They didn’t actually end up fighting him, they didn’t found out until Saint Nicholas (me, the dm, dressed in a red robe with a Santa hat) handed them all a gift in character.
The plan was for them to realize it was Saint Nick and the following week (the week before Christmas) have a gift exchange, but they didn’t figure it out so I started the gift exchange in character as Saint Nicholas.
They eventually discovered it, but it took way too long.
The world that I run is a purgatory for deities. So when a deity dies, the world has to make space for the new deity and can be physically altered when it does so. Naturally when the warning signs of a new deity start showing up it becomes a global phenomenon as if the world has to change too drastically it can be cataclysmic. As this is purgatory for deities, they actually exist in world, although they are limited to their domains.
In October 2 years ago, the world started showing signs that a new deity had arrived, the players immediately went out trying to track down information on this deity to see how much the world was going to change if at all. The whispers they start hearing are that the majority of the deities followers are children. But there do exist a smattering of several other kinds of people, most notably prostitutes, and sailors.
They start talking to some of the followers and they all simply refer to him as a saint, someone who really helped them in a time of need. Usually by leaving small trinkets or money in the dead of night, many had no idea it was the Saint who had left them. It just appeared, and they put the 2 together. Few if any had actually seen him, and when they did it felt like it was just a figment of their imagination, he was always gone before they knew what had even happened.
When they finally find this deity, he doesn’t refer to himself as a saint, or even a deity, simply Nicholas of Myra. He looks like an older human male, wearing a red robe with grey hair and a beard. He leaves little trinkets and mundane items, behind for people, and tries to help where he can.
The party found him 2 weeks before Christmas and didn’t realize until we were doing our gift exchange the next week that they had just gone on a quest to find Saint Nick.
Are these the trains people the Republicans are so worried about?
I took a different approach, I put my keys on a carabiner so I jingle when I walk. It makes it really hard to accidentally startle people.
How much you want to bet we’re going to start having military parades to “show off our strength”.
The US doesn’t do military parades. George Orwell said it best in 1941, "Why is the goose-step not used in England? There are, heaven knows, plenty of army officers who would be only too glad to introduce some such thing. It is not used because the people in the street would laugh. Beyond a certain point, military display is only possible in countries where the common people dare not laugh at the army."
Part of my job involves operate hoists that are lifting several tonnes over the general public. Anything that is even impairment adjacent, like being tired, will get you removed from that position. If you are actually impaired you’re fired no questions.
It’s cyclical, years ago, video quality improved dramatically, and then stagnated for almost 40 years as prices fell until it was economical for video quality to improve again. We likely won’t see a meaningful improvement for another 15-20 years, then prices will come down and then we’ll see another improvement.
I used to do my hobby as a full time job, I realized I didn’t enjoy it as much when it was my job so I switched careers so I could still enjoy it.
When the Ukraine war kicked off I called the Ukrainian embassy in my country and let them know that my upstairs bedrooms were empty, and that if they could get the people to the US, I could house some. Then I called all of my representatives and senators and asked for refugee status for Ukrainian citizens.
In the end because of political fuckery I didn’t end up hosting any Ukrainians, but my coworker who’s from Ukraine was able to get her family over here.
Jokes on you I saw the XcQ