Maybe you're a new fan of AQ3D. Maybe you're a fan of Dage's from back in the early days of AQW. Maybe you think you know everything there is to know about Dage The Evil.
You're wrong.
Artix is away for a couple of days so I'm back on the design notes and... let's face it... almost nobody reads the design notes. So, since it's you and me, Dedicated Player, let's have a little fun.
Dage IRL
Here are some facts about Dage that you may or may not know:
Dage started as a player of AQ Classic, DF, MQ and AQW. He got noticed for his fan art and pulled from the community as a volunteer artist when he was like 6 years old or something.
He wasn't always the super chill, super encouraging, super artist that he is today. When he first came on as a paid staff member we had to ground him from social media a few times for picking fights with the plebs and rising to troll-bait. He is now a little older and a lot wiser.
He's color blind. This is actually true. Dage is Red/Green color blind so when we were working on AQW Frostval stuff, I made a red and green color palette for him to work from. His color blindness is also partly responsible for the unique greenish tint to the Legion items in AQW. He just thought it was blue.
He's self-taught! Dage never attended art school but instead opted to train himself, forcing himself to work on his art almost daily when he's not working after hours.
He says "Interesting" a lot. I think it's just something for him to say when either...
his mind wandered and he stopped listening or
he just doesn't know what to say.
Dage's one weakness is chicken. He's terribly, terribly allergic to some protein found in birds. Death by poultry is a sincere concern around the lab.
All of the factoids listed above are really, honestly true. Now let's start making some $#&@ up.
What Is Dage
Sure, Dage The Evil is one of AE's top artists... but what is a Dage?
Dage is an archaic form of the Danish word 'dag' which means day.
Urban Dictionary defines Dage thus: Drinking during the day. Generally used by college kids when referring to daytime festivities. Similar to day rage.
In the Silbo Gomero language of the Canary Islands, a dage is a bundle of sticks or twigs bound together as fuel.
Dage in the Koro language of India is a hairstyle that makes one's head look particularly like a gourd, complete with stem on top.
in Mandarin Chinese a dage is an elder brother or bro.
In Afrikaans, dage means "presently".
in Basque, a dage is a dainty house that looks like it belongs to a fairy.
Dage is a brand of gravy in a can sold exclusively on Raoul Island off the coast of New Zealand.
and my personal favorite... In the eastern European country of Latveria, to 'dage' means to accidentally soil yourself when you try to fart.
Still reading? Good God, why? You have to know that a lot of those in the last section were complete fabrications. I just made 'em up off the top of my head. I mean the first one and I think the one about Mandarin were true but the rest were lies. Latveria? That's Doctor Doom's country. I didn't make up the Urban Dictionary one but I don't accept it as canon.
What Comes Next?
You've come this far so I feel like I should reward you with something but if I had any nuggets of real information, I would have just written this post about that. I suppose we could talk about Vost the Chronicler but I'll probably save that one for tomorrow's Design Notes. Instead I think I'll just give you guys the recipe to my award winning orange-cranberry bread. It's really more of an Autumn thing but it's frelling delicious any time of year.
Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, salt and baking soda into a large bowl.
Cut in butter and hand mix (I use a fork) until mixture is crumbly.
Add egg, orange peel and orange juice, oil and vanilla all at once.
Stir just until mixture is evenly moist.
Fold in cranberries (and raisins).
Spoon into a greased 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.
Bake at 350 F for 1 hour and 10 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.)
Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.
If you like, you can substitute raisins for half of the cranberries if you're some kind of monster who can't appreciate the sweetly tart perfection of a cranberry.
