[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Salara Kel'Halavath]

All I can say at the moment... (((HUGS))) and all my prayers for you!!!
Heartfelt strength to share,
S~*

[Gossamer]

Just a quick note about the Featured Threads since some people are waiting on them. I got REALLY busy at work and got super delayed. Plus our down time the other day (due to us running out of room... we didn't think that was possible but Tarot worked his tail off to fix it!) made me delay the features. They will go up NEXT month instead. I hope no one minds.... but sometimes we need to do this.

[Gossamer]

It Isn't Easy

This is a bit of a whine fest... but writing is writing and I have to get going somehow even if it is with a bit of a whine.

I'm getting worse. And I know this because in having this new knowledge I'm armed with all kinds of tools. Yet I can't do anything with them but play avoidance and dodge ball on a lifestyle basis. I can't get on a treatment plan until after June 20th... so the waiting game is terrible. And I have to face the fact that I can't get 'normal' without a lot of chemical help because my main problem is that my body is flooded with a tremendous amount of white blood cells that are attacking everything about me and making me miserable. There's such a thing as too much of a good thing.

I went to the doctor a dozen times before these new tests resulted in the positive for autoimmune. My complaints were always the same. "Doc, I'm exhausted all the time." Or "Doc, I cough alll the time." And... "My knees are swollen oddly, and I hurt everywhere." That's the worse part of all of this. You look perfectly normal, but doing everyday things is just exhausting. I was given all kinds of answers. "Viral infection. Fungal infection. Anemia." I was in the hospital for heart pain... like serious not faking it thinking I'm going to die heart pain. Nothing. No one knew what was wrong. Tests came back clean. No heart attack, no infections, etc... you loose hope and think your going crazy.

It took a new PA to look at a few years of blood tests to see there was a pattern of super high white blood counts and actually check for more serious issues.

He was right. I wasn't just becoming a huge hypochondriac.

Since the weather has turned nice in the Pacific Northwest and we are having sunny 80' degree days, I'm out there in it and this thing I have makes me photosensitive. Direct sunshine causes whats called flares, so I'm running around with a horrible rash across my face and I'm just hurting and tired all over. I can't sleep at night because believe it or not you get too tired to sleep. I lay there staring at the ceiling and hurting. I've been popping tons of NSAIDS. So I count a good day as a night where I get at least three hours. I limp when I walk. I take stairs like an 80 year old woman because my joints are so swollen.... and its frustrating because once I get my treatment plan started, all of this can be managed. It's killing me this waiting...

But I work outside and can't stay out of the sun.... so getting on a plan is imperative. Hats only do so much. And I look terrible with this horrible red flush across my face.

I can't concentrate. Is it because I'm not sleeping? I have no idea. I'm roaming around in a brain fog that's epic. I read things wrong. I hear things wrong. And yesterday I came home after only an 8 hour shift and face-planted and napped 4 hours. It was absolutely glorious. I felt better than I had for days even though I'm still sporting this damn rash. I take little victories like this and turn them into big things... I actually feel good enough to cook... and good enough to eat something for once. I haven't had much of an appetite. Today I did the same thing except I limited it to two hours. I need more time at night before I have to go to bed.

And I'm diligently tracking it all in a Bullet Journal. Good days, bad days, hot sunny days to see if they are really effecting me (and they are)... What is my energy level? Pain level? Swollen joints and stiffness level? Chronic headache? Brain Fog? Is my hair falling out today in clumps? It usually is. Gods if I could just get rid of the stiffness life would be so much better. Pain and soreness I can deal with. I've got spare hair to loose. But I miss being able to flex.... to move. My BP is fine and I'm doing well in that aspect. And don't get me wrong, I do have really really good days. But this burning rash on my face sucks. So too does the days I have to rest ... which is lately every day.

But I have lots of hope for moving past this. I've met a lot of people both online and irl that deal with this... more than you'd think. And they move forward. One of my co-workers is married to a woman with exactly what I have and hes been able to give me pointers and hints on how to manage... and because of it my coworkers are getting incredibly educated on my situation and are coddling me. I kinda hate it, but like they've said, I've been taking care of them for ten years... I'm due until I get on a plan.

A day at a time. I'm hopeful. I'm going to get through this. But there's no way this would have gone on like this for much longer without some sort of diagnosis.... I'm just too sick currently to not have understood something was wrong.

[Allassanachassanya]

I really respect you, Jen. You are very mentally strong, to keep on going to work, to keep on living your life, even with all that pain. I don't have much else to say other than that your situation totally sucks, but well... Good luck with the upcoming plan/medication. I hope it doesn't take too long!

[Gossamer]

Thank You

I can't believe it at times how many people read my scrap and actually respond to it. And to that, I want to offer a huge thanks. So many people reached out to me during this autoimmune diagnosis in PMs and have sent me some of the best advice possible. This player base is so generous, caring, and genuinely real in their interactions. You guys have given me all kinds of tools to help myself through this sometimes impossible feeling time. I can't thank you enough. I really can't. Every PM, every website link, every little kernel of help people have given has all added up to a mountain of 'you can do this' to me.

I appreciate it more than you know. I also appreciate those who keep writing and keep making this site awesome through their roleplay. Miz is so much more than the storytelling though. The community is amazing.

[Gossamer]

A Jar Full Of Gemstones

Some people think they are wise when they are in fact fools. I'm living proof of that. I think we all can point back to times in our lives where we've done the wrong thing (even if we thought it was for the right reason) and regretted it. We've all been fools. We are all living proof. But I've been seeing a very frustrating trend lately and because I'm Goss... and because I feel like time is precious and none of us have enough of it... I'm going to write this scrap. If it reaches just one person, then it was worth the ten minute time frame it took to put thoughts to paper.

You are never to old to learn new lessons, new skills, and new confidences. This is a very important thing. When you stop being a life long learner, you stop having a reason to be here and stop validating your brain and how amazing it can be. It is my belief that some people spend far more time talking than listening, and when they do that they start suffering under the weight of what they know verses what they could know... and miss out picking up some new knowledge.

"Wait! That's not me! I'm a good listener! I never talk over people." Yea, if you just said that to yourself.... It's you I'm pointing fingers at. You aren't and you do talk over people because you just did.

One of the best things you can do for another person in life is be trustworthy. It's seriously a gift to be 'trusted' to someone else. You may not realize that. But when someone tells you something in confidence, and it is important to them that you keep it to yourself, then that is giving them the gift of trust. People give me the gift of that all the time. I'm not talking about game things. I'm talking about just day to day people things. I'm that type that doesn't give two shits what others think about me so when someone tells me something I will never repeat it if they don't want me too... especially to look important or 'in the know'.

But sadly that's not the case with others who do feel its important how others think of them.

I'll tell you why people repeat things. They repeat things because they want to seem important. They want you to feel important because they've taken you into their trust. They want to be the 'cool kid' that entrusts you with the secret knowledge others have given them (even if it isn't their knowledge to give). If someone tells you a secret that wasn't theirs to tell or was told to them in obvious confidence by someone else it reeks of low self esteem.

This is true even if its NOT THEIR BUSINESS. They are often so self centered they think everything IS THEIR BUSINESS... when its not.

Some of the lowest confidence and self esteem I've seen on this site has been covered by nothing but know-it-all bravado. Again, if you said "Not me!" Then you probably need to stop reading because there's no 'take home' for you. Your cup is already full.

But rarely do people realize that if someone comes to them with someone else's secret, there's a high likelihood they will go to someone else with YOUR secrets if you've gifted them with your trust.

And sadly people will often defend their lack of 'trustworthiness' with the age old argument that 'but my use of your knowledge was more important than my keeping your knowledge to myself'.... you know? They had a noble reason for shitting on your trust.

It takes courage to be vulnerable and take someone into your confidence. FUCKING REALIZE THAT. If someone tells you something in utter faith that you won't betray them, realize what sort of standing they have placed you in their lives. Live up to that standing. There's a visual I've always gone by when it comes to trusting others. Everyone in my book gets a jar. When I meet them they get a brand new shiny jar mentally handed to them by yours truly.

The jar becomes a very real almost physical thing over time.

And each time I trust them with something, they get a glittering gemstone placed in that jar. That gemstone is my trust. Its usually polished and pretty brilliant. And after a while their jar becomes fuller and fuller of my gemstones and when it reaches a certain level, its overflowing and those are the people I love and trust and place in my circle of confidence.... my heart circle.

When they betray my trust, I remove a gemstone... just flat out take it away. And like any friend or family member over time those jar levels change and evolve... and thats how my relationship changes and evolves with them.

I want to surround myself with people that have jars overflowing. I want their jars they place in my trust overflowing with their gems. I would rather slash out my tongue than talk about someone something has told me in confidence. It's like taking out that gem they gifted me with and regifting it to someone else. Its just not part of my personality unless its something like 'I'm going to kill myself....' then it becomes something else and something more about saving life than maintaining trust.

There's also many forms of breaking trust. Some forms are so painful you grab the jar and dump all the gemstones out at once. There's also forms that entail someone just fading from your life .... where the jar just slowly fades and vanishes from disuse... and that's after being dust covered and mothballed.

So... what this scrap is all about is a being a jar full of gemstones. Take your importance and your security from being that person whom others entrust with their gems and know that they are tucked safely away in your heart and mind. That's the single best way to be important to others in their lives. Be the kind, gentle, funny, emotionally available person you want others to be for you. If they hand you a gemstone, trust you with it, place it in your jar and fucking cork it shut so it never leaves again. Don't pass it around like an old penny.

It's your life. It's your choice. But there's a right way and a wrong way to be important to someone.

[Gossamer]

Earning XP

This question came up in chat and it honestly deserves a scrap.

To earn XP, you need to go into detail on what you are doing. Just picking up a sword and swinging it will not earn you XP unless you are seriously low level at it... meaning in the single digits. Just saying you are 'building a wall' will not get you carpentry or construction XP. You need to go into detail detail detail. When doing magic, there's a lot more involved than just casting a spell. You can't just cast a shield for example. You have to describe pulling your Djed, tasking the shield, fully forming it over something... etc. All of that counts towards XP.

Here are some things that do not qualify for XP.

• Repetitive Action through the same thread and multiple threads.
• Fighting/Casting/Crafting below/above your skill level.
• Vague descriptions.

These things will get you great XP.

• Clearly describing an action thoroughly with lots of detail.
• Doing unusual or interesting things AT your skill level with your skill.

This is all really cut and dried. This is how you get XP. This is what kinds of things don't qualify for XP. Remember, as a grader if you are giving XP for things that don't give XP, you are jeopardizing your grading status. Hold PCs accountable... especially when they get past the single digits. Make them write details. Make them push the limit not in doing TOO much but in doing INTERESTING things.

I hope this helps.

[Gossamer]

The Magic Of Mizahar

Magic on Mizahar is something either players truly love or they run away screaming from. I’m not an expert on magic since I didn’t develop the whole concept but I’ve been around enough to understand that magic here works differently than it does in books, gaming systems, even in real world spirituality. People try to assign statistics to it and in doing so loose a lot of the spirit of how magic is supposed to be treated. It’s mystical, rare, and something that’s different for everyone.


Recently there’s been a lot of talk back and forth in chat about magic, and at times it breaks my heart in a way. Yea, I have one. Don’t make a big deal out of it. Anyhow, I’m not good at interrupting people when they are passionate about something, but everything about most people’s ideas on magic are contrary to the spirit of Mizahar. I can understand why they think it though. Its hard to NOT have a quantifiable way to explain something mystical. Even Gillar, who is rewriting the Overgiving Page to give more clarity is struggling with quantifying it. In one example, a player was saying that he gave himself a few times a day in so many bells to produce a few effects he felt was ‘in his level’. I appreciate the effort and how hard he was trying to guide a new person. I really do. It’s people like that which are going to keep new players enthusiastic because someone has to answer their questions. But its not exactly the way magic is supposed to work.

So I was asked to write this scrap to explain a few things to EVERYONE in my perspective in hopes of giving people a bit of clarity on magic. I want to emphasize this is my take on Mizahar’s magic and is not endorsed by Tarot or anyone else. But as someone who’s played a mage a long time and loves magic, its my hope that this will help.

Everyone has a pool of djed within them. It varies from person to person and isn’t something people can put a number on. Some people might have large pools, some people might have modest pools of djed, but its something they need to discover through rolepaly which each player decides for themselves. As characters become familiar of their core spirituality and their djed, they have more awareness of it. Think of it in terms of a martial artist or dancer slowly becoming aware of their body and its needs as they advance in their artform. They slowly learn their limits and stretch their limits daily, pushing themselves further and harder, until their limits increase and they grow better. Magic is like this.

I equate it to breathing. Everyone breaths. It’s the normal. You can’t live without breathing. We breathe in our day to day lives just as characters use their djed in their day to day lives, many times without knowing it. They don’t overgive without the conscious use of magic because their djed use is normal for them, as normal as breathing.

However, when we get into stressful things like combat, conflict, anxiety, desperation, high emotions, high adrenaline etc, our breathing becomes rapid. We start worrying or say we have an accident where we fall and get the breath knocked out of us, we have issues and can’t breathe well or struggle. Magic is a lot like this. The same goes for magic. Characters can use it all day long so long as they are used to using it in specific natural normal ways. Its only when they are skirting new territory like stretching their powers or exploring new avenues of uses that they have to worry about overgiving. This is different for EVERY character.

Say your reimancer is a chronic smoker that tends to chain smoke every day, day in and day out. He might be more than used to flicking a bit of res together, igniting it, and lighting his cigarette. You cannot say he can only do this a couple times a day at his level, because his magic life and magic mind is conditioned to do this as easily as breathing so he can indeed spark a bit of djed over and over again to light a cigarette. But if he skips out of the realm of normal or zen, that’s when overgiving comes. A fireball with significantly more res and more heat might tax him.

Dancers work on stretching more and more until they can do the splits. They aren’t born being able to do this but it is something they work on daily to get more flexible. Mages are like this. If they take it slow and steady, they can increase their norms. If they do it all at once and try to ‘split’ without the day in and day out, year in and year out practice… they overgive. It’s the same with breathing. When we run a marathon we lose our breath, shut down, experience coughing, wheezing, etc. That’s what overgiving is like. Your characters body reacts to abuses it isn’t used to experiencing.

I played an bard with auristics once. She didn’t see colors of auras. Its not how magic was designed on Miz. Magic is very very personal to each and every character and ten characters might do something with the same effect ten different ways. My bard heard auras. She heard them in tones of music and it told her just as much if not more than people who only used their eyes.

My reimancer who will tell everyone who asks she’s secretly just a geomancer tends to hear her crafted stone sing to her and can get lost to its voice if she doesn’t deliberately ignore it. Sometimes she doesn’t and will stand for hours leaning against a stone pillar she crafted just to hear its voice. She loves the voices of stones. She rose an island out of the sea all by herself over irl years. Yet she crafted her home by transmuting stone to air (a much easier process than producing res to craft stone as in the island) in just a few short seasons. To her, inducting someone to reimancy isn’t just the act of giving them the gift of Res, it’s a complete act of trust and affection. In a way she sees it as her protecting them even when she cannot be there protect them herself.

So, I want each and every one of you to think of magic as not a set process. Don’t try to fit it into boundaries of mana pools and turns and plays. Don’t try and make it fit into dice rolls. Instead, ruminate on your individual characters and try to consider what can you do to make magic your own and very individual to your own character. How can you take what you read in the lore and apply it to the uniqueness of the character, making it your own and individual in your characters own way? Magic is beautiful here. It’s not throwing around a set scope of spells. It’s not a situation where a pc can cast x amount of times a day. It’s so much more than that. Tarot wrote magic to be incredibly beautiful and flexible, something you can absolutely tailor to your own way of thinking and your own way of doing things.

Overgiving? Like I said… its like breathing outside of the normal scope of breathing. When you stretch and push and move past your personal character’s comfort zone, then it happens. How long does it last? That’s something you need to decide for yourself. Only you know the inner crevasses and cracks in your characters soul and how far they can be pushed. Its something for you to decide. ‘We’… the collective group, can only look on and wonder, hoping to discover more about your PC through their words and actions. And if you are a conscientious player that understands game balance well, you’ll do fine at those decisions.

That’s the beauty of the magic of Mizahar.

[Gossamer]

Updating My Office
And pulling Scraps to condense in one place!

I've spent a good portion of today going through my scrap for the last 100 pages or so (earlier stuff probably wasn't that relevant) pulling out the things I think are important tidbits for players. I've condensed it all in my office with spoilers so you don't have direct links. If you want me to talk about anything specifically in my scrap from Miz Concepts to navigating certain scenarios in Miz Life etc... just let me know. If you need one of the races elaborated on or something like that, I'd also consider scrapping about it.

Truth is... I don't have much to scrap about these days. The site is going FANTASTICALLY well. We have the best players we've ever had. It's almost Zero Drama unless you count the occasional trolls that log on chat complaining about the site being so rules heavy it stifles their freeform creativity. So, the only other thing I have to talk about is the lore. And I can do that, but I have no idea where the gaps are.

[Gossamer]

Compliments verses Acknowledgements

I run into a lot of situations where people choose to express things in awkward ways that are usually more about them than the expressions are about others. This is so true of people giving forth compliments. People often think saying something like "I like your.... " or "I love your...." filling in the blanks to mean anything from writing to character development to plots, aesthetics, or even to such things as city design or attitude as a whole.

But what people don't realize is when you attempt to compliment like this, meaning starting with the word "I" you are making the compliment all about yourself. Your likes, your loves, or even your needs... scary huh? I bet most people don't think of things this way.

Compliments are often used by people as tools to soften the recipient and make them more open to things they want from them. Or, less nefariously, they are used as tools in their toolbox of personal relationship building. However, is this real appreciation? Or is this something else? I always go for the something else, because often those 'compliments' are followed by requests... and usually not with any lapse in time either... and those requests make the compliments meaningless or worse yet cause them to severely swerve into the territory of flattery. No one wants generic shallow compliments. They don't even have to start with "I". They just need to be generic like "Amazing job!" Wha? Amazing job at what? WTF? See what I mean?

No one likes that.

It is one of my greatest wishes that people stop giving meaningless compliments and stop trying to soften others up to their needs and wishes. I firmly believe there is a right and a wrong way to compliment. "I, Me, My, and Mine are all danger signs." It's an old native saying... almost a proverb. But its so true.

So how do you compliment? You make them sincere and personal in a very specific way. You acknowledge the others and their work, action, or accomplishment. Wait? What? You know... this is the compliment that takes some real fucking work, people... where you go into detail about what someone did that is worthy of praise. Change the "I" to "You" or "Your" or anything that makes it about the person you are complimenting and not about yourself. "I love your box code." This is absolute trash. But if you say something like "Your box code style is very striking and original! The colors just blend together so well and are so easy on the eyes." Then you've nailed it. That's a very specific about them type thing. "Great job on the box code!" is so impersonal and so generic. It will leave the recipient asking themselves or wondering what about your box code was actually liked. So by acknowledging the person's work in specific ways, you've paid them an amazing compliment that has kept the focus on them.

Our generic compliments are bad habits. Acknowledgements are amazing gifts to others. Why are you perpetuating bad habits when you can be building amazing skills that connect you to others in ways you might absolutely be grateful for? It's really hard work to break habits. But I think if you start to think about what you say in a different way, you'll feel how insincere you have been in the past and how easily you can change that to utter sincerity. People want to be understood and more importantly, people want to be valued. Acknowledging them does both and it will go so much further than a stupid insincere lazy compliment.