Talandraken

yeah... sorry for the bad joke in the title, I couldn't resist.

so, a little over 24 hours from now, I am going to embark on just about the nerdiest thing I've ever done.  (which means it's going to be extremely nerdy)

I'm going to go and camp out overnight for a wii.  Aided in this endeavor are my room mate Jesse and girlfriend Rachel.  Also, a bunch of Jesse's old HS friends.  The entire thing should be a blast, culminating (hopefully) with the purchase of a wii, a few games, and returning home with enough time to get a lot of play in on Sunday.  I've already got Monday's HW done, and by the time I leave tomorrow, I'll have Tuesday's done as well.  What does this mean?  Pure wii time.  Only interruptions are going to be for class itself, which Monday and Tuesday are easy on.

I'm so excited.
I'm such a big gorram nerd...

EDIT:  Had to make a few more (really bad) jokes:

-So, after camping, wii're all going to come back and play with Jesse and my wiis.
-everyone wants to play with my wii!
-wii are all very excited to go camping!

yeah... sorry...

and it's final... one of my roomies is withdrawing from Lehigh.  Austin says he'll be back next semester, so that's good, but it's going to be an empty room without him.  Austin, if you read this, you will be missed.

The horrible thing, is that besides this, everything is going great.  My relationship with Rachel is amazing, school is fun for me, for once in my life, and i'm looking forward to the future.  In other news, it's parents weekend, and this means my parents are around.  It should be nice to be able to get away from the school for a little bit and do shopping...( Phantasy star Universe will be mine!) and to let them meet the rest of the roomies. (they've still only met Jesse)

it's shaping up to be a very depressing/interesting weekend

To tell you all the truth, I have no idea how to start this post.  That is also why I haven't updated in awhile:  I get a good idea, but have no idea how I should write it down.  Ah well, I guess I'll just get everything out there and explain as I go...

1.  I now have a girlfriend
     Yep, you read that correctly, Rachel and I are now in a relationship.  This, in my opinion, is just about the greatest way that this year could have started.  I spent the entire summer worried that I had screwed it up by not talking to her about it before summer started, but it looks like I didn't.  Anyway, I won't bore you all with the details, as a good number of you don't even know her.  Just know that if I seem to have an extra spring in my step, this is probably why.

2. School has started
     Great fun, this.  So far the classes aren't bad, and today (tuesday) I only have one, which is great.  I'm kinda excited about my classes this year, because half of them are computer classes that should be kinda fun.

3. I now have roommates
     Something totally different from the norm, I'm now living with three other guys.  So far, we haven't tried to kill each other yet, and it seems like we're getting along pretty well.  Of course, Austin is going to end up with beaten roommate syndrome, but hey, if I don't accomplish something this year...

4.  Tabin is a failure at life
     Yeah, that's right Tabin, I said it.  Loser.

In our last session of D&D, our players found out that for an unforeseeable period of time, the plane of Xoriat, also known as the Realm of Madness was going to be coterminous.  Though this has consequences they have not yet realized, one immediate consequence was that very strange things started happening.

-Flames that burned but did not consume the fuel, as well as burning only nonflamables.
-the sentry's bedroll attacking him
- showing up in their fireplace in the morning.  (those of you who have seen howl's moving castle will recognize it)

This last one, turned out to be a rather interesting roleplaying encounter, with the end of it being the players befriending Calcifer.  They went to sharn to see if they could have him imbued to be an everburning torch.

I now present the stats for Calcifer, Sentient Everburning Torch

Calcifer (neutral good everburning torch)
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 14
Capable of Speech (common), 120ft Vision/Hearing
Special powers:
    Light (3/day)
Skills:
    spot 12
    listen 2
As a free action, Calcifer can decide if he wishes to emit heat as well as light, or to be a heatless flame.  He emits normal light to 20ft radius, and shadowy illumination out to 40ft.

Cost: 15610gp

Because these powers are relatively... useless, and it's mostly just a nifty torch for use as a night watchman, i'm  not charging them that much (besides, they already had a sentience to bind to the item)


EDIT:
I should state that the cost here is straight from the DMG, and in my opinion a good example of the table not doing an adequate job of pricing it's usefulness.  I'd charge a lot less for it, even if they didn't already have Calcifer to bind...

Well, that was depressing.  The party, after resting up from the last deadly encounter, began traveling yet again.  After walking through a few empty rooms, the heroes encountered yet another group of darkmantles.  After dispatching these, the party was all unconscious, save for two.  The heroes stabilized and began to rest up to recover hp.  After 4 days and the introduction of another two heroes, they began adventuring yet again. 

at this point, they ran into another darkmantle encounter-one very similar to before. 

I looked at the page, and said screw it, and we dropped the game right there.  this isn't worth $100.

------------

So that's it for the dungeon- we ended up sitting around watching firefly for awhile, and then we just goofed off till three or so in the morning.  I retired to my room only to have insomnia kick me in the face.  I can claim MAYBE three hours of sleep last night, closer to two.

This is infuriating...

well, I'm bored, so I figure I'll chronicle our heroe's travels through the world's largest dungeon. 

__________

After carefully moving around the fallen titan, our heroes entered the first room of the dungeon, which had but two doors.  After debating for a time, they decided on a door, only to find that they could neither see nor hear anything beyond the door.  Our intrepid dragon shaman, deciding that some action had to be taken, decided to poke the inky barrier, only to find that he could not retrieve his finger.  Action forced, they ventured beyond the first room, to find a group of orcs playing cards, and looking downtrodden.  After debating on the morality of killing the orcs, they decided to venture to the north, where the warlock managed to contract a disease.  Undaunted, they then visited the storage rooms, with the somewhat nimble halfling being nearly killed by a magical trap.  After some considerations, the troupe managed to bypass the trap, only to find that they had gone in a circle.  From here, the heroes decided to try going to the west, which led to a number of rooms, and a few encounters with swarms of dire rats.   Pained and exhausted by the day's travels, they decided to rest, only to be interrupted  just an hour  after setting down to sleep.  Darkmantles dropping onto the scout's and dragon shaman's heads, the scout was dead in a matter of moments, and the dragon shaman narrowly avoided the same fate.  After dispatching the darkmantles and morning the loss of the scout, the party prepared to trudge on...

____

Player Deaths:
Kendra: 1
Nick: 0
J-Lust: 0
Tommy: 0
Chuck: 0
Eliseo: 0
Loomis: 0 (has not yet joined the game)
Kat: 0 (has not yet joined the game)

Current thoughts on the game:    
    I'm currently kind of disappointed in the WLD, if only for the fact that the only interesting battle we've had so far has been a random encounter brought on because nothing has been happening in the dungeon as printed.  Hopefully in the next session, things will get more interesting, or we're abandoning the dungeon in favor of a more traditional game.

Well, my group is starting the World's Largest Dungeon.  So far, we're still in character creation, but after reading the first few possible encounters, it should be a lot of fun.  I'll be posting here every time I remember during/after the game. 

Frankly, I'm just glad to be playing D&D again.  I've been a few weeks out of play, and it'll be great to be DMing again, especially with this precreated dungeon that I don't have to worry about.  Also, i'm trying out new things with my DM style, hopefully to improve for next year when I run the frosh/newb game.

Wish me luck!

Well, tonight I spend the night in a hotel room. Tomorow, the plane leaves for Arizona. This, of course, leaves me with not much to do but contemplate. Bleh. Expect a larger entry later...

That was one of the more interesting weekends I've had in a while. It was nice to get out of the rut for once, and do something besides D&D and video games.
Friday was the standard: Watch Jesse's game, return to Dravo, play video games until unconscious.


That's it!

Now for the final week of school!  Holy crap that went fast...

I totally have the hiccups right now.
:(

So, everyone who reads this probably knows that I've got a really relaxed view of life in general. I try not to stress about stuff, and I relax about things that keep other people from sleeping at night.

It seems like quite a few (read: most) of my friends have journal entries complaining about life, while mine are stuff like, "I went out with all my friends today and we had loads of fun..."

I mean, to use loomis as an example...
(hope you don't mind loomis- I'm using you because you're not normally mopey... and also because most people who read this don't know you)
(also, if you do mind, just send a message and i'll remove)

"life is blah. shit has happened. whatever. school sucks. being grounded sucks. i feel like no one loves me. my parents a forever pissed at me. so yea. im not sad but im not happy. i just blah. if you see me at school give me some love. i need it. well i should go."

I mean, from a perfectly logical point of view, none of those things about not being loved is true.  Of course he's loved, he's got friends, his parents DON'T hate him, (they are, after all, his parents) and after a day or so, he realized it.

So, I'm asking all of you in general...

Do I not take life seriously enough? Is it that I don't have as much bad crap happen to me? Is it just that I don't complain about it?

Also, I hope I haven't offended any of you with my talking about your posts or something...

First off,
(stolen from Tabin)

http://kevan.org/johari?name=Jim Morrison
http://kevan.org/nohari?name=Jim Morrison

Just click 'em and do them, I'd like to know.

and now for the actual post...

Boy, it's been awhile since that last post... Normally I only update this if I have something to rant about and/or interesting to say.  Well, this isn't going to be particularly interesting, but ah well...

Last night/this morning was awesome.  Really, you absolutely cannot beat playing videogames for hours on end, (soul caliber, smash brothers, and DDR) then heading to the diner and playing air hockey, with a great group of friends.  (even though I spent what probably amounts to half that time being viciously poke-attacked by rachel)

The only problem I have is this:  We got back at about 3, and i went straight to sleep.  I wake up at 8:30 (5.5 hours of sleep) and I cannot fall back to sleep!  It's horrible!

Oh, and if Austin ever reads this:  You should've stayed around ya big loser.  You missed out on a lot of fun.  I hope your "Phat lewts" were good enough to miss all that...

Well, it's winter. It snowed last weekend, which was pretty cool. It is really cold though, which means I end up looking like winter-vader in my coat, hood, and gloves, but ah well.

I've been having computer troubles, but the fact that i'm typing this now means they're all fixed, thankfully. All in all, I got a new HD out of the deal (bigger too), which my parents paid for, and my computer works faster then it used to. So, besides the annoyance and lost files, it's all good.

In other news, I can't wait to get home again. I know i'm gonna be busy while i'm there, but it'll finally be enough time home that I can relax and not feel like i have to spend all my time being busy.

Well, I'm heading home in a few days, and I'm really excited. Gaming on friday, and probably hanging out with the group some other time too.

I hopefully wont get stuck in Cincinnati this time... But the Allentown airport sucks major balls, so it's hard to tell. Speaking of airports, I still don't have a ride yet... I may end up having to call a cab... ugh... that'll be like $25, probably more because I have to get them to come out here to pick me up...

I can't wait to see my friends, family, and to sleep in a good bed. I can't wait to get away from all the problems of college, HW, tests, hallmates...

This has probably been said before, more eloquently, but really, you never realize how important the things and people you have around you are to you until you've spent 3 months away surrounded by people with popped collars and BACs over 1. (That might actually be an understatement on the BAC though... :-))

Well, i really should be writing an english paper at the moment, but instead, i'm posting on livejournal. Life's been going pretty well, and I've settled into my room and whatnot without problem. I've been playing D&D three times a week, which is a load of fun, and more gaming then I got to do back home. Even though I've made quite a few new friends, I miss all the ones back home (Phoenix AND Tucson).

Random change of topic...

I got my new airsoft gun in the mail today. It is a really decent gun, especially for how little it cost, and I cant wait to take it out to the field (this weekend maybe...)

Random change of topic...

Last friday a whole bunch of us were going to go ice skating. After following Tabin around for awhile, and getting lost, we got there only to realize that there wasn't any free skate that day. So, we returned back to Tabin's apartment and pondered what we were going to do. We ended up all going down to my buildings lounge and having a lan party. It was a LOAD of fun, and it got me back into playing Dawn of War.

Random change of topic...

I've been really bored lately, even with all the crap I've been doing. It seems like I'm always bored. It's really annoying. I'm probably just homesick and need to go back home. Thankfully, there's thanksgiving next week, so It shouldn't be a problem for much longer.

Random change of topic...

I just got an email from the school saying that I have special permission to start registering for my classes a half-hour early. This means I'm practically garanteed the schedule I want. horray for me!

Well, thats all for now...

Ya know, it's been about forever since i've updated this. I've finished highschool, and moved all the way to PA. In light of all this, I'm redesigning, and removing all of the ancient entries.

Expect an actual post at some time this week.

Also, this is going to be used as a campaign journal for my D20 game. That means, to anyone who reads this, that a good number of posts are going to be recaps of happenings in my game, and not actually what happened in my life. These will be behind cuts, for the ease of those that are my friends but not in my game.