Sn’jn Harvester, Chapter Three

Sn’jn screamed.

Sitting bolt upright, his hands clawing at the air, his breath exploded through his throat in a savage cry of despair, fear and sheer agony. His body burnt with the ravages of the poison, yet he lived. Rolling onto his side, he vomited, coughing up black bile, the sour remnants of drink and what little food he had consumed earlier that day.

Heaving he coughed more, spitting the bitter black putrescence from his gaping mouth. His hands scrabbled against the dusty dirt floor, and he tried to push himself to his feet. No sooner had he risen that he fell, a weakness in his body that he could not readily account for. But then it came back, the knife wound in his back, the poison of the child, the smashing of the assassins head into the ground.

Voting Day

This is a first.

Not the first time that I am voting, but the first time that I’m writing a blog about it, while standing in the queue, and what a queue.

A wise man once said that a person who votes in his country is a citizen, and a person who does not is a subject. Gareth Cliff quotes this quite often, and it’s very true.

If you have the right to vote and do not, what does that say about yourself and your attitude towards your country?

Often one finds that the individuals who chose not to vote are the ones that complain the loudest, claiming that their vote cannot make a difference.

When it comes to municipal elections, such as it is today, that is entirely untrue. In 1995, I chose not to vote in my municipality, that year the party that I vote for, and the party that I vote against had the same number of votes, a genuine tie.

Turns out, then, that such ties are determined by coin toss. The party I vote against won. I should have voted. Since then I have made every effort to vote.

It is perhaps the one civic duty that should be enforced by law. I believe strongly that every citizen of age should be required to vote.

But what of those that chose not to vote not because of apathy but choice? Rather that they spoil their ballot paper than not vote at all. In my opinion rather.

I believe that any and all South African’s should be allowed to vote. Regardless of where they are or how long they have been out of the country.

I believe that an individual vote can make a difference, and that law should require that all citizens of age must vote!

Follow me on twitter while I keep you updated. @jebb.x1

Sn’jn Harvester, Part Two

Silence echoed loudly within his head.

A single drop of dew fell through the darkness. It glistened with an unknown light, falling, eternally through the vast escape of the hereafter. Its endless fall came to a thunderous end as it clashed against the ragged skin of the bearded man’s face. Sn’jn blinked, and opened his eyes.

Sn’jn lay prostrate on threshed wheat, his arms akimbo and his clothes smelling clean but damp. For a moment Sn’jn though that perhaps he had been caught in a thunder storm. Perhaps he had slipped and struck his head, for he could not recall how he had ended up in this field, and he did remember the pain. More than that, he remembered and echo of pain, as if something had caused his body great harm, but for now could not recall exactly what had harmed him.

*Ahem*

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So the last few blog posts have been somewhat depressive and dark and dreary. Can one blame me? Probably. The truth of the matter is that I want something that I cannot have, and in efforts to ward myself from these things I have been having massive pity parties. However, as is in my nature, I am starting to recognise these issues and am in the slow process of correcting these things. Some people, however, are expectant of things being done their way, and not my way. Doing things other people’s ways is half the reason I am as I am. And that is ultimately what I seek to change.

Well… shit.

I haven’t posted for a long time, and it probably has to do with the way I’ve been feeling recently. You see, there’s this girl, and she’s amazingly awesome, but she isn’t interested. It bothers me immensely because, usually, I get the message and move on, but I’m struggling to do so, and it’s driving me insane, worse, it’s making me ambivalent towards most other things. I haven’t been this obsessed with someone, since, well, I don’t think ever. It’s frightening and aggravating. I’m 33 for the love of fuck, and I can’t move on. I’ve got a lot of anger building up inside of me, and it isn’t good. I spend my time wishing I wasn’t here, the only problem is, that I wish I wasn’t wherever I am, which is useless.

Dark Despair

I’m in a foul mood, so I thought I would write some to try and get it out. This is the result. Haven’t visited poetry for a long, long time, but I have to say that writing it out has helped my mood some. Not much, but some.

Dancing on the edge,
Deep Despair,
Hanging on the ledge,
Black Despair.

Look to forever,
Wanting Life,
Feeding the fever,
Nought but strife.

Dark morbid passage,
Bearing down,
Skeletal visage
Death’s black crown.

Night’s Clarion call,
Demanding,
Dark’s eternal fall,
Commanding.

Can I survive this?
Do I want?
Search my soul for bliss,
Never found.

Ham It up!

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This last Sunday we finally (finally!) got going with the campaign that I have been planning for an inordinate amount of time. A little bit of back story on the campaign is that it is a continuation of the epic campaign that I ran for 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons, and this new story line, which builds on the world mythology and geography, is based on the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. The game world has been updated in order to accomodate the feel of the 4th Edition, which means that a massive cataclysm has arrived, had a party and left. The world is now trying to recover.

So it was that for the first time in about a year or so, possibly even more, I got the opportunity to really run a game. And it brought with it some interesting aspects of running a game that I had not used for a while. Mainly it was hamming it up. Actually taking on the persona of the NPC‘s and going with it. Going strong too. Using gestures, dramatic pauses, intense glares and emphasis on words, proper inflection. It was a but load of fun. I think, however, the most fun came when I had to take two of the players, seperately, into one of the spare rooms and feed them information that they wouldn’t like, and that the other players wouldn’t know.

Here I discovered a something that I am usually reluctant to use but was amazingly effective: touch and the invasion of personal space. One of the players is playing a shifter, and as I stroked his arm and his face, invading his space, he shivered and squirmed and was decidedly uncomfortable, but kept it all in character. Obviously this will not work for everyone, but it was intense, and I do not think that the player will forget about it for a while. Success, I believe. The other player I did not touch, nor invade the personal space of, but it became more of impromptu theatre, we held wine glasses, and looked out the window, speaking urbanely about committing acts of treason and theft, and were well pleased with the deal and the plan (at least I was, the player knew he was getting shafted, and couldn’t do anything about it).

All in all, it was an amazing session on the roleplaying front, and the combats that occured thereafter seemed to be anti-climatic, although they were brutal and somewhat lethal. Two players almost died. Considering the amount of back story that I had written for those characters, I really didn’t want to kill them, but I also realized that the atmosphere and the realism of it required that they realize that everyone is expendable in someway. I look forward to our next session, it’s going to be good, really good!

Direction?

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The last few months have been chaos, and a fair amount of that still thrives for me currently. On the up side I am getting a little semblance of my life back in order. I have a website to deliver by Saturday. which is going to require the sacrifice of sleep. Further, I am starting a very long overdue campaign for 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons on Sunday, and need to start planning for my Shadowrun 4th Edition game that will pick up in about eight weeks.

There has been a lot of neglect in my life recently, and I am battling to gain momentum and motivation in my life. Things haven’t been easy. I’m still dealing with certain aspects of the divorce I went through earlier this year, and there are always going to be money problems (at least for another year or so), and then there’s the unbridled infatuation I have for someone I cannot have. Lot’s of suckery and douche baggery abounding throughout.

Regardless of all of this I feel that I am slowly starting to find my feet, and I’m glad that they’re there, right at the end of my legs, because I have simply been existing for the last few months, and that just doesn’t cut it. I’ve cut down on my commitments, and focussing only on a small batch of things, which is perhaps one of my greatest failings. I always say “yes I can” even when it would be far more wise to say “yes I can, but not this month”.

So enough of the empty promises and the unrealistic desires and goals. Time to focus on what I can do, and what I want to do. This means the roleplaying, the website, modulating a thesis for a friend, and then November… NaNoWriMo and Movemeber. Yes. It is time to grow fuzz on the face again. I’m looking forward to it.

In other news, I’ve stumbled across a Canadian Band called The Agonist. It isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it is the first time that I have found a death metal band that I like. Which is new. The Agonist is new, they’re young and have a female lead singer. Odd, I know. And did I mention she’s hot in an emo-goth centric way?

Jebb out.

Dark Sun: A Dungeons and Dragons Game Day

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On Saturday the 22nd of August, Cape Town hosted a Dungeons and Dragons Game Day for the release of the new Dark Sun 4th Edition campaign setting. The day was hosted by the University of Cape Town, in classroom 4H and was scheduled to get underway starting at 13h00. It was my first games day, and my first release of a new campaign setting. It also had my first stint at DM‘ing at a games day. As with most things, there were some good moments and some bad. Let’s start with the bad, shall we?

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