The Tombs of the Thoroughgood’s

The worlds captains of crime were summoned to secret meeting. They met in the private tombs of the Thoroughgood’s. It was a Who’s Who of organized crime. Professor Moriarty had summoned them to discuss the changing times. The new era was quickly approaching where the public and law enforcement would no longer put up with such shenanigans. The world was becoming more respectable. This new era called for a new strategy. Business is business! The list of the distinguished guests is as follows:

• "Lord of Strange Deaths
• Daughter of the Dragon
• Grand Vampire or Paris and Mademoiselle Irna Vep…
• Doctor Nikola of Australia and Madame Sara of the Strand
• Miss Margaret Frelwany and the Hovton Creeper
• Doctor Mabuse of Berlin and Fraulein Alraune ten Brincken
• Arthur Raffles of the Albony and his, ah friend, Mr. Manders
• Theophraste Lupin and Josephine
• Countess Cagliostro…
• Doctor Jack Quartz of New York and Princess Zanoni…
• Rupert, count of Hentzau and Miss Irene Adler"

Professor Moriarty, The Hound of the D’ Urbervilles, Kim Newman

Allan Quatermain: The Zulu Trilogy - H. Rider Haggard

As I slowly transition to the plans I have for the New Year I am pulling together another reading list, this will be my early and mid-winters reading list. I have wanted to get back the character of Allan Quatermain and will add these three novels to this list.

These three novels-Marie, Child of Storm, and Finished-form the Zulu Trilogy in which the Zulu wizard, Zikali, gains his revenge on the Zulu nation and its king, Cetawayo.

P.S. I realize that images have been rather scarce in this month posts and I do have some that could be posted, but then I must first write a corresponding post. It has lately been a bit difficult to get this done.

Deities and Demi-gods of the Hyborian Age, in Robert E. Howard's tales

I found a list of the "Deities and Demi-gods of the Hyborian Age" in the tales Robert E. Howard. Robert E. Howard is the creator of the character Conan, which I have featured in my a few of my posts. Conan is a worth-while character and shouldn't be over-looked when picking characters for your pule era games.

Although this list is not as extensiveness as one you might find for H. P. Lovecraft, but the list still impressive, like someone would actually take the time and effort to compile one in the first place.

Cimmeria

This is the first post in the new collection named Conan. Conan or Conan the Barbarian, is a sword and sorcery character created by Robert E. Howard for publication in pulp magazines. Conan was born in Cimmeria during the Hyborian Age. This is a poem about the fictional country of Cimmeria.  

"It was gloomy land that seemed to hold
All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun,
With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds,
And the dark woodlands brooding over all,
Not even lightened by the rare dim sun
Which made squat shadows out of men; they called it
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night.

It was so long ago and far away
I have forgotten the very name men called me.
The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream,
And hunts and wars are like shadows. I recall
Only the stillness of that somber land;
The clouds that piled forever on the hills,
The dimness of the everlasting woods.
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night."

Robert E. Howard

O Sleeper, Awake!

”The year of the dragon had birth in war and pestilence and unrest. The black plague stalked through the streets of Belverus, striking down the merchant in his stall, the serf in his kennel, the knight at his banquet board. Before it the arts of the leeches were helpless. Men said it had been sent from hell as punishment for the sins of pride and lust. It was swift and deadly as the stroke of an adder. The victim's body turned purple and then black, and within a few minutes he sank down dying, and the stench of his own putrefaction was in his nostrils even before death wrenched his soul from his rotting body. A hot, roaring wind blew incessantly from the south, and the crops withered in the fields, the cattle sank and died in their tracks.

Men cried out on Mitra, and muttered against the king; for somehow, throughout the kingdom, the word was whispered that the king was secretly addicted to loathsome practices and foul debauches in the seclusion of his knighted palace. And then in that palace death stalked grinning on feet about which swirled the monstrous vapors of the plague. In one night, the king died with his three sons, and the drums that thundered their dirge drowned the grim and ominous bells that rang from the carts that lumbered through the streets gathering up the rotting dead.”

Chapter 1, O Sleeper, Awake!, The Hour Of The Dragon, Robert E. Howard

A Host of Characters: The Han Psyche

“Yet, did not even brilliant scientists frequently exhibit the same lack of logic back in the Twentieth Century? Did not the historians, the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome show themselves to be the same shrewd observers as those of succeeding centuries, the same masters of the logical and slaves of the illogical?

After all, I reflected, man makes little progress within himself. Through succeeding generations he piles up those resources which he possesses outside of himself, the tools of his hands, and the warehouses of knowledge for his brain, whether they be parchment manuscripts, printed book, or electronorecordographs. For the rest he is born today, as in ancient Greece, with a blank brain, and struggles through to his grave, with a more or less beclouded understanding, and with distinct limitations to what we used to call his "think tank."

THIS particular reflection of mine proved unpopular with them, for it stabbed their vanity, and neither my prestige nor the novelty of the idea was sufficient salve. These Hans for centuries had believed and taught their children that they were a super-race, a race of destiny. Destined to Whom, for What, was not so clear to them; but nevertheless destined to "elevate" humanity to some sort of super-plane. Yet through these same centuries they had been busily engaged in the extermination of "weaklings," whom, by their very persecutions, they had turned into "super men," now rising in mighty wrath to destroy them; and in reducing themselves to the depths of softening vice and flabby moral fiber. Is it strange that they looked at me in amazed wonder when I laughed outright in the midst of some of their most serious speculations?”

The Airlords of Han, by Philip Francis Nowlan

A Host of Characters: The Han Physiology

"The Han looked little like the Mongolians of the Twentieth Century, except for their slant eyes and round heads. The characteristic of the high cheek bones appeared to have been bred out of them, as were those of the relatively short legs and the muddy yellow skin. To call them yellow was more figurative than literal. Their skins were whiter than those of our own weather-tanned forest men. Nevertheless, their pigmentation was peculiar, and what there was of it looked more like a pale orange tint than the ruddiness of the Caucasian. They were well formed, but rather undersized and soft-looking, small-muscled and smooth-skinned, like young girls. Their features were finely chiseled, eyes beady, and nose slightly aquiline.

They were uniformed, not in close-fitting green or other shades of protective coloring, such as the unobtrusive gray of the Jersey Beaches or the leadened russet of the autumn uniforms of our people. Instead they wore loose fitting jackets of some silky material, and loose knee pants. This particular command had been equipped with form-moulded boots of some soft material that reached above the knee under their pants. They wore circular hats with small crowns and wide rims. Their loose jackets were belted at the waist, and they carried for weapons each man a knife, a short double-edged sword and what I took to be a form of magazine rocket gun. It was a rather bulky affair, short-barrelled, and with a pistol grip. It was obviously intended to be fired either from the waist position or from some sort of support, like the old machine guns. It looked, in fact, like a rather small edition of the Twentieth Century arm.

And have I mentioned the color of their uniforms? Their circular hats and pants were a bright yellow; their coats a flaming scarlet. What targets they were."

The Airlords of Han, by Philip Francis Nowlan

The Airlords of Han

View plate and operator

I have been reading science fiction novels lately. My readings started off with The Misplaced Battleship, by Harry Harrison; Plaque Ship, Andre Norton; The Thing in the Attic, James Blish and I just completed The Airlords of Han, by Philip Francis Nowlan. All of these texts were originally found in Pulp magazines. As you know I have made multiple posts on SCIFI topics.

These stories will give me fodder when playing SCIFI RPG’s or board games. Please look through the posts and see if you can find anything that might help you out.

The Airlords of Han, by Philip Francis Nowlan; Illustrated by FRANK R. PAUL

SORAIS’ SONG

As a desolate bird that through darkness its lost way is winging,
As a hand that is helplessly raised when Death’s sickle is swinging,
So is life! ay, the life that lends passion and breath to my singing.

As the nightingale’s song that is full of a sweetness unspoken,
As a spirit unbarring the gates of the skies for a token,
So is love! ay, the love that shall fall when his pinion is broken.

As the tramp of the legions when trumpets their challenge are sending,
As the shout of the Storm-god when lightnings the black sky are rending,
So is power! ay, the power that shall lie in the dust at its ending.

So short is our life; yet with space for all things to forsake us,
A bitter delusion, a dream from which nought can awake us,
Till Death’s dogging footsteps at morn or at eve shall o’ertake us.

Refrain

Oh, the world is fair at the dawning—dawning—dawning,
But the red sun sinks in blood—the red sun sinks in blood."

CHAPTER XV SORAIS’ SONG, Allan Quartermain

Invocation to the Sun

"Agon’s eyes were fixed upon the altar before him apparently in an ecstasy of contemplation, and mine were fixed upon the small of his back in another sort of ecstasy. Suddenly he flung up his long arm, and in a solemn and resounding voice commenced a chant, of which for convenience’ sake I append a rough, a very rough, translation here, though, of course, I did not then comprehend its meaning. It was an invocation to the Sun, and ran somewhat as follows:—

There is silence upon the face of the Earth and the waters thereof!
Yea, the silence doth brood on the waters like a nesting bird;
The silence sleepeth also upon the bosom of the profound darkness,
Only high up in the great spaces star doth speak unto star,
The Earth is faint with longing and wet with the tears of her desire;
The star-girdled night doth embrace her, but she is not comforted.
She lies enshrouded in mists like a corpse in the grave-clothes,
And stretches her pale hands to the East.

Lo! away in the farthest East there is the shadow of a light;
The Earth seeth and lifts herself. She looks out from beneath
the hollow of her hand.
Then thy great angels fly forth from the Holy Place, oh Sun,
They shoot their fiery swords into the darkness and shrivel it up.
They climb the heavens and cast down the pale stars from their thrones;
Yea, they hurl the changeful stars back into the womb of the night;
They cause the moon to become wan as the face of a dying man,
And behold! Thy glory comes, oh Sun!

Oh, Thou beautiful one, Thou drapest thyself in fire.
The wide heavens are thy pathway: thou rollest o’er them as a chariot.
The Earth is thy bride. Thou dost embrace her and
she brings forth children;
Yea, Thou favourest her, and she yields her increase.
Thou art the All Father and the giver of life, oh Sun.
The young children stretch out their hands and grow in thy brightness;
The old men creep forth and seeing remember their strength.
Only the dead forget Thee, oh Sun!

When Thou art wroth then Thou dost hide Thy face;
Thou drawest around Thee a thick curtain of shadows.
Then the Earth grows cold and the Heavens are dismayed;
They tremble, and the sound thereof is the sound of thunder:
They weep, and their tears are outpoured in the rain;
They sigh, and the wild winds are the voice of their sighing.
The flowers die, the fruitful fields languish and turn pale;
The old men and the little children go unto their appointed place
When Thou withdrawest thy light, oh Sun!

Say, what art Thou, oh Thou matchless Splendour—
Who set Thee on high, oh Thou flaming Terror?
When didst Thou begin, and when is the day of Thy ending?
Thou art the raiment of the living Spirit. {Endnote 16}
None did place Thee on high, for Thou was the Beginning.
Thou shalt not be ended when thy children are forgotten;
Nay, Thou shalt never end, for thy hours are eternal.
Thou sittest on high within thy golden house and
measurest out the centuries.
Oh Father of Life! oh dark-dispelling Sun! "

Chapter XIV the Flower Temple, Allan Quartermain

Umslopogaas’s Battle Axe

Umslopogaas¹ was one of four African tribesmen that accompanied Allan Quartermain and his cohorts as they traveled to the African interior.” To Lamu and thence make their way about 250 miles inland to Mt Kenia; from Mt Kenia on inland to Mt Lekakisera, another 200 miles, or thereabouts, beyond which no white man has to the best of Quartermain’s knowledge, ever been.”

“By a piece of grim humour, Umslopogaas had named this axe ‘Inkosi-kaas’, which is the Zulu word for chieftainess. For a long while I could not make out why he gave it such a name, and at last I asked him, when he informed me that the axe was very evidently feminine, because of her womanly habit of prying very deep into things, and that she was clearly a chieftainess because all men fell down before her, struck dumb at the sight of her beauty and power. In the same way he would consult ‘Inkosi-kaas’ if in any dilemma; and when I asked him why he did so, he informed me it was because she must needs be wise, having ‘looked into so many people’s brains’.

I took up the axe and closely examined this formidable weapon. It was, as I have said, of the nature of a pole-axe. The haft, made out of an enormous rhinoceros’ horn, was three feet three inches long, about an inch and a quarter thick, and with a knob at the end as large as a Maltese orange, left there to prevent the hand from slipping. This horn haft, though so massive, was as flexible as cane, and practically unbreakable; but, to make assurance doubly sure, it was whipped round at intervals of a few inches with copper wire—all the parts where the hands grip being thus treated. Just above where the haft entered the head were scored a number of little nicks, each nick representing a man killed in battle with the weapon. The axe itself was made of the most beautiful steel, and apparently of European manufacture, though Umslopogaas did not know where it came from, having taken it from the hand of a chief he had killed in battle many years before. It was not very heavy, the head weighing two and a half pounds, as nearly as I could judge. The cutting part was slightly concave in shape—not convex, as it generally the case with savage battleaxes—and sharp as a razor, measuring five and three-quarter inches across the widest part. From the back of the axe sprang a stout spike four inches long, for the last two of which it was hollow, and shaped like a leather punch, with an opening for anything forced into the hollow at the punch end to be pushed out above—in fact, in this respect it exactly resembled a butcher’s pole-axe. It was with this punch end, as we afterwards discovered, that Umslopogaas usually struck when fighting, driving a neat round hole in his adversary’s skull, and only using the broad cutting edge for a circular sweep, or sometimes in a melee. I think he considered the punch a neater and more sportsmanlike tool, and it was from his habit of pecking at his enemy with it that he got his name of ‘Woodpecker’. Certainly in his hands it was a terribly efficient one.

Such was Umslopogaas’ axe, Inkosi-kaas, the most remarkable and fatal hand-to-hand weapon that I ever saw, and one which he cherished as much as his own life. It scarcely ever left his hand except when he was eating, and then he always sat with it under his leg.”

Chapter IV, Alphonse and His Annette, Allan Quartermain

---

¹Umslopogaas was an old venerable Zulu warrior.

Beautifully Worked Sword

"Mr Mackenzie, by way of answer, went out of the room and returned, bringing with him a most curious sword. It was long, and all the blade, which was very thick and heavy, was to within a quarter of an inch of the cutting edge worked into an ornamental pattern exactly as we work soft wood with a fret-saw, the steel, however, being invariably pierced in such a way as not to interfere with the strength of the sword. This in itself was sufficiently curious, but what was still more so was that all the edges of the hollow spaces cut through the substance of the blade were most beautifully inlaid with gold, which was in some way that I cannot understand welded on to the steel {Endnote 5}.:

Allan Quartermain, Chapter III, The Mission Station.

---

Endnote 5
"Since I saw the above I have examined hundreds of these swords, but have never been able to discover how the gold plates were inlaid in the fretwork. The armourers who make them in Zu-vendis bind themselves by oath not to reveal the secret.—A. Q. "

The Glorious Trees-A Host of Characters

“We would, from time to time, pay visits to the country seats at some of the great lords’ beautiful fortified places, and the villages clustering beneath their walls. Here we saw vineyards and corn-fields and well-kept park-like grounds, with such timber in them as filled me with delight, for I do love a good tree. There it stands so strong and sturdy, and yet so beautiful, a very type of the best sort of man. How proudly it lifts its bare head to the winter storms, and with what a full heart it rejoices when the spring has come again! How grand its voice is, too, when it talks with the wind: a thousand aeolian harps cannot equal the beauty of the sighing of a great tree in leaf. All day it points to the sunshine and all night to the stars, and thus passionless, and yet full of life, it endures through the centuries, come storm, come shine, drawing its sustenance from the cool bosom of its mother earth, and as the slow years roll by, learning the great mysteries of growth and of decay. And so on and on through generations, outliving individuals, customs, dynasties—all save the landscape it adorns and human nature—till the appointed day when the wind wins the long battle and rejoices over a reclaimed space, or decay puts the last stroke to his fungus-fingered work.

Ah, one should always think twice before one cuts down a tree!”

Chapter XV Sorais’ Song, Allan Quartermain, H. Rider Haggard

The Tree at The Mission Station

"In the centre of the square thus formed was, perhaps, the most remarkable object that we had yet seen in this charming place, and that was a single tree of the conifer tribe, varieties of which grow freely on the highlands of this part of Africa. This splendid tree, which Mr Mackenzie informed us was a landmark for fifty miles round, and which we had ourselves seen for the last forty miles of our journey, must have been nearly three hundred feet in height, the trunk measuring about sixteen feet in diameter at a yard from the ground. For some seventy feet it rose a beautiful tapering brown pillar without a single branch, but at that height splendid dark green boughs, which, looked at from below, had the appearance of gigantic fern-leaves, sprang out horizontally from the trunk, projecting right over the house and flower-garden, to both of which they furnished a grateful proportion of shade, without—being so high up—offering any impediment to the passage of light and air.

‘What a beautiful tree!’ exclaimed Sir Henry.'

‘That reminds me,’ I said, ‘the Consul at Lamu told me that he had had a letter from you, in which you said that a man had arrived here who reported that he had come across a white people in the interior. Do you think that there was any truth in his story? I ask, because I have once or twice in my life heard rumours from natives who have come down from the far north of the existence of such a race.’ ”

Chapter III Allan Quartermen, H. Rider Haggard

The Yann Bore Us Onwards-Journey into the Unknown

“And so Yann River bore us magnificently onwards, for he was elate with molten snow that the Poltiades had brought him from the Hills of Hap¹, and the Marn and Migris² were swollen full with floods; and he bore us in his might past Kyph and Pir, and we saw the lights of Goolunza.”

---

¹Hills of Haps are said to raise like isles above lands of Dream.

²Marn and Migris are rivers that mingled their waters with the mighty Yann.

Mandaroon- Journey into the Unknown

“We knew that soon we should come to Mandaroon¹. We made a meal, and Mandaroon appeared. Then the captain commanded, and the sailors loosed again the greater sails, and the ship turned and left the stream of Yann and came into a harbour beneath the ruddy walls of Mandaroon. Then while the sailors went and gathered fruits I came alone to the gate of Mandaroon. A few huts were outside it, in which lived the guard. A sentinel with a long white beard was standing in the gate, armed with a rusty pike. He wore large spectacles, which were covered with dust. Through the gate I saw the city. A deathly stillness was over all of it. The ways seemed untrodden, and moss was thick on doorsteps; in the market-place huddled figures lay asleep. A scent of incense and burned poppies, and there was a hum of the echoes of distant bells.

I said to the sentinel in the tongue of the region of Yann, "Why are they all asleep in this still city?" He answered: "None may ask questions in this gate for fear they wake the people of the city. For when the people of this city wake the gods will die. And when the gods die men may dream no more." And I began to ask him what gods that city worshipped, but he lifted his pike because none might ask questions there. So I left him and went back to the Bird of the River².”

Tales of Three Hemispheres, Lord Dunsany

---

¹Mandaroon was beautiful city with her white pinnacles peering over her ruddy walls and the green of her copper roofs.

²A trading bark that plied the Yann River.

Human Nature is God’s Kaleidoscope

"Man’s cleverness is almost indefinite, and stretches like an elastic band, but human nature is like an iron ring. You can go round and round it, you can polish it highly, you can even flatten it a little on one side, whereby you will make it bulge out the other, but you will never, while the world endures and man is man, increase its total circumference. It is the one fixed unchangeable thing—fixed as the stars, more enduring than the mountains, as unalterable as the way of the Eternal. Human nature is God’s kaleidoscope, and the little bits of coloured glass which represent our passions, hopes, fears, joys, aspirations towards good and evil and what not, are turned in His mighty hand as surely and as certainly as it turns the stars, and continually fall into new patterns and combinations. But the composing elements remain the same, nor will there be one more bit of coloured glass nor one less for ever and ever."

Introduction, Allan Quartermen, H. Rider Haggard

The Curious Endnotes of the Allan Quatermain Novel

Endnote 1
Among the Zulus a man assumes the ring, which is made of a species of black gum twisted in with the hair, and polished a brilliant black, when he has reached a certain dignity and age, or is the husband of a sufficient number of wives. Till he is in a position to wear a ring he is looked on as a boy, though he may be thirty-five years of age, or even more.—A. Q.

Endnote 2
One of the fleetest of the African antelopes.—A. Q.

Endnote 3
Alluding to the Zulu custom of opening the stomach of a dead foe. They have a superstition that, if this is not done, as the body of their enemy swells up so will the bodies of those who killed him swell up.—A. Q.

Endnote 4
No doubt this owl was a wingless bird. I afterwards learnt that the hooting of an owl is a favourite signal among the Masai tribes.—A. Q.

Endnote 5
Since I saw the above I have examined hundreds of these swords, but have never been able to discover how the gold plates were inlaid in the fretwork. The armourers who make them in Zu-vendis bind themselves by oath not to reveal the secret.—A. Q.

Endnote 6
The Masai Elmoran or young warriors can own no property, so all the booty they may win in battle belongs to their fathers alone.—A. Q.

Endnote 7
As I think I have already said, one of Umslopogaas’s Zulu names was the ‘Woodpecker’. I could never make out why he was called so until I saw him in action with Inkosi-kaas, when I at once recognized the resemblance.—A. Q.

Endnote 8
By a sad coincidence, since the above was written by Mr Quatermain, the Masai have, in April 1886, massacred a missionary and his wife—Mr and Mrs Houghton—on this very Tana River, and at the spot described. These are, I believe, the first white people who are known to have fallen victims to this cruel tribe.—Editor.

Endnote 9
Mr Allan Quatermain misquotes—Pleasure sat at the helm.—Editor.

Endnote 10
Where Alph the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea

Endnote 11
Mr Quatermain does not seem to have been aware that it is common for animal-worshipping people to annually sacrifice the beasts they adore. See Herodotus, ii. 45.—Editor.

Endnote 12
There is another theory which might account for the origin of the Zu-Vendi which does not seem to have struck my friend Mr Quatermain and his companions, and that is, that they are descendants of the Phoenicians. The cradle of the Phoenician race is supposed to have been on the western shore of the Persian Gulf. Thence, as there is good evidence to show, they emigrated in two streams, one of which took possession of the shores of Palestine, while the other is supposed by savants to have immigrated down the coast of Eastern Africa where, near Mozambique, signs and remains of their occupation are not wanting. Indeed, it would have been very extraordinary if they did not, when leaving the Persian Gulf, make straight for the East Coast, seeing that the north-east monsoon blows for six months in the year dead in that direction, while for the other six months it blows back again. And, by the way of illustrating the probability, I may add that to this day a very extensive trade is carried on between the Persian Gulf and Lamu and other East African ports as far south as Madagascar, which is of course the ancient Ebony Isle of the ‘Arabian Nights’.—Editor.

Endnote 13
There are twenty-two letters in the Phoenician alphabet (see Appendix, Maspero’s Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient, p. 746, etc.) Unfortunately Mr Quatermain gives us no specimen of the Zu-Vendi writing, but what he here states seems to go a long way towards substantiating the theory advanced in the note on p. 149.—Editor.

Endnote 14
These are internal measurements.—A. Q.

Endnote 15
Light was also admitted by sliding shutters under the eaves of the dome and in the roof.—A. Q.

Endnote 16
This line is interesting as being one of the few allusions to be found in the Zu-Vendi ritual to a vague divine essence independent of the material splendour of the orb they worship. ‘Taia’, the word used here, has a very indeterminate meaning, and signifies essence, vital principle, spirit, or even God.

Endnote 17
Alluding to the Zulu custom.—A. Q.

Endnote 18
In Zu-Vendis members of the Royal House can only be married by the High Priest or a formally appointed deputy.—A. Q.

Endnote 19
Alluding to the Zu-Vendi custom of carrying dead officers on a framework of spears.

Endnote 20
The Zu-Vendi people do not use bows.—A. Q.

Endnote 21
Of course, the roof of the Temple, being so high, caught the light some time before the breaking of the dawn.—A. Q.

Endnote 22
Of course the Court of Probate would allow nothing of the sort.—Editor.

Endnote 23
It is suggested to me that this book is The Cruise of the “Falcon”, with which work I am personally unacquainted.

An Epitaph to Allan Quatermain - A Host of Characters

Sir Henry Curtis being with Quatermain to the end gives these remarks as an epitaph to his dear friend and comrade Allan Quatermain:

“And so passed away a character that I consider went as near perfection as any it has ever been my lot to encounter. Tender, constant, humorous, and possessing of many of the qualities that go to make a poet, he was yet almost unrivalled as a man of action and a citizen of the world. I never knew any one so competent to form an accurate judgment of men and their motives. ‘I have studied human nature all my life,’ he would say, ‘and I ought to know something about it, ‘and he certainly did.

He had but two faults--one was his excessive modesty, and the other a slight tendency which he had to be jealous of anybody on whom he concentrated his affections. As regards the first of these points, anybody who reads what he has written will be able to form his own opinion.”

Allan Quatermain, H. Rider Haggard

John Gribardsun-A Host of Characters

Gribardsun beginnings date back 12000 years before Christ and to the origins of the Khokarsan civilization. “Gribardsun’s ebony hair hung in his face, covering his piercing gray eyes, as he sat alone in his room, starring at the floor brooding…

Eridaneans and Capellenas. Some sort of competing secret societies, so-called because their membership, rituals, and purpose were clandestine?

Perhaps related to the Illuminanti? The Rosicrucians? Those groups were supposedly interested in gathering secret knowledge from all over the world…

He thought of the importance of the number nine in Khokarsan culture, and the nine-sided temple of Kho. The Door of the Nine, which gave unto the temple. And the nine primary aspects of Kho.”

The Wild Huntsmen, Tales of the Wold Newton Universe, Philip Jose Farmer