Happy Halloween one and all! I just wanted to share with you all something that I heard (for the first time) in church this Sunday - it absolutely floored me and (truth be told) brought the “threat of a tear” to my eye… In our church, on Sunday mornings, with have a “Children’s Service” wherein all of the young children in the church get to come to the front at the beginning of the service and hear something that is applicable to them - usually, it is something that fits in with the message that the pastor brings, but not always.

This week, the children’s message was about Halloween… I, as I always do, went up to the front pew to make sure my two little ones act as they should while they are up in front of the church and believe it or not, I actually *listen* to the message brought to the children. The fellow talking to the kids was sitting on the top step next to a pumpkin, and what follows is a paraphrase of what he told them (and me) about Halloween.

“Many people think that pumpkins and Halloween are all about evil and dark things - and while some of that is true, there is also a way to think about things from a Christian point of view: take, for instance, carving pumpkins. When we carve a pumpkin, the first thing we do is clean it up: we get all the muck, dirt, and grime off the outside, cut off the top and pull all of the “pumpkin-goo” out and throw it away. In the same way, this is what happens to us when we are saved - Christ cleanes us from our sins, reaches down into out heart and pulls out all of the horrible, sinful, hurtful things that we have done (Hebrews 10:22) and seperates us from them as far as the east is from the west (Psalms 103:12).

Next, when we carve a pumpkin, we usually carve some eyes and a large smile on its face. In the same way, Christ puts a smile on our faces once we are born again - he gives us a reason, deep down inside to be joyous! We are now secured an eternal life with him in Heaven - we have quite a lot to grin about - and grin we should! (1 Peter 1:8-9) Further, there is joy as well in Heaven when one comes to Christ! JOY ABOUNDS! (Luke 15:10)

Once we are done carving, we put a light on the inside of our pumpkin and show it to the world. We are very proud of what we have done and want as many people as possible to see our handy-work. By the same token, Christ puts his divine light inside of us once we are saved (John 8:12 ) and he, too, wants the entire world to see His light in us - we should be proud and should never hide that light from anyone. We should always strive to show others Christ’s light in us. (Matthew 5:14-16)

Now that this is done, something else happens - something unexpected and marvelous. This thing that we have made is no longer a pumpkin, but a jack-o-lantern! Someting altogether new and different than what it once was! In the same way, once we are saved, we become a new creature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) - we are to put on the “new man”, as Paul says in Ephesians 4:24, and re-train our thoughts, minds, and hearts daily to follow Christ.”

Have a blessed, safe, and happy Halloween, true believers!

I decided to do a couple of things on the blog today, first - continue the “Jekka theme” that I began yesterday by posting her character sheet, as well as introduce a new element of my campaign (and Story Hour segment) here on The Misfits. This new element is called “Jekka’s Journal” an is basically, an in-character Story Hour written by one of my players, Brannon Hall (who plays Jekka Brokentusk). Look for this to become a semi-regular aspect of the blog - Hall cranks one of these posts out fairly often and they are all gems!

Enjoy, true believers!

The newly crafted dark wood of the great door creaks with a slight distressing sigh, almost as if it were trying to say in some long forgotten door language, “Not Again!!” The wood gives way to the force behind it as it splinters inward into the great temple. The dust stirred up casts a curtain like effect by each window and crevice that has warm sunlight streaming in to it. Quela steps in shaking her head at the sheer brute force behind her companion. Jekka shrugs her massive shoulders and with a slight grin says “Knock, Knock!” Quela, not amused at the second destruction of the great door in the temple, simply asks if Jekka had even thought about trying the door knob. “Yup! Locked!” Jekka grinned as she tried the other door knob on the intact door. The door swung open as if the wind had greeted them. Quela closed her eyes and steadied herself, “Let’s just look for any portals” (more…)

For those of you “crunch” fans out there, I’m going to try and start putting up a bit more stats-related stuff from my Misfits game onto the blog. To start things off, I’ll be putting up (and hopefully keeping updated) the character sheets! So, without further ado, I present Jekka Brokentusk’s character sheet:

For those who are interested, I created this character sheet with Black Bart’s HeroForge and some groovy free PDF tools I found at: http://www.angusj.com/pdftkb/ - enjoy, true believers!

…this is actually used in the decision making process about what “blog-route” you are going to take:

WOW!

Maybe I’m just a lightweight when it comes to blogging (there’s really no maybe to it - I *AM* a blogger lightweight), but that seems like a whole lotta work for something as unnecessary as a blog… Don’t get me wrong, true believers, I’ve got no issues with blogs - in fact, I kinda like mine… The day I need a two page chart to figure out which blogware I want to use — please, somebody smack me!

Speaking of unnecessary, did you ever notice that the more stuff we “get”, the more stuff becomes crucial to our “survival”? Think about it - ten years ago, there were no blogs, no wireless cards, no cell phones — all of these things now seem to be high on the “gotta have” list. Strange. What is even more strange is to think what will be the “must haves” a decade from now.

“But MOM! All the kids at school are getting micro-SpeechGuard TL-4 Multilingual Speech-to-Speech Translators in their NanoPC’s! Oh yea, and my new Orawave needs a fresh load of e-paper. Oh, and my climbing light is burnt out again!”

Remember - you heard it here FIRST, true believers!

NOTE: found a cool site here if you’re interested in groovy items!

This just says it all, don’t it?

“That stuff is G-E-W-D gewd!” LOL!

Want to know more? Head here or here, even!

I don’t know about most GM’s, but I often feel the need for external sources of inspiration for my game. Any number of events or items can provide this inspiration; for me, those “lightening bolts of inspiration” can come in forms as wide-ranged and varied as follows:

• The Bible (lots of excellent game ideas in here, folks!)
• other books (including comics)
• movies
• music
• nature
• real life conversations & situations
• my family (especially my kids!)
• other games (which I touched on here)

This list just names a few, of course, it is not meant to be all inclusive. (If you have others, feel free to post them in the comments, below). However, possibly one of the most powerful and inspirational sources for me is art. Often times, a single picture can be so evocative and create such an impression upon me that entire histories, back-stories, or races can be spawned in the blink of an eye (literally)! I cannot number the times that a picture has led my campaign towards a particular, climatic scene or created a new foe for my players’ characters to face! In light of this, I’ve decided to begin a new weekly series here on The Misfits, entitled “GM Inspiration“. Each week, I will highlight another excellent source of inspiration (at least for me) and hopefully for you as well. (more…)

It kinda stinks, but work has been so incredibly crazy of late that I’ve had no time to blog at all! Hopefully something will give way soon - I’ve got lots of stuff simmerin’ on the back burner!

Just a quick note - I’ve added and edited a bit on Session 13, part 1 - I did not have time to finish what I set out to do yesterday. Let me know if you like and look for more soon!

Just a note for all of those who are going (or hoping to go) on the Savage Gulf trip this fall - the details page has been updated! Of course, I’m not going to link to it here since the page is secret and all… Also, I’ve added some new links and some more logistical info, FYI… Lastly, a note to those who are going - be sure and pack your cameras - I have a feeling we’re going to get some fantastic pic opportunities!