Adde parvum parvo magnus acervus erit

Just re-ran my Cthulhu one-shot about recovering mental patients and evil shapeless brain-sucky things. It was a lot of fun. Not as creepy as the first time--probably because we started at 5pm, in bright sunlight--but equally good and involved, with fun insanities. The original idea was srisyadasti's, from a conversation we had last year in Wisconsin, and I have dabbled with it a bit since.

One of my changes involves choosing insanities. Each character has been insane for a while, but got better. So each player decides for another player what caused them to go insane. In the first game, fairoriana decided that anacrucis's character was a split personality with a penchant for setting fires. In this game, we had a wonderful, wonderful description. One character was an arrogant professor. So when stealthmuffin had to describe what caused him to go mad, she was ( creative. )

So it was a good, fun evening of scary and silly.

On another note, I have three more days of work. I can't tell if I feel regret or relief. More as it approaches...

Good night. One harangue at characters, one moral dilemma, one crossbow-wielding-assassin who didn't get caught (mwah ha ha), one prevented execution, one Big Plan set into motion, one great throwaway character (summoned giant owl, very cranky at daylight), and one largely insane sorcerer.

And a whoooole lot of exposition. The cool kind. The kind where you watch player after player going "oh. we're so screwed. we gotta do something."

Though my favorite moment of the night might be the insane sorcerer setting his price for assistance on a minor matter: one yard of purple silk, one kiss from a pretty girl, and something unique he's never seen before. Current plan is to stick Mggy's character in a dress with a sign that says "PRETTY".

Friday, Viv teaches me the "Viv Anything-Goes-School-of-Combat-Awesomeness", or, how to run a combat without stopping to look up stuff every three seconds. Also, how to make a kobold intimidating. Cool.

education: completed one paper, in better shape. actually sat and thought about the intro, so it's not just a batch of passive dull crap.

employment: swung from the cheap to the expensive today. morning was ice-white silk duchess satin, heavy and glorious and crisp. afternoon, using newspaper to make crumpled, narsty paper hats.

geeking: attacked them with two tapestries, two shield racks, a rope curtain, a heavy wrought-iron thingy, and lots of silliness. no PCs dead yet. highlights of the evening? "You're searching the cushions of the divan, not the body underneath it?" "The body will stay there. They (the party) might take the stuff in the cushions." also mggy's character trying to salvage the 'corpses' of the tapestries, since they pictured salacious embroidered nymphs. and "satyr"/"Seder" confusion.

also, please to be checking out "Order of the Stick" if you game. right here. click here now, dammit! EDIT: Okay, so today's is more plot, less funny. Try earlier. Like...ummm....here!

Two religion-grad-school related events today, one which left me walking on air and whooping, and one which left me grumbling and resolute. Therefore I must vent.

The first: I met with a prof from last semester who offered to write me a letter of recommendation. Prof had lots of good advice, fun attitude, good news about prospects for a career as well as for my own admission into HDS. And a possible job offer for the fall. Or at least a connection leading thereto. I thought I would keel over...especially when prof offered to go over my statement of purpose essay when I write it. Not just woot: wo0o0o0o0o0o0t! I like this person so much. I wish they were in the fields I'm looking at. Oh, and I really do need to start learning German.

The second: Intro survey class this evening. I got a paper back, and it was a B-. I first reacted poorly: "This deserves better! If it weren't such a stilted topic..." Then irritably, thinking about the high tangent-to-info ratio in class. This prof is intelligent, funny, and well-spoken...but the combination of tangents and the necessity of hurrying through material in a survey class is driving me nuts. Finally, I reached the best conclusion. I will kick this class's butt. I will do so well on these papers, far better than a standard 101 demands or deserves. Fooey.

Back in college, I would have whimpered and had a self-doubt attack at a B-. Now I'm just determined to do better and irate about the class. Yeah, I'm definitely ready for more schooling.

Paraphrase of something I heard recently: "You need an ironclad ego to apply to this school. You need an ironclad ego that is justified in order to get in."

In other news, I seem to have wailed on the party too hard last night at game. Thankfully, Rules Guy assists. Sigh...I should just run a bunch of combats till I know the stuff inside and out.