User:Dane Savage

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Dane of War

Contacting me
Industry inquiries: If you are a publisher looking for a freelance writer or designer, please feel free to contact me at my GMail address. Rather than attract spam-bots, I'll let you gather my exact address from the information on this page. It's quite easy.

General inquiries: You will probably be satisfied by using my talk page.

General Biography
Everyone was a lot younger in the '80s. Especially me.

More than just a collection of dates, the 1980s were a time of discovery, innovation, tragedy and creativity. It saw the end of the Cold War and the start of MTV, a rise in unemployment and the fall of the Berlin Wall; G.I. Joe and Reaganomics, political correctness, the Walkman, the Tienanmen Square massacre and 'Live Aid'. There were turned up collars, poofed-up hair and a band of breakdancers - then later skateboarders - in every neighborhood. Neon was all the rage and Coca-Cola came in 2 different flavors.

In this decade I began my ascension to power. Born in the early 1970s, a few hours after midnight under a cold winter's waning moon, I grew up a child of pop culture - just barely remembering Vietnam, singing along to Travolta in the disco craze, changing jets into robots on Christmas morning, and swinging a plastic light-up sword at hoards of invisible Imperial Stormtroopers. Little has changed since that time.

Anyway, I'm in my mid-thirties as of this writing, I'm above average in height, weigh somewhere around 195 pounds, wear glasses, keep my head shaved and sport a goatee most of the year, I have six tattoos and several scars... a couple of which I gave purposely to myself as an idiot teenager.

I don't take myself too seriously... honestly I don't. I enjoy obscure humor, and on the right day I can laugh at almost anything... it takes a great deal to offend or disgust me, however it takes nearly no time whatsoever for me to offend others. I try to be as compassionate and open-minded as possible without losing my identity.

When I was a young child I had the usual ideas of growing up to be an astronaut or paleontologist. In grade school I seldom gave the future much thought, and spent much more time reading comic books and pretending to be Ponch from "CHiPs" than anything else. By the time I was a teenager, the comic books had remained, but I still didn't give much thought to a career, other than occasional thoughts about going into the Air Force and flying jets (although I would have much preferred to be a rock star). Then I got it in my head that I wanted to join the Marine Corps, which I almost did... until a series of strange and rather unrelated events later landed me on the path that brought me here.

I've since retired from the military (well, "retired" meaning that I'm out until they decide to use me again) after 12 years of total service. It's not really important to go into details about what I did over all that time - but I enjoyed it a great deal and learned skills that serve me every single day.

I am a giant science fiction and pop culture fan. Lots of people tune out and turn off when I say that, but it's true. I have a house full of toys, many of which are things I owned as a child and have foolishly let disappear - only to pay a lot more for 30 years later. I feel that letting go of the things that brought me enjoyment as a kid would be like turning away from who I am. As long as no one gets hurt, so what?

I've been a role-player since the age of 1978, when I got the first D&D set - and have been with the hobby since then. I play Dungeons and Dragons and Shadowrun whenever I can find a game. I also fell into comics about the same time, as when I was hospitalized with pneumonia around age 8, my dad got me some Conan comics to pass the time. That's all it took. I never seriously started collecting a lot of titles until 1987 when I picked up Uncanny X-Men #224 (I had pretty much only read Conan, Sgt. Rock, G.I. Joe, and Transformers up until that point). From that point on I bought pretty much every title that was on the newsstand, and did so for about 12 years. As far as wargaming goes, I got into the hobby relatively late in life - starting seriously in 1988. I've been painting miniatures and pushing small metal (and plastic) figures around tables since.

I am an atheist. I mean - hey, we're all born atheists. We are born without any belief in the afterlife and any supernatural forces - we are nothing more than empty vessels which society fills up with prejudices and lies. I've always felt that prayer and faith in some all-knowing entity is nothing more than lying to yourself... so I was very lucky to have been able to make the choice myself instead of having religion forced down my throat. I do not go to church other than for weddings, because I feel that I am endorsing ignorance by doing so. Despite all of this, I will not mock others for their beliefs. Most cannot bear to be any different because they were raised a certain way and do not wish to betray their parents. Many find comfort in believing in some type of afterlife. Whatever. You can be Christian, Buddhist, Muslim... whatever you want. I accept that - so please do the same for me.

Employment
I've been lucky enough to end up working as a comic writer, web designer and tabletop wargaming developer. I've worked for West End Games, Fusion, and Image Comics. I'm probably one of the very few professional writers who doesn't work with a Mac.

My profession by trade is a teacher - I teach everything from Mathematics to English (with a whole lot in between) to kids from 1st to 9th grade, as well as educate adults in how to speak English properly and with as little accent as possible. It's the most rewarding, meaningful job that I've ever had in my life. The feeling I get when I make a breakthrough with a student is one of the best things in life. That, along with crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of the women.

Hobbies
In my free time, which is very limited (or is the same as it has always been, but just goes faster as I get older) I surf the internet to try and keep up on world events, play my Xbox 360, and build and paint miniatures. I also have a tendency to wash my car a lot.

Wiki Edits
I like a lot of things, but I am very careful to only make edits when I am positive I know what I'm talking about. I joined mostly for that reason - I wanted to make a few small corrections to one thing I'd come across, and figured that it would just be easier to sign up instead of editing anonymously. Please do not misunderstand any of my edits! They are not done as personal attacks - they are done only in the interests of clarifying information.

 
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