Hey guys, thought I’d post a quick update on what’s been going on here. The answer is, irritatingly, not a whole lot. More accurately, there’s a lot going on, but none of it’s really helping me get stuff posted here. I’m going through one of my semi-regular bouts of writer’s block, and hating every second of it as usual. It’s a really irritating time for it to happen to, as I have five updates for The Unusual Suspects that I want to get written and posted ASAP. Normally I’d be happy to just put ’em on the back-burner and wait until I’m able to work through the block, but these ones are a little different, as each one is actually a character created by a member from the Paizo message boards. I’ll explain more about what’s going on with that when I get the first post up finally, but they’re some pretty cool characters, and I’m keen to get them out there.

Apart from those frustrations, I’m working on a few new campaigns I’d like to run at some point. My Project Helleborus and Urban Magic homebrew games have sadly been postponed indefinitely, because finding the time to work on such ambitious projects isn’t feasible at the moment. With Pathfinder, I’ve found it’s really just easier for me to run and play Paizo’s Adventure Paths, as they’re generally pretty solid and can be run with a minimum of prep. Urban Magic… well that required me to re-skin the entirety of Mage: The Awakening to run it, and I honestly just don’t have that kind of time. I may be able to resurrect the idea later on using Savage Worlds or FATE, but it won’t be for a while. Right now my focus is on trying to get an AMP: Year One group going, and possibly one for Part-Time Gods as well. As I work on that, I’ll be posting status updates regarding the system, putting the group together, and running the game. I’m also getting a few one shots ready for various systems to run my cousin’s group through, so that should give me some more ammo for Role-Playing 101 updates, but I’m not sure when the group will be able to get together again (while I’m sure the kids would be happy to play every weekend, I know they’ve got school work they need to do, so I’m careful to make sure all the parents are okay with the session times).

On the gaming front, I’ve not been playing many video games (mostly due to time constraints), but when I do get time, I’m swapping between working through some oldies, like the Overlord games, and newer fare like Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag (mostly listening to the new Alestorm album while doing so) and Watch Dogs. Finally finished the Splatterhouse reboot a while ago, and I’m going to try to smash through the Final Fantasy XIII games sometime soon as well. Boardgame-wise, I’ve played a couple of games of Evil Intent here and there, and need to review it at some point, along with the odd game of Illuminati. RPGs, currently not a huge amount on. Still running Shattered Star and playing in Reign of Winter for my Pathfinder fix, and I’ve got one other fortnightly game at the moment, a rather bizarre World of Darkness game that my friend Kane is running. He’s called it Heavy Meta, and it involves the players creating characters who are standard mortals who like to get together on a Friday night and play RPGs, which leads into the game within a game, where our characters are playing the various WoD splats (currently we’re in our first mini-campaign, using Hunter: The Vigil). Our characters traits are used to modify the abilities of their characters. Kind of weird, but a lot of fun, and I’ll be posting about it in more depth at some point. Other than that, I’ve really just been working on the stuff I mentioned before.

Outside of the blog and gaming front, well, work continues as usual. I haven’t had so much time off sick lately, which has been good. I mean my health still isn’t perfect, but I’m getting there. My medication is being tweaked from time to time, which is… unpleasant… to say the least, but I know it’s necessary. I’ll finally be getting a sleep study done next month as well, hopefully that’ll help sort out the problems I’ve been having sleeping for a long time now. I’m getting myself back into a routine with the gym too, it’s a struggle, but I know I need to get myself fit again, and once I’ve got that routine set I find it much easier. As for general stuff… let’s see. Guardians of the Galaxy was amazing, as per my initial thoughts post; the new Alestorm album, Sunset on the Golden Age, is currently playing near non-stop when I need music (check out the first single, Drink; and I’ve discovered that I actually really like audiobooks, so long as I’ve read the book first. Might sound counter-intuitive, but I find that it’s easier to listen to someone narrate a story to me if I already know the story… probably because I like to listen to them while I’m working on other stuff… as I write this, I’m actually listening to Michael Page’s fantastic narration of Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second book in Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastards Sequence, which I can’t recommend highly enough. If you haven’t heard of it, go pick up the first book, The Lies of Locke Lamora, right now. It’s basically a fantasy heist tale, though be aware that there’s a lot of swearing. Obviously I don’t have a problem with it, and actually prefer it to the usual fantasy swearing since the familiarity of it helps me lose myself in the world, but some people aren’t fans of it.

I think that’s a pretty comprehensive look at what I’ve been up to lately… I suppose the last thing I’ve got to do is to subject you to the horror that is a photo of Professor Jimbles and myself. Apologies for the low quality, it was a quick mobile shot taken under fluorescent lighting. Didn’t come out great. Anyway, BEHOLD THE SCARE BEAR BROS!

L to R: Tinkergoth and the Eater of Souls, apparently currently wearing the guise of Professor Jimbles…

Some context for this… I’m terrible at remembering birthdays. So I decided that my new policy was that I’d just get my friends (those among the group that get each other birthday presents anyway) presents a couple of times a year, so that I’m always covered. Jimbles was the first person I put this into practice for, since I know he has an unholy obsession with bears, and I found a shirt that not only suited him, but also fit nicely into my love of silly pop-culture t-shirts. So I bought two of the shirts, and handed one over to him with the condition that we had to both wear them to the next Reign of Winter session. Cue us showing up, taking our jackets off and jokingly having one of those “Oh, this is awkward… one of us is going to have to change” moments while the rest of the group shook their heads. For those who can’t make it out properly in the blurry mobile photo, yes, the design is a Care Grizzly Bear. When we saw the Sensibly Mischievous Pepsi ad while grabbing snacks at the supermarket, we couldn’t resist the urge to get a quick photo taken of us as Scare Bear Bros.

So that’s it for me from now. Sorry for the kind of rambling general update post, hopefully I’ll be back soon with some of the more on topic updates I’m working on, but it’s all kind of dependent on how long it takes me to smash through this block and actually get the writing flowing again.

Til then, keep the dice rolling.