Last Month at Mystic Arts

Oh lord, it's been a month.

I thought maybe we can do some sort of newsletter here, is that interesting? I don't know. It's here and you can read it or not, it's up to you. Just a little something extra for our Novice patrons and above.

I want to tell you about four things:

• Going to Scotland.

• Having a traffic accident.

• Getting a prop nose.

• The Broadsheet.

Well, then. On with the show.

EDINBURGH

AB and I booked a couples retreat to Scotland to look at castles and churches. I've always loved going to the UK to see old things. Iceland doesn't have that many old medieval ruiny things, but the UK does!

Last time I went was 3 years and 130 kilos ago. I spent time looking at the Tower of London, Westminster, the York Minster, Cardiff Castle and my personal favorite Conwy Castle. I travelled with just a backpack by myself and took a boat-load of pictures. It was a great time.

This time, though, I went with AB and it was better. Not only was I lighter on my feet, carrying around a 130 fewer kilos, but I got to spend my time with her. She went everywhere with me and got really into the investigative archeology aspect of this sort of tourism. We debated crenelations and stuff. It was the best.

I just love looking at old things, they keep me inspired and excited. I also met Rich from Renegade Rolls and recorded a podcast episode with him that's available over on his own patreon. He showed me around his home town of Glasgow, and made me drink Iron Bru.

TRAFFIC ACCIDENT

Authorities say that this week was the largest volume of snow in Reykjavík in October since 1929. It was a pre-war record! Streets were shut, traffic slowed to a crawl, and I had to make my way to the shops to buy snacks.

AB told me to be very careful on the roads, and I figured if I do something dumb I'd never hear the end of it. So, I drove like a grandma. Slow acceleration, slow stops, carefully checking the mirrors. I mean, I'm always carefully checking the mirrors. But I was on 100% alert.

Well, it didn't save me from the teenager in the car behind me. She couldn't bring her car to a stop and rear-ended me. It shattered the tail light, knocked some pieces off the car, bent the fender and scratched the bumper.

Nobody got hurt. Or I at least came away with a slightly sore shoulder that's improving by the day. I think we're all good for now. But, I've got to take this to the shop sometime next week, I assume.

PROP NOSE

Last Halloween my co-worker came as Gandalf with a prop nose. I asked her where she got hers, because I told her I wanted one for my prop collection behind the DM screen.

Apparently her dad makes them!?! So, it's a year later and I've been to her dad's house a few times to get my prop nose fitted.

I think it's going to be a wizard's nose. Or a dwarf nose. I don't know. I'm so excited to play around with this at the table whenever I play someone who I think has a bigger nose than me.

THE BROADSHEET

Which brings me to why this month has been so intense, on top of everything else, we had to get the Broadsheet done! It was no easy task, because beyond just writing the whole thing, there was so much more!

• We had to invent a look for the Broadsheet.

• We had to publish old PDFs in that look, because we wanted the Broadsheet to reference them!

• We had to co-ordinate with our artists.

• We had to design the look of Blackguard.

• We had to write, playtest, revise, and format a time-based mystery adventure on a train.

• And then in the final stretch I realized that I kind of had to explain my entire campaign setting in as few words as possible.

It was a herculean task and I'm so happy we got it done! Of course, now there's issue 2, and we've got to start it all over again. Issue 2 will require some serious work on how to run the metropolis as easily as possible. And I've got some great ideas for it.

But I'm less worried for the next issue, because we have to invent less stuff. The look and format are more or less in place now. So, we've got to keep on trucking! I assume we'll be continuing to figure stuff out for a bit longer, but there's new things to learn now.

THE LESSON

This month has been a bit of a lesson in how my brain works. I love inventing new stuff. New formats. Learning. That's what keeps me excited. With the zine out now, I'm of course going to continue making it and playing around with it, just like I do with the videos and with my D&D games.

But now that I've done it once, I know I'm going to turn that insatiable part of my brain to the next big learning opportunity... whatever it may be.

THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT

Thanks for reading this little blurb, let me know if you like it, or if it's unnecessary, or whatever. It's just a thing I wrote to tell you all about what this months has been like.