Oh Crumbs.

This is the fairy cabinet.  We found it at our old house and Agatha started leaving messages in it for the brownie of the house.  She put a note in it a ways back and I finally got around to being the fairy of the big building.  I suppose I could say some lovely things about having seen fairies or gnomes or whathaveyou leaving surprises in the cabinet - but really, it's my responsibility.   

My Responsibility to do the Magical Work of Aelfheim!  hah! 

The building's Brownie seems to like feathers and puzzles and left a bag of macaroni and cheese.  I think it'll probably be interested in a lot of cyphers and puzzles going forward. 


We had a good weekend - and in fact a kind of milestone was reached.  Sunday nights I run a game, the old DnD and usually it's a very...  Traditional style of game.  That is - there are misanthropes and socially awkward and computer obsessed types who come together and eat chips and guzzle sodapop and play makebelieve.  It's exactly what you think DnD is because you've been poisoned by dirty caricature of the hobby that prevails.  But in this instance you'd be right- you'd have called it.  My game brings all the nerds to the table.  

But then Agatha!  She was insisting that she wanted really, really bad to join the game.  Why?  I mean - of course it's awesome to play the game - in fact during Sunday's session we hit the third act of the adventure we were on and the Ape-Raised noble, the Valiant and Undeterred Warrior Priest, the Silent Gunman and the Foppish Dilettante joined their friend the hapless Knight in subduing the ghosts of some serial killers that were living in the basement of the abandoned prison.  If this all sounds to you like it might not be awesome-  it is because you are ruined inside.  You are made of cabbage and rotten wood.  So why she would want to join - I get, it's the best time.  But really - since the first month she was alive - I've been DMing something or other every sunday night.  Basically it's been in her life her whole life.  She was laying in my arms and getting bottle fed while I was carrying out TPK after TPK.  So why only now? 

It's easy, the answer.  Crumbs.


This is Crumbs. 


After the very amusing Puss In Boots Antonio needed to get some painting done and so out came the glue and the models and the paints and the zen catharsis of painting miniature after miniature.  He's really very good at that, and as a good householder he was happy to educate young A into the higher mysteries.  So she painted Crumbs. 

Now - like all Complete Households we have plenty of Rolemaster books available - so when it came down to it we were very able to generate useful statistics and qualities and traits for Crumbs. 

Crumbs the Horse - a very large horse - he's about 10' at the tip of his ears - weighs in at close to a ton and has a special +4 to all his attack and damage rolls owing to his great size.  Crumbs rolled really well on Table GM16.12.5 and so has a far above average Horse Intelligence (77) - which section GM16.12.4 indicates is comparable to a 40-50 Reasoning/Memory statistic - meaning that Crumbs has the intellect of the average person.  Additionally, Crumbs has two distinct traits-  he's a very competitive runner - gaining a special bonus to speed when other horses are running nearby - and he has a sense of humor and plays with his water and food to trick his rider playfully.  Always remember - there are charts in a book that allow you to invent an imaginary horse in vivid detail.  If you didn't know that you could do these things - you didn't know how vital life actually is. 

So A wanted to play with us because she really wanted to bring Crumbs to the table.  Now  - I can't disagree with the love.  We all have characters we're really behind and want to bring to the party.  We all do.  And as a DM - I'm kind of impervious to the questions of party balance*.  I mean - at 3rd level a bunch of human adventurers would be NO MATCH for Crumbs the Horse - None At All.  Crumbs the horse would have run the table and killed everything itself.  What I am against is letting my loved ones run a mary sue in my game.  Also we play till well after her bedtime.  Also Crumbs would not fit in the basement of the prison and would have been very unhappy.


*  When people become stat-monsters or want to always have the fanciest and highest levels I throw out my little thought experiment -

You can play a tenth level fighter with all statistics at 40 (on a 10-20 scale)
You can play a 5th level rogue with all statistics at 16
You can play a 1st level expert with all statistics at 12 but who has a potent magic item

The idea here is that most players want the first one - but I am trying to illustrate that statistics are meaningless, that a character is intention and personality and role - Because the first one is Superman, the second one is Batman and the third one is the Green Lantern - they're all pretty great characters - but if you just go off of stats - there's seemingly no contest.