Doug

**Doug** is a small ogre that lives in a house in Merlin's world, with his mother and his father, and works as an assistant to Merlin the wizard.

## History

In 2012, Merlin and a scientist named Mary worked together to stabilize a portal between Merlin's world and Mary's world. The portal had protections in place that kept evil beings from traveling through it, but Doug was able to enter the portal to Mary's lab, as Merlin had explained that he was "mostly good".

The portal altered anyone who crossed it to match the universe they entered. Merlin purposefully left Doug's hands with fingers, while he gave himself the "mitten hands" of Mary's universe. He had hoped that the residents of that universe would inquire about Doug's fingers, but they never did.

However, in 2013, when a group of circus performers with paranormal abilities traveled through the portal to Mary's world, they asked Jenni how she did anything without fingers. Jenni stated that they'd get used to it, but she didn't know what they meant. She asked Merlin, and Merlin was relieved that someone had finally approached him. Merlin changed everyone's hands to have fingers, and when he was approached by a group of people asking about their new appendages, he expressed frustration that no one had paid attention to Doug's hands.

Later that year, Doug traveled through the portal to attend a party hosted by Julius Caesar. The party was in Caesar's palatial estate, and included guests from many different universes. There was a dance rave in every room of the estate, and Doug danced along with the other guests. Caesar declared the party a success, and all of the guests, including Doug, returned to their respective worlds.

In 2014, Doug was able to go back through the portal when it was timed to teleport to his universe, so that he could see his parents again. When he asked Merlin how he was able to go through the portal without having to time it, Merlin explained that his staff allowed him to control the destination of the portal.  Merlin gave Doug a belt that could do the same.

Doug was at first unsuccessful with the belt.  His first try led to a truck of bacon being teleported into his stomach, which left him sick and unable to move. Luckily, an errant spell by the fairy, Tinkerbell, caused him to return to normal. A subsequent attempt led him to be teleported to Easter Island. There, he met a groundskeeper named Marvin, who thought that he was an alien. With Marvin's help, he was able to get through the portal to head back home.

Doug failed to realize that he had left Merlin's belt behind on Easter Island. After several attempts, Marvin was able to control the portal, which allowed him to travel to Merlin's world. Marvin returned the belt to Doug, and Merlin warned Doug to keep better track of the belt, as it could be disastrous if it fell into the wrong hands.

Doug was later able to use the belt to travel through the portal properly, as he made it back to watch the fireworks with Jenni on the United States Independence Day on July 4, 2015. Doug enjoyed the display, as the fireworks reminded him of the exploding rocks of Mt. Milai back on his homeworld.

## Behind the scenes

* Doug is the protagonist of the *Doug the Ogre* collaborative webcomic and the adventure game based on that webcomic, *Doug's Moai Adventure*. He was first introduced in the twenty-seventh *Jenni* webcomic strip, and still appears in that comic occasionally.
* Doug and the *Doug the Ogre* webcomic are open to collaboration. as *Doug the Ogre* was released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license,  and Doug was released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license on March 13, 2014.