I've restored and renovated the webpage at http://www.steelbeach.co.uk/KL and transferred all the logs from here to there.

In other news, I GM'd a scene for Alesia...


The cool air and light breeze set the stage as Alesia moves as silently through the woods as she can, in Homid. She's been doing this for a while and her steps are sure and steady. She's paused at a set of tracks, near a path created by some deer, trying to figure out how old they are and start her hunt in full.
The path is a typical deer path, slender and tenuous, fading away in places. There are some droppings here and there, which an alert and watching eye with some experience would notice are fresh, probably no more than half-an-hour old. The forest seems surprisingly noisy, the breeze blowing branches against each other and generating an almost constant susurrus, that rises and falls irregularly. There's the rustle of small creatures occasionally in the undergrowth. The tracks appear to be heading roughly east along the path.
Alesia touches the tracks to make sure of the depth and freshness, then stands, holding her spear how Jamethon taught her. She starts to circle slightly to the south, so that she'll be down wind from the deer as she moves through the woods, using the sounds of the woods to provide some cover of her own sounds as she makes it through the brush.
Ahead, there's a flash of brown visible through a screen of low leaves. It looks like there's a small clearing, or at least a gap in the trees, and some kind of creature - probably deer - grazing in it, though it's difficult to make out through the fresh spring growth.
Alesia freezes, having spotted the bit of brown. She holds her spot for a while, waiting... waiting to see if she can make out more, without startling the creatures, and to see how many and what exactly she's come upon, doe or buck or other.
It's not possible to make out how many, and after that one flash of brown, it's really hard to see what's going on without getting closer. Carried on the wind, Alesia can just make out small sounds of movement, but not enough to determine numbers. Behind her, there's a sudden crack, as if someone has stepped on a twig.
Alesia keeps her body still, especially her feet but turns her head and torso a bit if needed to see what musth made the sound.... the source of the crack of the twig her focus suddenly.
There's nothing there, no shapes, no movement. Maybe it was nothing. There's no sound now, either, just the wind through the trees.
Alesia frowns, deeply then very very slowly starts to inch towards the clearing to see if she can spot the deer better, taking her tim and being careful not to step on any twigs herself, she holds her spear at the ready, to throw if she gets a chance and an open shot.
As she draws closer, she'll be able to make out the shape of a doe, head down, grazing in a small patch of grass growing in the naturally-formed gap between two copses of trees. As yet, it's giving no sign of noticing the approaching Garou.
Alesia makes carefully tries to keep from breathing hard as she inches forward a tad more, trying to close as much distance as she can before her thrust with the spear. Her eyes look over the distance between her and the doe as well as gauging the terrain between her, looking for obstructions or sound inducing foliage. She glances around, her eyes moving side to side even as her head stays relatively still, trying to see if the doe is alone or if there is a buck or worse nearby.
She only has a view of the top of the clearing - low brush on the fringe obscures the lower part - but it appears that the doe is alone on her patch of grass. Certainly there isn't really enough space for a herd, and no sign of a buck. She's about fifteen yards away, now.
Alesia slows down further, if possible, so as not to spook the deer. She inches forward, trying to turn that 15 yards into 10 or even 5 before she takes her shot. She'll only get one shot with the spear after all. She adjusts her hold on the spear just slightly, not wanting her sweating hands to damage her aim.
The doe lifts her head, and appears to be staring directly at Alesia, her brown eyes wide and glistening in the filtered sunlight. She doesn't appear to be particularly spooked or startled, though, so it's possible that she hasn't seen the spear-wielder.
Alesia freezes when the deer looks her way. She doesn't move an inch if she can help it, even holding her breath... waiting to see if the deer is about to flee or if it will go back to eating grass and leaves.
The doe's head swings away, and then back down to her important grazing activities, oblivious to the stalking Garou.
Alesia stays still for a moment more, holding her pose to make sure the deer really has gone back to grazing then slowly pulls her arm back, taking careful aim as she readies for her throw, giving a silent prayer to gaia to steady her aim.
Just as she does so, the doe moves, turning slightly, so that she's now at three-quarters to the hunter. Below, and to the right of her, another swatch of brown skin is visible, a low hump, seperate from the doe's form.
Alesia was just about to let go of her throw, but stops, as her heart skips a beat. She stays frozen, not throwing but not moving away either... watching the lump. She double grips the spear but... can't bring herself to throw it now, not yet as she watches.
From the smaller brown hump, a head suddenly pops up, the small face of a fawn, perhaps only a month or so old. It turns, friskily, in a circle, butts up against the doe and then drops, returning to grazing.
Alesia has the shot, but will not take it. She lowers her spear, slowly, and starts to back away as silently as she moved forward, or at least trying to remain quiet, not wanting to startle the mother and daughter at their grazings.
Totally unaware of their recent peril, the two deer continue to graze together, the spring sun dappling their hides as they feed on.
Alesia moves away from the clearing, only allowing herself a small sigh once she's sure she's out of earshot of the pair. Then with a shake of her head and a re-gathering of determination she goes to look for another trail, looking for deeper tracks if she can find them.
Some time passes. It feels like hours, possibly it is. Alesia happens across several deer tracks, but none look fresh. It starts to seem as if every deer has been sucked out of the woods and taken away. Just when she might be giving up hope, she finds a track that looks recent. It's difficult to tell what direction the tracks are heading in, though. Looks like several deer, and at least some of them are heavier than the previous set. The track runs approximately north-east to south-west.
Alesia tries to follow these tracks, a group of deer may be harder to sneak up on but far more likely to have a buck in the mix. So she tries to make her way quietly along the trail. She is aware of the wind and so tries to do her best to stay to one side, not that this will help that much. Hopefully her time in the woods will make her smell like woods and not stand out too much.
After about a third of a mile, Alesia catches a glimpse, ahead, directly on the tracks, of a form - somewhere between fifty and a hundred yards away. It appears to be a buck - the antlers are quite noticeable even at this distance. It's big, too.
Alesia tries to slip off the path, into the brush, because even at this range being seen would be a bad thing. She tries to start a very slow winding to the south, to curve around and stay down wind if possible, not moving too slowly yet, relying instead on the 150 yards and normal forest sounds to provide some cover for her movements, but starting to slow the closer she thinks she's getting, even if she can't see the buck anymore through the brush.
The buck is obscured fairly quickly, and as Alesia wends her way closer to the spot where she saw it, she moves between a set of low bushes, and suddenly she can see it again. It's moved a little way away from the tracks, and in the far distance she can make out the shapes of perhaps four more deer, moving slowly.
Alesia freezes when she spots the buck, and begins her slow inching forward... bit by bit, trying to get closer to the buck, trying to gauge the best path to get closer without being seen. She's trying to be tactical at this range, so that she has her best shot if and when she gets closer, picking her route through woods that have been her home for almost a year now.
The buck doesn't notice her, and she closes the range to about twenty yards. It's standing amid some fairly well-spread out trees, but apart from some very low scrub, there's not much cover to get very close to it. It's also far more active than the doe was earlier, moving about fairly aimlessly.
Alesia holds her spot as well as she can, if the buck is moving then... perhaps it will stray close enough to get a shot, at least 10 yards, if not closer. She's takes a patient but ready position, relying on hope that motionless the buck won't notice her until it comes close enough to be a target. She readies her grip, waiting... ever so cautiously waiting, in the hopes the buck will approach her spot.
It wanders closer, eventually, and starts grazing at about twelve yards away, on some greenery. It seems entirely oblivious to her - obviously, her stealth tactics are working. Getting closer is going to be tricky, though, and would mean abandoning cover.
Alesia takes a slow breath, gives another silent prayer to Gaia for success and to the buck for the hunt, then tenses and quick light steps she moves forward through the brush, pushing on an extra push, focusing all her concentration and effort and energy in landing the tip of the spear into the buck. She gives this her all, pushing herself as much as she can, with all her will to succeed.
Ten yards...nine yards...Alesia's steps seem to her like she's running on a drum kit...eight yards...the buck's head comes up and swings towards her...seven yards...six yards...like a greyhound from a trap, the buck runs for it, going from standing to full on flight in a flash.
Alesia sees the buck bolt before she's close enough and she switches her grip in mid step, and with a twist of her body, and trying to transfer not only her arm motion but all of her already existing forward momentum into it she throws the spear, willing it to strike the buck before it gets out of range, giving a grunt of effort as she lets it go. She is throwing with such effort that she cares not for the fact that even if she misses this twisting will leave her face down on the ground.
The spear flies through the air, towards the fleeing buck. Wonder of wonders, it hits! The buck gives a cry, but its pace doesn't decrease. The spear struck on the back hindquarter, really only a glancing blow. From Alesia's prone position, she can't see how much damage she's done, and by the time she looks up, the buck is gone, and the spear is lying on the ground.
Alesia gets up and dusts herself off quickly. She's sturdy enough that she's not going to let a little fall slow her down. She rushes in the direction the buck went, scooping up the spear as she passes it, and looking for trails of blood, and at the spear tip. If she's wounded the beast it should make tracking a lot easier, and may slow it down a tad, so she looks for any signs of a blood trail.
There's a couple of spots in the area where the spear struck, and then nothing. The buck headed off north-east, and the rest of the herd have fled. Alesia pursues the buck in the general direction it seemed to be heading, but there aren't any visible blood tracks. If it is bleeding, it's not dropping sufficient blood to leave a noticeable trail.
Alesia holds the spear tighter and starts to do her best tracking the beast using hoof prints, disrupted folliage and the like. No blood doesn't mean it gets away, she mutters under her breath then says, "Gaia give me strength..." As she does her best to move quickly /and/ track at the same time.
Minutes pass, and there's still no noticeable trail or sign of the buck. It appears to have got away, and not to have been sufficiently wounded to slow it down. To make matters worse, the light is starting to fade.
Alesia does her best to find the tracks, not willing to give up until the light has faded completely. She'll do her best until she's forced to give up by the lack of light and lack of a trail. She doubles back, hoping to find some sign of the track she lost.
No dice, today. This spear-hunting lark is hard. The light fades into evening as the sun begins to set. Still, there are plenty of deer in the woods, and plenty of days to hunt. And Alesia has learnt some things today that will maybe make tomorrow easier.