He knows there's continuous assassination attempts on his life, and he had his son and heir with him. Why only four shitty town guards?
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Now I have to either figure all of that out, or scrap everything I came up with for Ashitar.
I THINK I might have a solution that I figured out while working yesterday. I'll have to play around with it a bit to see how it develops. Thankfully, I'll be visiting my sister and godson for their birthdays this weekend - obviously including visits with Mom and PA-Bestie - and so no D&D this Sunday. Gives me another week to figure out what to do with the baron story. Plus, the party isn't done going through the dungeon, and so I have a little more time there too. The issue now is that Spink won't be available the next Sunday we'd play, and so I don't know what to do with her character that is out adventuring in a dungeon right now, and the Sunday after that is Easter. Maybe switch to Saturday games the next couple of weeks?
Eh, nevermind that, that doesn't have to really do with writing right now. I'll figure that out on my own time.
Point being, I've been at least creative and writing a little bit thanks to my two role-plays: X-Future and D&D. More writing than normal for D&D since I'm creating the world, and the story of the quests and adventures. That's something, right?
Speaking of, I should get back to one of those to try to get SOME sort of word count this week. Once I have the issue with Ashitar figured out I'll try to post my write-up for it. The trick is that I'd want to put it in the The People of Gyateara anthology, but my campaign is currently in the generic D&D world of Greyhawk, to make things simpler for me. Sure, I still created Ashitar and the neighboring tavern, but things like the town's patron deity is a D&D creation, not one of the yet-to-be-created deities of Gyateara.
Another thing to work out, I guess.
Maybe some Spring Cleaning around my apartment will help me unclutter my mind too, and then I can get back to really working on all this writing. Maybe it will also bring Ronoxym back out of writing hibernation, and we can get back to work on Please, Let Me Explain; a year after the last chapter is posted....
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