Getting Lost in a Wake of Vultures

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I’ve mentioned previously that I’m trying to get into the Twitter Writer scene. As a part of that, I’ve started following a bunch of authors and trying to absorb what I can from them. One of my favorite people to follow is Delilah Dawson. I learned about her as a result of my first foray into the new Star Wars extended universe. I was admittedly rather angry that they threw out everything that was written before Disney purchased the franchise, but I’m excited to see where the new stories go now that I’ve had some time to get over what felt like a rather personal attack on some of my favorite memories

Delilah Dawson wrote the Captain Phasma book (titled “Phasma”) and did an amazing job adding to a rather underserved character in the films. Since I enjoyed that book, I followed Delilah on Twitter and have enjoyed the positive, affirming energy she brings to her Twitter account. At one point, she mentioned that the next book in a series she wrote under a pen name was about to have its release date announced. I had already started collecting her other books (mostly in online wish lists so I’d have stuff to look for during my quarterly visits to the local book store), but I hadn’t heard of this series. Turns out, she was writing an entire series under another name and I’d missed it because I never went to her website or her Wikipedia page.

Then I read a description of this series she posted and I knew I had to read it. There was no way I couldn’t. I’ll be the first to admit that I have a tendency to pick up books by mostly male authors featuring mostly male characters, so this book by a female writer about a trans man of color seemed like a really enjoyable way to step away from my typical milieu. As both a reader and writer, there’s always something to be gained when I read anything, but reading stuff outside of my experience shows me more. Not always in a quantifiable “Here’s what I learned today!” kind of way, but in more of a subtle, “change the way I think without always being entirely aware of it” way. Which is really the best way, in my opinion.

Wake of Vultures is an amazing Fantasy novel set in the fantastical Old West. It has saloons, cattle rustlers, cowboys, vampires, monsters out of every tradition, and some amazing characters. There’s romance, personal awakenings, shootouts, and tense moments of near disaster. There were rough scenes that were hard for me to read. Things that made me put down the book for a little bit because I got so sucked in and the pain and desperation I felt in the characters was too real to handle all at once. I read the whole book in a day because I couldn’t stop to do anything else once I’d gotten started.

I sat in my chair in the little library we’ve got, under the same late-night light that helped me through the sympathy pain I felt while reading John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down, and powered through scenes that are outside my personal experience, but whose pain resonated with my own. Feelings of powerlessness, feelings of being trapped in something someone else chose and you had no ability to resist or prevent. I made it through the book just fine, but it was amazing, wonderful, and difficult read. A lot of the best books are difficult and the intensity of the emotions I felt while reading this one convinced me to move the rest of the series to the top of my “to buy” list.

I would really love to dig into specifics, but I feel like so much of the novel and my own interpretations of it was instrumental in forming what I eventually got out of the story. I don’t want to influence your experience beyond encouraging you to have it. The characters are wonderful, the writing is beautiful, the plot is twisty, the foreshadowing is clever, and the world rides that perfect line of being familiar enough to not need much information about it while still being foreign enough to be super interesting. Go read Wake of Vultures by “Lila Bowen” and learn for yourself what amazing story this is.

Coldheart and Iron: Part 11

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READ FROM THE BEGINNING

When I awoke for our first day of preparation, I spent a few minutes savoring the feeling of having solid walls around me and basking in the comfort of knowing our presence was almost undetectable from the outside. I got so used to the constant fear of attack or discovery while between settlements and enclaves that I forgot how nice it was to feel secure or at least not afraid that I woke up because someone was sneaking around my tent. No amount of years spent in the field would ever make that fear go away for me. Anyone who lost it usually wound up dying to bandits or not strictly policing their heat signatures, so I wasn’t in a hurry to get rid of it.

Instead, I lay in my sleeping bag, stared at the ceiling, and wished I had a little privacy so I could wrap myself around Natalie. The Wayfinders had a large room to ourselves, but there was no door for the room and I couldn’t openly date a Wayfinder, even if everyone already knew Natalie and I were together. The chain of command does not allow for romance with one’s subordinates. Like most organizations with a command structure, it prevents the abuse of power by specifically forbidding anything that could seem like an abuse of power.

As the Wayfinders had turned from an informal group of people into a formal, militaristic organization, Natalie and I had discussed our options. We both decided to continue our relationship, but focused a little more on secrecy than before. Since our relationship predated the chain of command, we figured it was fine.

I was the first one awake, which wasn’t surprising since all the usual early risers had been awake for two days to find this place, so I pushed together a few camp stoves and started making a large pot of oatmeal. Using my powers as commanding officer, I requisitioned some of the dried fruit we saved for the days we really needed something less bland than dietary supplements and freeze-dried whatever. Once the oatmeal was simmering, I stirred in the fruit and one of the packets of brown sugar I kept in my personal bag for occasions just like this one.

In a world where most meals consisted of the ever-dwindling supply of grains, preserved meats, and a whole lot of questionable foodstuffs that was generated by whatever sustainable farming initiative our most-recent enclave ran, food variation held a special importance. Living in an enclave meant variety wasn’t terribly hard to come by, even if it wasn’t as wide as it would have been prior to the collapse. Living outside of one meant you ate what lasted a long time and didn’t weigh much.  I made sure that my people got variety on occasion, though. Since we were a larger group, it was easy for us to justify bringing a supply sled or two, depending on the length of the trip, and no one complained about the extra weight of towing frozen meat or root vegetables.

These supplies usually weren’t covered by our requisition allowances, so Camille or I generally bought it ourselves. Only Camille or I could authorize using any of the special supplies and we made sure to do it as a reward or a celebration. Usually one of us cooked it as well, to make sure everyone knew that it was a gift from us to everyone else. The only other time we got meat that wasn’t dried out was when a scout stumbled across a wild animal and could take it down without wasting a bullet.

The brown sugar was my touch, though. And my secret. Even if I dumped all ten pouches in, there wouldn’t be enough to drastically influence the taste, but mixing it in with the fruit gave it a little extra kick of sweetness that everyone enjoyed. When I wanted to give everyone a little boost without the extra time and more limited uses of our non-dried supplies, this was what I did. Got up first and made breakfast.

I got the usual murmurs of thanks as people quietly woke up and went about their morning routines. Every Wayfinder had an assigned job and would be able to take care of it themselves. Most of them were going to spend their day searching for supplies, one would stay here with the thermal reader to organize the laborer and nomad repair crews, and the rest were going to spend the day scouring the town for any humans living in the area. While thermal safety was the biggest priority by a significant amount, we needed to know what we could encounter in terms of less horrible but still possibly lethal dangers.

I spend my day near the building, coordinating the various supply search parties as they came and went, and giving some direction to the repair groups. I wound up sending a few of the more savvy nomads out with Wayfinders when someone reported a big find, but most of them stuck around the building as well, assisting with repairs and the start of modifications to the small office building we’d taken over.

Toward the end of the afternoon, we finally got a clean thermal reading on the building, aside from the front doors that the supply parties were using. There wasn’t much we could do about them other than set up a few things to prevent some of the heat from escaping while the doors were closed and prepare to seal the entryway when the blizzard started. It wasn’t the best solution since it’d get in the way of us fleeing the building if something happened, but it certainly helped with making the building more secure against possible invasion.

The scouts had found one group of humans, living outside the southern side of town in an office park that had been converted into a fortified shelter. They hadn’t been there the last time we had been through this town, but it had been a few years and nomadic groups occasionally settled down. We hadn’t made contact and none of them seemed to go into town, so Camille and I were content to do nothing but keep an eye on them.

Once I called off work for the night, as the final glimmers of sunlight disappeared behind the heavy bank of clouds on the horizon and people had started using their solar-powered lamps to work, we’d made excellent progress. More than I had even hoped, in fact. Trevor had been an amazing help keeping the laborers focused and working, keeping them focused on smaller goals like finishing the insulating quickly and correctly so they could start working on creating a latrine with stalls and privacy for the first time since we left the Madison Enclave.

After that, they’d even started on using some of the cubicle walls and construction supplies the Wayfinders brought to start partitioning their rooms into smaller, private rooms for the people who wanted them. Once the nomads found out that the laborers were willing to do the same for them, a lot of the residual hard feelings disappeared. When Trevor offered to do the same for the Wayfinders when I came to tell them to knock it off for the night, I refused despite my personal preferences. As a group, we spent a lot of time around each other and prefered living in a large group to living separately. Plus, the open room allowed us to better set up fortifications if we needed them and made it easier to do group meals which saved a lot of time, effort, and fuel.

Natalie was as disappointed as I was when I told as we shared cleanup duty after dinner.

“A little privacy would have been nice, Mar. One night every two weeks when neither of us is on duty and both Camille and Lucas are isn’t much.”

I nodded as I scrubbed my way through a stack of plates, handing them to Natalie for drying. “We had twelve days to ourselves just a few months ago.”

“That doesn’t count!” Natalie took the plate I was holding and poked me in the ribs. “We got stranded in a supply cache because we couldn’t make it back to our shelter before a blizzard.”

I winked at her. “And it was just the two of us.”

Natalie rolled her eyes and stacked the dry plate with the others. “I know you made the right choice, but it’s nice to imagine having some privacy.” I nodded as I scrubbed, feeling again the familiar tinge of disappointment that always raced through me when our time alone ended. Natalie took a deep breath and took the pile of dishes and cutlery back to stack beside our camp stove. When she came back, she leaned near me and spoke softly. “Don’t forget to go to the bathroom after making sure everyone has settled down.”

I turned my head toward her and smiled. “Of course not. I would never forget something as important as that.”

After an otherwise uneventful night, the second day dawned bright and surprisingly clear. I set aside our usual plans and had everyone bring out every solar-powered device and battery we owned so we could make sure they were fully charged before the blizzard started. After that, a few scouts went to keep an eye on the other humans, the rest of the Wayfinders returned to searching for supplies, and I started the laborers and nomads on turning our little office park into a fortress.

An old fire escape become a bolt hole that could be easily broken open from inside but almost impossible without explosives on the outside. The front door had barricades set up around the outside and even more in the interior entryway. Every room was fortified so the walls around their doors would stop bullets. I even had a hidden sentry post set up near the front door so someone could keep watch while we slept.

Once all of that was finished, I left the laborers and nomads to finish setting up their individual rooms and started bringing in all of the solar-powered devices. By the time the last Wayfinders had come back and the sun was touching the horizon, our base was ready to handle the blizzard.

As I walked around, inspecting the rooms, I stopped to watch a conversation between a few of the nomads and a small group of laborers headed by Trevor.

“Thank you so much for the rooms! This will definitely help the children relax.” The woman who had the two young children smiled and hugged the two nearest laborers.

Trevor smiled and shook her hand. “I hope it lets you get some rest as well! If we’re really going to be here for a week, then I think dividing the space up will help us not get on each other’s nerves too much.”

I walked in and clapped Trevor on the shoulder, matching his smile. “Seven to ten days, at this time of the year.”

Two of the nomads nodded in agreement and the woman in the front shook her head as she spoke. “At least it isn’t the winter blizzard. That one lasts for at least two weeks.”

“I prefer to be in an enclave for that one if I can swing it. Fifteen to twenty days is far too long to hole up in a building like this one without an equal amount of preparation time.” I idly scratched an ear as I thought back to the one time we’d been caught outside an enclave in a winter blizzard without adequate preparation time. We went through all of our supplies, including the stuff that was supposed to get us the rest of the way through out trip. Everyone had learned a lot that year and we took better precautions since then.

“Are they really that regular?” Trevor’s friend Mitch scratched at the beard he was growing and nervously looked over his shoulder at the entryway. “They never seemed that predictable in the enclave.”

I shrugged. “The Madison enclave hasn’t been connected to the net for a while and that’s a big part of accurate predictions. While the day of their arrival isn’t set in stone, their length is fairly predictable and the four storms circle the globe over the course of a year. Data from other enclaves that just saw the storms pass helps predict their arrival and duration elsewhere. That’s how we know this storm will be in the area some time tomorrow. The seven-to-ten days thing is just how long the spring storm usually lasts.”

I chuckled and stretched my arms. “At least we’re ready for this one and we’ve got the shelter almost ready to go. We should still have plenty of time tomorrow to wrap things up and gather supplies. It’ll be another busy day, so I think we should all settle in for dinner and sleep.”

Mitch and one of the other laborers nodded, but Trevor crossed his arms and looked down. One of the nomads cleared their throat and took a small step forward. “Of course.” He turned to the laborers and held out his hand to Trevor. “Thank you again for all of the assistance. We wouldn’t have been able to get this done without you all and we appreciate that you gave up some of your break time to make sure we were finished today”

Trevor picked his head up and took the man’s hand, smiling once more. “We’re glad to be of assistance. Anything to help out our neighbors and associates.” After a quick one-two pump, the two men released each others hands and lead their respective groups back toward their rooms.

I called out to them as they walked away. “Great job, everyone! Rest well!” I got a few half-hearted waves back and then turned back toward the Wayfinder rooms. Something about the whole exchange I had just witnessed unsettled me. Something else was going on here and I couldn’t think of what it could be. The two groups, who had been nearly ready to kill each other just a few days ago, were acting like nothing had happened. It made my life easier right now, for sure, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t going to do anything but make it more complicated in the long run.

Tabletop Highlight: The Importance Of Fudging Things

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The most important skill I ever learned as a Dungeon Master was how to Fudge It™. I cannot overstate the value of this skill. It has saved numerous sessions, countless player lives, and kept friendships alive that might otherwise have been destroyed by the capricious nature of small plastic random number generators. Yes, I am being somewhat over-dramatic. No, it is not nearly as over-dramatic as you probably thing. I’m a bit of an oddity when it comes to RNG using dice since I tend more towards extremes than is statistically likely (based on a log book of rolls I kept for two years of daily rolls for science purposes combined with weekly rolls for D&D purposes using a variety of dice and rolling surfaces).

Given that each roll of the standard RNG polyhedral (a d20) is always a one-in-twenty chance of any given number without any relation to the rolls previous, this is hardly conclusive evidence. Nevertheless, I soon discovered that I either needed to make every roll to even the odds, or I needed to learn to fudge the numbers as they came so my players wouldn’t accidentally get killed as a result of some nameless mook rolling three natural twenties (a phrase describing when a twenty-sided die ends its roll with the twenty facing up) in a row. In most D&D campaigns, repeated natural twenties means some kind of incredible success for the character that rolled it. In combat situations, it usually means automatic death for the target of the attack.

Fudging It™ has more applications than simply correcting errant probability. If my players throw me a curve ball during a session and I need to correct on the fly, you can safely bet I’ll be making it up as I go along. A lot of my favorite parts of the campaigns I’m running are a result of my decision to abandon the rules and just wing it as I go. I literally built an entire campaign around the idea of deviating from the rules everywhere I can without undermining player ability and just making the funniest things I can think of happen in any given situation. At the Orchestra and surrounded by the upper class? Well, get ready for a bunch of Phantom of the Opera style vampires to attack and the only tuba player left in existence (BLORNTH THE TUBA PLAYER was the only tuba player to survive the tragic battle of the bands) to use his magically enchanted tuba to batter vampires to death before eventually spewing a gout of fire out of the end to rival that of any dragon.

I remember the first campaign I ran and how hard it was on the players to deal with my weird probability. I wasn’t very good at fudging things back then, so the healer accidentally died, the archer fell off a cliff (and then teleported over the bard in an attempt to save himself only to nearly kill the bard instead) to his death, and the bard accidentally killed a zombie so hard he killed himself as well. I learned a lot running that campaign and have improved as a storyteller so that I can Fudge It™ at a moment’s notice.

Now, in order to properly Fudge It™, there’s a process involved. The exact steps vary from person to person and situation to situation, but it usually involves some kind of disbelieving chuckle on the DM’s part at the sheer absurdity of the moment followed by some silent bargaining with the dice gods. After that, solutions are proposed and discarded in rapid succession until the DM settles on an acceptable outcome that either allows the players to continue without knowing something was amiss or allows them their choice of fates. Not all DMs choose to Fudge It™ and that is their right. Sometimes, in a harsher setting, it even makes sense to be as brutal as possible, though it might be better to Fudge It™ and make things slightly more brutal.

That’s the important thing to know, I suppose. Fudging It™ isn’t just for fixing problems. It also works great as a way to create problems or bump up the difficulty of an encounter if the players aren’t having any trouble with it. It is incredibly versatile and I recommend picking up the skill.

Hurry Up!

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“Hurry up!”

I grumbled my way into my bedroom and the clock on my desk reminded me I had half an hour, despite my mother’s nagging. When I went back to hang up my towel, I still had ten minutes.

After I finished tying my shoes, I got in the car and waited for my mom and sister to appear. Dad sat behind the steering wheel, drumming his fingers. He seemed as frustrated with
Mom as I was. She’d been shouting at us to hurry up for the last two hours and, even in the car, I could hear her shouting up the stairs at Nadine.

It was exhausting. She had only suggested we visit her parents for dinner yesterday, so her impatience felt ridiculous. When she eventually appeared at the door with Nadine in tow, we
still had a minute left before our departure time.

After everyone had settled, Dad backed the car out of the garage and drove off. I played sudoku on my phone as we drove and ignored Mom’s constant muttering. Half an hour of
muttering later, we arrived to see Grandma’s smiling face waiting for us on their porch.

The visit felt more pleasant than usual because Mom stopped nagging us, but it passed quickly. As Dad parked the car at home, I noticed a cop parked right in front of our house. As Mom ushered us inside, I heard the cop talking to Dad.

“Hello, I’d like to speak to Andrea Fitzner, please.”

“Can I ask what this is about, officer?”

“One of her senior partners was found dead today and we’d like to ask her some questions related to our investigation.”

“Honey?”

Mom shooed us through door and closed it behind us, cutting us off from her and the rest of the conversation.

Saturday Morning Musing

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Growing up, because my parents were a single-income household and they had four children, most of our vacations were trips to campgrounds, the lake houses of my grandparents, or to visit family friends. There were a few exceptions, of course, like my trip to Boston with my mother so I could check out the Mount Washington Observatory because I was a weather nerd as a child and the entire family’s trip to Montana and Washington. I’ve never been to Disneyland and my memories of the Mall of America are vague and distant because I’m pretty sure they happened before I turned six. Probably much earlier.

I’m not complaining. My vacations were just different, not necessarily better or worse. The parts I remember most fondly aren’t even the vacations themselves, but the things around the vacation. Getting excited for the upcoming trip and the books, audio books, and GameBoy games I’d line up for what seemed like car trips that lasted forever. Getting takeout the night before so there were no dishes to do and no mess to clean up. Getting woken up at 4 in the morning by my dad because I was only kid who wouldn’t try to go back to sleep and could be trusted to get myself into the car. When I was younger, getting wrapped up in blankets against the chilly morning air and bundled into the car amongst our bags and coolers so that I got to spend the entire car trip wrapped in a cozy cocoon. The sense of safety and warmth I felt as my dad drove us through the dark early morning hours of the day and I knew that I could sleep safely because he’d never let anything happen to us. The fascination I learned staring at the horizon as the sun rose and at the sky or horizon as the miles passed. The satisfaction and comfort that came from being my dad’s copilot when I was older, the person trusted to stay awake and sit in the front seat because I would talk and could read the map.

Trips are different now. I still love the sun rises, leaving early in the morning, and watching the horizon as the miles roll by, but now I take my trips mostly on my own. I drive to my grandparents’ cottage or to visit friends in different cities. Occasionally, I drive someplace for a camping trip or to visit family. The feeling of wonder and other-worldliness is gone, replaced by a mental checklist of things to bring, where my gas station stops will be, and where my turns are. I think I’m starting to understand how my dad felt when we prepared and went on trips, perhaps minus the sense of responsibility for all the other occupants of my car as there are none.

These days, my vacations tend to focus more on resting and recovering than going somewhere. I don’t really have the money to take short trip to Portland or Seattle. Leaving the country is incredibly complicated and even more expensive, so that’s out as well. I could go camping, sure, but I usually only take vacations when I am in desperate need of relaxation and rest. Then, I generally want to stay around my apartment and save money because going places, doing things, and trying to figure out how to squeeze money out of my budget is exhausting.

That’s what this week’s vacation was. I did a single day trip to visit some college professors and friends, and then stayed at home the rest of the time, doing little things around the house and trying to focus on sleeping well, eating well, and doing some maintenance work on my life. Clutter clearing has been going well and I’ve completely cleaned my room. I also reorganized my bookshelves, so I’ll hopefully be able to handle new books without having to move pretty much every book I own for at least the rest of the calendar year. After that, all bets are off.

We’ll see whether or not it worked as time goes on. Going back to work after a vacation is always difficult and I’m struggling a little harder than usual because my soul yearns to write constantly. I had a taste of the freedom that sort of life could afford me and I’m going to be fighting myself when it comes to going in to work on Monday…

 

Talking To Myself

Wren 1 Comment

Most people
when they chuckle
and
admit
to talking to themselves
offer the
explanation
that they just don’t like
silence
or that they’re
thinking out loud
Me
I do it to
drown out the whispers
in my head
hoping
against hope
that if I can
somehow manage
to talk loud enough
I can ignore them
It
never works
because there is a
slight hint of
insanity
that creeps
into my voice
and a
primal sort of
wild
tautness
to the muscles of my face
that just SCREAMS
of the whispers
hidden behind the
animated comments
and
self-narrative
that rambles out
of my mouth
It only seems
to emphasize
the
silence
outside my head
and the
color within it
I need
to stop living
alone
It’s too quiet here
especially when
I’m
the only one
making
all the noise

Time’s Wasting, Let’s Get Pokemon Going

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I have a complicated relationship withe Pokemon Go. If you look back in the recesses of my original posts (I’ll link it here so you don’t have to), you can find me writing about how cool the game was and how excited I was to play it. Since then, my excitement has cooled. Initially it was because it was nearly impossible to find Pokemon in the wild (which was the reason most of my friends stopped playing), but there was no way to directly interact with your friends until they added raid battles. Gyms were a nightmare because connectivity problems kept coming up and it was a pain in the ass to train up a gym so it would be strong enough to survive everyone trying to take it down. Even the eventual fix to gyms, which makes turning them around and maintaining them a lot easier, was less than ideal because it puts a big limit on the number of in-game currency you can get without buying it.

My current apartment not having close proximity to anything (there’s one stop within half a mile’s walking and everything else requires crossing the highway) and I don’t earn much money with the gym access I’ve got, so I’m constantly running out of items. I don’t really have the space in my weekly schedule to spend three hours to drive somewhere with a bunch of stops, walk around for an hour, drive home, and then have to charge my phone. There are so many things I’d rather be doing with that time than spending it trying to maintain the high level of participation the game requires when you don’t have easy access to the in-game resources.

Playing it now doesn’t take much time. I hit the local pokestop on my way to work or I hit the one at work while I’m getting lunch. I can sometimes get a gym each day (for my fifty coin daily maximum) if I spend fifteen minutes after work stopping at one of the ones near my workplace. I open the app a couple of times a day and whenever I take walks, spending the mental energy on Pokemon Go when I would otherwise be letting my mind idly wander. It doesn’t cost me any time aside from gyms, but it does cost me energy. There’s a certain amount of mental effort that goes into remember to do my daily tasks, remember which Pokemon I don’t need for evolving something (to avoid wasting my precious Pokeballs), and planning out the extra commute time I’d need to stop for a gym or pokestop.

For almost two years, I’ve unfailingly spent that energy every day. Even during the last few months when I’ve exhausted myself to the point of pretty much crashing as soon as I’m done with my responsibilities each day, I still spend energy on Pokemon Go. Now, as I’m taking a look at my life and trying to decide what is really worth energy as I try to find a healthier balance, I’m really questioning if it is worth it. And Pokemon Go isn’t the only thing on the chopping block. One of my favorite no-energy time-wasters is Imgur and that generally doesn’t do anything for me but help time pass quickly. There are games I play online with my friends that I don’t really enjoy but I play anyway because I’ve got people to play alongside. My life is full of things like this, things I once enjoyed but only continue to do because of habits and because they help me pass through the hours of my worst days.

The thing is, I have a lot of other stuff to help me do that. Ever since I ran out of that stuff in college and had to deal with a horrible night where I had nothing to do but think and stare out the window, I’ve made sure that I’ve got at least forty hours of mindless entertainment. I’ve got whole TV shows I bought on DVD that I’ve only watched long enough to know I’d enjoy. I’ve got a pile of emergency books and every Pokemon game ever created (I enjoy the “standard” version Pokemon games way more than the mobile game). Yet I still play Pokemon Go every day. I still have half a dozen boring games installed on my computer. I still have all the social media and time-wasting apps on my phone so I can disappear from the world for hours at a time.

As I spring-clean my life, I think it’s time I got rid of that stuff. I took this week off of work, and even off of blog writing (this was written ahead of time), so I could rest and try to see my life through clear eyes. Part of that is going to be ridding myself of all the things I’ve collected to insulate myself from having to pay attention to my life when my life wasn’t something I wanted to pay attention to. Things are better now, even if I still struggle, and I don’t want to feel like I’m wasting my time anymore. I don’t know if I’ll uninstall Pokemon Go because my girlfriend still plays it frequently and it is good to have things you can do together, but I think I’m going to take it off my home screen.

My Second Favorite Cop Show

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While my friend and I were watching Pysch a couple of weeks ago, we got to talking about our mutual love for comedy, cop shows, and comedic cop shows. While we both obviously rated Psych as our favorite, we were both surprised to learn that our second favorite cop show was Castle. Me, because I want to be Richard Castle (a rich, eccentric millionaire writer with a nice apartment and the fortitude to not only write books but help the police solve crimes every week while pretending he’s doing research) and him because he’s like a broke, slightly funnier, and much less involved in crime solving version of Richard Castle. The distinction is probably the smallest one I’ll ever make, but we argued about it for half an hour, so it is clearly important to both of us.

It was interesting to see that we were basically in agreement on pretty much every point of the show. The only difference was our experiences with it. He watched it as it came out on TV and I purchased the DVDs. I’ve also made it further into the series he has, but that’s mostly because I had the DVDs and could watch on demand. Both of us eventually stopped before the end because the series started falling into that hole that long-running shows sometimes fall into, where more and more incredible things have to happen in order to keep the show new and relevant. He has no plans to continue watching it but I own the DVDs for every season and plan to get around to it at some point. We both enjoyed the earlier seasons more, when it was mostly protagonists flirting, hints at larger plot arcs, and the standard human stuff that goes on in everyday life.

 

The characters are great and Nathan Fillion is excellent in this show. I’ll admit that I’m a little biased because I’m a bit of a fan of his, but I think his style of acting fits the series very well, able to go from light-hearted comedic relief to intensely serious as the situation calls, all before wrapping it up with a touching little moment at the end with Castle’s mother, daughter, or his current love interest. In a single episode. The writing of the individual episodes manages it well, too. Despite the wide variety of emotions at play in a lot of the episodes, there is never a moment were it feels rushed or unduly chaotic. As I said, the writing runs into problems as the show goes on, but they do remarkably well for something that obviously hadn’t planned on running for as long as it did.

The extended cast is a lot of fun. Richard Castle’s mother and daughter provide excellent contrasts, allowing him to be the more serious one at times with his mother and the more playful one with his daughter. The three of them do an excellent job playing off of each other as they interchangeably help each other, give each other advice, and rein each other in. The other characters, mostly people from the police side of the show, help keep the show balanced by providing the main drama for each episode without completely losing touch with the more emotional side of the show.

The other protagonist, Detective Beckett, does an amazing job of calling Castle on his bullshit, keeping the police focused on their jobs rather than on Castle’s antics, and upstaging Castle almost every time he thinks he’s come out ahead. Unlike a lot of cop shows where the outsider protagonist constantly almost shames the police, Beckett proves herself easily Castle’s equal and much more likely his superior when it comes to investigation. There are a lot of times where he mostly just follows her around to flirt, make jokes, and accidentally stumble into a tense situation (or firefight) that she rescues him from. It is a refreshing change of pace when the damsel in distress is the male protagonist. He rescues her a couple of times, but it is mostly him tagging along and leaning on her. Beckett provides most of the plot arcs for the show and Castle’s are often just an accessory to hers. I enjoy the dynamic a little more than Psych’s where Shawn is constantly stealing the spotlight and setting up the story arcs. It feels a lot more realistic in Castle.

Eventually, though, the show loses the thread of its earlier seasons and starts trying to top itself, despite the fact that they more or less resolve the long-running character arcs and stories by season 5. They could have wrapped everything up neatly at that point, but they kept it going and things started to get a little messy. The plots started to get kind of convoluted, the season arcs felt like they were made simply to keep the show going, and the characters started throwing controversy into their personal lives just to give themselves plots for the season.

I feel like I encounter that a lot in TV shows these days. If a show does well for a few seasons, the network decides to milk it for all its worth. Scrubs Season 8 would have been great if they had just basically started the show over, letting all the old characters go except for a few who wanted to stick around and making it the start of something new instead of an attempt to continue something that almost everyone had left. The worst offender in my book is How I Met Your Mother. They had a nice, tight little plot that they wound up extending when they were given more seasons. That was fine, but continuing to extend it forever got very frustrating, since they wound up dancing around potentially ending the show at the end of the current season for a couple (or more) years.

Ultimately, if you’re looking for a fun cop show that’s good for a watch, check out Castle. You’ll enjoy it, have a good time, and chances are good that you’ll like it well enough to watch all of it. I’m just really bad at finishing things if I wind up stopping them. I suggest taking your time and trying to be consistent rather than binging it like I did.

Coldheart and Iron: Part 10

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READ FROM THE BEGINNING

In the morning, I told everyone as we that we would need to push hard for the next two days in order to make it to our shelter in time to prepare it for the blizzard. There were a few grumbles, but just people venting spleen about an unpleasant task. After I reminded them that they would also be required to help prepare the shelter once we got there, a couple of the nomads and most of the laborers started shouting. One of the nomads tried argue that they should not be expected to keep up and thus should be exempt from a day’s work because they had children to look after. I cut the argument off before they could start gaining steam, letting them know only people who helped with the shelter got to use it, and nomads who had children quickly shushed the two loudmouths without children.

However, the laborers seemed to unite behind the idea of taking their time and refused to let go. As we prepared to set out, since I made it clear the supplies were leaving with the Wayfinders, regardless of what the laborers chose to do, they huddled together and then sent Trevor to talk to me again. I ignored him as best as I could, letting him know I was busy helping the nomads with their children and taking my turn pulling the supply sled, but he finally cornered me when we broke for a quick lunch.

Initially, I planned to let him just run his mouth. Once he’d run out of steam a bit, I let him know the scouts would be arriving there tomorrow morning, as we were starting our day’s hike, and would have the building selected by the time our group got there in the evening. He backed off then, stewing on what I said, and I had most of the afternoon to focus on my tasks. Any time not spent reviewing supply forms or correcting our course was spent taking a turn helping the nomads by carrying one of the two children that wasn’t strong enough to keep up the pace but was too big to constantly carry. Thankfully, being carried helped the two kids keep up the pace by given them a chance to rest, though they were starting to show their complete exhaustion as sunset approached. The laborers were having no trouble keeping up the pace, though they always seemed to be elsewhere when I wanted to enlist one of them to help with something.

About fifteen more minutes of hiking from the campsite the forward scouts had picked for us, Trevor came up to me again. I was at the head of the group, setting the pace and keeping on eye out to make sure no one fell behind. When I looked back, about to let everyone know we would to our campsite with plenty of time to set up before dark, I found Trevor hustling up to me. I turned back to face the front and ignored him until he fell in beside me and nodded.

“Captain.”

I nodded back, wary and wishing he could have waited just a little longer, when I’d be too busy setting up camp to talk.

“I want to know why we must be rushed. Won’t two and a half days be plenty of time to prepare?”

I sighed and shook my head. “Possibly. Given the nature of our preparations and the inability to be completely accurate about blizzard predictions, it is best to get as much time as possible.”

“Is the four hours of daylight we’ll gain by pushing hard really help us that much?”

“Yes.” I nodded and resumed my silent march.

After a moment of silence, Trevor turned towards me a little bit and spread his hands. “Please, captain. I’m trying to understand. Could you explain why it matters so much?”

I considered ignoring him, but decided against it. If I could get him to quit arguing, maybe he’d get the rest of the laborers to fall in line. That’d make my life much easier. “Alright, but once we hit our campsite I’ll need to focus on making camp.”

I waited for Trevor to nod and then launched into the basics. “Given that we haven’t taken this route in years and this is the first time we’re stopping at this particular town, I would have preferred to have four days or even five. Given that we lost two days to dealing with bandits, we have no time to spare.”

Trevor blew out a deep breath and snorted. “I find it hard to believe that simply setting up a more stable camp would take three days.”

I shot a glare at him and he held his hands up placatingly. “I know you’ve spent most of your time in enclaves, so I would not be surprised to learn that this is the first blizzard you’ve experienced outside the safety of civilization. Correct?” He nodded slightly and I continued. “Now, I’m sure I don’t need to explain why we need shelter during the blizzards. Anyone old enough to understand the stories knows. However, things work a little differently outside of the enclaves.”

I pulled open one of the large velcro pockets on the front of my thermal jacket and handed a few pieces of laminated paper to him. “Here. This is the list of things we need to survive for an entire blizzard, per person and assuming that the blizzard lasts for ten days. Give it a read.”

As his eyes darted down the page, I continued to talk. “Outside of an enclave, an errant heat signature could give us away. That’s why we have such strict rules about were fires can be located, what you can wear, and why you need to stay in your tents at night. In an enclave, the heat is so oddly shaped and in large enough quantities that it confuses the sensors. They’re safe simply because they’re so big and so warm.

“We are not. Especially during blizzards when the ambient temperature drops to its lowest and any amount of extra heat is going to shine like a beacon.” Trevor looked up at me, his face blank. I smiled at him. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be hunted down and killed. So we hole up, hide our heat signatures, and do what we can to pass time until it is safe for us to go outside again.”

Trevor hadn’t even cycled through the papers, but he handed them back to me. “That sounds like a lot of hassle. If we can predict the day the blizzards will strike an area, why don’t people just make sure to be in an enclave when they pass over? Why risk being outside?”

I shrugged. “People aren’t exactly known for making the most sensible choices all the time. Plus, if we restricted all travel that would encounter a blizzard, we’d be doing at most a third of what we do now. They’re fairly frequent, when you consider how long it takes, on average, to go from one enclave to another.” I stuck the papers back into my pocket and sealed it up. “Like I said, I don’t want to be hunted down and killed, nor do I want anyone in our group to be hunted down and killed, so I’m going to push us as hard as I can today and then do the same tomorrow so we can arrive at the shelter my people have picked out before sundown.

“I would appreciate it if you’d stop questioning me while we’re walking and focus on getting your people in line so I can do my job.” I turned my face to Trevor again and let all of my frustration from the day show on my face. “If you or your companions get in the way of me keeping everyone safe, I will leave you behind. Got it?”

Trevor’s steps faltered for a moment, but he nodded. “Alright, alright. I got it.” He nervously rubbed his gloves together and chuckled. “Now that I know what’s going on, I’ll focus on making sure my people keep up the pace and are ready to work. I don’t think any of us wants to get killed, either.”

I let some of the heat fade from my face and shook my head. “If I have to explain every decision I make, we’re going to wind up dead. Do I what I say when I say it and, if we have some down time and you want to know why, I’ll explain it to you.”

“Sure thing.” Trevor smiled and stuck out his hand. I stared at it and then at his face for a moment before taking it and applying slightly more pressure than was strictly necessary. It was an awkward walking handshake, but Trevor seemed to appreciate it.

“Great. Now go get your people ready and convince them that, if we all just pull together on this, we can have time to rest and relax soon. The better they work together, the sooner it’ll be.”

“Right away, Captain.” Trevor nodded and fell back to the rest of the laborers. I watch him talk to them for a moment before focusing my mind back on the task of arriving at our camp and getting every settled for the night. Once all tasks were finished for the night and both groups had settled in for the night, I took half an hour from my guard shift to go through the supply tent and update the logs.

It was always an ordeal, preparing for the blizzard. We had to collect wood for fires to keep us warm since our little kerosene camp stoves would use up what fuel we had with us in a couple of days if we relied solely on them. Even though a few groups of Wayfinders did nothing but travel Wayfinder routes and replenish the hidden stockpiles we used to make sure guiding groups had enough necessities, we couldn’t take enough to keep us warm that long without leaving nothing for any groups that came after us. Food was a lot easier, though. The constant cold helped preserve most of the stockpiles governments had put together as the collapse was happening thanks to some people who believed the early warning signs. Most canned goods lasted well beyond their shelf dates, as long as they stayed dry.

The only other thing we needed, which was the hardest thing to find, was the right building. Most buildings were properly insulated before the collapse and our thermal hand scanner would find any leaks that had developed since then as soon as we put a heat source inside the building. Thankfully, the standards had been raised right before the collapse and any newer building was almost as dead as the snow around it on the thermal reader, even after we started heating it to look for leaks. There were almost always repairs that needed doing, but insulation and nails or glue never went bad and no Wayfinder was certified without the skills to heat seal a building.

Thankfully, we were good on almost everything but kerosene. The nomads had brought plenty of food, but drained our fuel resources much more quickly than we anticipated. I’d have to send some Wayfinders through the town to look for more fuel, if there was any left. If not, I’d have to send a couple of scouts away from our route to hit a cache somewhere. Natalie had the maps and she would know where to find anything around this town. Hopefully we wouldn’t need to start restricting fuel rations before then.

Once I was finished, I settled in for my guard duty. Hidden beneath the fresh powder that was constantly falling from the sky, I kept an eye on the camp and wished that radios were still usable. Natalie and Lucas had been gone since the morning and the quiet anxiety I always felt when my friends didn’t return to the tent at night clawed at my stomach. Lucas was the best we had at solo survival and Natalie was the head of our resource collection, so I knew they’d be fine between the two of them, not to mention the four other Wayfinders and two trainees with them. Natalie and her trainee would be in charge of finding our shelter and combing the ruined town for food to help us survive the five to ten days we would be stuck in our shelter.

Once my shift was over, and I’d gotten as much sleep as I could before I had to start getting the camp moving again, I steeled myself for another morning of arguments and a certain degree of enthusiasm I didn’t actually feel. As I let my mind work through my morning mantra, I cleaned up from breakfast, packed up my bags, and started taking down the tent. Once I was outside and finishing up the packing, I encouraged the camp to continue doing the same. Camille had gotten up before me and started the Wayfinders on their preparations, so all I had to do was get the laborers and the nomads moving.

Thankfully, the nomads were up and moving already. The laborers took a little work to get going, but they didn’t argue and Trevor took it upon himself to make sure they all got ready quickly. We got underway a full fifteen minutes before I had expected and were on our way with minimal disruption. Trevor had the laborers take turns helping with the nomad children and he even took a turn pulling a supply sled, though none of the other laborers offered.

By the time we arrived at the town and had been brought to the building the scouts had selected, it was just before sunset. Room assignments were given, unused rooms were boarded up, and everyone settled in for their first night in a proper shelter in what felt like over a month. Even the barn hadn’t felt as cozy as the solid building around us. As I fell asleep, I banished all of my usual worries from my mind and reveled in the comfort of good shelter and sleeping beside Natalie once again.

Tabletop Highlight: Weapons of Legacy

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I love world creation. I like making up complex worlds with a lot going on and creating a sense of history for the world. I want to make it feel like it stretches beyond the story being told now and, if things go well, that it will continue one for ages to come. That can always be a tricky prospect in any story-telling format, but it can be especially tricky in D&D because no one cares about the past unless you find ways to tie what is going on now to the past. The same can be said of books, but generally the characters in a book are more easily maneuvered into seeing the importance of the past than people playing characters in a D&D campaign.

While there are an endless number of details you can use to draw attention to your campaign’s history and what went on before the characters showed up, not every player is going to be willing to let their attention be drawn. Even then, a lot of the historic information feels like it has been created just to add motivation or information to a present situation, so the depth is lost. My favorite way to add some depth beyond constant references to things that happened long ago and ancient ruins that weigh down their halls with history is a mechanic that D&D 3.5 called Weapons of Legacy. It even has its own book by the same name.

The idea is that certain weapons (or armor, shields, or general items) had so much magic and power invested in them by someone that they started taking on a life of their own. They became these immensely powerful things that show up throughout history, in the hands of different owners who just add to the thing’s legacy. There are a whole bunch of pre-made items in the book and each one has stories about how the legacy item came to bear its current legacy, what has been done with it since then, and where it might be waiting for a new bearer. It even has rules for making custom weapons of legacy, either for enterprising DMs who want to add depth to their world or for players who want to create their own legacies as their characters grow in power.

I enjoy creating legacies as characters grow because it can be really fun for their legacy item to suddenly manifest powers when they’re in a tight corner. It adds a lot of flavor to the characters as they grow and can help them find direction for their growth when players are otherwise struggling to figure out what is next for their character beyond the continued adventure. I prefer to make them myself, perhaps a little tailored to fit my players, so they’re forced to do some research and learn about the past. I like to tie them to plots going on so players become invested in resolving the plots and ensuring that everything eventually gets resolved rather than forgotten about.

The part I enjoy the least is the number of feats and penalties involved in a weapon of legacy. Sure, they’re often WAY more powerful than any other single item in 3.5, but I feel like the penalties take away from the fun and power the players are supposed to feel as a result of the legacy. I don’t mind if my players wind up a little over-powered because it makes them feel like they’re powerful enough to change history. That is, of course, until I throw a dragon turtle at them that nearly takes out the entire party and would have if the entire party besides the Bard weren’t strikers who can deal high damage to single targets. True story.

Honestly, the flavor parts of the legacy items are my favorite parts. I like coming up with the origins and history of the item, in addition to what the Weapons of Legacy book calls the “omen,” or the thing that hints that this isn’t just an ordinary weapon. Combining that with the Individual Magic Effects from the Goblins webcomic makes for some REALLY fun effects when a character picks up and uses a legacy item. They’re all-around fun for me to make and add to my campaign, my players love the power and history they add, and cool stuff (like a dagger made from the largest piece of a shattered Reaper’s scythe) is cool.