ArtRage and Dresden

Thanks to a post from 

, I found out about ArtRage, a wonderful painting program. I've been using it on the Iron Man costume design I'm working on for the Project Rooftop contest. The chalk tool is finally allowing me to get a texture/look I want for his virtual armor. I'll post here when I get it done to my satisfaction.

I'm very excited to be getting character writeups from the Birmingham alpha playtest of the Dresden Files RPG from

. S and I did some sample characters for the Magic City when we first found out about the game. This is as far as I got with mine:

Diana Nicolaides

Name: Diana Alcina Nicolaides

High Concept: urban archaeologist

Personal Struggle:

Where Did You Come From? Diana grew up in a Greek Orthodox home, the middle of five children. Her parents owned a Greek restaurant in downtown Birmingham. After school she would wander the block or so around the restaurant, developing a love of old buildings. She made up elaborate stories about the former inhabitants with which she regaled her younger brother and sister.

What Shapes You? When Diana was 6 and her oldest brother Daniel was 10, they were exploring an old abandoned building not far from their parents’ restaurant. Daniel, a mischievous boy, teased and tormented her on a regular basis, and decided to hide from her. She was getting frantic to find him and entered the remains of a one-room apartment. Diana called to him and, just as she stepped near what seemed to be a closet door, a feeling of terror washed over her. The closet door opened and a pale man covered in blood, holding a long knife stepped out toward her. She screamed, shoved the man back into the closet with all her strength, pushed a chair in front of it, and ran. Only after she huddled in her own bedroom did she calm down enough to realize that the man had been translucent—she could see her brother’s laughing face through him. When her brother didn’t come home for supper, Diana told her parents, leaving out the image she saw. Her father left to find him, without success. He found the chair near the closet door, but Daniel was nowhere to be found. The police were called in, but there was no trace of the boy.

When Diana went to Chicago University to study urban archaeology and architecture, she became more skeptical about the mystical and spiritual teachings of the church.