Halloween opened with me rising in the dark. To my surprise, the sound of rain in my gutters was absent, and the skies slowly changed from black to blue—a lovely morning sunrise! I had placed a pumpkin-shaped bucket of candy outside the day before, and when I mailed the cards this morning, it was still packed with small candy bars. I would not be home for the trick-and-treating, but at least any little spooks would be resupplied should they be passing by, and anyone else. Of the 29 Halloweens, I can remember only the last two as not part of our six-month rain festival, often with pouring cold wet, and those were 2023-2024. I remember the pandemic ones were clear too, but those were putting out the candy with hand sanitizer and paper towels. This time it was candy in a bucket.
I wrote the blog and did a small amount of laundry for Friday. It is just me, and I keep the loads small, allowing The Machine to complete the work in just a few hours. I watched the run rise and the squirrels enjoy the apples on the ground. The roses are in slow mode, and blooms grow and fade in slow motion now that sunlight is much reduced. Wet, messy leaves are everywhere. My lawn service cleaned up the first of the onslaught, but after a few days, it looks like they were never here. Yes, welcome to late fall in the Pacific Northwest!
I located my ‘V’ mask and my tophat, put on a red vest and a white shirt, and said, “We are ANONYMOUS.” I passed on the tie as rain was forecast, and water spots do not improve a silk tie. I was ready for Halloween.
I talked and texted Deborah all morning. We both followed each other’s day. We were both busy.
I had cold pizza and leftover salad, added a hard-boiled egg and some olives, and caught up on YouTube. I watched ShipHappens and more of Drachinifel and his breakdown of engine designs for 1900s-1945 naval ships. I then scooped the laundry onto Monday’s pile of yet-to-be-folded clothing, hung up shirts and pants, and tried to get a bit more organized. Failed. Boarded Air VW the Gray and headed to New Cascadia Traditional, a pizza and bakery for gluten-free goodies.
Traffic was not heavy, but the skies were no longer blue. Rain was coming! I parked the EV in what would later become a damp adventure to recover the vehicle. I was early and had a kombucha (no booze) while I wrote a status report for the church—all good news—for the refresh. The reports are one page and presented as memos. This is the 11th report, styled as the Halloween report, with nothing scary.
I returned to my adventure writing (Dungeons & Dragons 5E), putting aside my fantasy novel for now, and started to make real progress. My thoughts began to coalesce into actual rules, creatures, encounters, and text. This is a one-shot adventure for a single play, but it needs to create a strong memory. I asked about the 2012 version, and my players still remember it. I make some features harsher for higher-level adventurers. It needs to be scary! And writing on Halloween 2025 adds a certain je ne sais quoi to my writing today. Evil and darkness seem to come to me with ease as I write. Portland, in the rain, dark, and goblin-free glutan-free* baked goods, seems steeped in necromantic energy today (evil laugh here).
*I had to keep that mistake from Grammarly visible for this writing!
Kathleen appeared in full elf ears, make-up, and rings. Only her smile has me recognizing her. We get personal pizzas and drinks (tea with milk for me). My pizza was cheese-free and topped with roasted veggies. It is light, and the crust was more cracker than bread—excellent! We mostly chat and enjoy the busy store, where folks are often dressed as their favorite friendly creatures or undead. We finally find some focus, and I make more additions and start to get two encounters done and rules for the surprise set.
I miss my glasses as I travel out of Portland in the dark. Once again, the traffic lights are doubled, but control of the car is shared between me and the EV’s AI, keeping us both between the lines and safe. I arrived with a few warnings but stopped the VW in time (it was threatening to brake for me — sometimes it is so controlling).
I collected my laptop, my hat, and my mask, put them away for another day, then got the wet, floating candy and put it out to dry. The packaging is waterproof, but I sampled some to ensure quality. No issues.
I wrote more and finished another watching of Grayhound on Apple+; one of the best WW2 movies (the new version of Midway being the other). I have four more encounters to write and then the ending. I will be adding an environment challenge, too. I am thinking of deleting the bonus encounter, but we will see.
My usual approach is to vary the encounters with different creatures and attacks. This allows me to ignore one that gets crushed, as player groups are often good at one or two types of encounters. If I vary them, I should hit a couple of harsh ones. DMs, and I include myself in this, often get unhappy when the encounter they spent all this time on and writing is crushed, and are tempted to add to it or cheat a bit, but I have learned (thanks M@) to just move on and let the next one be different. I will scare the players with a couple of them!
I read the rules for the Let’s Waltz add-on to the Grand Hotel Austria board game. I learn how most of the other options work. I have already added the More option (number 5), which adds a few more cards and options to the base game. We included Ballrooms (number 1) in our last play and decided to keep it. I looked at the Celebrities (number 2), and there is a warning that it may add too many rules when included with the Ballroom option. Hmmm. I looked at the New Hotel entrance way (number 4), and that looks good for folks who want to vary something. Maybe not for our second play of Ballrooms, but I liked it. I will present the choices and let the group decide.
I was too tired to read when I crawled into bed. I soon fell deeply asleep, and I think I wandered in my sleep-dream world, waving my hands like a dark sorcerer and creating evil catacombs, dungeons, and creatures to stop adventurers. This Saturday morning, I feel like some ideas are floating in the back of my mind, waiting to find their way into my Word document.
Thanks for reading.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 