Welcome Back to the Stage of History

Welcome back. Your absence has been noted and will be reflected as a loss of XP. I hope you will strongly reconsider the next time you need to miss game. I would hate for your resulting lack of XP to cause a TPK...

So yeah, I'm back to my blog after a several-week hiatus. During that time, my wife went back to work, we had our corporate inspection at my job, we moved, and we traded in our van for another car. Hopefully, you can see why my blog has been neglected for a while.

To catch everyone up on all the details, my wife returned to her job after over nine months of being a SAHM. The extra money will be good, and we worked out a great deal with her sister to watch Kennedy on days we both work. Looking ahead, though, I will have to get health insurance for the two of them, because we will make too much money for state insurance help. Yay America!

We moved a couple of weeks ago to a house nextdoor. More rooms, even though each one is slightly smaller. My wife is happy because the computer is finally our of the living room. Oh, and the rent is cheaper too.

And finally, we traded in our Chevy Venture van for a buick lesabre. Took 50 dollars to fill up, which is beter than the 80 it took to fill the van.

That should just about take care of the updates, next post should see a return to regular gaming/parenting blogs.

The Future Looks Bleak

There it is, the perfect van (with a reasonable price, anyway) for your new family.  The salesman has made you a great deal on the trade-in value of your wife's car.  All that remains is waiting to hear back from the bank to see whether or not you got the loan.  The time creeps along.  If you get the loan, your wife has a nice van which will be handy for your family.  It will also mean you get another bill every month.  You can make it work, but it will require a tighter budget, and reigning in your recent exorbitant spending.  Every day, make a Willpower roll to resist frivolous spending.  If you fail the Willpower roll, take a -2 penalty to wealth for the duration of the day.  If you fail the Willpower roll more than three times in any one month, you will lose the van and take a permanent -1 penalty to wealth and drive.


We bought a van on Tuesday, a 2005 Chevy Venture.  It's a nice van and all, but the weirdest thing happens when the side doors are closed; the doors play a jingle.  Just before the side door closes, a little tune plays.  I assume this is a sort of warning alarm to keep all hands inside the vehicle until all doors have come to a complete and full stop.  This may be a common feature on vans, but it was new and odd to me.

I've been working a bit more on the map for my d20 Modern campaign.  Here is the overall map of the former United States.

The blue and purple states are what remains of the United States of America.  The orange states, Alaska and Maine, have joined Canada.  The brown states, Arizona and New Mexico have joined Mexico.  The green states, California, Oregon, and Washington, have formed a new country, the Republic of California.  The red states, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, seceded and formed the Separatist States of America.  Hawai'i has left the union and renewed the former monarchy.  The purple states are still members of the union, but tend to be sympathetic to the goals and mindsets of the SSA.  These are the states that are considered an immediate secession threat.  This is the map of just the USA.

The little black box over Washington D.C. is indicative of the heightened security encompassing the capitol.  Civilian entry is practically impossible except by presidential or congressional invite.  Border security is tighter than ever, particularly at SSA borders.  

The campaign will be set in 2016, and I'm enjoying fleshing out this future dystopian America.  I also have a lot of big ideas for scenes and conflicts down the line, but am having trouble figuring out how to start the campaign off.  I would love to hear how any of you work on fleshing out the beginning of a campaign.