Last week in the family D & D adventure I told you about the closest thing our campaign has to a home base. That was the Broken Anvil Inn in Sharn.
But there are other places like that which also serve as the starting point for quests.
Let me tell you about the Purple Mermaid.
On a lonely waterfront in Aundair there exists a sad little ale house and inn that is losing business. Everyone is apparently apprehensive about going to a place where so many sailors who were regular customers have simply disappeared.
The proprietor is a festive and portly dwarf named Osric who is desperate for your business. It has gotten to the point of offering free beer to anyone willing to rent a room. Veteran sailors and adventurers, it seems, have paid for a room, went to bed that evening… or early morning, and were never seen or heard from again.
A storyteller sits in the bar, telling tales of a long ago voyage of discovery in which the crew of an ill-fated ship, the Lavender Leaf, happened on an undersea discovery shown to them by desperate mer-people and sea elves. It seems a great evil had taken over an undersea temple that housed a very powerful sacred relic. Great treasures were promised for aid in liberating the temple from an unnamed evil.
So, it is an interesting inn, with a promise of adventure. But there are obvious consequences to choosing to stay there. In the corner of the tavern room sits a sea wizard with an ominous look about him. Why is he waiting there? Are there connections between his presence and the disappearances? Do you really want to find out?
As always the quest must wait for the next turn at the D & D table.
So we returned to Texas, and that is probably where the sunset of my life will take place. I am retired from teaching now. I am blogging and telling lies instead… well, writing fiction. I should have another book published soon. And it has fairies in it. So maybe there is still time to pull off the REALLY BIG LIES.
Evidence There is a Living God
A humorist does well to remember that you should not joke about religion. God does have a sense of humor. But it is a sense of humor backed by the ever-present threat of being struck by lightning. And among religious types, a sense of humor is about as common as a nudist wandering into the midst of a porcupine convention just as the thistle-pigs begin arguing about whether or not God is actually a porcupine.
On the question of God and whether we actually have one, or whether he’s alive or not, we often turn to philosophers for insight. Friedrich Nietzsche was a philosopher with a hard to spell name. People often turn to him for evidence of god and the accompanying God-thoughts.
But it is entirely possible that Nietzsche did not get the absolute last word on the matter.
Nietzsche was a bit of a poozer when it comes to questions about God. He said that God is dead because the big guy in the sky didn’t seem to be active in the world. At least, not since Bible times.
And if we are supposed to believe that God Jehovah is real because he’s written down in a magic book that so very many people believe in, then why isn’t god Thor to be believed in anymore? He’s written down in some very old books too. And isn’t the story about how Thor almost drank the ocean dry on a bet just as impressive as Jehovah parting the Red Sea for Moses?
But Nietzsche wasn’t a complete and total poozer. He did have some wonderful things to say along with the klunky and hard-to-understand God stuff he said.
It takes a big mind in a big head to think of making the stars dance just by generating chaos-waves in your big old head. That’s the kind of big idea that could become a religion of its own… if Nietzsche wasn’t already dead, of course.
But I tend to believe there really is a living God. My sister posted an old picture of some of the reasons why on Facebook today.
My thing one, thing two, and thing three (in the baby carrier with her feet up) are all the reason I need to believe in miracles. Thing one was recently promoted to Corporal in the Marines. Thing Two has applied for a job at Walmart, and thing three will be a sophomore in high school this fall. Grandma Aldrich is in the middle between thing one and my sister’s girl. The little blond one on the left is my sister’s kid too. All of them are miracles in human form. Grandma Aldrich is gone now. She died not long after this picture was taken. But her life resonates through mine, and through me to my children and nieces and nephews also. I would not be me if it wasn’t for her.
So there is proof of a living God. Everything that exists cannot be erased from existence, even when it disappears from memory. So we are all eternal. We all have touched the stars… at least, in a metaphorical sense. And our bodies, science has proved, are made of star stuff in a literal sense. So it is not too much of a stretch to believe we can make the stars dance.
And if my quasi-religious joking around has God thinking about how to apply a good thunderbolt, well, I was making fun of Nietzsche… wasn’t I?
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Tagged as autobiography, friedrich nietzsche, having faith, making fun of Nietzsche, religion