Mortaine’s Blog

Ford doesn’t like my car. Or, they don’t like the new (pending) California law to allow my car into the high occupancy vehicle lane without a passenger.

Well, here’s what I have to say to Ford: MAKE YOUR HYBRID CAR FUEL-EFFICIENT, AND YOU, TOO WILL HELP THE ENVIRONMENT ENOUGH TO BE WORTH MY TIME AND MONEY.

Period. I would buy American if American car companies were at all willing to invest in the environment. Since they’re not, I’m not willing to invest in them.

Edit: Fixed link.

I created some new userpics today…..

The one on this post is for Ganymede, the new RPG character.

This is my “Gamer Chic” userpic.

This is my partisan politics userpic– expect it when I’m being partisan (yet another clue of what you’ll find behind the cut link on political posts).

My current favorite; it’s for elections-related non-partisan political posts. It’s basically a reminder to EVERYONE to exercise your franchise whenever you can; there can be no debate if no one will speak. Democracy only works if you participate.

As an election worker I’ve seen blank ballots that were dropped, unmarked, into the box. I love those, because it means some people find voting important enough to go and cast their ballots, even if they are so unimpressed by the candidates that they chose “none of the above.” “None of the above” is a statement, too, even if no one hears it but the election volunteers. But it makes a difference to the workers, at least, who can get pretty demoralized by the end of the night, but who, on seeing such a ballot, think twice about how important their jobs are. So even a “wasted” vote makes a difference to somebody.

Anyone who wants to skip gaming-related entries is always free to do so. I may end up making a separate journal space for Ganymede anyway (or logging her thoughts to her PCGen character sheet).

I joined a gaming group last night. They’re new to me, but they’re already an established group (they’ve played for about a year together). Anyway, here’s the party:
Aleroc: 11th level ranger. Likes beer, ale, women, and hates owlbears. Kind of a stick jock.
Alfred: 11th level monk. Lawful, but in the discipline way, not the “must follow laws” way. Kind of snarky. Actually, REALLY snarky. I like him already. Tate: 11th(?) level cleric/fighter, aka “cuisinart.” She’s a secondary character for one of the players, and a follower.
Shen: 11th level sorcerer. She’s the primary character for same player. She’s kind of the current “party leader” (well, till last night), and very competent.
Ganymede: my 10th level rogue/bard. The new party leader.

So, it’s been a long time since I played a 10th level character for more than a few nights, and a really long time since I started at a higher level than 4th. For me, there are some crucial levels, about 5th-12th, where a character’s personality really develops, and starting at the tail-end of that is hard. I don’t really know Ganymede yet, so I had to make stuff up.

What I decided on was a character who is “starting over” herself. She’d been a rogue for a long time, and recently decided to become more of a leader, someone with more vision than she’d had previously. So, she’s starting over, re-inventing herself, etc. This gives me the perfect excuse for having her continue to develop as a person. Before, she’d been the “one night stand” rogue, someone who would join an adventuring group for an adventure, then leave the party. Someone who, as a result, knows a lot of people and understands a lot about how adventurers work, but who isn’t very close to anyone.

So, anyway, about a year prior to her joining up with the current group, Ganymede had something of a change of heart. She decided to become more of a leader and less of a drifter. She took a few levels in bard and started recruiting her new team.

They adventured together for a while, and became close companions and friends. They were on their way to seek out Ganymede’s personal quest/vendetta, when they were attacked by Yak Folk and all of them except Ganymede were killed. Ganymede saw their bodies destroyed– no chance even of raising or resurrection.

So, that’s the very low place she’s in when the rest of the party gets captured. Ganymede is a serf-prisoner, working for the Yak Men. It’s hard labor, and she gives half of her share of soup every night to one of the sicker serfs, to help the other live. She herself is figuring to die soon anyway, so there’s not much point in spoiling the soup, right? She hasn’t even tried to escape, even though it would be fairly easy for her to do so alone.

And last night, in the course of listening to these newly-arrived heroes plot and plan and try to figure out how to get away, she helped them. In little ways at first, but now she’s pretty well committed. Hey, if the yak men catch and kill her, at least it’ll mean not starving to death.