Tiny paper worlds.

This is Abby's dice bag. It's relatively small, as are her dice - about 1/4th the size of standard D6s, D10s, D20s, and so on. The unfortunate thing for Abby is that we give her a lot of grief for being Jewish, so upon seeing that, I began to make a comment. She knew what I was going to say as soon as she saw my mouth move. "Abby, is that your pouch of Jew gold?"

It was not. Abby is in my Sunday game, that has morphed several times to now become a Pathfinder D20 campaign that I have set in a city similar to Silvermere from MajorMud. It's a whole smush of nerdery, and I think it'll do just fine. Ben is in the game, and as the only person (including myself) who has had much experience with the system, he's been very patient explaining a few things to us as we go. Kim, Tony, Stephen, and Nikki round out the group, who will be clearing out problem areas in the slums and overrun sections of the city.

I don't know how it'll go - it's going to be largely dungeon crawling with a mix of social/political issues to tackle. In this setting, Silvermere is a great city that has been cut off from the distant Empire that spawned it. It was effectively a miracle of modern magical travel - the Empire was able to establish a remote outpost that quickly grew into a thriving city, due to technological and magical advances. Of course, that all went away in an invasion that turned these marvels against the Empire from within, and Silvermere has been cut off now for two full generations. The power struggles are relatively obvious to imagine. With no greater power to answer to, local laws and certain unpopular mandates become harder and harder for the remaining few (power hungry) nobles to cling to.

The other game I'm running now is a Legend of the Five Rings game on Tuesdays. Ben, Scott, Monica, Brian, and Brenna play a handful of Crab samurai dealing with the Destroyer Invasion and the never dull prospect of working side by side with the Scorpion. This particular part of the campaign is drawing to a close and the players have opted to skip ahead in the timeline to keep up with the ongoing metaplot. Since this was the first time any of them have played L5R, it's going to allow them the ability to roll new characters with lessons learned from their first.

Of course, it also gives me a high incentive to push through as many tragic deaths as possible. Brenna's archer contracted the Taint and is now a thrall of two powerful maho-tsukai who have come into the possession of Black Scrolls. Monica's shugenja has had the misfortune of being saved by a Scorpion giving his life for her, meaning she is now deep, deep in the Scorpion's pocket. Brian's Yasuki has an unhealthy habit of trying to deal with courtiers of all stripes on their own turf - a habit that may cause trouble once they arrive in Bayushi lands to help defend the Scorpion.

Interesting times, as the saying goes.