The War of the Apocalyptics

Printable Background Information

INTRODUCTION

'The War of the Apocalyptics' is an expanded, prose reworking of a story sequence first presented in a series of comic books entitled PHANTACEA – Anheroic Fantasy Illustrated that I wrote and published in the late Seventies. Faithful to its comic book origins, it is a fast-paced, action-oriented mosaic piece that recounts the tale of the world’s last 10 supranormals from their “reconstitution” in November 1980, twenty-five years after their “final” disappearance in 1955, to what appears to be their second “death” less than a week later. A longer version of this novel was serialized in PHANTACEA on the Web from 1996 to 1998.

James H McPherson, Publisher, released War-Pox under the PHANTACEA imprint in the late autumn of 2009. The novel itself consists of 291 pages. However, including its foreword, afterword, and a sample chapter from 'The Thousand Days of Disbelief', the sequel to 'Feeling Theocidal', the complete publication amounts to some 316 pages. Purchasing any of the PHANTACEA Mythos novels is easy as you want to make it.

This backgrounder consists of the novel’s premise, a slightly more detailed breakdown of the novel itself, an index, complete with chapter titles and page counts, and some additional notes on the characters and concepts contained in the novel. A list of this page's contents can be found above. Lynx to excerpts from the novel can be found here. Information on the serialized version of this novel can be found beginning at http://www.phantacea.info/synopses.htm#warapple.

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PREMISE

Nine months after the Simultaneous Summonings of 1920 ended around Easter of that year, dozens of exceptional individuals were born. These were the Summoning Children. A great many of them became supranormals (‘supras’). So did some of their parents, siblings, children, other relations, friends and acquaintances. It was as if the gods and goddesses, the demons and monsters, of Antique Mythologies everywhere were attempting to make a comeback.

From the late Thirties until the mid Fifties hundreds of these supras were identified. Remarkably the world as a whole never did learn of their existence. By December 1955 only 12 remained active. Then there were eleven, ten, one, none. By Boxing Day the world was supra-free — and stayed that way, more or less, mostly less, for twenty-five years.

On November 30, 1980 New Century Enterprises launched the Cosmic Express from Centauri Island (a 3-peaked but otherwise largely man-joined set of once volcanic islets off Maui in the state of Hawaii). With its 6 detachable cosmicars, its central hub-vessel and its overall command-craft, over 60 individuals were on the Express. Intercepted by a Kamikaze craft mere seconds after its launch, it never made it to Outer Space. Instead, in what appeared to be a devastating explosion, it was thrust elsewhere. Whereupon it broke apart.

One of the cosmicars crashed on Damnation Isle, in the Aleutians, where the last battle of the Secret War of Supranormals was fought on Christmas Day 1955. A 3-eyed, blue-skinned, conceivable deity, one riding a whirlwind conjured from his lower body, came out of the sky to investigate the downed space vehicle, which looked to be empty. Within a matter of minutes the whirling entity was confronted by an earthen horror. So it was Devil Wind and Demon Land went at each other.

When it was over, they apparently weren’t around anymore. Neither were 5 more of their demon-devil ilk. That number included the four titular Apocalyptics: War, Death, Disease, and Disaster. In their place stood the 10 members of the newly christened Damnation Brigade. They were the last of the supranormals, back in the realm of the fully alive for the first time in a quarter century. They are the novel’s protagonists and, to say the least, they are in for a very rough ride.

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NOVEL BREAKDOWN

'The War of the Apocalyptics' is divided into two sections. The first, subtitled “The Damnation Brigade” (pp 1-155), is set on Damnation Isle (3 chapters) and in Vancouver, British Columbia (7 chapters), between Sunday the 30th of November 1980 and Friday the 5th of December. (John Lennon, of Beatles fame, was murdered on Monday, December 8, 1980.)

It recounts efforts made by D-Brig to re-establish some semblance of an ordinary life in a world vastly changed from the one they damn near deathly departed in ’55. Those who had children are now younger than their kids. Their parents, their friends and, yes, their enemies, those who are still alive, are twenty-five years older than they were in ‘55.

Furthermore, while there doesn’t appear to be any overt activity on the part of supranormals going on anywhere in the world of 1980, all is definitely not right with it.

For one thing there’s something on the Moon threatening the planet. Possibly it's aliens. Possibly it's fallen angel devils like those they encountered on D-Isle. (Since they had to have fallen from somewhere — heaven, according to many, as in the heavens — that must make them aliens too.)

For another the Kamikaze craft did not just blow up the Cosmic Express. It deliberately thrust it elsewhere. And that implies a hidden hand or hands, presumably human, likely a priesthood of some sort, colluding with the devils.

It is by now clear that these devils are nothing less than the gods and goddesses, the demons and monsters, of mythologies worldwide. Evidently they did not need to be reborn starting in 1920. They had never died; had apparently been in the same elsewhere into which the Express was thrust.

The second section, “Subcranial Temporis” (pp 156-291), takes place on the equivalent of Saturday the 6th of December 1980. In it we do go elsewhere. It turns out that elsewhere isn’t quite the same elsewhere the Cosmic Express went before breaking up (Cathonia, the Cathonic Zone or Dome, the Sedon Sphere). However, it is just below there.

It is the Hidden Continent of Sedon’s Head. (A clickable image map, copied from pH-3, is here.) Big Shelter to Anthean witches, the Other World, the Inner Earth and any number of other names to any number of other people, ancient and modern, demons and devils are just some of those who call it home.

Devil Wind returns. He, two of his siblings and their father, Bodiless Byron, who is just an oversized head, don’t so much make friends as become allies with the Damnation Brigade. The four devils can form something called the Byronic Nucleus. Doing so they transport D-Brig between-space through Cathonia to the Headworld.

In the Hidden Continent’s far north, the Nucleoids send them to the Thousand Caverns of Subcranial Temporis. It is an underground devic protectorate the size of the Outer Earth’s Sahara Desert that Byronics are not allowed to enter. (As detailed in Feel Theo, why they can't venture there came about as a still-enduring consequence of Thrygragon, which occurred some 1500 years prior to War-Pox.)

It seems the Apocalyptics and their buddies, including Demon Land, have taken refuge in the Thousand Caverns. Seems as well one of them, Death, doesn't just look pregnant. She gives birth then what’s soon to follow? Put it this way, there’s a reason they’re called the Apocalyptics.

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Chapter by Chapter Titles & Pagination

1. THE DAMNATION BRIGADE – pp 1-13
2. ADVENT OF THE APOCALYPTICS – pp 14-21
3. THUS SPAKE XUTHROS HOR – pp 22-36
4. HOMECOMING – pp 37-53
5. CEREBRAL UPDATING – pp 54-75
6. INNER DEMONS – pp 76-93
7. THEY’RE ALL CREATURES OF THE COSMOS – pp 94-101
8. SILVER SIGNALLERS – pp 102-117
9. FAMILY AFFAIRS – pp 118-133
10. THE BYRONIC NUCLEUS – pp 134-155
11. AKBARARTHA, KRONOKRONOS SUPREME – pp 156-175
12. CENTURIUM – pp 176-196
13. THE APOCALYPTIC OF WAR – pp 197-216
14. THE APOCALYPTIC OF DISEASE – pp 217-232
15. THE FAERIE GARDEN – pp 233-250
16. THE APOCALYPTIC OF DISASTER – pp 251-269
17. THE APOCALYPTIC NUCLEUS – pp 270-291

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NOTES ON MAIN CHARACTERS

The Damnation Brigade are, to use their codenames:

1. Cerebrus, the group’s leader, a cyborg (cybernetic organism, part machine, mostly human) with a knack for computers; also a mentalist with a talent for telekinesis; real name: David Ryne; more lynx re Cerebrus can be found here, here and here; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3;

2. Blind Sundown, a sightless Native American Summoning Child, presumably a Cheyenne, who wields the Solar Spear; he isn’t so much invulnerable as he exudes a ‘cosmic aura’ that makes him, in baseball terms, unhittable; real name: John Sundown; stacks of lynx re this enduring character can be found starting here and here; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3;

3. Raven’s Head, Sundown’s mount; an at least semi-sentient, but entirely inhuman creature of the cosmos; one with a mare’s body, talarial wings on both sides of all four of her hooves, a retractable unicorn horn and, as might be expected, a raven’s head; also has an exclusion zone that renders her unhittable; a ravenhead, though probably not D-Brig's Raven's Head, appears on the front cover of the graphic novel (said image should be double-clicked for maximum effect); ravendeer are mentioned in Feel Theo, wherein a deviated creature known as Hinny the Hippy (a psychopomp that is part ravendeer and part Pegasus) plays an important role throughout; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3;

4. Wildman Dervish Furie, a black, Africa-born, Jamaica-raised Summoning Child; becomes a Normie Normalman when he isn’t a ferocious, hard-hided juggernaut busting bones not so much for sport as discouragement; his Normalman self’s name: Gentleman Jervis Murray; there's more on Furie here and here; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3;

5. Airealist, a state-shifting (meaning he can turn into his element), cloud-haired Summoning Child of unknown, though presumably Italian heritage; uses his Aerod to wizard weather; real name used: Aires (‘Air’) D’Angelo; his twin sister and fellow Elemental is Sea Goddess; how they're first described in the novel is here; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3;

6. Sea Goddess, a state-shifting (meaning she can turn into her element), whitecap-haired Summoning Child of unknown, though presumably Italian heritage; uses her Aqua Ankh as a water wand to control that element; real name used: Thalassa (‘Sea’) D’Angelo; her twin brother and fellow Elemental is Airealist; how they're first described in the novel is here; Thalassa and two of the Apocalyptics appeared on the back cover of pH-3; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3;

7. Radiant Rider, a once-married, silver-haired Italian; a devout Roman Catholic whose parents adopted the Elemental Twins, Air and Sea, shortly after her birth in 1933; a materialist or “Etherealist” (as in ‘makes ether real’) who manifests her might in the form of both solid and radiant rainbows; when she’s using her abilities her hair goes all the colours of a rainbow; at the same time she manifests a modesty gown as silvery as her hair is ordinarily; like the Elemental Twins she’s a state-shifter, only she turns into a radiant rainbow, which she rides; real name: Gloriella (‘Gloriel’) nee D’Angelo Dark, hence Glory of the Angels; her ‘little angels’ manifest themselves in the form of winged eyeballs (a la APM/All-Eyes in 1000 Daze); once had a big angel too (double-click the Glory collage for an image highly suggestive of it/him/her); there's a feature on her here; how she's described at the beginning of War-Pox is here; how she would have looked had I published Phase One #2 is here; Gloriel also appeared on the front cover of pH-4; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3;

8. The Untouchable Diver, a once-married, German-born, at least partially Jewish Summoning Child; can alter his density such that he can soil-swim as well as become diamond hard; can also alter the density of others with whom he is in physical contact; real name: Yehudi Cohen; there's more on the Diver here; double-click on the lower image in the Diver's column for a back shot of how he appeared in the comic books; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3;

9. Wilderwitch, a face-dancing illusionist of unknown origin (though generally looks like a Roma gypsy); apparently born with the abilities of old-time members of the Antediluvian Sisterhood of Flowery Anthea (which is named after the Biblical Noah’s never-named wife); among myriad other purposes she employs Anthean Agates (her sisterhood's version of ‘witch-stones’) to get about between-space; Normalman name used: like her looks, whatever strikes her fancy; how she's first described in War-Pox is here; there are plenty of other lynx regarding the Witch here; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3;

10. Old Man Power, an occasionally nonsense-spouting near-giant at 6½ feet tall who’s almost as broad as he is tall; a shape-shifter, he has a number of different talismans, one of which is his Homeworld Sceptre; Normalman name used: Obadiah Melvin (‘OMP’) Power; there's more on OMP here; double-click on the lower image in the Diver's column for a shot of how he appeared in the comic books while wearing a mask; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3; in the course of War-Pox he's seen to be wearing or wielding either the Thrygragos Talismans or some things similar, of which more here.

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In terms of the novel’s construction, consistent with its comic book beginnings each chapter could pass for a separate issue of a 17-issue comic book mini-series entitled 'The War of the Apocalyptics'. In every chapter the activities of a few members of D-Brig are spotlighted. Sub-characters are also featured for purposes of that chapter’s plot line. Most of these sub-characters, especially in the first section, will not reappear in later chapters. Should the novel’s success encourage sequels, however, then they definitely will be back, albeit likely not with the Damnation Brigade overshadowing them.

One character mentioned a fair bit in the novel, but who does not actually appear in it, is the exceedingly wealthy Great Man, Loxus Abraham Ryne. Cerebrus’s father is now 80-years old. For almost 60 of those years he’s been the patriarch of the Illuminated Faith of Xuthros Hor (which is named after the Biblical Noah). The Rynes’ last name, by the way, derives from the river and the Rhinegold their ancestors reputedly found beneath it. It’s the source of the Rynes seemingly inexhaustible fortune.

Another missing but oft referred to character is Aristotle ‘Harry’ Zeross, Kid Ringo. In 1955, when he was only 12-years old, Harry used his Gypsium rings to teleport the future D-Brig to Damnation Isle, where he promptly abandoned them. As is made clear during the course of the novel the then youngster was acting on instructions from the elder Ryne.

D-Brig’s Aleutian antagonist in ’55 was Cerebrus David Ryne’s twin brother. Code-named the Magnificent Psycho, his real name is Saul Ryne. Saul-Psycho — rather, what’s left of him — appears as a counterweight to D-Brig in a couple of chapters midway through the first section.

Others who appear, howsoever briefly, later on in the first section are Raphael and Sophia D’Angelo, Gloriella’s elderly parents (the Elemental Twins’ adoptive parents), Gloriel’s daughter Estrella (Star Dark), and Glory’s surviving siblings, Tereza Lancz, whose husband Simon is the Signallers’ Strategos, Anna Maria Dre’Ath, whose husband's paternal grandparents were important players in the Secret War of Supranormals, and John Paul D'Angelo, a Catholic priest associated with Centauri Island.

Another character D-Brig reacquaint themselves with is Lilith (‘Lily’) Morgan. Her name might hint at more grist for the mill of novels yet to come since Primeval Lilith, the Demon Queen of the Night, played a pivotal, albeit largely unconscious role in Feel Theo. (That Lily will be back, howsoever consciously, in 1000 Daze.)

Lily Morgan was seven years old in 1955, when the members of D-Brig supposedly died or disappeared for good. In 1980 she’s one of the seven Silver Signallers D-Brig encounters in Vancouver before they are taken to the Hidden Headworld by the Byronic Nucleus.

Signallers wear the Silver (body armour, or exoskeletons, and individualized headgear predominantly silver in colour). They wield advanced weaponry appropriate to their codenames, which always begin with the letter ‘S’. When wearing helmets Signallers talk in indistinguishable, androgynous tones. They belong to Signal System, which is based in Silicon Valley, near Stanford University in California.

Their mission is to prevent the re-emergence of supranormals or, failing that, supra-suppression. Supra-suppression does not necessarily mean supra-elimination, though. Neutralization is the term they most commonly use. Members of the King's Own Crimefighters in the early Fifties, including Cerebrus, Furie, OMP, Gloriel and the Elemental Twins, used the same term — until it came their turn to be neutralized.

Once the Signallers detect D-Brig in Vancouver they try to take them out of action. (Consistent with pH-1 – as well as the short story appended to 1990's graphic novel, "Forever & 40 Days - the Genesis of PHANTACEA", which is still available for ordering – Signal System believes they, D-Brig, are grown up clones of the long dead originals. There's a good reason for that too, though again that's for the future file.)

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Silver Signallers who appear in the first section are:

1. Sharpshooter, real name unknown; Cerebrus thinks he is Thaddeus Hyperenor; one of the Trigon Spartae, all of whom were recorded as killed in ‘68; Hyperenor was the son of the Silver Arrow Assassins, a pair of Cretan-born anarchists code-named Sagittarius and Sagitta in the late Thirties and early Forties; although she was aiming for his father the Great Man at the time, Sagitta shot him, David Ryne, age 10, in the head in 1939; Sharpshooter also goes by Shooter or Shoot; he’s a System Seer or designer; he appears in the short story appended to 1990's graphic novel;

2. Space-Age Spartan, real name: Gus Soldakis; the group in Vancouver’s Greek-born field leader; he plays a significant role in the short story appended to 1990's graphic novel;

3. Shadowswirl, real name Lilith Morgan; also goes by Swirl; like Shooter, who's her boyfriend in late 1980, and Soldakis, who's the group leader, she appears in the short story appended to 1990's graphic novel;

4. Stiletto, real last name unspecified; real first name: Nick or Nicky; he appears on the front cover of pH-1;

5. Sapphire, full name: Sapphire Lancz; she’s one of Gloriel’s nieces; her mother is Tereza nee D’Angelo now Lancz; her presumed father is Simon Lancz, whose codename is Strategos; he’s a System Seer, a designer, and Signal System’s front-man, its face for the media;

6. Subitor, appears only briefly before going to Seattle to pick up reinforcements;

7. Stupendo, appears only briefly before going to Seattle to pick up reinforcements.

War-Pox is the first book in the Launch 1980 story cycle. As promised in its foreword, virtually all of the non D-Brig characters who appear in the novel's first section will return in next book in this sequence. Tentatively entitled 'Centauri Island', it too will be largely based on the phantacea comic books. However, much of its storyline will be taken from scripts initially written for phantacea: The Justice Chronicles, which I never published.

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Devils are Fallen Angels, which makes them, by definition, extraterrestrials. (Where else could devils fall from except the heavens?) Collectively they are known as the devazur race, a term inspired by the ancient Vedic and Zoroastrian faiths of India and Persia.

As detailed in the comic books, the graphic novel, the web serials and Feel Theo, there are three tribes of devazurs: Byronics, Mithradites and Lazaremists. All third generation devils (Master Devas) have only of one father, one of the three Great Gods: Thrygragos Byron, Thrygragos Varuna Mithras or Thrygragos Lazareme.

Even though first, second and third generation devils are as good as immortal, they can be killed. Mithras, in fact, is long gone while, of the two remaining Great Gods, only Bodiless Byron appears in the novel. There are lengthy lists of devils, divided into their tribes and with plenty of telltale lynx, here.

Master Devas are born in litters of three; that is to say they are triplets born simultaneously to their three-in-one mothers, the Trigregos Sisters, who never made it as far as the Whole Earth. Their solitary grandfather, the lone member of the devazurs’ first generation, is the Moloch Sedon, who is easily confused with Satan.

(As per here, along with the Dual Entities, who may not even be mentioned in the novel, I consider them cornerstone characters within the PHANTACEA Mythos.)

The Headworld is called Sedon’s Head because, if it wasn’t hidden by the Cathonic Dome and consequently could be seen from Outer Space, it would look like his head, left side perspective. (A clickable image map, copied from pH-3, is here.)

If the Apocalyptic of Death gives birth it will likely be to fourth generation devils. If that happens, they won't be the first ones. If they can thereupon form an Apocalyptic Nucleus, one to rival that of Unmoving Byron, well, that would be a first — a very dangerous first!

Demon Land (Antaeor Thanatos) is a fourth generation devil. Two or three of D-Brig may also be fourth generational devils, albeit with their 3rd eyes repressed. Demon Land’s devic parents are Tantal Thanatos (King Cold) and his Crimson Queen, Methandra of Mythland (the Scarlet Empress who, as an embodiment of Heat, is definitely hot stuff); he appears on the front cover of War-Pox; how he would have looked had I published Phase One #2 is here;

Thanatos was the name of the Ancient Greeks’ God of Death. Methandra’s name is derived from Mediterranean Athena, the name under which she was worshipped for hundreds of years pre-Christianity. Cold, Heat and their offspring are known as Thanatoids. The Parents Thanatos played fairly significant roles in Feel Theo. However, they made their debuts in pH-3. Most of the remaining Thanatoids appeared in pH-4 and pH-6.

The Parents Thanatos may or may not appear in the novel; they may also be two-thirds of the instigating reason D-Brig is back. (Someone had to arrange for the Kamikaze craft that deflected the Cosmic Express into the Sedon Sphere and it wasn’t the devils’ All-Father. After all Sedon is the one who cathonitized most of the devils imprisoned within Cathonia in the first place.)

Even if they don’t appear to, devils have three eyes and a power focus or talisman made out of Brainrock-Gypsium (glowing ‘Godstuff’, so-called because it’s leftover from the Big Bang’s Godhead). On the Whole Earth this miraculous substance is usually found in the vicinity of active or inactive volcanoes.

Devic bodies are daemonic; that is to say they are made out of subtle matter, the same substance Celestial Angels are made out of traditionally. Subtle matter allows them to become or remain solid, become or remain insubstantial, or to possess other sentient beings without giving up their own individuality. Decathonitized devils like Demon Land and the Apocalyptics have to possess other sentient beings in order to avoid re-atomizing.

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Devils who appear in the first or second sections include:

1. Thrygragos Byron, one of the Three Great Gods; sole father of the Byron Spawn (Byronics); also known as the Unmoving One and Bodiless Byron; he's only an oversized head; as told in the graphic novel, he lost the rest of his body before the Great Flood of Genesis (the Genesea); the Byronhead is the visible form taken by the Byronic Nucleus; it appears on the cover for pH-4; there's more on Great Byron here and here, among numerous other places;

2. Vayu Maelstrom, also known as Devil Wind; one of the Byronic Nucleoids; breed brother: Chimaera Glimmenmare; breed sister: Sedona Spellbinder; attribute: the whirlwind; power focus or talisman: presumably, because it glows, his topknot; pre-Columbian Mesoamerican worshipped a deity very much like him under the name of 'Hurican', hence hurricane; appears on the back cover of pH-1; also on front cover of both War-Pox and pH-4; how he would have looked had I published Phase One #2 is here; double-click on the lower image in the Cerebrus column for a shot of how Maelstrom and the Damnation Brigade looked in pH-3;

3. Chimaera Glimmenmare, also known as Ever-Changing Chimaera, Byron’s Stallion; one of the Byronic Nucleoids; as detailed in Feel Theo, the Dand or Devalord of Centaurs, hippogriffs and Pegasuses; breed brother: Vayu Maelstrom; breed sister: Sedona Spellbinder; attribute: unclear, could be confusion; power focus or talisman: his Brainrock mace; he/she, in many of his/her favourite forms appears of the full cover for pH-4;

4. Sedona Spellbinder, also known as Smoky Sedona because she is composed entirely of smoke; one of the Byronic Nucleoids; breed brothers: Chimaera Glimmenmare and Vayu Maelstrom; attribute: unclear, could be compulsion; power focus or talisman: doesn’t seem to have one; speaks for Father Byron, who cannot move facially, nor any other way except spatially; along with her fellow Byronic Nucleoids she appears on the cover for pH-4;

5. Dand Tariqartha, also known as the Time-Space Displacer or Chronocollector; a Lazaremist, Thrygragos Lazareme’s Persian or Earth Magician (put in terms taken from Roman or Cave Mithraism); Devalord of Subcranial Temporis; devic half-father of one member of D-Brig (a Kronokronos); attribute: mastery of Stopstone (Solidium), with which his Mantel worshippers are composed and what he uses when he replicates Outer Earth historical events (among other things, including their participants) in order to fill up his thousand caverns; talisman: his Power Sceptre; also appeared towards the end of Feel Theo;

6. Freespirit Nihila, once self-reputedly one of the three Unities of Lazareme (Datong Harmonia, the Unity of Balance, the other two being Chaos and Order), her new name for herself suggests she's more like an incarnation of Harm's most unpleasant aspect, aka Nemesis; if Harm then she's Tariqartha’s eldest sister in Lazareme; attribute: Balance or Harmony, a knack for helping folks get along with other folks; evident talisman: broken chains (the Unity's actual power focus is the legendary Necklace of Harmony, famous in antiquity because no good ever came to anyone who wore it after her); a major character in Feel Theo, lynx to essays on, and images of, Harmony can be found here and here and, well, you get the picture — Harm featured throughout virtually every expression of the PHANTACEA Mythos (although a mosaic novel, 1000 Daze might even be considered mostly her story);

7. Mater Matare, the Apocalyptic of Death; name (by her own assertion in Feel Theo) means Mother Murder; a four-armed Medusa complete with snakes for hair; talisman: presumably her glowing girdle (cestus), though she carries with her an equally glowing machete, noose, tomahawk and harpoon (these turn out to be her as yet unborn children’s power foci); she shows up on the cover to PHANTACEA Phase One #1; there a mini essay on her and her two immediate siblings here, unless it's here; as for her original power focus, in Feel Theo there's strong suggestion it was her actual head, that the cestus actually belonged to the devic Anthea, a second-born Lazaremist (over whom Ramazar literally lost his head);

8. Carcinogen the Leper, the Apocalyptic of Disease, often called Plague; wrapped in torn, pestiferous bandages like a malefic mummy; talisman: a perverse caduceus (it has a pendulum-shaped blade at one end of its skull-graven and carved, serpent-entwined shaft and a “disease pod” at the other end); War and Disaster defer to him more so than they do to Death (Mother Murder); he shows up on the cover to PHANTACEA Phase One #1; he also appears on the back cover of pH-3;

9. Mars Bellona, the Apocalyptic of War; a bonehead with a goatee, a Mohawk hairstyle made up of spearhead-spikes and a muscular, GI Joe body beautiful; starts out with a flail growing off one wrist and some sort of sword growing off the other; changes them to a cannon barrel from one elbow down and a Gatling gun from the other elbow down; talisman: may be his bandolier; he shows up on the cover to PHANTACEA Phase One #1; he also appears on the back cover of pH-3; (I bought the Bonehead mask often used on my Travels website mostly because it reminded me of Bellona;)

10. Nakba Ramazar, the Apocalyptic of Disaster or Sudden Destruction; dresses like a highwayman circa 17th Century England; because he hasn't one of his own, Ramazar-Disaster covets heads, collects hats; talisman: a flintlock shotgun; since he has no head, he too shows up on the cover to PHANTACEA Phase One #1; there's also a serendipitous sighting of a statue suggestive of Disaster here;

11. The Vultyrie, Disaster’s mount; an enormous grotesquery with two vulturine heads on two long, ophidian-like necks and with two, big birdie bodies joined together at their midsections by a glowing, half-wing membrane that may be her talisman or power focus; Ramazar rides her standing up, one foot on each of her two backs; attribute: seems to be able to order about birds;

12. Antaeor Thanatos, as above also known as Demon Land; a fourth generation Thanatoid; an Earth Elemental; talisman: a stalactite club; appears on the front cover of War-Pox; how he would have looked had I published Phase One #2 is here.

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Two other characters who bear special mention show up in the second section. They are Nergal Vetala, a vampiric devil, and her ‘soldier’, whom we learn was a Cosmicaptain. They are searching for the Trigregos Talismans (the Three Sacred Objects that played such important roles in Feel Theo). They are a sword, a mirror and a crown, tiara or corona formed out of Brainrock.

The devic smithy, Tvasitar Smithmonger (who features in 1000 Daze) made them in honour of the long lost Trigregos Sisters (the Three Great Goddesses who gave birth to third generational Master Devas). In the proper hands they can severely harm, perhaps even kill, devils. There's a mini essay and more lynx re them here.

Wilderwitch wears one of them, the Crimson Corona, at the end of Section One and for part of Section Two. Bodiless Byron and his Nucleoids almost refuse to bring her to the Headworld because of that. Freespirit Nihila is looking for them too; only she wants to destroy them, not wield them. After Wilderwitch and her partner, the by then Kronokronos Supreme, leave her to carry on their own way, Nihila vanishes through a Gypsium ring.

Hmm, could 'The War of the Apocalyptics' already have a sequel?
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