Month: Feb 2023

Sleepiness and Suits

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

I’ve taken some more time off work this week as a couple of celebrations bookend it and frankly I could do with a rest. So yesterday I herded both Lady M and boy s into the car to wander into Kingston – as you do. This was partly just to get out of the house and distract them as they were having low days – but also to do some clothes shopping.

Lady M doesn’t often spend money on herself, so putting her in the vicinity of clothing shops can sometimes take a bit of a run up. At the same time, we have an event at the end of March to go to, and it occurred to me that one of the rites of passage that boy s has never had until now was that of getting measured for his first suit.

I had threatened to take him to the tailors that I got my wedding suit made at, but a more low-key approach felt kinder. Both Lady M and boy s can get overwhelmed with lots of people around, so I was mindful to suggest going to Marks and Spencer, knowing their men’s section tends to be a bit quieter. We ambled around and looked at some styles and colours of things for him to take to the changing rooms – and then while he was trying a few things on, I had a chat with the attendant.

I explained that he had never had a fitting or indeed a suit, and so I thought actually knowing his measurements would help immensely. Indeed, it would not only inform getting formal clothing but would also be something to bear in mind when buying clothing from here on out. It would take the guesswork out of things as he got used to creating his own wardrobe.

Like me, boy s is not exactly the smallest person in the room, so there was a fair chance there wouldn’t be anything in store that would quite fit – but that’s only because they keep a limited size range in the actual store. The full ranges are available online – and so this was very much in mind.

So, having done that, and with Lady M’s eye firmly on items for herself too we retired to our new favourite coffee shop where I introduced boy s to what he has described as the best hot chocolate he has ever had.

And with that, collective spoons were depleted, so we went to retrieve the cub from school – and we all seem to have spent most of today cat napping…

Its obviously needed

NPCs – Shifter Gang

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

In the world of Eberron, one of the species that can be played, or that can be encountered are the Shifters. It is said that they are descended from lycanthropes in the distant past, inheriting the ability to manifest animalistic traits that can boost their reflexes or strength or other senses. Often mistrusted by others – in part due to horror stories of their savage ancestors – a shifter is often welcomed into the world of gangs and other criminal factions.

Having started to make some default guards for my games, I thought I should also look at some tokens for their counterparts and created three individuals who may be encountered together, on their own, or as part of a wider and more diverse group. As with the other entries in this series, they have been made using the HeroForge website, and I’ve shared them on there for others to use the models as they may please.

A wolf-faced man in green and grey with taloned hands advancing on the viewer
A pale skinned but dark haired man with long hair and a beard, claws for hands, and wolf-like legs, wearing a duster and other dark medieval style clothing. He holds a machete in his right hand
A dark skinned woman with pointed ears and sharp wolf-like teeth. She is dressed in reds and greys, and holds a butcher's cleaver in each hand. It looks like she's waiting for you to make your move

I’ve not gone for any kind of colour scheme or common theme, but have tried to show different ways that the shifter abilities might manifest. The first has the face of a wolf and claws on their fingertips and is advancing to attack. The second wields a machete and is dressed in a more swashbuckling style that contrasts with his clawed fingers, animal like teeth, and wolf-like legs. The third is more subtle – pointed ears and teeth, and claws even while clutching cleavers and having a more passive stance.

close up circular token of the wolf-faced man's face
close up circular token of the bearded man's face, clothing, and machete
close up circular token of the dark skinned woman revealing a malevolent grin full of sharp teeth

I’m thinking of using these in the Wednesday group sessions which are set in, on, and above the streets of Sharn – a magitech city of impossible towers, suspended walkways, flying transports, and hidden secrets. I think these would be a good match for the tone and power level of that group as a general threat to be stumbled over. Perhaps they might be sent to rough the group up if they annoy the wrong person, or they might be in a dark alley, lying in wait.

overhead figure of the wolf-faced man
overhead view of the machete-wielding man in a swirling duster
overhead view of the woman with the cleavers, showing the cloak flowing behind her

This is how I’ve set the tokens to appear on the virtual maps, but the circular tokens above could work just as well, depending on your tastes. Feel free to download and use these PNG images if you like – and if you do, consider letting me know how you challenged people with them – or if they became character tokens instead.

DDC – Troll Fight

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

We picked up the story from last time with the group making their way across a frozen lake towards a burning trading post. Battle was joined with a group of four trolls, and at the end of the last session, Kerne had slain one of them with a deluge of acid.

This week, the remaining trolls ran for cover, running around or into the trading post, forcing the DDC to pursue them. This was the moment they found that the trolls had left concealed bear traps in their paths – a level of preparation and use of tactics not typical of troll encounters. They lost sight of two of the trolls, but the third could be seen through the trading post’s windows. Valenia and Caeluma therefore focused their efforts on shooting into the burning building with varying degrees of success.

Arwan made his way inside in pursuit and was charged by the troll he found in there – and despite weathering powerful blows stood his ground. Valenia finished the troll off with acid-infused magical arrows and just for a moment all was quiet. Arwan extinguished the largest fire in the building by summoning water – and then the other two trolls reappeared.

They had climbed onto the roof undetected and crawled over the top to try and flank the group when the damaged roof collapsed. One leapt clear and landed next to Kerne – the other fell through and landed next to Arwan. In the blink of an eye Kerne was on the ground and bleeding out, with the troll preparing to eat them. Caeluma and Arwan fought the other troll with magics that severed limbs and dropped it quickly.

Overhead map view of a burning wooden building in a snowy forest landscape on the edge of a frozen lake. Its the setting for the encounter described in this blog entry.

Valenia risked the irate troll’s claws to heal Kerne, saving their life but getting her back sliced open in the process. Inside the trading post, the fallen troll’s separated body parts began to fight on independently. For a few moments, as fast as the DDC knocked the trolls down, they or their body parts got back up and continued fighting. Then Arwan called on the gods to summon a flame strike from the heavens. The column of fire punched down through the broken roof. It incinerated the troll remains in moments. Outside, Valenia and Thorin finished off the remaining attacker with acid.

In the aftermath, the group took a short rest and investigated the wreckage. There was nothing of any worth remaining in the ruins, but each of the trolls wore two tokens. The first was a bone and iron brooch in the shape of a humanoid skull. The second was a crude silver fist wrought in silver on a silver chain.

Valenia’s investigations also found deliberately dumped animal and human remains. Blood and gore were placed to form a lure to the area, and based on the blood on the troll remains, they had been the ones placing the lures. They mirrored the gore piles found earlier in the forest trails. The DDC decided to return to the Hold to plan and research their next move.

I’ve included the map here, as well as the zipped file of the Dungeon Alchemy base file, jpeg, and text file with dynamic lighting, door, and window location details: tradingpost attack.zip

The Power of Our Stories

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

I was privileged to be involved this week inan event, speaking and introducing other speakers at the Surrey History Centre for their LGBT History Month event called The Power of Our Stories. I was there in my role as co-Chair of the Surrey County Council LGBTQ+ Staff Network and spoke on the power and nature of queer joy to a sold out audience.

We heard from colleagues about the work of the staff network, of Surrey’s provision of support to young LGBT people, and the work of the History Centre in documenting and archiving LGBT stories in Surrey. We heard from a student in film and lens media studies talk about their work and mission to reclaim and desexualise the depiction of trans bodies through challenging expectations. We were also honoured to hear from Bernard Reed OBE, founder of GIRES, speaking of the heartbreaking events that led to their campaign to improve the lives of trans and non-binary individuals throughout the UK. To round it all off, we then had the most beautiful accapella arrangement of Somewhere Over The Rainbow provided by the Surrey Rainbow Choir.

We had stalls from a number of services and charities in Surrey, ranging from the local library and the adoption service, to the police, Catalyst, HER, and Haven. There was talk, laughter, song, and connection among a wonderful array of people – and I was absolutely buzzing from the positivity and happiness that buoyed the whole event.

I’ve been utterly exhausted as a consequence the last day or so, but so worth it and can’t wait to work with my colleagues to make it all happen again. My original copy of my speech was rapidly grabbed by Di to add to the archive but I’ll grab the text when I’m next back in work. Recordings were also made, so as those become available I’ll link to them too.

Spinning Plates

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

One of the things that simultaneously delights and drains me is the number of metaphorical plates that I spin to do my job. Staff pastoral care, strategic partnerships, outreach, projects, building maintenance, performance monitoring, leadership, staff networks, events, and many more facets all require careful prioritising and switching. The satisfaction of things spinning and landing in place in the right order (more or less) is – to me – hugely rewarding. The downside is the worry and temptation to get lost in the contingency planning.

Having been off for a few days last week I was relieved to find most of the plates still merrily spinning or landing where they were intended. My team have picked up and dealt with things as needed – though there have been some issues that I’ve leapt to the last couple of days too.

For the most part this has been to deal with external events in the local area – and especially the impact on staff. I’ve also got an event tomorrow evening where I’ve agreed to speak: an evening at the Surrey History Centre for LGBT History Month. I am both looking forward to it, and also nervous. It will go well, it will be wonderful – but its still a performance and I’ve had limited time to prepare. What’s the worst that could happen?

Map – Dragon Skull Pass

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

I started showing boy s the basics of Dungeon Alchemy while we were away so that he could design the shrine that his character Caeluma is founding at Amberhammer Hold. He’s got a basic layout sorted out, and will now need to do the tweaks and nudges to the decor and props to finish it all off.

This has brought me back to making some random maps to toy with some more of the new features in the recent update, which has led to this mixture of landscape and hidden crypt dominated by the wedged skull of a long-dead dragon:

overhead map view of a snow-covered winter pass through mountains with a dragon's skull wedged at the bottom and a room and corridor carved out in one side of the valley.

Entry to this snowbound pass through the mountains is under the skull wedged above the southern end of the pass. A small crypt or shrine has been tunnelled out of the mountain rock, with its entrance at the top of a rocky slope covered in ice and snow. Danger might come from within that structure, or from bandits on the clifftop or even on top of the skull. Perhaps a yeti has taken up residence in the pass, or a troll preys on the unwary.

As usual I’ve put together a zipfile of the original .dam file, the exported jpeg and the text file containing lighting information – and that is included in this blog: dragonskullpass.zip

If you use this for anything, please let me know – I’d love to hear how you used it.

Quiet Day – Muffled Explosions

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

I took today off in advance because I had a feeling I’d be tired from the journey back home – and I’m glad I did as it was all very draining. So, to the accompaniment of Lady M spreading terror and chaos over various voice and Teams calls as she worked from home, I pootled around. Well, almost. Without fail there was a minor hiccup with the app that the cub uses for his bus tickets so I was pressganged into an emergency school run. A clearly not impressed cub was duly dropped off and I returned home to make cuppas and ensure that Lady M had something to eat while she worked.

decorative picture of an otter sitting on a wire mesh at the end of a log over some water. It is slightly turned to look over its shoulder to the viewer's left

One of the things I did was restart playing Halo Infinite’s campaign. I fancied a gentle romp as I hadn’t played it in ages and have been pressing rather hard on Destiny’s story recently, so I started it on Easy mode. I’m glad I did as some of the skill honing I’ve been doing in the other game translated rather pleasantly into a fun side trip into a very different space opera. By far and away the most fun moment was realising just how cleverly modelled the grappling line used by the hero is.

I channelled my inner Spider-Man and found that momentum allowed me to swing around and up a tall building onto the roof of a tower. That’s where I found a hidden secret – the IWHBYD Skull which unlocks rare incidental dialogue. This made me happy for all sorts of nostalgic reasons. I used to play a lot of Halo3 with friends, and collecting the skulls became a group activity as some of them only appeared on higher difficulties. Those who were better at it helped carry the others along through the game, and then transferred that knowledge to others in turn. This was all very early days of the internet and online gaming and I have a lot of fond memories of those evenings.

It’s been a nice change to play in a slightly different way and enjoy some nostalgia – I suppose I should get ready for the rest of the week now… Oh, and just because I’ve still got some photos of the day, here’s another one of the otters – they really were incredibly cute.

Home Again

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment
selfie of tired tim rubbing his right eye. He wears a yellow tshirt with an abstract pattern of lines on it, his head is shaved, and his beard has grey running through it

You can tell it was the end of the half term because like everyone else we were on the road today – and a projected four hour journey ended up being six, just as it was heading up mid-week. Still, we rarely ground to an actual halt until we were just outside London.

This morning started with the usual groggy checklist of “do I have all my body parts?” and “where is the coffee jar?” before progressing to “have I packed my medications?” and “whose towel is this?” The usual quiet confusion and desperation set in as plans for leaving at a particular time ambled straight past the target and on towards lunchtime. This is, in and of itself, nothing particularly unusual, even if it does make me twitch a little.

Everyone had a good time, even if the cub protested loudly about there being no computers to play his games on. Suddenly being expected to wash things up for himself was a bit of a revelation, but he rallied well and made a good stab at it. We even had him asking for and drinking cups of tea by the end of it all.

And so now we’re all home in our respective homes and unwinding. I have a painting that I need to pick a place for – a watercolour of the old family home created by a parishioner. I always liked it, and it brings back happy memories of summers of absolute mayhem with my brothers and friends alike. I think I’ll put it near the entrance to the kitchen so I can glance over at it every now and then. It does mean I’ll need to move one of my prints to make way for it, but then I do like excuses to switch things around every now and then so its hardly a chore – more a means of expression.

This week looks to be fairly busy, but hopefully will go with relative swiftness so I can then go into another week off. I might even plan something, who knows?

A Trip To The Zoo

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

The salt sea air always knocks me sideways when we visit the coast, hence my not posting for a couple of days. We’ve been visiting my parents – the first time I’ve had the opportunity to see them since before the first covid lockdowns. The journey up was fairly draining due to roadworks slowing our average travel speed, but safe enough as these things go.

Today then, the boy s and I went to Blackpool Zoo – in particular to see the otters there. The boy s is currently hyper-fixated on otters, so the news that the local zoo offered him the chance to see some in real life rather than just on YouTube. We left everyone else behind and made it a mini road-trip for the day.

Picture of boy s with shaven head, big grin, glasses, and thumb up. In the front pouch of his hoodie is a plush otter, while a plush orangutan peers out of another pocket.
Selfie of a bemused and bearded Tim holding the plush otter and orangutan in a cafe

The weather kept threatening showers, but held off, so we had a great time exploring the whole place. He grabbed a map and marked off every animal that we found – but his first sight of the otters I think just made his day. There was a massive grin and shocked expression at just how loud their chirps were. We did also find many other animals that provoked a similar response, but that and the promise of feeding time later was the highlight of the day. He was also blown away by the sealion display as we went into full tourist mode to fill the time.

A red panda walking along a rope bridge headed to the left. Its red and black fur is very clear against the background foliage
otter looking to the left as it sits on a grill above water at the end of a tree trunk
two otters looking at the camera against a backdrop of stones. Both are wet from recent swims and they are both dark grey and silver in colour

All in all, a really good day out. I enjoyed rediscovering somewhere I last visited when the Charleesi was small, and boy s is determined to return once the wild cat area has finished being redeveloped.

Back on the road tomorrow…

Oh, There Was An Adventure

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

So amid the tech issues on Sunday, we did manage to get some story started – and the group began the hunt for trolls seen attacking a nearby trading post on the Southern pass. As they made their way in the direction of the trading post they began to notice that there were less sounds of birds and general wildlife. Then they began to find more and more traces of blood and gore scattered among the trees and could smell smoke.

Sepia-toned map of the closer surroundings of the Amberhammer Hold showing hills, mountains, rivers, lakes and so on

Caeluma took to the air to scout around. In the distance, the trading post could be seen, situated between the trail and a frozen over lake. In the woods nearby there was smoke from a fire. The group decided to loop around the nearby smoke source and approach from across the frozen lake.

They had to move slowly to avoid slipping. The DDC did however manage to make their way across without any mishaps. They’d hoped to approach quietly, but were spotted by four trolls when they were still a good sixty or seventy foot away.

Unable to immediately close, the group used spells and missile weapons to pick away at the nearest trolls – and were surprised when one of them returned fire with their own bow.

One of the trolls took the brunt of the attack and ended up being entirely melted by Kerne in an explosion of acid. They watched in horror as it fell apart, limbs struggling to fight on even as they fell away. Two of the remaining trolls dove for cover – one behind rocks and the other back into the burning trading post. The fourth began to pull back as the first two members of the DDC managed to get to the shore.

And that’s where we left the action