[Information] About Aethera

[Aethera]

There doesn't seem to be a convenient way to introduce oneself on this site (barring the New Member introductions) without creating a post in a game. So, here it is, a post in this game. I'll try to remember it's here and update it with new information.

If You Need Me and My PM Inbox Is Full... Having recently hit 90% of my PM box, and not having had a chance to go through and purge old (if not ancient) PMs, if you need to get a message to me you can use my Workshop Rumor Mill, Plot Bunny Haven, and Messenger Pigeon-Cote thread to reach me.

Role Playing Games Community Discord I spend a good deal of time in the March 2022new gaming community Discord server created by Atalla. This isn't affiliated with RPGX, but there are a number of RPGXers involved. If you're looking for more conversation, why don't you drop in? (Treat the Discord like a tavern: it can be loud, some people may be inebriated, but overall the mood is one of revelry.)

Anyway, my name is Aethera (eth-eer-uh). This is not a given name, but a chosen one. It has more meaning to me than a username (I use it here and there as such), though very few people I interact with actually use it in conversation. That may change, but it doesn't really matter to me what people call me as long as I'm aware they mean me. Aethera is a promise I made to myself, a goal for life, and if I'm the only one who uses it, that's all that matters.

I'm disabled, and I fill my time with multiple games on this forum, freelance writing and editing, ghostwriting novels (currently a range of modern to fantasy romance), and I've posted a few of my poems here as well. It's harder to post longer pieces, or I'd try to post those. If I have any hope of a publishing contract, though, I can't make public any of the manuscript(s) I hope to publish. It is what it is. (I've got one finished manuscript, but chapter one needs hack'n'slash revision before I can try to find an agent or progress further. And yes, if you ask me about novel writing I'll gush and go all 'fangirl' on you. )

As a gamer or storyteller I consider myself fairly skilled, but it should be noted that about every three months I've disappeared for a week or so, outside my control. I get migraines that make me too sick to keep my regular medications down, which then means I hit really nasty withdrawal. This will likely happen in the future as well, there's nothing I can do to prevent it, just minimize it. This last time it wasn't a week, and I didn't truly leave, but my posts dropped to next to nothing in-game. I hope this means progress.

My Games:

• Ill-Met by Gloomlight (13th Age) I have a single solo thread started, and due to my unpredictable schedule, I am not ready to start too many others just yet.BETA-TEST IN PROGRESS
  Multiple adventures [will be] set in The Midderlands, a grimmer, eldritchgreener, medieval England, specifically in not-EnglandHavenland's capital city of Great Lunden. I will be taking on tired adventurers who are looking to settle down in Great Lunden, whether that's to retire or to open a shop that will probably be less dangerous than the adventures of the PCs prior. That's the plan, anyway, even if there will definitely be things going bump in the night. I'm intending solo play until there's reason to combine. Think West Marches, where people can jump in or out of specific portions. It will be entirely possible to play solo without encountering other PCs should you wish (and I have the time), but the city will be a shared world in as much as I can handle.
  >> Ideas / Interest Check
  
  
• The Bats of Saint Abbans (13th Age) A year after agreeing to take a hiatus, we're back! The plan is to wait on the Amazing RPG Race (9–23 July 2023) and then jump back in!REINVIGORATED
  Within the same setting as the games above, a grimmer, eldritchgreener medieval England, the Abbey-Cathedral of St. Abbans is infested with oversized church bats! With events planned and visitors coming soon, even the duo—who arrived there for another purpose entirely—are going to have to help out!
  >> About Our Adventure
  
  
• 
  That Fine Line Between Genius and Insanity (13th Age) Hall of Fame 2020 Though I would have wished to continue past the third chapter which had just wrapped up, due to life, player attrition, and everything... it's unlikely that we'll pick this back up again.INDEFINITE HIATUS
  Set on a quest to take the princess to a safe haven in the face of many dangers threatening the Empire, the six PCs are going to have a hell of a time figuring out what to do next now that they have woken up realizing they are the main characters in a fantasy adventure novel. They'll have enough facing them to continue on, but sooner or later someone's gotta ask... we're the PCs, right? We can totally [insert dumb idea here]. Right?
  >> Our Story So Far...

 

The Solo Bazaar For those not familiar with it, The Solo Bazaar is a group of people trading GMing a one-on-one game for playing in another. I've put in my name, and I'm willing to GM 13th Age (unsurprisingly), but could probably run rules light 5e, maybe WoD (I'm rusty). I love the flavor of WoD, Call of Cthulhu, Cypher, Numenera, The Strange, and other systems! If any of these games have themes you want to explore, let me know! My games focus on roleplay above all else. (No particular ideas for a story, so we can brainstorm.) I enjoy in-depth story lines as well as quicker one-shots, and longer posts are very okay (and likely, from me, once I get into the flow of things). I love PbP specifically because it allows us to write more and dig deeper into the characters! Please note, I may be on the slow side – I'm recovering from covid still, and my brainpower is limited. Potential for same-day replies is there, but so is a week later. The Curse of the Reds is very much a real thing, I tell you!

My Characters:

• Seiri Diennour in mad_gondsman's Eberron: Fallen (aka the Deathsgate Guild of Adventurers) (D&D 5e)
  This half-elven lass has seen too many storms for her own good, and yet, with the Dragonmark of Storm embedded in the scarred cheek under one near-ruined eye—scars from a spectacularly explosive airship crash when she was little more than a girl—she's undoubtedly going to find herself in the eye of yet another all too soon. For now, she's taken up with the Deathsgate Guild of Adventurers in Sharn, a group known to be less refined and more cutthroat... but she's joined them by way of a decade of piracy, so she'll fit right in. Though Seiri had never expected to be away from her pirate beau for long, when forced to recover from a shattered lower leg in an actual hospital, Seiri, the stormy child of the air-marked House Lyrandar, discovered the plane of Syrania's hold on the city. What city was built for a flying storm sorceress if not the city of towers?
  ❧ storm-tossed character concept
  
  
• Kitty Ingraham, in FraterChad's Monster of the Week Multiverse (Monster of the Week)
  Katherine Ingraham was a baby resulting from the Great War veterans' return, and had always heard her father's tales as adventures, rather than horror stories. So much so that when the second World War broke out, she was among the first women in her state to sign up to help the war effort. She was good with her hands, and quickly joined the ranks of blue-collar women who worked on automobiles, engines, and other engineering that could be learned on the job. Kitty was particularly good at pulling off strange jury-rigged mechanics that would hold in a pinch, even if they usually broke down further as a result—this skill was apparently what caught the eye of The Agency. (They never volunteered a name beyond that, and she knew better than to ask. What agency they might have been, if any legitimate agency at all, is something she'll have to discover later on.) They encouraged her into creating weapons to deal with other things she would prefer to pretend didn't exist. When WWII ended, Kitty returned home to a society that didn't want to let her continue working... that didn't go over well. She rented a room near a mechanic's shop and strong-armed the owner into taking her on for three months to prove she was just as good as any of his other hired hands. By the end of the three-month probationary period, she'd been promoted to watch over other mechanics' work as well as taken on long-term. If there were occasional blasts of exploding parts from Kitty's workbench in the back, that was why it was in the back, then, innit?
  ❧ playbook: Maintenance Gal
  
  
• Other character ideas moved to Aethera's Archives.

My Projects:

• Site Moderation
  In June 2016, the admins invited me to join the site moderation staff (otherwise known as "the reds"). My duties change periodically, but mostly I keep track of The Library, pinch hit with the multiple Advertisements subforums (including the game approval process), and now I facilitate the Hall of Fame nomination/voting process. Feel free to contact me for anything you need, though, whether it falls into those categories or not! I'm happy to help with whatever I can.
  • I do have a to-do list in the staff forum, but for obvious reasons, it's only accessible by staff.
  
  
• Hall of Fame! (yearly, starting Mar 15th)
  I'm in charge of watching over the Hall of Fame process each year. Mostly you all go and nominate the best games and then I check through them to make sure each fits the criteria, and so forth. Then nominations become a public poll and there's oversight required to keep it on course. Finally the Community Supporters vote on the favorites from the public poll.
  
  
• 13th Age Resources
  I'm a big fan of the new (2013) 13th Age game system. It's streamlined and story-oriented, with just enough mechanics to get by, without getting hung up on minutiae. hippo started collecting resources in one place to try and fuel more community members getting involved. I signed on to help with the resources, as I'd love to see a bigger 13th Age footprint on this site. Likewise, when Outplay could run it, I jumped on the chance.
  • I'm rather proud of my 13th Age Character Creation Walkthrough. People like it, certainly, which is good enough for me.
  
  
• Writing Prompts and Critique
  In the interests of encouraging writing outside of gaming, I've posted two challenges so far to prompt people to write; a 100 Themes Challenge, with (yes) a hundred prompts to respond to, and a Zodiac Cycle Challenge, which challenges a writer to use aspects of the Greek Zodiac to write several pieces of a longer story (for the novelists among us).

 

• Short Story Competition (monthly)
  Every month I post a theme and a few challenge elements for anyone to write a short (500- to 3K-word) piece. At the end of the month, popular vote determines the winner. For 2013, I'll be giving away quarterly 3-month subscriptions to the site. I dropped the ball for October, so your next chance to enter is November. Unfortunately due to lack of activity, I've ended the competition for the time being.
  
  
• Outplay (every summer)
  Outplay is an annual player-focused competition that pits groups of players in a double-elimination-style tournament together against common sorts of challenges a player might face. I'm not up to the speed of the competition as a player, so I'd rather help organize it. Starting in 2012 or so I helped write content beforehand, then as of 2016 I went bonkers and decided to try and organize it, as well as GM the 13th Age bracket. Pray for my soul, ye faithful, as I fear it slipping away. This year Bhelogan took it on, but I'll still help him with whatever he needs.
  • Outplay 2016 (13th Age)
    So much for my 'minor role' in Outplay, I went bonkers this year and decided to try and organize it, as well as GM the 13th Age bracket. Pray for my soul, ye faithful, as I fear it slipping away.
  
  
• Game Tutorials
  We already have New Player Solo Games, which introduce new site members to the play-by-post format. What about those people who want to learn a new game system but haven't the opportunity (either in real life, Games Seeking, or other venue)? I posit that there ought to be a similar tutorial style game for existing members (eg. no site how-to involved, unless there are dice roller codes or advanced BBcode that will enhance the game) to dip their toes into a new game. This would require volunteer game masters to run simple/beginner adventures, whether published Adventure Paths (APs) or newly created adventures.
  
  Note: due to site hiatus (October through December 2016), my activity on this project ended abruptly. I'll return to this as soon as I am able. In the meantime, there's a thread in General Discussion for "If someone was offering to teach it, what game system(s) would you want to learn?" with a lot of discussion on the subject.

My Poetry:

• Damsel in Distress - a poem about feeling alone and helpless, couched in fantasy
  
• Of Earth and Fire - a somewhat spiritual poem in which I call myself a child of the elements
  
• Sad Tree - inspired by the tree out my window and how similar 2020 makes me feel

If I think of anything worth telling you all, I'll update this.

[Aethera]

End of October 2019 Very slow, multiple medical issues. Hello all, I had warned my players about my slow-down, but it seems like I owe the explanation to more than just those six, so here it is. I've had a tooth pulled and I'm in a lot of pain, so I've been taking pain meds and other things that impede function. I expect it'll be down to just irritation levels by the end of the month. Of course, I'm then having a surgical procedure on November 1st, in conjunction with the start of National Novel Writing Month, so any recovery from the tooth will be forgotten once I need to recover from surgery and write lots of words daily. I don't think I'll be quite as useless, assuming I only need a minimum of pain medication, I'm likely to just curl up in my armchair or bed with my laptop during recovery. Not really sure what will be, though, so I don't quite know what my November will look like until I get there.

[Aethera]

November is National Novel Writing Month! Slow and steady is the plan. At this point I think I'm done "doing" things to my body, I just need to spend some time recuperating. I'm doing pretty well (I'm out and about), but I hurt by the end of the day, making late night "just let me get this post finished" unwise at best. I was wondering how I could kill my players last night, and that's with me knowing full well they'll kill the monster in the next round. It just seemed like my goal should be total destruction. >.> NaNoWriMo is also stealing my focus, so I'm going to have to get some kind of schedule going where I write my words for the day, then do other posting, and then go back to the novel if I still have energy left. I'll figure it out before the end of the month, I hope.

[Aethera]

End of November 2019 Woooo! Screw slow and steady, I wrote 50,000 words this month! NaNoWriMo has been stealing my focus, but I'm hoping that will mostly be done with. There's plenty more to write before the novel reaches "the end", but having now won NaNoWriMo means I can cut back and trade off days writing, days posting, and days sleeping in to try and catch up.

[Aethera]

10 Dec 2019 Caught up just in time for the bedbugs to return. Uh, if you've never known anyone who has been afflicted by bed bugs, allow me to explain. They infest buildings to the point where it is simply impossible to get rid of them all. This appears to be the case with our building now, as this week the exterminators will be coming to my apartment for the seventh or eighth time in three and a half years. I've developed an allergy. I'm already broke but must throw out many things and commit the rest to the xhot washer/xhot dryer cycle of clothing death. Oh, and the holidays are coming. Short version: my stress level is going to skyrocket for the next couple months. This will definitely impact my mod responsibilities, my GMing, and probably my playing as well, but the PC posts do offer me an escape so I get some of them done. Sorry if this affects you, there's not a darn thing I can do about it.

[Aethera]

Rule of Three One step forward, two steps back. So, apparently things come in threes... new medical treatment starting tomorrow 5 days a week for the next six weeks or so. Bed bugs are back (see previous status update). And I'm not getting any sleep because sportsball resulted in drunk neighbors shouting at each other. Update: treatment going well without any of the concerns I had, though tiring me out more. Exterminators will be here to respray vs bed bugs 18 Feb, hopefully killing the last of them.

[Aethera]

Thanks 2020 All ahead stop. Back when I can. I haven't been truly laid out with a migraine that I can recall this year to date. Until this week. I was unable to get out of bed for a couple days (2nd-3rd) and I'm barely functional today. I don't even know what I need to catch up on yet, but posting is definitely going to take a hit until I've paid bills, made phone calls, and otherwise caught up on life.

[Aethera]

2020 Sucker Punch #I'veStoppedCounting Pinched nerve, root canal, and very strong language. Due to not being able to stop swearing at the pain when I turn my head, lean any number of directions from perfectly straight, chew, and everything that proceeds from there such as working, living, and sleeping, I'm going to be out of commission for a bit. I want to say I'll work on getting caught up this weekend, but frankly I said that last week and haven't made the posts I was going to make then yet, so...

[Aethera]

November is National Novel Writing Month! Nov means NaNoWriMo and new ghostwriting contract. Every November I participate in National Novel Writing Month, a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in a month. Since I've got a new ghostwriting contract, there's plenty for me to write! This can mean I'm not quite as prompt about replying to games, OOC threads, or PMs. I'm not gone, I'm just heavily distracted. I don't expect any of my PCs to need instant reactions from me, and I'll remain on top of my own game. If you don't hear from me in a reasonable amount of time, please PM me and nudge me towards it again. I'll do my best. And since you asked... I've only barely gotten past the bed bugs (if at all), and expect the exterminators to return in mid-November to spray again for the little bastards.

[Aethera]

Happy Holidays, Apologies for Delays! Dealing with health issues and trouble with my ghostwriting. I'm trying to get back on track with everything I do here on site after my NaNoWriMo distraction, but it's slow going. I have to deal with some troubles I'm having with work and health before I'll be able to really be reliably on site again. If I'm not around to say it later, I hope everyone has safe and healthy holidays.

[Aethera]

Revival process commencing in 3, 2, 1... Attempting to return to active posting and moderator duties. My life crashed toward the end of November, and it's taken me this long to even show up on the forum more than sporadically. Now that I'm feeling like I might actually be able to make myself post, I'm hoping to prove consistency first (namely showing up, answering OOC/mod things, etc) and then I hope I'll be back to posting. It's still a work in progress, but any progress is moving in the right direction! Current plan: Tyranny of Dragons Ch 4 intro post, Charlotte Rennell mechanics, more TBD

[Aethera]

New Contract New ghostwriting contract making me crazy, mostly in a good way. I've finally landed another ghostwriting contract, which is amazing in the big picture but rather all-consuming in the short term until I hit my stride. (Yes, it's like a race. The start is all adrenaline, then the pace becomes steadier.) As much as I love RPGX, pretty much everything is lower priority than making my first couple deadlines and establishing my new client's approval. I'll still check in, but I don't expect to be as active on a daily basis until I'm further into my first draft.

[Aethera]

Contracts, Plural, Update! Massive August frenzy passed, I hope... So despite expecting a new norm to arise after I'd gotten my feet under me (back in June when I first got one of my contracts), that never really happened. Partly because an ongoing contract and the new contract managed to sync up just wrong so I had deadlines on top of one another. Not fun. I am trying to return to RPGX as player, GM, and mod, but I have no confidence in saying I'm back until I've completed the revision work on these contracts. (And started the next book in the series for the ongoing one...) In other news, however, I've completed two new novels' first drafts! I am epic.

[Aethera]

Murphy's Law Going to miss my deadline. Hurt my back (chronic SI joints issues) and couldn't work for more than thirty minutes at a time for the last week and a half, so I'm now running behind schedule – I was supposed to have finished this novel by Monday the 4th, but I'll be behind a day or two. I am trying to return to RPGX as player, GM, and mod, but I have no confidence in saying I'm back until I've completed the overdue contract, and started the next book in the series... In other news, however, I nearly have replacement characters for my game, which means i can try to breathe some new life into it and get going again!

[Aethera]

AFK Going crazy with work and upcoming holidays. I've been ghostwriting back-to-back books in a paranormal romance series that have completely swamped all my other priorities. I tried to take a breather over Thanksgiving, but frankly I haven't solved the burnout issues yet. I'm still having trouble, so I can safely say I'll be away from RPGX through the holidays, minimum. I'll try to check in, but at this point I won't make any promises.