The Bell Tolls

Nathan would be the most likely person I've known to know the Old English version, btw

My dear friend and partner in crime, Nathan, passed away this weekend.  Forgive this catharsis.  I miss him most of course as a person, a wonderful human being and friend who was a devoted friend, son, brother, uncle, and godfather.  I miss his sense of humor, his snorting laugh as he tried to avoid laughing at something he found damned funny but was also WRONG.  I miss his random esoteric knowledge of things that may have been practical 150+ years ago.  I miss all the time we spent in his beat up pickup with one door that wouldn't open from the inside when I was too young to drive or didn't have a car of my own and he would pick me up for games, movies or other get-togethers.  We would talk and laugh about all sorts of things, make plans, bounce ideas off of each other or rehash our recent session on the way home.  It's on one of those rides that I had my longest running sneeze fest, something like 130 in a row.

He was a gamer, as my really close friends are.  I'm not close friends with everyone I've gamed with, but spending that time together and sharing common interests and a common language (being able to watch a movie and stat out characters from it on the ride back, for example) certainly helps friendships develop, as it would with any shared hobby you can do together.  The loss of him as a fellow gamer who I played with for close to 30 years adds to the loss.  Definitely a lesser part of the immensely larger loss of the person and friend, but real nonetheless.  I've been thinking of it like I might if I were friends with an author or musician whose work I also enjoyed.  I was a fan of Nathan's.

As a game master he had rich worlds with interesting NPCs and villains.  Our styles meshed well and I really enjoyed the interactions and immersion in his games, something I can't do nearly as well in the games I run myself.  We had something of a mind-link, enabling me to often see where things were going and lean into them for more impact, or enabling him to understand what I was building towards and helping to provide the payoff.  With his loss, I also feel the loss of many others - I will never see Dragonfist, Gator, Lady Liberty, Crystal/Shard, Shialla of the Hawklords, Serpentra or many others ever played again by their creator.  I will never again experience his version of Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, or travel across the Empire of Turan with its glittering Emerald City or the city-states of Therosia.  If Los Banditos del Diablo ever take the field again, it will be in a strangely different Inner Sphere.  Not only has my own world been forever changed, but many others are sealed away forever.

The wardrobe doesn't work anymore.  But once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia.

Godspeed Nathan.  When my time comes, I expect you to come get me in that old pickup.