TrentTroop

A lot has gone down the past few days. First off, my first full-length RPG book is available on RPGnow.com. Its called the Libris Personae and it is a d20 NPC collection. (Check out www.rpgnow.com/default.php?man… for the whole schebang). It features some art that you've seen here and a lot you haven't. If you game, I strongly encourage you to check it out.

Also, I've launched two Cafepress stores. One for Octavirate Games Merch: www.cafepress.com/octavirate

and one for my own stuff:

www.cafepress.com/roboticagnos…

If you see a deviation in my gallery you want on a shirt, mug, etc, let me know and we can probably get it up there. None of the fan art, though, we can't get away with that.

-Trent

Hey all.

I'm going to be uploading a lot of new art and some older art as well over the next few days. I've decided to bring in some of my better Transformers fan art pieces. These should, however, be counterbalanced by more pen-and-paper artwork, both of my own invention and inspired by outside sources.

The first several of these releases are available in the gallery. Do enjoy and let me know what you think.

-Trent

Soon to be posted on www.myspace.com/trenttroop/
Current Mood: Surreal

Not much to remember off tonight's dream, but what I do remember was awesome.

I dreamt that I was on tour as the lead singer of the band "Yith Pistol" (Which, in reality, is a collaborative effort I nudged Russ and Shawn into and that I do not sing for... yet.) And we were in the biggest venue of our tour: Tokyo! Most of the dream consisted of me, in a very post-Beatles pop-rock ensemble, hanging out in a penthouse hotel room and talking with the Japanese press about our latest album.

There was also a generic Japanese idol singer there, who had been kind of following our band around as this weird fusion of fan/stalker/collaborative colleague. She was feeling depressed about her future career, and I told her that she'd be bigger in Japan than Yith Pistol. I seem to recall saying this because I sang in English by necessity and she sang in English by choice, and the audience would think that was much cooler.

I assured her that once we left Japan her career would take off. And I promised the band would come back for a joint concept, but I think I was lying. Russ was off-frame for the whole dream (probably shopping in the technology district, knowing him), but Shawn was there for the interview. If you're reading Shawn, smoked John Lennon glasses and a white David Byrne suit is a good look for you.

A little smooth, possibly, but not every dream can be a manifestation of directional telekinesis or a lengthy pursuit of a chimerical horror while in the company of 19th century British hunters.

Or can it?

---

If there's one thing I've learned from myspace, it is this:

I am totally a hit with the fictional ladies.

I mean it! I've never gotten so many requests for friendship from multiple, improbably hot strippers with their own porn pages! And they all use the same text in their descriptions from themselves, which assuredly proves that they're from very similar backgrounds. And they're all the same age, and from Tulsa! Apparently, there's an entire boroughs of hot, fictional women hidden somewhere in this town. A sort of literary suburb, where a hard-working class of marketing fundamentals marry traditional female stereotypes and raise beautiful girls that grow up to be sexually liberated exotic dancers.

Most assuredly, the traditional sweet sixteen gift in this township is a webcam.

Now, since all these girls are just coming off breakups with guys that don't get their need to strip, I have to expect that there's a tradition of arranged marriage going on. Every winter the imaginary parents match up their conceptual darlings with guys from Plausible Stereotype, USA, and by summer they've all dumped the poor schmucks because they're just too possessive. And they should know better... INFORMATION IS MEANT TO BE FREE!

And where do these girls go? Strait to me, baby! One look at my seductively nerdy myspace page and they're "all up ons!"

I think I've figured out why, too. These are fictional girls. Thus, while real-world mojo is harmless to them, fictional mojo is ultra-potent! Certainly, this means I am awash in fictional charisma! Beware, imaginary mothers, the very idea of my smooth-talk will have your fictional daughters out of their already-stripped away pants faster than you can say "There is an Invisible Dragon in my Garage!"

In fitting with my amazing hypothetical suave, I will, for the remainder of this entry, be referring to myself as "The Trent".

Imaginary Rules for Fictional Persons wishing to get lucky with the Trent:

1) The Trent isn't that into strippers. Please attempt to meld into one of the Trent's improbable fantasy woman archetypes*:
A. Highly successful yet vulnerable and caring business woman.
B. Vaguely Eastern European Villainess with dreams of world conquest... and amore!
C. Cunning professional or artistic rival with a penchant for clever putdowns and seething sexual tension.
D. Irrepressible joyful and artistic free spirit. Bonus points for sitcom-esq hilarity. Extra bonus points if actually a capricious genie or witch (the broom and black hat variety). Extra Extra bonus points for evil twin or meddlesome supernatural parent.
F. Winona Ryder.
* Bonus points for wearing glasses, having a secret identity, or being able to sing.

2) The Trent appreciates a private message requesting friendship ads from fictional hotties. The Trent has many such hypothetical lady-types petitioning him, and the extra effort makes all the difference.

3) The Trent finds fictional women beautiful regardless of supposed race or ethnicity. Feel free to change it up.

4) The Trent has no interest in learning how to pilot a Cessna. The Trent is not a vampire, nor a time-traveller, nor even a terribly great driver. Air travel skills in the hands of the Trent are an open invitation to chaos, so stop asking.

5) Kindly answer one of the Trent's many deep questions while petitioning for friendship:
a) Why would there be a meaning of life?
b) What is the greatest song by They Might Be Giants? Explain why.
c) How Surreal is too surreal?
d) If the universe is destined for absolute entropy, wouldn't gravitational forces eventually, over a long enough time, begin compacting the lukewarm matter and energy back into solid objects, even if distance is too great to allow for a "Big Crunch?"
e) CAN YOU DIG IT!?
f) To be like the hu-man! To laugh… feel… want… Why are these things not in The Plan?!

I am the Trent. I declare this blog entry... RESOLVED!

Mirrored from www.myspace.com/trenttroop/
Current mood: Working

I had to move.

This was the theme of my latest dream. I had to move. And so, I was moving into this hole in the wall apartment. It was a literal hole in the wall. There was a neighborhood, with a towering black stone wall fencing it in. My new apartment was a tiny dorm-sized room carved into this wall of black stone. I was partway moved in when I discovered that the house directly across from me was where my friend Brad was living.

In the dream, Brad had been living in the basement of a couple's house. They were project investors, and had taken a liking to his voice acting business and were supporting that. I wound up meeting the husband as I was moving and he offered to let me move into one of their spare rooms. I said I would think about it.

I took a quick tour of their house. They were very hands-on investors and had recently taken a wash with a drug-testing company that was working with NASCAR. Thus they were stuck with dozens of official NASCAR drug-probes (two guesses where they were supposed to go) and were trying to figure out alternate uses for them so they could sell the things, of which they had many boxes.

I decided that I ought to just finish moving into my hovel. On the way back to it I found a giant, almost 3-d mural that reminded me of an old 70s album cover. I went back to my little dorm room-apartment-cave, saw that it was 2:45, suddenly realized I had to be at work, and was awakened by the alarm clock.

Fortunately, it was about 11:15 when the alarm clock woke me in the real world.

---

Now, something that needs to be said about my dreams is that, for the most part, they seem to occur within an expanding but still somewhat stable geography. This has been going on since I was about 12. This dreamscape features a number of different stable locations: The shantytown university, the loop highway, the fast train to hell, a vast lake populated by giant prismatic whale-gods, an abbreviated Tulsa, the seaside 70's town, McAlister, my grandfather's house and so forth. These places lay out geographically pretty well, and are usually a stable distance apart.

This most recent dream takes place in a newer town on the loop highway. I call it Pleasant, USA. Its a strange suburban paradise (on the surface), which seems based on my memories of Wyoming mixed with Austin, Texas. It's major features include: Poorly thought out roadways, a large number of suburban houses, mountains and hills, an elementary school, and a deep-seeded sense of "something isn't right here". Most of the people in Pleasant appear to be, on one level or another, insane. Almost as though they were being imprisoned there rather than living there freely. Sometimes, MiBs wander around in black vans looking for people who don't belong.

More later, this has been another installment of "Tales from Trent's subconcious!"

-Trent

Mirrored from www.myspace.com/trenttroop
Current mood:  quixotic

Being exhausted from work I decided to go to bed early.

This landed me in the middle of one of the weirdest dreams I've had in some time.

I was at some sort of camp that appeared to be designed like a university campus, possibly OU's campus, from the few times I've visited there. It certainly wasn't TU's campus. Anyhow, myself, most of the people from the highschool reunion, and a bunch of my fandom buddies were there, and we'd been divided into two "teams" living in two huge dormatory/camp cabins. During the day, we'd "adventure" through the campus, dealing with all sort of stuff that at first seemed kind of like ren-fair acting but more and more real as the dream went on.

Most of us had walkie-talkies or cell phones. I spent a lot fo time opening doors for pople that had been locked out and performing minor rescues. The problem was that, as things went along, more and more of my clothing kept getting destroyed. Fleeing "Evil knights" into a pond cost me a sock and shoe. Shirt got caught while fighting some sort of monster, etc. So when everyone gets gathered together to watch an old grainy educational film, I'm in my boxers and that's it.

Mind you, I don't realize I'm naked until its time to sit down. I suddenly realize I'm surrounded by the ladies on my team and I'm almost in my birthday suit. So, I decide to run back to the cabin to get myself dressed and sneak back in. I do so, and when I get there the place is full of workers who are going through everyone's stuff and are rearranging it. I'm pushing my way past them, asking them who they are ('we work here') and what they're doing ('you don't need to know that'). I finally make it to my clothes and get dressed, when I get a call on my phone from the camp counciler. "Oh, don't worry about all those people, Trent, say, on your way out, I think I left an old nintendo plugged in incorrectly, can you fix that?"

That's about the point where I wake up.

-Trent