xp_logs | Doug and Angie

Just a harmless bit of fluff, really. Angie happens upon Doug playing with gaming supplements in the library and offers to draw and animate NPCs for him.

The table that Doug had staked out in the rec room was full of a -great- many books. All of which, Marie-Ange noticed, were open, and most of which had the Wizards of the Coast logo somewhere on them. Or the D-20 logo.

Which meant Doug was engaged in one of his more cutely nerdy hobbies, making NPC's.

Sliding up behind him, Marie-Ange planted a light kiss atop his head, and smiled. "I was going to see if you had been eaten by new Magic cards, but it looks like you have been eaten by the new role playing books, yes?" She sat down in the chair next to his and set her sketch pad and pencils down on the table.

Doug tucked the pencil he was using behind his ear and smiled at Marie-Ange. "I have a little bit of an obsession with creating NPCs. Especially when new material comes out." He indicated one newer-looking book in the pile of opened books. "Complete Adventurer just came out. So much cool stuff in it."

Marie-Ange nodded. "While I was away, I know." She had missed watching Doug get all giddy and excited over his new books.. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she smiled and added in a quiet voice. "I think still, that Complete Divine is better. Precognitive domain spells.."

Doug snickered. "Yes, we know about you and the Oracle domain." He smiled. "But I still say that the art for that sample character for the divine oracle prestige class looks like knowledge: fashion is _not_ on his list of class skills."

"Oui, that was a -horrible- picture." Marie-Ange said, shaking her head. "I could have drawn better. I do not understand why the artists think that people who know a lot of things dress in silly robes." She frowned, and pulled open her sketch pad, making a few quick pencil marks. "Even Odin's seeresses did not have coloured silly flimsy robes. They had dresses and heavy wool, see?" On the paper, she had sketched the basics of the robes, thick and heavy and hooded, and not at all colourful.

"Well, part of that is also the climate. You'd freeze to death if you went around bare to the waist like that guy in the picture," Doug replied. "But yeah, the whole gaudy colors thing is just silly."

"If I went bare to the waist like the man in the picture I think you would get upset a little, no?" Marie-Ange said, smiling a touch impishly. "Are you making a ..Divine Oracle for the game?" she asked, looking at the pile of open books on the table.

"Well, it would depend entirely on the situation. If it were just us in one of our rooms, then I'd be all for it. But if it were in the halls of the mansion in broad daylight...I'm a little selfish," Doug said with a grin. "Want to keep it all to myself." He looked at his notes. "I was thinking about it, yes," he said.

Marie-Ange smiled. "If I bribe the GM, can I get a sneak peek?" She patted her sketchbook and case of colored pencils. "I had thought that maybe minatures that really moved might be interesting..."

Doug's eyes widened at the thoughts that Marie-Ange's suggestion sparked. "Ooh..." he murmured. "I...have ideas," he said in a suitably grand tone to indicate the grand ideas that he was having.

"Ideas? Good ideas?" Marie-Ange said, already pulling the sketchpad open completly and resting her elbows on the table, and her chin in her hands. "It would make some of those rules I do not understand about fighting make more -sense-. Reach and the attacks of taking oppurtunity.."

Doug grinned. "It really would. It would make reach a whole lot easier, because the miniatures would be the correct size..." He remembered a particularly funny episode from grade school when a soda can, intended to indicate a huge earth elemental, had squared off against a small My Little Pony which was supposed to be a dragon.

Marie-Ange nodded. "Then ... perhaps I should go get the rest of the pencils and my markers and pastels and you can find some of the monsters we are fighting in the next game and I will draw them?"

"I sense one of my players trying to get inside information on the next encounter," Doug replied with a joking grin. "I may have to call for a Will save against out-of-character knowledge. So you better be good, love." He smiled even wider and touched her arm gently. "But yeah, go get your supplies. This is going to be fun. I bet Jamie goes off at length about how cool it is."

"I am always good." Marie-Ange said, then darted out of the room. She returned a few minutes later, arms full of a marker case and two cases of pastels. "Besides, I know you have made NPC's that we do not use. There is no way we can go through -that- many in even a few sessions, even with Miles doing a dance on all your plans."

"Okay," Doug said, laying out the books and pointing to some entries. "We're going to come up with something to stump Miles if it kills us. Now, here's what I had in mind..."