If not, I’m here to tell you that it tastes better that way.

Tad’s birthday was the other day.

And if we can have an excuse for a celebration — a reason to eat cake, we’ll take it.

Michelle sought out the Lego cake pan and made a lovely pound cake.

Taj provided the toppings — several kinds of fruit and whipped toppings.

I got an action shot of Michelle creating her masterpiece.

And, as you can see below, the finished product looks almost healthy.

That’s the “lite” CoolWhip topping, by the way, so it’s practically health food. Yum!

This past Wednesday it was Ashley’s birthday. I should have known that and I’m glad I brought rice krispie treats with me, but Ashley outdid me with Cupcake Jones.

Pictured are German Chocolate and “Pearl” vanilla mini cupcakes. Oh, my god, they are good!

We’re generally a big group so Ashley brought three dozen. We ate all the treats and all the cupcakes and we were down two people. Yikes. But we did play an extra 90 minutes because the battle was so epic. That’s my excuse anyway.

It’s a good tradition — treats for birthdays — because somehow we always have epic, bloody, deadly battles on those days .Actually, I think Angel’s birthday was an exception, but who’s counting?

Here’s a nice picture of Sarah and Tad.

We hadn’t gotten serious about the cupcakes yet, but then, no one was in negative hit points when this picture was taken.

This is a picture from Michelle’s birthday. We got her a bucket ‘o crafts. We had carrot cake that night.

And for the life of me I don’t remember the gameplay. No one died. I guess she was being nice to us since we’d loaded her up with swag.

We put pipe cleaners and markers and little things with beads in there. We put stickers and pins and I don’t know what all. I can’t take credit for the idea. That was Taj (Myntilly) — I always say she’s the brains in the bunch and that birthday present proved it.

We did have fun with the dragon while Michelle was opening her other presents. We titled the picture below: “Cinder’s bad dream.”

I’ll have to check the calendar — I don’t remember who has a birthday next. You can bet, though, that the battle will be bloody and the sugar consumption epic.

For the post “What’s a gaming session without food” there was an advertisement titled “Portland Baking” which listed a link to the Western Culinary Institute. Good banana bread!

For the post “Of Enemies and Friends” there was an advertisement titles “Giantess Shrinking Man.” I guess it was triggered by Tad fighting a Giant? It’s not in the post about a man playing with women and using small dice. In any case, it sent you to a site using the search terms “shrink” and “man” to find related products. Give me a break. Like anyone would use those two search terms together.

For the post “Props to the Props Mistress” there was a link titled “Recipes for Making Slime.” Well of course I clicked. I mean, who wouldn’t?

Link #1: Smile Makers Official Site – spellchecker is apparently working overtime. Flubber–>Slime–>Smile
Link #2: Recipe for Making – uh…making what?
Link #3-5:Various food recipe sites
Products: Slime Science Kits – thank the science gods!

This is an hilarious topic to me. I think we need to track this.

It’s not all about sweets, though. Angel sells these great jalapeno Cheetos. Best. Cheetos. Ever.

We try to do birthday treats whenever we remember. Angel’s birthday is tomorrow. I have banana bread in the oven now.

It’s maybe not too appetizing now, but wait until it’s fully baked! Rice Krispie treats are another favorite, but I only have half a bag of marshmallows, so no-go, at least for tonight.

Nonsticky foods like animal cookies are best, however, so we don’t leave fingerprints on the DMG.

Sometimes we just have to use extra napkins because messy is where it’s at. Karla made this amazing castle cake once.

I wish it was a better picture — this creation deserves a better photographer. Chocolate drawbridge, gummy fishes, gummy guards (I think this was our Kua Toa phase), chocolate cake castle with…… wait for it ….. caramel treasure inside. My god, it was good cake.

You’ve waited patiently — here’s the banana bread:

We are the Dungeon Divas and when women play Dungeons and Dragons, well you never know what might happen…. Sometimes we have cake. We’ve been known to throw back a bottle or two of sparkling grape juice. And then we slay a dragon.

Sometimes we talk about household cleaners. But that’s usually only when discussing how the bard would get bloodstains out of his tunic.
Here’s our group, give or take a person or two.

We’ve played together for just about a year. And every Wednesday we gather to fight monsters. I’d never played before, so I cannot say that playing in the “ladies league” is better or worse than playing with guys. I do know that I have a blast each week.

Sometimes it gets intense. We flip through the Players Handbook looking for information. We discuss strategy. We make stupid mistakes. We’ve come close to dying, all of us. What’s the tally? One person turned to stone. One person half disappeared. One person bitten in half and then reincarnated (Hi Sadi). One person dragged out to sea and half drowned. Frozen, fried, stabbed and strangled. This is not for the faint hearted.

Other times it gets awfully quiet as one of us tries to figure out how to do what she wants to do.

I’ve got over 50 spells and they all do different stuff. Deb’s rogue….. is she gonna climb or tumble or sneak? What about our bard — what’s his plan?

We’ve had two dungeon masters — Michelle and Angel. Michelle started this quest and now Angel’s giving her a well-deserved break for awhile.
Here’s Michelle.

She’s a crafty person and her props are awesome. Who else brings you real wands of control water? Or makes brochures of the Lucky Monkey?

And here’s Angel — Guardian Games’ guardian angel….. The woman with more D&D minis than is sensible and more Legos than any one person should own.

We are very lucky to have two great DMs in the group. They have similar play styles. They would rather keep the game going than spend a bunch of time haggling over the rules.

There are more pictures here.