See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen...

A Swede changed my life... No, really!

I had two groups for friends in college. Te first was a bunch of stoner punk musicians who taught me how to smoke from a hookah, how to listen to and appreciate music of all kinds, and how to most effectively beat the shit out of someone using only a skateboard(hit them with the trucks). The second group was a motley of theatre majors and geeks. It was in this second group I was introduced to Martin Pettersson, a student from Sweden. I really loved to tease Martin. My favorite conversation to have with him was how no good music came out of Sweden. Whenever it looked like he was winning the argument I'd start singing "Dancing Queen". But he was smart, funny, and let me borrow his copy of The Crow, the graphic novel. There are far too many thing I love today which I would have missed out on if it hadn't been for Martin. Some friendships affect the rest of your life, even if it is in ways which are only recognizable when you stop to write a blog about it.

We all hung out in the dorms quite a bit. It was a small town community college, so there wasn't much else to do. One typical weekend afternoon, Martin invited me to sit in on a role playing game he was running. Maybe I'd even like to make a character... I had been playing D&D with my brothers for years and I really enjoyed it; I was intrigued. There were more games besides D&D?! Sign me up!

There were five or six of us jammed in that tiny dorm room that afternoon. As I settled into the corner with my bag of gummy bears, getting ready to observe, a large book with a green cover was thrust into my hands. "Here. Some of the players are Hunters and Mages, but I think this is what you will like." Vampire: The Masquerade. Oh, he knew me so well.

I began to read. As I turned the pages I lost track of what was going on in the game, becoming fully immersed in the possibilities of the new world I was discovering. As I read each clan description a new character entered my mind. How would I portray a Gangrel? A Ventrue? A Lasombra? The possibilities of the characters I could create and the stories I could tell with them filled me with an eagerness to explore this new reality.

"So, would you like to make a character?" I was asked later that evening.

Hell, yes.

I created a Malkavian. A servant of the last Tzar of Russia, she was Embraced during the revolution- and abandoned. She was adopted by a Nosferatu who gave her the name Akira. A wanderer and prophetess, she had spent her undead life traveling the world. A bit of a vagabond, she kept a piece of clothing from every one of her victims. I chose to make her Independent, because figuring out all the rules of the Camarilla or the Sabbat would take a little time.

The next week I was ready to play. We crowded into the dorm room again, excited for what our characters would do today. Akira's introduction to the PC's was easy; there was another Malkavian PC in the group so I was able to make a friend. Well, "friend"... The party was invited to a salon held by an Elder NPC. We arrived at the theatre, took our seats and the entertainment began. Six humans entered the stage. A caucasin couple, a black couple and an asian couple. All six nude; they came on the stage and began kissing. As we watched, the kissing turned to other sex acts. It was a strange thing to be "entertained" by, but we continued to watch. The curtain opened. On the stage were three "beds"; one of glass shards, one of nails and one of thorny vines. Each couple laid on one of the beds and began to fuck. It was at that moment we realized the humans were under the effects of Dominate. Still new to the game, I didn't entirely understand what that meant, so continued to watch.

One of the women began to scream. Released from Dominate, she realized the horror of her situation. The real horror was only beginning. The man, now raping her, bit into her flesh, tearing off a bit and swallowing. The other two couples left their places and joined him. We watched in stunned silence as the five mortals devoured the screaming woman; the only one in her right mind. The curtain closed.

This was my introduction to the World of Darkness, and I was snared. I began to absorb source material, reading every book I could get a hold of as though they were novels. I fell in love with the brutality and the dark beauty of it. I do not remember much more of my first game, aside from a Mage PC who read my mind and tapped into the Madness Network... We decided later he invented the internet after that experience.... But it was such a joy to find such a vast new outlet for self expression. A game which tapped into my love of horror and allowed me to find a new way to look at the world.

Indeed, a Swede introduced me to something which changed my life. Most of what I am, what I have today I would not have were it not for Vampire: The Masquerade. It's a strange thing to consider. But much more common that I think anyone truly realizes.

Imagination is funny, It makes a cloudy day sunny

It's easiest to start at the beginning.

I cannot pinpoint at what exact time my journey in storytelling began. One of my first memories of playing with my brothers and cousins in my grandmothers back yard. We would watch Robin Hood, you know the Disney cartoon with the foxes? Then we went outside and took up the roles of the characters. It was one of our favorite games. Other times it was Care Bears(I liked to be the rabbit!), or Rainbow Brite(I would play the star girl... what ever her name was). The game was always the same; role playing in it's purist form. No rules, no restrictions. Pure pretend.

As we grew older the game changed a little. Mostly it changed as our entertainment matured. We went from Care Bears to Power Rangers, creating our own Power Rangers at this point. I think I was the Peach Ranger... And not too long after we went from Power Rangers to Star Wars. I created several characters for that game, including Lando Calrissian's sister and the only female pilot. Quite gleefully we would create new characters to fit into the universes and stories we loved, then spend an entire afternoon being these wonderful new personalities and acting out their dramas. Sometimes the games would stretch for days, each time we had to stop playing for chores or for dinner or bed time, we would pick the game up exactly where we left off the very next chance we got.

And as we grew older we began to create our own universes. The creative environment we surrounded ourselves in, looking back on it, it really gave me very solid foundations for writing and creating today. Everything inspired me then. An early summer day full of sunshine could have me wandering the back yard, pretending to be a medieval maiden secretly learning sword play in order to protect her home and family. A day inside the house, looking out the big windows in our living room had us on a space station, preparing for war against relentless alien forces. A winter day nice enough to play outside had me placed in a post-apocalyptic world of nuclear winter, where survival- and stopping the next world war- was crucial. Nothing was off limits; I was blessed with imagination and creation.

My roots in horror started one summer vacation. All by myself I was visiting my Grandma Kearl for a week down in Logan, one little girl in a large, old Victorian house. Left with only myself for company my own age, I became Corrie, a motherless girl sent to live with her grandmother while her father was in the army. Arriving at her Grandmother's house she learns something very shocking, the house is haunted and she can see and speak with the ghosts. And she learns there is far more to the world than even just ghosts; there are fairies and other creatures just as perilous. Yes, Corrie found a vampire wandering about that old Victorian house. My first vampire.

And with that I was hooked.

How do you measure a year?

It's a little stunning to think it has been just over a year. A year since I was sitting in my office in Boise, probably on Facebook, I don't remember now. Peacefully, possibly lazily, I was drinking my coffee when my husband exclaimed, "Oh, SWEET!"

I turned to see what he was so excited for and before I could open my mouth to ask he points at his computer screen, "The Cam is bringing back Masquerade."

I think I screamed with joy.

In the one year since that moment my life has changed so drastically, it's hardly recognizable for what it was. From new and intense friendships, to moving to a new city, to new goals and outlooks, everything is different. This game; this three year chronicle has created something in my life outside of it. It's made me something more. I was on a airplane from Seattle, coming home from visiting friends I made in the past year, when I realized I needed to tell my story. What I have created inside a game has had such a profound effect on my life; and effect I know others share and experience. I need to let people know what I have made and what it has done to me.

The spotlight is on gaming now. Video games, D&D, pervasive gaming, live action role play, even Iphone apps have become such a staple in our world culture. More people are gaming than ever before. The time is ripe for a shy girl from Idaho to step forward and tell everyone a story of a game and how it changed her life. How it made her better. I will be telling the story of the past year- and the coming two years. Three years of a game and a girl and what she became.

It's going to be a wild ride. Here we go.