Thursday, March 24, 2011

Dragoons

This is me, as Foxglove, about to finally beat the Baby Dragon test of the Legion of the Dragoons.
Finally, at Ragnarok XV I beat it. It took me over the course of three years to do it. Every time there would be three different people as the dragon, so I would never know what to expect. I've been part of the dragon for others too. Ematai, Tari, and Dorian are the dragon here. It's florintine as the teeth and claws, red sword as the tail, and sword+board for the heart. (Add second florintine user, javelin wielder, and replace red with a glaive for the adult dragon.) It can be a very tough test of your skills as a sword+boarder, or you can cheese it with a glaive, which pretty much no one does. The three as the dragon must move as one. If one person of the dragon gets a leg chopped off, the dragon must pivot on that person. Same if one of the three dies.
It's part of the ranking system of the Legion of the Dragoons. It made me officially a Black Legion! There are other elements to go up in rank too... But the ranks aren't as important as the brotherhood feeling. We've got each others' backs. Hell, I went to Bishop's and Rowan's weddings. Probably Nichtmar's, and Rune & Tari's too, soon. They're an excellent bunch of guys and gals. That's Dragoon camp from last Ragnarok in the background.
And this is some of the Dragoons from a couple years ago, at Rivendell. In the cold, super super cold Season Opener.
I miss those guys so bad. I can't wait for Olympics in Indy in April.
http://www.mittelmarch.com/olympics.htm

Oh yeah, btw, Dag is awesome and I've missed it so much.
www.dagorhir.com

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Ramblin'

So hanging out in the hipster cafe/bar near my new place is quite interesting. Atmosphere, this place has. Got a guy with a sweet-looking acoustic here, gay guy straight-up dressed as a chick playing a tetris-like game on the NES, the only employee here appears to be asleep, and a number of people on computers (I'm one of them.) I love this place because it's full of books, cushy chairs, paintings, and pretty friendly people thus far (tetris-playing guy was super friendly.) It also helps it's a one-minute walk from home. Feels like hanging out at somebody's house, not a coffee bar. And a guy just pulled out his Mac. It's so hipster here! But I like it, strangely. My Boyfriend would hate it. Has said as much. I've got hipster friends though so I don't care so much.
It's so weird to not be living with anyone right now. Moved in over the weekend with Boyfriend, so night before last was my first on my own in the new place. I had a pretty hard time falling asleep. A bit of road noise, emptiness feeling, and thunder from the storm kept waking me up. Last night was a bit better. God I love the place though. Big and wonderful for a one bedroom! Boyfriend is right, it's too bad we only have it for six months. Ah but I can't wait until June - I graduate, he moves in, "real life" begins. I feel like I've been on the verge of real life for ages. Since I've been working the entire time I've been in college, not really having the "college experience" you see in movies... I think very few people do. More and more people live with their parents and work, hardly spending time on campus. ...it is the largest University in the country though so I guess a lot of trends are visible here, such as the bros, hipsters, etc. Anyways. I'm not sure how the next couple months will be. Last quarter at school. Moving up on the short ladder at my ice cream job (more responsibility with no pay increase yet.) Truly, honestly, living in my own place! I wonder how well my Boyfriend and I will live together. So much uncertainty, but so much hope. One of us will get The Real Job and we'll move to... wherever that might be. I'm not sure that I'd want to move up north from here. I really do love my city. AND I finally did find something that Boyfriend loves. This sub place you go to when drunk, to get more beer and ANYTHING on a sub. Like, Chicken fingers + mozzarella sticks + french fries + sauce. Freaking fabulous drunk food. I'm so happy he finally has something to tell his buddies about back home.
I think I'll end my ramble on that up note.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

And so, a few months later, I give it another try.
But this is what always happens. I get fired up about something, get into it, do it for a while and.... it fades out of my conscious mind. Especially journal/diary things. It's kinda as if, I get excited, thinking that some potential future generation will find my diary and be amazed! I think I've had that idea ever since we learned about Anne Frank's diary in elementary school. I still find half-filled journals or 30 pages of writing that abruptly stops or just turns into a sketchbook. God I have so many sketchbooks, and I don't even draw anymore. I don't know, maybe it's all part of that ADD thing. Eh, it's also partly because it just got shunted down my priority list till it wasn't even on it anymore, since it's my Senior Year of college and all. Just three more months and I'm done with school. Like Properly done. Woah. Exciting adventures await! And terrifying job applications! That is one thing I've been working on; applying to a placement service to try to get a Latin teaching job in a private school. We'll see what comes of it; I still need to write a cover letter before I send it off. I'm moving at the end of this week, again, into a one-bedroom place. But my Boyfriend is moving in with me in June! It's all happening so fast now. And I got a minor promotion at work, no pay raise yet as that comes with the next level up, but I'm going to get that too in a couple months before I'm out of college. So that's good.
I originally meant to write this about Dungeons and Dragons, since that's what was on my brain in the first place, but then I got all caught up in the guilt of "Wow I haven't posted since January."
So be warned, massive amounts of dork you may not understand follow here.
And here's that DND:
So I'm in two different DnD groups right now, and both are excellent. One is 4.0, the other is 3.5. Now, hardcore DnD folks tend to rant about why their edition of choice is "the best." Whatever. I don't do that. I like them both, they are good for different reasons. If you want to be specific about combat and like supreme specialization and are good at maths, then 3.5 is the one for you. If you want to focus on your story, roleplaying, and more "talky" characters, or say "I just want to hit it" when your turn comes 'round in combat, then 4.0 is for you. They're just simply different systems for playing in the same universe. Whine about it all you want, I like them for different reasons.
Anyways. The Tuesday group is the 4.0 game, and the DM is an old friend of mine. We've had a rotating bunch of people but it's always me, him, and two other girls at least. We've had three other guys and two other girls join and drop out of the group for various reasons, and restarted the whole game at one point. But my half-orc barbarian Agga Kneesbreaker is still probably my all-time favorite character. Most of the time she'd be all "HUURRRR, I have axe. I hit things." but every once in a while, I'd see a good plan, and Agga would be all "Hey, hey, let's pretend it's a holiday and get all the goblins and the bugbear drunk, then we can go kill the bugbear in its sleep and steal the spider-gem and - " at which point I stop as everyone stares going "Agga says what?" me: "Uhhh.... get drunk?" everybody else: "No, it's a good plan, just, it's from Agga. What." and then we'd go with the plan, giggling about how Agga randomly was smart for two minutes. It's a good group.
The 3.5 weekend group (we've just moved from Sundays to Saturdays) is HUGE. Most of the time. It's not really consistent who is there from session to session, but it's always fun. Sometimes we have eight players, sometimes four. It all depends on who can make it. I think we actually have like two different games going at the same time with that group. One that's in the Underdark with all Dwarf characters led by Chris, and one that's free-play led by Woz. Both are excellent. Chris is one of those guys that's been playing for more than a decade and has an intimidating amount of knowledge, books, maps, and minis. Woz hasn't been playing quite as long but is pretty much the same. So that was intimidating at first, when Chris was all "I made 8 different characters to choose from in my spare time; do we need a paladin? I haven't played a paladin in a while." But then I realized he's just as big a nerd as the rest of us and extremely friendly, funny, and helpful.
I think the best part about DnD with both groups is that we don't take ourselves seriously. We relax, are willing to just dick around and joke, no rules lawyers in either group. It's a game! It's fun! That's what it's all about. It's being geeky and social at the same time. That's why I'm so glad that DnD has continued. Even when I don't have time in life for anything else geeky, due to work and school, I make time for DnD. It's an excuse to see my friends every week, and gives us something more to do than watch a movie or whatever. (You can only watch so many movies before you just want to freaking talk to someone.) Plus I just love dice; what's not to like? Pretty sure I'm just going to ask for dice for my birthday this year from my friends. I'd love to have a full rainbow like Woz and Chris. You wouldn't think about it directly, but that means buying yellow dice - and yellow dice always look sort of weird, awkward, or sinister to me. I don't know. It's a thing. But orange dice, yeah, those are pretty cool. But gotta love young, teenage me: my first set of seven dice was... glow in the dark. Hah! Do you know how useless they are? The numbers weren't even painted on! And of course I've lost my d12 of that set, probably due to my cat or moving too many times. The other dice I bought at that time were all d10s, because my high school friends and I just played the whitewolf system. Very different, by the way, from any d20 system. I've got usable dice now though. Flat, opaque green, grey, black, and blue. Those are mine. And Boyfriend gave me his old set, red flecked with black with blue numbering. Those dice carried him through YEARS of DnD campaigning, even saving this character's alignment and life by rolling a natural 20 once.
Right, perhaps enough rambling for one day.