What the

So this morning I went to my doctor's appointment, even though I'm pretty much not sick anymore, and I was very surprised by something that happened there. They brought me over to the scale to get my weight, and I somehow miraculously gained 20 pounds in the last year. No joke. I asked them if it was correct, and they said "yep." I'm a pretty skinny guy, and I used to be (and sometimes still am) all self conscious about it, so I lied about my weight on my driver's license. Well, now it's not a lie anymore. I still don't really understand how it's possible for me to have gained 20 pounds! I look exactly the same as I always have. If anything, I thought I lost weight! Well, I'll use this to my advantage and turn it into rippling muscles.

Some people have asked about Danielle's loop rock girl thingy, so here's the explanation: There's a radio station in Chicago called the Loop. It's named after the area in downtown Chicago that is surrounded by the El tracks. It's like the center of downtown. They play classic rock, and I listen to Brandmeier in the mornings. So they're having this contest where one girl gets chosen to represent the radio station and get paid $50,000 to go to concerts and be at work about two days a week. I know, unfair. I think it's a good opportunity for Danielle because she can break into the media relations sort of thing that she wants to do. Also it's a challenge for her, because she isn't rock and roll at all. She listens to freaky deeky techno and stuff. So they're at the stage in the competition where the listeners vote to narrow down the field from 64 to 16. Danielle's voting period will be on Wednesday April 12th from 2PM to 2:30, and if she wins that, again from 6PM to 6:30. I encourage everyone to vote for her by calling (312)591-ROCK or by going to the website http://www.wlup.com. The only problem with the online voting is that you have to sign up on their website and they'll probably send you spam. I don't really care about that, though, so I signed up.

I'm playing D&D tonight, and it'll be fun. I've got my players working on a puzzle/maze thingy. Some of them read this, though, so I can't put any real details regarding what they're in for, but... They. are. so. dead. In case anyone really cares, I can write about what happened last week!!!!!

BEWARE SPOILER ALERT!!!
Anyone who is playing or thinking of playing the Bastion of Broken Souls module, stop reading.







OK. We're like halfway through this module, so a little background: Several mysteries came to light that hooked the players in, one was that an increasing number of children have been being born listless and limp, as if they didn't have souls. The deities won't respond to any questions, and high level divination spells are also of no use. Then one of the players, Algon, the human fighter, was attacked by a half kyton half marilith called the Cathezar. It was then revealed that he is the descendant of a glorious druid named Dydd who dealt a crippling blow to a red dragon named Ashardalon back in the day. Then this dude Nurn came along and helped them to send the Cathezar packing. Nurn was like "the Cathezar works for Aameul, and I work for Hethradiah. Aameul and Hethradiah don't like each other, so I'm just doing my thing here." It's all very mysterious. The players then went to the Cathezar's lair and found a diary explaining the Ban of the Unborn. This is why the deities can't answer questions about the soulless children, because they are banned from taking unborn souls into their portfolios. Also, Aameul's plot was revealed in the diary, something about a demon heart, and it appears that Ashardalon is still alive and that the descendent of Dydd has some power over him. They party went to the Church of Elements to learn more about Dydd. They asked about the Bastion of Unborn Souls and Semphelon, the first tree ever, tells them that they should ask Dreamer Prime. They went to the Guild of Sleep and met Dreamer Prime. Apparently, she'd been dreaming for seven years and discovering the most well kept secrets of the universe while doing so. She told them that once upon a time, there was a god named Desayeus who went to a soul font (where souls are created) and started claiming the new souls for his portfolio. The other gods got all scared like "holy crap what's going to happen if the Ban of the Unborn is broken!" so they all went and gave Desayeus a grand beat down and stripped him of his powers. Now he is in jail in the lowest layer of Pandemonium. The players planeshifted to Pandemonium, but found that the gatekeeper of Desayeus' prison wouldn't let them in, and she's a celestial, so they didn't feel right killing her. Zeb, the group's cleric of Tymora took the group to the Olympian Glades of Arboria to try and petition Tymora to get the door open. In the meantime, the group's thief, Yerbutt, got sucked into a bacchus and almost joined permanently. At any rate, Tymora opened the gate and the players went in. Desayeus was defeated, and his Soul Totem was taken. The Soul Totem allows the players entry into the Bastion of Unborn Souls, which lies in the Positive Energy Plane. Somewhere along the lines, they discovered that Ashardalon is in the Bastion, consuming souls, hence the babies being born soulless. He needs to consume them because his demonic heart is failing. The same demonic heart that Aameul is after. They decided to go to the Positive Energy Plane, but were not equipped to survive there. The group found a treasure chest with some rings of positive energy protection, but Yerbutt, the thief, stole them. With no way to identify them, and too proud to admit to stealing them, he decided to plant one of the rings on a dead body so the group would find it. He did, and upon finding out that it was a ring of positive energy protection, and the other two might be as well, he planted the other two rings on another dead body while invisible. The only problem was, the body he placed them on was the dead companion of a gray render. Yerbutt, realizing that the party would probably raise the gray render's companion and then the rings would be lost, fired a crossbow at the gray render. This spooked the gray render, causing it to pick up it's companion's body and run off, never to be seen again. This was a hilarious turn of events. Way to go Yerbutt!

That's the end of the recap. We've been on this adventure since January, so no surprise that we've accomplished a lot. So, last week, the party decided to drown their sorrows at a local tavern. In their drunkenness, they heard of a long-disappeared wizard chick who was an expert on all things positive energy related. They went to her ruined stronghold and were presented with a maze full of puzzles which must be solved in order to progress. So far, they're still in the first room. Tonight we continue. This could take a while.

Anyone who's a DM and uses all the possible resources will probably tell me that I suck for using all this pre-written adventure stuff and not inventing my own campaign. To them I say "Screw you, I don't have time for that right now. Maybe next time." I make this adventure my own just by throwing in a lot of color characters and sidebar on the fly. The best part so far has to be either the gray render thing, or when this guy called Fred joined the party. The party felt compelled to let him join because he was also a descendant of Dydd. He was a first level wizard, and this is an 18th level adventure. Fred didn't get out much, so he considered himself to be an all powerful wizard, and managed to convince the party that he was. He got killed in the first round of the first combat he was involved in.

This is the longest post ever. I hope it was entertaining enough to hold your attention!