Tag Archives for kishar

Gen Con 2024: t-minus 8 days

Gen Con 2024 is a little over a week away, and I feel like maybe I’m actually ready for the con! (Well, mostly ready, anyway.)

Costuming: a change of plans

It’s not entirely unheard of that I change my mind about costumes for Gen Con, but I don’t usually change my mind with a week to go until the convention. 😅 In my last post, I vaguely referenced recycling a costume for this year’s Gen Con – the plan there was to go as Ezri Dax instead of Jadzia, since I’m a lot closer in height and body shape to Ezri than I am to Jadzia. (Terry Farrell, who played Jadzia, is six feet tall – which I didn’t realize until I heard her mention it on an episode of The Delta Flyers recently. For comparison, I’m a little over five feet tall, so I was more of a mini-Jadzia when I cosplayed her in 2019, haha.)

However, drawing on all those Trill spots by hand is a labor-intensive process, and I don’t entirely have the spoons at the moment to wrangle creating temporary tattoo versions of Trill spots, so I decided to go with something easier: I’m going to dress as Ëlinyr, possibly for all four days! (She’s definitely got a big enough wardrobe to make that happen.)

Granted, Ëlinyr’s looking a little different than she was last time I talked about her much on the blog…

Photo of myself as Ëlinyr - I'm wearing elf ears, and a pair of tiny red horns are attached to my forehead. Red swirls are visible on my cheeks and forehead.

During the 2023 season of Kishar, due to some fey nonsense involving one of her partners, Ëlinyr ended up feytouched! Which involves some fun new makeup, horns, and a lot of body glitter, haha. If you’re at Gen Con and want to say hi, the easiest way to find me is to look for the elf ears, red horns, and red swirlies on my face. (I’ll likely be wearing a different red dress each day, too.)

Other convention prep: business cards and badges

I mentioned in my last post that I ordered some new business cards – they came in a few weeks ago, and I love how they turned out! Here’s Shallan from Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives series showcasing the old business card with the new one:

Close up of a desk mat featuring Shallan Davar from Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives series, with two business cards for The Crafty Nerd on top of the mouse mat. One uses the old branding colors of dark magenta and gold, and the second uses the newer branding colors of teal and gold.

Hopefully I’ll end up handing out lots of the new business cards this year – I want to get back into the swing of regularly posting in the blog, and who knows, maybe I’ll make some contacts at Gen Con this year that’ll result in some new content for the blog.

I also dug out something I originally bought to hand out at Gen Con 2020, but we all know how 2020 went – so these ended up languishing in a drawer in my desk for most of the past five years… until now:

Gold badge ribbons that say "The Crafty Nerd" on one line and " I found her!" for the second line. Both lines of text are done in metallic purple font. One badge is set aside and has a yellow label stuck over the second line of text that says "That's me!"

Badge ribbons! Almost everyone at Gen Con loves collecting badge ribbons, and right after Gen Con 2019, I made these so I could hand them out at Gen Con 2020 as part of a “here’s what I’m cosplaying as today, come find me!” thing I was going to do.

Well, it’s four years later than I’d planned, but I’m still excited to trade these babies with other people who are handing out badge ribbons at Gen Con (like the person in the Fans of Gen Con group who made ribbons featuring the pattern of the old Indiana Convention Center carpet) or hand them out to folks who ask nicely! If you’re going to Gen Con as well and want a ribbon of your own, keep an eye out for my “That’s me!” badge ribbon at the top of my ribbon collection.

My Gen Con schedule

I’m not signed up for quite as many things as I’ve done in past years, but that’s okay – I’d rather avoid overwhelming myself by packing my schedule with events. Here’s what I’ll be up to at Gen Con, for those curious:

Thursday, August 1st

  • 11:00 am: Bradley Beaulieu Book signing (if you haven’t read any of Bradley Beaulieu’s books, they’re great – I highly recommend the Song of the Shattered Sands series!)
  • 2:00 pm: Cross-Stitch: Make a Dice Tray

Friday, August 2nd

  • 1:00 pm: Cross-Stitch: Intermediate and Advanced Stitching

Saturday, August 3rd

  • 3:35 pm: Different Drummer Belly Dancers at the Costume Contest Pre-Show (I’m really excited about this – this is my friend Margaret’s belly dancing troupe, and my work friend Katie sang on a recording that DDBD will be dancing to in the costume contest pre-show!)
  • 5:00 pm: Mark Gunn: Sci Fi Irish Drinking Songs in a Kilt

Sunday, August 4th

  • 11:00 am: Star Trek: Into The Unknown Learn to Play

Aside from that, I plan on wandering around the convention center in costume, looking for awesome cosplays to take pictures of (with permission, of course!), and braving the Exhibit Hall to visit some of my favorite vendors and artists, and find new enamel pins to add to my collection. I’m also considering bringing the Sailor Moon quilt I bought in 2019, pieced in 2020, and quilted in 2022 to show off to Quiltoni at the Craft Hackers booth, since I bought the kit from her and am really proud of how it turned out!

I’m also going to try to do daily coverage of Gen Con like I’ve done in the past, in addition to the usual cosplay and haul posts – who knows, maybe I’ll camp out at the Starbucks at the JW Marriott with my laptop and write posts there like I did in 2013. I’m really excited about going back to Gen Con after so long – hopefully I’ll run into some of you there!

Back in action! (Sort of.)

…wait, what? What’s this? A post?

Yes, yes it is indeed a post! I am, in fact, still alive, and actually finally have the spoons to post something. I’m sure as heck not going to hit my “one post a month” goal I wrote about in my yearly celebration of the blog’s birthday (I still can’t believe that The Crafty Nerd has been around for a decade, holy crap), but I’ve at least got things to write about now that I’m actually regularly leaving the house again!

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What’s been going on in Crafty Nerd land

I said I was going to start posting more regularly, so here I am! (Even though it’s been almost a month since my last post. At least it hasn’t been half a year, right?)

I’m currently in the process of coming up with some more exciting topics for blog posts, which has been a slow process. In the meantime, I wanted to share a little bit of what’s been going on in my corner of the world.

Rediscovering cross-stitch

I recently got back into the hobby of cross-stitching. I’ve completed two projects since last November, and I’m currently working on a third. Apparently I have a thing for hobbit-themed cross-stitch projects, since two out of the three projects I’ve worked on so far have little hobbit-houses as the focus:

Long-time blog readers might remember the one I’m currently working on. Back in June 2019, I posted about starting that cross-stitch for Rana. After she passed, I dug it back out and started working on it again as a way to process some of my grief, and to give myself something to focus on. I’m going to give it to her mom when it’s done.

If you’re interested in the patterns, here are links to them:

Final Fantasy XIV: my first MMO in forever

I got back into MMOs again recently! I started playing Final Fantasy XIV back in… September, I think, and while I haven’t played in a few months, I’m going to pick it up again soon.

My Final Fantasy 14 character, Ëlinyr.

I fight using books! Because knowledge is power! 😀

Yeah, I’m playing Ëlinyr as an MMO character. Did you honestly expect anything different from me?

Ëlinyr is a summoner, which is the closest I could get to her Kishar class – in name, at least, since summoners are also referred to as evokers in FF14. The black mage class aligns more with her actual Kishar powers, but I like playing a summoner more – summoners get to use books as weapons! And if you’ve followed the blog for a while, or if you’ve played Kishar in the past few years, you know Ëlinyr loves her books. I play on Crystal/Zalera, in case anyone is curious, and I would be happy to play with other folks who play if anyone’s interested.

Preparing for season 10 of Kishar

Speaking of Ëlinyr: the new season of Kishar is coming up at the end of the month! Some big things happened at the end of last season for Ëlinyr – she lost one of her closest friends, Flint, during one of the final battles. Flint was previously the longest-running member of the Adventurer’s Guild, but with him gone, Ëlinyr is the next-longest-running Guild member, and may end up having to become the “responsible adult” for the Guild. Will she take on more of a leadership role in the Adventurer’s Guild? Is she just going to hide in the library forever and only come out when she needs to rain meteors down on the enemy to save the Guild? And will the event I’ve been referring to as the “elf wedding” actually finally happen this season? We’ll find out as the season progresses, and I’ll do my best to keep everyone updated on what’s going on in Ëlinyr’s corner of the world as it happens!

Virtual races and Running for Rana

One of the things I decided to do just after Rana passed away was to participate in the 2022 season of Whovian Running Club virtual races, since Rana loved Doctor Who and she used to run with her mom when she was younger. Not only have I done the first Whovian Running Club virtual race, the Roar Your Light 5k, but I also completed the Keep Your Feet 5k, a Lord of the Rings-themed Fandom Running Club race.

Two virtual race medals I earned recently - on the left is the one from the Keep Your Feet 5k, which looks like the door to a hobbit house, and the second is for the Roar Your Light 5k, which looks like Van Gogh's Starry Night painting with the TARDIS from Doctor Who flying through the sky.

I walked the Keep Your Feet 5k in January, and two days ago I did the Roar Your Light 5k as a combo of walking and jogging and managed to do a 5k in under an hour! I know it’s not exactly fast compared to a lot of runners, but I’m still kind of new at this, and hadn’t gone for a run in AGES. Managing to complete a 5k in under an hour was a big accomplishment for me. (You can keep track of my Fanthropy Running Club races in the sidebar on the right side each page on the blog.)

Aside from everything I’ve already written about: I’ve been rewatching the heck out of Avatar and Legend of Korra to distract my brain from being depressed, reading a lot of books, migrating back to working in the office more regularly, and I’m slowly beginning to feel more like a human being and less like a depressed blob. Which is a good thing, right?

Coming out of hibernation

It’s been a long time since I last posted, I know. I originally started writing a post about two months ago, focusing on how we’re a year into the pandemic now and how things were going. However, I never actually finished that post. It just sat here in my drafts, gathering dust for two months. I came back to it in May, a little bit before my birthday, and figured maybe I should finish writing it. Halfway through I realized maybe I should start fresh and write something new. And then I let that post sit for two months, and now here we are in July!

So, here I am, working on coming out of hibernation! I have a lot more energy than I did when I started the original draft of this post back in March. I’ve managed to pull together more executive function than I had in May, and am feeling a lot more positive about things in general. Things are finally looking up – which is big for me. Coming out of hibernation feels like a thing I can do now.

Why was I hibernating?

Well, I’m pretty sure if you’ve existed anywhere in the world since March 2020, you probably have a good idea of why I ended up hibernating for most of 2020 and some of 2021.

The pandemic and the resulting effects of lockdown on my mental health just made me want to hide. Additionally, I was going through some personal stuff last year that completely upended my life – which included splitting up with Rana, and moving in with friends. Ending a relationship, no matter how amicably it ends, is never easy. Dealing with that during a pandemic made things that much harder. Even work wasn’t as enjoyable as it was before the pandemic. The tasks and projects I usually enjoyed doing ended up being a struggle to complete. And, as I’m sure you all noticed, The Crafty Nerd just sat here, gathering dust. I couldn’t even pull together the energy to write. The blog turned 8 years old this year, and I didn’t even celebrate that. You know I’m in rough shape when I don’t celebrate the blog’s birthday.

So, I just… existed for a while. I didn’t feel like myself at all. Nothing came easily to me. I came out of hibernation briefly for Gen Con Online, but even that was hard to do. I had no energy or drive to do much of the things I could still do while staying at home. My days typically consisted of waking up, working, crocheting, watching some sci-fi TV shows, occasionally going for a run, and sleeping. There was also a fair amount of beating myself up about not doing more with my day. I felt like a failure some days, and struggled with life in general. Even with reminding myself of the fact that I was living through a pandemic, I still felt bad about all the things I just couldn’t get done.

There was light at the end of the tunnel, though. I got vaccinated in April, and slowly started to re-enter the world.

Rejoining the world

While the pandemic isn’t over yet, there are some signs of things getting better. Things are slowly returning to something resembling normal again. I’m working in the office regularly again. I can see my friends more regularly again. I’m still nervous about going to incredibly busy or crowded places. I still wear a mask when going shopping. However, I’m not nearly as anxious about being in public as I used to be, which is good

The biggest thing that helped me feel like things are normal again happened last month. It’s something I’d been looking forward to it for a year and a half, and I’m sure everyone can guess what it was.

All the players present at the first Kishar game of the 2021 season.

Cast photo for game 60!

After a year and a half of bi-weekly Zoom hangouts and random photoshoots in the woods, I finally got to play in an actual Kishar game. Not only was it the first game in a year and a half, it was also the largest game we’ve ever had, with 50 players! I got to see some good friends that I hadn’t seen in ages, which made me so darn happy. Plus, everyone was vaccinated, which helped me feel less anxious about being in a big group. We’ve got another game coming up this weekend, and I am so excited about it.

I think what this rambling post is trying to say is that I’m finally coming out of hibernation, and am going to try to post somewhat regularly again. The posts may not necessarily be the most amazing things I’ve written, and they may not be every week to start with. I missed writing, though, and I finally feel like I’m in a good enough place to start writing regularly again.

Plus, I have this ridiculous desk mat that I’d love to be able to look at without feeling guilty about not posting much over the past year or so. 😛

My desk at home, with my laptop and microphone set up to one side and my monitor displaying this post in the WordPress editor. My desk is covered by a custom The Crafty Nerd mouse mat.

I am still alive, I swear.

Yeah, my usual “post-Gen Con posting slump” that typically only lasts a month or so? This year, it apparently stretched into a four-month posting hiatus. That’s 2020 for you, I guess.

I thought it might not be a bad idea to at least post something to say I’m alive, and I’m hanging in there. I’ve got a couple of ideas for posts lurking in the back of my head. Who knows, maybe I’ll even actually get them posted sometime in the next month.

To give this post at least a little more substance, here’s what I’ve been up to during the past four months or so:

First off, I’ve been playing Blue Rose and Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition online via Roll20 pretty regularly. It’s been fun having the chance to play in multiple “tabletop” RPGs regularly – in the Blue Rose game, I play a Vata’an healer named Lin, and in the D&D game I play Reda the aasimar rogue. They’re both lots of fun to play. (I made the following avatars using this fantasy avatar creator – however, it uses Flash, so I’m not sure how much longer it’ll be around for.)

I’ve also been sitting around, moping about not getting to play in Kishar this year at all. At least I’ve been able to funnel that Kishar-focused energy into a couple of projects focusing on everyone’s favorite sun elf. One of those projects was my attempt at National Novel Writing Month this year – while I didn’t win, I did manage to write 40,000 words about Ëlinyr’s life outside of Kishar games. It was a lot of fun to work on, and I got the opportunity to flesh out some of Alair’s character too. I also found out Alair was originally just supposed to be a one-off character J was going to play in one game, but then Ëlinyr was all “oooh he’s pretty”, and therefore our favorite elf poet ended up sticking around.

Speaking of Ëlinyr and Alair, and Kishar-related projects…

I started drawing again, after a long time (and I mean a long time) of not doing any drawing at all. And apparently I’m somehow still good at it.

Photograph of two digitalframed sketches of Elinyr and Alair.

aaaagh I have artwork that I’ve made PRINTS of and had FRAMED

Yep, I actually drew multiple drawings that I’m actually really pleased with. So pleased with, in fact, that I ordered prints of them. And even had them framed. If you want to see full versions of these, you can view them on DeviantArt – the drawing on the left is Reading in the library, and the one on the right is The Poet and The Scholar. (If you dig through my old drawings on DeviantArt, don’t laugh too hard at my older artwork. I know some of it’s terrible.) I even did some in-progress snapshots of The Poet and The Scholar while I was working on it, so I might share those with a ramble about my drawing process in another post. I especially love how that one came together, and how it turned out when it was printed.

Well, that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to recently – aside from work, anyway. I would say “I promise I’ll write more”, but I know me. Maybe I’ll be able to get at least another post or two up before 2020 ends – I’ll try, at least.

The social distancing nerd: two months later

Oh, how optimistic I was two months ago when I wrote that post about what I’ve been doing, and how I was weathering the COVID-19 stay-at-home order. I thought, “surely I can write more blog posts. I’m home all the time and have no excuses!”

I was wrong.

Peridot from the show Steven Universe, flumped over the side of a bathtub in a depressed funk.

This picture does a darn good job of summing up how I’ve felt lately.

I underestimated just how much energy I spent on dealing with what’s going on in the world, though. How hard it would be to switch gears from work-mode to relax-mode at 4 pm each day. Since I’m working from home for the foreseeable future, I have one space for both work and recreational computer time — which makes everything I do at the computer here feel like work even if it’s not. Whether it’s video games or blog posts or coloring in drawings, if it’s in front of my computer, it feels like work.

I’ve also been struggling with a lot of life issues at the moment. I don’t quite want to talk about them right now but suffice it to say; things are rough in my little corner of the world.

Plus, this is me. Even in a good year, I can never keep up posting regularly for long. I think 2019 was a record-setting year in that I posted almost weekly from the end of January to Gen Con in August. Long-time blog followers know I struggle with posting regularly. I ended up giving up on the Crafty Nerd Podcast because I recorded two episodes and then paid for an unused Libsyn subscription for six months. We know I have issues with following through on things, heh.

So, what have I been doing during the two months since my last post? To be honest, it doesn’t feel like I’ve done much — at least, not much that’s worth writing about.

I have been reading — a lot. I read through the entirety of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels. Well, re-read almost all of them is more accurate — I hadn’t read the last book until this most recent re-read of the series. I started watching True Blood back in March (since I never did finish it) and wanted to see just how wildly different the TV show was from the books in the later seasons of the show. I also tore through Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series, because I needed more easy-to-read urban fantasy in my life. Between those two series, I read 25 books over two months. (I’m a speedy reader, it’s kind of ridiculous.) Now I’m reading The Kingdom of Copper, which is book two of The Daevabad Trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty — and I’m enjoying it.

Another thing I’ve been doing is crocheting a lot. I finished the Trio blanket I started in May, and then immediately started two more projects. My startitis is flaring up again, it seems. I’m going to try to finish all the projects I’ve currently got going before I start something new, though. (I know, I know, easier said than done.)

A whiteboard with a list of all the craft projects I'm working on - some date all the way back to 2017.

Not entirely sure if this is a complete list, but there’s definitely a lot on there…

You might have noticed that I mentioned coloring in drawings earlier — that’s because I’ve actually picked up drawing as a hobby again. I used to draw a lot when I was in high school and college, but ended up drifting away from it years ago. With some encouragement from my friend Kasi, I figured I may as well start drawing again.

Photo of a sketchbook, open to a pencil sketch of Ëlinyr.

This one’s still a work in progress, and I love how it’s turned out so far.

So far everything I’ve drawn has been Kishar-related, since I really, really miss playing in Kishar. I’ll branch out to other stuff eventually, heh.

One exciting thing I’m working on is planning out what I’m doing at Gen Con Online this year! With everything being online, I can schedule events back-to-back and not have to worry about finding out I’ve scheduled myself to be in LucasOil Stadium immediately after something held in one of the connected hotels. I’ve got a whole post in the works about my Gen Con online plans, so stay tuned for that.

Photo of my Gen Con 2020 commemorative badge. A label with my name, the blog's name, and my Gen Con ID number printed on it has been applied to the back.

You know I just had to customize my Gen Con 2020 badge.

Even though I’m not officially attending as press for Gen Con Online, I was granted a press badge for Gen Con 2020 — and covering Gen Con is a blog tradition. (I need to see if the folks over at Five(ish) Fangirls are attending any of Gen Con Online — if not, I’m definitely going to miss doing the post-con report with Rachel like we’ve done the past few years.)

In addition to all this, the Blue Rose game Kasi’s running on Roll20 is still going, and I also got the chance to do some Kishar dress-up recently too! (although honestly, do I really need a reason to throw on Ëlinyr’s gear?)

Photo of J dressed as his Kishar non-player character Alair, and myself dressed as Ëlinyr

Ëlinyr and her elf-sweetie Alair. 🙂 And the cloak I spent so much time making that I love so very much.

… huh. Writing this blog post has helped perk up my mood. I went into WordPress this morning with the goal of at least writing something. This post started kind of cranky and self-deprecating, but after writing a bit I’m feeling better — despite the Grammarly tone detector indicating my tone is gloomy. (I will say, the sad-looking emoji hits me in the feels.)

Screenshot of the tone detector in Grammarly - the top listed tone is Gloomy, with a rather sad-looking emoji.

Don’t cry, little gloomy emoji! I’ll try to cheer up, I promise.

Maybe I should try to blog more often, even when I don’t quite feel up to it. It’s definitely helped my mood today, that’s for sure.

Anyhow, that’s what I’ve been doing the past two months. It might not be all that thrilling, but it got me to weite a post, and that’s something.

Introducing Santoki: My new Kishar character

That’s right, I’m creating a new character for Kishar! Her name is Santoki, and she’s a rabbit Hiwani. (One of my Kishar friends – I think it was Pumpkin – suggested her last name should be Caerbannog, haha.)

Wait, why are you making a new character?

There are a couple of reasons I’m working on making a new character. First off: because I think it’ll be fun! It’ll be nice to mix things up and have the choice between playing two different characters. Additionally, making a new character will allow me to try out some things I’ve never done before, like:

  • Working with costuming that’s a little more involved than “throw on some elf ears and a vaguely in-genre dress” — after all, I want to do a convincing job of being a rabbit, and that happens with more elaborate costuming!
  • Attempting to play a LARP character that’s not essentially just me in elf ears. Because let’s be honest, here — as much as I love Ëlinyr, she’s pretty much just me in elf ears. And sometimes that gets a little old.

Why the heck are you playing a rabbit?

Well, for one thing, I like rabbits. They’re cute, and some of them help with crafting — like angora rabbits, who produce fluff you can spin into yarn and knit or crochet with! Plus, rabbits can be fierce too. I mean, come on, look at the Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python’s Holy Grail – that’s one fierce rabbit.

Small plush Monty Python rabbit, next to a Pinkie Pie figurine.

A tiny Monty Python bunny, complete with lots of teeth. So fierce!

What’s Santoki going to be like?

While I haven’t figured out everything about Santoki yet, I’ve fleshed out a fair bit of her character already.

Costuming

Me dressed up in what I've got of my costume for Santoki, which includes her shirt, pants, and bunny ears.

An early test of Santoki’s costuming! (please ignore the mess, though)

Santoki’s costume is currently composed of the following:

  • Black rabbit ears on a headband, with the headband covered by a fabric bandana of sorts to cover up my actual ears
  • A black tail to match the ears, although I haven’t figured out how it’s attaching to my costume yet
  • Flowy pants and a midriff-showing shirt over a black bodysuit and black leggings —my plan is to try to get some faux fur and sew it to the front of the bodysuit, to help sell the illusion of me being a rabbit a little better (after all, rabbits do have fluffy tummies)
  • A little bit of pink cream face paint on the end of my nose to create the illusion of a bunny nose, and whiskers drawn on with eyeliner pen

I’m really excited about getting to experiment with costuming for Santoki!

Character class

Santoki’s going to be a Chirurgeon — essentially, a healer that can fight too. There are times when we’re pretty darn short on healers in Kishar, and I figure having a character that can heal as well as fight will be helpful. Her weapon will likely be a staff to start with since that’s about all my clumsy self can really handle well. Plus, it means I don’t have to learn an entirely new weapon for Santoki, as Ëlinyr uses a staff when she’s not slinging spell packets.

Personality: Santoki’s quiet. Not necessarily the “blend into the background” type of quiet, but more of the “hey, can you speak a little bit louder?” kind. At least, outside of battle anyway — when Santoki’s fighting, she’s a loud and noisy and fierce rabbit. I’ll be trying to stick with how rabbits are in real life, as they’re typically pretty quiet unless something makes them scream. And from what I’ve heard, rabbit screams are pretty loud and terrifying. (That’s based on what I’ve heard from others, anyway — I’ve never heard a rabbit scream, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to.)

Background

Santoki’s originally from the mountains near Shalazar (the Sapphire City), and she grew up with her parents and 40 brothers and sisters (there were more, but they got older and moved out on their own). She’s interested in folklore and mythology, but mainly as a hobby – “I’m not exactly the scholarly type”, she’d probably say.

She originally thought she was going to spend her life working on her parents’ sheep farm, turning wool into cloth and yarn, but eventually, she learned about the Adventurer’s Guild while visiting a bookstore/coffee shop in the Scholar’s District of Kishar, Lin’s Rest. (Yes, Lin is short for Ëlinyr – and yes, Ëlinyr owns a combination bookstore and coffee shop.) After talking to the owner about some Hiwani folklore Santoki was interested in, the Guild came up, and Santoki thought “hey, maybe that’d be better than working as a sheep farmer” — and she decided to join up with the guild.

What about Ëlinyr?

I’m not retiring Ëlinyr quite yet, though I did hit her progression cap (or level cap, essentially) at the last game of season 8. While I can still get new skills, I’m not getting them automatically anymore — instead, I can purchase them using kismet, the in-game currency that enables players to get extra skills and unique items in exchange for helping out with the game in some way.

I’ll be posting more about Santoki in the coming months, as the start of season 9 of Kishar gets closer — and possibly creating a site for her, as I did for Ëlinyr and her in-character writings. I’m really excited about getting to play as Santoki!

The Crafty Nerd Podcast: Episode 2

Okay, I swear, after this episode I’ll move to a saner posting schedule. I’m so ridiculously excited about this project of mine, though, and ended up cranking out another episode.

In this episode…

  • I ramble about how hard it is for me to do a podcast,  especially when I’m so used to working off scripts (so many filler words!).
  • I tell the story of my first ever LARP experience! (It’s the first nerdy thing that popped into my head.)
  • I also talk about how I ended up in Kishar, especially after that first LARP experience.

Give it a listen! I think it turned out better than the first episode. 😀

Mentioned in this episode:

Kishar LARP – http://www.kisharlarp.org

 

Ëlinyr’s new notebook

The first official Kishar game of the season is this weekend! I’m excited to get my elf ears on and slip back into the role of Ëlinyr, the sassy thin-blooded elf scholar. I’ve mentioned in the past that one of the things I do to help myself keep organized when LARPing is to take notes – and other players find my notes really helpful when we try to figure out if events in past games have anything to do with what we’re facing today. (There’s a reason Ëlinyr ended up becoming the official scribe of one of the player groups in Kishar!) However, the notebooks I’ve been using for Ëlinyr, especially the most recent one, don’t quite exactly fit into the setting, appearance-wise.

Ëlinyr’s old notebook, which doesn’t quite look like it belongs in a fantasy LARP.

So, I bought Ëlinyr a traveler’s notebook, which looks like it’ll fit in with her character much better than the Arc Notebook I got from Staples a while ago, and even though I haven’t taken it to a game yet, I’m in love with it.

Okay, this looks much more setting-appropriate!

I picked it up on Amazon earlier this week, and I’m excited to put it to good use.  I’ve already done some writing in it, brainstorming some ideas for a coffee shop/bookstore that Ëlinyr recently purchased.

Yep, Ëlinyr’s officially an entrepreneur, in addition to being a scholar.

The traveler’s journal came with three notebooks (one each of lined, blank, and grid pages), a pen clip, and some additional accessories. I’d say this is probably one of the best purchases I’ve made for Ëlinyr since I started playing in Kishar, and I’m excited to use her new journal this weekend!

Traveler’s Journal on Amazon (Amazon affiliate link)

Little things that make me happy

Work has been crazy lately, hence the lack of a post last week.  Until I’ve got some bandwidth to come up with a more interesting post, here’s a little bit of something to tide you over: some little things that have made me happy over the past few weeks.

First off: I found Star vs. the Forces of Evil socks at Hot Topic! Of course I had to buy them.

Yaaay for Star socks!

Also, it might be silly, but seeing Toothless in his costume for Kishar makes me giggle.  Since the sand dragon hat I made him looks more like a baseball cap, I dressed him up with a headband and tunic, much like humans playing NPCs and monsters might dress in Kishar.  I think he’s adorable.

Toothless is the cutest sand dragon.

And I can’t forget about Mia, the best little scooter in the world!  It’s riding season, and through the help of my friend Jake at work, I got some new vinyl decals made for her.  I doodled up the designs in Illustrator, and Jake turned them into decals!

I love how the decals turned out – Mia looks a lot more like I’m used to again.

I also got to nerd out about playing Magic with one of the interns at work recently, haha.  I need to play more, but my brain’s been consumed with work.  Poor Saheeli needs more attention!  (She’s the Planeswalker for the Commander deck I’ve got.)

I love raining down thopters on my opponents, haha.

Oh, the fact that Detective Pikachu comes out three days after my birthday (on May 10th – which is also a bunch of my friends’ birthdays too!) makes me pretty darn happy.  I can’t wait to see it!

I mean, come on, who doesn’t want to see Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu?

And finally, on May 11th, we’ve got the first official Kishar game of the season!

The “Fan Club” will be reunited, yay!

That’s a little bit of what’s keeping me going lately while work’s been crazy!  I’m hoping that tomorrow I’ll be able to put together a very brief “What I’ve Been Watching” post (long story short: a lot of Battlestar Galactica) for April, before April’s officially over!