Dungeons & Dragons

Well, I never thought I'd say this, but the line has been crossed and left far behind in the dust, so I may as well announce: I am playing Dungeons and Dragons. Somehow, the idea sprang up at the lunch table, and so, Phil is guiding a few of us neophytes through the process of playing a role-playing game.

At this point, some of you are cheering wildly and mentally upping my nerd score, while everyone else is inwardly grimacing or scratching their head. DnD, isn't that the game played by those kids in high school who carried around bags of dice and wore dragon necklaces and drew fairies in notebooks and claimed they were Wiccan? Yeah, that game.

As it turns out, DnD is not really a game in the traditional sense, but more like collective story-telling. Each person assumes the role of a character, and that character interacts with a fictional world and other members of that world. Furthermore, this world includes plenty of fantastic powers (spell casting, exotic weapons) and mythological threats (dragons, orcs) to keep things interesting. It's much more creative than I had imagined, and frankly, I'm surprised that more girls never got around to playing. (Isn't this what we're supposed to be good at? Playing make-believe?)

Over the last few weeks, we've gradually been schooled in the process of character generation, coming up with various personality traits and numeric statistics. For the final bit, I came up with the following back story for my character. After all this effort, let's hope I don't die when we get together in Phil's basement next weekend.

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Daevon Nimvirrea Ansatz, 178, was born to a moderately wealthy family of spice merchants in Waterdeep. Her mother died at an early age, and as an only child, Daevon grew up strong-willed and independent. Noting her interest in nature and wildlife, her father tried to channel this energy into horsemanship and gardening. This backfired when local authorities discovered that the garden plot was filled with poppy plants. For her part, Daevon insisted upon her innocence and said that she had simply wanted a field full of crimson blooms. One summer, a band of gypsies set up camp on the outskirts of town. Daevon became fast friends with the children and adopted Mama Mirela as her own. When fall approached and the gypsies were readying for the winter move, Daevon opted to skip school and leave with the gypsies. Over the next few years, she roamed much of the High Forest, and the gypsy elders taught her how to purify water, track and hunt animals, identify edible plants and the like. With her nimble fingers, she became an expert archer, and those who crossed her might see their hats whisked away by arrows.

When Mama Mirela died, Daevon silently mourned her passing as the mother she’d never had. Then, she opted to leave dry land for a spell at sea, working a stint as a deckhand on a crab fishing schooner. Though she spent most of her time cleaning and sorting the catch, she had a stellar eye for navigation and learned to track the movements of the constellations. After two seasons in the Sea of Moving ice, Daevon decided she’d had enough of laboring 24-hour shifts in wet, freezing conditions, and at the next port, she took off with her trunk over her shoulder.

Currently, Daevon works as a sherpa at the base of the Nether mountains. The pay is high, but the work is mundane and she is itching to travel again. Occasionally, she does meet interesting travelers, who bring her news from the coasts. Last week, a druid by the name of Phineas Crumplebeard passed through, en route to Icewind Dale. Though she paid little attention as he babbled about his exploits, Daevon was duly impressed when he successfully healed a sprained ankle of hers.