Cat Conundrum Continues!

 
Image: Clover/Six checking out our front porch

If you also follow me on Facebook, you might have noticed that I just put out a call to see if anyone is interested in Clover/Six. 

I think, understandably, people are put off by the expense and responsibility of the spay. It is the reason that C. bailed on us. For all her flakiness, she was self-aware enough to say that she was not up for all the aftercare of surgery. Unfortunately, we are running out of options. Shawn's brother Keven declined her rather sweetly since it is patently obvious that he's still heartbroken after the loss of his other cats. Plus, he's getting to at the age where being responsible for anyone other than himself is difficult. And, I honestly respect all that. I even respect that people feel very uncomfortable and overwhelmed (financially and emotionally) by the fact that she may be pregnant and requires a spay.

But, this means we're still in a conundrum ourselves. 

I wish we'd known that Six's people were going to be completely AWOL. If we'd known, she'd already be spayed. We'd had an appointment for her on Monday. We cancelled in good faith under the assumption that Six's people would be contacting us.  We even had preliminary blood drawn. This particular hurtle could have already been jumped, as it were. 

Because she *might* be pregnant, I feel like a clock is ticking. We don't know for sure that she is (the vet found no evidence), but she has not gone back into heat since we fist picked her up. Magic Eight Ball says: Signs Seem Likely. 

Shawn has started to look into surrendering her to the Humane Society. I had heard that they were full up, and they are to some extent. However, it turns out that, while they have a thirty day waiting period for your pets, there are apparently different rules for strays. So, technically, if there are no other options, we could try to take her there, after all. 

I don't like it.

It would break my heart to see this sweet little thing shoved into a cage. 

So, we're waffling.

The way Shawn and I see it, today kind of is our last ditch effort for a rehome. We are giving our friends a last chance to claim interest, and then after that, we're going to make the decision of should she stay or should she go. Shawn is also doing more research into how-to carefully introduce problematic cats into a household, so that we don't have to drop her off at the Humane Society. I really resist that option because we love her? She's so insanely sweet-tempered and likes to curl up, cheek-to-cheek with us. She's a warm, buzzy little purr engine. So, if we can figure out how to meld her better, we'll do it.

But, first things first, we will let her go if anyone is interested today. After that, I start trying to get her back in for that spay. She can't stay with us without that, so....wish us luck.

In other news, I had my first session with a new D&D group, which I will post about separately. The short of it is, it went well. 

UPDATE: D&D write up posted AND, more importantly, we have someone coming to meet Clover!! Fingers crossed!

New D&D Group - Session Zero

I've added a new icon so that if people are deeply uninterested in these posts, they will be forewarned and can skip, guilt-free.

I quit gaming cold turkey sometime in the mid-90s when I started to get serious about becoming a writer. Like a lot of nerds, my brain not only tends to hyper-focus, but also prefers the path of least resistance. I have always found role-playing deeply addictive and, because I rarely game master, role-play allows me to exclusively focus on my favorite part of writing, which is character creation. (This is, tangentially, the appeal of fan fic for me. I love having a pre-established world to noodle around in.) Also, I rage quit a Call of Cthulhu game and swore never to return, but that's another story for another time.

But, because I find role-playing games so addictive, I used to joke that, like any good drug addict, I was only a phone call away from a game. (This actually used to be on the "Do you have a drug problem?" pamphlets handed out at clinics: "Are you one phone call away from your drug of choice?") The phone call I always had in mind was to my friend Bill, who I knew could hook me up immediately. I have known Bill since our days together out at Renaissance Festival in the late 1980s. We were in several campaigns together throughout my post-college gaming years. He was my last boyfriend before coming out as a lesbian, and we have remained good and steady friends--though our closeness has waxed and waned, as such things do, through the decades. Flash forward to now. I've been getting back into gaming in general--I've had a long running Star Trek: RPG game (we're on our third or fourth year together?) and have played several one-shots at various conventions around town of things like Thirsty Sword Lesbians and, rather infamously, the Chuck Tingle RPG. But, since starting to watch Critical Role, I've been kind of been missing an old-fashioned D&D campaign.

So, I picked up the phone and dialed my dealer.

Actually, what happened was that I ran into Bill at CONvergence this year and made not-so-subtle inquiries about whether or not he knew about a campaign I might join. In a surprise to no one, he fulfilled the role I expected him to and had something immediately in mind. Apparently, his group was amenable to a new member but they were all currently being murdered by vampires in a.... I want to say Shadowrun...??... game, so could I hang on? I said of course I could because I might be a gaming junkie, but my needs are very much being satisfied by my Star Trek game. So, for awhile there, I would get a weekly cryptic text from Bill that would read, "Still not dead. Hopefully soon."

Finally, a week or so ago, I got the text I'd been waiting for: "Survived??? Vampires defeated."

Arrangements were then made for me to connect up with Jeff, the person who would be leading the next game. Jeff asked if I had a type of character that I'd like to play in mind and... you know, I can't decide if whether having a writer in a role-playing game is a good or bad thing from the outside. Obviously, as said writer, I think I'm a great asset, but I can only imagine what it must be like to receive a veritable FLOOD of character description and backstory. To that end, I always try to be cognizant of the fact that the fun for the game master is in creating the world, so I try to be clear that I am just throwing out ideas and am willing to change anything. I'm like that line in the Beatle's song, Paperback Writer "It's a thousand pages, give or take a few / I'll be writing more in a week or two." So, you know, point me in a direction.

So, yeah, poor Jeff. He got my three thousand word response to what character I might like to play.

I am discovering that I have this thing. I am very attracted to characters who don't quite fit their job descriptions and/or play against a Type. In my Star Trek game, for instance, I am playing the Chief Science Officer, but the sciences that he excels in are all the so-called "soft" sciences, the Humanities, if you will. That character was directly inspired by the original Trek "Space Seed" episode in which we discover that the Enterprise has a ship's historian. I found the whole idea of someone going into Star Fleet on the off-chance that they might be tapped to do a history, despite the fact that they are in deep space, very charming and kind of fascinating. So, Ro is that person, only more than a one-off love interest for Khan.

Flipping through the character guide for 5E, I read the description of what a barbarian is supposed to be and started thinking, "But, do they have to be 'savage'? Do they have to be outsiders to high society?" Like, what if you had a very high class, High Elf with an anger management problem? What is the essence of a barbarian, if not a stranger in a strange land? Can you flip that? Can the strange land be simply another version of civilization?

So, with Jeff's permission, I created a High Elf who has previously lived a very upper class life among the sequestered Elven nobility until, one day, when sent off to perform what should have been for his breeding and training a simple, straight-forward diplomatic mission, he literally saw red after an imagined (or real, he's no longer sure what exactly got said) insult and... left an impression of his family's signet ring in the jawline of an Elf of Even Higher Standing. So, he's been banished into a world be barely understands. Jeff really wants barbarians to be illiterate, so we decided that even though he's allowed several languages thanks to his background, he speaks them, but can't really read anything outside of his specialized dialect of Elven. (Honestly, this tracks for me in real life. I can understand some spoken Japanese, but don't ask me to read it!)

Last night was our first zero session, though we ended up actually starting the adventure a little.

Because I am the stranger here, I made some fun D&D themed cookies to share:

Image: Cookies shaped like the Welsh dragon, decorated in red and green frosting.


Image: A highly delicate unicorn-shaped cookie, decorated in what I am calling "disaster bisexual" colors.

The actual zero session went well. I found myself being the person who tried to draw out descriptions of everyone's characters and the player's histories with one another both as characters in-game and also as actual people, in real life. Again, I have no idea if this was welcome behavior or intrusive, but no one else seemed otherwise forthcoming. I got a sense that maybe everyone knew about each other's characters--perhaps ideas had already been discussed in the aftermath of the vampire slaughter? Maybe there's a shared email I'm not yet privy to? I'd feel left out or put off by it, but, this is the hazard of joining a pre-existing group that's been together for a long time. There are shared references that I don't get and won't for awhile.

I think generally, when we got into it, the role-playing came easily, so that's in the plus column. Though, anyone who has gamed with me know that I also come in swinging with my role-play, so I can only hope that I wasn't too... much.

I've decided to keep a session log in the form of my character's letters home to a beloved younger sister. (Interestingly this group uses a character tree, and I have already rolled up the sister in case my barbarian bites it early.) I highly doubt anyone reading this will be THIS interested in the details of the actual game, but I may post these for my own amusement. If they amuse you as well, that's a bonus.

----------------

September 28
Brekenforth, Kingdom of Shira


My dearest sister, Ave,

I have no idea when this missive might arrive in our beloved home in The Beech Wood, given that all roads--even those by sea--seem to be blockaded in this wretched and besieged harbor town, or whether or not mother will even allow you to see it, given my outcast state. Nevertheless, I wanted you to know that I am thinking of you, always.

Fate seems to have trapped me in a town somewhat unwelcoming to our kind. Though I find the rough guttural tones of Common difficult for my refined ear to parse, I have gathered that this town was recently attacked by ‘elves’ and feywild creatures ‘from the north.’ There is some lord or other who has installed a garrison in this town run by a half-elf, with some forgettable human name like Philip, who seems wholly unsuited for the job. For one, half his regiment seems AWOL, though a cat told me that perhaps these soldiers were busy elsewhere, searching for whatever it was that the previous invading Elven horde also sought. Rumor has it, that is also why the naval blockade remains in place--not to keep out invaders, but to keep in whomever or whatever might have absconded with this item.

I would find this nonsense beneath my interest, but this standoff has trapped me within the walls of Brekenforth. With nowhere to roam, I’ve been lodging at a place called the Sloshing Boot. Despite its rather pedestrian name, the owner, Riccardus, is one of us--or nearly so, being Gray Elf in parentage, at least on one side. He has a delightful companion named Aiyu, with whom I’ve made fast-friends. For reasons which I have not yet inquired about, Aiyu has taken the appearance of a cat. Or, perhaps, simply is a cat. Who can speak Elvin. Obviously, I am assuming Aiyu to be a changeling of some sort, but the denizens of this establishment give me a pitying look every time I sit down to converse with what, to them, appears to be a bar cat. No doubt they think me the town drunkard.

At least I’m more well-liked than the monk of Ioun.

Ah, but I get ahead of myself.

I seem to have somewhat accidentally become part of a team of adventurers known rather mysteriously as “The Caravan.” I was keeping my own counsel while Aiyu lapped his milk on the bar when a rather pompous, if insanely good-looking priestly sort of human stood up and announced that adventurers were needed and that Avandra would provide them. Who am I to deny the Changebringer Her due? So, I stood up and followed a monk dressed in the drab colors of Ioun, this handsome priestly sort and his… entourage of one halfling out to the home of a local merchant known as Lord Brachyo Hikushi. We were joined by a rather astonishing looking square of a man, who could only be a druid given the furs and the antlers, though despite having spent a fair amount of time with these fellows already, we have made no formal introductions. Speaking of the lack of proper introductions, it seems a second halfling has attached himself to us as well and is some sort of savant at information gathering. Though I swore I never saw him at Lord Hikushi’s abode, he knew everything about our assignment and had talked to some squatters on Hikushi’s property who were eye-witnesses to the theft!

Ah, yes, because it seems that Lord Hikushi had been robbed of a family heirloom--a painting of his grandfather, a human of some note in this town. We did some preliminary investigation in the homestead, where the monk made a bit of a nuisance of himself by intensely interrogating a guard on duty that night, a poor human fellow named Russell. The halfling attaché proved herself the single most useful member by sequestering Russell under the guise of healing his injuries and convinced him to meet us on his off time at the Sloshing Boot.

The information savant halfling meanwhile had discovered the eyewitness who confirmed what Russell later told us: Lord Hikushi’s painting was taken by invisible, magical creatures.

As the wildly attractive priestly sort noted later, it seems that the fey may be involved.

This is, my dear sister, a turn of events with which I find myself somewhat uncomfortable. The blood of the feywild runs in our veins, after all. I fear that trouble may be stirred up that will make my stay in this town decidedly less… amenable. However, I am committed to this little distraction, if for no other reason than that I am curious what the fey might want with such a dull and decidedly human artifact. Surely, the painting must hold some other secret. The fey are strange and fickle peoples, but I can not imagine them so taken with a bit of human portraiture that they stole it simply for its market value. It is even possible that this is the very item that caused the invasion last season from the north.

Ah, speaking of, the six of us seem to have taken on this little assignment for the paltry fee of a hundred gold. And, oh, Ave… I wish you could have seen this so-called manor. I’m sure it was quite lavish for a merchant, but they had a singular butler and only one maid!

I do miss my valet dearly. My hair has been a fright. You would hardly recognize me.

It grows late, I should probably close for now. I would tell you to give mother my love, but I’m sure she’s still sulking about all of her political dealings that my… temper ruined.

Affectionately, your brother

Idyril