So to most people I talk good politics, I dress stylish and fashionable, and I’m super crafty. I enjoy making things for myself and occasionally others. There is though a not so hidden part of me that most of you probably won’t be shocked to find out about. I’m a Geek, spelled capital gee three three kay. I love sci fi, and fantasy, I complain about inaccuracies and I game.

Actually I game in three different formats. I game on my laptop (currently playing Dragon Age 2 and about to start Portal 2). I play table top Role Playing Games(RGPs) (these are the classic dice rolling geeks around a table games like Dungeons and Dragons). I also play in Live Action Role Playing (LARPs) (yes dressing up in costumes and pretending to be people and fighting with foam swords).

I love my gaming it helps me get out of my head and do other things for a bit. It can be hard for me to actually relax because my brain is thinking so many other things constantly interrupting it’s self. but gaming helps me to actually relax. I do them all for different reasons.

• Computer games are fun because your the only player no one else but you get a say about what you are going to do. You go where you want to go, do the missions you want to do, and keep the speed you want to keep.
• Table top RPGs are almost the exact opposite you usually have 3 other players that you have to work with, and have to work together to decide what missions to do.  That is part of the fun. Not knowing what your other players are going to find more interesting. The other joy of this is your hanging out with others who have similar interests to you.
• LARPing on the other hand is even more social you go out and play with other people who are interested in the same thing. I love LARPing because it’s like being in an improvisational play but everyone is the star because the play is from your point of view. You get to be someone else for the game and do things that you would never do.

So May has been an active Gaming month for me. Fist off I finally was able to get a hold of Dragon Age 2, and thus have been playing that (I try to limit it to less then 5 hours a week, not counting the night i installed it :-p) for the last two weeks or so. Last weekend was was Day Of Games which only comes around once a year.

Day Of Games is a nice relaxed game day, for 15 dollars there are three sessions that run through out the day and  the games are chosen by what the players want to play out of what’s offered that session. Most of the games are indie games and definitely all the kind with quick character generation. Unfortunately I was feeling ill AND had insomnia the night before so I missed most f it.  Although I was able to participate in the last session and play the super fabulous Silver Kiss of the Magical Twilight of the Full Moon by the super talented Jenni Dowsett(I want to be as awesome as her when I grow up). Our GM was my friend Ellen who is 8 million kinds of cool, and I played with Scott, Thomas and Freya. Thomas and I were Ghost (he a disturbed roman torture victim and I a Victorian lady who was killed in a terrible roast accident), while Scott and Freya were humans; Freya being my love interest.

This game is dice less which is always refreshing and different. I won’t go into detail, but my character was very delicate and fainted often, I scared my love interest with a tale of her parents getting freaky on my grave site, and not understanding sarcasm.

Then this past weekend on Saturday I had a LARP of Snow White.

Of all traditional fairy tales that were adapted and censored for children in modern renditions, Snow White has perhaps undergone the most change. Today’s bedtime story of an innocent princess, seven happy little men and true love forgets the original undertones of desperation, passion, poverty and sexuality. One cannot tell the true story of Snow White without going back to a time in which men were valued only for their size and stamina, and woman only for their beauty and ability to bear children; a time in which glass was so rare that a polished mirror was truly a frightening thing of magic.

Most of the original characters and a few new ones are present in this adaptation of the older, darker, and more vivid story of Snow White. It is set in the hours before the execution of the Queen and subsequent wedding of the Prince and Princess, a time of last chances and new beginnings.

I was cast as the Wicked Queen, which was a blast. My main goal was to get free and seek my revenge on the world. In the end Snow whit was up the duff with the dwarf’s baby and she runs off with him and the prince marries me instead to become King. I get to continue to be beauty obsessed. This was an interesting role to play cause everyone actively hates you except the nursemaid.

That brings me to last night which was my gaming group’s campaign night(we meet every fortnight). We are playing Dragonlance which is an add on to D&D 3.5 edition rules. I play a Elven Druid, who is the learned on of the group AND the most diplomatic of them all. The other two in my group are an Elven ranger who is not charismatic at all AND does not speak common, and a very stupid but farking huge Orc. Probably the funniest bit was when I accidentally set my Orc friend afire instead of a huge spider that was trying to eat the other elf. The Orc then slammed me into a wall for it. Guess who didn’t get healed after the fight :-p

I got to show off my woodland sword and the binding job I did for my Players Handbook. You see all My D&D books and such are digital PDFs which saves me heaps of space, BUTis a bit of a pain when you have to flip back and forth between many pages. Also I needed practice for when I make my spell book for my Teonn Character. I had some faux suede and did a basic japanese binding with a wrap over cover. Everyone was impressed and I’m really happy. I learned more about drilling through paper need something on top and bottom to protect the paper.

* you should totally check out the webseries that Jenni is in Urban Numina!

P.S. I have another post about more crafty things I’ve been up to lately! I’ll keep you posted.

ETA: A trailer for Urban Numina