I finally got myself to write a bio of my longtime character for JT’s campaign, Tanya. (heh… only 2 1/2 years overdue). It’s still draft-copy, and I need to double-check some dates and such for consistency with both the Forgotten Realms canon and LGM’s history of Tyrel, but here’s my bit of fine freeversing writing for the afternoon… can you tell it’s a slow afternoon at work?

**Biographical information on Tanya Cliffmore, high priestess of Kelemvor**

Tanya Cliffmore is one of the highest ranking clerics of Kelemvor who did not attain her ability under one of the previous gods of the dead. As of this writing, her clerical spell ability reaches high level spells such as resurrection, holy word, and greater scrying.

Lady Tanya (who prefers not to use her family name) is the head cleric of the Temple of Dignified Demise and the College of Mortuary Science, which resides on church grounds. She founded the temple in 1371 DR within the walls of Dormin Keep, a small but fast-growing community in the Western Heartlands residing on the trade route between the Dragon Coast and Waterdeep. Under her guidance are six acolytes who help with temple maintenance and research within the college. Lady Tanya and her brothers and sisters of the faith hope to create an extensive library, with the help of other temples of Kelemvor and the church of Oghma, for all clerics of the Kelemvorite church to study different burial customs from every corner of Faerûn, anatomy of the bodies of the sentient races and methods of post-mortem study that could aid in assisting the church of Ilmater to alleviate suffering during life, proper construction of graveyards and crypts, and extensive information on the types of undead and information on infamous individuals (lichs, vampires, etc). As Lady Tanya is oft to say with some amusement, her attempt to eliminate undead is only to help alleviate the “administrative paperwork” Lord Kelemvor must keep on such individuals. (This scribe can only imagine that she wonders if Lord Kelemvor’s throneroom resembles that of our temple offices, with no offense to Lord Kelemvor and his administrative organizational habits, of course.)

In addition to her temple duties, Tanya also travels with an adventuring group known as the “Innburners” and serves as their party cleric. Her companion in her travels is a grey pegasus, whom she rides with great skill. Her travels have ranged from the hot deserts of Calimshan to the bitter cold of The Ride and north to the realm of the Ice Witch. The travels of the Innburners can be found in the Scrolls of Burning Inns up on request from the temple archives.

Lady Tanya’s personal history is a rather unremarkable one until her early twenties. A daughter of a human male, Karl Cliffmore, and moon-elf female, Alastrianna Silverdale, she was born 31 Marpenoth, 1335 DR. Young Tanya lived in the town of Daggerford in the Western Heartlands with her parents for the majority of her childhood, although the family made frequent trips to the Dalelands to visit family and create trading deals to assist in the family business. Her father was a fighter for hire who hailed from the Dalelands. He often was away from home during Tanya’s youth, on hired battles against undead, drow, or the sieges laid by the Zhentarim and foul followers of Cyric. Her mother was descended from a minor lordship from an area that would later be known as Exham. A Ilmarian cleric by training, Lady Alastrianna worked as a merchant of various elven wares, using her proceeds to support the Ilmarian church’s attemps to assist the sick and poor with clothes, food, and housing. Her mother’s teachings of generosity and kindness to the poor and suffering made a lasting impression on Tanya. It appeared that Tanya was bound to follow in her mother’s footsteps, and from a young age, Tanya found an interest in herbology and healing.

In the spring of 1361, young Tanya and her family were spending the early trade months in the cities of Silverymoon and Luksan, due to the arrival of an early but severe winter. As her mother made contacts in the trade guilds of the city, her father was hired by the dwarves of Mithrill Hall to help protect the newly reclaimed dwarven city as its residents began to rebuild the mines and city supplies. During a surprise ambush by the drow of Mezobezzeran, her father was gravely wounded. Despite the efforts of the local clerics, her father died a “most painful death,” by Lady Tanya’s recollections. Her father’s death greatly affected her, changing her perspective of what would be her calling in life. Rather than assist those who were living within the church of Ilmater, she decided instead to focus on alleviate the suffering of the dying, and found her place within the newly formed church of Kelemvor.

By 1363, Tanya was training under the eye of Brother Laren in the city of Neverwinter. Brother Laren, a famed herbologist of the Sword Coast, took Tanya under his wing and trained him in the methods of the church of Kelemvor, adjusting his training as Lord Kelemvor adjusted his focus. In 1366, Brother Laren himself was ailing, and died under Tanya’s care. Tanya had not yet taken her formal oath of service to the Lord of the Dead since as a half-elf she had not yet reached an age of maturity. After a new cleric of Kelemvor arrived to tend to Neverwinter’s needs, she returned home to Daggerford to contemplate her final commitment to her path. Her mother died that winter of an illness that swept through Daggerford, and Tanya, according to her mother’s final wishes, donated the family home and all but the most meager possessions to the Ilmarian church as her mother’s legacy. With no ties to leave behind, she headed to the Dalelands to seek out her relatives. It was during these travels that she paired up with her cousin Tyrel, who had committed himself to the path of Kelemvor as a fighter against the undead who had plagued his family’s lands for many years.

In Nightal 1370, she pledged her commitment to Kelemvor. To develop her clerical abilities, the oath-witnessing cleric instructed her to travel the countryside, aiding those in need until she found an appropriate town for ongoing practice. Her cousin Tyrel remained at her side as both a traveling companion and protector. By Uktar 1371, the pair had found their way to the town of Exham in the Dragon Coast region, where they met up with a newly formed adventuring party that would become the Innburners.

~ Arul, scribe

Temple archives of Kelemvor, Glister

2 Mirtul, 1372 DR

Okay, I feel a bit more calm than yesterday. Still a bit upset, but I’m hoping that releasing some of the steam will help me be able to get a bit more perspective on things.

All of the stress and such this weekend has repaid me with utter confusion on Where-to-Go-From-Here on Kestra. It’s also given me a nasty big cold sore threatening to pop at any moment on my upper lip.

Let’s hear it for Stress-Induced Herpes. Yaah!

*sigh*

Still, between talking to JT, Tan, Erich and Ade, I seem to be the only one completely befuddled by my character. Maybe I’m over-reacting on this. Maybe it’s just a character that will come into her own late in the game, much as Tanya did. As JT pointed out to me over IM yesterday, Tanya was really just beginning to shine as we stopped Innburners stuff for Legacy. And yeah, I’m a bit worried about losing the momentum on her. She’s 12th or 13th level now… I forget, since I haven’t looked at her sheet. The weird thing is that Kestra’s not far behind her. Kestra’s 10th level now. By this time, I should have a grasp on the character.

Perhaps I’m just extremely frustrated since Naya, my character in LGM’s Sideport game, was an instant “This is Who She Is” type of character. Easy to flesh out. Kestra is:

1) a 14-year-old girl

2) Has lots of family background conflict

3) Went in a totally different direction than when I first envisioned her.

I am sick of playing clerics. With the exception of Naya, that’s all I’ve played in D&D. Granted, both clerics are completely different types. Tanya’s become very much the front-line battle priest, whereas Kestra’s background is a rogue. One way or another, I’ll probably play a figher of some sort next time around. I just want to cleave things and play “hack an orc” for a little while. Get involved in the action. Try learning how to plan strategy, that sort of thing.

The one thing though that helped me (after I calmed down last night) with all of this was Erich on the way home from the game on Saturday night. Even though I was biting my lip to keep from crying in frustration, he commented (not in these exact words) that he wasn’t going to blow this off as no-big-deal because gaming was so important to both of us. It sounds cheesy, but it really is. And I hated how I was blown off by LGM and various other gamers in the original Boston crew when I’d have problems for it being “just a game.” It is, but it isn’t.

It’s my escape for a few hours to get over the social anxiety and to involve myself with other people with relatively little fear of retribution. It’s a sort of self-induced therapy to get myself a bit more confident in social situations. I’m fine with folks one-on-one. I despise groups of three or more because I start feeling wiggy. Plus, I need to create. My mental blocks against fiction writing have been so frustrating since I left college, and this is the current outlet for that need. Creating characters, developing backgrounds… for some reason once I get the pen to paper, or my fingers on the screen, I get stumped on anything that is fictional. Maybe it’s fears about bad feedback that are blocking me, but for some reason, I can’t seem to get past it. So doing everything mentally with no real fear of continual badgering seems to help. I’ve managed to write out a few character backgrounds. It’s a start.

So yeah, gaming is important to me. It’s keeping my creativity from going the disaster way of The Beast.

I’m hanging in there. I’ll probably be much better by Saturday when we play again. And I’ll most likely hang in there with Kestra since bringing in a 2nd level fighter at this point would be hellish in and of itself.

In the meantime, I’d probably better go get some lunch and get some of this work done. I want to have a relatively clear desk by 5 when I start working on Journal 777 tonight with the nifty new quill and ink bottle set I bought at Pearl Art Supply.

–Mel.

ot sure if that’s the best way to describe it, but it’s the only one-word description I could come up with. The more extended version is that I feel like I’m being spun inside a milkshake blender. Maybe it’s stress, maybe it’s a random depression bout, maybe it’s because I don’t enjoy am sick of playing Kestra in our gaming group, and this weekend’s game was pure hell for me from beginning to end.

Maybe I’m off-timed with my period and I’m having some PMS.

I don’t know.

Needless to say, this week is again starting with me in a foul mood, and I really don’t like it. I’ve got a bad attitude about work. I have a bad attitude about life. I have a bad attitude about gaming. And I have some strong feelings of needing to pound things.

I think I seriously need a vacation.

I can’t even blame it on Mercury being retrograde since it hasn’t been since about mid-February. I’d like to, though. It’s like a perpetual retrograde.

I’m finding myself in one of those “I don’t want to do a fucking thing because I’m too goddamn tired” modes.

Grrrrrrrr…..

And where the fuck is my coffee?