I'm playing Dragonrealms again.
And I am so very hooked.

How could I ever have *left*? I can't even imagine it. It's still the best gaming experience I've ever had, even after all the bumps along the way. And the GMs have been consistently trying to make training easier and fun. Maybe a pain in the arse for those who trained hard with the old ways, but me? I don't care.

Talli is circle 36 and looks like she'll be doing a fast track to level 40. She needs a crapload of Scouting, Climbing and Swimming (in that order) to get there, and a smaller amount of Medium Edged. After that I think I'll cut down on the circle chasing and get my weapons and defenses trained some more.

As for those wondering about my Order involvement. I had previously wanted to keep Talliska uninvolved, but after meeting with Manze and several new members he picked up since I was gone, I decided I really *liked* these people. I have some hope for the future direction of the Order, and wanted to stay on at least a while longer to see where that will go.

Also Halcier is still a member, too! TOTALLY a plus. He's one of my oldest remaining friends in DR. :)

Whoa birthdays. Eni's was yesterday but I was out all day. And today's is Selina's and Lumi's. I'm sending birthday wishes all over the place.

Still feel rather sad I'm not sending gifts because I like being generous, but right now being generous may not be a good idea. Still no financial aid yet and Jon is just starting a new job at the end of this month.

On the other hand I DID spend *some* money as I had some left over... namely, to get Dark Spire. FINALLY. XD And Jon bought some music CDs which I will talk about later.

Dark Spire is just... totally awesome so far. Mmmmm challenging dungeon crawlers. The premise is very simple (go to the top of the tower, kill the bad sorcerer, get back the treasure--it's very Nethack-ish actually), and the gameplay seems deceptively simple as well. But this game totally does NOT handhold you through much at all. Even the tutorial had this attitude of "just DO IT already, stop asking questions!" which amused me to no end.

Since I wrote most of the Tower Revival stuff while COMPLETELY sleep deprived, I went and elaborated a bit about the project earlier today. I posted to LJ first -- now I'm pasting it here, so I have it saved in my database.

More info should be forthcoming in the next couple weeks. The new Tower forum itself won't actually appear until sometime in January. Along with the usual introduction, rules and setting threads, I'll have a subforum available to personally walk people through the character creation process.

I also want to read up on some non-core FFRPG rules. I'd like to potentially include subjobs, maybe even limit breaks. I also had an idea to allow PCs to start with some innate traits above and beyond what they get from chargen or job. (An example I had is allowing Ryshy to spend HP instead of MP to heal others, to simulate her 'empathicness'. Also, Kazuki's shapeshifting could count as an innate trait.) I think it'll end up being one passive trait and one active one, meaning you actually have to pay some extra cost to activate it.

"Historic" because I haven't canceled DR for YEARS, so it feels all epic. :P It's going to be gone after this month (probably around the 22nd). I won't reactivate again for 6 months to a year. So, that's that. No more having to angst over that game for a while.

It's funny because that game is where my most memorable characters came from. Ryshassa, Atmadja, Talliska and Mellauna in particular. One is my iconic empathic healer, the second her fiery and carefree sister, the third my wild-hearted ranger and survivalist, and the fourth my socialite/bureaucrat/bardess and secret agent. But they've all grown beyond their DR roots... most of them through Exalted, in fact, and then through that to something even greater (Anthegenian Cycle, for some of them).

I'm taking Talli with me to Final Fantasy 11, though. ^^ I just signed up for it! But I'm downloading a monstrous update. *watches it go by...... slowly*

Oh, and my sis IS visiting, from Dec 22 to Jan 2!!

Exalted 2e: The Lion-Bull War now has a forum up at RPoL.

However... as stated in the info for the game I don't think I will begin the game itself for a while. I just wanted to get the premise out there and give people a chance to check it out, think of concepts, maybe request to join if they wish. I feel like it's futile for me to keep pointing it out but RPoL actually *is* fun. Sometimes slow, since it's forum, and the experience depends on the players.. but it's fun.

Oh, and I also found out I was wrong about From the Abyss, there really *are* female sprites. I just had the volume down so I couldn't tell which ones were chicks, haha. (It's the last two sprite selections.) So now I have Atma running around in the Abyss chopping up monsters! Putting all her points into Attack and Agility so far. Later, I think I may make another who'll be a bow user/magicky type, too! (Maybe Jadira?)