Okay folks, especially players and DMs in the games Utan the Orange is in:

My brother, Utan, has had it rough lately, and even worse now after being released from the hospital after a month plus. He is suffering from diabetic retinopathy (desensitivity of the optic nerve and retina due to nerve damage from the diabetes), and also retinal separation. He has to keep his head tilted to look at the floor, 24/7, for at least 90 days. No computers, no TV, no fun ...

So he will be out of communication for at least 0- days, possibly more. Depends on the doctors. He's understandably depressed and angry, and says to apologize to all for his absence being sudden and long and all that.

For those DM who have both Utan and myself as players, I will post in my games soonest, since Utan's care is now out of my hands for a while. He has daily visits from a long-term-care physician to make sure he "toes the line" and does as ordered.

You tell Utan to follow the doctors orders to the letter. Tell him he will be missed but will be waited for I am sure. If you would please keep in contact with us here at RDI so that we know how he is doing and we can send him little pep talks to keep his spirits up.

..... and prayers for your brother!

Wow, I hope things will go better for him soon. Let him know that we all understand, and that appologies are not needed.

If he gets really bored from not being able to enjoy a lot of visual entertainment, you could try looking into audio-books (downloaded or storebought). They basically have every book you like on CD if you look around enough.
They can be really entertaining, and time passes a lot easier if you have something to keep your mind occupied.

Thanks Almerin! I can't believe we didn't think of the audio books. Downloading them is not an option due to slow-@$$ed dial-up connection, but there is s store only 20 miles away that has them and a used book store only 5 miles farther away that has used ones, as well. Thanks for the idea!

Utan has also come up with the idea to create a series of 12 characters in each class (levels 1 through 12 of paladins, clerics, rogues, etc., kind of "by dicatation".

I'll do the random die rolls, then he arranges them and dictates, weapons, skills/NWPs, gear, etc. He almost has the PHB and DMG memorized, so he can create characters basically "on the fly", usually without referencing the books at all. And characters he creates this way seldom have "out of bounds" mistakes. I know, I have tried to catch him. When the single-class list gets boring, he says he'll created another "army" of multi-classed characters of varying levels and combinations.

He is also keeping active working with my nephew Kilmer (Kilmorigan), helping to finalize his own world so he can introduce it to RDInn. In Kilmer's world, the whole society is based on music and things like class, level, social status, groups, town wards, street names, etc are described using musical terms like coda, fortissimo, clef, signature, score, note, tone, octave, scale, and such. Kilmer will be coming over two to three times a week so Utan can help him "flesh out" his world, which he calls Dektonal.

These spur-of-the-moment projects seem to keep Utan's mind occupied (for now) and as long as they do, we'll accomodate him to keep him out of the "doldrums of depression", which hit him hard when he came to the realization that he couldn't drive, or even be "taxied" anywhere, he got real touchy for a while ...

All three of us appreciate, and thank all of you for, the well-wishes and good thoughts. I will update RDInn about his progress periodically (whether he likes it or not).