Monday 13 June 2016

Stats for Solomon (Deadlands Character)

We recently started playing Deadlands again, and I'm playing a storyteller called Solomon - you can read about her upbringing here. I realised that I've left a few bits out - like her appearance and stats, so that's what I'm sharing here.

Solomon is about 18, the short end of average height with a wiry frame. The iris of her right eye is so dark it's hard to distinguish the pupil; her left eye is hidden by a black leather patch, with fresh scars emerging - souvenirs from the puma she's lucky to have escaped. Her hair is obsidian black: its length gives an indicator of how long she's been in the wild, as she cuts it short when she comes to town to try to look presentable. Her skin tans very easily, further indicating a mixed race heritage - it fades to fair, so there's definitely European blood in there. The orphanage she grew up in still holds half a piece of fabric, and somewhere out there the other half is kept by someone who could tell her more, but she hasn't needed to find out.

She's recently come into some money: the starting funds the game gives you is way more than I needed for equipment and is significant enough I want to justify why she has so much. I haven't figured it out yet - I wondered if maybe Nancy had died and left her some, but I don't think that's it. I think it's more likely she saw something and someone paid her to go quietly away  - I just don't know who or what. Otherwise, maybe someone paid her to go west and investigate California? Again, I don't know who, nor why picked her...

We're using the current Savage Worlds ruleset, and did character gen using the card-based variation. I drew two jokers...

Name: Solomon Ruth Blackbird
Occupation: Drifter
Agility: d8
        - Riding: d4
        - Shooting: -2 (one eye)
        - Throwing: -2 (one eye)
Smarts: d12 
        - Notice: d8
        - Survival: d6 +2 (wilderness man)
        - Tracking: d6 +2 (wilderness man)
Spirit: d12
        - Guts: d6
        - Intimidation: d4 +2 (Joker: Queen)
        - Persuasion: d8 +2 (tale teller)
        - Perform (Music): d6 (we added this skill)
Strength: d4
Vigour: d8
Hindrances
        - One Eye (right) (-2 to anything involving depth perception and a negative to charisma)
        - Minor Pacifist (won't fight unless in defence of self or others; will never kill a prisoner)
       - Seven of Jokers: blackouts (started after the puma attack. Presumably some kind of response to her terror)
       - Queen of Jokers: night terrors and always wreathed in shadows (-1 fate chip; +2 to intimidate. Also started around the time of the puma attack. She has no idea why this has happened to her)
Edges:
        - Tale Teller (+2 to persuasion and possibly something else I didn't write down that makes it easier to reduce the fear level of an area)
        - Wilderness Man (+2 survival, +2 tracking)
Gear:
         - Winchester '76 with 50 bullets (to use to scare people); rifle holster + gun belt
         - Bowie knife; wood axe
        - clothes, hat, duster, chaps, boots
        - backpack with bedroll, rope
        - mess kit including 200 matches, 2 canteens of water, 4lb of coffee, a bottle of 'the good stuff' and 28 days of trail rations (she knew she was coming to a region suffering famine)  
        - lockpicks
        - guitar
Dinero: 104 Yankee Dollars


Looking forward to telling you about her adventures! (Also, we're nearly a year into our Exalted campaign and I've given you one session, so I'll need to correct that at some point...)   

Wednesday 8 June 2016

'Glorious' weather

They stand by the window at work, looking out. "Isn't it glorious?" they say.

They don't see what I see: the pollen, the burning sun, the heat so thick it feels like you're wearing it. I'm quite happy inside with my fan, protected from that.

It's better here than where I worked before, at least: at least here I'm not seen as some kind of dirty deviant for not liking the sun. At least here I'm not the only one who prefers the cold.

There's plenty of things I don't like about the winter, but at least if it's cold I can do something about it. If it's too hot... well, there's only so many layers you can remove before you're tearing at your flesh. I complained to Husbit that it wasn't fair men can cycle topless and I can't. "You could," he replied, "I'm sure no one would complain." It's not the complaints that put me off. Also, I burn easily. I didn't until a couple of years ago: the sun would leave me as milky white as it found me, but now it scars me strawberry red, fading to honey if I'm lucky.

I miss the rain. It feels like a thunderstorm, but nothing's come yet: it's like waves of pressure building then partial release but no storm.


And I love plants and appreciate they need to breed, but do they really have to do it in my face and in my lungs? I'm taking an antihistimine every 12 hours at the moment, and my steriod inhaler, and I still feel puffy from my naval to the top of my head, and I still need my ventolin inhaler from time to time. At least I'm not trying to claw my eyes out, but wearing contacts is very uncomfortable.

And every time I've been on antidepressants it's been hard to convince my GP to take me off: in the summer, my mood plummets so they won't take me off and in the winter they won't take me off "because everyone has a lower mood in the winter." I've usually ended up walking out without making a repeat appointment, coming off the AD's myself, and then not going to the GP again until I've moved house as an excuse to change surgery because I'm embarrassed to admit I've taken myself off against their advice. And I thought it was depression related, but it's happened this year and last year too, and my depression has cleared up. And I thought it was just me, but I've spoken to other people and it's not.

And it's too hot to move, let alone sleep. Bah.

And I'm tired of being told to call weather I don't like "glorious" and weather I love "terrible".

Anyway, really this post is just an excuse for not posting real posts recently. Sorry.