Out of the Darkness

I live out in the country about 20 minutes from the nearest small town. Life out here is a little different and, for me, sometimes a little creepy. Last night I was loading some stuff into the SUV for the next day when the dog starts barking at the darkness. The moon was not out, so I only had the light from the porch to see and it only goes about 30 feet.

As I peered into the abyss, you know the kind when you lean forward hoping that the extra three inches will improve your site distance, two huge apparitions came lumbering forward swaying from side like creatures from Stephen King's "The Mist". Now they were not moving fast enough to startle me immediately, but I was taken aback at their proximity. Standing half way between the SUV and the porch, these two ghostly creatures were only twenty feet away when they slowly came into view. The fact that the dog was barking incessantly at them the whole time is probably what set me on my nerves.

Well, after about 15 seconds, I realized that the two night stalkers were actually my kid's horses. They are mostly white with small brown dots. With the darkness of night, their slow walk, and an eerie silence approach I wondered:

"How would an actual adventurer feel when confronted by unfamiliar creatures in the darkness of a fantasy world?"

Well, since there are probably no travelling troubadours telling ghastly tales of Zombie Armageddon, they probably would not be as alarmed as I was. But if your characters are those stalwart souls that are constantly coming through battles by the skin of their teeth and the creatures you throw at them are from an endless horde of things that scurry in the corner of the light and feed off the entrails of the fallen, something as simple as two large horses can sure be creepy.

Obsidian Portal Shout

For a while, I wanted to give kudos to the guys at Obsidian Portal. While the site began as a simple wiki for listing your game site, anyone who has created a website for a game knows the head-ache of not only providing content, but making sure the site is functional.

While the site is not as robust as some of the Content Management Systems out there, it provides an easy way for gamers to create a campaign site that all the players can reference. There are various sections for game-log, characters, items, and a forum for the particular campaign. You search other member's campaigns (If they made them public) to help our with content if you're strapped for time. The even have dynamic character sheets for D&D and Shadowrun; They willing to make more if there is enough interest.

The team at Obsidian Portal have won an ENnie award for best website two years running. The site impressed me enough to become an Ascendant Member; that's a fancy way of saying I paid for the service. You do not have to become an Ascendant Member to use the site, although it benefits the GM to do so.

You can read more about them on their site:

http://www.obsidianportal.com/

If you interested in my last campaign, you can find more information here:

The Rise of Scytha

Welcome to the New Sight

Well, I've tried my hand at setting up my own blog and, while cool in itself, I don't really have the time to maintain the back end. So I decided to use google's Blogger, and see if I like it. I decided to bring the site back by popular demand; ok, only one guy asked.

Being of a gaming theme, I did some polling of friends to see what would be a good name and the one I settled on is 'Seer's Sight'. Since these are my own insights into gaming, I felt that it was a relevant name and was the best received. XP to the wife as she actually thought the name up.

If you have any questions, please give me a shout and I'll try my best to answer them.