Magic Item: Nena Bleeve's Journal

Nena Bleeve was the niece of Arvik Bleeve. Like her uncle she was interested in making items of magical value, but she had not reached his heights of creation (nor the depths of his madness). Nena had few friends, though occasionally played doubles Flaming Chess with aristocrats. Her distinguishing feature was the journal that many observed her writing in; compulsively some said. Writing walking down the street at times, writing while meeting people, making endless notes...

Described as bookish by everyone who met her, she was nevertheless a ruthless killer. People who survived her attacks spoke of incredible grace, speed of attack, and how sometimes she seemed able to shrug off what should have been horrific life-ending injuries. And after that she would write in her journal.

Nena died, surprised by an elven assailant who disintegrated her with a wand firing a rainbow bolt... Her journal was not recovered after the attack, and Wethamites who knew it for what it was have been unable to locate it. It is possible that it was destroyed in the attack, but who can say for sure?

A Ghost: Hanna On-the-hill

Hanna On-the-hill (a ghost generated by noisms' table)

Olpek is the oldest man in the village. He has been making furniture and wooden toys for over sixty years. When he was eight years old, his grandfather told him about the terrible girl who lived on the hill past the Red Forest. Legend said she was a beautiful princess. After angering a necromancer by refusing his marriage proposal, she was cursed with eternal unlife and a terrible hunger. Bound to the hill where he proposed, Hanna feasts on flesh when she can get it, preserving her body and regenerating when she gets enough.

Monster: Spiky Slugs

In the private workspace of Hirgon the Shapeshifter sits a large stone chest which cannot be moved. It came from Somewhere Else, and is held in our universe by forces beyond anyone's understanding. The contents of the chest hunger, but are thankfully sealed by the stone tablet on top. If it were removed or broken they would be free...

Wizard Matchbooks

You're a wizard. You're really well-established in the magical arts. You can create life from non-living material, fly and shoot lightning out of your eyes. It gets to be that you think: "Hey, I'd rather spend my headspace remembering spells to shatter the boundaries between reality than how to illuminate stuff or detect an invisible something..." So you make wands or a staff and then one day it hits you. What can you carry in your pocket, with a little one-time shot of magic, easy, handy and convenient. A book of matches. Strike one, and your spell's done.

You start making simple stuff and then realise, "Hey, I could do a lot with this..."

Making Notes Is Not The Same As Being Creative

Well dur - but that's what I have been telling myself for a while. Blah blah no time blah blah work and life and childcare and hardly even reading anything (apart from Of Dice And Men, which I enjoyed) blah blah.

So: in an effort to get more things done and made and hopefully get playing something again, I'm taking my notes and doing something with them. I keep forgetting, every six months or so, that just because I develop an idea one way, does not mean I cannot do something different with it on a different day.

A year ago I was running a campaign Somewhere North (before I switched in spring to Somewhere South, and that is where we stayed). Had the campaign continued the city of Zelman would probably have been reached. Despite the title of this post, here are some notes that I made about the city but hadn't developed (and now hopefully will):

• Bars are rare and beer is expensive as a result
• The coffee-klatch as a meeting place is extremely popular, and they're everywhere
• Mould wine is popular (NOTE: get translation in Finnish or something to make it sound cool)
• Skilled traders, trainers and artisans practice the animal-husbandry of mega-fauna
• A creature that is a mammoth with some kind of a twist to it
• The study of optiks and lenses is fashionable among natural scientists/wizards
• Make a rumour table about the Elves (who are mistrusted generally in the north)
• Location: The Unbreachable Maze of Someone. A dungeon/elaborate treasure vault protected by the usual traps, monsters and so forth but where certain sections of the dungeon are also time-stopped or time-slowed. The dungeon reclaims the eventual dead, and that's why there are thousands of re-animated skeletons guarding it, but of course the prize at the centre is worth it...

I have very talented friends who are getting things done. And I want to be someone who gets things done too. So enough with "thinking" and "note-making". Time for writing and doing.

Oh, and happy 2014! (he says on the 14th of January)