she got a 17 in "wisdom"

in the spirit of nerdiness learning about each other, I convinced K to take an on-line quiz to determine her Dungeons & Dragons character. This is part of the reason we work well together: she'll not only humor me but actually take it very seriously.

Now, back when I was a wee little computer-game-playing 8-year-old, I was fascinated with D&D but my mom (the southern baptist turned staunch catholic) strongly disapproved of it, in part due to the paranoia surrounding kids getting so wrapped up in role playing that they supposedly forgot who they were and ended up going crazy or slicing other kids with swords or something. In fact, I recall seeing part of some terrible movie with Tom Hanks in the early '80s where he does precisely this. I suspect it's not a highlight of his career.

Anyways, so mom never let me play, but I did anyway (natch). My good friend Samar who lived next door was a year older than me and also whip-smart and an avid gamer (back in the days of Atari, this was something). He also played D&D a lot, so I got to join in on occasion.

I was always fascinated with the separation of characters into a 9-by-9 matrix of morality: Good, Neutral, or Evil, but also Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. In modern-day Harry Potter terms, Hermione is Lawful Good whereas Harry might be more of a Neutral Good, and Voldemort would be Chaotic Evil. Your character also got to be some sort of cool race (think Lord of the Rings: dwarves, elves, humans, and their half-breed offspring), as well as have a rad job (wizards, sorcerers, thieves, etc.).

So, the purpose of the quiz, which K so valiantly offered to take, was to find your morality (called "alignment"), race, and career aspirations. She was happy to come out as a Lawful Good, Half-Elf Wizard who could live ~200 years, though she was upset that I (as a Neutral Good Elf Sorceror) would live about 600 years longer than her.

"Half-elf? More like a quarter-elf", she said. "You better start looking for another partner."

I think she was also a little mad that I, as an elf, possess "unearthly grace" and am "hauntingly beautiful," according to the description. I can't remember the exact delineation between her as a wizard and me as a sorceror, but I'm pretty sure it meant she was smarter than me.

Now that we've found this out, I'm starting to feel like my talents are being wasted in graduate school, so we're thinking of taking our show on the road. Faith healers and bodyguards for hire, perhaps, or maybe we just put on spontaneous fireworks shows. Just what my mom would have feared.