A slightly worn Larkin Grant greeted me distractedly in the open area of the Care Assurance System for the Aging and Homebound (CASA) office this past Thursday. As she settled us into a conference room shared with other tenants of the United Way building for a little privacy, she smiled, shrugged and said, “Some days get a little hectic around here.”  My guess is that it got hectic enough to completely forget about our pending interview, but she didn’t bow out.

Animation appeared once we started talking about the growing needs in our community for home bound assistance. Larkin can and did rattle off statistics and projections that would intimidate the less than committed non-profit worker. CASA’s three permanent and four part-time staff serve as one of only two major providers of assistance to Madison County aged and home bound, lending a helping hand to almost 1,400 needy souls. Medicaid Waver, the other provider in the area, maintains 400 slots for all of North Alabama.

Just the facts, ma’am.

In the past two years, the number of Madison County elderly and home bound citizens calling CASA for assistance grew by 31%. Their current number is expected to double in the next ten years as the Madison County population ages. CASA’s average client is 75.4 years old, with an income of $500 per month. 89% of their clients fall below the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty level, and 29% live alone. CASA receives no reimbursement from the Government or insurance agencies. They are 100% funded through grants and private donations and the services they provide are 100% volunteer labor.

Are you nervous, yet?

A little, I think. I ask how the CASA garden is going. That’s the project that I’m most familiar with because I’ve participated in both planting and harvesting events with them over the years. It’s great fun, especially if you sign up with a group of coworkers or help out a school group. 100% of the produce grown in this community garden goes straight to local home bound who can’t afford fresh produce from a grocery store.

Larkin’s grin gets huge for a moment. She brags on volunteers who have turned the patch of ground just south of the Huntsville Botanical Garden into a year ‘round vegetable producer. She tells me how wonderful it feels to be on the receiving end of all the grateful smiles on delivery day. Three pound sacks of varied produce are delivered to as many people as can be provided for. Then she tilts her head for a second and mentions that she really wishes they could expand the lot size. Not all CASA clients get a bag. There isn’t enough to go around. That fact leads to admitting to just how bad it feels to have to tell the “lucky ones” that they won’t be getting a second bag of vegetables this year.

Aren’t there other local sources of food?

You bet. Madison County is blessed with The Salvation Army, Manna House, and several other local food banks. The only problem is that these services require that you go to the food. Home bound elderly can’t take advantage of these programs. We also have Meals on Wheels. Unfortunately, they have a limited number of slots, they don’t deliver on weekends or holidays, and their routes are restricted. Many of our poor and home bound live out in the County, beyond their reach.

How are the other CASA programs coping?

Despite the efforts of the many wonderful and giving volunteers that power everything that CASA accomplishes, backlogs are growing and waiting lists are getting longer.

CASA is grateful to the many Madison County volunteers who provide:

• Transportation services to and from doctor appointments (some TRAM tickets are purchased for these trips, but they are pricey and have to be kept to a minimum)
• Grab rails and access ramps that allow some elderly a taste of freedom from their home bound interiors.
• Weather proofing for homes to lower heating and cooling bills.
• Visits and telephone calls with elderly that have little to no other human contact in their lives.
• Yearly “be Santa to a senior” packages of treasured and most often requested gifts, including: canned food, deodorant, hand towels, sheets and the occasional heater.
  And much more.

See the CASA website for volunteer opportunities for individuals and groups of all ages. CASA provides the materials for most projects. You do the work.

So grab a hammer, push a wheelbarrow, drive a van, or just sit and talk for a bit to make a home bound person’s life a lot brighter and a bit more dignified. You are needed. Larkin Grant has the numbers, and the callers, to prove it.

Where did the idea of Untold come from?

Untold came from all the things The Wandering Men disliked about other gaming systems:

Ashy, Nathan and Hall and a group of their friends had been playing a Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) based adventure that turned into a rules and mechanics nightmare after a few years of leveling. Around levels 12 and 13, their group’s collaborative story had ground to a halt, not because they were tired of telling it, but because they were tired of stopping to figure out if this or that were “possible”.

They developed Untold for maximum possibilities and minimum story delay. Untold mechanics are based on interchangeable cards so that, if you don’t like your options, you can trade them out on the spot. If you can tell the story about why something about your character changes, that’s basically all the justification you need to make it happen. The game does require die rolls, but there are few modifiers, no calculators, and only one die! (d20)

The Wandering Men also decided they didn’t like having to buy new books all the time. When they developed Untold, they did so with the intention that the core set would never be updated. That’s right, while they may release new character or setting card packs in the future, the core rules will remain the same. If you never buy another pack, you’ll be able to play Untold with a new group, using the same core package, twenty years later.

How long has Untold been in development?

Almost two years:

The full concept took a year of working, breaking down and working again in search of the most elegant solution possible. The entire game design was stripped four different times to arrive at as simple and flexible a system as possible, while providing a firm foundation for playability.

Once the system came together, it took another eight months of art creation, card design and database development to get to the point where they felt confident that they were looking at the version they wanted to present to the world. The Wandering Men have another few months of art and packaging details to complete and they’ll be ready for launch.

Will this launch be the first time view of Untold?

Yes and No, version three was viewed at Imagicon last year:

The beta production cards from version three received positive feedback from initial play testing groups, and the descriptions and sample artwork posted to their websites were getting some great reviews, so The Wandering Men took Untold on the road. After Imagicon, an individual bought enough cards to put Untold into black ink for the first time ever and followed the purchase with an invitation to another gaming convention.

Kwakcon, in Kokomo, Indiana, is small enough to be held in a private residence. However, the core gamers of this event have been attending for 30 years to demo their games (many are established game developers) and try out new systems. Talk about play test heaven…

What was the result?

A “minor” adjustment – read redo:

The feedback was both heaven and hell for attendees Ashy and Nathan. Everyone had rave reviews… along with a “minor” critique. They were told to lose the last vestiges of RPG tropes from their D&D background. If they could do that, they were told, they would have a winner.

It was a long ride back home to Alabama following that marathon of gaming and focus groups. Hall was unable to attend Kwakcon, so Ashy and Nathan called him throughout the night, discussing the feedback they had gotten and brainstorming solutions with sleep deprived brains. Nathan’s first brainchild was to reduce all mechanics to be based on just three stats called “body”, “mind” and “soul.” Nate is the “numbers man” of the group, but it took many attempts at breaking his logic to convince Hall and Ashy that this seemingly simple solution was robust enough to really shine.

Alternating naps, the conversation slowed to bursts as they swapped drivers or Hall called in with a challenge or suggestion, but by the time Ashy and Nathan were home, they had agreed on direction. A three stat system, with only one “magnitude” modifier that is based on the action card being used, became the defining factor of Untold.

The three stat system does not turn Untold into simple game, just one that puts story above mechanics. Endless combinations may be created from GM determined “starting points” to determine a character’s starting abilities. Once you are on your way, you can swap many of those abilities on demand, with the only requirement to stay within your authorized Untold Points (UP). The rest may be changed when you can tell the justifying story.

When can I play Untold?

Spring 2010:

The Wandering Men will be looking for demo groups soon. Volunteers who have regular role playing groups of at least six members that would like to lead initial Untold gaming sessions should apply for the position on the Untold website forums. Leaders will be rewarded with great swag, including pre-release samples and adventure sheets and future card release discounts.

Where can I meet The Wandering Men?

• Gaming Conventions:
  • Mobicon – Held in Mobile, Alabama, 14 – 16 May, 2010.
  • Imagicon – Held in Birmingham, Alabama, 21 – 23 May, 2010
  • Other cons will be published to the Untold the Game website, soon!
• Twitter: @thewanderingmen

The Wandering Men are also in the process of setting up shop in new studio space in Hartselle, Alabama. Visit their studio website for more information.

Notice: Pictures and Untold art are published here by permission of The Wandering Men Studio, Hartselle, AL 35640 USA, Copyright ©2009 by Wandering Men Studio.

Want to know more? Ask and ye shall receive, but you have to ask! Please leave a comment, and let me know what you think of the article, the game, the art, whatever :)

Life is good for Alabamian artist Angela True. “I pretty much do what I want, when I want to. I’ve found that if you learn to want to do the things you have to do, it makes life so much better.” A warm, centered and very spiritual Angela shared with me some of her life’s wisdom as we toured her home; inspecting the paintings she currently has available. Her paintings enhanced her words in beautiful echoes, probably because Angela has found much of her way through life by working through confusion, inspiration, frustration and excitement in the mediums she knows best: acrylic and latex paint.

Eleven years ago, facing a challenging time of growth in her life, Angela prayed to God for guidance and received inspiration to paint for the first time. The result was a series of fifteen paintings that Angela calls her “soul paintings”. In them, she searches out the boundaries of her belief system and the elements in the world that move her emotionally. The paintings appear elementary in composition but are deeply emotional in their content. In her pictorial telling of ancient myth, you can feel your troubles burning away as your spirits are raised with the embers that form the stars of heaven.

While Angela stopped painting for several years after completing her soul paintings, she kept several of them: reminders of the feelings of inspiration and release that helped her through challenging times. Even though her work has matured in the past few years since picking up the brushes again, she still keeps most of the soul paintings hanging in place, while new work rotates around them like a meandering assembly line. She relies on the feelings that they invoke. Like her Ocean Wave soul painting that calms the work room where she paints. When she’s feeling a little manic, she says it helps ground her so that she can create. On the other hand, when she’s feeling a little low, this painting interacts with some upbeat tunes she turns on to bring her back to center.

Angela’s work room is her home’s laundry room. Cabinets on one side, washing machine and drier a few feet over on the opposite wall, it’s more like a short hall than a “room.” It is a cheerful area though, with her soul painting appearing with the closing of the door and her current work scattered on the counter top. It’s bright, too, with white walls, a window on each side of the cabinets and two large florescent lights in the small space. No chair or stool gets in the way, either. Angela has some back and hip problems that are exacerbated by sitting for prolonged periods so she paints standing up.

Art is now a regular and featured part of Angela’s life. She has studied with other local artists and her work has grown in variety, detail and vision. She enjoys collaborative efforts, and the paintings she creates when working in groups seem to soak up that perspective beyond her normal purview, such as the beach scene to the right.

She has even added a couple of new mediums to her artist’s tool chest. Latex house paint helps her get the texture and depth of thick layers she loves in her abstract work, and just recently she’s experimented with oil paint, as shown in the landscape to the left. I asked her what she liked and didn’t like about oils, in comparison to her acrylics. She likes the ability to scrape away mistakes but finds oils harder to work with. While some artists work in layers, Angela prefers to start and complete a painting in one sitting. Slow drying oils provide more of a challenge to work in this manner.

Speaking of learning new skills made me ask if she had any advice for young people who thought they might like to pursue the path to becoming a professional artist. Her answer was quick and simple, “study art as much as you can in school, and get another job, too!” I’ll be posting an article at Associated Content about our discussion concerning learning how to draw new things and sources of inspiration for the working artist.

Angela True’s art has been displayed in her local area at Madison City Hall and at the Huntsville Art League (HAL). She’s currently applying to The Arts Council (TAC) to show some paintings at the Von Braun Center, including the tree lined path paintings shown to the right and below. Currently, Angela’s work can be viewed and purchased at The Sidewalk Arts Stroll in Huntsville, Art on Main in Madison, The Monrovia Art Fest, Athens Art on The Square, or by contacting Pick My Brains Art at 256.233-3690. You can also read about her latest art shows and events at pickmybrainsart.blogspot.com.

All artwork pictured in this article Copyright 2008-2009 Angela True.