Restarts in Parts

Ugh… I know I’m way behind on getting a post up. My excuses bore me, so I’m sure they’d bore you… I’ll just try to get caught up.

For my disclosure on this or any of my posts or pages… please visit my Disclosure page.

First, I’m quite pleased with how the recording sessions with Brother Enlil (who’s now fine with me using his civilian first name Rob) for the Blackspire RPG Campaign went. We ended up with quite a few hours worth of material the first evening, which I’ll be editing together at some point into one of the Side Sessions episodes. It was Rob’s first time with anything gaming related, and I think he might have not been quite ready with the level of information about his character’s back-story I’d actually prepared. He really seem to take to the back and forth story-telling process though, and he had a lot of interesting questions throughout that helped us shape his character… which ultimately equated to more content.

The second session we did was a particular joy for me, as it also got Jenny back around the gaming table with me, this time reprising her role as the medusa assassin Melaria. She hit the ground running and I think Rob was caught a little off guard (as Jenny’s character is pretty intense as well as being justifiably paranoid) so it made for a bit of a rough start, but that’s just how things go, I prefer realism to perfection… as I’ve especially become suspicious of the RPG podcasts I’ve encountered that sound a bit too polished.

I’d initially planned a fun little scenario for the two of them where the secret meeting they’ve both been sent to is interrupted by an enemy scout leading a pair of wyverns.

I’d had every intention that this little encounter would result in a combat that would let Rob cut his teeth on D&D in a pretty classic fashion, but Jenny managed to talk their way (intimidate really) out of that fight in a way that I had to rule would work.

That’s what I like about gaming, I script to a point, but the story-telling must always be collaborative. I could have shoe-horned a fight into the game, sure… but philosophically speaking, I consider that to be in “bad faith”.

Who cares which way the dice fall, so long as it’s somehow still awesome…

I’ve given them the options of where they can go next in the not-so-little dungeon I’ve devised for them, and they’ve opted to pick the most direct (and thus naturally the most dangerous) route through the complex… so I know what to plan for them the next time the three of us get together.

Rob is also a very accomplished musician with some real cred, and he’s even told me he’s toying with the idea of writing a “soundtrack” of sorts of his character El’Il Clanless’s theme music for inclusion in the podcast. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

But, mostly I’ve been back behind the Audacity interface working on my edits (and re-edits) for The Blackspire Podcast. Last session I recorded a new intro with all my players, as well as “journal entries” that one of the PCs has written in his character’s voice to serve as periodic recaps for the show, as well as add a different perspective (and dare I say a “co-collaborative” one) to the entire production. I’m really loving this added dimension, and I think it’ll be a fun ongoing element of the show.

Thus far I’ve completed solid drafts on the first four episodes (clocking in at over an hour each) and have enough recorded material to create one more of the “main” story line of the show until we have to record more content. And with the the material I have concerning the Jolly Paul character, as well as the handful of Jenny & Rob (or Melaria and El’Il) stuff I just captured, I’ve got plenty to keep me busy with.

I also feel it’s worth observing just how serendipitously much of the royalty-free music I’ve collected matches up with many of the scenes I describe in the game. It some ways it’s so “perfect” I just can’t ignore it… even the various “um’s and ah’s” help to make the tones of the soundtracks line up so exactly (in many cases to the second) that I can’t see it as anything other than synchronicity. Blackspire is my magick in action, but any success it achieves will be due in large part to the musical elements it contains.

It was also cool to hear Blackspire Studios get a mention again on this week’s Laughfinder podcast. I suppose I could be persuaded to do some figures for them again…

I also had a really great talk with Aaron this week, and he helped me brainstorm up improvements on the scenario I next plan to run for the Blackspire campaign (Episode 6: Blackspire Session 79: Saying Hello on Window Hook Row). I’ve been helping him with his campaign with continuing frequency, and lots of the best ideas  I’ve helped him come up with are leaking full force back into my own setting. This talk was much more nuts and bolts, and the moving parts of various NPC schemes, but from the macro-cosmic to the microcosmic Aaron and I are usually on the same page creatively, so it’s great to bounce some ideas his way for “auditing” so to speak.

I think I’ve got something better now to build on than I’d have come up with just on my own… now I just need to get everything worked out “on paper” as it were.

We also learned our good friend Richard Kaczynski is moving away shortly. Jenny and I hadn’t seen him in a while and so we were happy to have him over for dinner and get the chance to catch up. As usual, he’s got close to a dozen projects “in the works” with publishers considering any number of new books from him at the moment, but he seems to want to take another shot at fiction, which (since compared to him I’m no scholar) certainly sounds like more fun to me anyway.

It was also cool to see that the 93rd (ha ha) signed prints I’d done for the special edition of Richard’s Billionth Monkey book sold back in August, and by now he’s moved all 100. That was a fun little project which I can’t believe is now over two years old…

It’d also been a long while to see him, but Frater Superabo also came by for dinner this week which was great. He’s been on a magickal warpath of sorts himself, and it seems the Abramelin has really done him good. He’s been putting more into his YouTube channel lately, and this week just put his quite informative talk on the Hexagram Ritual up. He’s gotten really motivated with producing new videos, which is great to see. He’s also in talks with the magician Taliesin McKnight and they may even be collaborating on a project sometime in the future. We hope to be getting together with him more regularly in the future, and I’ve offered to help with that stuff as well.

My own Reliquum YouTube Channel continues to grow slowly but surely and while it seems like only 1 in 4 viewers make it from the first lecture to the second, and maybe 1 in 8 make it past that, I know at least a few people have expressed they got something out of my videos (and especially ones who have taken me up on my Poor Man’s Astrology) so the work was definitely worth it.

I may even hit 1000 views by 2018. That’d be cool.

And Jenny and I spent a very nice Thanksgiving at my mom’s house with my sister and brother-in-law and the new baby. We definitely had a fun time playing with that little guy.

He surprised everyone (but especially Jenny) when he bit her hand with his brand new teeth.

Good stuff!

 

Saturday 11/26/17-

Sun: Sagittarius–

Moon: Pisces (50% Waxing)

If you’d like to start from the “beginning” of all this… you can read from my first blog post.

For my disclosure on this or any of my posts or pages… please visit my Disclosure page.