How To Remember Thee

 

I realised that I wanted, perhaps needed to do something outside the normal to remember Tom. He was a huge part of my young adult life; we were inseparable for years. Flowers, a bench, and some nice words would do little to echo or remember who he was to me.  

Tom's 20th/21st birthday, I'm the handsome young man at the front.

We did many things together, Raves, Festivals, countless drug and alcohol-fuelled adventures, sitting up all night discussing politics, philosophy, climate issues and how to fix the world or what we could do to improve our own lives and circumstances. We talking about girls we liked and how to approach them, we talked family and futures, we dicussed what we loved and what we did not. We played Chess and Poker two games Tom was always hugely passionate about, Poker was not my thing but I’d take pleasure in frustrating Tom at Chess. Games are my thing, always have been, I see them and how they work very quickly no matter how complex they might be. We got Tom interested in a personal favourite Blood bowl something he grew to love as much as I do, he started playing Total War Warhammer online, another game I’m equally passionate about, even during times our lives were separated by the influences of adult life, the influences of our relationship were clear in his everyday activities and vice versa.

However, for me and how I wish to remember him the most is as a brave adventurer whom spent hundreds if not thousands of hours exploring wild fantasy lands across countless roleplaying systems. We played Dungeons and Dragons 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Inquisitor, Vampire the Masquerade, and Vampire the Requiem to name just some of the games we explored and returned to over the years. Of the hundreds of sessions and dozens of Characters Tom played as over the years there was one which was different, it stood out from the crowd, and I knew instantly if I were to think of those nights and days, we spent it would be this character I thought of as being synonymous with Tom.

Most characters Tom played were co-designed, he’d explain what he wanted to do and who he wanted to be and either myself or other members of the group would work within the rules of the system to bring those concepts into the game. This is a normal process for character creation as its often the case that some people are more familiar with the game mechanics and systems so can help refine the gameplay side of that character. This character was not co-designed, beyond the occasional asking for advice or deep explanations on where or how this character was aiming to be. Tom invested in this character, he built it from the ground up and would spend hours analysing the books to explore future options and ideas, after having played a 12-20-hour session on occasion. It was also regretfully the last Character Tom played at least in my company, my life-long depression got control of my life and I was unable to continue running and organising games. It was not until very recently I discovered my depression was the result of untreated ADHD and a lack of dopamine, so while I’ve recently started to re-establish my hobbies in my life it was absent for a very long time. If Tom joined any roleplaying groups in London, I am not aware, though I’d love to know if he did hear more tales of his adventures.

The Character I wanted to remember Tom by was named Talon. This short blog series will explain my process from taking Talon’s Character sheet along with a few notes from over a decade ago and turning them into a physical 3d painters scale model.

Talons Character sheet, I laminated it for posterity

Beware – This be the path of Geeks… You have been Warned…