There are things that help me stay alive.

 

So I dreamt of having a boat...

No particular reason, mind. Just because boats are cool. And I wanted to get to the sea, pull it out of its bag, inflate it, and take a short trip with my girl. 

We even bought one. But, long story short - people elected the worst possible president and parliament, then pandemic happened and many things were immediately forbidden, then slow and painful war became fast and more painful when Russia began the full-scale invasion. Because when you have a government that chooses to ignore the warnings of allied intelligence, and defunds the army to build roads and bridges (excellent for invading tanks), the imperialistic neighbour who'd been occupying your territories for eight years might get some ideas.

So I never got to take my boat to the sea. 

And now that Russia had destroyed the hydroelectric dam at Nova Kakhovka, and flooded Kherson region, and civilians need to be evacuated before the flood kills them, - well, people need boats, even smallish inflatable ones like mine. 

And I made some calls, and now I'm waiting for the volunteers to come and take my boat away, because they need it and I offered to give it. No one's talking about money, obviously, they promise to give full report of their activities with pictures and all, but I don't want a report. 

I want my life back. I want a government that works to protect my country, not one that ruins it and poses as heroes because they didn't run away. 

I want the country that I was proud of until 2019. 

So if you have a couple dollars, helping the search-and-rescue organizations in Ukraine could do a lot of good. There are NGOs that help the refugees. There are volunteers who help those who are caught in the flood. 

And, of course, there are the Armed Forces of Ukraine who do their best to stop the invaders from killing everyone and ruining everything here. Ask Mark Hamill, he'll tell you what you can do to get our military some kickass drones. 

And if you see someone whose life was destroyed, and who wants their life back, help them.

I'm not talking about myself here, I'll manage. There are people in worse situations who need your help, I'm sure you know at least one. So do something. Do anything. Do it now.

Some quotes from today's D&D session...

On picking spells for the magic user...

"You need to roll a D1315 for it". 

 On choosing a strategy to escape the vampires' lair...

"I pull out the cork and let the holy water mix with my body. I am now a Holy Water Elemental". 

On deciding whether to risk stealing the big, heavy, noisy gong... 

"Look, as soon as we pick it up, we risk releasing the vampires. And we've got two minutes till the end of the session. How much is the gong worth, anyways? ... Two thousand gold pieces? Blarnabus, pick up the gong". 

On describing what we see behind the door...

"Jesus Christ. Roll for surprise". 

I don't know what else to say except I love the way we play and I wouldn't have it any other way.

James Raggi talking about this past week, doing the right thing against talking the right thing, and evil idiots.

 

LotFP's Big Sale

It's still going on, so if you want to get any PDF of Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventures, you can buy it for $1.25. I think it's on until Tuesday, so you still have a couple hours today. 

Get them before James Raggi runs out of PDFs, then play the hell out of them.