[big grin]
I got to dance with Alanna today in Social II! *squeal* Alanna's taking Social II as a lead this quarter, which means I don't usually get to dance with her (also taking the course as a lead and all). That'll be me next winter (er ... that is, I'll be taking it as a follow), but I don't know that I'll be at her level. She's such a gracious partner! And she can follow anything that's even vaguely well led - we were doing hustle today and she was the only person I successfully (read: smoothly) transitioned with into a half-turning basic instead of a full turn (i.e., 180 degrees and back again per eight counts instead of 360 all the way around). That doesn't mean the other ladies in the class are inept follows; it just means that Alanna is a goddess. When somebody like that compliments you it just makes you sigh a happy sigh. *happy sigh*

The past twenty-four hours have been one "score!" after another. First and foremost, score one for God for doing His thing in Testimony. No, I'm not going to elaborate on that further. But the situation sounds pretty good to me.

Second, score one for me for finishing the Classical Phoenix Earth arms and armor list. At last! I feel pretty satisfied with the mathematical balance of the weapons, so hopefully the gear featured in the game will be varied and cool. Only play-testing will tell, of course. Third, score one for me for crafting a Phoenix Earth that my sister is interested in joining! A historic event, ladies and gentlemen: a real live girl enters my game (The DM's games have historically had at least one female player for most of their respective existences)! Fourth, score one each for Mr. Clean and Lionell for coming up with cool characters to use in the game. I would have expected the Order of the Blood Maw to appeal more to Islington or Kharmak than Lionell, but as soon as I started describing it Lionell started drooling. And I really like what he did with it.

I discovered something funny about the currency in Phoenix Earth. Two things, actually (have you noticed that I discourse in lists?). One, the sarat (the highest denomination of coin in the game, weighing approximately 30 grams in gold) is almost exactly equal to one third of a year of unskilled labor. There are twelve doksi (silver coins worth about a day's worth of manual labor) to a single gold cossa, and ten cossae to a single gold sarat. So in 365 doksi divided by twelve equals 30 (well, 30 and 5/12) cossae, or three sarasi. That means the sarat actually works quite well as a coin that originated to pay taxes to the city of the same name during the reign of the famous crusader-conqueror Arkard the Harbinger. Isn't it delightful when a world comes together that way?

Second, swords in this game are really expensive. A bronze short sword will cost you about ten cossae (120 man-days of labor!) - it could take a man a whole year to save up enough for that! A steel great sword will cost you 200 cossae, just over six and a half years of continuous labor for a farmhand. But of course steel is supposed to be expensive and farmhands generally don't own swords. So what this actually means is I've scaled my prices more or less correctly.

Oh happy day! Let the world-building begin!