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There was a very smart man born once. He wasn't very rich, and his parents weren't always there, but he found his way.

He grew up with the idea that helping people is the only thing that matters in the end. Money comes and goes, and no name last forever. The only thing that matters is making people happy while you're around.

He didn't have many friends while he was growing up, prefered to read books instead of go out and play, and always "that kid" people pick on to fit in because it was easy. He spent a lot of time alone, or watching others have fun. He smiled and pretended like he was too smart to care.

As he grew up he made friends. He met people who liked the same things he did and they spent a lot of time together.

One day he discovered something amazing that helped a lot of people. He never felt more proud in his life even if at home his parents didn't care. They wouldn't understand anyway.

Slowly over the years he drifted away from his family. Spending more and more time with his friends and job than anything else.

Then his friends stopped inviting him to things, and started saying they did not enjoy his company. He pretended like he understood, but he nearly fell to tears when he thought about it late at night. The only friends he ever had. The only friends he'd probably ever make, and they don't want to be his friend.

Then his mother fell down some stairs, and things got worse. She was old after all, he should understand after all.

He did not cry at the funeral. He stood there helping his brothers and sisters with their grief. Others First. That's what he was taught after all.

His father died soon after. He was much older and never managed to make it out of working poor his entire life. Really, the only thing he had in his life was his wife, and she was gone.

The smart man did not cry at his fathers funeral either. He chose to remember all the times he wasn't there and yelled at him.

His brothers and his sisters stopped visiting him. They stopped inviting him to birthdays and christmas parties. He almost never came anyway, always too busy with work so why send the invite anymore.

He cried at night. Nearly every night. He didn't have anyone to help him with everything he had lost. He would cry and cry and come morning would get up put on a smile and be the nicest person at work. Always trying to brighten others days. 

He was a very smart man once, and now just had a job that barely covered bills.

He stopped sleeping and night, and started wondering to himself if things will ever get better.

He went through his emails and saw one that said someone had added him as a friend on an account on a website he hadn't touched in at least a year. He logged in, accepted the request, and then fixed some things before logging off again.

It's just another site. Just another set of strangers who wont even notice. 

sometimes I stay up at night and watch the darkness around me. Is this how light dies?

sometimes I think about how pets have very short lives. Will I suffer?

sometimes I eat cereal without milk. What do they think when they look at me?

sometimes I talk to random strangers for no reason. Are they looking at my shoes? Oh god please tell me they aren't looking at my shoes.

sometimes I walk into a room with a smile on my face for no reason at all. Talk to me, speak to me, ask me why I'm smiling. Let me try to brighten your day.

sometimes I take ten words to say hello when everyone else just says hi. Are they laughing yet? Is this working? I hope they're happy.

sometimes, sometimes I wonder if everyone has a the doubts that I do....

 

 

OK SO

haven't updated this in awhile

I guess people move on

I do have a blog I do update if you guys friended me because of my terrible writing.

lookacross.blogspot.com/

How long has it been since I posted.

 

Probably ages, I'm probably just a friend filling the list of people friends list

Well, if any of you recall (probably don't) I started my own site! Yay! and thats doing its own thing and such. 

Anyway, quick question, anyone interested in looking at what I've been working on for awhile. Remember I was working on an RPG, well heres the fruits of a long time of work and learning how to use InDesign along with absolutely no artwork.

 

QUICK CAPS LOCK WARNING:

If you want to see a finished project, don't look at this

If you want to see a polished product, don't look at this

If you want to see a product with few if any spelling errors, don't look at this

If you want to see original artwork, don't look at this

If you want to see the whole RPG with all the rules and such written to the point where it can be played, don't look at this

If you want to see something well organized, don't look at this

 

Wait your still here? Really? Quick reread that whole thing I just said, before coming back, don't worry I'll wait....

.....back? and you still want to see? Really? Fine, link

 

Huh, thought this would have somehow gotten deleted by now.

hmm... *looks over blog post* god most of these suck, some of the pictures are all right but most of it is useless

*continues to look over blog post* hmm... some of this stuff might actually be useful

*copy*

*paste to notepad*

*logs off*

*logs into distractionblog.com*

*copy from notepad*

*paste into new blog post*

*publish*

there we go, and no ones the wiser. ha ha ha!

So I haven't posted anything in (i think) a few months or something.

 

Well heres the reason, two actually.

One, I just sorta forgot for awile (I have memory problems)

Two, www.sticksandbutter.com/

a recent project of mine, just started it, its a humor website featuring web comics, only two or so posted so far along with a few blog post, not many to humorous and I've started a story on the secondary blog post. Also working on posting a story based web comic in addition to the three already up. And working on a map for TF2 and working on building a game, and still working on that RPG don't think I gave up on that.

Well, usually end these things will a picture or something, but I've been busy running that website so, I'll end with this

Come Check out the website, I promise It will eventually be kinda good.

I am so full of energy right now, I mean I haven't slept for more than three days now but I am so full of energy, perhaps its the 5 hour energy I took a few minutes ago. Anyway now that I am full of energy I wanted to make up for the terribly short and boring blog post I wrote last. But before we get to that, lets give credit to someone who I think is really awesome

sleepdepjoel.deviantart.com/

he does great stuff, really great stuff. The three pieces I want to point out to you all are

I like them, I mean the math is off with a few things and I find a lot of things to find issue with in the powers (especially when it comes to range) but still the artwork is amazing.

 

Ok lets go on to something else, I will be posting up The Architects Tomb Soon. Just need to scan everything in, modify it a bit, perhaps change a few monster choices. Oh and I'm not making it a prime part of content on this blog, some explanation of rooms and such will be posted at the end of each blog post (except for the 1st one which will feature it) right above the picture I put at the end of my blog post. Ok lets move on to something else

 

My card game, which still unfortunately doesn't have a name. Specifically lets talk about the darkbloods, not mechanics wise (you want to know about them mechanically go to cardgame.wikispaces.com and go to their page) but story wise. Now I've already said what they are and if you've read the flavor text you would already know that they've been fighting a war against the Dominion for longer than recorded history so lets write something about a grunt, yes, a lowly soldier of the darkbloods. No, that would be too boring so lets talk about a specific grunt, the one who Caused the fall of Crytal Tower in Arcadia. I know i'm not a great writer, perhaps amateur at best, but this seems like the best use of my energy at the moment.

The sky was on fire this morning. The sky over Arcadia, great city of the Council, was on fire. It meant that they had found out I breached the city gates and was heading to the council chambers. Soon Councilor Emister would send word to the Dominion and from the sky would descend their angels. I picked up my things making sure to take the vile the dark blooded ones gave me, they told me it had within it a special plague that would wipe all life from this city. I rushed through the streets trying not to get noticed before I ducked into an alley.

I once live here, as a worshiper, before I joined the darkbloods. The city was built by the Dominion when they first came to us, they said that the city would stand for eternity, that this city would be personally watched over by the Council and serve as a beacon for the lost to find their way. They promised us safety and sanctuary when we needed it most. To my knowledge the city was only ever attacked once before by a few cultist who tried to set fire to the city, it worked for a few hours and many thought that the Dominion had left us but then they came, in thousands they came, and killed the attackers and revived the dead. They even stayed to help us rebuild.

Thats why they chose me a lowly initiate of shadows for this job, because I knew this city best. I'm a bit worried though, once they heard I was from Arcadia they stopped the ritual so my soul never got tied to anyone. The sky changed, the flames turned from red to blue, they were coming. The council chamber was in reach, I could see it in the distance. I ran, It's 500 feet from the nearest alley to the front gate of the chamber, as I ran i could hear people screaming and crying from behind me. Half way through my run I felt it, the sky pulsated, for a moment everything stopped, sound, actions, even I stopped running and looked up, The Dominion had arrived. I knew that I wouldn't make it to the council chambers now but I didn't want to let the Darkbloods down. I threw the vile at the nearest structure,  a crystal tower that had been put up as a decoration.

I awoke in the middle of an empty wasteland. The first thing I noticed was there was this unending silence I didn't and couldn't break by speaking. Then I looked up and saw no sky, only darkness. I found out later that they expected me not to get to the council chambers, that they always knew I would wined up throwing the vile at the crystal tower. Turns out that tower was what was keeping the Darkbloods from entering Arcadia. Once it cracked though they descended on the city and wiped it out in a matter of minutes.

 

Well End of blog now so heres a picture

A Faction in my card game. They are a faction made of demons, devils, cultist, plagues, zombies, and humans along with many other things. I had planed on only updating a few flavor text on the factions card but that has lead to stating out all their powers. I think im short 5 powers and i have about 1/2 the cards with flavor text now. I would appreciate someone looking at it if your bored (cardgame.wikispaces.com). I am really tired right now, and I feel like just playing some Team Fortress 2 before I pass out, I mean I'm writting this at 3:30 in the middle of the night, normally I like to write in the middle of the night because its quiet and the only time I have available to actually writes stuff on this blog but I didn't sleep last night (two nights ago now) so in an hour i'll have been up for 48 hours. I'm TIERED! Sorry I didn't give much stuff or write much of a blog post.

 

Too tired heres this

So I was looking through old blog post and I found that I had chosen a really inopportune time to say that I was going to start writing more frequently, but I'm here now and that has to count for something right? Anyway, since I haven't written anything for awhile I'm going to take the shotgun approach to this blog post which is to say write a bunch of little things about different things. Lets begin shall we

 

RPG: So after some mathematical test followed by some basic test with just a grid and then some actual playtesting I found that the lightning lasher (mid range melee or mid range continuous effect based with light damage casting or mid range burst high damage with some melee once in awhile casting) is effective, something I was very worried about since it's very varied. I also found that the story based talent in their tree is not appealing enough so I will attach a power to it (the story based talent being storms follow them wherever they go). The Bloodmage remains very popular among my friends, perhaps too popular. They don't want to play the necromancer or warlock much as they like the melee life draining mechanics too much. I'm having the reaction I wanted and their seeing what I wanted them to see of the 'evil' talent trees are strait lines that offer a bit more power at first but even out and the 'good' talent trees are slow to gain power but offer much more generalization and even out near the higher levels. The Archanist is finally completed, after about 9 versions I finally have a talent tree that is the generalist caster who want a taste of everything. The Assassin, like he's been doing for 15 versions now, continues to be very very annoying to balance and still make fun without over complicating, I may have to give up on that talent tree and just move some of his powers over to the damage specialization of the rogue talent tree.

 

War/Card Game: ( cardgame.wikispaces.com/ ) Still no name, don't worry I'll think of something. I've added flavor text to a decent amount of cards, mostly getting some more civilized done, gave one dominion card flavor text and have been adding flavor text to a few darkbloods. My friend who is suppose to do the artwork has decided that he will start with the darkbloods so I've been putting up some story for the cards. I fixed a lot of grammatical and context errors that were pointed out to me. If you haven't heard or noticed I added two pages to help people understand the rules and learn how to play, but I still get the feeling that it's not built well for this so I'm in the process of reorganizing the wiki so that it reads better. I've gotten a chance to playtest it and It appears to be fun, they played for about an hour and wanted to keep going but had to leave. They did help me with some rules I'm now considering adding to make the game more interesting but It has also been pointed out to me that I may have too many rules (and that was from what they saw on the wiki which is still missing vehicles, vehicle rules, a few hero units, and certain terrain rules). I did find this amazing website which EVERYONE SHOULD CHECK OUT www.thegamecrafter.com/ . 

 

Dungeons & Dragons: Yes I bet you weren't expecting this were you. Anyway I'm afraid that the completely unexpected has happened and my player actually looked at a link I gave them, the thing that makes it bad is the fact that it was a link to this blog so I can't post up section of the necropolis because if I do they will know things they are not suppose to know. In the actual game though things could not be going better for me. They player are in the lowest basement of the architects tomb (the lava fields below the building) they have just met The Ring Master (someone I so very very much want to detail and explain but they just met him, don't know what or who he is and are probably reading this) and are surrounded by his circus of blood in more ways then one (again love to explain but I just can't because spoilers are spoilers are spoilers). Heres the fun things about them being in the lowest basement is that they want to be on the third floor of the building and could have gone up no problem but they chose to activate something they knew was probably going to send them down. Oh and they finally changed the back stories of their characters, they are now not so cliché and they actually came up with some really cool and interesting stuff, except for the half orc fighter, he still has amnesia, so I'm going to mess with his characters background, nothing big but nothing I write here either (spoilers and all).

 

Ok that should have covered all my bases, i would post a pic but I don't think I got any good new stuff on me. So heres some filler, enjoy:

www.cardgame.wikispaces.com

I have added a how to play page with a test map and updated a lot sections of the rules.

"This blog post has been modified and updated see below" -With Care, The Sign Painter

 

Tomorrow will be the first time I DM without books, I'm doing it completely with my laptop (pdfs, compendium, adventure tools). I would normally have my books but I gave them to a friend of mine as a parting gift because he couldn't afford his own set.

I'm a little worried, I've never been without my books and I'll need them quite a bit as the area they are about to enter is not only a huge battle area but also a very important plot location. I, luckily wont need them at first as its all custom monsters but after that is a room where they will more than likely fight on a beam over a lava pit and quite a few monsters with interesting powers and a few auras.

But anyway on to something more interesting. Art will added to the cardgame.wikispaces.com website very very soon. I've updated the home page to have a quote for each faction along with some explanation text.

I will be updating this blog post with 2 things; 1) how the session is going (i mean I'm going to have the internet and laptop open anyway) and 2) how a playtest of the card game (cardgame.wikispaces.com) went now that the rules have been changed dramatically. This is all for now but expect this to be updated tomorrow (saturday) its still Friday here for another 30 min otherwise I would have said later today. Well I guess thats all, I would add a pic but i'm writting this post from a friends comp and I don't have any of my pictures with me. Oh and quick update i'll be adding pictures and maps of the architects tomb with explanation in the coming blog post because I feel that, this being a blog on the WotC website, there should be more D&D related stuff on it.

 

The game went great! I was able to quickly launch the monster builder, edit names, change sizes and access them when i needed through the holding pen. When it came time to give the players their first relic/artifact (i can't remember the proper dnd term at the moment) i was able to quickly access the stats through the compendium. Quick issue though was that the compendium doesn't give you the flavor text for artifacts (the charts too). It really bothered me and slowed down play as I scoured the internet for the description and charts for the rod of seven parts.

The card game test unfortunately did not occur, schedule's clashed and things change, it wasn't that bad but I still don't have much playtest time on this card game and that worries me, the less playtest time the less likely I am of finding where the holes in the rules lie.

 

well I guess thats in, join me next time when I put up actual D&D content (i know I wasn't expecting that either).