DICE!

I’ve been inspired by Crystal’s recent blog post and Husbit’s boasting to write my own post on dice.

Husbit's collection - I don’t have as many blocking dice as him

Like a lot of geeks, I have a lot of dice and a lot of love for my dice. I’m going to assume that my readers are at least mostly geeks (even if not necessarily playing the same games as me) so will be familiar with abbreviations such as D6 for a 6-sided dice (and also used to the fact that dice come in shapes and sizes other than that standard cube).

I’m starting with my Blood Bowl dice, because these are a little different to standard.

If you’re familiar with Blood Bowl, these dice need little explanation. If you aren’t, the symbols probably look a little odd. Basically, when you hit someone in Blood Bowl (‘throw a block’) these are the dice that determine the outcome of that action. You roll between 1 and 3, determined by the ‘strength’ of your player vs the opponent: same strength = 1 die. If you’re stronger, 2 dice and you get to pick – if you’re weaker, 2 dice and they get to pick. If you’re more than twice as strong (or weak), then it’s 3 dice (for instance, a strength 5 mummy from the Undead team hitting a strength 2 halfling from the, well, Halfling team)!

There are 4 possible outcomes, demonstrated by 5 different symbols. The jagged star-like symbol (usually known as a ‘pow’) means the defender falls over – the ‘pow’ with an exclamation mark means they fall over unless they can use the dodge skill (this is why there are 5 symbols for 4 outcomes). The arrow means the defender is ‘pushed back’; the skull means the attacker falls over and the skull/pow means both the attacker and defender fall over. Besides dodge, there are a few other skills that affect this, but I’m talking dice not Blood Bowl so that’s not important!

The various different colours of the standard blocking dice have been produced by the NAF and were given out in different years to those who signed up to the organisation. They have, in the last couple of years, moved away from blocking dice.

Most of the time in Blood Bowl you need D6’s, and a lot of leagues and tournaments produce their own as giveaways. In the photo above, you can see my little collection that I’m rather proud of. L-R: Exiles League (white and black); Lutece (purple and black, inc D8 - black from World Cup 2011); Chelmsford Bunker (blue); Team America (red/blue from World Cup 2011); "Hawk'd" (cream - awarded for being thrashed by Hawk I forget when. Exiles 2013?); ARBBL (black); Chaos (purple - from Glowworm at the World Cup 2011); Halfling dice (caramel - given by Chance of 3 Die Block after a bad night at NAFC); Fling dice (black/purple - because I took Halflings to NAFC2014); NAF (black - for membership 2013. Came with a D8 that I lost and a D16 I forgot to photo); NAF (white - for membership 2014).

The last D6 - the one with a little death symbol - is for determining what happens to a player killed on a block. Usually more important for league play than tournaments – players can be out for the rest of the game (‘badly hurt’), out for this and the next game, ‘seriously injured’ (and this is when the orangey D8 comes in as well, to see what sort of injury – less armour, less movement, etc) or DEAD. You can use a normal D6 and D8, but this set is kinda fun.

D8’s are for scattering the ball (or a thrown player).

The bag was a birthday present from one of my lovely uni housemates, Penny

Most of my dice are for roleplay. I like systems where I get to roll lots of dice in one go – like ShadowRun and World of Darkness (Pathfinder is forgiven for being D20 based purely because it’s awesome) – but even systems which only use one die at a time – like Savage Worlds or Call of Cthulu – necessitate me owning more than one of that die type because should my dice misbehave (ie, roll me too many failures with too few redeeming successes) then I need to switch them out for others.

One of the nice things about being female is that I’m allowed to admit I like things just cos they’re pretty.

Ah yes, dice punishments! A good traditional one for misbehaving dice is to stick them in a sweaty trainer. Take them out after a while and see if their behaviour has improved: if not, into the other trainer they go and that’s it for the rest of that session. One friend would place the miscreants into a plastic tub with chances for reprieve: those who remained in the tub at the end of the session would be banished to the fridge until the next game. Several people will launch dice across rooms or out of windows (I know many stories of dice being thrown out of windows to be discovered in car parks or streets with top successes showing). I even knew someone who would melt particularly badly behaved dice as a lesson to the others. That’s the most extreme punishment I know; anyone got anything worse?

Most of my dice are fairly generic, but here are some special ones:

These haematite dice were a present from Husbit when he went to a gaming convention at the Tank Museum without me as an apology for his crazy assumption I wouldn’t want to go. Very rarely used but I love these.

From my brother because they’re pretty. Again, not used often because they’re smaller than most of my dice (other D20 for scale), but if I eventually get enough little dice they will be.

I need to paint in the pips again. Originally bought for ShadowRun, these dice worked well for me in the homebrew Final Fantasy Noir, where some events were determined by rolling a number of D6 and then straights/pairs/etc would determine outcomes. I don’t remember the exact details but we played with various different methods of using dice to insert randomness into the game and that was one of the more unusual and entertaining ones. These days, these dice are used for Svetlana’s sneak attack damage (hence the need to make them more readable again).

Yeah… I have a few D10’s. What can I say? – I love World of Darkness! Most of these were originally purchased for the wonderful Werewolf/Vampire/Hunter campaign I played at uni. I’m now playing in an Aberrant campaign (run by my Pathfinder GM) in which we are deliberately (super-mega-hyper-)overpowered so I figured I needed more dice* and that’s where the rest of the bunch come in. I don’t have 10 in any ability, attribute or mega-attributes yet, but want to be ready! The red are for mega-attributes because that made sense to me; purple are attributes and blue abilities. The turquoise are for specialties – you don’t need to separate specialties from skills but I like to differentiate where successes originated because I’m sad like that. (There will be tales from Aberrant in the future – we’re doing an extended character gen prologue that I want to complete before I start writing up.)

I love dice. If anyone ever wants to make me happy, send me random pretty dice and I’ll be smiling for a week!

*As a quick aside, I was very impressed with the communication from Tritex Games when I bought those extra D10’s: I wanted gem dice to match what I had, but they didn’t have enough so agreed to send as many gem and pearl as they could, and carefully selected the most legible marble ones where necessary so I had enough. And they arrived the next day, just in time for my game!

Essays!

Having accidentally written a near-5,000 draft essay for a future blogpost, I remembered how much I enjoyed essay writing and so think I'm going to do this properly: fiddle around with what I've written to turn it into a proper essay on how Deus Ex Machina comes into roleplay games.

Yes, you read that right. When I was at uni, I really enjoyed essay writing. I was that annoying mare who would not only turn their essay in 2 weeks early, but also get a very high mark for it. Considering I always got very average marks for late essays I would hand in at school, I have to say it's amazing what a difference an interest in your topic can make.

Since uni, though, I haven't written in an essay style but looking at the word count I'd reached for the blogpost stirred those memories and reminded me how much I enjoyed it. I'm going to give it a go again - take the draft post, research it properly, tidy it up, sort the language out (it's far too chatty and goes off at tangents I'll need to switch to footnotes).

I'm looking forward to it. It's giving me a reason to once more face my fear of librarians to indulge in my love of learning and writing. I'm not when I can get to the library - although I definitely want to do some book-based research rather than relying exclusively on the internet - which makes it harder to give myself a deadline so I'm hoping that mentioning it now will give me the incentive I need to actually finish this.

'Sgonna be fun!

Pathfinder: The Crusade part 3

Check out Crusade Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

It took 4 or 5 days and several minor skirmishes for the group to reach the outskirts of Drezen. Our elite units – the Dawnriders paladin unit led by Akaros and the archers Alexei recently equipped with horicaclum bows – are with us and the rest of the Brevic army is about a week behind. I, still in the palanquin where the party placed me with only Mr Tiddles trying to comfort me, take a break from my prayers to Erastil to speak to my husband. Noleski offers words of comfort, support and courage as I weep to him my sorrows and fears. He will, I hope, plant a pot of rosemary in my rooms. I feel better for talking to him and hope I haven’t left him too concerned for me.

Whilst waiting for Howlan Garress and the Brevic army proper to reach us, we harry some of the demonic troops stationed outside Drezen and manage to capture a few key locations. A graveyard (some mercenaries we freed advised that the crypt housed the remains of the first Crusaders); a bridge into the main parts; 6 watchtowers (Aaron getting to show off his awesome assassin skills). These reinforced with our own troops.

Our army arrived; we were updating Lord Garess and our other generals etc when a battered knight on an exhausted horse arrived at the tent. Through beaten breaths, the knight explained the bridge was under attack. Apologising to the generals, we quickly mounted Keiran’s griffon Brutus (cannot remember if it’s been mentioned before that Mr Tiddles had enlarged the beast until he was large enough to carry all of us if necessary) and requested the Dawnriders follow to helps us re-secure the bridge.

The enormous beast on the bridge had 3 heads – a snow leopard, a goat and an unfamiliar white, serpentine head – and wings. It was happily eating any of our embedded troops who tried to move. We landed behind it – I dismounted but the others stayed on as Brutus flew back towards the beast: I used shadowstep to move forward near Alexei and Evander, who’d jumped off a little earlier to be out of immediate threat range.

It took 3 rounds – 18 seconds of combat – to finish the beast off. Brutus was nearly destroyed in that time and the strange lizard-head* kept breathing ice on the rest of us, trying to hide out of range. Much mythic power needed, but ultimately it was the celestial T Rex summoned by Alexei that did the last few points of damage needed to wipe the thing out. Alexei will later return to the bridge to ensure a frieze of the battle is displayed along the side wall.

Another army in the Crusade is due to be joining us in about another week, so we begin preparing the siege to retake Drezen. Akaros, Lord Garess and the other more experienced military minds suggest we enter when a breach in the walls is made, so that we can recover the Sword of Valour and mount it once more on the wall. Akaros, as paladin of Iomedae, will accompany us.

Somewhere in the sorrow and excitement, I have missed my 20^th birthday.

After about 5 days of laying siege (and still before the other army has arrived), our bombarding troops (with assistance from alchemist Ezekiel and Roland the gunslinger and his companions) manage to create holes in the east and west walls and take down the main front gatehouse: this is the path we take into the citadel.

*There are no dragons on Golarion, not even dragon myths. We joke about sky lizards from time to time, but definitely no dragons. So we wouldn’t recognise that head as belonging to a white dragon.

Days of Death (Pathfinder)

This is the Hunting Ground, home to Erastil’s chosen. It is peaceful and friendly – a great sense of community pervades; more family than friends. Here, I have returned to my roots as a brewer and work with my neighbours to assist in their harvests. Life is simple but infinitely pleasurable.

Lazy days spent fishing and hunting and roaming the hills. Late night parties around the bonfire. The air is fresh and clear.

My house smells gently of rosemary. It is absolutely my space, but my neighbours visit often and I, in turn, visit them.

I feel, sometimes, like there is something I have forgotten. Or not forgotten, so much as no longer need to think of to the point that I might as well have forgotten.

The headaches begin a couple or 3 months after Erastil led me here – a niggling at the back of my mind. They get worse – a feeling like a fishhook, pulling at me. As time passes, a voice accompanies them, calling my name, calling to me. Dizziness and feelings of disorientation. It seems very out of place in this idyll.

I am baking in my kitchen but the comfort of the rosemary smell is not enough to ward off the pain or confusion. The voice is shouting to me and I collapse to the floor – collapse through the floor, through myself, through the world as I know it into…

The stench of sulphur fills my nostrils – brimstone and methane and acrid, acid smoke. It is cold here; cold in a way that initially makes no sense. And the pain, worse than the worst of the headaches, spreading, shredding across my torso. I feel like I was ripped into pieces. And as I open my eyes, I see looming over me the demon who did it and I remember everything. Aaron’s twin blades slice through it, but that offers little comfort for one stripped from heaven into hell. I close my eyes again – try to bring Erastil’s face to mind, try to call him back to collect me once more. But it doesn’t work. The ground is hard – cold and sharp and cruel. Like everything here.

It was Alexei’s voice I’d heard pulling me back. Like a fish hook. Like a wire through my mind.

They finish killing the demons and see me. Alexei at least manages to soothe the worst of the pain – my body feels less torn and used. They light a fire. They make tea. Tea! Of all things – of all places. I don’t want to eat or drink or do anything but lie here and go home.

Mr Tiddles lies on me and the weight of someone caring here is too much and I weep long, silent tears.

Starlight Moonbeam "Plays in Shadows" Acorn Rainbow

When I started uni, I was lucky enough to be invited to join a long-running World of Darkness campaign. The group (Mel, Sith, Boyd, Gog and GM Ed) had been playing through bloodlines in both Vampire and Werewolf – Vampire from sire or grandsire to childe or grand-childe, and in werewolf using normal ancestry. They started back in Roman times and were running through to Apocalypse (at which point, a larger group also played the Hunter experience). At the time I joined, Werewolf (the more popular of the two games) had reached modern age and Vampire was in Dark Ages – but running through the second time as Sabbat.

The Werewolf party consisted of Mel’s homid Black Fury theurge, Boyd’s lupus Get of Fenris ragabash, Sith’s metis Silent Strider ahroun, Gog’s homid Fianna galliard and Ed’s GMPC* lupus Red Talon philodox. For those who don’t know, homid means ‘human-born’, lupus means ‘wolf-born’ and metis means ‘dirty freak of nature offspring of 2 Garou’ (most Garou breed with either humans or wolves, as metis are sterile and deformed). Theurges are spiritual/shamanic; ragabash ‘tricksters’; for galliards, think bardic; philodox are leaders and ahroun are the fighters – all Garou can fight, but the ahrouns excel at it.

No one was surprised when I elected to be a Child of Gaia (although Boyd did roll his eyes). Because I’d never played World of Darkness before, I was playing something of an audience surrogate so I could make mistakes without it being out of character - I took the 'no common sense' flaw for the same reason. We set it up that my mother was a bit of a ‘free love’ hippy and I’d never known my father, which was a good justification for having no idea about werewolves and kinfolk and the rest of it. I was raised on a commune that I had no real attachment too (abandoning it completely and kinda heartlessly after becoming a werewolf) – possibly because my name was “Starlight Moonbeam Acorn Rainbow”.

My game began, then, with my first change and the existent packs’ discovery and subsequent rescue of me. The moon was a crescent that night, so the Black Fury was pleased to have a young theurge to take under her wing. It seems to have been a very thin crescent, though – there’s a distinct flash of ragabash to my character, manifesting in a very playful and cheerful nature. Her excitement at discovering her Garou nature – and particularly her delight in entering the Umbra – left her playing chase through shadows and earned her the Garou name “Plays-in-Shadows” (I’m cross with myself that I cannot recall the names of the rest of the pack).

Plays’ (as she was most often known) biggest vice was cannabis, due to her hippy upbringing, but it’s possible the laid-backness that results from this was part of why she dealt so well with the massive changes on learning she was Garou. She loved spending time in the Umbra, particularly with pack totem Bear, and the novelty of being able to assume the shape of a wolf at will never wore off.

The pack tended to fight all in hispo (dire wolf) form; a well-practiced technique with each wolf taking turns to attack from alternate flanks when facing down a large opponent. Initially, Plays was reluctant to fight, particularly in training, but soon realised the necessity of it for her role in the coming Apocalypse.

The caern from which the pack operate is one that had been set up by the other players in an earlier stage of the game, so it was fun to hear the tales being told and, I think, nice for them to tell them to a new audience. Various tales of past heroes were also told, and again I enjoyed guessing which player was responsible – a nice side effect of entering a game such as this late.

Most of the time, we hung around the caern or in the Umbra, but sometimes we had to venture into the human realm. This wasn’t too bad for Plays or the Black Fury, but much more of a pain for the guys; particularly the metis and the ragabash (who really objected to puny human form and especially to wearing clothes and being flirted with by the Black Fury’s sister). We would all bundle into the awakened yellow mini named ‘Delilah’ that belonged to the Black Fury and would only start if you sang the Tom Jones song to it. We didn’t fit very well.

As mentioned above, the pack totem was Bear. This meant the pack had to work harder to earn honour, but Bear was an amazing totem. When the game ended, the Child of Gaia tribe totem (Unicorn) had been killed and Plays was one of very few, possibly the only, Child of Gaia to survive (being in another place entirely when it happened): her trust in Bear elevated him to status as the new totem for the tribe.

The game ended with only the Black Fury and Plays having survived from the pack – as theurges, they had been involved in an important ritual whilst the others fought the forces of the Weaver and Wyrm to enable the ritual to complete and died dramatically in the course of this. The final tableau was of a normal human woman and a wolf, side by side – it seemed fitting, somehow, that Plays was born human but would die a wolf. The Garou part of their nature had ended.

It was a very epic game and one of the players made a set of mix-CD's for the soundtracks to both Werewolf and Vampire but unfortunately I can't remember what was on them! I also painted up a bunch of dire wolves as keepsakes for the party but can't find Plays to share a photo.

*I know some people have real attitude when it comes to GMPC’s, but in this game it was useful because other players would sometimes run games and it helped to have a regular character/pack member for the normal GM to play in these circumstances. He mostly stayed quiet when Ed was GM’ing

'Aenghus'

Svetlana’s mother has appeared at various points in the campaign so far, but you may have noticed a certain silence about her father. If you’ve read the character background I shared a while ago, you will know why, but here’s some more detail into the man himself. (Svetlana only knows him by the name ‘Aenghus’ so that is how I will refer to him, although it’s probably not his real name.) 

Aenghus was born a long, long time ago to an isolated elven tribe in a particularly wild part of the world. I have to admit to a lack of knowledge on the geography of Golarion, but I picture somewhere mountainous (or at least craggy and hilly) and coastal (or criss-crossed with lakes and streams). Definitely heavily wooded. Fey blood ran strong within the tribe so it is no surprise he is a powerful sorcerer, but his interest in magic and the fey ran even deeper than most of his fellows. He has been accepted into the ranks of the fey, their power filling him and enabling him to have lived far beyond what is normal even for an elf. His own capabilities and control over magic have granted him the position of a Lord and have extended his life far beyond what is normal for an elf (I imagine him being hundreds of years old, possibly well into 4 digits).

After a time (I’m thinking 200 or 300 years), Aenghus decided he wanted an heir. Being good-looking and having magic to enhance his natural charm, it didn’t take him long to seduce a string of elven women but so far he has only managed to produce daughters and not the son he craves. Although most of his lovers have been elven, Svetlana may not be his only half-breed daughter.

When Natasha Chekhov caught his attention, she was in her mid-teens; happy and lively, with long ash-blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He used his control over dreams to seduce her, coming to her in her sleep on 3 consecutive nights. As was his wont, he waited until his offspring was turning 7 before coming to the village so until her 7^th birthday all Svetlana had of her father was her pointy ears, some barely-controlled magic and the middle name ‘Liann’, which her mother had learnt was elven for beer*.

Svetlana loved her birthday. The sun shone brightly and everyone clubbed together to make it feel special for her. Around lunchtime, a hunched man arrived in the village – a wandering tinker with a laden donkey. He gave his name as Finlay and quickly won over the villagers… with the exception of Svetlana. Perhaps it was her awareness of magic or perhaps it was their shared blood, but she knew this ‘wondering tinker’ was no such thing.

She confronted him that evening by the bonfire. The villagers, under his charismatic spell, rose in horror to defend him; he waved them back and agreed to speak with her in private. He then explained he was her father and this is when he told her his name was Aenghus (although she doesn’t believe him).

He stayed in the village a total of 3 days and in that time taught her simple tricks to help control and develop her wild magic, but refused to reveal himself to anyone else; when she tried to tell her family who he was, he made them forget again as easily as breathing. This made her feel helpless, which she did not like. After he left, she tried again but his human disguise was convincing enough that everyone dismissed it as foolish wishful thinking.

Svetlana hasn’t sought her father since**, having found the whole encounter too frustrating. She was particularly upset with the way he treated her mother because Natasha had, in their 3 dream-nights together, fallen strangely in love with Aenghus such that she never married: not only was Natasha hurt, but Svetlana would like to have had siblings. It doesn’t occur to her how many she may have on the other side of her family. She doesn’t think of her father often; tries not to think of him at all.

If Aenghus was impressed with his (presumably) youngest daughter’s skill or potential, he didn’t show it. Whether he keeps an eye on her progress or not is also unknown. Why does he have this pressing need for an heir he cannot produce – fulfilment of prophecy? some kind of curse? a need to have someone to hand things to before finally seeking death? boredom? mere whim? Only the GM can tell.

I like to give my GM things to play with.

*Growing up, my little sister had a friend called Liann whose parents ran the pub at the end of our road. They’d called her Liann because it’s Scottish for beer. Or so the story went, anyway. I’ve had trouble finding corroboration on the internet but possibly because I was spelling it Leanne initially.

**but there is a moment when she may have seen him. When Svetlana earned her mythic powers, Erastil pulled her out of normal time and space and with him was another person; as I recall it, a powerful-seeming elf unknown to Svetlana. Svetlana hasn’t dwelt much on this, but out-of-character I wonder if it was her father. After all, she doesn’t know what he looks like (beyond him being an elf and presumably having dark honey-blonde hair and storm-grey eyes; these being the features that distinguish her from her mother), so she wouldn’t necessarily know.

Falling in Love (Fantasy Style!)

I remember one time when discussing the ShadowRun game that was my first 'proper' taste of roleplay being told off by another player for expressing an in-character interest in 2 of the NPC's. The other player knew I was 'in a relationship' (of a sort) with a third player and deemed it inappropriate for my character to fancy anyone other than his character. I have to disagree: it's a game! It's story-telling, too, so relationships should be realistic to the characters involved - not to out-of-game politics. If a relationship between characters happens, all players should be mature enough to recognise that it's a game. But that memory - of it being implied it was in some way 'improper' - means I've been a bit shy about this post.

Anyway, rant over: it can be great fun to have an in-game romance. 

I once played in a short horror game – four players: myself, Ben, Rob and someone else I forget (possibly Kit?). We were playing American students on a summer break. We’d rented a small cabin by a lake in the middle of nowhere. There was a boat to a little islet in the middle of the lake, so we spent time playing around there. There was also an abandoned mine with ‘danger’ signs all round it, which we avoided accordingly. Mostly we had fun with bonfires and boating and hanging out in the sun: the GM (Pete) had to use plot hammers, hooks, and railroading before we would investigate the abandoned mine that led us into the other realm where the real game was meant to take place. It was funny to watch him get exasperated with us, but we were (or at least, I was) genuinely enjoying pretending to be students on summer vacation.

And once we were there, in this strange kingdom overseen by a shadowy figure whom we did eventually meet, it was actually pretty scary; in a creepy ‘getting under your skin’ manner rather than a gore-fest. I sat beside Rob and as the game progressed our characters were getting physically closer and closer until – without it being explicitly said or even intended – it became clear there was a romantic interest between them. And it made sense: fear is a known aphrodisiac*. (Ben and the other player drew apart, which was also an interesting response to fear – more of a ‘freeze’ response, maybe).

I like Rob. At the time, we hadn’t known each other long so it was a gentle relationship – I think he and I curled up on the sofa together, possibly held hands but that was about the extent of out of character contact. It was, though, the first time I had a character begin to fall in love.

Anatomical Heart Pendant from I * Love Science - so pretty!

Ah, and then Kella and Reisha! I desperately want to do a massive post about Kella, but she’s so dear to my heart and the game was several years ago so I fear the details are too fuzzy and my narrative skills too poor to do the story justice (at least for now).

But as a quick summary, the game was ‘Final Fantasy Noir’ – a home-brew game based on Final Fantasy X and set some 1,000 years earlier than the computer game**. My character, Kella, was from the southern region of Besaid. She played Blitzball for pleasure (although it was her younger sister, Elin, who was the real star at that, playing for the Aurochs) but her real skill was in healing and white magic. Ultimately, she became the summoner (the role was up for grabs, but it fit her character better and the others went down other routes), which meant we knew the game would end with her death.

As we were approaching the end of the game (or at least getting nearer the mountain, Gagazet), a new player was introduced. His character, Reisha, I found out later was deliberately brought in to be my character’s love interest: she had so steeled herself to her fate that it was felt something needed to be given to her for a reason to live! It worked beautifully. Rowan and I are very good friends anyway, so I could curl up on his lap and have my hair stroked both in and out of character and it not be weird (even when his now-wife brought in cups of tea).

The relationship was built elegantly – Reisha is out of time in Kella’s age; returned to life (or otherwise dragged to the present day) by Phoenix. As the party healer, Kella rushed to him to make sure he was ok. His eyes fluttered open and he muttered “I could get used to waking up next to you!” – before going bright red and being very embarrassed. This was repeated a few times, either where they fell asleep beside each other or where he was hurt and she healed him. Their approach to each other was tentative, slow. Shy, almost.

It was a beautiful moment on the mountain when Kella and Reisha finally declared their love for each other (much to the amusement of the other characters) and then snuck off: Rowan handed me the cherries from the packet of Tangfastics we were devouring (at the time, RPG snack of choice!) as a little metaphor for the moment.

A little while later, being a powerful white mage, Kella realised she was pregnant but it would be a while before she would be showing. Realising it was early enough that she shouldn’t have too much difficulty hiding this from her friends, she elected not to tell anyone: it was going to be hard enough for Reisha (and the others) to lose her, but for him to lose his unborn child was more than she could bear to put him through. And then, of course, she managed to survive the final challenge but Reisha vanished somewhere in the process. It was very, very sad.

We ran a post-game session to tidy up loose ends. Kella is sitting on the beach with her little baby son, Zette (I didn’t know how to spell the mountain where he was conceived), with her (NPC) sister and the twins Elin had had with another player character, Rax. There’s a sadness to Kella that didn’t exist before. Her favourite Aeon, the local Valefor, swoops in the sky above and the Aurochs, Besaid’s Blitz Ball team, are practicing in the sea when there is a sudden loud splash. Everyone is startled, but Kella realises this is Reisha, returning to her just as he promised. And as she pulls him from the water and heals his injuries, his eyes flutter open and he mutters once more “I could get used to waking up next to you” – this time with no embarrassment. (I actually wrote this up as a bit of ‘fanfic’ and the intensity of the game was such that reading it even now, 7+ years later, it still makes me cry!)

Kella and Reisha, as drawn by Rowan

It is a bit different when the other player is actually the GM: you can’t curl up on their lap, for instance (because you may see secrets!) and this brings me on to Svetlana and Noleski.

I love their relationship – as mentioned above, it’s many years since I’ve had a decent love story in a game and it’s actually something I really enjoy, which is probably why I was up for it when the others began their joking. There are a few problems – his role (as King) means he can’t come travelling with us, which means most of the time spent together is as downtime, which in turn makes it harder to build the romance and closeness between them. Also, when your character’s lover belongs to another player you can roleplay the lovey-doveyness when focus is on other players, but when it’s an NPC it means everyone else has to stop and wait – and not everyone is comfortable with watching romance-play.

But as I said, I really like this relationship. It helps that I really like Svetlana, of course. I like the juxtaposition between the two, as well – Noleski has been raised a noble, steward to the king, and has had kingship thrust upon him. He has accepted this as a duty. Svetlana was raised a peasant and has accidentally earned her way into the nobility through her courage and love of adventure. I like to think that part of Noleski’s attraction to her is her relaxed attitude towards rank: that she sees him as a person, not a king (and is attracted to him as a person, not a throne).Neither of them has sought the political power they've received and I think it is more of a burden to Noleski because a lot of the time Svetlana can ignore it. That, no doubt, will change.

I’m looking forward to the future of their relationship. That she’s a half-elf just turned 20 and he’s human and in his late-20’s/early-30’s means there could be some interesting issues of aging and mortality down the line: if that sounds a little forward-looking, there was talk at the beginning of the game of ‘playing down the bloodlines’, ie, periodically resetting and playing as the descendants of our characters. On that note, having a chaotic-good, fey-blooded, half-elf rogue/sorcerer mother and a lawful-good, human noble/fighter/king (I’m surmising from what I know) father gives me a lot of scope to play with when building future characters. I think Svetlana and Noleski would like a large brood, even if Svetlana’s adventuring means Noleski might need to do more child-rearing than is traditional for a male monarch (although I have a vivid image of Svetlana using her left arm to shield a baby in sling across her, rapier in right hand fighting off some vicious enemy; so maybe she’ll only hand them back to him when they’re old enough to toddle ;-) ).

In the shorter term, dealing with Svetlana’s recent brush with death could be… interesting. Despite the issues she’s currently dealing with, she will want to pull herself together for his sake – and her mum’s! Hopefully, he’ll help her get through it but there are a few longer-term problems that could arise from this that I won’t go into because "Spoilers".

I would like them to be able to spend more time together, but can’t see a way of doing that without drastically changing the flow of the game, or at least significantly reducing Svetlana’s role in it (which would be a shame). But it’s nice to have a love interest.
Of course, it could all go wrong: he could be killed or turn out to actually not be very nice, but I hope not. It would hurt Svetlana too much!

*I remember reading an article about an experiment into this several years ago. Can’t find the article I originally read, but this mentions the same experiment.

**I’ve not played FFX but think I’m probably not giving too many spoilers away to anyone else who hasn’t because, of course, the game was run through one person’s interpretation and also edited to suit the group and all the usual caveats etc. So apologies to anyone who has played it and for whom I am now destroying beloved memories by not understanding the game properly.