Author Archives: TaleRocker

Saturday, July 9th, 2016 — 11°C / 51°F Cool, Damp & Overcast with some interesting cloud details – like the clouds are almost not defining themselves? @6:51 am in Atlantic Canada. —

‘Nikki the Ottarian’ planting flowers and enjoying a warm spring day – created or ‘morphed’ by Doug Otterson, last night, July 9th. 2016.

Doug asked  me last week if I was back doing anything about our game world. I told him, as a matter of fact I was – I got the computer back up and working (replaced the system fan, replaced the wonky video card, moved memory modules around and got it to work and was able to update and get back into the cloud and begin doing stuff again.)

Last night he sent me a message that one of his latest favourite builder characters ran into some problems and vanished. He tried to fix the invisibility problem and made matters worse. He tried to re-roll the character and couldn’t get the face right, couldn’t get the clothing right, couldn’t get the racial sliders to work correctly, then moved the wrong slider and amazed himself – came up with what he described as the best example of an Ottarian ever.

{{{ An Ottarian is a member of race which believes it evolved from intelligent otters – and became more and more ‘Elvish’ – as opposed to ‘Humanoid’ – over the centuries. And now, except for their small, but extraordinarily hard and sharp claw-like fingernails – would be extremely hard to distinguish from shortish, almost child-like humans or elves. Ottarians are communal, nurturing, playful, – almost always strikingly good-looking, intelligent, inquisitive, – not exactly ‘wise’ – and they have no concept of personal property. They share every thing. They can become totally fascinated with almost anything and bring it home with them, gaze at it in wonder for several days, and then become just as fascinated by something else and almost forget how interesting the first object that ‘followed them home’ used to be.

They do not understand ‘human values’. Currency doesn’t make sense to them at all. If a paper hundred-dollar bill or bank-note is worth two semi precious stones, why would anyone want to carry around a piece of flammable paper that could easily become torn, wrinkled, messed up, ‘defaced’, – rendered useless if covered with ink or paint,- blow away or catch on fire much too easily — when it would be easier and much more sensible to carry around two fascinatingly pretty semi precious stones in the first place?  — They quite often have a closet or an entire store-room full of trinkets and gadgets that followed them home and now only collect dust, until somebody they like and trust takes a shine to any one of the trinkets in their dust closet or treasure room – in which case it is just as fascinating for them to see their friends’ faces light up with happiness and thousands of questions, like, “What is this, what is it for? Who thought of something like this? What happens when you bring it out into the sunlight? What does it feel like in your hands as you walk along singing to yourself? Can you play ‘catch’ with it? What does it feel like if you balance it on your forehead as you’re getting ready to take a nap?” – The possibilities are endless, and so, quite often, are their questions. –

They can be totally obsessed with something for days or weeks and then again, they might go for days, weeks or even months when they are so easily distracted that no self-respecting Elf would ever think of trying to carry on an intelligent conversation with them. ( Then again, this could very well be a ruse or an act on their part – to bore someone they don’t want to deal with or talk to right now – for whatever reason – bore them to the point where they throw up their Elvish hands and walk away. )

There are diplomatic ways of trying to retrieve an object that followed them home. If you accuse them of stealing, they may launch themselves into a long and baffling one-sided conversation with themselves in which they seem to be trying very hard to understand the concept of ‘stealing’ -As far as Ottarians are concerned, “Ownership” is a weird and troublesome concept that depresses, befuddles and even ruins the lives of too many members of most other races. You can’t own the Earth. You can’t own a forest. You can appreciate them, you can share them, you can enjoy them. – And if a greedy member of any other race threatens penalties under the law or something like that, the Ottarian will often look utterly confused and then kind of snap out of it, smile, and say something like, “Oh, do you like this? Do you want it? Take it – I don’t know how it got here or what to do with it, but if you think you have some use for it, well, take it home and enjoy it -” – If you’ve been decent and friendly and pleasant enough, the Ottarian just might smile like they believe they’re discovering some weird and wonderful insight into the working of some other race’s mind or smile like they know they’re seeing something beautiful, if not completely comprehensible in the way you act – and you probably will never know whether they believe you are completely out of your mind or just might be brilliantly fascinating. – But if you’ve been overbearing, abusive, or an all-around pain in their back side – You’ll get your trinket back –  but it will probably disappear again in a day or two, and you’ll begin to notice a lot of Ottarians will be hanging around, watching everything you do, and all kinds of odds and ends and often some very valuable goods and trinkets will disappear from your home, often in broad daylight – even if you’ve hired a dozen guards to watch every room every minute of every day. And the homes of every Ottarian you recognize, especially the one you accused of stealing from you, will be spotless and spartan, their closets and store-rooms will be empty, and every other Ottarian for miles around will be wandering around with newly aquired treasures in their hands, but never anything that ever came from your home.

— Ottarians become suddenly and unconditionally attracted to one mate in their mid to late teens and they do mate for life, become utterly, almost insatiably devoted, completely and very deeply in love for the rest of their lives. Their ‘bonding chemicals’  [that’s an elvish concept – they call it something else, something they only whisper about, has something to do with tingling private parts] Um, their bonding chemicals only seem to flow strongly enough to effect them like the most amazing symphony of the world’s most beautiful music rising out of nowhere like a welcome breeze accompanied by heavy-duty drum rolls and sudden – almost startling – overpowering crashes of cymbals  — if both parties are attracted to each other at a critical intensity at the same time. But that magic lasts a lifetime – If one of the mated Ottarians dies or is whisked away by some evil twist of fate – the Ottarian who is left behind becomes miserable and either quickly wastes away or drifts into self-destructive habits and eventually dies from what almost looks like ‘natural causes’. Rarely – widowed, abandoned, or separated Ottarians might find a friend with similar curiosities or fascinations, and manage to live an almost normal life, but they never want to get ‘involved’ on ‘that level’ with anybody, ever again – losing somebody is just too painful to contemplate going through that more than once in a life time. Once is way too much –

& A word of warning, they can be amazingly attractive and ‘terminally cute’. But if you’re not an Ottarian, you shouldn’t tempt fate. If and when an Ottarian ‘bonds’ with a member of any other race, he or she may be an obsessively devoted friend for life – and may actually be very happy to keep it platonic –  or they may become a real problem, wanting to be with you all the time ‘in every way’ and in everything you do. And if they finally get the point that you don’t want them around, and feel a devastating flash of rejection, you just might learn the hard way, how very sharp and deadly those little claws of theirs can be. (( oh, and the claws – they are great for picking locks – ))

Nikki from less of a distance. ( That silver thing in her right hand is what all the builder characters carry around with them, they’re amazingly good for ‘tweaking’ the landscape and pushing buildings into place, as well as chopping caves into mountains. And they have a thousand other uses, too.)

This is not what I started out to write, but here it is.

“Nikki the Ottarian” looking dangerously cute and innocent. She is nowhere near as defenseless as she might seem.

Did I say that Ottarians are communal and nurturing? Adults play with their young and seem to have as much fun as their children. The highly industrious and ‘no-nonsense’ Delvahrians believed that their own children were incredibly fragile and prone to way too many diseases and other life threatening misfortunes, and, no matter how precious and breath-takingly important their children were to them, they were afraid to admit it, afraid to get close to them, afraid to show them any affection – until they came to the stunned realization that any Delvahrian child who was ‘allowed to play and carry on with those silly Ottarians’ had about a thousand percent better chance of surviving their childhood than a child who sat in the middle of a floor and  left alone with a hammer and tools and expected to know what to do with them. Or, in the case of a female child, be put to work in a mother’s kitchen as soon as they could stand up and walk. So while Delvahrians traditionally believed that Ottarians were empty-headed and vacuous at best, and maybe more likely – devious and larcenous at heart — And while every Delvahrian knows that Ottarians would actually drop dead if they had to complete a normal day’s work, they have struggled to develop ‘a tolerance for the silly little creatures’ – and probably secretly admire them for their ability to magically know how to ‘nurture’ and bring laughter and happiness into the lives of Delvahrian children. -[ It must have been hard for prideful Delvahrians to realize that countless children over countless generations actually died of loneliness and what many other races would have called ‘Neglect’. Delvahrians were so rigid in their beliefs and philosophies that they never considered that their children would be anything but hard working and industrious from the moment they were born. ]

It is also legendary that when desperate Delvahrian Armies were vastly outnumbered, facing a ferocious nightmare of ravenous hordes of Ghardran and Drax warriors in a battle that could have spelled the end of the Delvahrian race forever – An army of Ottarian Rangers appeared almost out of nowhere and shocked the enemy with their ferocity and determination, nearly routed the Ghardran and Drax by themselves before Elvish and Half Elven reinforcements arrived to drive the Ghardran-Drax Alliance back into their caves with a resounding victory – Delvahrians credit the Ottarians with saving their race and will spend their idea of a Holiday, once a year, building homes in or above the ground to celebrate that victory and remember how shocked they were to see a river of angry Ottarians fly into a frenzy and scare the livin’ cement out of the deadliest monsters from any child’s nightmares. You do not want to threaten harm or worse to an Ottarian child – remember – they’re short – and their claws are very quick and dangerous – at most adults’ crotch height. }}}

————— TaleRocker