Well, although I haven’t gotten “sick,” this bug in my system has given me an aggravating cough and made me a bit hoarse. My voice is about an octave lower, and my wife calls me “Lou Rawls.” I feel fine other than the cough, but after four days with the voice of a soul singer, I decided to check in with a doctor. He prescribed me some antibiotics against bronchitis and pharyngitis, so my coughing should end and my throat should be back to normal in a few days. (But I’m starting to like the deeper voice.)

When I got in the doctor’s office, I signed a form at the reception window. I used a pen from the cup at the desk—there were four pens. Afterward, I went and sat down to wait. While waiting, four or five other patients came in and did their bit at the reception desk.

After maybe five minutes, the receptionist called me back up to go ahead and pay for the visit. I grabbed a pen from the cup—I grabbed the only pen. I mentioned to the receptionist, “There were four pens here just a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah,” she said knowingly, “they walk away quickly.”

Come on people! Three pens were taken in five minutes? No wonder banks have their pens attached to the tables. I can understand a pen occasionally getting taken by accident, but three pens in five minutes?

Of the four or five people that came in after me, three of them stole a pen. Or did just one person take all three? Really, that just damn pathetic.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I’m a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I like most kinds of meat and I like most kinds of potatoes. When I was younger, like in high school and college, I was a pizza kind of guy. (I liked pizza with most kinds of meat.)

I was in late high school when Domino’s started delivering pizza in my small town. Domino’s had a very small area of delivery, so we’d have to actually get in our car and drive to meet the delivery guy half way. This concept makes me laugh, now.

When I went to college, I lived in an apartment closer to the center of the city, so Domino’s would bring their pizza all the way to my door. That was cool. Domino’s in that college town had a “Student Special”: medium one-topping pizza and two cans of Coke for $4.99. If I wasn’t really hungry, that medium pizza could make for two meals. I lived on that deal for a couple years.

So you see, I loved pizza. But I started to get a little tired of it. My taste moved up to steak. By the time we had our first son, I was pretty much off the pizza craving. (Although, I still absolutely love the pizza from a local shop in my home town; I still like and want that pizza.)

When our first son was still very young, he didn’t like meats. We tried several different kinds of meats, and we tried getting meats into him several different ways. We thought we had the trick with spaghetti, but he would spit out the hamburger in the sauce. I couldn’t understand how my son didn’t like meat.

The first meat we could get him to eat and swallow was pepperoni, on pizza. Both our boys love pizza. LOVE pizza! They would eat it every day if we’d let them. We try to keep it to no more than once a week—he can eat it every day when he goes to college. But now I’ve completely burned out on pizza (except for that one from my home town). I actually don’t like Domino’s and Pizza Hut pizza anymore. It’s sad.

Fortunately, my 6 year old (who wouldn’t eat any meat as late as 2 years ago) now likes steak. Last night we went to Outback for steak. We don’t go there very often, and even less often with the boys, but I was really hungry, and really wanted a steak. In the past, when we’ve gone to Outback as a family, we go through the drive through at McDonald’s to get the boys a Happy Meal to eat at the table with us. Tonight, though, we didn’t do that.

We got the 2 year old a bowl of mac-and-cheese, and the 6 year old actually asked for a steak—we got him the kid’s steak plate. He ate the entire 4-oz steak. If I hadn’t seen him do it, I don’t think I would have believed it. This is the kid that used to didn’t like meat at all, and now he’s eating a cut of sirloin. Wonder of wonders. That’s my boy.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

The PCs in this campaign are sort of self-resurrected heroes of a previous age.

Back story: In a previous age, a Great Evil lay waste to the world. The PCs were part of a group of mortal heroes who rose in power to become hero-deities against the Great Evil. They defeated it, but the victory cost them their lives — their bodies were destroyed in the battle.

The opening scene of this campaign: These heroes have “awakened” in a [now lost and forgotten] shrine built in their memory. They don’t know why they’ve come back, but they suspect it has something to do with the Great Evil — maybe it is coming back.

They are 1st level, and must work their way back to their near-god-like power (read: level 20+). Along the way they will quest to recover their heroic artifacts, that have been scattered about the world in the age since their first deaths.

The only power they have above normal mortals is an ability to self raise dead 24 hours after death. They have become Eternal Heroes.

I had each Player pick out their “heroic artifacts” that their character had in the previous life. They could pick three to six magic items from the DMG, valued at up to 300,000 gp total. Much of their questing in this campaign will be tracking down these items. Their choices were interesting.

The elven fighter (archer)’s heroic artifacts:

+2 composite mighty (+5) longbow with flaming, frost, shock, and holy
Celestial armor
+6 Gloves of dexterity
Scarab of protection
Ring of spell turning
Boots of striding and springing

The human cleric’s heroic artifacts:

+3 adamantine heavy mace with flaming and holy
Ring of freedom of movement
+6 periapt of wisdom
+2 buckler of reflecting
Mantle of faith
+4 belt of giant strength

The human barbarian/sorcerer’s heroic artifacts:

Broom of flying
+5 amulet of natural armor
+8 bracers of armor
Ring of wizardry I
Ring of wizardry III
+2 adamantine greatsword with holy, merciful, and spell storing

Most of these items are not surprising choices—wise choices, even. But a broom of flying? For a barbarian/sorcerer? That one makes me chuckle.

And the mighty (+5) composite longbow? The PC only has 14 Strength, so is +3 short on the power necessary to pull the bow (would give a total of -6 penalty on attack rolls using it). The Player explained that he expects to buy a +6 belt of giant strength by the time he finds the bow. I’m not sure why he didn’t just make the belt one of his heroic artifacts to find. Oh well, this was all their choices.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

We were at my son’s tee-ball game, cursing the heat and humidity, when all of a sudden, there came a continuous breeze. “Finally,” everyone said, “we’re getting a break from this heat and humidity tonight.” The breeze lasted a few minutes, and then it turned to a strong wind. Suddenly dust and dirt and leaves and even some small tree limbs were whipping all about. The wind came so suddenly that I wasn’t able to grab my 2 year old before a big cloud of dust enveloped us, filling everyone’s eyes and mouths with grit. The 2 year old was not a happy boy at that moment. Fortunately, he got over it pretty quickly.

The game was immediately called, and everyone went for their cars. It was not a mob rush or anything, but it was fast. We had to be quick with opening and closing our doors (especially mini-van side doors) to keep the blowing dust and dirt out.

Rain fell just long enough to wet everything, and the whole wind storm was over in about 20 minutes. It was one of those kinds of events that are pretty cool to experience. No one was hurt, nothing damaged, and the kids were excited to see the clouds of dust and falling leaves and pine needles.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com