Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

I got my pound of candy (licorice of course) in the mail while I was away. I got it in trade for a gmail account.

While I was away I did a lot of writing. I worked on the girly D&D campaign a lot. For a recap, the storyline is basically thus:

-PC’s (Player Character’s) wizard mentor has a prophetic dream of the apocalypse.
-Mentor sends PCs into woods to find old oracle/ranger friend to see confirm omen reliability
-While on quest group is underground in grimlock caves (grimlocks are the D&D version of morlocks)
-PCs come above ground to find the land has been afflicted by an aurora that causes blindness. During this aurora invaders from another dimension have taken over major cities and the cleric’s god has been killed.
-Home town has been evacuated, mentor and townsfolk migrated to bigger city through mountains, PCs follow trail.
-In mountains PCs meet old wizard who scries (scrying is looking through a crystal ball, basically) to find out much of what’s going on. He explains how Demon Lord of Undead (Orcus) and his new bride (Queen from alien dimension) are working on conquering the realm. This info ties in with mentor’s omen.
-Wizard (”The Hyrkanian”) sends them on mission to safeguard evil Queen’s little sister so she can return to her home dimension and possibly undo some damage.

That’s pretty much where we are now. Over the week I’ve been working on backstory and come up with some pretty interesting things for the near and far future. I would say that we’re about 2/5 of the way through the campaign, and that the group is slightly higher level than I anticipated they would be, even though I’ve been pretty stingy with the XP to hold them back to be in line with the advancement of the scenarios. Considering I’ve never DM’d a really long campaign where I had to plot out at what level the group would have to be to coincide with a given “module’s” recommended level several adventures ahead (this campaign is mostly a group of pre-published adventures that I’m stringing together with one common thread), it’s working out not too badly. No major hiccups.

I have also been working on a script for a tangentially Lovecraftian short film. I’m not ready to divulge any more info on that at this time though.

This was to Bob, our bassist. Note the misspelling of ‘Cthulhu.’

Dear Mr. Fugger,
let me quickly introduce myself: My name is Constantin Gillies and I’m a
German journalist/author. I’m currently working on a book about Star
Wars-fans called “Die Macht mit uns” (The Force with us).
I’d like to use one of your photos in the book: The backside of the album
“Chthulu Strikes Back” by a band called “The Darkest of the Hillside
Thickets” (a painting by Chris Woods). According to my information you took
the picture. Is it possible to license it?
I am looking forward to your answer.
Best regards
Constantin Gillies

Help me out here, asshole….

Fahrenheit 9/11
Napoleon Dynamite (it’s playing at Tinseltown people!)
The Blind Swordsman: Zatôichi
The Bourne Supremacy (I do favour the Brian Cox)

What you couldn’t pay me to see:
Catwoman

Also I recently picked up (in Nelson, no less) the following films for my collection:
War of the Worlds
The Apartment
Amazon Women on the Moon
There will be a viewing, stay tuned.

In one way-the environmental way-the vacation was one of juxtaposition. In Westbank (near Kelowna) we stayed overnight at Ang’s “friends of the family” Bob and Donna Somethingorother. B & D live in a trailer park - a very nice trailer park - and their mobile home has a fireplace, a spare bedroom, and all the amenities. Furthermore, everything is in its perfect place. Orderly and immaculate - spotless except for where the cats puked. Donna collects bells and they are in a glass case. There is a fake dog that looks like a coyote poised to strike sitting on the porch. I felt weird about walking around in my bare feet in the driveway and then coming into the home (but I did it anyway). I was given a sheet to put on the couch before I slept. Ang called them “conservative.” I would call them square. Very friendly, but so straight-laced as to keep one from feeling relaxed.

Shea’s place, in the backwoods of Slocan, was the polar opposite: A couple of leaky trailers with tarps over them; a washer and dryer out by the fire pit with a makeshift roof to keep the rain off; three big filthy dogs. Shea dug Ang a hole in the ground to crap in, and I picked my own spot - no hole required. Now I’m not saying this is the kind of environment in which I’d like to live out the rest of my days, but I felt completely at ease. I could put my feet up anywhere - I could wear my shoes to bed if I wanted to (I didn’t). This is the kind of environment where you feel the urge to clean up after yourself not because you’re expected to, not because every empty glass you leave on the counter is a glaring mar on the landscape, but because you feel like it. I felt like helping them build their house. I felt like digging my own hole to bury my waste in, but I didn’t have to because one of the dogs ate it almost immediately. Hey maybe I could make some extra money in dog food.