Most people like the spring.
The thaw of the winter snow, the increase in daylight, the amount of sun. Open water, summer breezes billowing the sails, and the feeling of the warmth upon the skin...
I do too, but it also saddens me a bit. It's like seeing the light at the end of the dark tunnel of winter and knowing that the mystery of that dark will soon be coming to an end.
I do too, but it also saddens me a bit. It's like seeing the light at the end of the dark tunnel of winter and knowing that the mystery of that dark will soon be coming to an end.
The mystery of which I speak is this elusive, quite difficult to describe sense of esotericism and creative magic that seems more present in the winter than in the spring and summer. Disappearing are the days of mist and fog and stormy skies, the days where there was little else to do than be inside alone with ones imagination.
And yet each year, like a death toll being sounded to this winter magic, comes the last gathering of the genre I will experience for many months.
Each year I've gone hoping to find THE game of D&D I've always dreamed of (although to be fair, my expectations are probably far too high ) or a great class or panel to rocket my creative writing to the 'published' level, and each year I find myself not finding either...
I tend to be a hermit D&D player. There are no 5e groups near me, nor 1, 2, or even 3-4e groups for that matter. I somewhat detest Pathfinder, of which there seem to be plenty, and I am not in any way, shape, or form, a LARPer, SCAdian, or even board-game geek. In this respect I am wholly unoriginal and I guess one would say, unimaginative. So I find that at SaltCon I am often alone, ignored, and disappear in the crowds with little attention paid.
Ahh anonymity... It can often be like a warm blanket, but sometimes leaves me wondering what I am missing just beyond the folds...
And that is exactly how SaltCon seems to me. I always leave feeling like there is something I am missing. Like there was something else going on that I did not know of, or was not "in the loop on" because of my anonymity. Was that dream D&D game really going on somewhere until the late hours that I simply did not know of? Was there in fact something else to be done than sit in the hallways and watch the myriad of half-hearted cosplayers socialize and flirt to the echoing sounds of poorly executed Filk music?
If it is possible to be a "D&D Snob" then I suppose I qualify. I have nothing against Filkers, or Cosplayers for the matter. Or even Pathfinder players. But perhaps this self-introspection is just the sad fact that while the winter melts away, so does my hopeful expectations of finding like-minded individuals who take their D&D way too seriously and have the constant flow of imagination to see its likeness in nearly everything...Of course I'll attend, and continue the quest to find that elusive imaginative treasure...one that lasts through he spring and summer heat and sun and into the misty fog of another imaginative dark winter.
