Why the Troll?

When I originally joined the PGCO (Player's Guild of Central Oklahoma), a local RPGA gaming Club, I began attending the regular meetings to see where I could help. The most active part of the club at that time seemed to be the NETWORKS newsletter, edited by then member Scott Douglas. While sitting in one of those meetings, I was informed that they needed a drawing of the official club mascot for a contest in the newsletter, that mascot was Fugly Troll. I had not encountered this part of the group dynamic before, and asked a couple of questions. It turned out that the name Fugly was derived from a rather profane remark. I was not actually amused at the crude nature of the humor, but I did volunteer to help. Thus began my subversion of the patron emblem.

As it turns out, the mascot was an actual sculpture made from what looked like roof thatch, acorn shells, an odd bead or two, a 20 sided die, and various other odds and ends all glued together and placed in a protective goldfish bowl. I am not sure what was more distressing, the sculpture's name, or the fact that someone actually took the time to assemble this grotesque pile of garbage. Delighting in the tacky totem, I sat down right there and drew a quick contour line drawing of it with someone's ball point pen. NETWORKS now had clip art for the contest.

Still, I was determined to make some gradual changes in the image and name of this creature, and I ended up entering the contest. For this competition I had to "write up" this troll in the nomenclature of a some game system, any system of my choice. I chose the Amber Diceless system, and became the only actual entry. In doing so, I changed the troll's name to Phugli De Tr'll. More nonsensical than anything else.

I gradually put together a more "less incomplete" file on this mythical creature, accepting input from many individuals in order to create a montage of second and third hand information. The troll's file began growing quite large, and I eventually trimmed a lot of junk out of it.

Some time later, Scott left the PGCO newsletter position open when he moved to Lake Geneva to become the RPGA director for a couple of years, and eventually I got the dubious honor of editing NETWORKS. Shortly thereafter, I began experimenting with HTML and web site design, creating an online version of the newsletter called NETworks. For the print edition, I played up the mascot idea with an Icon that would also identify the web site. The two fingers in the air indicated that the PGCO placed second for three years running in the RPGA decathlon. This time I changed the name to Fugli, which I was later told was the Norwegian word for "bird."

Eventually, the PGCO fell apart, and since the web space was actually mine anyway, I kept it and the this mascot for which I have done all the artwork. My initial server space allotted me 2MB for a web site, when I outgrew it, I moved the whole thing over to tripod.com where I hosted the Gamers' Keep. When the Gamers' Keep became too large for its allotted server space, I moved it to this site, and the troll just keeps following me around.

I hope I answered your question. That is why I go by the handle of Fugli "bird" Troll.