The Life and Times of Johannes Cabal

Jonathan L. Howard's Johannes Cabal is a necromancer and (as one might expected) a disagreeable sort of guy, though not in the usual cackling villain sort of way. True, when we first encounter him in Johannes Cabal the Necromancer he’s running a travelling carnival as a cover for collecting souls for Satan--but he’s got important goals. Mainly, it's Cabal’s arrogance and disregard for social niceties that make him unlikable--but those qualities only make him more enjoyable to read about.

Cabal has appeared in three novels. The first tells the story of the carnival and features Cabal’s more moral brother, Horst (a vampire). The second, Johannes Cabal the Detective, has Cabal on the run in a Ruritanian crazy-quilt Europe and forced by circumstances to solve a series of murders on an airship.

Both of theses novels feature quirky characters and a good deal of humor amid the soul-stealing, political intrigue, and murder.

Cabal himself emerges as a more complex character than he first appears. He’s a misanthrope by all appearances, but he wants to conquer mankind’s greatest enemy--death.  He just doesn’t care overmuch who he’s got to kill or what amoral direction his “studies” have to take to do it.

The world of the novels is ours but with some differences: extra European nations, ornithopter-like aircraft, and a generally higher profile for necromancy, most prominent among them. The time period the stories takes place in is pretty vague, too; it mostly seems to be loosely Edwardian (maybe late Victorian), but with occasional mentions of science/technology that might even place it in the early 1960s.

The third Johannes Cabal novel is apparently out in the UK. Johannes Cabal: the Fear Institute is about an expedition into the Dreamlands, which sounds promising. Howard sprinkles the occasional Lovecraftianism in the other novels, so it will be interesting to see what he does there.

In preparing this post I ran across an article written by Jonathan Howard himself about Cabal on D&D website. I’ll let the author himself tell you how Cabal can inspire gaming. He even gives a character sheet!

I can say the novels are well worth a read.

In This Thrilling Episode...

If you have an interest in hero pulps or movie serials, you'll want to check out Curse of the Phantom Shadow on Kickstarter.  It's a film project by Mark Ross that's an homage to exactly those sorts of media.  Here's an excerpt from the synopsis:

The year is 1948 and the United States has a new enemy, The Phantom Shadow. This dark figure has diabolical plans for captured scientist Dr. Hammond and his War Department weapons of mass destruction. When the Phantom Shadow launches a missile attack on key locations in the United States, the government takes action.


There is only one man to call: elite government operative, Agent 236!  Agent 236 is dispatched to rescue Hammond and stop the Phantom Shadow's nerfarious plans.

Check out an excerpt on the project page here.  It's fun and looks like a labor of love for all involved.

Thraug's Head

Not so long ago, a patron at one of the saloons or beer gardens on the southeast riverfront of the City barony of Shancks might have encountered the not-quite-deceased head of a monster, preserved in a jar. If they sat close to the distorted and slack-mouthed visage in the murky liquid, they might have heard its muffled, gurgling whispers.

The head of Thraug was a fixture along the narrow peninsula that bore his name, Thraug’s Neck. Popular superstition held that the head was good luck--certainly its original owner would have agreed it was better to have it than not. Unfortunately, for the eponymous merman (or merrow, some say), his luck ran out the day he quarrelled with Jarus Shanck, one-time assassin turned landowner.

Opinions differ as to what precipitated the violent encounter, but historians and folklore agree that Jarus Shanck never did require much excuse for murder. His preservation of his opponent's head in jar of alcohol is also viewed as in keeping with his macabre sense of whimsy.

Shanck gave the head to a henchman who made it the centerpiece of a tavern he opened. And so began Thraug’s vigil: watching unblinking through smoke-smudged glass as those around him pickled themselves from inside out. Some strange magic kept the merman’s head alive and he was said to speak prophecy--usually the ultimate fate of the person listening. He could be enticed to answer specific questions at times, though his answers were circumlocutious. Other times his utterances were merely pained observations on the fickleness of fate and the ephemeralness of this world, which listeners never failed to find insightful and moving.

More than one aged barkeep will tell you (with a nostalgic gleam in his eye) that a few words from ol’ Thraug were always good for another round.

Warlord Wednesday: Links

Life interrupted my regularly scheduled review of the continuing adventures of Travis Morgan, the Warlord.  We'll return to that next week.  In the meantime, here's some Warlord-related links to check out:

MikeGrell.com - the official website of the original writer/artist and creator of Warlord.
The Warlord - Scott Dutton's great Warlord fansite.  He's also got a page of links.
Fanzing's "The Warlord Reading Guide" - A short analysis of the first Warlord series with recommendations.  Also look for "The Quotable Warlord" on the same site.
Hardin Art Studios - The blog of the artist who did great work on several issues of the most recent Warlord series.  The art on this post is his.
Edit: Jim Shelley suggests I add my college term paper style musings on Warlord as a fable on imperialism at the Flashback Universe.

Legend & Folklore in a Fantasy World

Perusing The Sutton Companion to British Folklore, Myths, & Legends got me thinking about the place of the strange, mysterious, and magical in fantasy worlds. The British Isles have got stories of all sorts of fairies, lake (and well) monsters, and more than a few witches--all of which could be easily approximated in local tales of nearby monsters in any fantasy rpg setting.

But real world folklore gets weirder than that. Ned Dickson’s skull on Tunstead Farm in Derbyshire would tap against windows to warn farmers about sick animals or cause the walls to shake as a sort of burglar alarm. Several phantom coaches roam the night roads. Every ghost is a story, not a monster to be battled.

It seems to me that most fantasy game encounters are mundane compared to this sort of stuff--or perhaps, utilitarian is a better word. As it has been said before, there ought to be more weird, unpredictable things in game settings.  Not just in the Weird Tales sense, but in the good, old-fashion folktale sense.

Beyond that, there ought to be more stories told by the local tavern denizens that are just stories. I don’t think the demonstrable existence of magic in a world, would make people less likely to make up tales to explain odd events or simply to pass the time--if anything, a world full of magic that the common man doesn't understand would seem likely to increase this sort of thing.  More events would need folk explanations; more fears would need comforting.

Player characters (no paragons of scientific rationalism, themselves) ought to never know whether the rumor they’re hearing is the inside-scoop on a local monster or another tavern tale. There ought to be as many fake magic items being horded away as real ones--maybe more.

Warlord Wednesday: Back Out

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Back Out"

Warlord (vol. 1) #69 (May 1983)

Written by Mike Grell (Sharon Grell); Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Mike deCarlo

Synopsis: Morgan, Jennifer, and Shakira are preparing to return to their own time through the magic mirror before its power fades. Machiste and Mariah are staying behind, as is (apparently) Rostov.

The three step through—but only Jennifer arrives back in Castle Deimos.

Morgan and Shakira awaken in a modern city. When Morgan sees the Syndney Opera House, he realizes where they are. The two begin to explore. Strangely, there are no lights on, nor any people around.

Well, almost none. There are these street punks dressed like an 80s pop band:

Before the punks can do anything but pose, Shakira changes into cat form and jumps on the leaders face. Flashdance punk pulls a gun, but Morgan is quicker with his own pistol. The woman has her gun out, but she sees the look in Morgan’s eye and surrenders. Morgan confiscates their guns and ammo, but lets the surviving two go. He gives a gun and holster to Shakira.

Morgan thinks he knows what happened and explains his theory to Shakira: A nuclear war must have occurred, but Australia wasn’t a prime target so it wasn't bombed. Radioactive fallout would have spread here, though, killing the people and leaving the city empty.
Morgan believes their only way back to Skartaris is to make for Antartica and go through the south polar opening. Any other course would take them through greater exposure to radiation. The two begin a trek to Australia’s southern coast.

They travel for several days relatively uneventfully. Then, in the desert, Morgan sees fresh hoof prints left by a shod horse. Morgan follows them, interested in seeing what civilization is out here.

They come to a cliff overlooking a large farm surrounded by a high fence and barbed wire. They discuss the possibility of getting some horses, but then:

Things to Notice:

• Morgan likes to draw maps in the dirt, if you haven't noticed.
• Morgan's just assuming there's a south polar opening to Skartaris.
• We get a hint that Shakira may have been to the surface world before.

Where It Comes From:
The title of this issue certainly refers to Morgan meaning "back out" of Skartaris, but is also a play on "Outback"--where some of the story takes place.  The Australian post-nuclear war setting may owe something to On the Beach (either the 1959 film or the novel), where survivors wait for a cloud of radioactive fallout out to arrive and kill them.

In the Blood

The element iron has a special status: it carries oxygen on our blood; it’s the most abundant element in the earth’s crust; and it has the most stable atomic nuclei. More to the point for fantasy gaming: "cold iron" is said to ward off or harm fairies, ghosts, and/or witches.

In the novel Enterprise of Death by Jesse Bullington, magical attitude is inversely related to iron in the blood. A necromancer explains it this way:

“Iron, as I’ve told you, is one of the only symbols that represents what it truly is, here and on the so-called Platonic level of reality...Because it is true material and not just a symbol of something else, iron restricts our ability to alter the world, be it talking to spirits or commanding symbols or however you put it.”

Not only does this nicely tie some of the real properties of iron with its folklore properties, but it would have some interesting implications in fantasy games. Prohibitions against metal armor and the working of magic make sense in this light. Even more interestingly, it might it explain why D&D mages tend to be physically sort of weak--they need to be somewhat less robust in order to work magic well. Maybe higher Constitution scores actually impairs magic, or impairs the “level” a mage can advance too? That might also example the traditional dwarven poor magic aptitude: they’re hardy, creatures of the earth (where iron’s abundant).