Weather Update:

Okay, so it’s not actually a weather update so much as a Sloth update. But weather just sounds more fun, plus it reminds me of Bill Wurtz’s History of the Entire World I Guess.

Some news about me:

• I finished knitting one sock and started another vs finishing the second sock

• I realized my pen pals are having a BABY and therefore need to speed knit a baby blanket to send to them

• This is the second time I am speed knitting a baby blanket

• After the first time, I said never again…

• I had another virtual D&D session and it went BEAUTIFULLY—more on that soon, I promise

• I woke up in a fugue state this morning and crafted a loosely based off of Monster of the Week and Dungeons and Daddies “Monsters and Mommies” game after talking to one of my players who also loves D-A-D and came up with some beautiful Mom Archetypes and plot lines that will become a side one shot for the party

• (me, telling my collaborateur about my creative method: “they come to me in my dreams like a prophet receiving visions from an angry god“)

• I will be posting the full fun module(s) when I finish creating it, depending on when that is

• Work on the other modules (two sessions and a campaign bible) is mostly finished, now I just have to collect it together and find a place to post and/or list it.

• I’m thinking maybe Etsy?? Another service???

• Much to think on—if anyone has suggestions let me know

In unrelated fun news, here’s what I’m reading:

• Finished! - Range - David Epstein (why generalists succeed where specialists fail)

• In Progress - The Monster of the Week manual, for research purposes

• In Progress - Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need - Blake Snyder

• Just Started - Because Internet - Gretchen McCulloch (Linguistics book on the internet)

• On Deck: Patton: A Genius for War and the Silent Patient (and about 50 more books….)

Other than that, it’s been a fairly productive week for me! I’m almost nearly done with one of my courses from a previous post and getting a lot of stuff on paper, which is always helpful for me. Should have a better post next week as this weekend is a three day weekend!

Toodles,

Steph <3

Long time no talk, yes?

Howdy and salutations—

I’m not going to apologize because at this point regular content is somewhat of a pipe dream. I could shorten things and try and turn this into a more bite sized experience but honestly that seems like more work than it probably is. After what feels like knitting a quadrillion beer mittens, continually hosting D&D games and now moving all of my material virtual, I feel like I’ve been way too busy for what is now a super slow period of time. Also RE3 came out but I finished that so fast that honestly, it’s time to get back into this.

Some general updates and things to come:

• Posting another blog segment on map making, virtual focused (and specifically directed at those of us who prefer physical maps and translating that to digital services)

• Posting another blog segment about music during your games—what I’ve found that works and what doesn’t

• Posting another blog segment about running your sessions — what to actually care about and what not to

• Posting YET ANOTHER blog segment about getting friends to join; i.e what does a successful pitch look like for those who are unaware of what D&D even is

• A separate post detailing my first (mainly shelved) novel I wrote and it’s new, much trendier and cool brother that I’m in the process of planning

• Posting about my knitting projects thus far this year — there’s actually a lot, it may end up being mostly pictures lol

I’ve also been thinking about selling my maps and other campaign materials (none of it is really affiliated with any WotC stuff but I’ll check before I upload) as it’s entirely home-brew and some folks enjoy that. Who knows. I don’t have a major following anywhere so yolo right?

Other than that, I’ve been a busy bee this quarantine (not sick and no one I know is sick but still, better to be safe than sorry and also to help those who must be safe) between baking bread, knitting, catching up on TV and podcasts, etc. (Minor achievement: I listened to over 200 episodes of My Brother My Brother and Me last year while still clocking over 85k minutes of music on Spotify)

Some things I’ve been enjoying this year (and in last year but extra enjoying now that I have endless time to myself) have been:

• Happy City by Charles Montgomery

  • Can urban design really make people happier? Can one really learn things along the way that lead to generally happier people? Signs point to yes!

• Dungeons & Daddies (not a BDSM podcast)

  • I thought the Adventure Zone was peak comedy but holy cow, these dads have got it in spades. Plus Anthony is an amazing DM. The first episode alone gets almost everyone hooked

• Relearning how to use my Apple Pencil

  • I will probably post some pictures at some point once I make something worth showing

• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, read by Scott Brick

  • I’ve downloaded Libby this year and I’m trying to get through more books on my list via audio books. So far, loving it!! Scott does a great job bringing the people and setting to life.

• Études no.2, Phillip Glass, Reworked for Orchestra by Christian Badzura

  • I don’t normally listen past the morning show on WQXR but the one time I did, I pulled out an absolute gem, Mr. Badzura really changed this piece into something spectacular, beautifully played by Siggi String Quartet with Víkingur Ólafsson

• Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza

  • Worth every penny. The second people get the hang of this game, it gets buck wild and everyone can enjoy it, young and old, sober or drunk.

Anyway, that’s all I have for now. I will hope to get the next blog post up after this weekend as I have D&D tonight (VIRTUAL!) and then nothing scheduled for the indeterminate future. Maybe I’ll replay Ocarina of Time.

Toodles.

<3,

Steph

A Year of Hibernation Will Do You Good

Last night marked an auspicious event—I finally FINALLY DM’d my first game in my home-brew campaign.

I’ll pause for your applause.

But on that score, let’s take a pause and talk about the hibernation.

A lot has changed for me in the past year, I started a more labor intensive role, I started knitting, I was working my way through finishing ER, getting back into long form writing again, and I was most importantly working on fleshing out the world of my campaign. Each one of these projects (except for ER) took a ton of focus, concentration, goal setting and smashing, and in between that I also had vacations and real world obligations.

I think in today’s day and age, there’s such a strong pressure of feedback culture—sort of a gut-reaction maybe to the adage that if a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, are you really working? I don’t know what it is, but these periods of hibernation, where there’s no obligation to respond on your progress and to just focus on the work can be really beneficial. There’s been plenty of studies which you can Google or DuckDuckGo that support the idea of having uninterrupted creative time, time in which you switch off from the dreaded Social Media, time for just existing with your chosen media and avoiding self-editing and in experience, it rings true. Some of my best days at work are days where I have a couple of hours in the morning to just hack away at an idea and come up with something brilliant. For each of these projects, I gave myself the time and space to investigate and learn and I think it improved it for the better in each. Again, except for ER.

But let’s get back to the question I’m sure you’re asking: what is this campaign you’re mentioned and why did it take you a year to talk about?

I’ve been listening to D&D and consuming D&D content since I found The Adventure Zone back in early 2015. I had just started getting back into listening to podcasts regularly after pretty much just listening to the RoosterTeeth Podcast from start to finish for the 3rd or 4th time, starting with My Brother My Brother and Me when I realized that they had started playing D&D on their side show. This was also roughly around the time I started seeing posts and blogs about this Critical Role thing on Tumblr and started following some subreddits on RPG Horror Stories, because i’m that kind of person.

Sidebar—my dad has always loved this heavy metal music video where a band beat the sh!t out of some LARPers which I have included here. It’s pretty much a cross-section of all my favorite interests (drinking, garage bands, heavy metal and D&D). Sometimes, he will just turn to me and pretend to cast fireball and now his daughter is a DM so enjoy the irony of that one.

It took two years of watching videos on and off, writing a whole novel for NaNoWriMo after not having written since high school and sobbing in the dark to the end of the Adventure Zone Balance arc finale that I finally had the thought: Maybe I should write a campaign.

At this point, I sort of wanted to play D&D but I didn’t have any friends who were really interested in it, aside from a few people I talked to about the podcast. But I really loved the idea of crafting a collaborative story with friends, as I’d been doing it in some way shape or form since middle school. And, unknowingly, one of the only high fantasy series I read from elementary school to middle school was in fact a D&D novelization. I figured, if nothing else, I could turn my world into the plot of a really expansive series that would get picked up by HBO for a show and sweet sweet cash money and residuals. Yes, this was well before the Game of Thrones finale.

So about a year and a half ago, I started working on the map you see above, of a world called Ein Sof (Ein-zof), a world plagued with thousands of years of warring before a flood wiped out most of the land and left this archipelago. Filled with a rich forgotten history, lost cities and temples, happy and sad stories, this was the world to be fleshed out by my players and my NPCs. And yesterday, that world finally became real.

But this has already gone on quite a bit, so I’m going to be separating this out into a series of posts about world building and hosting your first home-brew campaign from your always novice DM, particularly how I came up with this wild idea, what I created and why I created it, and how you turn that into a game. My experience may be limited in D&D but my experience in world building is pretty extensive, so stay tuned for more.

<3

Steph

I Get the Feeling We're Not Alone

Do you ever get the feeling like you're not doing enough?

Let me rewind a bit: I have wanted a cat of my own ever since I've moved into my new place, a little friendly companion to greet me when I came home and potentially an ally in the event of a murderer breaking in. I may have seen Homeward Bound far too many times as a child.

Either way, looking up potential cats lead me to potential costs and that lead me to the terrifying feeling that money seems to give me, that, regardless of how much I save, it never feels like it's enough. Maybe it's because the monetary system of saving and retirement and funds and stocks seems to be made of gossamer strings, even to someone who has a degree in Economics.

Which brings me to the real point of this post: I spent far too much time working and then getting stuck in a finance spiral to actually do any real work on my website tonight and must shamefully retire to read my Kindle and rest my weary head.

But at least my budgeting site tells me I'm on track to actually retire at a reasonable age.

<3,

Steph

And We Are Back!

It's been a few months, whirlwind for me, dull for any reader, but the short of it is that I'm back and I have not only a new look but new content to match.

What's happened to me since the old design?

• I went on a trip to Germany!
• I wrote a novel!
• I moved out of my condo, renovated, then moved back in on the exact same day I moved in the first time!
• I finally caught up on Bojack Horseman and yes I cried. No shame!

Other than that, it's been nose to the grindstone as I work towards completing some big projects at work. I'll be really excited to get these secret things off the ground, corporate gods willing it will be done. 

I will try and be better updating and posting here more regularly and with my new hosting and set up, it should be much easier.

<3,

Steph