Easing Back In

Wow! What a busy summer it’s been. I knew heading into Autumn (which is, by the way, my favorite season…I only use the term ‘Autumn’ when I want to impress people, and since you all know I’m a fairly down to earth guy, I will happily call it ‘Fall’ now) that I would be busier than a one armed bar back at Oktoberfest. Fall is traditionally my ‘busy time’. I’ve still got trips to St. Louis, Las Vegas and Paradise Island (aka Hog Island…that’s in the Bahamas) slated in the next six weeks. Due to these trips, I had assumed that my big hiatus would happen in the Fall. It came a bit early. Suffice to say that my career centers around (prepare yourself for a NSFW word here) O-I-L, and I think that pretty well sums it up.

So. Here I am, trying to catch up on my blogroll. I see James is still cranking ‘em out over at Grognardia. Dude is a machine. I trust all is well in the old school blogosphere.

Me? I’m getting ready to set pencil to graph paper on my promised follow-up to SGotCM, the Lower Caves of TDB, aka Ware the Queene of Faerie Twisted. While I might be able to whip up an adventure the night before a gaming session, my personality type demands quite a bit of prep work and consideration before I’ll submit such a work for public scrutiny. Besides, much like many of my GM cohorts out there, my notes and work for the adventures I am going to personally run are 10% on paper, and 90% in my head. So the effort of making the whole shebang playable if I’m not personally present to Ref the mess is, quite literally, the Devil in the details.

During my unexpected absence I succumbed once more to the readily accessible pastime of computer gaming. Perhaps it was like a downtime to my much anticipated return to D&D. A denouement after months of toil in actually planning and arranging a gathering of my old gaming crew. My blog climaxed with that first gaming session in oh so many years. You can be sure that’s not the end of the story.

Recently I spoke to one of my cronies on the phone (the very mapper who happened to ‘leak’ a bit of…au jus shall we call it, on the player map). According to his recounting of the evening, it was the most fun he had had in ten years. EARTH TO SHAM! Set up another play session ASAP!

So, I’m looking at an October return to the Dim Expanse, aka Ulin-Uthor. Hopefully I’ll have a good response and will generate the feel of a true campaign in the very near future.

To all of you who still have Ye Auld Grog ’n Blog on your blogroll, huzzah! To all of you who are still dutifully blogging away in our circle of old school gangstas, youse guys are the best! If you’re reading this, thanks for making this effort, which started so innocently, worth coming back to for further inane ramblings and conjecture.

I’m not sure I’ll ever return to my daily blogging here, but I’d like to thank a few people who have certainly made me realize that I will never be far from D&D; Jeff Rients (who inspired me to start this very blog), James Maliszewski (who influenced me with his professionalism and gaming insight), Scott Driver (who still inspires me to reach greater heights of writing technique), the countless commentators in my past blog posts (who ridicule/disagree/support me), my old gaming crew (who, really, I wish to entertain more than anyone else), and last but not least, Calithena (who encourages me and actually seems to *gasp* like what I write).

Suffice to say that I am looking forward to seeing this blog reach out to more and more fans of D&D and perhaps share a bit of my enthusiasm for the hobby with players of all kinds. Once I have submitted my next adventure to Fight On!, I hope to make the initial steps toward making the Dim Expanse a self published series of adventures available to everyone.

Oh, and don’t forget to secure your copy of Fight On! #3 as soon as it is available. Word is that the Crabmen might make an early appearance!

~Sham