This Is The End

Well, we're about T-20 minutes to the start of our final Changeling session.  The gaming group (also of Deadlands fame) will be staying together, although we'll be going on some sort of hiatus due to some GM family stuff.  All positive, just not conducive to gaming.

The game session will be up, as always, a million years after the last session, although I'll make some effort—I swear, guys!—to get it up a bit speedier this time, perhaps.

I've really enjoyed myself, and it is going to be really hard to leave behind this poor little tortured artist boy.  This character had been kicking around in my head for years.  I almost played him in another, though less moody, Changeling game when I was either just out of college or about to be at that point.  And that was approximately 7 years ago, so yeah...  He's had such a head canon life of his own, that M'Colleague and I have a nickname for him, Tennant Fae, because, well, he's always been "played by" David Tennant.

I'm a huge nerd.

So there you go.  This is the end.  Play us out, Jim...

Been a long time since I rock and rolled

Let's give this another try, shall we?

I'd like to say I've been away travelling the universe with the Doctor, and that's why I made only a scant few entries before going utterly silent.  Truth is, I just chose the absolute worst time to start public blogging.

Did you know that buying a house and moving eats up all of your damn time?  Apparently I didn't.

So yes, between holidays and the madness that comes with new homeownership, I have just not been able to be bothered to keep up a blog.  We're mostly settled in now, so I'm going to make a valiant attempt to start this cursed thing up again.  Let's pretend that earlier stuff didn't really happen and start afresh, shall we?

And what better way than with a guest post on someone else's site?

Really, now, Nicole...

The plague hit our household last week, and S.P. was unable to attend the first Deadlands session of the new year.  He offered to let me do the session replay, which I immediately agreed to.  For the sake of completion, and to make it easier for other players to track back, I asked him to post it in the usual location.

So quick!  Stop reading my writing here, and go somewhere else... to read more of my writing.

Truly, though, I'm going to do my best to make at least one post of some substance each week.  I'll be starting on my wedding dress soon, so there will be many progress updates to share, which should help.

Allons-y!

Game Reflections: Deadlands

We had a spectacular "season finale" to Deadlands last night.  I'll leave the summarising to M'Colleague, as he has been doing a spectacular job of it thus far, and I would hate to steal his thunder.

But yes, I do tend to think of some games in terms of TV show series.  I've been lucky in that a lot of the GMs (DMs, STs, whatever the given system calls them) with whom I play have a keen knack for knowing when to call a session for optimal cliff-hanger suspense, how to build that suspense in the first place, and how to craft a damn fine story world in which to play.  This Deadlands campaign has been no different.

M'Colleague (some of you know him as S.P. although he goes by many names) and I have reflected that this game and our player/character group is very Whedon-esque, to its great credit.  We've got a Priest with a Past, a Wealthy Boy Journalist, a Fallen Southern Belle, a Ne'er-Do-Well Drifter, a Mountain Boy with Too Many Guns (no such thing), and a Rough Lady Butcher (that's a woman who is a butcher, not Jack the Ripper).  We have a great group dynamic, and are able to banter with ease.

Or had. Father Seward, Rufina the butcher, and Jake the drifter died spectacularly last night while we attempted, and succeeded, at stopping the apocalypse.  I'm sure it won't be the last time, but it does give one a certain sense of accomplishment going into the tail end of a hellacious work week.  Though the players themselves aren't leaving the game for good, I wonder how we will recover when half our party is suddenly replaced with a few well placed newcomers.

I'm not normally one to get terribly attached to characters that aren't my own (and even then only so much), but I have found myself reflecting on our group's loss throughout the day today.  It occurred to me that this hit me just as hard as when a favourite character snuffs it in a TV show I've become invested in.  You know the feeling (Spoilers ahead):  Charlie on LOST, Wash at the end of Serenity, Ianto in Torchwood.  Which is to say, not very hard hitting in the grand scheme of things, but that's emotionally-invested fandom for you.

My character, Ruby "Not Scarlet O'Hara" O'Flahertie, lost both a father figure and a would-be lover in a matter of minutes, without actually saying goodbye.  Not to mention vampire thing that was her brother, long thought to be dead.  As a properly helpless woman of her time and upbringing, to have lost two protectors is a devastating blow.  Them's the breaks in the Victorian apocalypse, of course.  Though her heart is thrice broken, I'm very pleased at the new level of characterisation that this will allow me to bring to the table.  I thrive on this sort of method acting crap.

And I'm a little glad that our illustrious GM has pretty much exhausted any remaining family dear Ruby could have had left.  Of course, if we're headed where I think we are next, she's about to confront her estranged philandering husband.

Oh, won't that be a laugh?