My sorcerer Alysangela has made it to 8th level. I’m quite proud. It’s nice getting into a higher level and having more powerrrr. Low levels are the poo. I think if my boyfriend starts up another campaign someday, I might request we start out at 4th level or something so it doesn’t take months to get interesting and fun.

When she hit 7th level, I gave her a makeover. She had been through a lot of emotional shit, and I wanted her to physically show her character growth. She’s less the naive, trusting, uptight type of personality she started with. Part of her makeover was she also made some new friends who helped her relax and find herself again after her very emotional upheaval. (I would say more, but that would involve spoilers from the adventure path.)

Character growth is awesome. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the draw of starting a character a certain way and then never having them change. I mean, if you think about it, adventurers deal with some really heavy shit. Freakish beasts, dark magics, other planes of existence. That’s bound to mess someone up.

I started rolling up a character with the Slayer class from the upcoming Advanced Class Guide. I think she’ll be a lot of fun, if I ever get to play her. I named her Kaija (like Kaya, but Finnish spelling). I’m pondering having her based a bit off Buffy or Kendra: prophesied to kill demons and the undead, feels it is her life’s duty to do so. Both the burden and the pride. (I also had too much fun on Doll Divine putting together character concepts. Instant free customized character art!)

I say “if I ever get to play her” because I’ve previously rolled up a halfling rogue and a human monk as backups if I lose any of my current characters, but I’ve kind of set them aside in favor of Kaija now, lol. Hero Lab makes it way too easy to roll up new characters!

I bought the 2nd edition book the day it came out, but only just started reading it maybe two days ago. I’ve just felt… uninspired with the new edition. My boyfriend and I played the beta a few times in the early summer, but I couldn’t wrap my brain around the ever-changing stuff at the time. So we kind if abandoned it, thinking we would pick up again when the 2nd edition was final.

I don’t know. I still feel kind of disinterested at this point. Which is silly because I haven’t even played it yet. I’m hoping by reading the book I’ll get into it again.

I have the arsenal boxes for Neverborn and Outcasts, as well as the Lilith crew box (still in its box because my boyfriend the assembler took one look at it and declared we would have the commissioned painting company assemble it for us, when we get around to doing it).

I may need to just bite the bullet and being my minis (1st edition Lilith and Viks) and cards down to the game store and play it. Hop into it even though I’m still unsure of things.

I’d hate to have put all that money into the game just to abandon it, you know? And I loved it SO MUCH, I can’t just give up. Sigh.

I’ve created 2 new characters recently: Roona, a human witch, and Mercy, a human alchemist-barbarian.

Roona will have the Prehensile Hair hex, and as such she has long curly orange-red hair. Think Merida. She was cursed by her aunt, another witch, when she was younger, so now she has a really beautiful face, but a gaunt and emaciated body. She’s very week but ridiculously intelligent. She is seeking that aunt in her adventures to get the curse lifted and perhaps exact a little revenge. I’m playing her in Pathfinder Society.

Mercy is my latest creation. Heavily influenced by Tank Girl. (I was reading a Tank Girl comic and pondering what Pathfinder class(es) she might fall into and decided probably Barbarian and Alchemist. Gunslinger would be likely too, but I know a lot of GMs are anti-firearm, so I decided she’d be more into bombs than guns. So I came up with Mercy.) Bastard-born to a prostitute who all but abandoned her to an alchemist when she was 5, had her first kill by 8, and has been gallivanting across much of Cheliax and Andoran seeking adventure and hijinks. I would describe her as anarchic and hedonistic. Much like Tank Girl. Mercy will be replacing Angeleia in the campaign she was in.

This weekend I will be playing Mercy in a game on Saturday and Alysangela in a game on Sunday. It sounds like our friend got his hands on the Pathfinder Card Game, so we might get a taste of that as well!

I’m doing a lot of RPG and Pathfinder related ramblings and stuff on Tumblr at Adventure Ang, so if you’re into that sort of thing I’d recommend following me there.

A large part of my iffyness could be my general confusion and newbness with the game. I was just starting to pick up how to play my Viks and then it all changed. It’s frustrating. I don’t know that I’ll play much of Malifaux 2E over the summer as they iron out the rules and everything. The twice that I have played, I just started understanding some stuff by my second game, and then a new batch of playtest files came out. Grr!

I do hope others are continuing to play and are on board with helping make the new game better. Just because playtesting maybe is not for me doesn’t mean I think it’s wrong how they’re going about it or anything. I’m hoping to get in a couple more games before the official 2E comes out in August/September. I just won’t be playing as much as I would have liked.

I played my new Viktorias that I had received for Xmas but never played yet. Over the past few months I’ve been collecting members for a Viks crew, so for a 30ss game, I played them with Friekorps Librarian, Student of Conflict, Taelor Hammerstrike, and 1 Ronin. I originally also had Vanessa in the group but that put me at exactly 30ss and I realized the Viks have 0 in their cache, so I gave up Vanessa for 7ss. (I was torn between giving up her or a Ronin, but I thought having 7ss would be better than only 5ss which was genius because I ended up NEEDING exactly 7.)

My opponent was playing Perdita and family plus Sue. My objectives were Claim Jump, Exterminate, and First Blood. Perdita took out a Vik first so First Blood was out. After a few rounds I had only taken out Francisco with Taelor so I didn’t feel confident Exterminate was going to happen for me either.

My opponent had Destroy Evidence and thankfully one of his tokens was about 6 inches from my Claim Jump token, so I decided to high-tail it over there and park Taelor at the opponent’s last token near it. Niño was sharpshooting above my token so I tried to shoot him with the Ronin and my remaining Vik (glad it was the one with the gun) and trying to keep out of line of sight for Perdita and the others on the ground. Didn’t get Niño but he managed to kill himself by jumping down 7 inches in an attempt to shoot my remaining Vik at the very end.

It was looking like a close game. Perdita was trying to kill 3 of my folks using Exterminate as a scheme (got 1 with it, my Student) and both Viks for Assassinate. My soul stones saved my remaining Vik’s butt a few times. The Librarian revived my Ronin to full after the Ronin had only 1 hit point remaining. Perdita tried going for the last token for Destroy Evidence in the final round, but ‘wasted’ her action to pick up the token by gunning for Vik instead. Even though the game was won (Perdita had 2 of 3 tokens, no schemes complete), I had Miss Taelor swing at Perdita for fun Didn’t kill her, but damn, Taelor is awesome.

I had 3 figures near my Claim Jump and Perdita had none near it, so I got the 4 points for that. I think getting 2 out of 3 Destoy Evidence markers got my opponent 2 points.

It was a close game! I really like playing Viks. Next time I may try Vanessa, or just play with the same crew I had this time to really get used to them.

I think part of my problem with being not-very-good at Malifaux is that I keep changing up masters and minions and never quite get the hang of any of them. I may stick with a crew and really master them before changing it up again.

I had also suggested that my boyfriend and I just duel our models so I can get a better understanding of how combat works and what all the models are capable of. Some things like positive/negative flips, and undefined things like Fast, Hard to Kill, etc I can’t seem to “get” so maybe if we focus on those, I can understand them better.

Glad to be back in the game! I’ve been re-reading all the books and I’m excited for Second Edition!

Still playing two campaigns of Pathfinder fairly on the regular (both games last weekend and both again coming up next weekend). Angeleia the cleric and Alysangela the sorcerer. Alys is now the highest level character I’ve ever had, she’ll be level 5 after our next game! (Assuming she lives through it.)

Just downloaded Mass Effect 1 and 2 this week, so I’m looking forward to getting into that soon too. Never played them before.

Especially considering I had all those models recently professionally painted all amazingly. And I now have some Viktorias and a few minions for them, so that’s a new master for me to… master.

It’s a bit disheartening, though, when you lose all the time. That’s par for the course of playing a game, I understand, but it makes a person wonder if they’re just bad at it. But I should just enjoy the overall experience, whether winning or losing. I’m still new to all this!

It really doesn’t help that Community airs the same night as my local game store has Malifaux night. Darn it!

My game of choice lately has been Pathfinder. I’m presently in two compaigns, and yes, I often confuse my characters since they’re both magically-flavored. (A cleric and sorcerer.) Fun times though. Good thing the boyfriend is there and more experienced with the game and can remind me that the cleric gets to change her spells every day but the sorcerer does not. Boo, I say to that!

I’ve also been playing a lot of Fable III. What can I say, I love it. I think I’ve played completely through at least 3 times now. Even through the Traitor’s Keep quest stuff. And The Pen is Mightier (which is usually the last thing I fully finish.) I tried to play one of the games evil, but I got too into it and just couldn’t do all the evil things. She did the selfish things like making a brothel instead of an orphanage and keeping the residents of Understone working instead of setting them free. (Cha-ching!) Maybe someday I’ll be able to detach enough to just be evil.

You know what I haven’t played in months, which is really strange for me? LOTRO. For shame, Ang! I may have to start again.

My damn job is really cutting into all my gaming time.

Ravenscar Keep is secure once again. The scientist Faraday was re-captured on Clockwork Island, and Witchcraft Mary was defeated and taken back from Godwin Estate. Both were returned to the prison. The third escapee, General Turner, turned out to not be an escapee at all: he’d been dead for months. Commander Milton had been behind everything all along! I managed to defeat him though, and the people of Albion are safe once again.

During all of this, my life was filled with its usual heartbreak, joys, and romance as well. My relationship with Hugh the Nobleman had become quite rocky. I had hoped having a baby of our own would help fix our problems, but even after the birth of our dear Jen, it became more clear to me that Hugh is not who I thought he was. He was very demanding on my son Ben, whom he’d adopted from my deceased husband Clifford the Nobleman, and had vowed to raise as if his own. That turned out to be a lie. In the beginning, he was kind and loving toward Ben, but as time went on, Ben was spending more time with the castle nanny Lisa instead of Hugh. I had wanted a real, active father for my son who’d lost his own so early. Hugh’s demanding and snobby nature continued to get worse even after the birth of Jen, and so I decided I needed to divorce him, in order to keep myself and my children happy and prospering.

In mourning my missing and presumed dead husband Alex the Bard in Bowerstone Market, I came to know his sister Sarah the Villager quite well as we handled his final affairs. She reminds me of all the best of Alex, with a greater generous spirit and lively nature. She is quite an amazing woman. We lamented on Alex and I not having any children and she said she’d love to have a whole brood someday. She managed to capture my heart, and we married in a small ceremony under the bridge in the Market, to try to avoid some of the scandal of my marrying the sister of my missing husband. We then adopted 2 children from the orphanage, a son named Sam and a daughter named Ruth. We make such a happy family now, as Sarah and I honor Alex’s memory with a large family filled with love.

My children in Brightwall are still flourishing. Michelle is going to be a wonderful queen someday, as my first heir. And her brother Jay is turning out to be quite smart and bookish; I shouldn’t be surprised if he has a major role in the castle someday. Jaz the Blacksmith is always happy to see me, and being with him brings back all the sweet memories of my early days in Brightwall with my first amazing family. One of the main reasons I enjoy visiting Brightwall is to go back to my simpler life before I became the queen.

I visit my son Andrew in Aurora as often as I can. The Auroran culture still feels so foreign and strange to me, I fear I’m not as involved in my son’s life there as I’d like to be. Also, I am not feeling the same love for his father Eron the Priest as I once did. Perhaps it is all the time we’ve had to spend apart, but I do not feel the same flutter in my stomach when I see him as I used to. I will need to think hard about our future together. Even if we divorce, I still want Andrew to be raised in Aurora. I fear the culture shock if he moved anywhere else in Albion would be too much for him.

Seeing how Ben was growing up in the castle made me want to take Jen out of there and have her grow up in a more normal household. Ben is not a bad child at all, but he certainly knows he is The Prince Of Albion. I decided to have Jen live with my wife Debbie the Barmaid in Bowerstone Industrial, alongside our adopted daughter Louisa. Debbie was overjoyed to take in my biological daughter. So overjoyed, in fact, that we became inspired to adopt another child to raise together. In selecting Sam and Ruth, I had met a lovely orphan named Alice who I had wanted to adopt, and this seemed the perfect opportunity to have her join my family. We hired Tim the Nanny to help us raise our 3 daughters.

Not only did Ben still need a father figure, but Bowerstone Castle seemed so empty without a spouse. I again courted with a few nobles around the castle. I met Alvar the Nobleman, who was Clifford’s brother. I had considered marrying him, but he was even older than Clifford and I feared I may lose him as well. And since I had married Hugh even though I didn’t love him, mostly to have a father for Ben, I wanted to marry for love this time. In one of my travels to Millfields, I rescued an old friend named Patrick the Nobleman from some balverines. I had known Patrick from around the same time I had met Clifford. A romance was kindled and I found myself smitten. He’s so much more kind and generous than Hugh and even Clifford. I knew he was the one and fell in love. We had a lavish wedding at the castle and he moved right in. We also immediately set to having a child of our own, and had our honeymoon baby on the first try: Anne. The new princess will have all her heart desires in me, the Queen, as her mother, her father Patrick the Nobleman, and her older half-brother Ben, all right there in the castle.

The time had finally come to face the Crawler and the darkness. Thankfully, we had more than enough gold in the treasury to afford the army we needed to defeat the Crawler. My plan to buy and rent out all of the homes of Albion, as well as owning all the businesses, worked to secure all the gold we needed to keep ourselves safe. The people’s money went toward saving themselves. I stood beside Walter and Finn again, in the heart of battle. Page and Sabine were invaluable as well.

My heart breaks to say we lost Walter. I’d known him all my life; he had worked for my father. He went down fighting, and I’m sure that’s what matters most to him. He was able to see the end of the battle and there was hope in his eyes, even as he was fading. I had a large statue erected at the castle to honor him.

My heart breaks as well for my husband Alex the Bard. He has been missing since the battle in Bowerstone Market, and he is presumed among the dead. I still hold out some hope that he may return, but I also need to move on and concentrate on the well-being of my people.

Since Clifford the Nobleman passed away, I had been courted by a few nobleman around the castle. But I had found myself enraptured with our son Ben’s new nanny Emma. Knowing my life needed no more scandal to feed the rumor mills, I let Emma go instead of pursuing a relationship with her. I remarried in Bowerstone Castle, to Hugh the Nobleman. He had said he would raise my son Ben as his own, and so far he has been true to his word. We had the most lavish of wedding ceremonies right there on the castle steps. Ben is happy to have Hugh as a new father, and they get along quite well.

I do have some worries with Hugh though. He is quite demanding and posh, and I do not want those traits to rub off on Ben. If by chance his older sisters do not want the throne, he would someday be King of Albion, and I want him to treat all of our people with respect and kindness. I feel that my own accomplishments and influence may be enough to ensure he is a good king. But a mother worries.

Another worry about Hugh is the possibility of more children. During our courting, he had expressed an interest of more children than only Ben. But now that we are married, our attempts to try to conceive are few and far between, if Hugh attempts at all. He and I were both hoping for success the first time, but we had failed. I am hoping as Hugh settles into the castle more and learns to love Ben, that he will want to have children with me.

My other children are growing and prospering. Michelle and Jay (my children with Jaz the Blacksmith in Brightwall) are developing their own personalities and making many new friends all the time. Since the birth of Jay, we moved to another house in Brightwall, one that is bigger for our growing family.

My son Andrew (with Eron the Priest in Aurora) is quite the little prince himself. Since Aurora is so secluded and Andrew is the only of my blood that the people know, he is very special to them. Eron often hints that he would like to move into the castle. I just don’t think it would be a good idea though. I do not think he would really be happy away from Aurora and his culture, living among the snobby nobles around Bowerstone Castle.

My wife Debbie the Barmaid has been busier than ever working at the pub in Bowerstone Industrial since I had changed the alcohol policy and removed the drink limit. I must say, I regret that decision, as people are stumbling and vomiting drunk everywhere in Albion now. Though Debbie is happy that business is booming, she also has less time to spend with our adopted daughter Louisa. But we had been talking about adopting more children, and I feel like I’m in a better position now to do that. Perhaps we will hire a nanny to help us, if we do decided to adopt more.

Since defeating the Crawler and saving Albion, I had spent some more time exploring. One of the most shocking things I discovered was a place called Understone—a city built beneath Bowerstone Industrial! I had never even heard of such a place, but apparently they have been down there for generations. An entire city with families and everything. I set about right away to free them from the rule of a (deceased) man who convinced them all that the world above ground was full of mutants and chaos. They are now a prospering little city of their own, with quite the tourism trade.

I had also come across a group of displaced gypsies on the shore just outside of Millfields. They told me they wanted to settle among a group of islands just off shore, but they were overrun with hobbes. I set out and got rid of them all, and the people have been quite busy building bridges and settling their wagons into little villages on the two largest islands, and they called it Driftwood. It is quite the oasis! I may consider making a vacation home there.

An assassin came from an island prison called Ravenscar Keep and tried to kill me right there in the Throne Room! He was dealt with, but I fear there may be more trouble coming from that forgotten prison. Since quelling the riots, we also discovered Clockwork Island. A few very dangerous criminals had escaped from Ravenscar Keep, and one of them was found there. I learned my brother had tried to have an army of deadly machines made while he was king, from this old inventor. We captured him again, but there are others still at large.