Finders Keepers

I can't say "you see all sorts in this line of work" because it's not true. My line of work is far too boring to provide you with stories to tell young children by the light of a campfire. Oh! The great power cut of 2006! You had to be there! It was terrifying! A real eye-opener! Or the time when somebody forgot their password... well, you could have blown me down with a feather, I tell you!

But there are little things, things that you keep to yourself. Like the coffee mug, forgotten over the summer holidays that is literally brimming with mould. Brimming. That's a horrible word to combine with mould. Brimming.

Or the other day when I found a false fingernail under someone's desk. That was unsettling.

And then I found two spiders, one dead and one alive, inside a PC I was fixing.

And the cat that used to sit on my bike's seat in the spring and summer when the sun warmed up the leather. Of course, now I have a bike with a side-stand, the cat has gone elsewhere.

There's something else about work that I've only really noticed today. The Head'. Most of the time you would think something along the lines of it's the boss, better not get on her bad side, draconian rules, brrr, scary lady and such. But this morning, it was like I was speaking with an entirely different person. I suppose that either a) she's in a very good mood this morning, or b) she's in not-such-a-good mood on most mornings. But as a colleague once said, who would want to be a headteacher? You get paid about the same amount of money (and sometimes less) as a supermarket manager, and have an incredible workload. The stress, time, and attention demanded from the job of headteacher must be crippling. It's not a job that I would go for, I don't think, but then I'm not as industrius and hardworking as some people. Some people, like our Headteacher.

I only get to see another side to the people I work alongside once they have a problem that needs solving and I have a short amount of time to speak with them. The ex-Deputy Head (who is coming back to be part-time Deputy Headteacher) once told me "you talk to people as if they're actual human beings..." which, apparently, he wasn't expecting. I think that perhaps that is what allows me to see the other non-work side of people when I do get a chance to talk to them. The barrier is, of course, getting a chance to talk to them.

I've been looking for the RPG system/setting Deadlands: The Weird West. I found the wikipedia page and now I'm inclined to get the books and start digesting them. I wasn't a fan of the wild west as a child, but it grew on me in my adolescence. Now the concept of a table-top RPG set in the west is one that appeals to me greatly. The card-drawing rules also not only look original, but also fun and clever. It sounds like the setting focusses a great deal on roleplaying and character development as well as combat. And the combat seems highly dangerous, which is always good. The less twenty sword swings style of combat that you might see in Dungeons and Dragons, the better.

Sometimes I think that even Dark Heresy's combat system is too light-heared because it might take at least two shots from a lasgun to kill someone. But that's the beauty of narrative roleplaying.

I've also created another wallpaper for my Dark Heresy campaign The Demise of The Diocletian. This new wallpaper was made in Photoshop, virtually all from scratch, and came out pretty well. I made a 1280x1024 version and a widescreen 1440x900 version (which looks much better because of the text placement). I'll post them next week some time since they contain spoilers and my players may be reading this blog.

I know I already mentioned doing it, but haven't got around to doing it... but at some point I will write up some GM's notes on my Dark Heresy adventures. Adventures like this week's, the introduction adventure, and some in-between.