Deus Ex Machina

+The machine spirit awoke, scarred and bloody angered...+

'It won't come off - his finger's too damned fat. Go and get that tree pruner from out the back.'

The 'it' in question was an unsubtly large diamond set in a simple gold band that was currently straining to encirle the sausage-like right ring finger that was causing all the problems.

The husband sighed in frustration and looked down at his t-shirt. He really should have changed first, but the urge to start was overwhelming.

Behind him, the car watched on.

His wife still stood near the door to the backyard, her hand resting gently on the hood of the 2008 Toyota Yaris, a puzzled expression on her face. The husband sighed again, but more with the patient understanding of someone who has dealt with this particular type of confusion before. With a flick of his hand, he gestured at the unconscious form bound to the garden chair.

The way they'd set it up only allowed a few feet of movement between the car and the shadowy back wall of the garage - but all the better to keep prying eyes away from their little project. The man was bound securely with white nylon rope to one of the four old deck chairs they'd had since they'd first moved in. The man's bulky arms were bound palm down to the wooden arms of the chair.

He switched languages and tried again.

Understanding dawned and the wife walked out into the backyard with a determined gait.

The husband turned his attention back to the slumped unconscious form: a youngish man of European heritage with an abundance of jewelry and hair product. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth.

It'd been easy enough to get the details from the motel where they'd been staying. Other guests had proved sufficiently informative witnesses, telling the husband about the BMW driving visitor that had caused a riot during the night and the staff were the type of fly blown yokel that were easily distracted by questions. It proved a simple task to swipe the guest book while their hunched backs were turned. One call from a public pay phone later, a brief conversation full of empty promises and an arranged meeting at a local cafe with the wife dangled as bait. Rohypnol and coke had sealed the deal.

+The machine spirit bellowed in pain, crying out for vengeance.+

The bound man was still unconscious, and it was getting late. The husband stood up slowly, his knees creaking in pain.

'Wake up'.

The words didn't register. The husband raised his right hand and struck the man across the face. He hadn't hit anyone like that before, but it felt good. The man groaned weakly, and the husband took the oppurtunity to shove an old rag into his mouth. He didn't stop stuffing it in until the man started making choking sounds.

The man shook his head slowly, trying to clear his head. He gazed around slowly with bleary eyes as he struggled to get his bearings. It was clear he had no idea what was happening.

The wife walked back in, holding a large pair of tree pruners that had seen good use. She noted that the man was awake and scowled. Walking over, she handed the tool to her husband and made a petit snorting sound. With economic movement, she spat in the man's face.

The husband pulled her back. She shook his grasp free and she went back to stand by the car, her hand again unconsciously resting protectively on the hood.

The man - more awake now - glared at the wife first in confusion and then in anger as realisation that he knew her hit. His face reddened and he struggled suddenly at the bonds. The man tried to yell for help or curse - the husband wasn't sure which - but the oil soaked rag was doing a good job of sound proofing proceedings and the bindings were strong.

The man's eyes bulged as he realised what the husband was holding. The husband hefted the pruners and gave them a couple of quick practice snaps.

'Serves you right for letting yourself go'.

The husband leaned forward, adjusting for the man's futile struggling, and after a brief moment struck.

+The machine spirit stalked, circling it's prey+

At some point during the creeping dusk, the husband noticed that the headlights of the car were illuminating the pale man in it's baleful beams. He didn't remember turning them on, or his wife either, but he found the light comforting.

It had taken a while to staunch the bleeding, but they'd been able to get what they needed without the man losing consciousness. The husband had taken a moment's rest, stepping back from his work to circle the car in an almost reverant fashion. His finger traced the fresh scars gently as he walked, the white wounds contrasting starkly with the car's industrial grey colouring. The scars started at the front of the bonnet, wound around the driver's side and over boot, back along the passenger side pannels to their origin at the start of the car. Livid scars also marked the front set of tires, and the man frowned as he remembered how the car had limped those last few kilometres home.

He finished his circuit back in front of the man. He held the ring finger up in front of the man's face.

'This must have been expensive', he said, not really wanting an answer.

He disloged the ring from the digit, and threw the latter into a corner of the garage. The man was alert enough to grunt a response, though it trailed quickly off into a low moan of pain. The wife made a derogative comment at the finger, then walked over to stand beside her husband. At some point, she had retrieved a pair of disposable gloves - almost like the type surgeons use. She'd always been the more pragmatic one of the pair.

'So let me go through this again. You..attacked...my car because you thought we'd been staying in the same room that you had the night before.'

This time, he did look at the man for an answer. None was forthcoming, so the husband put a hand slowly on the tree pruner. The man's eyes grew alarmed at this and he nodded frantically.

'Good...and you did this because you thought we'd decided to steal an ear ring that you'd left in the room?' The man shook his head again quickly.

The husband tutted slightly.

'We're better people than that', he said looking up at his wife. She gave a nod.

He grasped the ring firmly between thumb and finger and raised his hand to the man's left shoulder. The man struggled again, but it was no use. The husband pushed the tip of the diamond ring firmly into the fleshy part of the shoulder and started to slowly tear downwards and to the right. The husband's face remained passive as he did so, though his wife had an almost hungry look.The man squealed in pain, blood flecked foam working it's way around the edges of the rag.


The car sat ominously behind them both as he worked.

+The machine spirit struck out+

An angry welt opened up across the man's body and blood started to trickle down his chest. The tip of the diamond was sharp, and the stone bit deep. A muffled yelp of pain and anger leapt raggedly from the man's throat.

'We don't know what happened to your ring. What I do know is that you're a thuggish idiot that made a mistake. We were staying in the room next to you.'

The husband wiped his sweaty brow with a forearm.

He raised his hand again, this time to the man's right shoulder and reversed the stroke. The ring stuck where the two lines intersected, causing the husband to grunt with effort. The man howled again, pulling at the bonds, but the garden chair was made from a heavy hardwood and refused to budge.

Finally the husband stood back, a bloody 'X' facing up at them. It seemed that the distance between the car and the bound man had narrowed. He smiled tightly and wiped his brow again, this time leaving a bloody trail. He handed the ring to the wife. She eagerly stepped forward and started working upon the man's face.

Time passed, and the husband had to roughly shake his wife to gain her attention. The baby had started to cry and it was almost dinner time.

'Time to finish it'.

His wife stood up and arched her back stretching. She'd been at it for a long time, and she was covered in blood from fingertips to her elbows. The man had stopped his pitiful crying some time ago. The wife looked at the man stonily and with a speed that startled the husband lashed out twice in quick succession. Blood gouted from the slashes to the man's neck, and they both had to step back to avoid the most of it. The wife let the ring drop to the pool of red liquid forming on the concrete floor. The parents turned as one and left for the house and their waiting child, turning the garage light off as they went.

+The machine spirit fed+

The darkness of the garage seemed intesified by the piercing beams of the car's headlights. Blood flowed slowly and edged up against the worn tread of the car's front driver's side tyre.

In the morning, the car would be healed, it's form made whole again.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

*sigh* And that was one of a variety of vivid and imaginative scenarios my wife and I described with regards to what we would have done had we caught the guy who keyed our car over the weekend. My wife is scary when she's angry.

No Sense of Huma

Looking at it's component parts, it really should never have been as big as it was.

A series of books written to accompany some new modules that were designed to try and re-energise the D&D franchise. It was basically 'Lord of the Rings' Lite (TM).

At first glance, the writing was economical, the world of Krynn wasn't particularly innovative, and the characters were pretty much your typical adventuring party types (in fact, they were designed to be just that) and yet...not only did the Dragonlance 'Chronicles' series, and later the 'Legends' follow up meet it's intended purpose but they managed to leave an indelible mark on all of us that were lucky enough to be enveloped by the story of the War of the Lance.

It was 1987 and the first year of high school for me when a friend first handed me 'Dragons of Autumn Twilight' and between the long bus and train trips that it took for me to get home each day, I had that book finished in about a week. Then I read it again the next.

Unlike Lord of the Rings, this was a fantasy story that grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and said, 'We have to keep moving!' From the first chapter to the last it was action all the way, with a story that escalated higer and higher, and with a cast of stereotypes that you came to realise were people all along. The theme of balance played through many aspects of the story - from Tanis Half-Elven battling the natures of the two races that formed his name and personality, Raistlin's love/hate relationship with his brother to the 3 moons of the world itself and the aspects of good/evil/neutrality they represented. This Libran loved it.

The second book in the first trilogy, 'Dragons of Winter Night' was the first book I can remember ever waiting for to be released.

So with the above outlined, you can imagine my level of excitement when I learned that a Dragonlance movie was in the works. It made sense - the success and quality of the LOTR movies had caused a spike of fantasy based movies to be released, and while all D&D based movies released to date have been steaming piles of crap, if there was ever going to be a successful effort, this was going to be it.

I can sadly report that the D&D movie tradition continues.

This was...awful. A kids movie - animated to boot. Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing, but this was mish mash of dodgy traditional animation (worse than the 80's D&D cartoon) and horrid 3d graphics.

No one who has seen Larry Elmore's vision of Lord Soth's charge could be happy with this.

Granted, a 90 minute movie was never going to fit all the content of the first book (which this is all the movie covers), but the treatment of the characters, the plot and more importantly, the audience is just abyssmal. I couldn't watch it all, it was that bad.

To try and take a positive out of the experience, I have to hope that perhaps this movie will expose others to the books, and in turn lead them to clamour for a proper effort sometime in the future.

People, if you've never read these books go and do so - they're fun, thrilling and sad.

While you do that, I'll keep on hoping that one of you is talented and lucky enough to be able to right this wrong and make me a version that used to fill my imagination when I was a kid.

Hell

There's nothing like being responsible for the creation of a life and the thought of imminent death to clarify just what is important to you.

This week, I experienced both.

On the positive, the birth of my lovely daughter. I don't have the words at the moment to express the intricacies of what we are both going through at the moment, but they'll come.

On the negative, my home state of Victoria is currently being ravaged by the worst ever series of bush fires in modern history. The latest statistics I have seen are 131 people confirmed dead, 750 houses destroyed and 2 towns completely wiped from the map.

These figures are probably already out of date as you read this.

I mention this here because on the worst of the days, there was a report of a fire taking off not 5 minutes from where I live. It was severe enough to close down our local train line and the main highway survicing our area. I had to leave the hospital, my wife and daughter to rush home to ensure that my house was protected.

Those that have not experienced such a phenomenom may not realise that while the fires themselves are horrid, much more danger is created by high winds and the spreading of floating embers that can travel for miles and then land to start another blaze.

Thankfully, the hot wind was blowing away from our house, not towards it from the fire, and a cool change came through shortly thereafter with it a light rain that eased my concern.

This is the second time in my life that bush fire has threatened me directly. The first episode was worse: living in the mountains during what was known as 'Ash Wednesday', we could see an out of control fire approaching us from over a ridge. My father decided that we were going to leave, and leave asap. No time for packing, just get what you could into the car so that we could go.

Again, we were spared that fate by a change of wind, but the image of a fox fleeing from the direction of the fire is one I'll never forget.

At start of this post I mentioned the ability of these event to clarify what is important to you. During my first encounter with bushfire I remember grabbing my favourite Transformer toy. For the event just gone, I'd decided that if it came to it I'd take the contents of my safe, and the portable hard drive attached to my computer -as this contains all the photos I have ever taken as an adult.

My thoughts go out to everyone touched by this. Fire is an unstoppable force at the height of its power, it destroys everything, and it just does not care.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and all that....

Big changes coming for me this year, and while it's going to be a challenge, I'm really looking forward to it. I've found a nifty countdown widget thingy (*points to the right*) to highlight when Project Bloom's going to kick off (the name will eventually make sense).

But more on that later.

So traditionally, now is the time to make resolutions for the New Year, so here we go:

1. Don't forget what's really important.

2. Given the above, work smarter - not harder.

3. Become more focused on my hobbying pursuits - i.e. more quality and less quantity.

I might keep it at that for the time being, any more and I might scare myself.

Cold Turkey

Well it's done.

Account cancelled, game uninstalled and web pages deleted. No more for me. Time to pack my bags and leave Azeroth for good.

Hey, don't take it badly, Blizzard - we had some fun times together. The early levelling, the first timid steps into the Deadmines - the storming of the Stockades. Enchanting my first bracer. All fond memories.

Such a temptress you were - teasing me with your promises of super loot and powers on my way to level 70. Playing hard to get at level 60 only to hook me again with the goodness that were the early quest rewards in the Outlands. Our relationship was a sure thing, wasn't it?

But then you started making demands. Started getting needy. Daily quests and grinding started to take the shine off our relationship. Fighting for reputation with people I hardly knew just so that I could get gear to keep up with the Joneses. Changing the rules my poor little Shaman Kaminari lived by on a regular basis so that her little Draeni head span (and just how the hell do you pronounce 'Draeni' anyway?).

So now it's done, and I'm walking away.

Until Starcraft II at least, when you know I'll be your bitch again. *sigh*

PS: In all seriousness - no more PC games for me that I can't pause or save or otherwise get up and walk away from. Better things to do.

Gone Nova?

Or perhaps 'Nova Gone' is a better title for this post.

Nova Corporation is (was?) the biggest 'Eikaiwa' or English conversation school in Japan and was where I worked for almost two years during the late 90s.

During the last few months, the company has been rocked by a series of events that could possibly herald its doom. A revenue structure based on massive upfront fees for lessons (anywhere from $5,000.00 upwards) with very strict allowances for refunds was challenged by students which in turn resulted in Government sanctions that banned Nova advertising long term contracts - the staple of their business.

This lead to an almost bank-run like calls for refunds from existing students as well as massive drops in new student numbers which has now resulted to the point where Japanese and foreign staff have gone unpaid/had salaries delivered late and schools kicked out of their buildings for not meeting rent payments. The president of the company has gone into hiding after being dumped by the rest of the management group (though he refuses to accept the decision in messages passed onto the media by his lawyer). The media were given a tour of his massive office that had remained off-limits to the lower echelons of the company during his reign - including a well furbished main office, a tatami mat tea room and a secret room hidden behind a wall containing a giant spa and double bed amongst other things.

Sponsors are being sought to bail the company out, and as of writing 12 companies have come forward - though tellingly none of them are any of the other eikaiwa companies in Japan.

Nova's methods of teaching are often ridiculed by the foreign staff that work for it - but this is not necessarily a symptom unique to Nova, but of the eikaiwa industry itself. My experience with Nova had its ups and downs, but overall was an enjoyable experience. At the very least, the company created a very easy way for me to get my foot in the door in Japan, through being able to apply for and get employment in my home country as well as organising housing (albeit crowded and small) for me when I got there. Nova going under would mean the end of a great way for people to get to know Japan in a more intimate way than just by holidaying there.

The future remains uncertain for Nova - and whatever one might think about the company, its absence would be a very noticeable one in the fluorescent skyline that is modern Japan.

Not so yoku dekimashita......

Land of the Rising Sun - Part 3

Something that I forgot to post in my previous entry, but is so iconic that it really does deserve its own spot.

The above picture must be familiar to most - if not all - readers out there. What many people may not know is that this carving of the three wise monkies is part of a series of engravings on a structure located at the resting place of Tokugawa Ieyasu (as noted in my previous entry).

Given that Ieyasu passed away sometime in the 1600's, means that these little troublemakers have been around for quite some time!

There was little English information near where this was taken and my Japanese is not good enough to decipher the entries that were noted - I'll look into the relation between the monkies and the Shogun when I get a chance - but I bet a friend of mine out there will come up with the goods before I next post.

On a completely different note, I have been using this holiday to work on various aspects of my ongoing endeavours for my novel.

I have some names now that I am happy with for some of the major characters - see what you think:

Malthius, Kharas, Talia, Yutenji, Jun, X'ian...

Land of the Rising Sun - Part 2

Well, I've said goodbye to Kansai, spent a brief couple of days with the in-laws in the warmer climes of the South and made the trip North to Tokyo.

Tokyo is not a city that I think that I would ever enjoy living in. The people here are so...busy and often come across being rude as a result. The city itself is wide - the equivelant of their 'city loop' takes about an hour to circumvent by train. The massive rail network has had my beautiful wife's head in a spin on more than one occassion - despite being Japanese herself. On a couple of occassions, when looking for help, she was brushed off by a couple of passers-by which only darkened my thoughts on the place.

I try to balance these negative thoughts with positives to be found - certainly the shopping is great if you are after the more modern items and we have many friends here (though not natural born Tokyoites). Akihabara (with its associated 'Electric Town') has been visited a couple of times and I've ended up buying a PSP which I have found fun (and certainly cheaper than what it would have cost back home).

Coming back to Japan this time, I had promised myself that I would visit places that I had not been to before and in the Kanto region this had equated to going to Yokohama and Nikko. Both of these places I quite enjoyed - Yokohoma was quite relaxing, with its flowing gardens and hills overlooking the sea combined with the Western influences found in the architecture as a result of early foreign contact during Japan's history.

Nikko is the home of the resting place of one of Japan's most famous military and historic figures - the first official shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu. I first studied this man over twelve years ago at university and it was quite eerie to actually be at a place so strongly associated with him after all this time. The place is thoroughly beautiful, set in the foreground of some very majestic hills and the place really shined given the Autumn reds and oranges were approaching full strength.

On a related note, the above picture was taken inside Osaka-Jo (Osaka Castle) which has been blown up, burnt down, invaded and attacked so many times in its long history that it is now almost all a modern remake. The insides - though completely refurbsihed - house much interesting historical information which was great to reaquaint myself with again after so many years.

The model above is from a massive display outlining the final attack of the Tokugawas against the Toyotomi (who really united Japan but never had the chance to proclaim himself Shogun).

I believe this model is of Toyotomi Hideyoshi - their leader at the time.

More to come....

Land of the Rising Sun - Part 1

I've been back in my other home town of Osaka, Japan for about a week now and as usual a mix of feelings hit me whenever I walk the streets here: lavicious thoughts of the mainly gorgeous women, the inherent humour of the Osakan attitude and the accompanying (and often bewildering for those that don't know it) Osaka-ben that everyone speaks.

My trips back to Japan often descend in a mad rush to see nostalgic places and to catch up with friends and family as efficiently as possible. I've mostly succeeded so far, though there is a particular place on the stairs by the main entrance to the temple of Horyuji (which I used to live quite close to) that I used to pause at, sit and reflect upon life that will have to wait until my next trip.

I lived in Japan for two years - living in an apartment in Horyuji which is a small suburb just outside of Nara and worked in Osaka teaching English. Although travelling times were long, I always found the arrangement to provide a great mix of old and new.

I have a couple of days left here in Osaka before I move on to Miyazaki and then Tokyo. A visit yesterday to Kyoto to see my brother in law reminded me how snobbish the people there can be sometimes (not my brother-in-law!).

I suspect it would be rude to remind them that Nara was the capital of Japan prior to Kyoto - but still the urge takes me when people look down their noses at us Osakans!

Still, they know how to construct an effective stone garden. The above picture was taken at Ryoanji, one of the more famous places dotted around the city. The contrasts of the angular black and straight sandstone tiles provide the perfect border to the garden itself, as does the wall a solid backdrop.

It is the play on the unconscious that really sets these things off.

Time to move - I am sure there will be more to come.

A Memory of September 11.

I remember that night clearly in my mind.

Often people will claim after the fact that they had a feeling - a moment of prescience that hints at things to come. I make no claim to such powers, but even now years later I recall a distinctly eerie tone to the shadows that were cast upon the road as I made my way home.

I was late returning that night - much later than was usual for me then. By the time I pulled into our street the last rays of sunlight were bleaching the colour from the day. The sense of unease that had pursued me home intensified when I first caught sight of our house. Instead of being greeted with windows filled with golden light, only a cold darkness greeted me. The house seemed empty of life, which was unusual as I did not live alone.

I got out of the car and made my way to the front door, naturally only finding my keys in the last pocket checked. The unease became dread as I realised that the door was unlocked, and as I opened the door quietly became tinged with fear at the deadly silence that enveloped me as I stepped inside: the radio that I habitually left on whenever we left the house as a security measure was silent. Fearing that we had been, or were being, burgled (this had happened to us before) I quietly put down my bag and made my way into living room.

Nothing had been touched - there was no mess that had defined the previous invasion of our home. The TV, video and other prime targets of theft were all as they should be. A mixture of relief and confusion flowed through me at the realisation that the house hadn't been broken into. I went back and retrieved my bag from the front door, then made my way to my bedroom. I dumped my stuff on my bed and then went to check the the rest of the house for signs of ...anything. The first thing I did was check the room next to mine.

In that instant, my life changed forever.

What I remember most about that moment was the scream of shock I emitted (and upon reflection years later I am almost embarrassed at the unmanly nature of the sound). Lying sprawled upon the floor of his bedroom was the body of my brother. A series of images hit me very quickly that took me what felt like ages to assimilate: the rifle that he and my father often went shooting with cast aside besides him, a bottle of rum on his desk, the cover of Metallica's "...And Justice for All" half soaked in blood scattered on the floor, the blood and what I found later to be brain and bone matter soaking into the rich blue carpet of his room. Most of all, I remember his face - peaceful, but with lips and skin that was tinged with a slight blue discolouration.

I knew that my brother was dead, and that he had taken his own life. In that knowledge, I found some clarity of purpose and managed to get myself going. The panic was replaced with the beginnings of grief. I knelt beside him, and felt inexperiencedly for a pulse which I could not detect. I remember touching his cheek and kissing his forehead, thinking that this might be the last time I get to be near him.

I remember rushing from the room to the phone and dialling '000' (the equivelant for 911 in Australia). I remember explaining what had happened to the voice at the end of the line and being told that someone was on their way. I remember explaining that our house was hard to find and that the ambulance should watch out for our driveway as it was very steep (we lived at the base of a mountain - a dirt road with neighbours far away). I remember the voice asking me if there was anyone there with me (there wasn't - my mum was on holiday with her husband out of state, my dad was on a work conference in Sydney (we lived in Melbourne - so an hour away by plane) and his girlfriend at the time was with a friend of hers whose daughter had been in terrible car accident the day before - the daughter was the same age as my brother and I later learned she died the same day as he. Though not close, they had been friends.). I remember the voice asking me for the number of a friend that could come over and keep me company. I remember giving the voice the phone number of two friends I went to high school and uni with who happened to be closely aged brother and sister.

Despite our house being hard to find (or so I thought) the ambulance made excellent time and was there within 10 minutes, or at least that is what it seemed. I have two specific memories of that ambulance crew: firstly that they approached me in a manner that indicated very clearly that they thought I might have been a danger to them (I don't blame them at all for that precaution, mind you) and that later, when they were checking the vitals of my brother, that one of them made the comment that they thought they felt a pulse. There was no pulse after all, it turned out.

Later memories of the same night - explaining to my dad over the phone that his son was dead, the arrivals of both the police and my friends who had obviously been called (and I can't imagine how that conversation must of went). I remember the girl (I won't mention her name here, but both friends are still very close to me now) asking me how my jeans had gotten so dirty. It was obvious to me even then that she was in a certain state of shock as well - as the dirt in question was dried blood that I must have knelt in when with my brother. The ambulence team took my brother's body away.

Much later, my dad's girlfriend picked me up and took me to her house. I do not remember that happening. I do not remember drinking a whole bottle of Jack Daniel's that night to the point that I passed out (but I've told many times that I made quick work of it and threw much of it up).

My brother left a note, someone told me. I remember looking around for one at the time but not finding anything then. I've read that note, though I believe the police eventually took it as evidence.

I know why my brother took his life and my part in it.

Living with the knowledge of the why changed my outlook on life completely.

My brother died eleven years ago today. September 11, 1996.

So why do it...?

So I've posted a bit, and set up a few things and now I've had a little time to reflect on why I'm doing all this. Those of you that know me in the real world know that I work in an industry that is thoroughly devoid of imagination - and imagination is something that I cherish.

I've often thought over the years what is the one thing that I really wish to achieve as an individual before I pass onto the next stage of being. The one constant answer that I give myself is that above all other things, I want to write a book. I love books, I love reading and it seems suprising now that after all this time I've never considered it as something to take seriously.

But being a realist, I've always tempered this desire with the knowledge that I have materialistic needs that need to be met in the short term, including a wife and hopefully (hopefully!) a couple of children (and won't that topic be an entry all by itself).

So, then. This site is the first step in most likely a long road of achieving that goal.

The one constant piece of advice I have heard given to budding writers goes something along the lines of:

"Stop bloody talking about it, and get out there and do it. WRITE!".

And that, dear reader, is exactly what I intend to do.

A Whole New World....

Well haven't I just gone IT crazy....Not just content with my own website, I've gone and created my own forum board as well. It's just one big party here at Sigil....Check out the link section, or below:

http://sigil.freeforums.org/

Will most likely use it for things that just don't fit here, including work on a novel that I've had banging around in my head for ages...

Welcome to Sigil - Part 1

And here we are...

So why 'Sigil'..? It's a name that I have often used when spinning through these realms. An enigmatic word - and don't we users of the internet always reach for such mysterious labels when travelling these worlds? It is as if we feel the need to wrap a layered barrier of fantasy around us as we step into the unknown.

Another association springs to mind - the fantastic city of the same name. Sigil: The City of Doors, where one can go anywhere...

So which door will I take?