Okay, okay, so it takes me a while to figure out how this whole `blog' thing works.

I've been thinking about D&D in general, and dreams of this particular online campaign in particular, like every day. I write down notes on random bits of paper spread around various locations as they occur to me...and then as I was thinking "I should really put all this stuff somewhere I could always get to it", the penny dropped.

Oh, you mean, I'm supposed to actually just put random thoughts up on _the blog_, instead of just thinking about them, losing track of them, _and_ letting what could be a vaguely interesting blog to as many as three other people fall into dusty abandonment.

So, my plan is _now_ to try to post to _this_ blog way more often (like daily), and to my other random blogs once a week. (I probably shouldn't make promises I can't keep, but if I don't make 'em, I _definitely_ won't keep 'em.)

So, some D&D thoughts of the day:

When you think about it, there are a lot of weird things about the supposed culture in D&D. I mean, the bits you get from the Players Handbook, your own background notions, and various fantasy sources is that you've got a sort of pseudo-medieval feudal thing going on, with pre-gunpowder technology, lots of peasants farming out a living, but lots of magic around that does all kinds of cool stuff, and lots of fantastic beasties like dragons and stuff.

Think of how some of the most common magic would have crazy effects on society. First of all, if you can talk to animals and they can talk back, isn't there something weird about eating them? I mean, sure they're not very bright, but it still seems cannibalistic. Besides, as Rebecca points out, as an even more common bit of magic, you can make food. Explain why all those peasants are farming again?

Heck, clerics can heal wounds and cure disease. I'm not even talking about raising the dead, which is a whole new kind of brain-twisting. Try to imagine the way the world would change if every disease, and nearly every injury, could be cured, instantly, by one in every few thousand people. Then think about the Middle Ages, only without the plague. It's like talking about Russia in the 20th century, only without the Communism.

Summary: The whole construction of D&D's fictional culture has fundamental distortions that are usually swept under the rug.