Which fictional character would you be?

OK, that's a difficult one. Now, the stipulation was that it should be from one's favourite piece of literature. That's a tough one from the off. I have read quite a few novels that have moved me, stunned me, made me think and all those other things. Mr Darcy (the original one) is pretty cool. I love Jane Austen's writing; Pride and Prejudice made me laugh out loud. Darcy actually has a lot of crap to deal with and ends up with horrific in-laws, so maybe not him. Aragorn? Very cool; he's strong, brave, smart, kind, knowledgeable. And he gets an elf chick. Job done.

Advice for my 15 year old self

In the immortal words of Michael Winner, "Calm down, dear!"
At this moment though, there is a girl in the States who is also angry. I'm afraid to say that she will make a lot more money banging on about it than you will.

But, y'know, you will be extremely happy with a beautiful wife and son.

Lucky items

I don't have any particular talismans I regard as lucky, nor do I carry out any rituals to ward off ill-fortune. That makes me quite pragmatic I suppose; I get flustered if I have to rush getting dressed, but that's only because I then forget to do up my flies or my tie is then hanging loose.

Not so lucky for the rabbit.

On the subject of lucky talismans (see what I did there?), I did consider putting in some rules into my latest homebrew of Oriental Adventures-ness for crafting one-use talismans. For those of you tuning in from nablowrimo land, I apologise if that sounds like complete gibberish.

Such items are common enough in other RPGs (e.g. RuneQuest) but you have to delve into various supplements to find rules for things like this.

Why Do You Blog?

I feel a bit of a fraud writing about why I blog given that I have only been doing so in a focused manner for a brief period of time, but in answer to the question; I blog because I am somewhat obsessive regarding my hobbies (namely, miniature painting and role-playing games). Blogging gives me an outlet to discharge/expunge/provide (delete as applicable) the various ideas going through my head.

Arda - The World

I am one of those gamers who has generally ended up being the GM for my tabletop groups, and I have started or thought up so many campaigns that I have lost track of them all. What I really need is a category like "The Junkyard" on Dreams in the Lich House in which ideas for campaigns are placed, to be developed further or not, as the whim may take me.

Tolkien referred to this urge to create a fictional world as "sub-creation" i.e. that one was expanding upon the Creation that God formed. For Tolkien, it was vital, if the sub-creation were to be "true" that it be congruent with the world as we know it, and that it not conflict with the Biblical account of the world, and the arrival of Christ. Hence, Middle-Earth is our world in a distant past inhabited by virtuous pagans, who fight for the good, whilst being ignorant of the Resurrection (well, it hadn't happened yet....) OK, for me (as an agnostic) that isn't really a factor, but I do believe that the creation of fictional worlds is a valid past-time.

Anyway, I seem to have veered into my undergrad dissertation, so I shall stop there!

NaBloWriMo

Thanks to Tim Brannan for posting about NaBloWriMo I'm going to try posting once a day at least every day in Rocktober.