One of the fascinating features of a table-top role-playing game is the freedom it gives you to go where you could never go in real life. In Dungeons and Dragons we have taken the campaign under the waves among the water-breathers.
Of course, it is a little daunting to venture into a place where you cannot even breathe. But this is fantasy we are talking about. So, the solution is… magic. A feet-to-fins spell can make you into a mer-person. You can not only swim with the fish, you can be one.
Nemo the water-breathing sea-elf is modeling how fantasy technology can aid with the adventure. Unable to breathe out of the water, Nemo has been able to adventure in the surface world by wearing a sealed sea helmet that provides the water he needs to breathe and keep him properly hydrated. Such a helmet, with an air-producing spell inside it instead of water-making can be used for air-breathers under the sea.
Under the sea things are different in fundamental ways. You don’t walk or tun, you swim. You don’t ride a horse, you are pulled through the water by a hippocanthus. You are not stuck to a two-dimensional plane. You can move easily through the water up and down as well as right and left, forward and back.
Sea captain Elora Bynam, gnome aquamancer, can take air-breathers where they want to go in her submarine. She knows the undersea kingdoms as well as any air-breather in all of the lands.
And, of course, there have to be villains. The arch-lich Orco is a good example (that is, good example of something evil).
This former Mer-king has been infested with dark magic since his death and re-animation. He holds sway now in the evil kingdom of Black Reef. Elora can take you there for a price.
But we had fun playing underwater campaigns in D & D. We spent weeks searching drowned ruins. We even found a sea ghost. Charlotte is a little girl drowned by evil pirates and changed into a ghost. She is bound to a magic jar and can serve as a guide through places where no living being dares go alone.
So we have spent all this game time in the depths of exotic seas. And the ironic thing is, we didn’t even get a little bit wet.
Cranky Old Coots Complain and Don’t Care
Yes, I am a coot. I became a coot in 2014 when I retired. I have the hair in the ears to prove it. I sometimes forget to wear pants. The dog is learning to hide from me on days when my arthritis makes me cranky.
So I am a practicer of the ancient art of being a cranky old coot. I have opinions. I share them with others foolishly. And I am summarily told to, “Shut up, you danged old coot!” And, of course, I don’t shut up because that would be a violation of number five in the by-laws of cootism. Obnoxiousness is our only reason for still being alive.
Lately, my group of coots on Facebook (who call themselves a “pack” like wolves, but, in truth, a group of coots is called an “idiocy”) are talking about politics… very loudly salted with firmly held opinions, beliefs, and bad words in several languages. I mean, it’s texting each other on memes we disagree about, but we do it LOUDLY, like that, in all caps. We also do it in such an infuriating manner because, if no one ever bothers to tell us to “Shut the hell up!” we will begin to suspect we have actually died and gone to purgatory where we are still being obnoxious, but nobody knows we are doing it. That is rubbing coot fur in the wrong direction.
The radical right (otherwise known as coot paradise) have been cooting up a storm about school shootings and gun control of late. They have more or less turned their ire on me because, knowing I was a school teacher, they have seized on the Coot in Chief’s notion of arming teachers to protect schools. Obviously a majority of old coots agree that requiring a few “volunteer” teachers to conceal carry and learn how to handle a school shooter crisis situation with a gun instead of the way teachers are actually trained and practiced on handling such a situation, is the only economical way to defend schools from crazed lunatics with assault weapons. Of course, it is definitely more economical than hiring full time police officers to handle security because “volunteer” teachers does not mean that they are necessarily willing to do it, but rather that they are doing it without pay. And of course they shout at me things like, “Why don’t you just admit that you are too scared and unpatriotic to carry a gun as a teacher, and cowardly allow some female teacher with a big pistol to step in and do the job for you?” That is a very coot thing to say, and is hard to adequately counter, because if you try to argue using logic other than coot-logic, like the notion that since a majority of teachers in this country are female, you are asking women who are fierce enough to do the job (and I have known more than a few who would take it on no matter how hopeless their prospects) to take a handgun that the principal bought at Walmart with money from the Coke machine in the hall and face down a suicidal maniac with an assault rifle, you will not even be heard over the cacophony of coot braying and chest-thumping, let alone be understood.
And, for some reason, coots love Trump. Maybe because they feel he is truly one of them. He is older than dirt. He has an epicly bad comb-over to hide his bald spot. He says bad words very loudly in front of women, children, and everybody. He says, “Believe me,” a lot, especially when telling lies. And he’s not afraid to fart in public and blame it on the dog. I admit to insulting Trump in front of them only because I like to see coot faces fold up in extra wrinkles, and coot heads turn various shades of angry red and apoplectic purple.
So, yes. I am a coot. Not proud to be one… that I can remember, but a coot never-the-less.
Leave a comment
Filed under angry rant, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, foolishness, goofy thoughts, grumpiness, gun control, humor, Liberal ideas, oldies, Paffooney, teaching
Tagged as coots, gun control and coots, obnoxious coots, old coots