Resting in Ceawla

Our group of adventures rests a few weeks in Ceawla, fully recovering from their recent adventures, living off their craka beast steaks they brought in as well as coin from their adventures. Jenforth, their erstwhile guide, has left as they are not paying her to sit about a couple of weeks while they recuperate from various wounds. The Runt Gubbler spends time honing his ability to draw power from the various power stones he has, while Crut skulks about and practices various acrobatic maneuvers and poses while trying to come up with a new theme song, something reflecting the desert, perhaps. Agaric, our scholarly werewolf, tries to read the book they found in the desert, the Watching Book. It is a history of the people of the Singing Plain, a place he has never heard of. Nova has been offering her services to the various caravans that come along, and befriended many with her kind words and gentle healings. She has also managed to accrue 5 healing potions, between her own crafting and trading amongst the caravans passing through.

Evenings are spent under the watchful eye of Khali Kamel, the Dwarf in charge of the oasis security, and not fond of tossing anyone, even Goblins, about. Crut has managed to stay out of trouble so far, but his fingers are starting to itch. He has been practicing on his companions much to their annoyance. As caravans pass both ways, they continue to hear rumors of cities that always rain. of fabulous islands peopled by all sorts of creatures, of small cities made up of ruined air ships, of Liche Kings at ruined fortresses. At one time Runt could have sworn he saw an Amazon walking through, though to him all human women are pretty tall to begin with.

They learn more of the silent cave people who attacked them one their approach to the Ceawla. Agaric managed to condense the rumors for his companions

The People of the Dunes are a mute race of cave people. Their origins are shrouded in mystery—they have been living in the Kalor desert for as long as any can recall, but never mingle with other people. Rumors are they are from the distant past, somehow transported to the present. Somehow they survive in the desert, so they must have access to water and food. Only males are ever seen, and there is never any sound from them as they attack.

No one has tracked them back: either they all get killed in the raids or they kill all the people in the caravan. And the drifting sands leave no traces.

They managed to get a map of the southern part of the continent (very much a WIP as I am sticking various Kickstarted projects into this map, including the Watching Book, the Yol'Najj Forest, So'lan from the Creative Multi-race Heroes, and a few others). I actually have some packing paper, sort of like butcher paper, so I may try a hand-drawn scrolling map if I can muster the old drawing skills up. 

We've not been playing the last few weeks: theater of the mind, while acceptable for adults playing, is a bit harder on younger people. So our last session was a bit shorter as they get agitated. Plus we've had some nice days between all the rain, and it is really better to be outside playing. My friend and his sons are actually building a shop/gym in their backyard, and he indicates that there will indeed be a gaming table there. Perhaps my old HD TV that has no HDMI as well: I refuse to buy a new TV until I get rid of the old one that still works just fine, but lacking HDMI input is not compatible with much of anything, though he said he would take it. I did see an HDMI to component device at Wal-Mart, so in theory we could use that, But I am wanting to get a smart TV so I can watch Netflix and Amazon mostly. 

Regardless, we've not yet been able to resume our face to face gaming sessions. Our Monday night game is going well, but we're not pre-teen and teenagers with a limited amount of patience and easily distracted. Though I'll admit I am easily distracted. Hopefully we'll be able to play face to face soon - I do have more miniatures and terrain on the way (my collection of toys). 

And my personal status in the lockdown. Living near Asheville, NC, we are still under a few restrictions. As my wife is a cancer survivor with no immune system (amazing how much damage radiation and chemo can do to a person) I take as few chances as possible, so wear a mask when in public spaces and rarely get out (my car had completed died as I had not driven literally for weeks!). And work is changing a great deal: the owner has discovered that out of the 40-50 people working in the office, only 5 or so, which includes me, want to go back. And he has discovered that people can be productive working from home. So he is going to greatly reduce office space and it looks as though I will be working from home forever more. Coming full-circle in some ways: I worked from home for 14 years or so, and really liked it then as it allowed me to really help raise my son as a baby. But now I'd rather work in the office as when I leave, I leave. I've checked in on stuff a couple times this weekend for instance, something that would not happen should I be working from the office. Yes, I know, it is my own fault, and I am working on it. This pandemic will have a long-lasting effect on our culture. Like many previous, large scale social changes, I think we may end up with one of several possible outcomes to this. First, more people will be working from home than before, that if just about guaranteed. But I also would not be surprised if a universal basic income, a universal medical or a universal internet, federally supported process comes out of this.