Autistic Gamer: Maximus Alebrewer, Duck Death Expedition Member

I made Maximus Alebrewer for a D&D 3.5 play by post game. He was good at making ale, being a bartender/innkeeper, and cooking plus he liked making drinking mugs to drink into. Aside from these skills, he was the typical dwarf, although he was slightly crazy or going crazy. He was rather fun to play, but when the game ended I decided to continue his journal of the expedition and make up stuff that could make sense.

This is of course tied to why I engage playing D&D and other roleplaying games: The opportunity to tell a story with made up characters. So I will continue making entries for Maximus and his chicken plotting obsession mostly to entertain myself; if you find his adventures, of which I plan for him to have many or as many as possible, entertaining as well that would be great. If not, I suppose I would understand. There are a few more fantasy story ideas I have bouncing around in my head and as I could my first book effort, I will try to get them down as well. I may try to convert Maximus’s adventures into a webcomic perhaps or some other form, but that requires art skills I don’t really have.

Maximus will continue his journey in further entries as I come up with his adventures. Hopefully it ends up being very entertaining and enjoyable for everyone just as much as for me.

Link to Maximus Alebrewer character sheet: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=667491

Autistic Gamer: Duck Death Expedition Journal Entries 1-9

(This is a little something I made up for a game that stopped. I thought perhaps with some proper tweaking it could turn into a short story or perhaps a novel. Needs critiques)

The Beginning:

Maximus Alebrewer was part of the much forgotten and lost Duck Death Expedition. Missing for more than 50 years, an incompetent bunch of adventurers discovered his journal in a cave next to his body and that of a chicken. He was found clutching a dagger. The adventurers brought his journal back to his people so they would have some idea of what happened to this Ill-Fated Expedition

Duck Death Expedition Journal:

(The following dwarven text is not the opinions of the Expedition senders nor those in the expedition beyond Maximus Alebrewer’s, may he rest in peace)

Page 1
We have arrived after what seemed to be a long journey following the outdated maps provided by King Jabba. Perhaps Jabba forgot to get it finished, nevermind.

During our journey, I have come to some disquieting thoughts. My companions are usually drunk and they often praise my fried rat stew. It certainly is not the best, but one must do what one can with what little one has. I have been making more of my “Rat Ale”. It’s quite the hit with the others.

A very much stranger thing is how much mushrooms we keep seeing. Harvesting them and serving them up as a drink provided for endless hours of fun. Roast mushroom ale, another possibility for me to explore.

A last concern: I have been watching the chickens very carefully lately this days. I think they are beginning to organize and are preparing to announce their new status as communists. I hate communists. I think the big chicken is secretly plotting against me. Whenever i pull on the string, it is always the quickest to show up. It is clear the poultry pose a threat. I must continue my surveillance.

We have found what appears to be a swamp. Supposedly it leads to the ruined fortress. I am hoping to find some more mushrooms. Our party seems to work better after consuming mushrooms.

Need to acquire a rat and make it a miniature pack-saddle so I can have a pack rat. It would make an interesting experiment. I hope to acquire a plot of land and build an inn. I shall name it, the Drunken Dwarf, and sell ale and mushrooms.

Page 2
We have not encountered any wildlife on our journey so far. Perhaps in a few days, we will meet the elves who are supposed to leave in places such as these. “Walk through a forest, stab an elf”, as the old dwarf saying goes. Soon, perhaps, we may encounter goblins. Goblins smell, but, praise Moradin, they don’t smell as bad as elves. Even worse, Elves won’t drink beer or ale!!!

For that, they shall all be cleansed in flame.

I am having suspicions that we are being followed by gnomes. These easily entertained degenerates also show up to spread their gifts of jokes. I would prefer kobolds, as kobolds only trying to kill us, not tell us crappy elf light-bulb jokes. The gnomes seriously need new material.

The fortress of Spearlocked. Such a forlorn place, yet I can’t remember anything about it other than it had elderberries. Or was it blackberries? Hmm, now that I think about it, I believe that the fortress was lost when the dwarves discovered they had drilled into a lava river or was it a magma river? I think it was a magma river after all. Hopefully we can fix that and actually find the city. I wonder if anyone in our party remembered to bring the map along with us showing where the city was supposed to be “According to Legend”.

Oh, look, blood in a pond. Let the danger dwarf check it out.

Page 3
Apparently the dwarves of Spearlocked don’t like visitors. Why else stick all sorts of traps near the entrance? No, they couldn’t be helped to have a door that only opened when you said something in elven. Not much of an entrance then.

Spearlocked was notorious for traps, hmm, seems like they were related to Kobolds. And then they got attacked by cows! How embarrassing. Cows are for eating not fighting. Still, spears and spiked pits? What kind of welcome is that?

There are swampy hills nearby which usually means trolls or lizardfolk or black dragons. The swamps will definitely have some kind of nasty in them. Still wondering what the deal with the piles of bones are.

The amulet I found clearly relates in some way to the fortress, but alas there is no way of figuring out how it got here from there. We need some kind of tracker and we are fresh out. It would be nice if we had one, but one can simply pray.

Oh, and I am making roast chicken tonight. Those chickens need to learn their place in this hierarchy.

Page 4
Our scout discovered that there was a cave filled with kobolds. So, like a bunch of young dwarves trying to impress out of our league dwarven maids, we set out upon the kobolds to assert our dwarfhood. It went as bad as can be imagined. We were set upon by a horde of the shrieking monsters, each armed with curved swords and shields. The creatures outnumbered us three to one and howled for our blood. Their leader, a kobold of immense size, stood above them wielding his flaming sword and swore to bathe in our blood.

Boldly we went to the charge and managed to slay…just the leader. Our bold attack against overwhelming odds utterly failed and we proved ourselves incapable of truly holding our own, but our killing of the leader meant the others ran away. We have gloriously demonstrated our strength and let the kobolds fear. Boldly, we sang of our victory!!!

Alright, it was only 6 kobolds and we only managed to kill one of them and they were barely armed with daggers. Not a particularly impressive showing for us. I managed to kill the leader, which made the others flee, while the rest of our expedition apparently lacked as much battle experience as me and made a poor showing. Had the other kobolds any spine, we would have all perished. We are a pretty sad lot for dwarves.

We did gain some good spoils, but since the kobolds fled its likely they will be back and in larger numbers. I fear we have only prolonged the dark inevitable day the kobolds actually attack us with sufficient numbers to kill us which isn’t much. We will need to train badly to be able to defend ourselves in case something happens.

I must have been imagining it, but I think that the chickens were silently mocking us for our sheer incompetence. We may have driven off the kobolds but that was solely luck not skill. It’s not a good thing either. We can’t rely on luck to win all our battles, skill is also important. Hopefully the next time we encounter something dangerous we are able to make a better showing of ourselves.

Page 5
We discovered more kobolds when one fell into the fire in our camp or that’s what our guard claimed. Apparently he scared it so much saying “BOO” that the kobold leapt into the flames. Personally, I think the kobold tripped and its shrieks woke up our sleeping guard. After passing around some fried rat stew, we set off for the day in exploration.

Several hours later, after our guard dwarf had shoved another dwarf into the pond for attaching a “Kick ME!” scroll to the guard’s back armor, we discovered an entrance into Spearlocked. After carefully scouting out the entrance, our guard dwarf (who shall be referred afterward as Guardy so I don’t have to keep repeating ‘guard dwarf’) told us it was safe for us to enter.

Our noble little band of dwarves entered the ruined fortress of Spearlocked. Members of our expedition started disappearing and couldn’t figure out what had happened. Soon, the expedition was reduced to me, Guardy, Pinky (our leather worker), Hoe (our farmer), Tim (our fellow dwarf who likes mushrooms), Joe (a new expedition member who specializes in gemcutting), Frank (our weather man, he is supposed to get the weather figured out; his only prediction rain, which it did, inside the fortress. Hello!!! Dwarven Plumbing!! Invest in it!).

With this small number out of our original 25, doesn’t leave me feeling safe, continued exploring the fortress. Joe keeps claiming that Jabba will be sending more dwarves on this expedition. Secretly, I don’t believe it. Jabba was never really interested.

Report on the Chickens: The chickens are enjoying our march and with the 5 that Joe brought we can go trapfinding with them. Chickens qualify as grade AAA trap-detection devices. I am looking forward to testing this qualification.

We have begun discovering signs of battle between our kin and orcs lead by Elves. So naturally, we have assumed that the Elves are responsible for attacking our other expedition members. We found one of expedition members who appeared partially eaten. Our expedition doctor, Jim, who we thought had gotten lost, told us that it was sign of Elven hunger. This is of course true. Jim is a doctor, so he should know.

We found what appears to be an armory of sorts with left over weapons and armor that wasn’t used by dwarves of Spearlocked to defend themselves and helped ourselves. We also decided to use it as base camp for the time being.

Expedition Members still alive as of writing: Jim (Doctor), Me, Guardy (Expedition Guard), Pinky (Leather Worker), Hoe (Farmer), Tim (Mushroom Lover and another Expedition Guard (something that I learned while talking with him), Joe (Cutter of Gems), Frank (Weatherman), Blinky (A weapons challenged Expedition Guard, he found our camp by accident in night)

(More pages in the journal)

Page 6
We explored the ruined kingdom, finding little of interest. There appears to a great amount of abandonment in this place: houses are filled with broken objects, heaps of wreckage is strewn about with no clarity. Everything seems to suggest that the fortress is nothing but mess with nothing moving. Curious though that we have found plenty of areas where fighting has occurred.

We have acquired a few more party members since we went down the stairs to this level.

Page 7
It has been a hard day, this day. We encountered Dwarven Zombies and lost a party member. We were forced to slay him when he went shrieking mad and started gnawing on one of our other party members. We defeated the zombies, but lost a few chickens. Our path, following where the zombies had come from, lead us to an old temple to the god of the dead.

Everything we are starting to see here now begins to suggest that the dwarves of this fortress delved into the tombs of an ancient empire that apparently worshipped demons. Many of the figures are elf-like, suggesting that elves engage in demon worship.

Several of our party are reporting to hear things that aren’t there. I am beginning to experience something similar and I sometimes see odd shadows on the walls that disappear. This fortress is becoming more creepier with every passing day.

Page 8
Oh Dwarven God, we encountered giant spiders! There were 7 of them and they were the size of big dogs. They came down from the ceiling and tried to put us in webbing, but we fought them off. 3 brave chickens sacrificed themselves with vials of an explosive material we discovered in storerooms. There were crates of this weird orange liquid that exploded when the vial was smashed. Our guard leader had us tie some vials to the chickens to work as scouts. If they encounter anything, we will hear the explosion and be able to tell how near those things are.

We are currently holed up in another armory. The gear in here is sized to fit humans and is decorated with snake motifs. The snakes actually appear to coil, though that might be the due to our growing loss of sanity. We all saw what appeared to be a ghost striding from one room to another. I was going to swear off drinking, but we have run out of beer and other such drinks.

Page 9
We stayed in the armory, while a few members of our party went exploring. I tended the chickens while the others explored, and used some of our remaining supplies to make some food. While doing so, I encountered a couple of orcs which I killed.

Oh all right. The orcs actually died by eating some fungus I had set aside. The third orc who showed up asked for a bowl of soup which he ate before simply vanishing leaving behind a map of the complex. We have gone down to the lower levels which are labeled in dwarven as the “Hell levels”. This is seriously disturbing me.

I had to explain about the orcs, since they all vanished. The others were interested in studying the map. Our pathway leading back up and out is blocked; we must find another way out.

Expedition Members still alive as of writing: Jim (Doctor), Me, Guardy (Expedition Guard), Stabby (Another Expedition Guard who likes stabbing things), Shield (Another Expedition Guard), Bowdagger (Another Expedition Guard who only uses bows and arrows plus a dagger) Pinky (Leather Worker), Hoe (Farmer), Tim (Mushroom Lover, Joe (Cutter of Gems), Frank (Weatherman), Blinky (A weapons challenged Expedition Guard, he found our camp by accident in night, he has been gnawed by another guard)

Autistic Gamer: Games to die for

Some games are totally wasting time on because they are just so fun. I would say that would primarily be Plants VS Zombies and Bejeweled. Both are really good and its hard to stop playing them because they are a lot of fun.

Bejeweled involves putting little gems together into pairs of three or more. I know I have talked about it already, but it can get quickly time-consuming and hard to get away from. Most good games are like that, where you just can’t stop playing them. World of Warcraft can get this happening. The Gems even make nice exploding sounds when they go boom.

Plants VS Zombies involved managing sunlight to make plants to fight zombies. This can get fun quickly and be hard to stop playing simply because its entertaining too much. Time can pass quickly really fast so making sure to stop will be important.

Some or most Roleplaying Games are fun because they usually have funny dialogue and enjoyable moments plus there are fun quests to be performed with some entertaining results. Wanting to see what happens next can end up being very compelling and so it can be hard to stop.

Making sure to stop after a certain point is really hard for me when I am having a lot of fun and I think other Autistics would have a similar problem. Its something to be aware of and something to learn how to control.

Now, I had some games to get back to…

Autistic Gamer: My Sister’s Cats 2

My sister Julie is a cat person and her cats really suit her. There is a lot of similarities between them. Her cats are pretty laid back, but also energetic at times; Julie is a lot like that. Her cats are cute and cuddly and really fluffy. Julie fits only two of those points actually. One main difference is that the cats can be petted and scratched under the chin. The cats also like exploring a bit and examining new things.

My other sister is like her dog, which happens to be energetic and really active. Her dog is always thrilled to see people, gets really excited and is quite rambunctious.

I learned interesting things from both my sisters. From Julie, I learned about art and stuff. From Allison, who has the dog, I learned that I liked cheap wine instead of rum.

Pets tend to reflect their owner’s personalities in some way, as that is why we get them to some extent. There are things to be learned from pets. I have learned from my sister’s cats to be laid back and let things roll over. After all, if the cats can stay relaxed over everything that happens to them, I should be able to as well.

I learned from my sister’s dog that kids aren’t that much different usually in temperament. Of course, the dog doesn’t engage in shouting the way that kids do. Just my bird does some of that.

My bird goes crazy at times and learned to be loud. Like a child, he simply refuses to learn to do differently. Oh well, its not a major problem for me.

I am not fond of dogs. They bark and are loud. Some are friendly and I like those dogs, but others are really nagging like my sister’s dog who likes to play much even when I am not. Dogs need and want to be walked, that’s important to them.

I don’t know if someone who is Autistic needs a pet or not, but I have noticed that I might have said some things about my sisters that aren’t exactly nice or adoring like. I kinda don’t find a problem with this as one should be willing to say things, even if they aren’t too terribly kind. But then, aren’t the pets there for company and companionship because they remind us or ourselves or some way we would like to be?

Autistic Gamer: School, What is it good for?

My most abiding memory of school is the endless walking around and thinly veiled attempts at indoctrination. School functions very much like a factory system, producing people who will join society and so school have standards set up to accomplish the placing of people into functions where they won’t cause problems. The fact that most school curriculum are falling behind those of other nations, making there be less science and engineering students that move on is something that needs fixing.

As for my experience, School was something to be endured, as it was frequently dispersed between bouts of tedium, interesting subjects, and then events like going to an assembly. To be honest, I have sort of blocked out most of my schooling and only remembers the highlights: Which consists of cheerleaders, and other gals plus needing some assistance to do homework. There is very little that I would want to remember, but I do like remembering my college time because it was more helpful and there was more freedom to attempt. Even better, the school wasn’t trying to do any indoctrinating.

The only sad part from College is about the fact that I have employed very little of what I studied. So I suppose there are drawbacks. If I had to offer school advice, it would consist mainly of trying to ignore everyone around and take time for schooling, barring that I don’t think I really have any advice as I spent most of my time by myself and I didn’t feel really concerned with excelling. I will admit that I didn’t bother with much schoolwork and that I enjoyed wasting time.

To end I would say that I really don’t know enough about school and how to survive it beyond recognizing that no one you meet is actually interesting enough and that you should probably avoid the PE teachers, they are paid to throw things at you.

Autistic Gamer: Food

I like chocolate with a passion. I enjoy it and can’t resist having it. There is something missing when you can’t have chocolate. Frankly, its a sin, no a crime, not to have fresh chocolate chip cookies as much as possible. I also like other foods but I have a few I simply cannot eat because they just taste so bad, so wrong to me. Also, I think some foods should be eaten more often than others.

First off, I have almost no sense of taste. I don’t have a sense of smell and my taste buds recognize about nothing. Nearly everything tastes the same as something else. Same texture, same flavor, same sameness. So those foods that are different I either end up liking or disliking.

Green Beans: This unholy food tastes all wrong and its appears to be impersonating food. It tastes like papery to me. (I have done some minute paper munching and green beans come close) It also has the nice Borg(from Star Trek) green color/feel, like the green bean is trying to infect you. Yes, it sounds bizarre and then tastes rather slightly disgusting. Given how little I can actually taste, it makes the disgusting taste stronger.

Sweet Potates: Given my lack of taste or the sure difficulty of tasting food, sweet potatoes are more tangy sweet and not in a good way. I also don’t like the fact they are either orange or purplish. It makes wonder if they went bad or had who knows what done to them.

Peppers: I just won’t peppers because I just don’t that kind of spicy. Oh well.

Spaghetti: I honestly would have to blame one of siblings for this. I think that one of them referred to it in some way that evoked brains and blood or boogers or hair stuff. The look of spaghetti just puts me off. Especially with the long noodles.

Chinese: This tops my list of liked foods because it is just good. I am a big fan of General TSO’s chicken with its spices/sauce. Frankly because it is good.

Chicken: I like chicken and dislike turkey even though they actually taste nearly the same to me. That nearly though is what does it. Chicken tastes proper while turkey tastes improper. There is a taste that’s like plastic or as if the turkey were made of plastic, the whole texture is just wrong.

Seafood: I love seafood. I love calamari the most and enjoy eating it. I also eating other kinds of seafood as well. There is a just great tastes here. I really like it fried.

Sushi: I really love this food. Rice and goodies wrapped in seaweed is one of the best foods that I have ever eaten. Added in other fun stuff and the textures are just great.

Onions, Mushrooms, Olives: I like this things, especially on pizza. Another odd bit is that I love pickle relish but severely dislike pickles. Its rather bizarre but oh well. Also good with the three things is pineapple, especially on pizza.

Fruits/Vegies: I love some of these while I really dislike others.

Textures: Some foods feel/taste proper, like they are actual foods for you to eat while other food are improper and you shouldn’t be eating them. I have found that I really don’t like the foods that I find taste improper.

I don’t really have a sweet tooth, I dislike some kinds of cookies like sugar cookies. I prefer just plain old chocolate chip cookies or M&M cookies. That is also because I like ice cream too. Your day is never bad if you have some ice cream.

Does others have favorite foods?

Autistic Gamer: My Sister’s Cats

So this will be slightly be different than standard posts, but hey, it will be fun.

So my sister has 3 cats, had 4. I like cats, I find them really entertaining and cute and fun. They provide a nice lone cat vibe and I feel I share it a bit. Its pretty easy though to see one thing more than anything: The cats remind me of myself a bit.

Being Autistic means sometimes having no self-control, being a lone cat/wolf type who is comfortable with self than with other people, and moving stealthily through the environment.

I enjoy seeing movies, but I really don’t worry about bringing anybody with me. Usually, aside from the bird or one of my sister’s cats, I find that I prefer my own company a lot. Its just easier most times and I feel sometimes that my bird gets me. Or that my sister’s cats understand. Its just…well to be honest there feels like a dissociative connection, like everything but the cats/bird is not real or just delusions I am having. Animals feel more real, while people feel unreal, like they are figments of my imagination.

My bird is a simple critter. Its easy to feel him (sense/notice he is real) because he always look like he knows. Its the same with the cats. They live a simpler existence without people who just don’t get anything. I mean, people are great, but having someone you barely see walk up and say stuff to you with you all the while wondering who the heck this person is and why you should care gets tiring.

That’s different with animals because I always remember who my sister’s cats are even if I don’t always recall that my sister is my sister. Some days I wake up without remembering who I am even. I don’t feel real or more so that I am being imagined by my bird or my sister’s cats. This sensation of being completely disconnected with people and always wondering “What do you mean to me that I should care about you?”. This is a big why on why I dislike customer service jobs and why I think they aren’t good picks for High functioning autistics.

I love my sister, but I also love her cats and love them slightly more, mainly I guess because they don’t feel complicated. I can understand usually what they want like being petted. Of course, the fact they look completely cute helps. I feel like I have more in common with my sister’s cats than I do with other people.

One thing cats definitely provide though, Endless humorous youtube vidoes of just them being themselves. Which is very entertaining.

Autistic Gamer: New Star Wars Movie

So, there is an official cast list for Star Wars Episode 7. Its an impressive list already with the original cast involved. So here will follow some confirmed items about the new film and my own guessing.

First off, Confirmed:

Adam Driver was earlier confirmed to be playing the villain in this movie.
The cast has been confirmed with shooting starting.
The movie will take place around 30 years after Return of the Jedi.

Now for the guessing:

Given that the sequel trilogy will follow other heroes and features the original cast, this movie has all of the feel that it will be a “passing the Torch” film. The original cast will pass the baton of adventure or the Olympic torch to the new batch of heroes.

Max Von Sydow is playing some kind of officer (would be a good Pellaeon) or perhaps some kind of senator. I really don’t pick up on him being the main bad guy since someone has already been cast.

Black guy (Boyega) could work as grandkid to lando, if we have his parent, lando’s kid happening before cloud city, or he could be lando’s kid after a relationship had later. Maybe with leia or some other woman?

The girl (Daisy Ridley) definitely going to be doing something, hopefully no damsel in distress moments, its not cool. Make her a action girl character, its about time for this.

Oscar Isaac will be some kind of Jedi or a bounty hunter or maybe a scoundrel.

Domhnall Gleeson is definitely being cast as some kind of wookie. He just screams wookie to me. Reminds me of a younger looking Peter Mayhew, same smiling feel.

Andy Serkis is hopefully playing some kind of yoda type or General grievous. Nothing like Jar-jar please. I want my sanity intact, thank you.

Personally, that’s what I think people are being cast for. Given that the original cast is here, this story is definitely going to be a “Passing the Torch” story with the original cast in for part before disappearing in some fashion, leaving the youngsters to save the day at which point the original cast might show up to officially do a torch passing moment (Saying stuff about how the newbies are responsible for the galaxy or something)

Personal Wild Guessing: Adam Driver is playing C’baoth, Max Von Sydow is Pelleaon, and Andy Serkis is Thrawn who came back from somewhere to ruin people’s day. Barring that, Driver (Already confirmed previously as villain) will be helped by Max Von Sydow and Andy Serkis. Mainly because Driver had info released saying that he had been cast as the villain already.

Or maybe General Grevious survived and returns under Driver’s villain and gets played by Andy Serkis.

Or maybe Abrams is doing a pseudo-sequel, that reboots the series by having each of our new actors playing an alternate dimension/continuity of the original cast??

What about you, loyal blog readers? Do you have any speculations?