This Old House

Just found out today that the house I lived in when I was in primary school was sold again for a quarter of a million dollars. As this blog entry points out, it's one of the "Forty Thieves" (or, rather the Thirty-Eight Thieves, which is a smaller attrition rate than I would've expected in a city where fine old brick buildings were vanishing at the rate of over a hundred a year until rather recently). These were houses all built to the same plan with yellow bricks salvaged from a pavilion at the 1904 World's Fair. It made me proud to be so closely connected to what I soon figured out was The Most Important Thing To Happen In St Louis Ever. (Seriously, I don't think even Knoxville goes on as much about its World's Fair as St Louis does.) When strolling or riding around Richmond Heights, I would always keep my eyes peeled for other Thieves and would get a thrill whenever I spotted one.

I can't imagine what it looks like inside any more. My parents sold it to a classmate of my father's who restored it beautifully. I barely recognised the it last time we visited, but that was partly because of how much smaller everything looked. Yet I dreamed about it just a few days ago. (Or, rather, a study in a converted porch which reminded me strongly of the room off the kitchen in that house.) And I've got so many associations that are inextricably tied to it. I can't see peonies or daylilies or even common plantains without thinking of the ones in the front yard there and handling a croquet mallet always reminds me of the gonzo games I played there with my siblings.

"Are there any girls there?"

In my dream, I was scrambling to find five ten-sided dice. The party were facing their first encountre with my younger brother as GM, and somehow I'd never gotten around to rolling up my character. The only skill listed on my sheet was "Dodge +1". I thought to myself Maybe I should figure out if he's even got decent dexterity before I spend my points on that. The method for generating scores was: roll five ten-siders, drop the lowest, and add the total to 19. I quickly reckoned that this would give PCs and average score of 41 in every trait. My attempts to scoop up five ten-siders kept netting me a few six-sided dice. I was thinking about giving my character animal-training skills because he had a companion mastiff, but my older brother was already playing something of a beastmaster and I didn't want to overlap. I was thinking of my character as "Viktor", but then I remembered that I'd found that too generic a name and wanted something different. Something more German. In my half-awake state, I considered that "Sigo" would make a good choice, sit it could be an abbreviated form of any Old High German name beginning with the element Sig- "victory". "Sige" is the setting demanded Middle High.

Six years since I've played a role-playing game of any sort and I still have dreams like this.