Mental Hellness

costumed hedgehogs requested by Peter Jordan on my patreon

Gluttony: “I’m just saying he could stand to gain a few pounds! I made spaghetti!”

Sloth: “After we eat, it’s gonna be time for a nice nap. We’ve earned it!”

Finished my first Bisexual Identification Card.

The front reads: Bisexual Identification Card This card certifies the bearer as as official, card-carrying bisexual. Authorized signature-not valid unless signed / Member since No expiration date, no renewal required.

It all comes down to a couple of jokes. First, it’s mentioned that Judy Hopps, the rabbit heroine, has 275 brothers and sisters. It’s supposed to be a quick gag about how fast rabbits reproduce, and if you’re like me, you just assumed that Judy’s parents are unstoppable fuck machines.

But if you pause the charming Disney movie to do math, you reach horrifying conclusions. Judy’s parents represent everyday bunnies who live mundane lives, so it’s safe to assume that having 275 children is considered average. If all 275 of Judy’s siblings have an average of 275 kids of their own, Judy’s going to have 75,625 nieces and nephews. The third generation of Hopps would be 20,796,875 strong – a Sri Lanka’s worth of offspring. The fourth generation would see 5,719,140,625 bunnies born, while the fifth would see 1,572,763,671,875. There would be over one and a half trillion Hopps. To put that in perspective, that’s 212.5 times the current human population, and there would be about 14.6 times more members of the Hopps family than there have been estimated people in all of human history.

I think we can all agree that Judy is adorable, and there’s a significant subsection of the internet that finds her much more than that. But she’d be a lot less fuzzy-wuzzy if there were a trillion and a half of her blotting out the very surface of the Earth as they strip it bare in their all-consuming quest for carrots. And that’s just one family.

Between 1972-1979 there were 5,802,282 live births in the United Kingdom. These live births account for the roughly 600 Hogwarts students during Harry’s first year, and would make the birth rate of Wizards approximately 0.01% of the population.

The population of the United States in 2014 was 318.9 million -  23.1% of which were children 0-17. That would mean there were 73,665,900 children in 2014. Checking live births from a time period of 1997-2003 (which would account for children aged 11-17) gives us 27,978,287 children. If 0.01% of them were magical, we’re left with 27,978 school age magical children in the United States in 2014.

If we wanted school sizes similar to Hogwarts - 600 children to a school - we would need at minimum 47 magical schools. If we wanted it more comparable to our own schooling - with an average student body size of roughly 1,430 students combined between middle school and high school during the 2009-2010 school years - we’re down to a minimum of 20 magical schools.

So, long story short. It is statistically impossible for there to be a single magical school in the United States.

New Orleans, anyone? What about the folk magic traditions of Irish and German immigrants in Appalachia? Hippy Wizards living in communes in Oregon.

In games like pathfinder and D&D when we’re putting our party together we often think about what roles each character can play. Often we do so just in terms of mechanics, but that isn’t the only way we can do. Sometimes I like to help build a party around a theme. One of the themes I like is the all one class party. The challenge than becomes making each character’s different both in story terms as well as mechanically even though they are based on the same mechanical chassis.

Buh-Buh-[Barbarian] Bride: The chief of your small village falls in love with a beautiful princess from the next village over after seeing her bathing at a nearby lake. You and your party of barbarians are to go and retrieve her [Pain to those who fail]. You quickly realize that “She” is actually a particularly vicious owl-bear.

[Bard] School: Your party consists of soon-to-be graduates of the city’s School for Bards. For your thesis, your final project, you are tasked with going out into the city and finding the best story. 

A Siege of [Monk] Mountain: All but one of the Master Monks have left the monastery on their annual retreat. You and the other disciples must fight off a band of thugs trying to rob what little you have. 

[Rogue]’s Gallery: You and your Rogue friends recently pissed off the local Thieve’s Guild, and to clear your debt you are supposed to steal a heavily guarded painting during an upcoming costume ball.