Saturday, September 25, 2010

On Appearance

This post is in response to an old Friday Five prompt over at Too Many Anna’s which posed questions about a character’s appearance. I’ve written about my priest, Naomililac. Thanks for the prompt, Anna!

Naomi’s avatar is quite a good representation of her true appearance. She attempts to carry herself regally, as she would wish to be seen by others, but she often lapses into her true, casual, playful nature. Like many young adventurers, she is trim and fit, though her figure is often obscured by the long robes she favors. Her eyes are the palest shade of lilac, sometimes appearing grey in low light. Her light brown hair is usually worn down, and she steals moments throughout the day to run a brush through it and keep it shiny!

Naomi is rather sentimental about her hairbrush, as it was one of the first possessions she acquired in Azeroth. On her way to Ironforge for the first time, she noticed a surprisingly large number of fallen crag boars in Dun Morogh. It struck her that the bristles of their undercoats would make a very fine brush. She collected a small pouch full of them hoping she could find someone to fashion the brush. During her stay in the city, she paid a visit to Pella, a barber, who directed her to her own supplier. He was a gruff dwarven tinker, but he presented her with a superbly made brush in a few days time. The tinker filled the back of the brush with intricate carvings in a dwarven style while leaving the handle smooth and easy to hold. Looking at it never fails to remind her of the grand city of Ironforge and the beginning of her adventures.

On the question of baths and showers, Naomi resolutely prefers to bathe. She does draw the line at taking baths in chilly water - unless it’s summertime. After a rather too cold bath she will always insist on a piping hot cup of goldthorn tea to keep colds at bay.

Naomi doesn’t much care to wear make up or to tote it along on her travels, but she does fuss about keeping her clothes clean. She brushes them down every evening and makes use of laundry maids whenever she stays at an inn where she can hire one.

If she could pick an outfit from an infinite closet, it would be a floor length robe of deep velvet green (to complement her skin) with impractically wide bell sleeves. Her only jewelry would be a silver circlet with a teardrop shaped emerald resting on her forehead and a belt of silver links. She would wear fine black wool tights to keep warm, since clearly one wears one’s favorite imaginable outfit at one’s favorite time of year, and Naomi’s is autumn.

Unrelated screenshot of Naomi sitting by the fire in an inn somewhere in Northrend.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Lesson Learned

Lilac has been leveling along at my snail’s pace, she’s 74 now. And that means that she can finally get to Dal! I bought a port for my pally to get there when she turned 70 or so, but Lilac has been trying to make it on her own. The Dal flight point is exciting because now I have a quick way to get to Shatt to do the cooking daily and hope that the recipes for The Outland Gourmet drop.

I’ve been running a number of randoms for the sake of getting emblems, and today was one of those days when I just couldn’t click with my group. We were in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom, and the DK tank was getting hit for a third to half of his health fairly frequently. Fighting an Eye of Taldaram, I almost lost him because I got myself locked out of holy spells. Okay, that was my mistake, but why do people think saying “come on healer the tank almost died” is helpful (and this definitely isn’t the first time I’ve heard this exact statement)? Wouldn’t “try to dispel Eyes in the Dark so you don’t get locked out” be better? Or maybe they don’t actually know the mechanics either… I have serious problems noticing debuffs on anyone, including myself, that don't show up on Grid, I hope I can configure it to display that one.

With the LFD tool, I’ve certainly gotten myself into instances that I didn’t even know existed, let alone know how the encounters work. I always let my group know when I’m running an instance I’ve never done before, in the hopes that they’ll warn me about these kind of things. Especially school of magic lockouts. I really don’t like those.

Today was my second trip through that instance, and I think I finally learned my lesson. I should really read about instances instead of trying to rely on my group. Got it. Kind of embarrassing it took me so long to realize that.

Hey! My outfit doesn't clash!

I did get this purdy cloak though! Burgundy/brown is becoming my new favorite color, weirdness...