The Rubberbands are Heading in the Right Direction

So my teenage niece (not actually blood related, but I've known her mom longer than she's been alive... I clarify because I have a brother, but he doesn't have children) is being basically emergency-moved to live with her mother because her Aunt on her dad's side walked in on her brother (neice's father) doing things a man should never do to ANY teenager, let alone his own daughter.

Niece went to live with her father when she was 10 because her mother wasn't in any position to take care of her due to health problems. That, and she'd moved to another state about a year before, and Neice was just not doing well in the new school/state, which is because all the schools in the entire state suck. It's in the bottom 10 states in education.

She (my friend OR the aunt) never suspected anything. Niece's grades improved. She's got a lot of friends. Like, there were literally no warning signs. She wasn't acting out in the ways kids usually act out when they're being SA'd. Even still, she's ambivalent about it because she's definitely been groomed to think it's normal. No telling exactly how long this has been going on.

But now I'm trying to help my friend as much as I can to get her daughter situated, get her new clothes and toiletries because she's leaving basically everything behind, we're getting her a new phone/phone number... and a bunch of stuff on top of the therapy she definitely needs.

I'm seriously considering crowdfunding at least a few hundred dollars to help with the financial strain of all of this.

I really hope her piece of shit sperm donor goes away for a LONG time. Apparently, they collected a LOT of evidence.

None of Niece's family in that state is willing to take her in because they've got their own shit going on, which I get, but it's kind of shitty of them. Niece's mom is disabled. She can barely take care of herself, but at the same time, she's got me to help where I can, but I can only do so much.

I can tell you right now that if there were a universal basic income, and it were enough every month, so that I wouldn't need a job to guarantee that I had a roof over my head and food in my pantry?

I would quit my job and not work.

For like... six months, maybe a year at most.

Because I'm TIRED. I'm burnt out. I've been working almost non-stop since I was 17 with nothing to show for it. I barely have anything in my 401K because most jobs don't offer it, and all the jobs I had before the one I have now didn't pay me enough to add to it on my own.

I'm nearly 43, and I'll be lucky to retire by the time I'm 80.

I'm too tired to properly clean my house, and I can't afford to pay someone to do it. I'm too tired to go out and do fun things. I mean, I can't afford them anyway, but even if I could, I have to save my energy for my work week. The vacations I've taken have been spent at home trying to recover from working. And the few vacations where I traveled anywhere, I went HOME to visit my family. I didn't go to Mexico, or Hawaii, or England, or wherever I might want to travel. I didn't really do anything fun or touristy. I went to Dallas and slept on my brother's couch, and went out to eat a few times. Because all I could afford was the plane ride.

I was recently off work for 3 months after a work-related injury, and I miss it.

How messed up is that?

I miss being in constant pain and unable to lift more than 10lbs.

Because I got to rest. REALLY REST.

So yeah, I'd take six months to a year off, then go back to work. Maybe something part-time so I'm not spending the rest of my life couch-rotting while still having time and energy to do the things I want to do, but I WOULD work.

Humans, as a whole, want to be productive. We just don't want to sacrifice ourselves in the process. But we are. Every single one of us.

One example? I'm allowing my players to multiclass "for free". Every couple of levels, I give them two levels. Meaning one for their main class and a "free ghost level" that is either used for multiclassing or it's lost. So everyone is at least the base level of everyone else when it comes to their main class. Right now, everyone is 3 in their main class and 1 in their secondary "ghost" class because they all took the ghost level. Which is almost more for flavor, though it does beef them up a tiny bit. But also because I'm one of those DMs who make every encounter hard to deadly. I'm not trying to kill my players with EVERY fight, but I am trying to make it so they aren't just mowing down everything they encounter in seconds. That is satisfying to absolutely no one (I've had DMs whose every encounter went so fast that if you rolled low on the initiative, you might not even get a chance to hit anything). So I make MOST encounters hard to deadly, but for their main class level only. Otherwise, I might accidentally kill them. Though, once we hit a minor boss level fight, I'll be taking ALL their levels into account. Which will be soon.

On to the ACTUAL example, though... One of my characters made a Cleric and asked if their "ghost class" could be Warlock. Apparently, most DMs wouldn't allow this? I did, but for one reason alone. The character is a tiefling.

Her bloodline is Asmodeus, and he basically said, "I like this one, she's getting power whether she likes it or not," and all but forced being a warlock ON her and tricked her into agreeing by calling her "granddaughter" and convincing her it was a right of hers to have the power because of their close blood ties and that her goddess, Hestia, wouldn't mind because she's all about hearth and home and family and he's her family. (They are not closely related in the least, but he has her convinced he Zeus'd her grandmother on her mother's side and impregnated her grandmother in the guise of her grandfather.)

Her being a tiefling actually came from a deal one of her great grand-cestors made with Asmodeus, which "cursed" her mom's bloodline to eventually produce a Teifling. Her parents are 100% human.

Another player wanted to bring in a second character (it's a small group as far as the number of people playing so I said people could make second characters if they want to to beef up the party a bit) and said, "What if he's a child?" and I said, "eeeeeh, I dunno, give me a minute because of the whole... leveling thing. A child can't exactly be a high-level anything, even when you take being a prodigy into account."

Did some research and decided she could play a child if she made his main class a caster, but only if he wasn't REALLY a child. Because I found Hexblood, which gave me an idea. A hag was pissed at his parents for not giving him up as per their deal. She gave them what they wanted, and she asked for their firstborn child in return. They wouldn't give him up, so instead of removing the gifts she gave them or trying to out-and-out steal the child, she cursed the child... so he'll never grow up as part of the curse. He aged until the apparent age of 11-12 (as far as how he'd be perceived if he were human... I know not all races mature the same) and hasn't gained a year physically since, though he's actually in his 20s. This does nothing to extend his lifespan. He'll just never grow up/have a relationship/kids/he'll always be treated like a child by strangers unless we kill the hag or get her to break the curse.

What I did as far as making the character was I had her roll his stats, remove 2 from every number, and then add the +2 and +1 to the stats required by the race, which is Satyr. We will be introducing him next session. There was a little finagling with things like base speed, too. He's technically considered small because he doesn't meet the height requirement of a medium creature (he's only around 4ft 5), but his race is considered a medium creature AND satyrs have a higher base movement than some of the other medium creatures. Either way, I made it work because I am a kind and benevolent DM.

His name is Tika, and he's a Shadow Magic Sorcerer with one level in Rogue because he looks like a kid, so he's had to do a lot of pickpocketing to survive. He's also got Magic Initiate because she wanted him to have the Find Familiar spell. His familiar is named Dip and usually is in the form of a Least Weasel in their winter colors. The name Dip is derived from the fact that a Least Weasel is white in winter except for the tip of its tail, which is black. So he looks like he dipped his little tail in ink.