Friday, January 21, 2022

Quest Calendar 4: Into the Woods

Fruitsday, Winterwary 21

As I surveyed the surrounding area, I determined that whether playing or taken, the place with the greatest probability of finding the children was the nearby forest. The woods were thick and dark as I searched around in them. The darker the woods became, the more they felt like a metaphor for my own mind. As I searched for the children, a task that increasingly seemed to be in vain, it felt like searching for my memories, a potentially equally useless task.

It became evident to me that I had failed, and that I was not going to find the children. But an odd feeling crept over me as I was about to give up. I didn't have to fail. I had a feeling that somehow I could tip the odds back in my favor. I cast my hand in a swinging motion like how one would roll dice. I didn't know how I knew to do this, but it felt remarkably familiar. For but a moment, the forest around me seemed to glow and shift in a yellow glow. Then it was gone, and it seemed as though I were a few paces back from where I had been when I'd had the odd thought and feeling.

Near me, on the ground, I saw a slight glimmer, shining in the merest ray of sunlight that somehow made its way through the tangled branches above. I knelt to investigate the out of place shimmer, and found a gold coin on the ground.

"Can never have enough of these," I muttered, slipping it into my coin pouch. Near the footprint, on the ground, was a footprint. A child's footprint. I was on the right track at last. But the child's footprint wasn't the only footprint on the ground. More recent than that are the footprints of wolves. I knew I would have to be ready for a potential ambush from these lupine threats.

Thursday, January 20, 2022

2022 Quest Calendar 3: Missing Children

Thornsday, Winterwary 20

While traveling today I came upon a couple that was yelling out for their children. It seems that the family had all made camp along the road last evening, and that when the parents awoke the children were missing.

My brain did a quick calculation. The highest probability was that the children

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

2022 Quest Calendar 2: Envy for Seth


Windsday, Winterwary 19

As we traveled the road, Seth spoke of his home in a city called Dawnhollow. There he had friends, family, acquaintances, and a life. At one point he apologized for boring me, but as I had none of those things in my own memory, I found them worth listening to.

When we made camp, Seth showed me the hand-carved goods that he was hoping to sell at the festival. They were

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

2022 Quest Calendar 1: Tychon Awakes

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Truceday, Winterwary 18

My head pounded as I awoke. I decided it was best to first assess my surroundings. I appeared to be in a plains landscape. Nearby, a worn down road stretched out farther than I could see in both directions. I had no memory of this place or how I came to be there.

"Hmm..." I wondered. "What are the odds of that?"

I made my way to the road and considered which way to turn: to the left or to the right. I found a coin in a pouch at my side and decided

Monday, March 22, 2021

Book Review: Discworld 3: 'Equal Rites' by Terry Pratchett

“...she was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy.”
― Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

Eskarina Smith was gifted at birth with the magic of a wizard. The problem is that there's never been a female wizard before, and a lot of people won't hold with it.


Discworld Reviews

“...it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done.”
― Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

I actually finished reading Equal Rites some time ago, but I fell into something of another bout of depression and was finding it hard to focus on actually writing up my review.

If you're just joining me, and haven't seen my other Discworld reviews, allow me to restate my goal: I am intending to read through the complete Discworld series (41 books) and review each of them here. 

My other reviews so far include:

  1. The Color of Magic
  2. The Light Fantastic

A book that's actually about something

“They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.”
― Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

While The Color of Magic had a lot of fun moments and The Light Fantastic was a fun adventure, neither of them really seemed to

Saturday, March 20, 2021

RPGs, Time, and an Unsolvable Problem

 This morning on Facebook, I saw it was the birthday of a friend who I haven't seen since I was in high school. I thought about the fact that I'd recently seen that he'd gotten married (and by recently, I mean at least a year and a half ago, because I remember it being at least a few months before the plague.) My brain reacted to me thinking of him being married with that's not right

And it got me thinking about how we see time when it comes to people we don't interact with very often.


For people we don't interact with, we expect time to remain stationary/we don't expect their lives to progress.

We know that this isn't the case, but it's a phenomenon that I've had multiple people mention to me. They (we) are surprised when a cousin who they have only seen at family gatherings is grown up, or when they find that major life events have

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Last Legend 10: Inside the Box

The team finds out what's in the box and rushes to beat the Company of Midnight

Session Date (Real Life): 03/13/2021
Begin (Game Date): 10/21/520 3:00
End (Game Date): 10/29/520 14:00
Player Level: 2   
Total XP: 5

Previous Adventure: Last Legend 9: Bellum Speaks

At the bottom of this post is a list of characters and groups that you can reference in this post for keeping track of who people are.

Last Legend is a fantasy tabletop RPG campaign using the Open Legend RPG system. For more information on the setting of Last Legend, check the background post here: https://goalworlds.blogspot.com/2021/01/Last Legend Overview.html

Or, go to the Last Legend Glossary, here: https://goalworlds.blogspot.com/p/last-legend-glossary.html

Tyosa Doska and Kesua both emerged in the group's room in the Broken Stein Tavern, where Arthur Grant, Aanso, and Balthazar had been staying. As they emerged, Balthazar vanished, and the Dochysh Jeq (the mysterious jewel-embedded metal spike which was now tied to their fates) glowed with a purple light.

The group caught up Tyosa and Kesua on what had been going on with the robots, Bellum, and Molly, as well as their plans to accompany Molly to Vanguard City. Tyosa revealed that, in the crystal space, he had had visions of a great shadow covering the land. He saw