Follow Me

I want you to fall into darkness
Follow me into light
Feel your heart swell
Be crushed under the weight of fear

Follow me
Follow me until you can barely breathe
Until you can't handle any more

I want you to feel the expanse stretch before you
Have cold fingers run down the length of your spine
Feel it winding its way through you
Becoming a part of you

Follow me
Follow me until the very bitter end
Until the sun rises and then sets again

I won't release you
For as long as this lasts, I need you
Need you to belong to me
Belong to this

Follow me
Follow me until you think you will break
Belong to me
Belong to this

Not really

It doesn't matter how many words I put on this page.
I can never rid myself of it all.
Not really.

You are still in there.
Somehow.
Like an addiction I don't want to get away from.
Not really.

Embracing Fire

I wanted to become cold. Become ice
Walk away. Shut everything out.
I didn't want to feel any more. Feel this any more.
Just wanted the ever present numbness 
As I pushed away the world.

But that feeling never came.
The cold never embraced me 
And I never embraced it.
Instead, the exact opposite

All eyes on me as the heat rise
Refusing to fade, refusing to crawl into darkness
Blinding, fearsome flames 
I can do nothing but burn
And everyone must pay attention

Those who walked away
Those who forgot
Those who ignored
Those who took for granted

I cannot become cold
I cannot retreat
I cannot hide
For you, I will embrace the fire.
Watch me burn. Burn it all down.

What You Know

I hate how well you know me.
How you can hear the words I don't say.
Understand the emotions I don't show

I hate that I can't lie to you
Because you already see the truth
And you simply wait for me to say it

I hate that you have seen my weakness
Seen my vulnerability
Been on my side of the curtain, seeing what a mess it is
What a mess I actually am

I hate that you can hear my silence
See through me
Through the facade I show the world

I wanted to be perfected. Especially for you.

All I Have

I don't have any answers
Though you have never asked me any questions

I don't know how to fix your problems
Though you have never asked me for any solutions

I don't have enough to give
Though you have never asked me for anything

So, I will simply stand here, next to you, through it all
Though I know you would never ask me to

Collection of "Gifts"

Come, let me show my collection, my “gifts” that have been given to me over the years. Their sharpened edges, decorative hilts, all shapes and sizes. I keep them here on display, so that I will always remember.

This one is my oldest. It’s crude, and not very refined. It was hurriedly crafted and brutishly swung, but definitely accomplished what it was created to do. I was quite surprised when I received it. Even more surprised when I saw who it was from. There is really nothing like feeling that first blade, your first real blade. It is an emotion that stays with you.

Over the years, the blades improved. The handywork, craftsmanship, the complete design only becomes more and more intricate. It is enough to astound and awe. Look at some of these. They are almost intoxicating, aren’t they? Works of art. Some sharpened so fine it could split a hair. They deal a wound so fine that I only felt the searing sting long after I cut by them.

The masterpieces are the ones that bring the most surprise. Because they were created based on myself as the blueprint. A small piece of me that I believed to be inconsequential. But, I have now learned that nothing is inconsequential when crafting a weapon planned for a specific person. Absolutely everything is fair game. I had no idea how close others were watching. Those small flourishes, such attention to detail. A piece of me turned into beautiful destruction.

But yours, yours I can readily say was the most efficient. It was the one that expected the least. Even less than the first blade I ever received. I was completely unprepared for it and for you. Perfection, I must say. It has been the only knife that I have had to pull out of my heart.

The Dungeon Master of Beginner's Dice

Well, I finally went and did it. I am finally DMing my own game. It's awesome and terrifying. Now, I'm not just telling a story. I'm building a world and asking people to play in it. Play in it, play and hope they enjoy it. I have been wanting to DM my own campaign for quite some time. I had run storylines on roleplay forums before. But something about being a DM in a live game is different.

I started roleplaying back in college. I had a number of DMs who displayed a number of different playing styles. And after a while, I knew that I wanted to run my own game. However, I was too scared. Too self conscious. I didn't know the rules well enough to be comfortable running a game with my friends, who had more experience than me. I wasn't as familiar with fantasy or fantasy settings as the rest of my friends were. I always believed there had to be a perfect streamlined story which everyone was to follow and I did not believe that I could come up with something that anyone would enjoy. So I never opted to run a game. Just sat and wished; until finally one day I decided to just do it, fear and all.

Firstly, being a DM is way more time consuming that I had believed it was going to be when I decided that I was going to do this. Partially because of my perfectionist disposition and partially because I wasn't entirely in the know about what a DM had to do in order to run a campaign. But mostly because I took it upon myself to design the entire world from nothing. Because why make it easy on myself, right? The writer in me wanted to create and world build. This is where I have the most fun as a DM. Designing people, places, structures and ruling powers. Making an intricately complex, living, breathing landscape. I could get lost in it for hours. But this takes a lot of time. And I have to make decisions on what parts in this world are more important, meaning they will be completed first. I won't lie, I was very overwhelmed when I started out. I mean, how do you create an entire world from a blank sheet of paper? But I found out that you don't. Not at first. First, you start off small. You make a village, then a town, then a small city and continue from there as the group explores. Once I learned that, world building for the game became much easier to manage.

The terrifying part of running a game for me is the uncertainty that comes with preparing for the unpredictable. I was completely under the impression that DMs knew exactly what would happen at all times and had a plan for everything that would happen during the session. I quickly came to understand that was an illusion. I don't know what the players are going to do from one moment to the next. I don't know if they will take the plot hook. I don't know how they are going to interact with the NPCs. Or if they will even head in the direction that I have set up. For all I know, they could end up on some uncharted path that I had not given any thought to in the least. But it is this uncertainty that makes the game exciting for me as DM. The players don't know what the plan is. So they could be surprised at any moment. I don't know how my players are going to react to what I have planned. So I too could be surprised at any moment. So, instead of being anxious about it, I try to stay open and as flexible as possible.

My thinking like a DM has been slowly evolving as well. As a writer, I have complete control of the entire story. A story that centers on a cast of characters that I have constructed to fit seamlessly into my narrative. But now, I am more focused on the players and trying to figure out what would be awesome for their characters. Trying to make a narrative that everyone can participate in and feel a vested interest. I never had a "cool" character when I roleplayed. I was always outshined by someone else in the group. Someone was always faster, louder, more charasmatic, or better at minmaxing the dice. And I never played campaigns long enough for my character to have goals or something to obtain or aspire to. My character was simply just another body in the group. I don't want that feeling for any of my players. I want each person to feel like they have their moments in the spotlight. To feel like their characters matter in the story they are playing through.

 I am not sure how long this campaign will last or how often we will play. But I am very glad that I got over my self consciousness and I did this. It is a different feel, writing something for others to mess around with. Being flexible and thinking on my feet for several hours at a time. And to watch others interact with what you have put together. I am going to have as much fun as I possibly can and hopefully those who are coming along with me on this journey will have just as much fun as I am.