Eberron - Echoes of the Past (Inactive)

Game Master Dennis Harry

I understand completely.

Been there. Done that myself.

I think we are all pulling for you: Not just because you our our GM!
Real Life matters more than this stuff.

I had no idea you were struggling with those issues. Take care of the RL stuff, we will still be here.

Also here pulling for you in terms of moral support as well. :)

It’s pretty late at night as I am writing this. I’ve been through a significant amount of struggles through the past two years (actually through the past 41 but especially the past 2). I’ve had worse stretches of time before but I believe that these past struggles were due to my own lack of maturity and self-awareness at the time those events took place.

Likely those events were necessary for me to experience to survive the events of the past two years and get through them as well as I have. Physical ailments, getting older and requiring more sleep, bankruptcy, and ultimately divorce. You know life is not going swimmingly when going to work feels like a vacation.

Regardless, when I first started getting involved in PbP on the boards it was a chance to play, finally! I’d been DMing for the bulk of the time that I’ve played table top that I was enjoying being able to be a player for once. Then with so many damn flaky GM’s I just started running games and well, things snow balled from there.

Life was fairly stable at the time the normal ups and downs. Then about two years ago, I started getting into PbP as a way to escape reality. Sort of the same ways drugs were casual and enjoyable for me as a teen and ultimately led me as close to suicide as I ever want to get again.

I am not saying that PbP has made me suicidal but I am saying that I recognize that I was using PbP as a coping mechanism to avoid a bad marriage. PbP did NOT lead to the failure of my marriage but it did contribute to my ability to tune it out.

I make a decent living but between bankruptcy and divorce I’ve little to show for it (well except for this killer book and RPG collection ). I could point the finger at my soon to be ex-wife but when you point one finger at a person, three more point back at you. I could have prevented things from becoming this bad and I chose not to. I did it, ironically, because I believed that if I had the marriage would have ended and ended badly, so much for best intentions. I am not going to second guess myself, what happened happened. As divorces go, this one has been rather amicable as we have put our daughter first and ourselves second.

Being married to someone who makes as much if not more money then you (depending on sales that year) places one in a position to “take it easy” when it comes to being aggressive about making money (well it placed me in such a position anyhow perhaps because making money does not move me).

Early on in my career I had an opportunity to become a premiere M&A Financial Services Tax Attorney in a Big 4 Firm. It’s a big deal and potentially a lot of money but I did not really want it because I knew I would be working a lot and traveling a lot. My ex agreed that I should turn it down as she did not want to be married to a workaholic and that was not who I wanted to be anyway. Nor do I want to be that person now. (In yet another twist of irony, she has become a workaholic, funny how things turn out).

I do not regret the decision though I do lament the loss of income that such a decision would have brought to me.

All of this rambling nonsense is leading to the point of this post, I need to work more. Not at my current job nor do I want to get a new job, I actually like being there as odd as that sounds (to me). I need to get a second and perhaps a third job, side gigs. At 41 about to turn 42 with no retirement and no savings for my daughters college, I can no longer hope that the ex’s business will come through as an investment plan. Even if it does, I will not be the beneficiary of that largesse. I need to make up for 11 years of being “comfortable” simply working.

Thus, it is with heavy heart that I am announcing that I will need to close down a number of the threads I run and withdraw from a number of the games I am a PC in.

I suppose this decision will not be a surprise to many of you as my posting rates have been abysmal since these events took a turn for the worse (in some respects the better to be honest) since Thanksgiving of 2017.

I am not generally a person that feels remorse or guilt but I do feel a level of disappointment with having to make this decision. I apologize for disappointing many of you who put work into PCs relying on my consistency as a GM/DM over the course of the past several years.

My plan had always been to run a hardcore dose of RPG’s until my daughter was a teenager and then, spend my free time writing the novel I had been working on since before she was born. I had hoped that over the next 9 years or so I could wrap up most of these campaigns and the few that remained would be more manageable.

Life has not worked out that way.

The good news is that I will still run several games but the current load is too much for me to handle in this transition. The further good news is that I believe this will allow for those games to move along much more quickly.

By tomorrow I will have made my decision as to which games I will keep and which I will shut down.

Thank you all for taking the journeys with me despite the lack of length or resolution of so many of them.

I will still be around just in a diminished capacity so this is not goodbye just a “be seeing less of you”.

Life events are the main thing which impacts on PbP playing. I think all of us have experienced this to a greater or lesser degree. But while RPGing is a great hobby, in the end we need to make a living. You have to do what's right for you, especially where there will be people relying on you.

No worries, Storyteller Shadow, real life is always more important- so you do what you need to do (I'm sure the rest of us will understand). :)

Agreed. Do what you need to do, Shadow, to take care of yourself and your life. If we make the cut, great! And if not, it was awesome playing with you while I did!

A sad turn of events, to be sure.

I understand completely.

=)

Thank you all for the support guys!

I have decided to keep both of these games IN the rotation. Look for updates Wednesday night.

Caught in the middle of eating an entire chocolate cake, Caelan says, "Wait, we're still on?" He slowly lowers the fork, cake smeared across most of his face.

Pink Eye sets down the large barrel of ale he had been drinking from and wipes his mouth after a belch that shakes the room I will share my ale if you buy more cake and share that.

Seriously thank you so much ST Shadow for all you do. I will try to not be as unruly and cause you as many headaches as a player, but I make no promises as a GM...

That is excellent news, Shadow! If there is anything a player can do to help out, don't hesitate to call on me.

Yippee!!

Happy to hear this game's continuing, Shadow, but happier to hear you're making healthy choices. Kudos, pal.

Life is finally starting to get a bit less hectic. Thanks for the patience, I will be back to normal posting again this Sunday.

That is good news, Shadow! Welcome back!

Awesomeness!

Sunday. Monday, I am about to post in both threads so close enough right? :-)

Close enough for jazz! :D

Hey guys, had a medical emergency. Any chance you could bot me for a few days? Sorry for the inconvenience, hope to be back by the end of the week.

Feel better, Dev!

Hey guys, had a medical emergency. Any chance you could bot me for a few days? Sorry for the inconvenience, hope to be back by the end of the week.

No problem. Hope all is well, I'll be updating tonight.

Hey guys, I'm working my way back and should be able to resume normal posting rates in the next couple days (but I am back on the boards now). An 'annoying' (to say the least) incident last week with my contact lenses ended up scratching both corneas pretty badly, and I couldn't open either eye for about ~4 days. Thanks for the well-wishing and the patience. Happy to be back.

Glasses for the win. Hope you feel better soon.

Just an FYI Table II, I am looking to extricate Kaine and Beylinda as DMPCs, regardless of which way the group ultimately goes, I will separate these two from the main group of PC's.

Just an FYI Table II, I am looking to extricate Kaine and Beylinda as DMPCs, regardless of which way the group ultimately goes, I will separate these two from the main group of PC's.

I'm sorry, I've been too buried in real life to keep up with any of my games, so Kaine departing is fine with me. I am sorry for not keeping up after it got going again, but if there is a reasonable way for him to separate off story-wise, that's fine for me. If there isn't now but will be soon, I can try to stay on top of things better until then.

Storyteller Shadow wrote:

Just an FYI Table II, I am looking to extricate Kaine and Beylinda as DMPCs, regardless of which way the group ultimately goes, I will separate these two from the main group of PC's.

I'm sorry, I've been too buried in real life to keep up with any of my games, so Kaine departing is fine with me. I am sorry for not keeping up after it got going again, but if there is a reasonable way for him to separate off story-wise, that's fine for me. If there isn't now but will be soon, I can try to stay on top of things better until then.

No big deal, I will separate him out and if things quiet down in a few weeks (months) when the group is out of this crawl, you can step back in with Kaine. I will contact you before I re-recruit.

I'm traveling to Philly tomorrow to work Wizard World Philly all weekend, I'll have my laptop but may not be able to reply much.

I'm traveling to Philly tomorrow to work Wizard World Philly all weekend, I'll have my laptop but may not be able to reply much.

Have fun!

I think Erix did a good job diffusing that situation so we will likely be moving towards the Mournlands shortly!

Between being sick over the weekend and work this week got sidetracked.

Good news is that both tables are now updated!

I will be away this weekend but will try to update if I can.

OK, games updated.

One more update and I updated all games I DM tonight for the first time in some time... :-) Ah, the things you can accomplish when kids go to bed when they are supposed to!

Just unlocked Table I new map. Forgot all about it! Good thing I remembered before anyone tried to check it out.

T1 - Ama
K.(Nobility): 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (2) + 3 = 5 NNNNNNOPE!

Table I Refresher:

In Rhukaan Draal, find a man named Failin in the Bloody Market. He can provide you with transport to Rose Quarry. From there, travel into
the Mournland to fi nd Whitehearth and the second schema. It is an adamantine plate in the shape of a diamond, about the size of a human’s palm. Once you have retrieved it, return to Rhukaan Draal, where I will meet you. Succeed, and I will see to it that you are well rewarded for your courage.

I would think this goal is not one that the group would share with those currently at the Rose Quarry...

Hi everybody. For the next few weeks my work/life balance is going to be very out of whack from the norm, and my posting will most likely be spotty and/or brief. I apologize for the disruption, and please feel free to bot me whenever necessary. My hope is that by the end of June I'll regain some equilibrium and be back to my regularly scheduled posting.

I should still be able to check here 2-3 times a week, but if I go quiet, this is why.

Ok thanks for the heads up.

Posted this on my status thread but here it is again for those of you who don't follow it:

Magnus the Great Dane died at 5:04 on Sunday June 24th in the sunshine of his own backyard of congestive heart failure. 6 years - 7 months - 3 days too damn young. He left behind one sad puppy brother, one eternally cheerful little sister [who informed me that he was in dog heaven with Shady the Black Lab (who I had as a boy and teen) EXCEPT when we are driving, when we are driving they are chasing after us], and one very sad doggy Daddy - he will be greatly missed.

I will be updating once more either this Friday evening or Saturday evening, barring my life falling the f&~& apart again.

Hopefully, I can catch a break and life will be somewhat normal for a while and my posting rate will be better and our lives all full of joy from gaming.

That is so very sad. My heart is with you and your family, Shadow.

Thanks for the patience folks, back up and running again.

FYI, Jiri will be away for two weeks so I'll bot him as necessary.

Table II, I've found a replacement for Kaine and Beylinda, he'll be joining the group post Dungeon crawl and I think his concept is pretty unique. Should be a good fit.

I may have him connect to the group as a friend/acquaintance of Jiri.

Once more my apologies for the delays. Posted tonight. I am endeavoring to post with greater frequency this week now that I have a number of things settled. There is still more work to be done but I hope, the worst has already passed me by. That was a rough 5 week stretch.

I forgot to mention this in the wake of the death of my beloved Dane but due to the death of one of my players' best friends about a year ago (Seline Spires friend if anyone here knows her) a massive collection of Gaming Books became available for anyone who wanted them.

Among the items I gave a home to was the entire set of the Eberron Hardcover books for 3.0/3.5. Obviously I've not read them all yet but pretty neat just to see them all on the shelves.

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With respect to Table I, I WILL update tomorrow to get that scene moving forward.

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With respect to Table II, I'd like to see some action early this week. We are closer to the end than the beginning of that crawl even though it does not seem like it as I re-read it again today while my daughter was taking one of her VERY rare naps :-)

I believe Jiri is back from vacation this week so I will bot him as necessary.

OK! Both tables are about to do battle!

Posted because I keep forgetting

RL remains interesting, updates this morning.

Folks we've just lost Carduus and Taryn's posting has come down to a trickle.

That leaves as dedicated posters - Viorr, Electric Eye, and Dev Blake.

My original idea was to have this table meet with the otehr Table for the final adventure several levels from now. As Viorr is the only original standing, that idea has little merit now. That's part of teh reason I have had the two tables in one Thread.

I am going to create a new thread for Table II. We will complete teh adventure with Carduus and Jiri as DMPC's (it's almost over in this area, only one "Boss" fight to go). If Taryn chimes in so be it, if not we'll write him out once this section of teh adventure is complete.

I have a new PC waiting in the wings for this table. May recruit one or two more when he is introduced.

This thread is now Officially closed and the Discussion Thread is the Table I Official Discussion thread.