Tuesday, May 05, 2020

Music listening habits before and after lockdown

So discovered the ganzfeld effect during the lockdown, and this is how my music habits changed before and after the lockdown. The sudden dip is when the lockdown happened.

I also made equipment for the ganzfeld effect by repurposing some old swimming googles, and also do not like to do cham cham in the water any more


Sunday, May 03, 2020

D&D Journal - Adventures at Terra Vol 8

Adventures at Terra volumes 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

30/10/85/01 Tazius
We all wake up except Eric. We pack up and once everyone is ready to move, I use the opportunity to try and train Bubbles to wake people up. Bjorn acts out pouncing, but Bubbles only pounces on him. I ask Syl to explain it to him, which she does. Apparently Bubbles is happy with her name. On command, Bubbles goes and wakes up Eric, so we managed to train the diredoggo a bit.
Eric, Syl and Bjorn have some wine each. Then we start walking towards the point where we are supposed to meet Karthak's men, instead of following Eric to the bandit's camp. Suddenly the guy drops from the trees and says he can take us to the camp, but the way is peppered with traps. Bjorn, Syl and me walk through the traps, carefully disarming them. There are boulder traps and bow traps. We disarm them all, and I climb into the trees, with the help of Bjorn, we set up 34 traps in the trees, that can all be sprung with a single pull of a string. We aim these arrows across the camp. I stay up in the trees with a gagged Eric and Karthak's man, while the rest of the party goes ahead to investigate the camp. We have set up the whole thing in such a way that the arrows will fire around the camp, but leave a safe zone, where the party is supposed to stay.
Bjorn walks in and starts fighting. I release all the traps. The boulders take out all the houses, the arrows kill one, and injure another bandit. Another bandit manages to step aside, while a fourth escapes by some miracle. Eric starts running towards a fourth bandit. I loosen an arrow and kill the second bandit. Syl casts fairy fire. The chief bandit blows a whistle summoning four abyssal chicken, who promptly start attacking everyone. Galadriel and Syl go down quickly. Bjorn is still fighting, and Eric is running across the camp. I fire at a chicken and miss. Chief bandit blows his whistle again, this time summoning a pair of demonic clackers. Things are about to get bad.  
There are three abyssal chickens clearly visible with fairy fire. One of them is sleeping for some reason. Galadriel and Syl are still down. I shoot one of the chicken and kill them. Donger turns around and runs back towards the fight, and swings his axe on a chicken, and gets his sword stuck. The Dwarf whistles again, summoning a pair of Maw Demons. Bjorn swings his greataxe through one of the abyssal chicken, and gibs it. The other chicken gets saved because of cushioning from the gore from the first chicken, but still gets hit. One of the Maw Demons attacks Donger, and makes him bloodied. I shimmy down the tree. Donger then starts breathing fire for some reason, showing dragonborn powers that we do not know about. We gain three roasted chicken, but all the cacklers and Maw Demons are alive. I zephyr strike into the arena and grab the whistle from the Dwarf. There seems to be some instrument on his wrist. Bjorn says hi Lindir as I approach and bye Lindir as I go away with the whistle. Galadriel manages to become stable. Donger strikes at the cacklers and misses it, then takes a few more down. The scuffle continues. We kill 17 creatures. The Dwarf shouts something about Jak with a K as he gets killed by Bjorn. 
I go and console Eric. Eric talks about Mark the Dwarf, and how they were good friends and spent many nights looking at the stars. I check the shed and find that the goat is alive. I stabilise it. We clear the debris from the kitchen and recover some food. Bjorn checks out one of the rooms, finds a sword and some stationery. 

01/11/85/01 Tazius
We set out towards the next town, Multum and reach there after about a day's walk. As we approach, we see a begger asking for alms, and I give him a bunch of foraged strawberries. The beggar whispers to me that Bjorn, a member of our party is wanted in the town and there are posters of him stuck all over the place. We ask Bjorn to go around the city to the docks on the other side, and steal a boat. Syl, Galad and me head to a tavern, where we get a healthy supply of alcohol. We also pick up plenty of alcohol and some supplies for the river voyage. I make some pitch using oil and soot from the chimney. 
When we head to the docks we find the whole place in uproar. By overhearing snippets of conversations we come to understand that Bjorn has stolen the biggest boat around, the King's Barge and has gone away with it. Down the river we can see a quickly receding bright light. Sylph thinks on her feet and gets a guardsman to steal a boat to follow the Barge. We get on that boat, and catch up with Bjorn. We then take all the loot we can from the King's Boat, ask the guardsman to pilot it, and head on our way. We encounter some river creature on the way, but I'm not paying attention to it.