Out of Character discussion:

Wife is finishing up a bit of work she’s been long preparing for and I’ve been working on getting her to do a character portrait for me! Wondering if it’ll be Gilly!

Oh man I'd love to see that!

Hey folks, I want to apologize sincerely for the lack of contact. I wound up with some massive plumbing issues between my upstairs floor and my downstairs ceiling that required a massive replacing of all the plumbing running from my kitchen sink, all the way to the house’s main sewer line, including where it merges with the bathroom plumbing. That took up just about every spare minute of free time where I wasn’t working at one of my three places of employment.

To exacerbate the issue was that’s le fact that about a week I began experiencing a bout of stupid grief and depression leading up to my birthday two days ago that left me incapable of eating, sleeping, exercising, or giving a damn about anything besides getting up and going to work and coming home, and generally doing anything possible to ensure that at least the mortgage will stay payed and the fridge doesn’t lack for food the rest of the family still needed to consume without me.

I was informed after my son died that these shitty waves of grief are to be expected occasionally, especially when leading up to important dates and holidays, even for someone like myself, whom I consider to be relatively well in the mental health department, and I mostly just nodded my head and said, "Alright sure, got it," when warned.

Theoretically, the weeklong buildup towards my first birthday without my son probably kicked off something, and I’m sure the stress of working three jobs and knowing my spare time was to be invested in re-plumbing my home by myself, added by the stress of knowing that my family was essentially eating out every night, showering at our gym every day, and unable to do much of anything involving running water besides shit in our toilet until I got the work done, dumped me in my ass in the manner of which I was warned.

Things are always difficult now, and I accept that, but I generally manage. The grief bout felt nearly as bad and the first week after Luke was gone, and having not experienced it first-hand yet, it probably knocked me harder on my ass that I had prepared.

I occasionally wondered if I was going to log back in and discover the players had lost patience and moved on, and haven’t fully checked the comments posted in my absence to verify you haven’t, but if you haven’t and are still interested in continuing, I should be back to "normal" (or as close as I’m liable to get in these lousy days). If not, and you’ve moved on, I apologize but understand; I never intended to ghost anyone. I just didn’t know what the train that was about to hit me again was all about.

Hopefully, when the next wave slaps me on my ass (no doubt Halloween, which was my son’s favorite holiday) I’ve learned to recognize a truck barreling down on me when I see the headlights, and hopefully when it drills me into another cinder block wall this next round I’ve developed some tools for managing it better than this. And hopefully my house’s infrastructure isn’t crumbling down around us again in the process.

I’ll go through and read anything I’ve missed now, and if we’re good with getting this train back on it’s tracks, I’ll appreciate your patience. If not, I understand.

Again, sorry about this.

Bro, no apologies needed nor necessary. Frankly, I'm amazed by your resilience! I can't imagine the hell of loosing a child and wether it hits you sooner or later you're a true champ for carrying on like you are. Take your time, Mal ain't going anywhere.

Hey, no worries at all! I feel like we're all here for the long run. Take the time you need, and don't feel like you need to apologize for doing so.

Absolutely! Take all the time you need! I can’t even imagine! We’ll be here! No worries there!

Jeez... That post took a long time. Sorry for the wall of text there, @dominion451. Mal's had a long sit-down with the boss-man.

Haha no prob, hope I answered satisfactorily ;)

Woah! After all these years I had no idea elves are immune to ghoul paralysis. Shows how little we play elves, or how little I pay attention to them.

I’ll try and get a post put up tonight when I get settled in. My daughter’s in Californi for a college recruiting combine, and that’s been commanding my attention this week. Pretty sure we just got her a full ride wrestling scholarship from one of the schools on her top-4 list, so goddam that’s a load off my shoulders.

Nice! Congratulations to you guys!

Great news! Glad to hear it!

I started running a 2e game at my new local game store, and found this gem hanging on a wall! It's good to be able to read a map of Greyhawk for once!

This is really cool. I wonder what the "6 (2)" means in their Hommlet.

Nice! Looks like a bigger version of the map that came in the 2e Greyhawk box set. Man I loved that set...

There's a legend in the bottom (likely blocked by a chair) that lists the adventures in some order. I was too busy to take a good look.

Now to figure out where Eltrezar is from! I think I made a comment about it ages ago...

Yes you did. I'll see if I can find it.

I found the answer! Sort of!

Okay. So Eltrezar might know a bit about the local area at least. He's not from too far away.



The current year is about 579, by the way.

Eltrezar with the fresh new look!