Credit: Art, Photos, Cover Design, Additional Writing and Layout.

Quickstart: Web Edition

Quickstart: Web Edition Color Cover

Quickstart: Web Edition Character Sheets

(I also did the icon/thumbnail posted here)

GenCon edition contained more photos and more pages and is not available online.

The CD label:


The envelope the CDs came in:

My morning glory blooms opened this morning! Click on the thumbnail to see the full picture.

Written for larp houserules, but then made the rounds of the web. The original rules are on pg 207 of Laws of the Night, Revised.

The section of the book dealing with using both hands at once is unclear and the example doesn't match the stated rules. This is not a change. It is a clarification. So here it is, as simple as we can make it:

• a) Every character is considered to be either left or right handed. For ease of play, the character is usually considered to be the same handedness as the player. An ambidextrous player should choose an on hand and an off hand for their character.
  
  
• b) To do anything with the off hand (ie. the left hand for a right-handed character) is a two trait penalty. That means it costs THREE traits to perform an action with your off hand.
  
  
• c) The Merit Ambidextrous negates the two trait penalty for using your off hand, and ONLY that penalty.
  
  
• d) Each hand is considered an action. If you try to do two things at the same time, one with each hand, it is an extra trait FOR EACH HAND, which is a coordination penalty.
  
  
• e) If you have an ability of Two-Weapon Combat or Florentine, that negates the one trait penalty for each hand. It does NOT negate the penalty for using your off hand.
  
  
• f) You only get ONE extra action for using both hands, at the end of the round. Thus, if you're using enough Celerity to get an extra action, you get your basic action with your on hand, your Celerity action, and your action for your off hand. You do NOT get an extra Celerity action for each hand.
  
  

So, if you are going to use two guns at once, or two knives at once, or a knife in one hand and a gun in the other or...(you get the idea), you effectively have two actions. For your on hand, it is the regular one trait to initiate a challenge plus the coordination penalty trait in (d), for a total of two traits. For your off hand, it is one trait to initiate a challenge, the two trait penalty for using your off-hand (b) and the coordination penalty one trait (d) for a total of four traits. That totals six traits for the round.

If you have Ambidextrous, your on hand costs the same, the trait to initiate the challenge and coordination penalty (d), total two. Your off hand loses the two trait penalty (b), but retains the coordination penalty (d), plus the regular trait to initiate a challenge for a total of two. Total for the round: four traits

Florentine and Two-Weapon but not Ambidextrous: The on hand costs one trait to initiate a challenge but no coordination penalty (d) for a total of one. The off hand costs one trait to initiate plus the off hand penalty two traits (b), but no coordination penalty (d) for a total of three. Total for the round: four traits.

Florentine and Ambidextrous: The on hand costs one trait to initiate a challenge. There is no coordination penalty (d). Total for that hand: one. The off hand costs one trait to initiate a challenge; there is no off hand penalty (b) or coordination penalty (d). Total for the off hand: one. Total for the round: Two traits.

review by Crystal Odenkirk

Heralds of the Storm, Andrew Bates
Book One of the Year of the Scarab Trilogy, White Wolf Publishing, 2001

What would you do if you woke up one day and discovered that everything you thought was silly superstition and nonsense was real and you were the only thing standing between evil and the rest of Humanity?

Thea Ghandour, the unlikely pot-smoking heroine who continuously laments her lack of a sex-life, and a less-than-intrepid and equally unlikely band of fellow Hunters have been trying to answer that question since they found each other. Heralds of the Storm opens on one of their self-imposed missions, just outside the lair of a vampire, one of "the greatest predators ever to walk the earth."

Don't read Heralds looking for an introductory romp through the world of the Mummies, no matter what the back-cover blurb says. The story revolves around the conflict and manipulation between the Van Helsing Brigade (as Thea calls the group of Hunters), walking dead man Maxwell Carpenter and their mutual enemy, leaving the Mummy aspect largely unexplored and completely unexplained. Intentional? Probably. The story ends without closure; it was obviously written with the trilogy idea already in place.

Heralds will make more sense to readers who are already at least passingly familiar with White Wolf's World of Darkness, especially from the Vampire angle. Some of the more noticeable leaps of logic are easily resolved by reference to the wider setting but require previous knowledge of that setting to make sense. The idea of the Masquerade from Vampire -- that any notice of the supernatural by the mortals is a threat to the existence of the vampires and should therefore be concealed -- is the obvious answer to Thea's question "And why would they cover up something about us?." Without that background, the reader is simply left with half an answer and the question never comes up again.

One of the most entertaining aspects of the Hunter group is that they could be lifted from any random gaming table. They are the epitome of the typical dysfunctional player-character gaming group; they can't get along with each other but they still usually manage to accomplish what they set their minds to (after much arguing). While these characters are accessible to the reader precisely because of their familiarity, that same familiarity allows them to slip in and out of two dimensional predictability.

The text of Heralds stretches to be overly colloquial in an attempt to portray the Hunters as normal everday folks, leaving awkwardly wordy spots in an otherwise well-written story. The attempt to portray the Hunters as Jane and Joe Average is admirable, but not very accurate. These are, for the most part, not just normal people. Like most player-character groups, they are normal people with funky powers pitting their funky powers against the funky powers of other supernaturals in a vain attempt to save the world. The continuous recourse to traditional methods, such as Internet searches and camera surveillance and the fact that they at times fail do far more to paint the characters in an everday light, successfully keeping the Hunters from becoming a Buffy-verse rip-off.

All in all, Heralds of the Storm is superb game fiction. If you've got some background in the World of Darkness and you're just looking to relax for a couple hours, this is one you definitely need to pick up. If you have no experience with Vampire, Hunter or Wraith, however, you should come back to this one later. The story itself is highly readable and will make perfect sense, but some of the auxiliary details will be lost if this is your introduction to the World of Darkness.

Screaming between buildings, the wind whips forgotten newspapers and out-of-date playbills down the length of the empty street. One by one, lights wink on overhead, lamp posts casting a watery dimness into pools defined more by the shadows surrounding them than by the light that fails to illuminate.

Kicking yesterday's debris out of my path, I pretend I'm alone as I'm whisked along with the wind. Hair escapes from my barette, veiling my eyes; my jacket billows around my sides, a kite caught against a branch.

I'm not pretending, damnit. There's no one dogging my steps. There are no eyes burning holes into the spot between my shoulder blades. I don't hear the whispers or feel the lips brushing against my ear. It's only the wind and the dark conspiring to make me jumpy. Calm down.

It's only the wind.

She turns onto the street, running from some unknown, perhaps unreal, assailant. Is she real, this apparition of abject terror making hurried excuses and rushing past me? Did she really touch me as we collided, or is my own mind filling in details that don't exist?

I'm arrested. My footsteps slow -- there are no other footsteps than my own! Echoes! They're echoes! -- and I swivel to follow her path with my eyes. She's scarcely three doorways farther when the whispers become unbearable, the screaming making my ears ring. I almost don't notice when the wind picks up, changing direction, a gale-like gust wailing around the corner. Blond hair -- I suppose my own? -- blows into my eyes, making them water. I claw myself free, but I'm too late. She's disappeared.

The wind changes again, trying to blow me along my original course.

It's futile. Having seen her once, will I ever know peace again? That haunted look in her eyes... what could possibly summon so much pain to such innocent eyes? And so pleading... I find myself unmoving, peering between dappled pools of lamplight, hoping for just a glimpse of her retreating back, or that face, those eyes... those eyes.

Murmuring goads me on, finally. Indistinguishably anguished words call me to retrace my own steps down the street, glancing carefully down each alley as I pass.

From an rpg.net bootcamp:

"Of all the damn fool things you've done... I think you've outdone yourself this time, Miriam."

When that swine charged me, the last thing I expected was the exiled sister of my enemy stepping between us… but then, she always was first to raise her sword in challenge … or in protection of those close to her.

I should have stopped her.

Sounds jumble from her broken throat, but her lips seem set on making them unintelligible. I can see the iron in her eyes, though, feel the thundering heart flutter as she tries to turn her head to look out over the field. "Hush," I murmur soothingly. "Don't speak. I've sent someone for my personal physician. You'll pull through in time for our victory feast."

She tries to smile at that but the blood and grime of battle can't hide the pain that makes her wince. She knows better. We both do.

“We won, then?” she asks faintly. I nod, pride in our soldiers warring with the loss that begins to steal into my heart as I watch her life silently falling away. “My Lord,” she manages finally, her eyes reflecting a triumph I wish I shared. “You have carried the day!”

Have I? What did I have to do with protecting the keep looming behind me from falling to her brother’s armies? I would die before I let his tyranny fall on our people, but what blood of my own have I spilled that can bring back the burned fields and decimated villages? No, this accomplishment belongs to our people.

She tries to shake her head at me, her laugh lost behind the wave of pain the movement causes. “You can’t see it, can you? You never do.” Determination gives her a voice that her fractured jaw would deny. “Their blood is your own.”

Did I speak my thoughts? I thought… no, she always knew my -- always knows my thoughts, as though they were her own.

“Their blood,” she says again, with a force her crushed body shouldn’t allow, “Is. Your. Own. You try to be… you are one of them. These people fight for you, my Lord. The stones of that castle may crumble with age; our bodies wither with time. But these people spill their blood because… they love you.”

I hear the voice of my physician. I shout to him, and as I look back down at the woman in my arms, I am struck by the way the sun turns her hair to spun gold. Her face is shattered and bruised, but her eyes, the passion and the devotion and the unconquerable fervor in them, will stay with me forever. “Why are you sitting here with me? You should be chasing down the stragglers.”

“Troops have already been dispatched, milady.”

She sighs, a silent approval. “If you grieve for me, I swear I will come back and haunt you to the end of your days, Marcus. Your men need a celebration to keep their spirits up. Go out among them.” Her voice grows fainter even as it becomes more distinct. “It won’t be long before they come at you again. But today…” Her voice trails into silence, her breath following it.

The physician scrambles toward us through the mingled bodies of defender and invader. Her skin is already cold as my lips brush her forehead; standing, I commit her face to my memory and her body to my physician.

Wading out into the field, I know our people need a ready smile and confidence. Right now, they need a king, not a man.

This paper is intended only as food for thought. It was written for a class in 1997, and was certainly researched thoroughly, but not exhaustively. I welcome comments or debate on the subject.

I don't know that I've found much to support the legend that Solon is the "father of democracy." Rather, he seems to have been concerned primarily with law, and the keeping of it. He must have been a damn good politician, though. He contradicts himself frequently, especially where it concerns the division between agaqoi, "noble," and kakoi, "base." Or maybe that contradiction comes primarily from the most common translation.

There are a few pieces which, looked at narrowly and specifically, could be construed to espouse a proto-democratic political view. The one of these that I would like to bring forward, fragment 4, sounds like nothing so much as a good campaign speech. Since this was pre-democracy, I would assume that this was probably a relatively seditious speech. After all, ultimately, the "nobles" were still in control, and here is Solon, rabble-raising.

Or was he? That certainly is how he seems to have been translated these days. His use of "Hmetera," an emotionally charged word, instead of "H," which is an emotionally neutral term, (sel 2, line 1) as the first word of a speech would definitely draw in his audience and incline them to listen to what he has to say.

The use of emotionally charged words is a tactic still commonly used to make the audience identify with the speaker or writer. I use it myself in my weekly opinion columns. In this fashion, it is hoped, the spectators or readers are less likely to reject out of hand the ideas which follow, because the author/speaker is making a "we" that exclusively contains the rhetorist and the receptor. However, is that "we" the common people, as Miller's translation implies, or is it someone else?

Whoever the audience is, that feeling of exclusivity is exactly what Solon needs. He has some pretty strong things to say, and he needs every ounce of sympathetic reaction he can garner. The city is on the edge of a revolution, and he has decided that someone needs to address the problems (he, of course, is the only appropriate person to do so, he would have his listeners believe). He subtly jabs the citizens, reminding them that they are protected by the gods, but also that the gods are constantly watching them, Athena in particular (so watch your step!). Then he blames all the city's current problems on money, particularly those who are persuaded by wealth.

He sounds just like the choices I was given to vote on last election.

From Miller's translation, it sounds like Solon is condemning the nobles, the city's leaders, for their "unjust... mind," and for "putting trust in money." Miller's translation of fragment 15 reinforces that thought:

"Many bad men are wealthy, and many good men are poor;
     but we shall not exchange with them
Our goodness for their wealth, because the one is sure forever,
     while money belongs to different men at different times."

(Miller selection 8, pg 72)

Reading this translation, it really talks Solon up. He seems to be breaking the old stereotype of "good" being exclusive to the upper class. I read that fragment several times, but something kept niggling at the back of my mind, telling me that there was something under Miller's translation that he didn't address. So I decided to find the original and try to find out what was bugging me.

I discovered that Miller's translation is something of an illusion, created by the use of the common and two-dimensional English translation of the words kakoV and agaqoV as "bad" and "good," or "evil" and "brave." Language is never two-dimensional, though.

The word for bad and evil (kakoV) also means ugly. It can mean cowardly. It can mean worthless. It can also refer to those of the lower class, the "ill-born" as Liddell and Scott put it. In fact, it means all of those things, because to the Greeks those things were frequently interchangeable.

AgaqoV can mean good, as Miller uses it. It's other stated meanings are gentle, noble, brave, worthy, powerful, and useful, among other things.

The definitions of each of these words would not have been a list of synonyms, however, for the Greeks. These things were all tied up together in the word, and the use of the word implies all of these meanings at the same time. So a good man, o agaqoV anqrwpoV, was also a nobly-born man, as well as a worthy, powerful, and useful man, while the commoner, o kakoV, was evil, base, and useless. A Greek from the time period would not have separated these meanings, and, since Solon is a Greek from this time period, it would not be true to his thoughts for us to separate them now.

It was also common in the time to refer to Homer's work through allusion or through word order and choice. Since it was considered the "learned" thing to do, attention should be paid when a word pairing parallels a Homeric usage. According once more to Liddell and Scott, this is one such case. When agaqoV and kakoV are paired as opposites, they say under the headings for both words, then the intention is one of birth and rank, and the author set out as reference for this is Homer.

For comparison to Miller's translation (quoted earlier), I set forth Solon's words, and then my own translation.

Polloi gar plouteusi kakoi, agaqoi de penontai
     all hmeiV autoiV ou diameiyomeqa
thV arethV ton plouton, epei to men empedon aiei,
     crhmata d anqrwpwn allote alloV ecei.

(Tyler pg 19)

For many low-born men are rich, and high-born men are working;
     but we ourselves will not exchange
our worth (rank + virtue) for wealth, since worth (rank + virtue) is certain always,
     whereas the goods of men at another time are held by another man.

Areth is another of those words that can mean goodness and virtue while subtly implying ranking and power. In this context, trebled with agaqoV and kakoV, and considering their use, I would argue that rank is a shade of meaning that should not be removed from areth.

From this, I begin to wonder just who Solon's audience for fragment 4 really was. In fragment 4 he blames those who are witless and persuaded by money, but in fragment 15 he then implies that the ones with the money are the kakoi, the low-born and base, and that those agaqoi with areth, nobility or rank coupled with virtue, are above such things.

From this, I believe that Solon was not quite the egalitarian that he has been painted. He was obviously conscious of class differences, both through money and through birth.

Bibliography

• Adkins, AWH. Poetic Craft in the Early Greek Elegists. pgs 108-125 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1985)
• Liddell and Scott. An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon 7th edition. (Oxford, 1996)
• Mastronarde, Donald J. Introduction to Attic Greek (Berkeley, LA, London, University of California Press, 1993)
• Miller, Andrew. Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation. pgs 64-76 (Indianapolis and Cambridge, Hackett Publishing, 1996)
• Tyler, Henry M. Selections from the Greek Lyric Poets with an Historical Introduction and Explanatory Notes. pgs 12-19. (Boston, Ginn & Co, 1894)

Fragments I have included a copy of those fragments which I wanted to use and was able to find. All fragments have been taken from Tyler, and fragment 4 has been cross-checked with Adkins.

UPOQHKAI EIS AQHNAIOUS
(Solon fragment 4, selection 2 Miller)

1hmetera de poliV kata men DioV oupot oleitai
     aisan kai makarwn qewn frenaV aqanatwn
toih gar megaqumoV episkopoV o(m)brimopatrh
     PallaV Aqhnaih ceiraV uperqen ecei
5 autoi de fqeirein megalhn polin afradihsin
     astoi boulontai crhmasi peiqomenoi,
dhmou q hgemonwn adikoV nooV, oisin etoimon
     uprioV ek megalhV algea polla paqein
ou gar epistantai katecein koron oude parousaV
10     eufrosunaV kosmein daitoV en hsuxih. ...
...ploutousin d adikois ergmasi peiqomenoi...
     ...ouq ierwn kteanwn oute ti kemosiwn
qeidomenoi kleptousin ef arpagh alloqen alloV
     oude fulassontai semna qemeqla DikhV (DikhV qemeqla, Adkins)
15 h sigwsa sunoide ta gignomena pro t eonta
     tw de crovw pantws hlq apotisomenh
tout hdh pash polei ercetai elkoV afukton
     eis de kakhn tacewV hluqe doulosunhn,
h stasin emqulon polemon q eudont epegeiprei,
20     os pollwn erathn wlesen hlikihn ek gar dusmenewn tacewV poluhraton astu
     trucetai en sunodoiV tois adikousi filaiV (filouV, Adkins).
tauta men en dhmw strefetai kaka twn de penicrwn
     iknountai polloi gaian es allodaphn
25 praqenteV desmoisi t aeikelioisi deqentes,
     [kai kaka doulosunhV stugna ferousi bia.] (not in Adkins).
outw dhmosion kakon ercetai oikad ekastw
     auleioi d et eceiv ouk eqelousi qurai,
uyhlon d uper erkoV eperqoren, eure de pantwV,
30    vei kai tiV feugwn en mucw h qalamou.
tauta didaxai qumoV AqhnaiouV me keleuei,
     wV kaka pleista polei dusnomia parecei,
eunomia d eukosma kai artia pant apofainei
     kai qama toiV adikoiV amfitiqhsi pedaV
35 tracea leiainei, pauei koron, ubrin amauroi,
     auainei d athV anqea fuomena, euqunei de dikaV skoliaV uperhfana t erga
     praunei, pauei d erga dicostasihV,
pauei d argalehV eridoV, colov, esti k up authV
     panta kat anqrwpouV artia kai pinuta.

(fragment 15, selection 8)

Polloi gar plouteusi kakoi, agaqoi de penontai
     all hmeiV autois ou diameiyomeqa
thV arethV ton plouton, epei to men empedon aiei,
     crhmata d anqrwpwn allote alloV ecei.

The world was warm. Tatters of air clung to her body like lamprey to a shark, tearing, suffocating.

And he only made it worse. The way he looked at her. The way he smelled, of blood and smoke, even fresh from a shower. So much strength behind the touch of a feather. She closed her eyes against the darkness, willing it to bring him to her.

Of course it refused.

The stillness of the summer air laughed at her in return, daring her to step out into it. But she knew he wasn't there, would never be there. The cloud-dappled sunlight pooled at her feet, unable to penetrate the wall of shadow that carried her.

With a silent scream of agony, she doubled over the angles of the balcony railing, fingers twining in the lattice of metal. "You! You brought me here." Her shout whispered against the silk breeze, sliding from her grasp to fall to the sidewalk so many stories below. Fists clenched around the sharp metal, bringing a sting that was no relief. Sinking to the floor, now-slick hands sliding down the railing, she leaned against the cold metal, not even noticing as it broke the skin on her forehead.

He was always there, in the twilit recesses of her soul. A mystery, an idol. A shadow.

A mirror.

"Where have I gone," she mumbled aloud, "to be consumed by this fire, this ice, this terror?"

A drop of blood rolled over one closed eyelid, mixing with the tears that were beginning to form. "You brought me here."

Silence.

Why does the silence stretch, the canyon wide from person to person, unbridged? Alone, with nothing but the keys in front of me and an absent audience, I ebb and flow, a tide of words rolling in to fill the screen. This connection is illusory, unreal, insubstantial. You think you see a glimpse of the writer behind the words, but it's all shadows. All shadows. When I most want to speak, I find myself unable, silence clinging to my tongue like the lingering first kiss of a razor, tension rolling from the wound like the blood that chases the blade. Silence. It sits. It festers, leaving only awkward pauses and stammered fragments, hiding the real words, the thoughts, the need to be heard and understood that is inherent to life.

Sit across from me. I am silent. I have nothing worthwhile to say. All the phrases I desire to speak are stopped up behind a Scylla of self-doubt and caught in a Charybdis of fear, wrenching my heart, rendering me mute. We work, we live, we laugh, some we even love... but I have nothing to say. My words are lost forever, even to myself.

Was it something I didn't say? Did I unknowingly push you away? Do you still want me to hear you? Leave me no stone to turn, no rocks to throw, no bridge uncrossed. We speak in silences, echoes of buried passion, words lost, voices stilled, breathless.

I only hope I won't disappoint you.

When I sit here staring at the blank screen, I can only think of the people I've lost and what a cruel mistress life is. If I could hold you to me through force of will alone, you would never die, never grow old. A turn of phrase, spinning in words and lost to the world. Though we age and move on our words will outlast us. We will read ourselves in another life and find solace there, marveling at how we-now seemed to know ourselves-then. But my gauzy veil of truth finds no meaning divorced from your words, your true life's blood. If you must leave me behind this time, wrap me first in a blanket of nouns and verbs to shield me from the bitter winter of aloneness. Wait for me, so we can brave this new world together, hand in hand, words in love, prose in music.

Words spoken on the wind, whispered mysteries whose final letter spells more silent miseries than a thousand pictures could ever tell. The things I could never say have no voice. True connection lies in between the words, a cavern I've hidden in as long as I've been able to type. No one else has ever found the mouth of the cave, or even cared to. You mean more to me than I could ever tell you, but if you listen between the words, you will know. You will hear.

Truth falls from the lips of a lover like crinkled petals from a faded rose. Oversweet, suspect, all that is left when the words have settled is the naked stem and the prickle of thorns. Is this all that is left of Love? Is there ever another spring, another bloom, another soft petal to soothe the wounds left by the barbs?

Bitter as three-day-old coffee, she watches the cars cruising by below, wondering idly who most deserved to be smashed from an overpass. Holding on with one hand, she leans out over traffic, nothing between her and the open air.

"Freedom," she murmurs.

Unnoticed, dead eyes blankly stare down, wondering at the infinity of Humanity. To think, these witless people below are merely the smallest slice of the hive, less than grains of sand on a beach.

"Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour he says..." Gravity pulls her sideways as one foot falls limply from the bridge. "Who would care?" She screams at the cars below. "Who would notice?"

Speak to me a tale of rhyme and of ruin
Born aloft on wings of fiery remorse
Of love and hate and jealousy therein
And hearts oft torn as a matter of course
Need is a word overus'd and often worn
That holds nothing of the furious fire
I knew you knew that I would do for you
Anything your heart could possibly desire
But you scorn the flames for a damsel tamed
Knowing to expect tepid waters at best
This phoenix rises, never again to be ashamed
And leaves you in her ashes, never again to be blessed
When timidity clouds your heart and your soul
Expect to fall away; she was never under your control

To paint your thoughts as innocent phrases
To write your wit and charm into a look
To scream your name in a silent whisper
To burn your face into memory's book
To ensorcell this wanton libertine
To steal my breath with a casual glance
To sculpt your touch in gesture and in words
To ignite fire in a drink and old-fashioned romance
To sing with the voice of a thousand stars colliding
To wonder at the coincidences that lead to culmination
To inspire the words that stop the crying
To invade my dreams and conquer with illumination
To tilt at the windmills that make our life sad but sweet
To blindly grope for a soul that makes your life complete

Are there no answers?
Is there no light?
Am I faced with certain knowledge
of what faceless terrors haunt the night?
You say your tears will fall forever
but when you look at me your eyes are dry
No awkward dance or backward glance
Mars the serenity of your goodbye
Walls built of my insecurities
Overcome, overwrought, tensions taut
Bricks kilned in the fire of your stare
I let it slip away without thought
Silent and buried, I scream to the air
Is there no one left who dares to care?

Have you ever felt just useless? When the screaming gets caught in your throat so you can't even breathe? When the blood pools around you because that kind of pain is the only thing that can stave off the terrible numbness that crushes you, grinds you into nothing?

Does anyone but me still exist? Are any of those shadows mocking me real? They shift in and out of focus. They look so real. But I put my hand out to touch them and they melt away, ignoring me.

Standing over my shoulder, I can feel you staring at me. No matter that I can't see you. I know you're there, always, invariably there. The darkness of the day seems like forever, waiting...

What sin brings balled fists to the fore, violence on edge, forgotten secrets demanding retribution, payment in full, a pound of flesh stolen against a wooden point. Turning inside out, all my hidden fears fall like hail to break through the glass shell that cocoons me.

grasping, reaching, turning, forever
twisting under a hail of forgotten sins
tomorrow's past is swept away
the raging tempest's finale begins

alone, cowering, of uncertain mind
there is no one left but you,
where once lay many
the City holds its breath -- what will you do?

out of cadence, in disrythmic time
hesitance halts even your infantile crawl
eternity lost for a second's regret
blind pride before your unbroken fall

angels hide their eyes in shame
and you have only yourself to blame.
or:

Twisting under a hail of forgotten sins
There is no one left but you
The raging tempest's finale begins
the City holds its breath -- what will you do?
Hesitance halts even your infantile crawl
Angels hide their eyes in shame
Blind pride before your unbroken fall
and you have only yourself to blame.

Welcome to the first episode of Leaping Headlong, my vain attempt to make mistakes so you don't have to.

Being the first of the series, most of you are probably reading this after being interested by something written later, so this is the perfect place to give you a little backstory on the column and my intent in writing it. For those few of you actually reading this first, well, consider this my introduction.

The seed of the idea for this column was planted around the same time I decided I was sick of focussing on my career at the expense of the rest of my life. Up to that point I'd been slowly but steadily building a reputation in digital pre-press and graphic design, with the hope that I'd get picked up by a company that would give me security and financial freedom.

Boy, was that naive.

The reality I found was that no matter how interesting the people could be, office life was dull and large corporations are invariably run counter to common sense. I know, tell you something you don't already know, right? It sapped the creativity right out of me, leaving me with little energy for writing and even less for painting. Even as management, I could never make enough money to claim financial freedom; it occurred to me regularly that if I was forced to be a starving artist I should at least have the time to work on my own art!

That was when I first began to think about freelance work and about chronicling what I wished someone else would have told me before I blundered into the situations myself ... but at the time it didn't go much farther than that thought. I was too drained by my regular job to do the self-promotion required to be successful as a freelancer and too dependent on my paycheck to just quit my job and go free agent.

The seed sent out tiny sprouts and grew a nice, firm taproot during GenCon Indy 2003. I went into that convention all guns blazing, promoting a brand new company and product that I've been privileged to work with. Observing the other participants and talking to people showed me that what sets apart the successful businesspeople from the hobbyists is not talent. It is not trained skill.

It is drive.

It is hunger.

It is passion.

That experience imparted the oomph I needed to pursue my passion, demonstrated that the money will come eventually if you have the drive and hunger, regardless of talent or skill. I saw enough unsuccessful talent and successful lack of it to convince me that if I had talent _and_ drive I could go pretty far.

But I was still stuck by the need for a regular paycheck to keep the piranha at bay in the meantime.

So what brought the column to flower and bear fruit? The fertilizer being dumped on me while working for a particular large corporation, of course. I figured all the shit I was taking was either going to enrich my brain for future endeavors, if I could just bear out the current stink, or it was going to make it's way into the back of a metaphoric truck, along with a few other metaphoric components, and cause a very large metaphoric explosion.

Luckily for the company, they got rid of me, because of budget cuts and layoffs, before it built up to the point of that second option. But it was getting close. Very close.

So here I find myself, leaping headlong out of the safety of a guaranteed paycheck, clutching at a bag I hope will turn out to be a parachute. Will I be able to strap on the free agent title and pull off a string of successful contract work before my time and unemployment benefits run out and I crash at terminal velocity into the creditor and piranha-infested waters below?

I don't know yet, but I do know that once you jump, there's no clamoring back into safety.. Once you take that first bold step, only more boldness, quick action, and quicker thinking can bring you safely to ground.

And those of you about to take that same bold step will benefit from reading about the experiences of others, myself included, who've already swan-dived out into the free fall. There are any number of columns just like this one, and my first piece of advice is to read as many of them as you can find. I do. We share a commonality of experience, but each person's perspective on that experience is unique and insightful and worth the time it takes to learn from.

My column is a little different from most of what you'll find in that it will cover more than just the nuts and bolts of finding new contracts as a freelancer and learning to manage your time. My experience leads me to refuse to separate my work and my life into neat little cubicles. The two affect each other and trying to pretend that they don't is, in my not-so-humble opinion, asinine. You don't create in a void, neither should you try to run your business in a void. If you enjoy what you're doing (and isn't that the only reason to freelance or start your own company?), then that shouldn't be a bad thing.

That's my second piece of advice: If you don't enjoy what you're doing enough to want to bring your work home with you, find a different direction. Stop where you are, look around you, and if the path you're on doesn't make you happy, take off cross-country until you find one that does. The stress falling off your shoulders is worth a couple weeks of nothing but ramen noodles.