Such is the life of a hero that he is confronted by his own mortality on an almost daily basis. These confrontations often leave scars that shape and haunt the body and psyche of even the most stout of adventurers.

When an enemy rolls a critical hit that either causes a character to become bloodied, or strikes an already bloodied character, the character receives a Battle Wound. The effects of the Battle Wound should be based on the type of attack performed. The Battle Wound itself is temporary, requiring days or weeks to heal properly, and will always leave the character with a scar of some sort. This scar should have lasting effects on the character for the rest of his or her life. All effects of the Battle Wound and scar are determined by the DM and the Player at the time of the damage.

Here’s a sample of my writing. This is the Hook I gave my players to help them get into the game a little bit better.

Douven Staul

I was in fifth grade when I began writing. This was about the same time that my sister gave me my first Xanth novel and I fell in love with fantasy novels in general. Almost immediately I took up writing my own. Each book I devoured spawned thousands of stories and images that swam in my head and begged to be told. I loved writing so much that every teacher I had encouraged me to develop my talent. I had some of my writings put into contests and I even have a book that I printed and hand bound still on the shelves (at least it should be) at my middle school library.

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It was a Friday afternoon June 10th, 2011 at 3:22 p.m. that I heard the first of many cries from my son’s tiny lungs. He was 9 pounds, 4 ounces, and 20 inches long and already lifting his head and almost turning himself over in protest of the nurses attempts to measure and bathe him.

That was the day that more than two years of tears and prayers came to a culmination and began the long wonderful road of parenthood.

I am so proud of my amazing, beautiful wife’s strength of spirit and body. She labored for most of 14 or so hours naturally, without aid of any sort of drugs. However, we had been up for close to 32 hours and she was becoming exhausted. Because the pregnancy was progressing extremely slowly and we were afraid she wouldn’t have any energy left to push, we had her water broken to speed things up. Once we did the contractions became so fierce and close together that she was having a hard time catching her breath between them. She was exhausted. I was exhausted. I had been up with her through every contraction (barring a couple during which I actually had to do a password reset for work) making sure she had a shoulder on which to lean. And it was at this point that she acquiesced to a dose of stadol to allow her a modicum of reprieve.

She will be the first to state that labor wasn’t *that* bad. And I’ll agree to the degree that I can — it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be. However I will say this: it wouldn’t have gone nearly as well if we hadn’t had our dear friend Erin with us, helping and advising us. She acted as our Doula and was our voice when we were too overwhelmed to get the nurses to listen to our wishes. The voice of experience, friendship, and definitely love helped my wife through the worst of the pain and frustration. We are both so grateful for her help.

We’re also very grateful for all the prayers and kind words that we’ve received before, during, and after the birth.

The thought that God has given us this gift and responsibility all rolled into such a beautiful, tiny package is daunting, but I’m excited about it. I’m definitely looking forward to getting to teach him so much and to watch him grow up. Just don’t grow up too fast Wayne.

Meet Wayne!

Since my first (and until this one, only) post here about our pregnancy was during our 10th week, I figured it would be appropriate to make a post with less than 10 weeks to go.

Things have gone absolutely wonderfully since that post. All that worry was worthless and Jesus tells us so in his Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 6:27

Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

But it’s still hard to make it go away. It wasn’t until we had several doctor’s visits and an ultrasound or two that I started really getting excited. Of course, feeling him kick helps a lot too. Last night I was actually able to distinguish FEET! It’s an awesome feeling!

Everyone is constantly commenting on how our lives are going to change as if we weren’t already acutely aware of it. I know that we cannot comprehend exactly how drastic the change is until after the baby comes, but we are human, we understand (albeit sometimes fear) change. My life changed drastically when I graduated from High School and when I quit college and got that full-time job. Being laid off numerous times were intense changes as well, not to mention meeting and marrying the love of my life.

Yes I know change rather intimately, and honestly normally I don’t like it.

However I’m looking forward to this one.

Counting toes and fingers, changing diapers, teaching him how to speak and walk. Teaching him how deep God’s love is for him. These are a mere handful of the changes I know are coming. And yes, I know that not all of the changes are going to be pleasant. But y’know… I’m thrilled about them all.

Bring on the change!

Less than 10 weeks left.