#343
Apr 27, 2025
Books
This week I read:
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
It’s probably too early to say this book has changed my life, but it’s certainly had an immediate impact: I set my pre-bed alarm to be 2h before sleep should start, rather than 30m, so this week I’ve been reading in bed more consistently and also falling asleep much earlier.
Humans have both REM (dreaming) sleep and NREM (“not REM”) sleep and both are important, I knew this. The brain cycles between REM and NREM sleep around every 90m, I knew this too. What I didn’t know is that the content of each cycle shifts significantly from mostly-NREM to mostly-REM overnight. Waking up early isn’t just missing out on a bit of sleep, it’s missing out on a disproportionately large amount of your total REM sleep! Go to bed!
Roleplaying Games
The Halls of Arden Vul
A pretty good session this week, the players defeated an ancient alien robot to secure access to the shuttle bay which means their alien friend has all she needs to leave this rock behind and head home. Naturally, she tasked them with another side-quest first: get the message to all the other rudishva survivors that they now have a way out. Drawing upon some hunches, they left the message with one of the Sun-Scarred Knights and with Thegan Whitemane, proprietor of the Inn of the Lost. They also asked Thegan if he was Maurikios, a name they heard from a ghost just recently, the name of a traitor…
The Master of the Sun-Scarred Knights is one of the rudishva they’re looking for—Melok-Ri—but I think he’ll ignore the message. He’s too caught up in his weird philosophy of preserving the eternal now. Thegan was pretty clear he wouldn’t be passing any message along, so it’ll be up to the players to track down Isok-Crix, but I don’t think he’ll be willing to go either: his vampirism disgusts him. That just leaves Reiv-Tor, who is utterly insane and not open to discussion. Triv-Lok has already been able to speak to Crellik-Var (who has chosen to stay), and Psalor-Ki (who is undecided).
In the end I think only Triv-Lok will go.
Miscellaneous
House Buying
No news this week. I’ve emailed the conveyancer to ask what we’re waiting for.