(Orc and Pie is used with Monte Cook’s permission, but he has absolutely nothing to do with this.)

I have two beautiful daughters, Jadyn and Jara. You’ll pardon the lightness of this post. I was supposed to post a quick preview of my work on the Codex Venenorum, Ed. IV, but I didn’t have much time yesterday as I was taking care of the kids.

Jara (left) & Jadyn (right)

See, cute as a button. As anyone with kids knows–that would be Chris, and Rob is only just beginning to see what I’m talking about–they somehow manage to suck all of the time out of the day. My “regular” D&D game plays once a month–if we’re lucky. So I have to squeeze in some of my design work while the kids are playing nearby, and I often have a lot of my D&D stuff lying around, which occasionally draws interest.

For Jadyn, it’s my big bag of dots and little men. For those who don’t speak three-year-old, that’s dice and minis. And Jadyn absolutely loves playing with them. Usually, this involves Jadyn pretending that the dice, multi-colored as they are, are different kinds of foods. Oh, that yellow icosahedron, apparently it’s a banana.

In a larger sense, it’s fascinating to have kids of this age exposed to the trappings of D&D. She’s not old enough to understand that it’s a game, but she’s old enough to ask a lot of questions of the why-is-the-sky-blue variety. Often, this forces me to think creatively when answering. “What’s that?” she asks, pointing to a mini of a bug-eyed kuo-toa with a long spear. “Uhm, he is a fisherman. He uses the spear to catch fish–just like that dog in Go Dog Go!” “What’s this?” she asks, pointing to a picture of a vaasi assault mech in a copy of Dawning Star lying around the house. “That’s a robot,” I say. “Like Wall-e?” she asks excitedly. “Yep, just like that.”