This free script provided by
JavaScript Kit
Lynx for pHantaBlog RSS: http://phantacea.com/blog/?feed=rss2
Top of Page Search Engine - Page Highlights - Onwards - Bottom of Page Lynx
Welcome to the open-ended saga of "Wilderwitch's Babies" |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Top of Page Search Engine - Page Highlights - Onwards - Bottom of Page Lynx
| | Phantacea Publications Welcoming Page | Internal Search Engine | Main Menu | Lynx to additional PHANTACEA Websites | Online phantacea.com Primer | Ordering Information for PHANTACEA Mythos novels | Ordering Information for Additional PHANTACEA Mythos Print Publications | Contact | Web Publisher's Commentary | pHantaBlog | | ||
Jim McPherson's PHANTACEA Mythos- Exclusively from Phantacea Publications since 1977 - |
||
 |
Wilderwitch's Babies
The saga of the doomed but ever-defiant Damnation Brigade continues ... |
 |
|
| Top of Page Search Engine | Decimation Damnation -- Sixty Second Synopsis | Decimation Damnation -- Back Cover Text | Decimation Damnation -- Auctorial Preamble | Notes on Graphics | Bottom of Page Ordering Lynx | |
||
Top of Page - Onwards - Quick Lynx - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx
Decimation Damnation -- Phantacea Publications 2016 Release
|
|||
"Decimation Damnation" -- Sixty Second SynopsisThe tragic tale of the doomed but defiant band of perhaps not-so-miraculously re-embodied supranormals known as the Damnation Brigade continues in the initial mini-novel extracted from the open-ended saga of Wilderwitch's Babies. By the time the Damnation Brigade regroups in the Weirdom of Cabalarkon only eight of the original ten are left. One of them is Wilderwitch. She’s lucky to be alive; even luckier not to lose her leg after battling the Apocalyptics and their fourth generational devic offspring in Subcranial Temporis. Then she gets pregnant. Her soul-self does too. Make that two. And for much the same reason she’s still alive and comparatively intact, at least physically. Who said daemonic possession was malefic? Well, Wilderwitch for one; not that she has much choice. You see, there’s this originally extraterrestrial Devil, capitalized, who’s not always in the sky looking down upon his Hidden Headworld. At least once a generation, on either side of the Sedon Sphere, he has to impregnate Mother Earth’s proxy, Primeval Lilith, the Demon Queen of the Night, they in their generally unwitting hosts, in order to preserve the Inner Earth; prevent it from being swamped by a second Great Flood. But are either/or, Devil and/or Demon Queen, responsible for the ongoing disappearances of the Witch’s fellows? Might it be her onetime baby daughter, who’s now years older than her own mother? Might it be the Witch’s lover, Saladin Devason, the Master of Weir? Might it be the Witch herself? Or is she merely the final target? D-Brig really should have called themselves something less self-fulfilling. |
|||
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Onwards - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
"Decimation Damnation" -- Back Cover TextWilderwitch's Babies 1 By the time the Damnation Brigade regroups in the Weirdom of Cabalarkon only eight of the original ten are left. One of them is Wilderwitch. She's pregnant. Her soul-self is too. Make that two. And soon there might be none. D-Brig really should have called themselves something less self-fulfilling. |
|||
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Onwards - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
"Decimation Damnation" -- Auctorial PreambleThus begins Phantacea Phase Two. Only thirty-five years late, you might say. You might, I wouldn't. I'd rather say: About time! It's something of a misnomer anyhow. After the non-appearance Phantacea Seven in 1981 – due to the fact that pre-orders didn't warrant continuing the Phantacea Mythos in comic book form – I was left with all these characters, tons of ideas and way too many storylines to ever do justice to, in any format. Was a terrible typist and even worse at cursive long hand. (Remain quite good at cursing, however.) Then Smith Corona or someone like them devised the Personal Word Processor, which meant you could use an electric typewriter and an attached screen to pre-edit, albeit page by page, before printing. (Still have my PWP and, yes, it is a Smith Corona. Don’t know where to get it repaired or buy a new ribbon for it, though.) Next, IBM concocted the Personal Computer. Then someone else – some say the US military, others say CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research) – invented the Internet. Whereupon I came up with PHANTACEA web-serials, which got me writing and publishing again. Now it’s back, howsoever expanded, in print, PDF and e-book formats. So, let me repeat: Thus begins Phantacea Phase Two … officially. ======== So, where were we?
She, once Harmony, nowadays Nihila, had already been reincarnated. Rather, she had according to her, in Here’s how her part in Helmoon, um, climaxed:
======== As you’ll shortly be reading, if you haven’t already, that’s not how DecDam begins. It does so with a different dream and, as you probably already know, most anything can happen in dreams; all the more so now that Phantast Thanatos, devic uncle of D-Brig’s already 'decimated' Elemental Twins, Aires and Thalassa once thought D’Angelo, has been decathonitized. But wait … what the heck does that mean? Most of its brightest stars are actual devils, small case, punished by being catasterized for egregious misbehaviour. (Read murder, wilful or accidental, of lesser beings, thus depriving their siblings, cousins, fathers and, most seriously, solitary grandfather, this Devil, the Moloch Sedon by agreed upon name, of their worship.) Phantast the Dream Weaver was but one of the 60-plus devils that escaped the Dome moments after the launching of the Cosmic Express on the Outer Earth on the 30th of November 1980. Some ended up beneath the Dome, others beyond it, but no one seems to know what’s become of him. (Won’t be finding out in DecDam, either.) We do know that, later on the same day, far to the north of its Hawaiian launch site, ramifications of that selfsame event reunited the bodies and minds of the ten members of the thereafter self-proclaimed Damnation Brigade after twenty-five years in what they’d come to call Limbo. They’re the damned to be decked, as it were. Should add ... On second thought, probably shouldn't. Not right now. Won’t leave you altogether in the lurch, though. A lot went on in Phantacea Phase One and to help you get a handle on it, at the back of the present volume, short as it is, you’ll find a Character Companion, long as it is. Read it to start, read it to finish, don’t read it at all or … here’s my recommendation … mark and refer to it as you go along. Better make it: Thus begins the open-ended saga of “Wilderwitch’s Babies”. Jim McPherson ======== Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Onwards - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
Wilderwitch's Babies 1 -- Decimation Damnation| Final Print Cover | Unusable Print Cover | Still Possible Digital Cover | Boulder-Brain Allusions | Not Raven's Brainrock Egg | Babies poster | Demon Devils | Magdalena Witch | Fearsome Soul-self | Mel-Illuminatus | 2004 Cover Collage | The Original Web-Serial | Background Variations | |
|||
Final cover collage for the print edition of
|
|||
Top of Page - Top of Section - Page Contents - Upwards - Downwards - Bottom of Page Ordering Lynx |
|||
Daemonic Desperation
There's a reason Wilderwitch remains alive long enough to get pregnant. There's a reason her soul-self does too; making that two (pregnancies). Has to do the hooded thought-widow the still recovering Demios Sarpedon spots on what he subsequently should have started calling Demon Mound. |
Unusable Cover Variation originally intended for
|
Back cover collage
Raven's Head also counts as one of D-Brig's original members. She doesn't telescope out her unicorn horn due to an absence of devils, other than the Devil himself, capitalized, in the Weirdom of Cabalarkon. Back cover text is reprinted here |
|
Top of Page - Top of Section - Page Contents - Upwards - Downwards - Bottom of Page Ordering Lynx |
|||
Probable Front Cover for digital edition
Wilderwitch is a face-dancer. That means she can alter her appearance by mentally manipulating her external aura; not that her face dances as such, or that a skeletal revenant replaces her mouth. She should have been killed in Temporis near the end of And that's about it for the good news. |
Another Unusable cover for print edition
Two of D-Brig's members have already been decimated, as in deducted from the original roll-call of ten strong. Appearances to the contrary, one of them is not Cyborg Cerebrus, their erstwhile leader and the fellow who so ill-advisedly named them thusly. Neither are they the Untouchable Diver and Ringleader, an honourary member since rescuing what was left of D-Brig in Sisert and taking them to 'safety' in the Weirdom of Cabalarkon, aka Sedon's Eye-Land. The already lost two, the Elemental Twins, reputedly have a distant sister, the Mirror Mentalist. She's an immortal azura. Rather, she thinks she is ... immortal, that is. Babies' overall main page is here. Character Companion for the mini-novel is here. There are entries re Ringleader and the Weirdom of Cabalarkon on pH-Webworld.
|
Images for cover collages
Wilderwitch already has one child, Fey Woman. She's bodily older than her mother. Seems further that D-Brig weren't the only ones Demon Land brought back from Limbo on the 30th of November 1980 on D-Isle. As per War-Pox and One of those last isn't her daughter. Even more worryingly Fey can bodily traverse the Weird; can even get through the Cathonic Dome. |
|
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Onwards - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
Tariqartha's no more; not so Lakshmi's guard-body
Dand Tariqartha was the Devalord of Subcranial Temporis, his inviolable protectorate. (Inviolable by his fellow Master Devas, that is; not so by decathonitized devils like Mater Matare and the Primary Apocalyptics.) He self-cathonitized (stellified or catasterized) towards the end of War-Pox. Lakshmi Arthadot seized the opportunity, and the Dand's power focus, to become the ruling Kronokronos Supreme. Shortly thereafter she kicked what was left of the quasi-victorious D-Brig out of the Thousand Caverns. Evidently her mandroid guard-body looks like a Moai when she's not wearing it. |
No unicorn horn = no devils nearby
It's true. Raven's Head and Blind Sundown did drop a Soviet-made H-Bomb on Salvation Island in 1953. Among the many they thereby killed was the Summoning Child they assumed had once been the Boulder-Brain Conqueror. They might have been wrong about that. They weren't wrong about killing the Summoning Child. They also didn't know (or remember?) anything about Temporis twenty-seven years before The raven figure came from the Web whereas the Brainrock is the brain coral aspect of a poster for a scuba diving shop in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, taken some years ago by Jim McPherson |
Sundown Sees -- with or without a blindfold
As per pH-Webworld's online serials set in 1938, John Sundown wasn't always blind. As recounted in both pH-5 and War-Pox, he has been since the early 1940s. Thanks to just one of his supranormal abilities, he can see through others' eyes when he's holding onto them. Something happens in DecDam that changes all that, at least temporarily. Want a hint? Recall Trinondev eye-staves and Utopian technomages (from both |
|
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Top of Section - Onwards - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
Wilderwitch only has one baby ... so far
That'd be Fey Girl, nowadays Fey Woman. That won't change in DecDam, but it's only a mini-novel, so early days yet. The complete saga isn't called Wilderwitch's Baby, however. In fact it might be presumptuous to assume Fey Woman even appears in DecDam. (Fey would be around 34 at the start of the overall novel. Thanks to a quarter century in Limbo, the Witch remains physically only 27 or 28.) That doesn't stop her mother, among others, thinking she's been around, however. Might even be the main one doing the decimating. |
Raven doesn't lay Brainrock eggs
Trinondev eyeorbs are sometimes called eye-eggs whereas Baaloch Hellblob, Sinistral Sloth of Satanwyck, is occasionally referred to as 'Egg' due to how he typically appears. The otherwise anonymous Conqueror did wear a helmet that resembled brain coral, hence members of the 1940s' SOS or KOC referring to him as the Boulder-Brain Conqueror |
D-Brig on D-Isle
Thanks to the densifying possessiveness of Demon Land (Antaeor Thanatos) on the 30th of November 1980 the ten members of D-Brig escaped Limbo. This happened on Damnation Isle, in the Aleutians, hence their leader, Cyborg Cerebrus, dubbing them the Damnation Brigade. It is in the Aleutian Archipelago, hence the Northern Lights in the background. Intentionally ironically, considering Freespirit Nihila told Wilderwitch that she's her incarnation, auroras were the special purview of Datong Harmonia (Harmony) throughout the epic 'Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories' fantasy trilogy |
|
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Top of Section - Onwards - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
The Conqueror Worm
Sinistral Gluttony does not appear in Picture taken of a plaster of Paris worm on Isla Mujeres, Mexico, in 2013 |
'Wilderwitch's Babies' Poster
Collage suggestive of the open-ended saga of 'Wilderwitch's Babies', the first mini-novel extracted from it being 2016's At the min-novel's outset she's only had one; after everything she went through in |
Animals like Wilderwitch
She likes them, too; apparently she likes having babies as well; doesn't eat them, though. (Wilderwitch is nevertheless a very bad witch; unlike her fellow D-Brig member Gloriel born D'Angelo Dark, she's not always a vegetarian.) Tapestry picture was taken at the 2015 Vancouver Folk Festival |
|
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Top of Section - Onwards - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
Flowery Anthea, Lazareme's Epitome of Spring
While Wilderwitch isn't much of a supranormal compared to the rest of the Damnation Brigade, she was born with the ability to do almost everything most witches take decades to learn and master. Nominally she belongs the Antediluvian Sisterhood of Flowery Anthea. Antheans, however, claim they were named after the otherwise never named wife of the Biblical Noah (Xuthros Hor) and not a devil. Picture taken in a plaster of Paris studio on Isla Mujeres, Mexico, in 2013 |
Primeval Lilith is not Katrina
Warning: Spoiler ahead The word 'decimate' originally referred to the killing of every tenth person, a punishment used in the Roman army for mutinous legions. Today this meaning is commonly extended to include the killing of any large proportion of a population. Not so in the Phantacea Mythos. By the end of DecDam it's more likely that, of the original ten members of D-Brig (eleven, counting Ringleader), only the Witch will be left standing. And her only because of Primeval Lilith, the Demon Queen of the Night Sugar-cube skull representing Katrina, the elegant death-demon so popular in Mexico, shot in a Vancouver restaurant during the Week of the Dead, 2015 |
Wilderwitch is happiest in the wilderness
In the Phantacea Mythos be-brained demons cannot possess anyone. What they do is coat someone and then more like seep into their victim until they're either in control or as close as they can get in strong-willed people. Might this be why the Witch appears on her feet a few times as Part of a tapestry featuring a forest growing out of a witch's head, shot at the 2015 Vancouver Folk Festival |
|
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Onwards - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
Wilderwitch has her very own phantasm
As one might imagine, events detailed in both War-Pox and the D-Brig graphic novel, left Wilderwitch not only barely alive but severely traumatized. Fortunately her fearsome soul self has mostly recovered from what Blind Sundown did to it on Damnation Isle in the first week of December 1980. Image is by Walter Molino, an Italian illustrator (1915-1997), who was a true master of mayhew. Another candidate for said fearsomeness shows up in the middle of the next row down. |
Cyborg Cerebrus's Aunt was a Magdalena
Jim McPherson's Phantacea Mythos has a character by the name of Mary Magdalene born Ryne. She was the mother (albeit only of record) of the twins, Jesus and Barsine Mandam, the first Summoning Children ever born by a matter of minutes. One of them became Nergal Vetala, from The picture was take in 2010 while looking for Fairy Castles in a town outside of Munich. It (presumably) shows a then-current Magdalena, as well as number of previous ones. Can't recall details but suspect they were in a play put on every year to celebrate German Holy Week, possibly going back centuries. |
"Humping hoolies, Harry lad"
No, the Diver doesn't say this to Ringleader in Yes, Rings (Harry Zeross) is back, from the Moon, and altogether the worse for wear. D-Brig welcome him as one of their own. What's the mini-novel's title again? Guess who counts as among those decimated? |
|
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Onwards - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
What are you getting us into, Witchie?
Wilderwitch only has one child as of Tantalar 5980; come September 5981 that may change. However, as suggested a couple of rows up and two columns over, there is a small matter of what, as much as who, might be keeping her going until then. Image of a black-eyed kid (BEK) scanned in from Fortean Times (FT 322 - Christmas 2014) via the Daily Star; a website using the same image is here |
Wilderwitch's Fearsome Soul Self
What if it's the Witch's soul-self that gets pregnant, not her? What if they're both pregnant? What if there are two? Guess that's why the whole, thus far open-ended saga's entitled
|
Is that the Witch's metallic marigold?
Look more like roses than marigolds but I'm no gardener. Mel-Illuminatus does give the Witch a stunted eye-stave for protection. She renders her seemingly obligatory gargoyle a marigold with tentacular petals. Being a face-dancer, the Witch does go all White Goddess on everyone during DecDam. But is there a hint of a demon is that flower face, which was shot in Mexico in 2013? |
|
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Onwards - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
The High Illuminary of Weir
Melina born Sarpedon Zeross is a Summoning Child who previously appeared the 1938 web-serials, the She's back big-time in An earlier Mel (Melina Zeross Somata) featured in the 1000-Daze mini-novels. The latter day Mel is likely named after her. Mel-Illuminatus's main entry, with plenty of additional lynx, is on pH-Webworld here. |
Mel-Illuminatus with Gargoyle
Pureblood female Utopians are always white-as-light whereas male U-Bloods are always black-as-midnight. That's been the case since the Phantacea Mythos began. (Saladin Devason was first depicted in Phantacea Six, 1980.) Females are often described as ambulatory alabaster, so it was with some delight that I spotted statue, evidently representative of the Goddess of Commerce, in Australia in 2011. It seemed and seems a perfect stand-in (sit-in?) for Mel-Illuminatus. |
Cabby's Caddy
Cabby = Cabalarkon, as in the Weirdom thereof; Caddy = Caduceus, as in the gargoyle Mel manifests off her stunted eye-stave. Except, it may be an actual power focus, a devil's Tvasitar Talisman, and Melina Sarpedon may have been born with the devil it was made for inside her. (This last in much the same way Barsine Mandam was born with Nergal Vetala inside her whereas Freespirit Nihila once told the Witch she might be her Harmony-self reincarnate.) "Cabby's Caddy" collage, as prepared by Jim McPherson, 2016, features two images taken from the Web of American sculptor James Nathan Muir's 'Caduceus'. The web page where they came from is here.
|
|
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Onwards - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
2004 Front Cover for Web-Serial
Info on the original, somewhat related web-serial entitled Info on some of the images that went into this cover collage can be found on pHantaBlog. |
Utopians of Weir on Earth
As told in the 1990 graphic novel entitled |
The High Illuminary of Weir
Mel-Illuminatus (Melina born Sarpedon become Zeross) plays a major role throughout |
2004 Back Cover for Web-Serial
Double-click to better read what will likely still be the back cover blurb when DecDam's 2016 revision sees print. This graphic, like the two immediately to the left, was prepared for a pH-Webworld entry initially entitled: 'Manifesting Gargoyles'. |
Top of Page - Top of Section - Page Contents - Upwards - Downwards - Bottom of Page Ordering Lynx |
|||
Wolf Woman Plaque
Plaque spotted and shot in Montreal, 2000. The hollow-eyed figure in foreground represents the Witch's soul-self, who (what?) apparently ends up just as pregnant. The Raven-Sundown double-click is one of a number prepared for the D-Brig as Deviants feature |
Original full cover for 'Decimation Damnation' 2004 web-serial
The chapter-by-chapter synopses of the web-serial is still available on pH-Webworld. The figures to either side of the 3-eyed wall that represents between-space stone gnomes, stand for Saladin Devason and Blind Sundown. << Double-click for the alternative full cover for 2004 web-serial>> |
To Be Decimated
You could add Harry-Ringleader to original ten members of the Damnation Brigade. That would make eleven. Take away the Elemental Twins to make nine. Don't take away Wilderwitch, Gloriel or Cerebrus (yet) because, Rings' expectations to the contrary, they did survive War-Pox. Might not make it through DecDam, though. <<Double-click for yet another variation the cover for the Damnation Brigade graphic novel. Artwork by Ian Bateson, 2012>> |
|
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Onwards - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
Raven's Head does not have white feathers
But Wilderwitch could adjust her aura to make it seem like she does |
Witch Babs Variations
Rollover -- double clicks to either side of panel and single click to original web-poster. Page background can be best seen at bottom of page |
Wilderwitch is a face-dancer
The Witch was born with abilities most witches take decades to master. That's what makes her a supranormal |
|
Top of Page - Quick Lynx - Onwards - Graphics - Bottom of Page Lynx |
|||
Webpage last updated: Autumn 2016There may be no cure for aphantasia (defined as 'having a blind or absent mind's eye') but there certainly is for aphantacea ('a'='without', like the 'an' in 'anheroic')
|
|||
