Your name: Julie Tucker
Location:  Northern California
Age:  34
Sex:  Female

Family: I had a great childhood, parents that hardly ever fought and are still happily married, and a sister I’m still close to. Right now I take care of Grandpa and Valerie, my 11 year old daughter.

Pets: Greylish and Bugsy, my cats; Tigress and Pal, my goldfish; and Count Fishula, my plecostomus.

Religion: I pretend to be Christian but really I’m agnostic.

What is the most frightening thing you've ever done? Aack! Definitely
nursing school! There were times where it SEEMED like no one was
watching me and my patient was circling the drain and I was sure I was
going to be sued by an irate family after I killed their loved one. Once I
ALMOST unclamped an IV with the tubing almost all full of air…it is very
frightening to realize how close I came to almost killing someone.

Which of your accomplishments are you the most happy with? I got
my bachelor’s degree FINALLY and graduated summa cum laude.

What is your favorite word? It is hard to pick just one. Crepuscular is one of my favorites. Also fistula, voluble, viscous, antediluvian (in the Lovecraftian sense rather than the biblical sense), undulate, hyperbole, periwinkle, propinquity, cerulean. Crisps! I tend to like words that are fun to say.

What is your favorite time of year, and why? Autumn! It’s cool, the air smells of rain and smoke and spices, the fall colors, Halloween, and knowing that Christmas is coming up but not close enough yet to be a chore. I have more family traditions surrounding autumn than any other time of year.

What is your most prized physical possession? My nursing pin and cap. I don’t wear them but they have a special shrine-like location in my home.

What makes you cry? That maudlin “Rainbow Bridge” poem about your dog waiting for you to go into heaven together…every time I see it coming I try not to cry and I end up crying anyway. My sister is still good at making me cry. Late afternoon when the light is at an angle that makes me hear time streaming past me at breakneck speed. Otherwise, I am not that much of a cryer.

If you could have one superpower, which power would you pick? I would most want to e able to heal people, make their body completely whole and turn back the effects of age and disease. That would be a really, really great superpower. Or else, flying would be cool.

What did you want to be when you grew up? I wanted to be an author. I loved reading so much, I was sure I was destined to spend my days in front of a word processor in my jammies, sipping coffee and creating Works of Art. I wrote many beginnings of fantasy stories, but finished none. I finally decided I did not have the right type of personality to do something so self-motivated, even if I did have any talent.

What is your favorite mode of transportation? Flying! I love that moment when the plane waddles out on the runway and is all awkward and chubby and then it turns and WHAM it races and turns into this fast graceful powerful machine. I think I get tears in my eyes whenever I fly during takeoff. It is just SO AMAZING that we can fly!

What is the one thing you want to do before you die? One thing I would like to do is lose weight and get in better shape so I can go on some hikes that are just too strenuous for me in my current condition. Other than that, there are places I’d like to visit, but I feel lucky to have already done so much. I try to live my relationships with no regrets, and as a nurse it’s possible I think about death more than I need to, so I feel ready.

Tell us about your favorite RPG character that you've
ever played. I tend to DM more than play, but I have been
playing D&D/Pathfinder a bit recently and have a character
that I am particularly fond of. Her name is Drogheda, a
half-orc ranger from the sodden lands in Golarion; she poles
around in the swamp with her psychedelic snake and her
toad-skin armor and her swirling phosphorescent tattoos,
looking for the strange aberrant creatures that are preying on her town.

She is brash and more sure of herself than she has any right to be. She was sold as a slave as a child (girl half-orcs not being valued by the tribes of Belkzen) and due to unfortunate acts of piracy ended up as a “cabin girl” on a mostly female pirate ship. Her most prized possession is a beautiful porcelain doll from a vessel her ship looted; she secretly longs to be beautiful and human and keeps the doll secret and safe.

She learned much about piracy until the day she got too uppity with the Captain and found herself abandoned on a rock in the middle of sea. Although she finally reached shore, she has become slightly less cocky, but only slightly. I enjoy this character because she is the opposite of what I usually play and she seems so colorful to me.

What are your favorite RPGs? I like D&D 2nd Edition and 3.5, I’m now playing Pathfinder’s version of this. I tried 4e out but decided it wasn’t my game. I also am fond of Call of Cthulhu.

What was your first RPG session like? I played 2nd edition D&D at a friend’s home, and I think I was a human wizard—the DM tried to make me be a human fighter because he thought it would be easiest but I still, to this day, have never played a fighter. I remember a point during the game where I could just faintly hear Xena theme music playing in the background and realizing that this game was seriously very fun.

What was your WORST RPG session like? I have a tie for worst. The first worse one was playing for the first time with a guy I’d been dating and really liked and realizing that he was a jerky, annoying CN gamer and that things weren’t going to work out. The second worst session was playing with my sister and her girlfriend’s group. The DM was fine but the whole group acted like they had been sentenced to play as part of a work-release program. Although they’d apparently been playing together for YEARS they all acted as clueless as could be—

DM: Ok, there’s an ogre about to attack you. What do you do?

Player: I shoot him with an arrow and kill him. What do I find on his body?

DM: Sigh. You have to roll to see if you hit him first.

Player: Ok. Which one of these dice do I roll again?

DM: That one.

Player: Ok, I rolled 12! Is he dead?

DM: Well, you need to add your ranged attack bonus—

Player: (blankly) what’s that?

DM: SIGH

Seriously. Every game. And they acted so bored and tortured about it, I couldn’t figure out why they showed up.

Who is your all-time favorite person to game with? My best friend Kari—we have very similar playing styles and work well together, sadly I don’t get to play with her very much anymore as I am usually DM these days. I enjoy her very much as a player as well, though.