What D&D character am I?

Update 3/3/08: As of yesterday, the link below was no longer working ("expired domain")....sorry :(
Found a What D&D Character Are you? quiz, and according to it, I'm a Neutral Good Elf Bard.

Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.

Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.

Primary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.


Detailed Results:

Alignment:
Law and Chaos:
Law ----- XXXX (4)
Neutral - XXXXXXX (7)
Chaos --- XXXXXXX (7)

Good and Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXXX (7)
Neutral - XXXXXX (6)
Evil ---- (-1)

Race:
Human ---- XXX (3)
Half-Elf - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (16)
Elf ------ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (16)
Gnome ---- XXXXXXXXXXX (11)
Halfling - XXXXXXXXXXX (11)
Dwarf ---- (-4)
Half-Orc - X (1)

Class:
Fighter -- XXX (3)
Barbarian -XX (2)
Ranger --- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Monk ----- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Paladin -- XX (2)
Cleric --- XXXXXXX (7)
Mage ----- XXXXXXX (7)
Druid ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Thief ---- (-1)
Bard ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (17)

So, dear readers - what D&D character are you?

Seasons change and so do I...

About two weeks ago, I got a rather unexpected request. Vikki Clayton of Hand-Dyed Fibers asked me if I would come up with a design using her overdyed silks. Basic constraint was 5-10 colors, using less than half a yard per color when stitched using one strand over two threads, so she could develop sample tag sets for them.

I was honored, to say the least. This opportunity would give Tor Rhuann Designs more exposure, which was both exciting and a bit scary! But a flash of inspiration and a LOT of deliberation over color choices later, I'm proud to present Four Seasons:

Colorway 1

Colorway 2

It was very hard to settle on colors, because there are so many lovely ones to choose from, but I managed to limit (ha!) myself to only stitching it twice. Vikki will have tag sets available for these two colorways at Hand-Dyed Fibers.
As for my models, I see a biscornu in my near future!

Also in my near future are two new ventures for me!

I'm starting to take voice lessons (my first one is tomorrow!). I've been singing in my church choir for about a year now, but I could use a bit of help with technique and just overall comfort with my voice. Hopefully lessons will help.

I'll also be trying my hand at DungeonMastering for the first time. I've been a tabletop RPGer for about 20 years, but have never been a gamemaster. I'm the only adult in my group who's never done so. DH got a DragonLance book from DD for Christmas and started thinking about a DragonLance campaign, since there's a popular sequence of modules based on the original Dragonlance series. He's already running a Birthright campaign at present, so I decided that maybe it was time I gave DMing a go. I probably won't be ready to actually start for a few weeks yet, but I'm excited about this.

Wish me luck!

Life in miniature...

Well, it took me two days instead of one, but Hansel and Gretel are done.
Before:


After:


I think I did pretty well. DH thinks these are among my best. I did intend for these two to be as different as night and day, and I think I succeeded. I did add a touch of color to Gretel's crossbow (which I'm pretty proud of!) just so she wasn't completely dark.

To be honest, while I was pretty happy with Hansel all along, I wasn't so sure about Gretel while I was working on her. Now, I think she turned out okay. Actually, while I didn't intend so, she reminds me of Aeryn Sun from Farscape.

DD and I also painted her character, a pixie:

I did the detailing on the wings, but she did most of it, and she did the hair and dress. I was pretty impressed at how little touchup I needed to do afterward.

DsS had his go as well on his two characters, a swashbuckler and a mage:


All in all, a productive weekend on the miniature front!

Big plans for small things...

One of the things I enjoyed back when we RPG'd more often was painting miniatures - figurines that represented our characters when the situation (usually a combat) needed to be actually set up for better visualization. It was fun to take a 1.5" piece of cast metal and bring it to life as someone. It was also rather a challenge - some of the detail on the casting can be pretty small and a steady hand (and a very good brush) are required. My success at capturing such detail has been varied, and I am by no means possessed of much in the way of artistic skill, but I think I have generally done okay.
Here are some of my better examples:


Most of these are about 9 years old, with the oldest (the albino in group 1 and the drow in group 2) being about 13 years old. Ten points if you can identify the albino.

These next two are my two characters from the previous AD&D campaign we had...about 8 years ago.

I'm more proud of the back on this one, with the flowers in her hair.


The original Clioratha - a Bladesinger (specialized type of Elven fighter/mage) in the Birthright campaign setting. She was a bit of a free spirit (yes, those are tattoos on her legs) and was a lot of fun to play, and she remains one of my favorite all-time characters. And now you know where I got my 'net handle from!

Ah, but why am I telling you this? Because I have two new intended victims:

Meet Hansel and Gretel - twin heirs of a lost guilder family in the Birthright campaign world. Since we're in a somewhat light-hearted campaign I decided to be whimsical with the names. And our gaming groups have always tended to be fairly small, so it's not been uncommon for me to run multiple characters.

Hansel and Gretel are on my to-do list for the day - stay tuned to see how they turn out. Hopefully I won't mess them up too badly - my hand is not as steady as it once was.

Things that make you go WT????

At DsS's suggestion, we've decided to take a jaunt back into the Alternate Dementia pen-and-paper RPG past. A trip into my sweltering attic unearthed most of our AD&D 2nd edition books, and a little web research brought up places to acquire the satirical "Castle Greyhawk" module and other lighthearted fare.

While searching for an item to complete the minimum order at one site, I stumbled upon...
Cthulhu plushies.

I don't even have words.

Too bad Noble Knight didn't have a plush Holy Hand Grenade in their Monty Python section - I'd have been all over that.

Pyrotechnicalities

Ah, the pleasures of a nice long weekend. I took Friday off to stay home with DD, and we had Monday off for Independence Day. DsS came over on Saturday, and with gaming buddy J we played LotRisk, which is always a lot of fun. We did Team Play, which we don't often do, with DsS and I as Evil vs J and DH as Good. As Evil, we got our collective orcish hindquarters kicked, but actually managed to pull out a win because we found the One Ring right before it went into Mount Doom. (I am your father, Frodo...give in to the Dark Side...)

Monday was, of course, Independence Day, and that means....fireworks!

Early in the afternoon, DD wanted to do some 'snakes' - little pellets that form snakes of ash when they burn. I personally find them a bit cheesy, but she loves them. I put foil on a cookie sheet, and lit the pellets on that so I didn't scorch my driveway (or pool deck).
In the evening I watched the Capitol Fourth presentation on PBS of the concert and fireworks in DC. The concert (and coverage) were quite excellent, with a variety of music including The Beach Boys, the O'Jays, and Gloria Estefan. It was nice to see the more classic performers instead of only the Pop Tart of the Month. Then there were fireworks around the Washington Monument, and the National Symphony did Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture", with cannon, which is a piece I definitely look forward to every year. Interesting, though, how a song about Napoleon's ill-fated invasion of Russia has become such a staple of American festivities.
Overall, the DC fireworks were pretty good, the concert was awesome, and the coverage by PBS was quite well done.

After watching the DC show, we went outside and did a few fireworks of our own. There are several fireworks wholesalers within two miles of my house, but I only bought the stuff that's actually legal in Florida. (Technically anything that flies and goes boom (ie bottle rockets, roman candles, mortars, etc..) is illegal, but exceptions can be made for 'agricultural purposes' (ie frightening birds), and it's this loophole that keeps the wholesalers in business. There was quite a bit of 'agricultural' work going on around our neighborhood!) Ah, but back to my humble stash.. I had a few sparking fountains, and some ground-blooms to do. We took the aforementioned cookie sheet and set fountains on that, which worked pretty well - my driveway cleaned up quite easily afterward. The cookie sheet itself, however, did not fare quite so well...one of the fountains was a rectangular block and it wasn't quite obvious which side went up. So it got set off upside-down by accident. It still looked pretty cool, but it succeeded in burning through the foil and tarnishing the heretofore indestructible cookie sheet. We only did a few fountains, and I did my requisite blue sparkler. DD watched from inside - the 'agricultural work' being done around the neighborhood bothered her.

Once inside, it was time for CBS's coverage of Pops Goes the Fourth. Some of you may remember my rant last year about CBS's abysmal coverage of the Boston show, and I was expecting another such fiasco, but I wanted to try anyway because I ♥ the Boston Pops. And I must confess that I was pleasantly surprised! It still wasn't anywhere near as wonderful as when A&E covered the Pops, but CBS obviously learned something from last year. No 1812, alas, but we did get the whole patriotic singalong and "Stars and Stripes Forever". And wonder of wonders, they covered the fireworks commercial-free! Granted, I could have done without the need to cut to crowd shots, but at least we got to see pretty much the whole show. Boston has some of the best pyrochoreography, and the newest fireworks, including shells that burst into smiley-faces, of all things! Wonderful stuff. One of these days I'd love to see the Boston show live.

I'd just have to get over that whole 'fear of crowds' thing...

@

It's very rare that I get hooked on a computer game. Maybe once every couple of years I'll pick up a game, play it for hours a day until I win it, and then I'm done with it. The usual suspects are world-building games such as Civilization or campaign games such as Heroes.

The latest culprit, though, is a very old game - Moria. Yes, the old text-graphics dungeon crawl game, similar to Rogue and Nethack. I spent far too much time playing Rogue, Moria, or Nethack in college. Extremely primitive by today's standards...

...but I know I'll keep playing until I kill that Balrog!

Battles of Britain

Where does the time go? It's been nearly a week since I've blogged! I'm not feeling overly inspired, so I'll have to go with another data dump. The travelblog is on my To-Do List for the week, though, so watch for more entertaining posts.

But without further ado - this week's edition of What I Did Over The Weekend.

Friday was an off-work Friday, and DH and I went appliance shopping. We're getting a new refrigerator - one of those side-by-sides with filtered ice and water in the door. Huzzah! No more funny tasting ice! Once the fridge is delivered and installed, that is! We're also getting a new dishwasher, since our old one has been in the throes of Degenerative Appliance Disease (caused by the virus Warrantiae expiredus).
Friday night I worked on getting our parish bulletin up on the church website. This is my first 'official' week as parish webmistress, and as with any transition of power there was a bit of adjustment involved. I did at least get the website updated on Friday - at around 10:30pm. I have this week's bulletin in hand already, so things should go much more smoothly!

Saturday, DsS came over. We were all pleased to see him, especially DD. We were amazed that he actually decided to get his hair cut and donated to Locks of Love (turned out to be 16" worth!), and seeing the before-and-after was rather dramatic. Basically, imagine going from Grima Wormtongue to Matt Damon. And he's been doing rather well and was rather upbeat. I confess I never gave a whole lot of thought to how serious BPD can be, and that it's not just 'all in your head' - the meds and counseling are working wonders. Very positive changes.
Anyway, while DsS was over, we played Kingmaker, a Wars of the Roses strategy game, and a family favorite. (I first played Kingmaker with DH and family friend M about a week after we married, and it's spurred an interest in that period of history.) We played a short-game variant, and I actually won. Barely. DD did pretty well also.

Sunday DH, gaming buddy J, and I played Britannia, another strategic board game involving Britain. This one is more of a big-picture look - each game turn covers about 50 years or so, and each player plays multiple tribes involved in the history of Britain. Tribes come and go over time. I thought from hearing DH read over the rules that it was going to be long and tedious, but it was actually relatively quick to play, and rather fun! It was neat to see peoples come and go as time and fortunes changed. We did the short-game version this time, but I'd be up for the full version sometime.

I've started crocheting again - it's something I can work on in situations where it's not really feasible to work on my stitching. I've started in on the rather popular 63 Squares Afghan crochet-along, after seeing several of my online friends working on it, and a bunch of other folks are joining me. I'm only about 4 squares in, so it'll take me a while. I'll still be giving priority to Last Supper whenever feasible.

Time is, as always, the determining factor in so many things....

game over

I am, I must confess, a colossal sucker for puzzle-type arcade games.

Instead of stitching last night, I spent several hours playing an annoyingly addictive game called Cubis on my PDA. I did (after several tries) manage to get a high score - double my previous one. I'm sure, however, it will be like my other flirtations with puzzle games on my PDA - I play it for days, until I have a good run and put up a significantly higher score than I'd been doing to date, make a few more attempts that aren't even close, and move on. It doesn't happen often that I get hooked on a game, but when it does I get stuck for a while.

I'm that way with PC computer games as well. A lot of them find their way into our house - DH is an avid PC gamer, with a strong leaning toward wargames. He's spent hundreds of hours playing Medieval Total War, and just this weekend he got another game from the same designers - Rome Total War. This updated game engine required us to upgrade to a 3D-capable graphics card, but it was money well spent...DH pulled an all-nighter Friday night playing it. I don't spend quite as much time on PC games. I'll occasionally get streaky on puzzle/arcade games or something like Civ 2, spend several days on it, then move on to non-computer pursuits. I don't mind that DH likes to play on the computer - my primary hobbies tend to be solitary activities, so I don't mind the odd streak of computer widowhood. Especially when I do the same thing, but far less frequently.

Hm....I've been hearing that Zuma is addictive, and it should be coming out on PDA soon....

Lord of the Risk

So much for world domination...

Last night I played Lord of the Rings: Risk with DH and DsD. LotRisk is a variant of the normal Risk (obviously), with a different map, special cards, and a few extra things. There are leaders, which give a +1 to the highest die roll on either attack or defense, and strongholds, which give a +1 to the highest die roll on defense. The special cards can allow special things to happen - extra armies on attack (or defense), steal some of your opponent's armies, get bonuses to attack or defense. There are 'good' and 'evil' players, even if it's a free-for-all, and some of the territories (for instance, most of Gondor) are given at the beginning of the game to one side or the other.

And then there's the One Ring, which moves along a predefined path until arriving at Mt. Doom for destruction. This puts a time limit on the game, and for a couple of the variants allows for alternate victory conditions. For example, if the Ring is destroyed and you're playing the team "Good vs. Evil" variant, Good wins even if they only have a handful of territories. And some of the special cards affect the progression of the Ring.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun...even if I am not all that good a player. DsD and I were the two 'evil' players - in a 3-player game there is one 'good' player and two 'evil'. So DH, being 'good' started with all the Good territories. Fortunately not all of Gondor is automatically good - Ithilien, South Ithilien, and Druwaith Iawr are neutrals and could end up with any player. Unfortunately DH ended up with all three of those, so he started the game with all of Gondor....which is 7 extra armies.

I actually had the first turn of the game, and expended most of my reinforcement armies to take away one of the Gondor provinces - can't have him starting *his* turn with those 7 armies, now can we precioussss? In the short term, that was probably a good tactical move. The bad tactical move, and the one that likely resulted in my being eliminated first, was that during deployment DsD and I had both dumped lots of armies into our territories in Mordor - so when I had an opportunity to eliminate her hold in Mordor thanks to turning in a set for 10 extra armies, and a special card that removed her stronghold bonus, I seriously weakened myself trying to take her out. Which left both of us so weak in Mordor that DH was able to come in and mop up.

I should have just put those armies in Mirkwood and built a stronger power base in the north..

Roll the bones...

First things first - thanks to all of you for your support! My mom came home Saturday and is back to normal. She arrived home the same day as her Mother's Day gift. So not only did she get to come home, she got stash as well!

So my grand plan for this weekend was to hit Curves for the third time in a week, stitch, and watch playoff hockey. I did technically meet all three objectives - got up at 8am Saturday morning and went for a workout.

But somehow I only managed to stitch for an hour and watch only a little bit of hockey - not even a complete game. The rest of the weekend got frittered away into a birthday party, bills, laundry...I'm sure you know how it goes.

We did game Sunday afternoon. DH and I and a couple of friends have had a weekly RPG session for over a decade, though the particular gamesystems we've used have varied over time. (I probably should clarify that we're pencil-and-paper RPGers - with the proliferation of online games, many people tend to assume 'gaming' means Everquest or similar. DH and I have both been on MuSHes from time to time, and made some friends there, but we've not done that in years). Our current campaign (which is near a wrap-up point) uses the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer ruleset, and is set in the 1950's Midwest. Over the past decade we've played AD&D (often in the Ravenloft or Birthright gameworlds), Champions (multiple campaigns here, including an "X-Files" one), Star Trek (multiple here as well), and Chaosium's Elric! and Call of Cthulhu rulesets. DH prefers Chaosium's rulesets, since it uses percentile-based skills. Everyone but me has had at least one shot at GMing - I don't feel a pressing need to run a game, and I'm often devoid on ideas anyway.

I will say that the old myth about the GM's wife being the most powerful PC in any campaign is bull. At least with us - DH plays fair when he GMs.

Though there are times when loaded dice might come in handy!