Howdy there all! I am an experienced DM of 8 years now, player of 10 years. I've run and read multiple different systems like Zweihander, Stars Without Number, D&D 4e, and more, but this here game is about 5th Edition D&D. 5e falls flat in a lot of categories, but it's the best for finding players. This game will be in mostly vanilla 5e, but I'll be making home-brew magic items, monsters, and abilities. My favorite fantasy is the classic d20 fantasy. Fighting Dragons & Archliches. Crawling through old dungeons and learning about the history of the world. My specific setting is a Country referred to as "The Grand Theocracy of Cor'Quessir", a sudo-germanic inspired land (mostly for the naming convention & social structure excluding how the government works).
Magic is not rare per say, it's just a bit of a lost art. It takes a lot of time and dedication to really learn magic, and most people aren't born luck like the mage-blooded sorcerers. And the idea of selling souls is a bit taboo as well. The local Blacksmith might have a +1 longsword for show, but it's really more of an attraction than anything else. Sure it's for sale, but nobody has every been able to afford it with the steep price tag. The peasants speak of a secretive old man that lives in a nearby tower, they whisper tales of him conjuring Fae to do his bidding, scribing arcane scrolls that nary a few mortal eyes may see. Respect goes a long way as lords and ladies expect to be referred to properly and respectfully. Some are more in touch with their towns than others.
You however, you have taken up residence in the town of Kleinstadt. A small out of the way village that sees very little conflict aside from farmers feuding over who has better produce. Most everyone knows each other. Bechtold, the local blacksmith. Mostly, he makes horse shoes and nails, but not long ago an order came from the Emperor themself declaring all smithies meet a certain quota of swords by the winter solstice or lose their guild rank. Supposedly, Cor'Quessir is on the brink of war with it's neighbor Vaedyl. But that is big politics, and little of it concerns you right now. What *does* concern you however is the rumors sweeping the town. A town over, a man killed a merchant in his own store over a squabble when suddenly the streets grew misty. A shaded figure, garbed in red robes appeared. He was flanked by his minions, their backs hunched, bodies covered in burlap. They took the body and dropped something into the mans hands, exchanging words. He then returned to the mist as it lifted. The Merchant and mysterious figures, gone without a trace.
You hear the other farmers and miners of Kleinstadt whispering about this over their drinks this evening, excited for some new gossip. But what about you? Maybe you're just a farmer or miner. Maybe an apprentice blacksmith or a member of another guild. Maybe you're a mercenary. Whatever you are, you crave more. But why? You have a place to rest. You get a meal each dawn and dusk. Why does the world call to you?
This is gonna be a modular campaign. So I'll be running "seasons" and we'll take a short break between seasons (maybe 2 weeks). Each season will be a full story, but they will all connect to each other. The end of each season will be neat points to change characters, or give you a good point to say "That was fun, but I think I'm good for a while." and leave the game. (you are ofc welcome to leave whenever you like if you do not feel like the game is to your liking or style)
I hope the hook has done it's job! If it has you'll be wondering what I need from you so we can talk about you joining the game. I want to first say that this game won't be starting for another 4 weeks, Session 0 taking place on June 12th or 19th. Session 0 will be setting ground rules. That shouldn't take long, so I'll also have content prepared to run if everyone wants that. There will be 4 players total. I am looking for anyone 18 and older. While my game is not going to be explicit, and I discourage any talk of the sort, I don't want to play with young kids. So, what do I need from you?

• Name, Age, & preferred pronouns (Cameron, 21, He/they)
• Experience with TTRPG's & 5e specifically (10 years with 5e, some with other systems)
• Your favorite role to fill in a D&D party (Leader, Defender, Striker, Controller)
• Your favorite TTRPG experience, and your most distasteful TTRPG experience
• What is your favorite bit of media? It could be a book, movie, game, etc.

I'll read the applications as they come in. You can message me on discord, you should be able to find me as "the_retro_jedi". You can also apply here in the comments, or in messages on reddit. Anything is fine.
Any official content that was released TCE & back is accepted. Anything that is post TCE needs permission. The power scale between early & modern 5e is very different. Home-brew classes & subclasses are probably not allowed. But you can always ask. Home-brew races are more acceptable. I'm also very down with making custom backgrounds. I have a few home-brew rules as well, but they are for the benefit of the player exclusively.
Applications close June 1st 5:00pm CST. After you apply I will read it as soon as I can. We'll talk a bit and if we vibe we can do a voice call at some point. Anyone who I vibe with over the voice call will be added to the list of potential players. Everyone will be given a yes or no by June 8th at 5:00pm. Things might conclude before then. Good luck! I look forward to applications, and I'm excited to run this game.

Finally after a whole year, I am not depressed anymore. Sure I get sad about certain things, but after years of therapy, blocking toxic people, working out 5 days a week, and just practicing healthy coping mechanisms has truly helped me heal. I had a terrible year you would not believe. This was my life last summer: Being with a man for 3 years who was verbally/emotionally and mentally abusive (it was a domestic violence relationship), he cheated on me, he’s an addict of many sorts, selling my home last December that i owned with my ex, having my beautiful grandma pass away last summer,(may she RIP, she was my best friend) rehoming my beloved puppy all occurred in 2023. Also the cherry on top is being harassed by your ex and his new mistress. Blocking them both and making police reports was the only way they left me alone. I seriously felt like I was going to die. getting cheated on by someone who you love, and thought who loved you, is probably the most traumatizing thing to happen to someone. It hurts your soul and I couldn’t eat, and I could barely get out of my bed. Going to therapy twice a week, when this all occurred to me was my only sanity. Also having my beautiful, strong family and good friends, healed me. Thank the Lord, I have a loving, stable family who brought me in. Because if I didn’t, I seriously don’t think I would be here today. Grieving a broken relationship and also grieving a family member, is a different kind of pain. My Grandma would be proud of me and it brings me great joy, knowing that she is no longer suffering. Also I feel safer, as she is my guardian angel now 💕🪽. Therapy and good people saved me. I also saved myself. God bless everyone and I hope that you heal from anything that is bringing you pain. Much love, B 🤎💗

No Labels. No Platforms.
There, I said it. We got the talking part out of the way.
Now what does this look like when applied?
Am I crazy? Is this a knee-jerk reaction from some guy that’s just had enough of trying to fit into whatever cookie-cutter bullshit is hot this week?
Possibly, but let me explain-
I was born in 1980. Let’s get that out of the way off top so you know what tone to read this diatribe in.
I was barely a walking, talking human by the time of Regan’s inauguration. This ushered in the era of preppy excess on one side of the spectrum and the crack epidemic on the other. Rarely did these worlds coincide but they definitely coexisted. Suburban kids were watching the ‘Corys’ (Haim & Feldman) hoping to be the coolest kid on their block with the freshest vehicle, courtesy of mom & dad, that would surely get them the girl. The rest of us were bringing paper food stamps to school to hit the corner store during class break. And the cats we looked up too weren’t named Cory and they definitely weren’t daytime TV or even USA Up All Night material.
And the music? I can’t explain how fresh it was. You had to be there. I’m not gonna gas you up like some of these cats and attempt to explain it well enough that you ‘get it’. You have to understand that back then, a million things that are now firmly planted and rooted in our culture hadn’t happened yet-
No Biggie. No Tupac.
Nothing even remotely resembling an Eminem.
No Rock Steady Crew. No Kid Capri. No Def Comedy Jam.
No Outkast. No DJ Screw. No Three Six Mafia.
No Dipset. No Rhymesayers. No WuTang. No NWA.
None of it.
Imagine for a second that all you want to do is be Bruce Lee. Or save up enough money for a skateboard or some other semblance of identity or individuality. Then you walk by the park and see some young cat, not too much older than you, moving like a fucking robot. Better than a robot. And these big ass house speakers were drug to the park in the back of someone’s Suzuki so that the dude in the neighborhood with the dopest record and break beat collection could come down and spin and receive accolades for doing so. Over time, those accolades started to reach way past the block in which they originated. Enter The DJ-
House party flyers were probably the first tangible collectable item that was Hip Hop related. After that it was the MixTape. In the beginning, no two MixTapes were the same. You may get a dubbed tape from your boy or snatch a copy from the bootleg tables on the corner if they had their business together like that. But, for the most part, these were put together by the end user of the product itself: The Consumer. Some business savvy DJs of that time realized quick that the biggest money having mufukas they knew in real life were the drug dealers in the neighborhood. They would pay certain DJs to customize a MixTape for them that featured the bangers of that week/month/year but also the DJ shouting out the dealer that paid for the tape. Fixated on notoriety, it wouldn’t take long for money motivated individuals to position themselves beside the artists, producers and DJs of the time and, in the absence of a label, become boutique indie labels in their own right. These illicit proceeds would do more to perpetuate Hip Hop in its infancy than any corporate dollar. But these influxes would call enough attention to the culture that before we knew it, everyone from McDonald’s to the Chicago Bears would look to this new phenomenon to stay relevant.
Fast forward to the 90’s and Hip Hop was fully infused and rejuvenated with the hustler spirit. Artists like Too Short and E-40 proved that real money could be made in Hip Hop with the farm-to-table approach. It made an artist say, ‘If I create a product that is custom-fitted to my consumer, who better than I to deliver that product?’. Cutting out the middle man, artists themselves paid for and oversaw the production process, organized album art and duplication and released the product directly the streets. Selling albums literally out of the trunks of their cars as well as fostering relationships with independent record store owners who also benefited from blocking the labels out. They themselves knowing full well what it means to be force-fed label-curated top tens and other pop bullshit.
Vinyl record collections, cassette tape collections, books full of Compact Disks and in some cases DVDs with music-related documentary content. These things slowly grew as we aged and found ourselves. Even to look around at all of the items we had procured gave us a sense of who we were. The room that housed our music was like a glimpse into our soul. A snapshot with a million words and stories and moments behind it.
Now we have our phone. That’s it.
See how the words just dropped all lonely out of the paragraph like that?
It’s a sad state of affairs.
But there is hope
Billboard (Really? After all that, his source is fucking Billboard?) has reported that the sales of vinyl records has increased for 17 straight years. 43.46 million vinyl albums were sold in 2022. That’s 43% of all album sales the year over. Social media and streaming services are slowly but surely losing their grip and once again being relegated to novelty convenience applications. The curtain has been pulled back to reveal that Jay-Z’s famous line ‘Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t’ has not aged well. Saweetie has been kind enough to serve as case-in-point. The ‘rapper’ who, at the time of this writing, has an Instagram following of 12.9 million was recently roasted in the press when she dropped an EP that only sold 2,000 copies.
What In The Actual F*ck?
It that doesn’t prove to you that it doesn’t matter, you’re a lost cause and my advice to you would be to never step foot in the entertainment industry. However, if you too are bothered by this correlation (or lack there of), please read on.
We have now come full circle. Movements that preach the need to cleanse the artistic mind of the preoccupation with social media are quickly gaining popularity. Reverting back to the era when guerrilla marketing was King. The concept of a street team blanketing a city with your stickers, posters and flyers and all of the supporters and connections made while doing so is making its way back into the fold. Word of mouth advertising will never be replaced, though social media has brought us close. That may be the why the current pendulum swing is so dramatic. People are simply sick and tired of scrolling to find the meaning of life. The fact that the term ’social media cleanse’ is a thing (and has been for some time) denotes that it is dangerously pervasive. With the recent popularity and ease-of-use offered by AI, one’s first instinct would be to say to themselves, ‘Wait, that means anyone can do it’. With the all-too obvious downside being: Anyone can do it. The day Canva dropped their Magic Write AI option for document edits, i ran across at least 30 videos in which the quintessential content creator was explaining to me how this would be a game-changer in a way we could never fathom and that now, more than ever, I need to start taking my content making seriously by letting computers do all the work for me. The same work they are doing for everyone else. Except, somehow it’s supposed to be different and unique. But that’s the part they leave out. How can I be unique and on some never-before-seen shit if I’m doing precisely what everyone else is doing? Another heartbreaker for the AI buffs? Google has already put in place AI detecting technology that will automatically initiate their own form of shadow-ban on all of your SEO if they find or suspect that AI has been used to create it. But don’t fret. When you wake up tomorrow, there will a million other content creators dropping videos instructing you on how to skirt AI detection software. Do you see where I’m going with this? Is your motivation to create a commodity that is appreciated by your core audience? Or have your career goals transitioned from that to a computer hacker that minors in internet marketing?
More than ever, people crave connection with an artist, regardless of the media. Audio, video or conceptual, they want YOU.
Many artists are adjusting their focus back to website presentation. With the ease in which an artist can create their own e-commerce website through companies like Squarespace, complete with comment sections, like counts and whatever bell or whistle is commonly used to satiate the viewer.
Point is, we can do it too. We can do it better.
An artist can release a project to their own site and utilize the ‘Proud To Pay’ option where the consumer can pay as much or as little as they’d like for the download. Merchandise or other gated content can be sold right along with it. You can literally build your support system 1 fan at a time. That connection will also endear much longer than the ones garnered my viral Tik Tok or Instagram Reels. That being said, we aren’t idiots. Social Media should still receive updates from those whose main focus is there website community. The website is headquarters. There should always be more content, options, action and opportunity on your website than what is offered on social. Social should be utilized for the sole purpose of drawing traffic to YOUR PLATFORM. Say it: I Am The Platform.
I’m not telling you to delete your Instagram, FaceBook or Tik Tok.
But you should delete them from your phone.
Tim Ferris wrote The 4-Hour Work Week in 2007. In it, he laid a strategy for being less busy and more productive. Interestingly enough, this book was written the year the first iPhone dropped. But already our society was looking for anything to get them away from the rat race. The desire to always be available. A slave to what was then your BlackBerry. The need to check and reply to emails within minutes of reception. MySpace was the only social media platform to speak of at the time and even then, folks took it too far. The book spoke about setting time aside weekly to check and reply to emails. Another to check and respond to social media. The bulk remaining for actual work and whatever interaction that work required. You can set aside as little as one day a week to share all the clips of your content, respond to comments and DM’s and interact with folks you regularly interact with. What you’ll find in doing so is that your hyper focus on social media was for naught. And no one missed you while you were gone. And all that time you used to spend scrolling can be spent creating content for your website and making your community as inviting and comfortable as possible. Through email and text lists, the integrations on your own website can forward content directly to everyone who gives a fuck immediately. Stop posting content to social media FIRST hoping that whatever platform you’re on is in a good enough mood to show it to 4% of the people who actually follow you in hopes of seeing it. Ask yourself what your goal is. Do you want 1 million supporters for a year? Or 10,000 for 20 years? If you can get those 10k to spend $10 a year, you’ll never work again. Are you listening?
This entire essay was designed using no AI. It was however concocted to persuade you. Just like everything else you’ll listen to or read today. The difference? I implore you to stop listening to the noise. Even if I myself become a distraction to you, It warms my heart to know you’ll never listen again. Go. Be the most amplified version of yourself and don’t stop until you’ve pissed a lot of people off. Only then will you have created anything worth fussing over in the first place. When that happens, the world outside of that computer in your pocket will open up in ways that will make you want to leave it there. Do not waste another second looking to the next man for direction or inspiration. Get YOU out first. Fortunately, I’m not going to push you towards any apps or sites that will simplify your process. That alone will simplify your process. You’re welcome.
Kream Soda

It's 10PM on a Wednesday night, I had an extremely traumatic day and maybe it's the wine & hatred in my system but I am sick to DEATH of toxic mothers, I'm being repeatedly abused on a goddam daily basis by this woman and i am sick of it. Her last "boyfriend" was white, racist and abusive, we stayed with him for a year because we almost went homeless and had no other choice, when we got out of tht situation my brother moved in with us and beat me physically for SIX STRAIGHT YEARS, (mind you at the time I was in and out of abusive relationships because that's all that I knew at the time) I was 15 when all of this went down, it didn't stop until I freshly hit 21. Her current "husband" has made several micro aggressions towards me from 2021 up until NOW. This dude straight up told me that I looked better with my hair straightened, slammed a door in my face, screamed "fuck you" at the top of his lungs because i locked the room to my door and soooo so much more yet she stays with him and wanna know what his nationality it? He's fucking he's from fucking ENGLAND. I CANT DO THIS SHIT NO MORE. She forced me to move out of state with this asshat, I have no family no friends NOTHING here. My father, sisters, aunts my fucking grandma are all in a whole other state and i'm here ISOLATED. These two are 57 & 53 years old acting like two first love high school elopers. No ma'am this man isolated you, is racist as hell and abusive as fuck. It must be his money cause i don't see it i mean the man don't even have HAIR?? And guess what they decided to do, he moved states AGAIN, and she followed and now i'm stuck in this shitty house while she relies on me to help sell her house when she knows that i am disabled. I have random people coming into the house while i'm completely naked and asleep in my bed asking me to clean an entire house, "capture and rescue" two elderly cats that i have (the only sweet little creatures i have helping me through this bullshit) and put away ALL of my personal belongings to try and get this house sold. If I wasn't in that wreck in 2021 I would have learned how to drive and eventually left the infantilism she forces on me a LONG TIME AGO. But i fuckin can't. I'm disabled and she exploits me for it, for her own narcissistic supply. This is going to get dark. I told her today that if she never woke back up I would feel more content in life. I got onto a family meeting facetime with my dads side of the family the other night and they revealed some sick shit to me regarding my childhood when it comes to my "mother" I'm not getting into it and I hope whoever read this far understands, but there's a reason I don't remember my childhood, and she's 50% of the reason why- and ill leave it at that. I'm not expecting any of you to fully understand what I'm ranting about because I don't want to get into specifics, I'm leaving a lot of the story out.But hey at the end of the day get your bag girl, gonna lose a daughter in the process but hey 🤷🏽‍♀️ I just wanted to get some shit off my soul.

Grand Risings Everyone,
I hope you are having an amazing day. Many peace and blessings to you. I wanted to refer to the beanstalk. My analogy for the beanstalk is.... Remember how Jack's mother did not have any money. All they had was a cow so Jack's mother tells him to go to the market and not to accept anything not worth gold. Jack takes the cow and on his way to the market someone stops him and asks about the cow. Words are exchanged and Jack decides to take 4 magic beans for the cow. JACK makes his way back to his home and proceeds to plant the seeds. His mother is upset because they were really lacking at that point. Well, when Jack wakes up the next day there is a huge beanstalk grown in the yard. He proceeds to climb his way to the top and thats where GIANTS live! He sees a golden egg and he steals it. He comes back down to sell it.. We are like Jack in this lifetime sometime naive and sometimes wanting to believe in something so much that we are willing to give up our last for it. And then miracles happen! Reaching and climbing to the top is where you will find the golden egg. You will be able to push pass all barriers and make your magical manifestations happen. I feel like this is also the way up to your higher purpose. When you can climb towards your purpose you can push pass barriers. The invisible ones that keep you believing that you can never accomplish anything. Or that you work extremely hard for someone else for 40 years you will have a happy life. Or that you can never achieve your goals if you are too old. Let's not forget the naysayers. Your peers and others can sway you consistently if you let them. Never let someone deter you off course. And your course is your purpose so let your mind, heart, and soul steer you. If you are anything like me MANI GEN you will let your SOUL steer your body and your body steer your MIND! You are very able to make your dreams, your goals, and your manifestations become true! I wish you the best!!! MAy you be blessed!!!

For context: I grew up in a Roman Catholic household, for some reason I've always had like a thing for the paranormal, some of you may be familiar with Ed and Lorraine Warren. I was watching a documentary on The Devil Made Me Do It case which was one of their most difficult cases bc they were fighting Satan himself... According to recordings from the case, there's a voice coming out of 11 year old David Glatsel saying that his soul is his and David is going to die and other stuff of the sort. However, the other day I saw a priest giving a talk about the idea of "selling your soul to the devil" where he said you basically can't do that bc we as humans don't really own our soul, yes it's a gift that God gives us but when we pass away the soul returns to him in heaven. So here is my question pops, whether you believe on demons or call it bull, could you actually sell your soul? Could a demon in general actually claim it? Or is it only something that only spikes fear of the unknown? Can we as humans, actually put the Devil on trial knowing he's way more powerful than us? Can he actually get a human soul just because he wants to?
Whether I believe in or not, I guess it's subjective, mostly bc I don't acknowledge it but I also can't fully deny it isn't there. Despite the fact that I'm, in a way, attracted to wanting to understand the occult just bc I'm curious, doesn't mean I practice anything on it, I have so much respect for what I don't understand, specifically when it come to my faith and the things that, according to theology, goes against it, so that's why my questions are bubbling up.

For context: I grew up in a Catholic household, for some reason I've always had like a thing for the paranormal, some of you may be familiar with Ed and Lorraine Warren. I was watching a documentary on The Devil Made Me Do It case which was one of their most difficult cases bc they were fighting Satan himself... According to recordings from the case, there's a voice coming out of 11 year old David Glatsel saying that his soul is his and David is going to die and other stuff of the sort. However, the other day I saw a priest giving a talk about the idea of "selling your soul to the devil" where he said you basically can't do that bc we as humans don't really own our soul, yes it's a gift that God gives us but when we pass away the soul returns to him in heaven. So here is my question pops, whether you believe on demons or call it bull, could you actually sell your soul? Could a demon in general actually claim it? Or is it something that only spikes fear of the unknown? Can we as humans, actually put the Devil on trial knowing he's way more powerful than us? Can he actually get a human soul just because he wants to?
Whether I believe in or not, I guess it's subjective, mostly bc I don't acknowledge it but I also can't fully deny it isn't there. Despite the fact that I'm, in a way, attracted to wanting to understand the occult just bc I'm curious, doesn't mean I practice anything on it, I have so much respect for what I don't understand, specifically when it come to my faith and the things that, according to theology, goes against it, so that's why my questions are bubbling up.

Hey Jude, you won the poll. Despite a competitive showing from Otis Redding, The Beatles won the 1968 poll, making them the first artist to win twice.
*****
1) “Sugar Sugar” (The Archies) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paAjKEzbdvc
The defining song of the bubblegum pop genre, the song was written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim, with the latter scoring a No. 1 song of his own in the mid-70s with the excellent “Rock Me Gently”. It was credited to The Archies, a fictional band from the animated TV show The Archie Show, based on the Archie Comics (if you know the show Riverdale, you know). The lead vocals were sung by Ron Dante, with Toni Wine on backing vocals and keyboard. This song is marked by a cheerful, upbeat melody and simple, sweet, straightforward, and catchy lyrics. It includes a memorable bass line, light percussion, and pop orchestration. The song was an enormous smash hit all across the world and was the best-selling single worldwide in 1969.
Man, bubblegum freaking rules. I love this song. I don’t care what anyone says.
2) "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" (The 5th Dimension) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlrQ-bOzpkQ
The first of 2 US No. 1s for the pop group The 5th Dimension, this song is a medley of two songs from the musical Hair, a musical which dominated popular culture in 1968-1970 and was like the Hamilton of the Woodstock generation it seems (several of the songs from the musical were covered by different artists and became huge hits, and the soundtrack was a No. 1 album). The song blends psychedelic soul, pop, and rock. It starts with a slow, mellow introduction in "Aquarius" and gradually builds up to the more upbeat and gospel-infused "Let the Sunshine In." The arrangement features rich sunshine pop-influenced harmonies typical of The 5th Dimension, with a prominent use of brass and rhythm section that gives it a powerful and uplifting feel.
Wonderful song. I first heard this song from a 40 Year-Old Virgin when I was a little kid. A few years from now, saying that might start to show my age.
3) “I Can’t Get Next to You” (The Temptations) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxH1BYed6xc
The 2nd of 4 US No. 1s for The Temptations, the song was written by Temptations-producer Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. The song is notable for featuring each of the then-current members of The Temptations taking turns on lead vocals. This was a part of the group's move towards a more democratic approach to lead vocals, which Whitfield encouraged. The song is a blend of psychedelic soul, a style that producer Whitfield was pioneering at the time. It features a heavy, funky instrumental backing, highlighted by brass, strong bass, and distinctive guitar effects, which became a signature sound of Motown in the late 1960s. The lyrics express frustration and longing, with each member describing supernatural powers they possess, yet none of these abilities help them win the affection of the person they love.
Man, all 4 of the Temptations No. 1s are absolute stone-cold classics. The fact that this song is my least favourite of the 4 speaks wonders to how good those four songs are. This song has so much strut and attitude.
4) “Honky Tonk Women” (The Rolling Stones) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urqALF0-dX4
The 5th of 8 US No. 1 songs by The Rolling Stones, and their last No. 1 of the 1960s (as well as their 8th and final UK No. 1), the non-album single was released in the UK the day after the death of founding member Brian Jones. Thematically, a "honky tonk woman" refers to a dancing girl in a western bar; the setting for the narrative in the first verse is Memphis, Tennessee. There is a honky-tonk version of this song with slightly different lyrics on the Let It Bleed album called “Country Honk”.
While this isn’t my favourite Stones No. 1, it’s a damn good song.
5) “Everyday People” (Sly and the Family Stone) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JvkaUvB-ec
The first of 3 US No. 1s for Sly and the Family Stone, this song was written by Sly Stone and was written as a plea for peace and equality between differing races and social groups, a major theme and focus for the band. The Family Stone featured white members Greg Errico and Jerry Martini in its lineup, as well as females Rose Stone and Cynthia Robinson, making it an early major integrated band in rock history. Unlike the band's more typically funky and psychedelic records, "Everyday People" is a mid-tempo number with a more mainstream pop feel. Bassist Larry Graham contends that the track featured the first instance of the "slap bass technique", which would become a staple of funk and other genres.
Amazing song. Honestly, one of my favourites of the decade. And all time. The message is still pertinent today.
6) “Dizzy” (Tommy Roe) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RX8M3hkYhs
Tommy Roe had previously scored a No. 1 song in 1962 with the proto-bubblegum “Sheila” (great song). He is now considered one of the archetypal bubblegum pop artists of the late 60s, alongside Tommy James and the Shondells. He co-wrote "Dizzy" with Freddy Weller. “Dizzy” features a prominent swirling organ riff, upbeat rhythm, and simple, memorable lyrics that embody the pop sensibility of the late-1960s. The chorus, with its repetitive and catchy hook "I'm so dizzy, my head is spinning," conveys the song's theme of bewildering romantic feelings. It was a US No. 1 and was a big worldwide hit.
I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, but this is also a great song. Love it. So catchy.
***
Rounding out the Top 10 is “Hot Fun in the Summertime”’ (Sly and the Family Stone) (No. 7), "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" (Tom Jones) (No. 8), “Build Me Up Buttercup” (The Foundations (No. 9) and “Crimson and Clover” (Tommy James and the Shondells) (No. 10).
Holy crap, what a Top 10. Might be the best Top 10 of the 60s.
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In the heart of an ancient forest, where the sunlight filtered through a verdant canopy, the trees swirled and swayed with the blowing wind that reached their lengthy tops. This was a world of enchantment, where magical creatures roamed free and whispered secrets hung in the air like a delicate mist—whispers of betrayal, sacrifice, war, justice, and the wrongdoings of others. In this mystical domain, hidden beneath the towering ferns and nestled within the petals of puffy golden flowers, lived a fairy named Luma. She possessed cascades of coppery luminous hair as long as her spine, with a radiant ribbon tying the ends to the top of her head, making a bow that matched her shimmering moonlight and eyes that sparkled like liquid silver. She stood no taller than a whiteboard eraser, just a mere wisp of a being, with her wings being a little taller than her, their silver-iridescent glistening light attracting those that thought she was merely a wrapper. Soon she hazily arose with the growing sky, sitting up while her hair slunk down and her wings dripped behind her, their rays casting rainbows behind them as they manipulated the sun's luminescent light as it draped through the ferns, showering her in its glow. She stretched her muscles, which were barely enough to lift two pennies, but got her around; her wings flittered awake as her muscles tensed and then relaxed. She had barely been out in the field for three hours, which she knew was not enough time for her father to notice her disappearance and get mad, sending knights to fetch her when all she wanted was for his attention for once, but she remembered his rule: “No fairy parents in the fairy empire would care for such a thing as their own children as they are only a waste.” As she thought about his stupid rule that had been there since the time of wars when the empire was weak and children were just burdens, something spotted her: crack, snap, swoosh. Suddenly, her thoughts had been interrupted when she saw a human staring at her. She squealed loudly and spoke in a soft whisper, “What are you doing here, ape!?” The human just laughed at her. “What was that little fairy? Speak up!” He snickered. She got enraged, her face turning bright red as her wings buzzed her off the flower and into the human's face. “Excuse you! I am a princess! I said, What are you doing here!?” She spoke in a snobby tone. The human grins and rubs the inside of his ear in a rude manner. “Don’ know. Maybe looking to eat a fairy?” He snickered without seriousness at his harmless joke. Luma’s face went pale as the white clover flowers around them, and a horrified expression crossed her face. “Yo-you what?” The human stopped laughing for a second, then burst out laughing, "Oh, relax, you lump of cotton, I’m joking.” She only relaxes a little bit then gets as mad as a bull seeing red “HOW DARE YOU! THAT IS A SERIOUS THING THAT HAPPENS TO FAIRIES. DO YOU MONKEYS HAVE NO RESPECT!?” She screams loud enough that birds fly off. The human snickers and shifts slightly. “Such respect is coming from you, yes?” She stops and huffs, crossing her arms as her wings flitter. “I have plenty of respect for humans.” She looks him up and down, noticing his stance first—how confident and playful it is with his body slouching backward and his legs apart and relaxed. The next thing she notices is his brown bird nest-like hair and his apprentice muscles, then his silver-shining armor with chainmail under it that makes it hard to see what’s underneath, making her feel uneasy about him as he’s got training while she’s not allowed to. She calms herself and tries to uphold her royal princess status with a commanding tone: “This is off-topic; why are you in this forest, human!? You shall answer to me, as I am the daughter of the emperor!” The human sighs deeply, his voice reflecting how tired he is. “I just needed a break from training, and I was hoping we could be friends.?” She looks at him, eyeing him up and down, then thinks and feels a sense of longing through her loneliness: “Why would I-.. Very well human—we can be friends! My name is Luma." She smiles and flutters around while he looks relieved. “Thank you, my name is Jason." Jason takes off his helmet and holds out a hand, as if offering his word of peace to her. As the days passed, Jason would often meet Luma; he would spot her underneath the ferns, as she looked like a wrapper with her wings swaying in the wind. Today was different, however. Luma was waiting for Jason, but this time he seemed different; he wouldn’t look at her and was hiding something behind his back. "Sooooo, what’cha hiding?” Luma asks as she swirls around his head, overjoyed with affection, while Jason stares at her with nervousness. “Aha, just a hole in my pants..” Jason spoke with a solemn tone. Luma looks at him, confused with what he’s hiding. Her wings flutter for a short second as she lands on his shoulder and speaks excitedly. “So what do you want to do today!?” Jason huffs heavily, as if his chest has a dog on it. “How about we take a nap..? I’m kind of tired, and you look tired.” Luma pouts at his idea but then sighs and slowly lowers herself onto a puffy flower, draping her mirage-shining wings over herself, making a cocoon out of them. Luma yawns and looks up at him. “What do you want to do afterwards, Jason?” Her eyes were drooping slowly, like petals falling. Jason coughs and looks nervously around. “We can play Truth or Dare again, but you should really rest; I’ll be right here to guard you." Luma yawns and nods as she slowly falls asleep, curled up closer to a fawn than a fairy. She opens her eyes and looks at Jason, “Are you not going to lay down silly? I swear you needed to lay down to sleep." Jason nods quickly and lays down next to her. As Luma awakes hazily, she notices she’s no longer in the forest. She looks around, spotting bars full of mahogany rust forming from water droplets on the ceiling and a bar holding up several bird cages full of other fairies. The room was gloomy, with one light in the middle and cold stone walls, chains everywhere with little to no clean areas, and hidden skeleton bones that she could only vaguely see in the corner, with the sounds of echoing screams and squeals. Panic starts to set in for Luma as the sleep wears off and the confusion sets in, and she starts to flutter around her cage, trying to get out, but within a few moments, she notices, as if on que, a chuckle coming down the hall. A large, tan man taller than the door frame steps in, having to bend down to get in, with his long beard reaching his chest and his hair as dark as white on black, his eyes blue enough to be mistaken for toys and the distinguishing feature of knights armor. He walks straight up to Luma's cage, causing her to shiver, and backs away. “What a pretty little thing. The emperor's daughter is correct, Jason?” Jason walks in, causing Luma's eyes to widen as her heart beats into a pit. "Correct, Mil, I tricked her into being caught; she’s a dumb one, that’s for sure." Jason avoids eye contact as much as he can while Mil laughs at Luma. "Awe, well, ain’t that just cruel, Jason? Can't you be nice to your old friend?” Luma just stares directly at Jason and speaks with a wavering stutter, “J-Jason..? What did you do!? I trust you! You really are just a fluffing ape!” Mil snickers and nudges Jason then looks at Luma and says, "Sweetheart, he’s just a tool; you should know better not to trust strangers." Luma flinches and moves back, her wings hiding behind her back as Mil continues speaking. “You will fetch a nice price for your new owner. I believe a little girl would like you; you’re like a little doll." Luma glares at him. “How dare you!? The emperor will have your head for this!” Mil snickers, his blue eyes piercing through her soul. "Please, darling, we all know fairies don’t actually care for their kids.” Luma sniffles and glares at him, tears edging her eyes and threatening to filter as she speaks with a wavering voice and a pathetic tone, “How dare you! My daddy won’t let me die.” Mil chuckles as he spits out onto the stone floor, filling Luma with disgust. “All you humans are pigs! I want to go home!” Luma starts crying heavy sobs that make the other fairies look with pity, and Jason winces. Mil starts speaking with a giddy tone, "Oooo, look at those beautiful tears! You will sell for a lot, yes, you will!” Luma just continues to sob and sob as her cheeks turn red. Jason fills with guilt as he looks upon her, but he tries to hide it when Mil looks back at him, but Mil notices and smacks him.
The room was filled with pained grunts and snaps as Mil repeatedly smacked Jason over and over again while Jason lay on the floor, bloodied and bruised from metal being beat into him. Mil hits him, smacks and hits, smacks and hits, then spits on him. “Watch these fairies, you bloody mongrel!” Luma watches with tears in her eyes and terror etched in her face as Jason stays scraped on the ground, unmoving but definitely breathing, and after a few minutes, Luma can’t take it and whispers, mocking a yell, “Jason! Come on, Jason, get up! You can’t die here. I-I understand you don’t like me, but you can’t die here!! PLEASE!!” Luma starts sobbing as she watches him. As minutes feel like eternity in the eyes of life sketched before them Jason started to move slowly but surely. He got up, rubbing his wounds and brushing off dirt. "L-Luma, be quiet..” Jason groans as he leans against the wall, coughing as his lungs breathe in the escape of death as the looming somber mood leaves the hall as they watch dust settle down. “I’m sorry, Luma.. I-I am very scared of him. I couldn’t come home without a fairy again..” Luma sniffles, “Wh-Why couldn’t you just run from him?” Jason just sighed and shook his head; ultimately, he wasn’t going to tell why. "Listen, Luma, just. Don’t question it." Jason watches as Luma cries again and sighs. A few hours later, after quite a lot of crying, Jason speaks up, "Luma, please stop." Luma speaks through streaming sobs, “B-Bu-But my dad! I’l-I’ll never se-se-se-see.. see him again!” Jason sighs, groans, and leans deep into the stone walls. “Just break out if you’re so concerned!!” Luma sniffles as tears continue to stream down her rose-tinted cheeks. Jason's annoyance continues to grow. "Luma, shut the hell up!! You’re bullcrap is annoying!” Lumas tears stop a bit as she glares at him. “Shut up, you disgusting ape!! I wish all humans were dead. You’re all so cruel!!!” Jason's annoyance turned to anger, with his face turning a bright red as she spoke, “We’re cruel!? WE’RE CRUEL!?!! YOUR FATHER WON’T EVEN LOOK FOR YOU BECAUSE HE DOESN’T CARE THAT YOU’RE GONE!!” With that, Luma started heavily sobbing and making a high-pitched wailing noise that sounded like a bird.
After ages of listening to Lumas bull**** Jason finally heard Mil coming back. “What is that awful noise?” Jason looked hesitant to say something but said, “It’s the princess, sir; she’s very upset and refuses to shut up even when I tell her to." Mil looks over at the princess and focuses on the noise she’s making, then takes a second to think and does something unbelievably cruel; he starts shaking the cage till she goes quiet and you can’t hear even the swish of grass. “There we go. Now she’s quiet. I can’t believe you’re too stupid to think of that, Jason." Jason shakes the wide-eyed, horrified expression on his face and peeks into the cage, noticing all the bruises and bleeding Luma had. “Mi-Mil I think you did too much..” Mil snickers, "Oh, please, she is fine, just a bit unconscious.” At that moment, there was a loud roar outside as the stone building above was ripped off, leaving just the open basement.. Exposing what Mil and Jason had done, they suddenly saw an army of fairies, elves, and hybrids, they were considered the guardians of the forest and often allied for their fallen. One fairy stepped forward and spoke with a commanding tone, his appearance very similar to Lumas in color except for his rough beard. “Where is my daughter?” he said as his wings fluttered. Jason stared in horror and looked at Mil, who was also horrified but quickly made an excuse: "Apologies, sir, but we don’t know where the princess is; we don’t even know who she is." Jason spoke afterwards with a shaking tone, “Ye-Yeah we’ve never even heard of Luma.”. The emperor glares down at them and says, “I never said her name, so I will ask you again. Where. is. my. daughter?" As he spoke that last bit, his voice echoed through the forest and made even the elves shake as Jason dropped to his knees. Mil looked at Jason and smacked him. “YOU DAMN FOOL, HOW COULD YOU SAY HER NAME? GET UP NOW, COWARD!” Jason flinched but shakily stood up. The Hyrbid King didn’t like the attitude of Mil, and the snake hybrid was quickly wrapping around him as the Emperor of Fairies spoke again. “Your name is Jason. So Jason, don’t be a fool and tell me where she is.” Jason gulped, his face turning pale as he lifted the cage and pulled Luma out gently, her body limp like a rag doll. “Here she is, sire, and I am ever so sorry for what I have done; I was forced.” The emperor looked at his daughter, his face going pale as he looked at how limp she was. He immediately was at her side, checking her pulse. “You are lucky she is alive.” He has a team of medic fairies come over, and they work on Luma till her eyes open. “Da-Dad..? You came for me?” The emperor hugs Luma tightly. "Oh, my sweet girl, of course I did.. I can’t believe I’ve let this stupid tradition blind me. I almost lost you!” Luma looks at Jason, then her father says, "Dad, I ask you to pardon the fool, for his offense is great, but his wrists were chained and his mind controlled." The emperor glares at Jason before nodding and motioning for the execution of Mil.

• E.S

For the sake of maintaining anonymity, I’ll call him James. I met James during Covid in Orlando. I had just moved there from Texas and had already been pretty deep in my “spiritual journey“. No psychedelics or drugs or anything like that, but reading, meditating, journaling, yoga, you name it I tried it. I was feeling pretty good. But he was beautiful. The way he spoke was hypnotic. The chemistry was unbelievable. After seeing each other for three months, we decided to make it official.
He had just started gaining popularity on TikTok for posting about spirituality, healing, the metaphysical… I was always supportive. But then one day after staying the weekend at his place and going to work on a Monday I realized I left my wallet in his apartment. He didn’t answer my calls, but I knew he was off so I figured he was just asleep. I got there and the music was blasting, no response to my endless knocking. I was so close to calling the police because I was worried that maybe he fell in the shower and hit his head or something? He came out and was gray. He immediately ran to the bathroom and started throwing up after he had answered the door. when he was throwing up, I found blood to the trashcan where I found syringe. I was naïve and educated, so I stayed.
Three months after that, we moved to his hometown in Knoxville Tennessee. That was the beginning of the next four years of my hell. constant gaslighting and manipulation. It didn’t help that he was also a revered timeshare salesman. If you’re not familiar with it, they basically sell you a loan worth up to hundreds of thousands of dollars at a high interest rate that you’ll have to die to get out of. Meaning he was extremely intelligent, manipulative, and have the ability to sell ice to a snowman. His knowledge of psychology and spirituality along with his opiate use was the perfect combination for a monster.
It wasn’t like this 24/7 though. I left him several times, and came back due to his sweet words and ability to get not only under my skin, but into my heart. In February 2023, I hit my breaking point and left again. This was the fifth time. I rented my own house and focused on myself and stayed single and focused until the beginning of October when I gave him the opportunity to have a conversation with me. It immediately led into him pretty much moving into my house from his sisters. Then one day after coming home from work I found him in a zombie like state with a needle in the sink and the bag of heroin on the ground. Over those four years, I experienced six overdoses with him. This was number seven.
After we came home from the hospital later that night, I packed his things and I took him back to his sister’s house about an hour away. His last words holding the box of his books, baby will you please help me with this box? He just kept repeating it when he realized I was walking away and going to my car to drive off. I did. No contact.
I met someone amazing at the end of December and by April 1, he overdosed and died. I remember when I left him telling my friends that if he died within the next six months that I would feel like it was my fault. Like there was more I could’ve done. I know there wasn’t though. Now hear me out. I’m going to sound really terrible and selfish when I say this. But I feel like he got the easy way out. Now that he’s gone, everyone is looking at him like some poor soul, but just needed more help, more support.
He was constantly stealing cash and transferring money into his cash app from mine. He gave me bathroom pressed Opana that almost OD’d ME instead of my actual pain medication when my appendix ruptured so he could block me out and use himself. And of course he sold my hydros. He would disappear for hours or days.. just a few small examples..
Between myself and his sister, there was literally nothing else we could have done. And the time we were apart, he spent 41 days in rehab and was able to get his old job back. The first week going back to work, he died snorting fentanyl.
Now I’m sitting here, constantly triggered by things that reminded me of the gaslighting, the manipulation, the psychological abuse and torture he put me through. Everyone looks at me like I’m the bad guy because I should’ve stayed. I should’ve helped more. I lost a job over this man. I lost friends and respect of my family members over this man. I’m slowly putting those relationships back together and of course I found another job. But I’m still having to deal with and process the trauma.
Now there’s a ball made out of anger and sadness inside of me that comes out From time to time as a byproduct of the roller coaster ride that James was. I don’t know what to do except for remain present and grateful for the life I have, the partner I have and the opportunities I’ve been given since then. But the ball still takes up a space in my chest that I cannot seem to remove. I just want to heal. I already forgave him 1000 times for everything he put me through because I was so incredibly in love with this man. But now I’m just left with all of the memories and all of the leftovers of pain. Therapy right? But talking through it out loud doesn’t really help either.
Sometimes I cry into my pillow and just scream at him as if he could hear me. But he’s gone. And if his ideas of reincarnation are true, I truly truly hope he’s born into a family filled with love can heal little James and hurt. He experience a little boy that catalyst his drug used. Especially being that he was very well followed on social media for being the spiritual guy. The empathetic guy. The understanding guy. No one really knew him except for me and his family. It was all a show, an act, a sale. Just like when he would sell timeshare. I believe that he believed all the things he was saying. But he never did the yoga. He never actually read the books he would talk about. It was purely cliff notes online that he would regurgitate to try and show that he had overcome his struggle, but he had not. Now, obviously, that’s Clear.
So let me circle back to the selfish part. What about me? What now? Fuck.

The stress of the last six months has nearly killed me. Besides the general cratering of the outside world—political strife, climate change, inflated rents, corporate greed, and the baffling resurgence of crew socks—my internal life was falling apart, too. I'm at the point where I can't see a way out of the darkness, and that feeling has only grown in the last few days.
My struggles ramped up exponentially in the last two weeks. It started when my long-term girlfriend and I called it quits after five years. There was no definitive relationship-altering fight or infidelity. It was simply the boring banality of the "roommate-ification" of our lives together. We both felt the shift but never talked about it. Turns out communication is important.
Truthfully, we'd stayed together for so long because we couldn't afford to live apart. Our rent had nearly doubled the last time we re-upped our lease but even that was a bargain compared to what was out there currently. We were trapped by our need to have a roof over our heads.
My job had stagnated, and I couldn't find anything better. I was stuck. Like me, she'd been job hunting as well. Unlike me, she had a master's, and her prospects should've been higher. They weren't. For five months, she applied to hundreds of jobs and couldn't break through. If she got a rejection email, it was a win. Most of the time, the companies never responded.
Finally, she found a great opportunity at a Fortune 500 company. It was an involved process. She nailed the five interviews, and her "test project" was well received. She was offered the position, and it came with a massive pay increase—double her current salary. I was proud of her—she needed a win. We celebrated with pizza and beer that night.
Two days later, she dropped the bomb that she was breaking things off. The relationship ending wasn't a surprise. The timing was. The discussion was brief, and there was zero chance of reconciliation. She declined when I asked if she could stay until the lease ended. Mentally, it would've been too much for her. Two days after that, she moved out, taking half the rent with her. I was stuck in a lease I couldn't afford on my salary for the next six months.
My free time evaporated as I took on two extra gigs to help make ends meet. In addition to my office nine to five, I drove for a delivery app on the weekends and took a part-time night job stocking shelves at a local grocery store. When I wasn't hustling for housing, I slept or ate. I did nothing beyond that. Nothing brings me joy. There is no spark.
This drudgery has become my daily routine, and it's killing me.
To help cover some cost gaps, I've started selling off some of my stuff online. It was just me here, and I decided that the Spartan lifestyle would have to work for now. Anything I could fetch a decent amount for went up for sale. My apartment is so empty now every noise causes an echo.
Before my shift at the grocery store, I agreed to meet someone who wanted to take a look at my kitchen table. It was a lovely table – my ex had obsessed over it – but I didn't see a need at the moment. Now that I was a bachelor, my TV trays became my default kitchen tables anyway. I wasn't planning on any dinner parties in the future anyway.
A couple showed up later than they said they would. It was a bored-looking guy and a fastidious young woman. She made friendly small talk as she looked over the table. Her boyfriend (I think) stayed quiet and played bodyguard. I gave him a friendly nod at one point, and he just looked away. She said they'd take it without trying to talk me down. I took the small win.
She asked if I could help carry it down to their truck. I was running late, but feeling helpful, even for a fleeting few seconds, was worth it. Her silent boyfriend and I hauled the table through the hallway and even managed to avoid hitting the walls the entire way down.
I placed it in their truck, got my money, and turned to leave. The girl said thanks, and the boyfriend finally returned the nod. I gave a weird half-wave to them both and started to walk away when I heard the passenger window being rolled down.
"Hey man," the boyfriend said, his voice higher pitched than I thought it would. "What was up with your brother giving us the evil eye in the lobby when we got here?"
I turned around, "Huh? I don't have a brother."
"A cousin then?"
"My family lives about a thousand miles away. What happened in the lobby?"
"A dude that looked just like you was hiding in a dark hallway in the lobby and staring at my girl's ass."
"Jacob, really," she said.
"I'm sorry that happened, but I had nothing to do with it. We do have the occasional homeless guy meander in. Maybe you saw one of them," I said. "Did he say or do anything bad?"
"Jacob, I asked you to not say something," the girl said, burying her head in her hands.
Jacob's frosty attitude to me made sense now. "He said something about running up that ass. I dunno, he was mumbling. I told him I'd beat his ass if he didn't stop staring. Seemed to shut him up."
"Oh. Well, congrats," I said. "I'll tell the manager. Thanks for letting me know."
"You should do a better job keeping jokers like that out of the building."
"Jacob, he's not a security guard."
"He should still be a man and protect his home."
"Have a good night," I said, ending the conversation and heading back up to my apartment. I had about five minutes to change and head out before I'd be late. Last thing my ego needed was to be fired from my backup job.
Thankfully, I was able to slip into work and not get spotted by my boss. That was the last of the good news, though. We had a massive weekly order come in, which meant I'd be there late, plus someone had called out. Worse, our hand truck had a flat tire, and I spent the next few hours torturing my muscles, schlepping heavy boxes around the store. I soldiered on, counting down the minutes until I left and fantasizing about going to bed for the night.
If wishing for sleep wasn't a sad statement to my mental well-being, nothing was.
I came home after my shift at the grocery store and plopped down on the couch. I had contemplated selling it, but it was an older Ikea number, and I didn't think the value would replace my desire to sit. I could feel my body sink into the cushions, and the day's tension seep out. I was beat and tired to the point that turning on the TV was a chore.
I picked up my phone and thought I'd doomscroll until sleep overtook me. I didn't expect it to be a long scroll, as even the methadone that is my phone has failed me lately. As I lowered myself from a slumped position to a supine one, I heard footsteps outside my apartment door. This was not unusual, but the noise I heard sounded like kid footsteps. That was unusual, as nobody on our floor had kids, and it was almost midnight.
Despite my body screaming at me to not move, my brain suggested I check it out. I rolled myself off the couch and eventually stood up. I listened again and heard the kid running down the hallway. I walked over to my door and looked out the peephole. I didn't see anyone.
"Maybe I'm dreaming," I said to myself. "Maybe I'm not staring out a peephole, expecting to see a kid running down the hall at midnight, but instead, I'm cuddled up in my bed, snoozing." I pinched my arm and felt the pain. I was definitely in the waking world.
I turned to head back to the couch when I heard the running again, this time louder. I opened my door and peeked out into the hallway. Nobody was there. The door from the apartment across me opened up, too. Gloria, a young at heart grandma who was friendly/constantly buzzed in a wine mom kind of way, gave me a once over.
"You heard that, too?" she asked.
"Kids?"
"No rugrats around. I assumed it was some drunk assholes stumbling home from the bar."
I laughed. Gloria was, as always, blunt. "I didn't see any assholes," I said.
"Then you're not watching the right kind of internet videos," she said with a wink and a hoarse cackle.
I blushed. How do you respond to that? I just kind of nodded in agreement and shrugged.
"Gotta get your jollies while you can," she said before adding, "You need some rest, dear. You look like hammered shit." She shut her door and went back inside.
She was right. I felt like hammered shit. Since I wasn't going to solve the case of the mysterious runner and was sure it wasn't some lost kid, I decided to call it a night. I went back inside, shut down the apartment, and crawled into bed.
I thought about watching one of the "right kind of internet videos" but fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
***
"Your problem is you think the world owes you something."
John, my elderly coworker at the grocery store, was standing by while I unloaded a pallet of cereal. I liked John, and when I first started, we instantly clicked. He's quick with a joke and fun to talk to. He's also about thirty years older than me and speaks with the Boomer combination of accumulated wisdom, backhanded compliments, and fringe conspiracy nonsense. Still, regardless of how couched the kindness is in gobbledygook, he's usually coming from a good place.
"What?" I said, putting a box of Captain Crunch on the shelf.
"You're complaining about your situation, right? Saying it ain't fair. The world took a paddle to your hind quarters? Hey brother, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Gotta just pick yourself up and start over. You're smart enough – figured this job out right quick – you can do it."
The job was wheeling pallets around the store and stocking shelves. It wasn't much to figure out, but I understood his meaning. The other stuff wasn't necessary, though. "I'm just in a funk. I don't see a way forward."
"Hey, so you've bottomed out. No shame in that. Happens to us all. Silver lining, you can only go up," he said before adding, "Unless some other bad shit happens to you like your car dies or your apartment building burns down. But after that, it's only up."
"The apartment building burning down would be a blessing," I said, hoisting another little Captain on the shelf. "The rent is killing me."
"Have you tried negotiating a lower rent? They used to do that when I was your age."
"I think they'd evict me if I even asked."
"Hell, then you'd have at least thirty days, maybe forty, before they'd kick you out. Plenty of time to turn things around."
"Uh-huh," I said, "Any chance you could give me a hand here?"
"My back is screaming like a pretty young thing after prom," he said, holding his back for emphasis.
I didn't push. "Hey, I meant to tell you about some weird shit that happened the other night."
"Lay it on me. I love the strange."
"So, after my shift the other day, I got home around midnight and was flopped on the couch. I heard someone running down the hallway outside my apartment. I wasn't the only one. A few other neighbors heard it, too. When we checked, though, nobody was there."
"That ain't strange," John said, waving his hand, "that's a man who's plowing another man's wife running for his life."
I laughed. "That's not the weird part. So, for the next two nights, it's the same thing. Around midnight, someone runs down the hallway. Only this time, they're trying the door handles as they pass. So, I asked the front desk to check the security cameras, and they do."
"They see a man running away holding his clothes?"
"There wasn't anyone running down the hall," I said, "But the weird thing was, you could see the door handles turning on the video."
"Damn, that's a good one," John said, "You sure it wasn't just a camera glitch. These new ones from overseas aren't as reliable as they want you to think. Chinese probably using them to spy on you, too."
He continued as my brain tried to reconcile John's two opposing comments. "Weird shit happens at night, man. Before working here, I only worked the day shift. Even when they offered me more money to work nights, I turned it down. Even when they promised me a promotion, I turned them down."
In a previous life, John had worked as a paramedic. He came by it after serving in a medical unit in the army. He'd told me he loved the rush of the job, but after a while, the death and hurt in people's eyes got to be too much to handle. But he worked there for almost twenty years. So, the man had a tolerance for shenanigans and odd occurrences.
"Why'd you agree to work nights here?"
"Shit, we're home before the witching hour. This is like late afternoons, at best. But if it was overnights, hell no. Captain Crunch can anchor his own ship to the shelves. I'd take my ass to 7-11 for a day shift before agreeing to work an overnight."
"Something happen to you during the army?”
“I got the clap,” he offered.
I sighed. “What turned you off nights?"
"Oh. I heard enough stories from coworkers to know I didn't want to experience any of that hoo-doo shit," he said, "trying to save someone's life is hard enough without adding in demon kids and ghosts."
"Did your coworkers see demon kids?" I asked, moving on from the good Captain to the Trix rabbit.
He nodded, "They saw too much. I find it odd, even with all the surveillance we have now and all the science we know about these days, that the night still scares us. You ever know someone who worked a night shift?"
I had. My ex. During college, she worked the overnight desk at a hotel for a while. She quit because the job gave her bad vibes. I told John as much.
He pointed and laughed, "See! Don't you find it odd that every person who works at night always has a story of something eerie happening to them? Every person, buster. That's what they call an irrefutable fact."
"Maybe the ghost running down the hallway is an old employee still doing his rounds."
"In that case, keep that door double locked. I'd even wedge a towel under the door just in case."
"Maybe they're friendly? Casper-like in that way."
"You ever heard someone tell you about a friendly ghost outside the funny papers?"
"I'm sure it happens," I said, "The scary ghosts are more popular though."
“We think we know everything there is to know but we are just babes in the woods when it comes to night things.” John shook his head. "Imma tell you one or three things that happened to a guy I worked with back when I first got hired on to chase after corpses in the ambo. Guy's name was Gil. Quiet man, kept to himself. Didn't rock the boat or demand a bigger paddle. Just rowed with us. Good cat to learn under," John said, finally handing me a cereal box.
I took it, and he kept going, "Now, Gil, ya see, he had a little wifey that would pester him about working days. She was a cop and worked evenings at that time, so they never saw each other. When married people can't align their genitals every now and then, it spells doom."
"A little too much information but sure," I said, shelving another box of Trix.
"Probably part of what happened with you and yours," he said. He wasn't wrong, but that didn't mean I wanted to hear it.
John kept on, "Gil finally got approved to move to nights. Little pay boost and a happy, 'fulfilled' wife should've made that man happy. But it didn't. I saw him a few months later, and he had changed. He might've been quiet when he was working with me, but he'd talk to you if you engaged. When I saw him that time, though, oh boy. He looked sick."
"Wasn't a fan of working nights?"
"Wasn't a fan of living anymore is the feeling I got," John said, "After some prodding, he got to talking with me some. Told me he missed days because the nights were messing with him. I thought it had to do with the schedule change, but that wasn't the case. He said he saw things in the dark he couldn't explain. Things that would turn James Brown into James White, ya dig?"
"I...dig," I said.
"Told me they got a call to an abandoned apartment building one night, around three in the morning. Wasn't unusual. Old buildings in the city are where hop-heads congregate and share drugs. Sometimes, the drugs are too much. Sometimes, they find a person passed out or, worse, dead. When you work in the ambo, you aren't scared of death like a civilian. You've been around it. Probably seen a few folks take their last breaths. It doesn't bother you the way Mother Nature intended it should."
He handed me another box, continuing his assist streak, and kept going, "Ambo pulled up, Gil stepped out and looked for someone to talk to. Nobody there, though. Not uncommon. Some people want to help but not be involved. There's not a soul around. He calls out, but nothing comes back. Tells me he turns to get back in the ambulance when he hears a scream from inside the run-down building. They're calling for help. He's gotta go in the abandoned building in the dark."
"No thanks," I said.
"But it don't bother a medic like that. Gil's done a million of these calls. No big deal. He runs into that building but doesn't come back out until twenty minutes later. Just goes missing. After five, the crew heads in to back him up but can't find him. Gil tells me his crew called the cops. It was like he had vanished."
"What happened?"
"I asked him and he got real quiet. Said he fell into some place that looked like here but wasn't here. Said he felt their eyes on him. Judging him. Told me they followed him home and wouldn't leave him be."
"Who?"
John shrugged, "He didn't say. Shut down after that and left. Just walked past me like I was shit on the sidewalk. He quit about a week later. Heard he had a stroke a year later and was a tombstone owner three months after that. Good guy, though."
"Your aversion to overnights makes a little more sense."
"Never in a million years. You don't want something like that coming after you."
"In my case, could it get much worse?" I said with a half-smile.
"Man, I wouldn't even joke about that," he said, making the sign of the cross, "You don't want that shit attachin' itself to you. With your luck, you'd bring him in here, and it'd hop over to me. I can't have a ghost crimping my style."
After a bit, he got called away to sign off on a delivery. I finished out my shift and headed out to the parking lot. When I exited the building and spotted my car, I froze. My doors were all open, and the interior lights were on. Someone had broken in.
I glanced around the lot to see if the thief was still around, but there wasn't another person near me. I walked over to the car and peered inside. My glovebox had been ripped open, and my registration was pulled out, but nothing else was missing.
I found little hand prints in the dirt all along the body and the windows. I held mine up for comparison, and they were about half the size. It must've been some tweens or teens who did this. Maybe they were going to steal some things and got cold feet. I contemplated calling the cops, but since nothing had happened and they wouldn't do anything anyway, there was no reason to delay sleep any longer than I had to. I closed all the doors and climbed inside.
I started the car and heard something rattling in the AC vents. I pulled out my phone and shined the light at the vent. There was a small piece of paper inside. I looked around my car for some tool to pull it out and only found an ink pen and a bent-up paperclip. After McGuyvering the vent for a bit, the paper finally came out.
I held it up and unfolded it. There was a handwritten note. It simply read, "I know you're here. I know you're hiding him. I will find you both, and then it'll be your turn to run the race. We all have to run at some point."
I had no idea what that meant, but my body still provided goosebumps. Who was trying to find me? Who was the second person? Why leave a note in my AC vent? What the hell did run the race mean? I hadn't run a race since elementary school and wasn't planning to do so any time soon. Did they mean the rat race? Because I was basically marathoning that motherfucker already.
"Jesus Christ," I said, shaking my head. "What else, universe?"
As if it were a well-practiced comedy routine, the universe responded. My back passenger door swung open, and I heard footsteps running away from my car. I sprung up and scrambled to get out. There wasn't anyone else in the lot that I could see, but very clearly, someone had been hiding in my backseat.
My nerves were shot already, and this was not something I wanted to deal with at the moment. My brain decided that to avoid a breakdown, I needed to shift into automatic mode and just get back to the safety of my apartment. I'd be more prepared to deal with this – whatever it was – in the morning.
Either that or I'd jump in front of a bus. Both sounded satisfying, albeit in different ways.
***
"There he is," Gloria said as soon as I turned down the hallway. I looked up and noticed a small cabal of my neighbors standing in a semi-circle, waiting for me. They all look displeased.
"Hey guys," I said, confused. "I miss an invite for a block party?"
"What do you have to say for yourself?"
"About?"
"Don't play dumb," another neighbor said, jabbing their finger in my direction.
"I'm not playing," I said, realizing the self-burn only after the words escaped my lips.
Gloria showed me the screen on her phone. It was a static shot of her door from across the hall. She pressed play, and nothing happened for a beat until something darted across the screen. That was the whole thing. I looked up at her, my face twisted up in confusion.
"Well," she said, "What do you have to say?"
"What was that?" I asked.
"That was you!" the pointing neighbor said, pointing harder than I thought possible.
"What?" I said, laughing. "Are you all serious?" They didn't laugh, and I realized they weren't joking. "How can you even tell it's me? It's a blur. Never mind the fact I've been at work for the last five hours. Plus, this blur is half my size. I get we're all weirded out about the Phantom Runner, but it's not me. I swear to God. I don't even have the energy to think about running, let alone the physical desire to."
"Then explain this," Gloria said, slightly swaying from the half bottle of Pinot Noir coursing through her blood. She rewound the video and froze it on a specific frame. I couldn't believe my eyes, but I was looking at...me. Or, rather, something pretending to be me.
"What the fuck?" I said, my jaw dropping.
"Still think we're lying?" the pointer said smugly.
"No, but, guys, this isn't me. I... I've been at work. Wanna see my schedule?"
I reached into my phone and pulled it out. There was an email with my work schedule that confirmed what I was saying. They relaxed, and, for the first time, anger gave way to fear. Their very plausible explanation was suddenly invalid. It left two implausible answers floating in the ether: either I had a pint-sized doppelganger terrorizing the hallways of my apartment, or a ghost was haunting the building.
"I'm...gonna go inside," the pointer said, walking back to their home. Everyone else drifted away until it was just Gloria and I standing alone in the hallway.
She looked at me and sighed, "I feel like an asshole," she said. "Sorry I accused you of causing the racket."
"If I had seen the video, I would've thought the same thing," I said. "We're good."
"What do you think it is?" she asked.
I shrugged and let out an exhausted sigh. "Honestly, Gloria, I've had a screwed-up night already, and this is the cherry on top of the shit sundae; forgive my language. I don't have the mental bandwidth to even comprehend what's on the video at the moment."
"Think it's after you?" she asked, though I suspected the wine had forced her to put that idea out into the universe. As I had already seen, the universe seemed to take requests on my behalf.
"Maybe it's after you?" I said, coming off a little meaner than I intended, but I didn't care. I left her there to contemplate that scenario and went into my apartment.
As soon as the door shut behind me, I felt on edge. Just because I didn't have the mental bandwidth to discuss the doppelganger didn't mean it wasn't dominating my thoughts. I saw the frame of the video. The damn ghost looked exactly like me. What could that possibly mean? I know I had wished for death, but I was very still alive. I had rent due to prove that.
Did I happen to live in a place haunted by a ghost that looked strikingly like me? Was it some kid with a passing resemblance just causing chaos? Was it something else I couldn't even comprehend – an alien? A clone? A secret government project?
There was a thumping coming from the hallway. The mini Usain Bolt was at it again. I knew the neighbors would ignore it. Since they had all thought it was me, which was proven to be untrue, they would avoid the running man from now on. While curious and confused by the creature, they'd never put themselves in harm's way to discover what it was. They were not a brave lot.
Neither was I, but maybe my life crumbling around me had forced my hand. I walked over to my door and swung it open. I hit record on my phone, stuck it out like a periscope, and glanced around the hallway. Nobody was there. No neighbors were looking. No person was running.
"You gotta stop, man. I need to go to sleep," I said to the empty space. No response, not that I was expecting one.
I turned to walk back in, and I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A face at the end of the hallway peeked around the corner. For a quick second, we locked eyes, and it was like I was looking into a mirror. This thing was me. But...how?
I tried to get it on video, but it ducked back into the shadows. I took that as a cue to shut and lock my door. My heart was racing, and I didn't want to think about this anymore, but I couldn't help it. There was a me in the hallway who enjoyed pestering my neighbors. Worse, they liked to run for some ungodly reason.
I put my phone on the counter, the video still rolling, when there was a knock at my door. It echoed in my near-empty apartment. I tried to ignore it and convince myself it was something else, but it wasn't. The ghost was knocking on my door. Even with my brain paralyzed, I couldn't help but think that it was awfully polite to knock.
Another knock, this one more forceful. I wondered if the neighbors thought I was making this up?
"I know you're in there," a voice said. It sounded just like me. "This is about the race. We all have to run the race. It's your turn now."
I froze. My legs went wobbly like a boxer on the brink of a blackout, but I stayed tall. I opened my mouth to speak and found the words dying in my throat. I grabbed a nearby bottle of water and took a chug.
"We all have to run the race."
"What race?" I choked out, "What are you talking about?"
"Open up. They're in there already, and I need to get them."
I glanced all around my empty apartment. I didn't see anyone else in here. I didn't hear anything. Whatever this thing was, it was lying. I grabbed my phone and held it in my hand. I wanted to document this to prove that I wasn't crazy.
“Did you leave the note?”
“I know they’re in there with you,” it repeated.
"There's no one in here," I said.
"They're hiding. I think I know where. I can hear them."
"You've gotta get out of here," I said. "There's nothing here, and you're scaring people."
"I'm scared, and you should be! You have to run the race, man! Open up, and I can show you."
The handle started to shake. I peered through the keyhole and only saw the top of the other me's head. They began to shoulder the door, and it crunched against my nose. I screamed out in pain and stumbled back. I tripped over my feet and landed hard on my ass.
The thing slammed into the door two more times, shaking the walls. The strength seemed unnatural. On the third hit, the door burst open. I finally got a view of the thing. It was me. Scaled down by half, but it was me. We both seemed shocked.
"You're so much taller up close," the other me said.
"Who the fuck are you?"
I felt a buzzing in my feet that seemed to climb up my body until it reached my brain. There was an intense pain that rippled through the folds of my mind. Through the pain, I could hear a disembodied voice whisper, "We all must run the race. We all have to run. Chase it. Chase yourself." It felt like my skull was going to split in two. I clutched the sides of my head and let out a primal scream that hurt my own ears.
Then it was gone. But I could still feel the echoes in my mind. "We all have to run the race. We all have to run." The thought would waver between making no sense and making complete sense. One second, I was questioning what was happening to my mind, and the next, all I felt was the desire to continue the race.
"There he is!" the other me yelled, pointing at the hallway.
I glanced over and saw another version of me standing in the hallway. It was half the size of the other me that had broken into my place. When tiny me locked eyes with my intruder, he ran for the open hallway closet.
The other me followed, screaming that it would catch the little bastard if it was the last thing he'd do. I pushed myself up to my feet and felt queasy. I watched as the other me ran head-first into the closet without slowing. I expected to hear a loud thump as it hit the back wall but none came.
"We all have to run the race," the voice in my head said, soothing my nerves. "It's your time to run the race."
I moved down the hallway, each footfall echoing loudly in the empty apartment, each step bringing me closer to the closet door. Something was drawing me there. The voice's words echoed in my mind as well: "We all have to run the race. It's your turn now."
I grabbed the door and stopped. Something was compelling me to move forward. To go into the closet. To chase myself. To run the race.
"No," I whispered and yanked my hand from the door. I pulled out my still recording phone, and stared into the camera. My face was devoid of color, and you could see the fear etched into me. "I'm freaking out because...because…"
I stopped. I felt an invisible hand grab my body and tug. "Because...because if I don't run the race, something bad will happen. I have to chase it. I...I have to."
My phone dropped from my hand, and I didn’t care. The force pulling me forward stopped but my body kept going. I could feel the last strands of my rational mind splintering. My thoughts became focused on one thing: I had to catch myself, find out what was happening, and run the race. If I ran, maybe I'd win.
I needed a win.
I walked into the back of the closet and felt a door handle sticking out of the wall. I'd been in that closet a million times before and never had seen this. But a sense of calm washed over me. This….this was supposed to be here. This was perfectly fine.
I turned the handle and pulled open the invisible door. In front of me was a hallway that looked strikingly like the one outside my apartment. At the end of the hallway, I saw Gloria step out of their home to leave for the night. She was huge. Twice my size, easy.
Another door opened, and I saw...me—a giant version of me. The Hulk version of me was getting ready to go to the grocery store for work. I watched as the giant Gloria and giant me joked and laughed. I was stunned.
I stared, and a new thought came to me. I have to find the smaller me and talk to it. I needed to find out if there's a way out of this...this….
"It's your turn to run," the voice said.
Calm embraced me. "It's my turn to run," I repeated. As the giant me took off and the giant Gloria re-entered her apartment, the hallway beckoned.
"We all have to run the race," I said softly, "It's my turn now."
I started running.

I had came across a lot of comments and posts here of women who say things like I would sell my soul to be a man
Some are ashamed of being women because women are weaker , abused , taken advantage of .....etc
Well I do understand all of that but i would never wish to be a man
Why ?
Imagine belonging to the gender who created religions, religions where they justified a lot of shit , religions were the source of a lot of violence , wars , and yeah misogyny
I dont wanna be a man who walks around with all their religious, political, social privileges and is convinced he is superior to half of the population
I dont wanna be a Muslim man( iam middle eastern)who lives his life thinking it's ok to marry 4 wives , beat and abuse women , control them according to what benefit him , take their rights and it's ok because god in the sky himself gave him permission to
Have you seen those who born with a gold spoon in their mouths , the rich who lives in their own bubbles and cant relate to others and think they are different and deserve special treatment
Or the immature selfish teenagers who cant relate , be empathetic or act mature
Yeah I see men the same way
Majority of men live their whole life and never question even for once what would it be like if they were in our shoes , if they were treated the same way they are treating us, would they like it ?
Another reason I dont wanna be a man is I want to feel my feelings and have access to them , I wanna have empathy
I dont want to supress my emotions until I become a shell of human being who cant feel their own emotions or relate to other people emotions and fail in my relationships with others
Having empathy make me able to recognize another perosn or animal suffering as if its mine , its prohibite me from committing cruelty against those who are different from me , its make me understand others instead of judging them
I want to have empathy, morals and be a good human being
I dont want to value power , wealth , domination , control over what's really important and matter
Being a man doesn't worth it , I would never want to be one

The idea is to have a table and roll 1D20(or a 1D100) for one or more PJs to experience their metaphysical link with Vecna during the adventure. I have a few ideas that could be improved but I could add your ideas here (I would edit the main post). What do you think?

1D20	List of the experiences in their metaphysical link with Vecna	Comments, details
1	Vecna absorbing the souls of a crowd and transforming them into the undead.
2	Two friends talk at a table, a blond and a dark-haired man with a beard and elegant clothes, a conversation about spells and conquest of lands.
3	Vecna performing a ritual surrounded by pink and iridescent red crystals.
4	Vecna in an Avernus tower killing a draconid(Arkhan) with her eye glowing in the lava light.
5	A world in darkness strewn with thousands of corpses and a dark shadow in the background with a gleaming eye and hand.
6	An entire royal family is being slaughtered and their life energy absorbed while a figure in the darkness can only be seen with long blond hair.
7	A man leading undead troops in a dark desert landscape. His glowing sword has black hair and a beard with a sword that glows with magic. He faces a lich on top of an altar.
8	Flashbacks of a mother who was a totally evil woman and who sacrificed animals and interacted with monstrous beings. It is her cruelty that helped shape a child in that way.
9	Vision of a man(Vecna in disguise) corrupting a wizard in several scenes, making him chase secrets and finally corrupting the once good man.
10	Hooded cultists praising the cult of vecna in crypts far from light in a dark world.
11	A lich (Vecna) locked in a jet-black tower. Writing in blood in a dark book, with dark secrets and otherworldly evil. In the room you can see human skins being dried.
12	Maybe one to add could be a foreshadow of his ability" flight of the dammed". Showing a torrent of flying , spectral entities passing throw leaving a terrifying paladin with a magic weapon(like that one was a badass heroe) that screams while a dagger pierce his chest open and all full of blood. Then they could know one or 2 of his abilities.

I’ve posted about this story before, but this is a retrospective/follow up post on this, it’s a fun time, please enjoy.
A little while ago, I invited a friend to join a DnD campaign I was enjoying well up to this point, and I was excited to introduce them as this was the first time they’ve played DnD, I introduced him to my group and everything had been going well, however I did not know what I was getting myself, or my character into.
I played a tiefling warlock/fighter multi class called Dorio- a worshiper of my custom deity- the unchained mother (who’s whole deal is freedom, and being very Anti-slavery.). Dorio is a Ex-slave who recently broke out his group and himself from captivity, as slavery was a big part of this setting (and the rebellion against it.).
My friend played “Grunk”, a half-orc wild magic barbarian and sorcerer, who was the brother of a NPC who had died earlier in the story- unlike his brother, Grunk was a bit of a asshole, being overly aggressive, stubborn, and racist! Having been a slaver as one of his previous jobs- (naturally, my character wasn’t very fond of him, and it was mutual.) though we were eventually forced to “work together.” Due to mutual benefit.
It all started when my Character, Dorio, was out hunting information about the BBEG, trying to hunt him down (he is a sort of shadow government, great wizard behind the evil and slavery in the world.) during which, he met with Grunk, who proceeded to immediately be racist, calling my character a “fackin tiefling.”- my character took it rather gracefully, as this guy had leads, and at this point, he was used to it.
Grunk agreed to help the party with the understanding that he was in debt to some bad people, and needed some money from a job to pay it off, my character agreed. As we went out to explore an underwater temple. Alongside Dorio and Grunk, was a changeling “Druid” (very complicated.) called Sin- who’s character has a multitude of attachment issues, and upon seeing Grunk, who looked like his brother (she was very attached to their brother.) immediately believed that Grunk was their brother, and started treating them as such!
We made our way down to the temple, which had ancient scriptures on the wall, depicting some heavy lore, which my character paid attention to- meanwhile Grunk ignored most of it, and rushed ahead; getting themselves into a fight with a golem- after a round or two, Dorio joined in, and helped finish off the golem- it’s around this point (very important.) that Grunk stole from Sin a reward from a previous quest we went on- a bag of cursed coins, which allow you to make a wish, but it works like a monkeys paw, twisting your words to make the wishes happen in unexpected, or bad ways.
We continued on, as I learnt more lore, and we had one other combat encounter, until we reached the final chamber- which had a ancient dragon, a leviathan skeleton, and a dragons egg in it…
Naturally, I panicked a bit, as the DM has stated before that dragons in his setting are stronger than base DnD, and this was one of the most powerful dragon types, casually napping. And I was out of spell slots- I suggested to the party to take a short rest so I could get my spell slots back, so I could cast invisibility on everyone- the dragon was asleep afterall. However, Grunk barged into the final chamber, and grabbed the Dragons egg- which immediately woke the ancient dragon up.
Naturally, we all began running, however during the chase, the dragons breath did 70 damage to the other two party members in one breath attack, so, Grunk took the coins he had stolen, and wished that “Dorio was the dragon’s favourite food!” So that he and sin could escape- I was floored. This was naturally a total betrayal. Luckily, the DM thought quick, and said that my character turned into a dragon egg, since the egg was the dragon’s favourite thing, and eggs are food.
The dragon took the Dori-egg back to his nest, while Grunk and Sin escaped- sin wanted to go back for my character, but Grunk held them back. Meanwhile, my character spoke to my Patreon about an intervention. So, while they couldn’t revert my character, they did speed up the draconic growth, and filter the magic so that my characters soul didn’t burst with the excess magic.
Next session, started, and my character hatched, now at the beginning stages of a draconic transformation- cursed to eventually become a full dragon, however for now was simply a hybrid. A dragon born. I snuck out of the dragons lair without problem (having replenished my spell slots, invisibility is great.) and then sneaking to the entrance of the temple, where he waited, since it was under water, and Grunk had the water breathing potions.
Later, Grunk and sin returned- as my character hid in the shadows, as they discussed what to do- (Grunk wanted to sell the Dori-egg.)so naturally, my character beat the shit out of him. It was cathartic. However sin pleaded with Dorio to spare him. So he did.
Over the course of the next couple sessions, Grunk continued to be problematic to my character, constantly racist, and constantly trying to justify his own slaver past. (“I did what I had to do growing up on these streets. I either stepped on my fellows and sold them, or I would’ve been homeless!”) meanwhile Dorio pointed out that if that was true, he should want to change the system so people wouldn’t be forced to that, and if being a slaver was the only way to live comfortably, he would’ve preferred he be homeless with intact morals.
Somewhere on the way Grunk started to get it in his head that Dorio was being “manipulative.” For having moral objections to slavery, and that dorio was “just as bad as the slavers.” Despite him basically being the reincarnation of John brown. Which was mutually frustrating for everyone. Every action dorio took that wasn’t conforming to what Grunk wanted was scrutinised by Grunk, and out of character the player was objecting to the idea of Grunk having a redemption arc- it was getting harder and harder to justify Dorio tolerating Grunk at all, as this “uneasy partnership.” Was turning more and more hostile.
At one point, Grunk threatened to leave the party, and Dorio went “okay, go, I don’t want you Here.” (Note, Grunk was only hanging around for the potential of reviving his brother.) but unfortunately, Grunk stayed (the player wanted Dorio to ‘manipulate Grunk into staying’ which was SO out of character for Dorio it’s unreal.)
He would throw a stink over the idea of Dorio killing slaver henchmen cuz “they were just doing what they had to do to survive.” And he wouldn’t budge on his character becoming a better person at all. Frequently getting into fights with my character.
(All the while, my character was undergoing painful dragon transformations due to Grunk.)
Eventually, Grunk saw a giant diamond which he immediately wanted to steal- this diamond was a conduit controlling a bunch of slaves in a mine- so to get to the loot first, he jumped down onto the crystal, which stabbed into him, killing Grunk and merging him with the crystal. Dorio did not mourn his death. Soon after the player left the campaign.
He won’t be missed, and naturally, I won’t be inviting him back to the table.

I’ve posted about this story before, but this is a retrospective/follow up post on this, it’s a fun time, please enjoy.
A little while ago, I invited a friend to join a DnD campaign I was enjoying well up to this point, and I was excited to introduce them as this was the first time they’ve played DnD, I introduced him to my group and everything had been going well, however I did not know what I was getting myself, or my character into.
I played a tiefling warlock/fighter multi class called Dorio- a worshiper of my custom deity- the unchained mother (who’s whole deal is freedom, and being very Anti-slavery.). Dorio is a Ex-slave who recently broke out his group and himself from captivity, as slavery was a big part of this setting (and the rebellion against it.).
My friend played “Grunk”, a half-orc wild magic barbarian and sorcerer, who was the brother of a NPC who had died earlier in the story- unlike his brother, Grunk was a bit of a asshole, being overly aggressive, stubborn, and racist! Having been a slaver as one of his previous jobs- (naturally, my character wasn’t very fond of him, and it was mutual.) though we were eventually forced to “work together.” Due to mutual benefit.
It all started when my Character, Dorio, was out hunting information about the BBEG, trying to hunt him down (he is a sort of shadow government, great wizard behind the evil and slavery in the world.) during which, he met with Grunk, who proceeded to immediately be racist, calling my character a “fackin tiefling.”- my character took it rather gracefully, as this guy had leads, and at this point, he was used to it.
Grunk agreed to help the party with the understanding that he was in debt to some bad people, and needed some money from a job to pay it off, my character agreed. As we went out to explore an underwater temple. Alongside Dorio and Grunk, was a changeling “Druid” (very complicated.) called Sin- who’s character has a multitude of attachment issues, and upon seeing Grunk, who looked like his brother (she was very attached to their brother.) immediately believed that Grunk was their brother, and started treating them as such!
We made our way down to the temple, which had ancient scriptures on the wall, depicting some heavy lore, which my character paid attention to- meanwhile Grunk ignored most of it, and rushed ahead; getting themselves into a fight with a golem- after a round or two, Dorio joined in, and helped finish off the golem- it’s around this point (very important.) that Grunk stole from Sin a reward from a previous quest we went on- a bag of cursed coins, which allow you to make a wish, but it works like a monkeys paw, twisting your words to make the wishes happen in unexpected, or bad ways.
We continued on, as I learnt more lore, and we had one other combat encounter, until we reached the final chamber- which had a ancient dragon, a leviathan skeleton, and a dragons egg in it…
Naturally, I panicked a bit, as the DM has stated before that dragons in his setting are stronger than base DnD, and this was one of the most powerful dragon types, casually napping. And I was out of spell slots- I suggested to the party to take a short rest so I could get my spell slots back, so I could cast invisibility on everyone- the dragon was asleep afterall. However, Grunk barged into the final chamber, and grabbed the Dragons egg- which immediately woke the ancient dragon up.
Naturally, we all began running, however during the chase, the dragons breath did 70 damage to the other two party members in one breath attack, so, Grunk took the coins he had stolen, and wished that “Dorio was the dragon’s favourite food!” So that he and sin could escape- I was floored. This was naturally a total betrayal. Luckily, the DM thought quick, and said that my character turned into a dragon egg, since the egg was the dragon’s favourite thing, and eggs are food.
The dragon took the Dori-egg back to his nest, while Grunk and Sin escaped- sin wanted to go back for my character, but Grunk held them back. Meanwhile, my character spoke to my Patreon about an intervention. So, while they couldn’t revert my character, they did speed up the draconic growth, and filter the magic so that my characters soul didn’t burst with the excess magic.
Next session, started, and my character hatched, now at the beginning stages of a draconic transformation- cursed to eventually become a full dragon, however for now was simply a hybrid. A dragon born. I snuck out of the dragons lair without problem (having replenished my spell slots, invisibility is great.) and then sneaking to the entrance of the temple, where he waited, since it was under water, and Grunk had the water breathing potions.
Later, Grunk and sin returned- as my character hid in the shadows, as they discussed what to do- (Grunk wanted to sell the Dori-egg.)so naturally, my character beat the shit out of him. It was cathartic. However sin pleaded with Dorio to spare him. So he did.
Over the course of the next couple sessions, Grunk continued to be problematic to my character, constantly racist, and constantly trying to justify his own slaver past. (“I did what I had to do growing up on these streets. I either stepped on my fellows and sold them, or I would’ve been homeless!”) meanwhile Dorio pointed out that if that was true, he should want to change the system so people wouldn’t be forced to that, and if being a slaver was the only way to live comfortably, he would’ve preferred he be homeless with intact morals.
Somewhere on the way Grunk started to get it in his head that Dorio was being “manipulative.” For having moral objections to slavery, and that dorio was “just as bad as the slavers.” Despite him basically being the reincarnation of John brown. Which was mutually frustrating for everyone. Every action dorio took that wasn’t conforming to what Grunk wanted was scrutinised by Grunk, and out of character the player was objecting to the idea of Grunk having a redemption arc- it was getting harder and harder to justify Dorio tolerating Grunk at all, as this “uneasy partnership.” Was turning more and more hostile.
At one point, Grunk threatened to leave the party, and Dorio went “okay, go, I don’t want you Here.” (Note, Grunk was only hanging around for the potential of reviving his brother.) but unfortunately, Grunk stayed (the player wanted Dorio to ‘manipulate Grunk into staying’ which was SO out of character for Dorio it’s unreal.)
He would throw a stink over the idea of Dorio killing slaver henchmen cuz “they were just doing what they had to do to survive.” And he wouldn’t budge on his character becoming a better person at all. Frequently getting into fights with my character.
(All the while, my character was undergoing painful dragon transformations due to Grunk.)
Eventually, Grunk saw a giant diamond which he immediately wanted to steal- this diamond was a conduit controlling a bunch of slaves in a mine- so to get to the loot first, he jumped down onto the crystal, which stabbed into him, killing Grunk and merging him with the crystal. Dorio did not mourn his death. Soon after the player left the campaign.
He won’t be missed, and naturally, I won’t be inviting him back to the table.