Barb, You must change your avatar to one of you dressed like the biker chic! That would be hilarious. Or better yet, a split screen..."by day, and by night". Dragonboy also goes to Animae (SP) conventions each year in. If you don't know about those, they are for Japaneese animation characters. Talk about some interesting costumes! He probably won't go next year as he will be in college, but if he does, I'll make sure he takes some pictures.
As soon as you hear anything about the release of those new statues, please post it. I'll be looking also.

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Dragonmom
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Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of me dressed like that!!!!! I don't have ANY pics of me in ANY of my costumes from our vampire days, gosh darnit!!!!! That WOULD be a HOOT eh? The demented prom queen might be even more amusing, OR the gypsy. The prom queen character (which was the same one as the biker/punk chic) was very demented in a "Carrie" sort of way. The concept of the character was that she was turned into a vampire one night during her senior prom. She was told for sure that she was going to be Prom Queen, but they pulled the Carrie deal on her. So she ran out of the gym and met a "really nice guy in the back alley that gave her a hickey the likes of which she'd never known before." This happened to her in 1959 and she still believed she was going to be queen for a day/night. So I dressed up in an aqua "mother of the bride" dress I found at a thrift shop, put cellophane down the center of my head and spray painted my hair with black hair spray and then took off the cellophane. This was before I went blond and had very gray, almost white hair. So I ended up with a white streak down the center of my head. I made glass frames out of shrinky-dink plastic, a la the '50's, complete with the wings, painted them off-white and glittered them. I stuck those to my REAL glasses. Rick found me a gold sequined cardboard crown, which I wore everynight when we played. I would get comments from "mundanes" (non-players) like: "Oh Look at the Princess" and I would respond and look at them and say, "You tawkin' da me????" in my best Di Nero impression (or Judy Tenuda) OR "How ya doooin"???" Some people would ask us if we were in some sort of "play." LOLOLOL We played on a riverwalk in a very well-to-do town nearby (during the summer). It was hysterical. People (mundanes) just didn't know what to make of us. the village was fine with it as long as there was never any trouble. We all behaved ourselves.

Another time I played I was a member of the elite vampire group, the Toreadors, who were all into the arts and sophistication. I showed up as a hick, much like a member of the Beverly Hillbillies. That was toooooo funny too. We had to learn the 7 Vampire Traditions, which my character had her own renditions of. For instance, other vampires couldn't go around making new vampires, only the Prince could do that. My character's version was: "Ya don't get to make no inbreds." the other Toreadors just couldn't take me to meet the Prince (which was DH at the time) and have me recite my own version of these traditions in her own way, so they offered to write them down, so she could learn them more "properly." But my character said, "That was right kindly of 'em, but it weren't no good, 'cuz I cain't read." it was very hard for them to stay in character, and not crack up. I wanted to see how long it would take them to kill one of their own. LOLOLOLOL ( I didn't take the game very seriously!!!!!)

OH TRUST me, we've seen the Anime people all dressed up at GenCon. Those are some REALLY bizarro costumes. We never got into the anime stuff. It's more for the younger crowd. I never got what was so cool about it. I guess I'm just too old to see it. Some of my step-son's friends used to be into it, but they've outgrown it. My step-daughter used to watch Unico EVERYDAY after school for awhile, which was probably a pre-cursor to Anime. It drove me absolutely NUTS!!!!!!

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Never played "D&D", but I love dragons, from reading the "Pern" books by Anne McCaffrey (telepathic, life linked, fire breathing,...) and also from reading some other scifi types (authors and titles escape me at the moment, dang it)
The photo of the girl and dragon could be right out of one of my books, too cool!

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Cynthia

Barb, it is my firm belief that all anime is descended from Speed Racer. All of those amime characters have that speed racer look to me. Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, goooo. (remember?)

My son is 17, so maybe there is hope that he to will outgrow this phase. Probably not, he is very stubborn (don't know where he gets that...must be from his dad) He is very much into that fantasy/science fiction stuff. He is writing a 50,000 word novel in this genre (my spelling ****** is that right?) for his senior project and so far he only has about 15,000 done. He'd better get his butt in gear as it has to be finished in March for the presentation part.

I really think you need to revive your vampire look...it would be sooo hip with todays kids!

Cynthia-welcome to our little world! My son and I really like R.A. Salvatore. Dragons are not the main characters in his books, but they are included at times. He writes about Drow Elves, or more specifically one Drow Elf and his friends. Drow Elves are evil (except for Drizzt) and live deep underground. Anyway, we wait eagerly for each new installment. Also like Robert Jordan alot...Wheel of Time Series, which more about wizards and magic.

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Dragonmom
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OMG Lauri, I read the Dark Elf Trilogy!!!!!! Poor old Drzzt!!!! LOL I enjoyed it thoroughly. We played Drow in one of our past D&D games!!!!! It was FUN playing EVIL characters for a change. We usually play good characters, ridding the world of evil nasties. We're going to be playing another game soon and we are going to be "good" characters again. Apparently some nasty Illithids (squidy-headed, icky, evil, magic users) have blotted out the sun in our "world" and we are going to have to figure out why and how and bring the sun back. My character is going to be very skeptical of magic users. That will be hard to role-play. But she's going to be a 7 ft amazon fighting machine with tons of bonuses on her strength and weapon usage. It's going to be fun.

I think you are right, Speedracer must have brought all that silliness to the forefront. Boy, 50,000 word novel, what a feat!!!! He better get his rear in gear!!!!! March will be upon us before we know it!!!!!

The vampire look is just for fun. I can't imagine walking around as a 50 year old looking that way all the time. People would say, "What are you trying to be 20 again????" Although, the younguns we played with thought we were pretty cool for OLD people!!!! LOLOLOLOL

Cynthia!!!! Welcome to our crazy little world here!!!!! Glad to have ya on board!!!!

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I'm a Drizzt? Do?Urden fanatic. And I love Guenhwyvar. That cat is something else. We have the Menzoberranzan roleplaying set, but haven't played it. I'm thinking of playing a two handed fighting elf -- whose eyes are purple. ;-) I can't wait til this latest one comes out in paperback. Our regular D&D group has several campaigns (adventures) on going. I'm playing a half-orc fighter right now, who has a fairly high intelligence (I can READ!).
We are rolling up characters for a new game this Saturday - and I'm thinking of playing a Dwarf fighter. I'm going to have a charisma (how you look/act) of 6 - so they'll probably make me a smelly dwarf with food in my beard all the time. ;-)

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Isn't this just sooo cool! It's like we never imagined there would be others on the site with these same "strange" little interests. It's nice to find something in common besides this WOE. I love Drizzt, and Guenhwyvar is just so wonderful! I have never known much about D & D, but I was just showing Dragon Boy this thread and that we were talking about the books. (he thinks this is very cool, especially you Barb! He was trying to picture you in costume after seeing your avatar) He then explained to his poor ignorant mother that R.A. Salvatore is a driving force in the D & D world. (boy, do I feel dumb!) Maybe I'll have to check it out more closely. I wonder if there are any of these groups around my area? I have the lastest book (Dragon Boy wouldn't wait 'til it came out in paper back...that would be a crime!) but haven't read it yet, but soon...very soon.

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Dragonmom
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Dragon Boy is exactly right. At least my dh says so. And he'd know. He's played for YEARS!!! I'm fairly new to D&D - my husband was involved in this group before we got married, and now they are some of our best friends. I played, but really didn't 'get' it until I read the Drzzt' serious. Once I read that - ALL of the D&D campaigns REALLY came alive.

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This IS toooo COOL!!!! Rhal.......how unique that would be to play a half-orc that can READ!!!! LOL Your other stats must be pretty high to be able to assign a fairly high score to your intelligence!!!! A Charisma stat of 6 is probably pretty appropriate for a dwarf. I don't know when we are going to start our new game, but DH is heading over to his son's tonight so they can make some more plans. Whenever we play, DH is an armchair DM, but step-son runs the games. We're using the third edition rules, which we've never done before. My fighter is going to be a kick-a$$ TANK, female with lots of bonuses to her fighting abilities and damage attacks. We played a Star Wars game awhile back and used the third edition rules for that, but this will be different with D&D. We eventually stopped playing because my daughter-in-law made such a stink when step-son was out playing. Sheeeeeeesh, the poor guy works all week and can't even have two weekend nights a MONTH to play. We hope she won't pull that crapola again this time. He needs to put his foot down and say he NEEDS some down time. They have 2 little kids and he takes them off her hands EVERY night and weekends. I think he earns a little play time. DS-S was thinking we could play at their house to keep his wife from getting on his back, but that just wouldn't work. We have LOTS of parafernalia we use, figures, dungeon tiles, dice, books and Ahem....snacks. They have a teeeeeeny place, and the little ones would be getting all kinds of into our stuff, PLUS we would have to lug it all over there and back home everytime..not a good scene. SO we are going to play at our house where there are no little kids and we can just pop our stuff in and out of our diningroom.

Lauri, the game is really a lot of fun!!!! You can get prewritten campaigns, but my DS-S likes to write his own. That's cool your DS thinks we're all COOL here and even OLD people can still get into this stuff!!!!!

Gary Gygax was the first person to write the D&D rules books, which I'm sure he was inspired by reading the LOTR trilogies. Gary wrote the first book sometime in the early or mid '70's I think. And I believe he was the person who copyrighted the term Dungeons and Dragons. We still have an original Players Handbook somewhere. It's old and tattered.

The first time I played was with my, then, neighbors somewhere around 1983. I had gone over to "watch" and when I walked in, the wife handed me a sheet and said, "You're playing." I didn't know how to, they said that would be okay, they would teach me how. I am now married to her husband. She died in 1986 and I went over to see if he needed any help with anything ALL the time, I felt so bad for the guy. He had 3 young children. My divorce was finalized July 2nd that year to my first husband and his wife died the 25th of that month.............so lo and behold.........we ended up together!!!! We got along so well, had so much in common, it was fate!!!!! And now, 18 yrs later, we are still D&Ding together.

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No - stats were pretty normal, but this DM does an interesting background method. He has all of these items (background events, education, occupation, family) and you role 2D10 (that's 2 10 sided dice for those inexpereinced) - which gives you a percentage. That percentage determines different things. It basically gives you a 'background' to design your character around. Your stats are whatever you decide. In this case, I was raised up in a well-to do orc family (all evil of course) and was taught to read by a captured human so that we (tribe) could read the maps, and any correspondence we came across from all the victims. ;-) I ended up being paired with a holier than thou Palidin and severly had to restrain myself a few times.

We went from 2nd edition to 3rd edition, and that was QUITE a change. Of course, then they came out with 3.5 and we finally (this campaign) are switching to 3.5. If you don't have it, etools character generator makes it all worth while.

We had a situation with the 'where do you play' problem you had. The original location, the couple has a LARGE game room upstairs (HUGE!), but two older teenagers. I had a 3 year old when I started, and then one of the other couples had a baby - so we moved to their house. We play in their dining room, which has a table that seats 8. We crowd 10 around it easily though. There was talk about moving it back to the original location - but the kid factor made the decision for us. There are toys at our current location, and the kids can play while we game. We play EVERY Saturday night for 3 or 4 hours - except holidays - and then we play on an alternative night. Sometimes we just hang out and play Settlers of Cataan (highly recommended game) or Apples to Apples (another recommended game).

It's funny - because I always pictured D&D players as a teenager dressed in black with a few rings in his/her ear/tongue/other spots. The first time I showed up, I was in shock. One couple, both have Masters from Rice University - one is a Marketing guy for IPAQ, the other is the Finance Manager for a CITY!. We have 3 teachers (high school computer graphics, special needs & middle school). One industrial product marketer, and an IT guy (dh) and myself - a consultant for an ADR company. Not a single black robed hole punched person in sight.

Talk about breaking your preconceptions~ ;-)

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LOLOLOL

Hehe, when I'm not dressed in some kind of costume for some kind of event, I'm as "normal" looking as they come. I do however, have a black robe I made for myself, with a very nice lavendarish/celty looking ribbon sewn all along the front edges of the cape proper and the hood. It's a really nice piece. I wore it for one of my Vampire's many looks. All the kids there were like: "COOL where'd you get the cape??" I would say, "I made it!!!!" and they would say, "Oh could you make me one????" After I told them I would charge them about $50 they weren't quite so enthused. LOL (yea sure, I'll just whip one up for ya for free!!!!)

Actually we're using the 3.5 version too, just bought 'em for DS-S for his birthday coming up. Funny how my DH ends up having custody of the books most of the time, but he's NOT the DM. He just can't keep his fingers out of the planning. They kind of look at themselves as co-DM's

They've played Settler's too, at some friends' house. We've had a couple "board game" nights there. I couldn't get into it. It's too much like RISK and Monopoly.......not my bag. I'm not so much into the strategizing, but LOVE the role playing. (And the hack N slash too-why I like to always play fighters.)

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ok, my son is looking over my shoulder, saw the picture and said "whoa, cool", and wants to know if you son has a public email address or msn messenger. My son is MAJORLY into dragons! Dragons usually prevail as our wallpaper, screensaver, artwork, and book-reading. We had to build a full wall bookcase to accomodate all the books, mostly dragon. For my birthday a few days ago, he bought me a card holder that has a woman astride a horse, riding in the mountains, with dragons circling overhead. Too cool. We play a lot of yu-gi-oh and other card games. He has dragon statues in his room and recently bought a dragonology book. He's so into them that as we travel, which we do most days of the week, he reads the books to me.
He found a website that is loaded with the most awesome dragon artwork I've ever seen...your son probably knows the site but I can still have mine get the url if you're interested.
Ann

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"The future of life on earth depends on seeing the sacred where others see only the common."
- John Denver, 1991

Ann, welcome to the Dragon Thread too!!!!! , hehe, I'm running into you all over the boards!!!! Glad to have you here too!!!!!

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LOL Barb, your face is getting really familiar (You have a very pretty face to look at)
thank you for all the welcomes!
Ann

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"The future of life on earth depends on seeing the sacred where others see only the common."
- John Denver, 1991