Was interesting. I got home from work to find that the cable box was acting up. I called Comcast and tried what they told me to do (what the robot told me anyway) and went to bed. I didn't sleep well, but that wasn't unexpected- I'm certain the current source of my sleep issues is allergies, especially since I had a scratchy throat from drainage all day yesterday. I got up, and like I've been sort of expecting for a while now, the cable box was dead. In fact, it totally died while I talked to Comcast. The only real annoying part of this is that we lost all the stuff we had recorded on it, so I decided to just get the new box when I did the running for the day.

As I was planning on making dinner for the group while character creation went, I decided to pick up a new box whilst out. Me and zxizaraxii headed out about 3:30, planning to pick up foeclan was also ready, and using two vehicles we headed over to Cub. Groceries went quick, and I started cooking as soon as we got there. While I made the marinera-and-chicken sauce, phineas made garlic-cheese bread. Food was devoured and we went to character creation for the Anuris campaign.

At the moment I have five players, four of whom have mostly-completed characters. I'll edit this later to add names if people come up with 'em today.

zxizaraxii is playing a Sarind (lizard man) Barbarian/Rogue.

foeclan is a Dwarven Bear Shaman Druid. He DID have a name, but I can't recall it at the moment. :P

phineas is a Locin (wolfguys) Cleric of Ah-Hur.

feezlekahn is a Human Fighter.

It was a fun night, and people finally headed off to their homes or bed at about 12:30. I was planning to stay up as usual, but that's when the fatigue said 'fuck you!' and my brain failed at about 1:30 to 2:30 somewhere. I slept like a stone, and I woke about 10:30. The start of the campaign looks to be about 2 weeks off, and my last player, joshuwain, will get together with me on Monday or next week sometime to get his character ready. All in all, a good day.

Okay. Yesterday was my birthday, and a bunch of people were nice enough to throw me a nice little party. We had sirloin steak on the grill, baked potatoes and steamed broccoli for the meal, and I got some beer for myself because dammit, its my birthday and I wanted a beer or two. :)

joshuwain was the prime mover behind the party, with foeclan, phineus and our friend Todd supplying food and labor. khirsahdrgn and feezlekahn were also in attendance. Thanks to you all!

A few more details about my campaign were hammered out, and the creation of characters has begun. Some of the players and I will be getting together on Friday, and whomever is left I'll work with on (probably) Monday to get things squared. Mostly it will be me approving builds and back-stories. Once I have all that information, I'll go back into the adventure and tailor some of the bits, and I'll also distribute the goodies to the characters- additional cash and the ever-popular magic items.

As once again I didn't sleep well yesterday, I've taken a couple of cold-caps to make certain I get at least some sleep today. I'll finish covering my windows later this week, when I can get together with the folks and get the black foamboard and brads (teeny nails) to put it up with. The lack of light will definitely help. I'm also stripping my bed and remaking it before I crash this morning with fresh bedding and such. That sometimes helps as well.

I realized sometime yesterday that I had a HUGE flaw in my first adventure- why the frak is this crap happening in the first place? There has to be a reason, after all, and 'just because' ain't gonna cut it. So last night at work I sat down and tried to puzzle it out, and viola, I kan haz backstory! I know what happened why and where, who to and what came out of it now, and I also know more about exactly what my PC's will be facing. Woot!

I've also thought a bit more on magic and treasure- I think I know how I'll deal with the initial magic the PC's will have (starting out at 3rd level they WILL have some stuff), and I think I know who three of my PC's are for sure. I have to get answers from some others, but we'll see what comes of my plan for a mixed Saturday Group / Sunday Group party.

In other news, I made spaghetti and meatballs for me and joshuwain yesterday, and I have a snack-level amount left for later today. We yakked about the game some, and that is partly what got me thinking on some of this stuff.

Also, I'm getting a shift of overtime this week, which will appear on my next check (next Friday), which will help finish off some bills. I also got my birthday gift from the folks- my train fare to Midwest Furfest is paid, so I'll get the tickets later today. They're also covering the taxi fare from and to Union Station.

I may also get more overtime next week- there's a hole in the schedule that needs filling.

What's left for the game? finishing the roughs for the encounters, getting the monsters charted out, doing the same for the loot and experience, and some polish work on the world and city. Oh, and I suppose I really ought to stat out the major NPC's as well

Still having trouble sleeping when I should unfortunately. I couldn't sleep today during the day, and ended up sleeping in the afternoon and evening uneasily. I did get a bit more campaign work done- I have a timeline of events from -25,000 years back to the starting point of the game! I'll probably post it as a .doc on my FA site, and link it here as I'll lose the tabs that give it the Date/Event format.

More and more I miss being able to type at work. It would help if I could get a printout of the stuff I've done so far, because then I could still build on things... O well. Maybe this week I'll see what I can do about new ink cartridges for the printer.

That's about it. I get to get ready to go to work shortly.

I'm up to 9 pages of NPC's, and this is just for the city. I have about a paragraph for each, as well as their alignment, class(es) and level(s). Ugh. I still have a bunch to go, then I can get into trying to map the city, harbor and local area, and really get going on the adventure itself. Ugh.

It'll be nice once the city is done. Its probably the hardest part of starting a game, making the 'home city' area. Oh- the city is called Choras (pronounced Kore-Az), and is a moderate-sized city with a large harbor; centuries back this harbor was created artificially with stony fill to partly close the originally much-wider mouth of the bay. Two huge towers rise on either side of the entrance, and massive chains can be winched into place, just under the water to close off the passage if invaders approach. It is a trade city, and a destination for merchant caravans wishing to move their wares across the sea.

I think I'm done for the morning. I'll do more tonight.

Check the previous entry out- I added a lot of detail and fixed a few things.

http://sorien.livejournal.com/246777.html