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Hello, I am Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel. I hope you forgive my absence, as I have been... busy.
But to you today I bring a special for this time of fell omens: Profiles of thirty-one citizens of the states of Hell, a place most misunderstood in your material plane not for the depths of its horrors but the nature of what those horrors are.
To understand the state of Hell you must understand one fundamental truth: The Devil is a loser.
His best chance at dethroning God was the fall, and it was doomed from the start. He is never going to get a chance like that again.
Heaven considers his place a cosmic backwater, no threat when compared to things like The Machine or Nemesis The Anti-Sun. But he cannot bring himself to understand this, for to do so would shatter further his thirteen faces.
His realm is a cosmic mistake, a wound where generations toil in service of a goal that can never be completed to start a war they cannot win.
It is a place where not just the tortured but the torturers live in misery. Where power crushes love beneath its foot and they say that every demon is a king, but in a way that belies no comprehension of the horror of that statement.
It is, perhaps, more akin to your world than you or I would perhaps care to admit.
Unto this realm they tell you to abandon all hope, ye who enter here, but here I tell you to hold onto your hopes, as tightly as possible. You'll need them to survive here.
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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SO! I have yet another project, this time it's a simple one, 31 demons over the rest of this Halloween season! Because I made a few and then decided that's what I was going to do!
The vibe of the hell-scene here's meant to make one think of John Martin-type grandiose scenes but combined with the very specific US-based hell-nightmare of a non-walkable city! My version of Hell is generally a lot like this, half great and terrible grandeur, half shitty mundane Bush/Trump-era America vibes. Hopefully the opening text provided that.
I hope you enjoy, as I've got a lot in the pipe, and as per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
#my art#my writing#xavier x xolomon#i forget have i shown that dude on this blog before?#they're a living bestiary more or less#hell#demons#helloween
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HELLOWEEN #17: CANCESTER
-CANCESTER DOESN'T DO SHIT-
...An excerpt from an early edition of the Last Testament, redacted from later printings. Perhaps a bit crude, with little value towards those scholars like myself who came in slightly late. But, I will admit, it is accurate.
Despite or perhaps because of their ancient status, records show they were mot one of the first, but of the second generation, this entity does; in fact; try to do as little as possible. I found them in a gargantuan beast after noticing their... unique records in the archives and attempting to cross-reference them, but was disappointed to find that they would not speak. They were simply content to sit there and breathe, occassionally chewing on the flesh of their uncaring host.
Their original name was wiped from the records, I suspect by their own hand, but their records show a long and bloody history of accomplishments beforehand, before it simply... stops. Furthermore, when I asked around about the beast, including Giobella, they were all stunned I had brought it up.
The beast, called Valkanna The Unbroken, was considered by many to be an impossible feat to even approach beyond my... general surreptitious means. And yet there they were within the very literal belly of the beast, feeding upon it.
One with a base knowlege of hellish politics might suspect sabotage within that degeneration. But, from all I could see, there was no evidence of that being planned in the records. The reaction to Cancestor's original form seemed to be more fear than hatred, the actions with which they built hell containing a long lists of what most people would call atrocities.
This is a hypothesis, but I wonder if they gained this form because they... simply gave up. They tired of the boredom of Hell's horrors and decided to leave for an easier existence. While it is not one I myself would personally choose, indeed I find it quite disquieting, but I understand it.
Though the archivist in me fumes at the lack of their original name...
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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When asking for ideas for demons, someone suggested a parasite one, and the rest followed from there! Not much more to say than that!
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
#my art#my writing#helloween#character design#creature design#demon#demons#lamprey#parasite#worldbuilding
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HELLOWEEN #24 VISSCITUME
-VISSCITUME is an Artifex Carnal of Hell, who contains ten to the tenth power traits in blood and twenty to the twentieth power atoms of life within his bodies. He may make intangible the distinctions between beast and human, vegetable and animal, flesh and desire, and shape them as a sculptor does clay, and produce vast edifices from a bulk of that living essence.
He appears as a man with three glowing eyes and crab claws, with a beating human heart below the waist. -
...Hm, this entry appears to read as if there was some "careful persuasion" upon the part of Visscitume towards the writer for a flattering portrayal. Though, what must be done must be done I suppose, that pragmatism at work again.
I in particular find it at least notable his attempt to translate the ideas of alelles and cells to an audience before those terms were firmly established. But, again, I digress.
While broader transmogrificative abilities are relatively common in Hell, I suppose perhaps derived from ex-angelic powers of creation, specialized sculptors of flesh are quite the citizens of note around Hell, not as prestigious or as well-compensated as torturers, but vital producers of the infrastructure of Hell and no less complicit in its horrors; given the soul-flesh and native hell-beasts they use as their bread and butter.
And, as with all producers of aesthetic infrastructure, design patterns go in and out of fashion. Visscitume's, to his lament, is currently in the latter category.
It seems that his preferred "pure flesh" style is currently on the wane, having been supplanted by more delicate mergers between flesh and machine. He is able to work with that, that is certain, but he will freely admit (At least to me) he is not good at it, not like the new crowd.
He seems to be getting by on simple maintainance work, adding on additional organs to the organic components in other buildings replacing soul-flesh that has decayed and similar such things, though his pomposity was not particularly diminished by this loss of stature.
At the very least though, he was eager to show his past and current work, even in the former's diminished stat due to lack of maintainance (He did lament that the owners never called him, though he also said this was an issue one expects when building in Hell)
He also showed me some of his personal, more experimental work; including miniaturized models attempting that biomechanical style. Which... well, I was polite, but it was quite clear that indeed he was correct that he was far better at creating something functional from pure flesh. Though, the use of the chicken heart was innovative at the very least.
He spoke fondly of an old friend and partner of his called Manginix, about their friendly competition in their art and Manginix's unusual scrupulosity compared to his own pragmatism, wondering "How is the ol goody two-shoes these days?"
When I told him the truth, he became very sad. Perhaps I should not have...
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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...So this guy's a flesh demon! Not too much to say there!
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
#my art#my writing#helloween#demon#flesh#flesh demon#gore warming#creature design#body horror#architect
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HELLOWEEN #8: BUDLORNE
-BUDLORNE is a High VIntner of Hell, with 3-score wineries and 606 cultivars to his name. He may make men merry and teach the arts of blood magic and evaluating sorts and powers thereof. He appears in the shape of a man emerging from a pool of blood with the skull of a wild beast-
For one who makes merriment in hell possible, at least to the extent such things can be possible, Budlorne was quite dour in my experience. They were negative on the quality of blood, both soul-blood and organism-blood alike, negative on the dilligence of their workers, negative on the tastes of their buyers, negative on most everything one could be negative on.
In particular, he was vexed about microplastics in the blood of those he could capture from the worlds of the living. While the blood of living sapients is a delicacy, the filtering process was a significant cut to his margins, even aside from the cost of selling the filtered aggregate. Which he could not use to its fullest because, as Giobella told me and he was loath to admit, while he was a prodigy at blood magic, he was abysmal at other arts, and could not figure out a use for it beyond bulk-selling the raw plastic.
There was one time he became animated though. I had heard from Giobella that his favorite taste in blood was squirrel blood; considered extremely unbecoming and low class for a demon of his stature. I, of course, acquired some and brought it to him as an offering, and his... well, eyeless sockets really simply lit up.
I was able to coax him int ospeaking further of his favorites, on the promise I would not tell a soul in hell about it, and he waxed rhapsodic about the quiet but powerful cosmic music of pigeon blood or the simple pleasures of deer's blood, often comparing other bloods like dragon's or unicorn's to them in both magical potency and taste.
But, he repeated to never tell a soul or demon in Hell of this, as it would destroy his reputation. I wonder if his unhappiness is due to being forced to exhibit "good taste" when it deeply contrasts against his internal truth.
Yet again, a way in which Hell is not so different from your world...
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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The design was simple for this one, basically "What if a blood guy," and the concept came to me when writing the Goetia entry, thinking of his power to make merry due to the whole blood = sanguine thing and then thinking it would be funny if he was ironically a total sourpuss making blood wine (Which just feels like it naturally makes sense as a concept in hell).
The Anton Ego-type arc and other details kinda naturally wrote themselves from there!
...As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
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HELLOWEEN #18: LORIAN
-LORIAN is a Master Thief of Hell with 500 successful heists and 6,000 stone of Gold warranted for her arrest. She may create candles who's light none but the summoner may see, make a man invisible, allow merging into shadows and give advice on the creation of plans and distractions for theft.
She appears as a great hand of glory with a human face in the center. Do not allow any others into the room when she is summoned, or else she will not appear. Do not allow any valuables you would prefer not to lose within the room of her summoning, as they will be gone when she is.-
...I will confess, I had to go to some lengths to get an interview with Lorian. She is infamous amongst Hell as a thief, as I heard loudly and profusely from Acabus, but nobody really knew her name, they simply called her "The Invisible Hand," along with other... epithets I would rather not print.
For all her actions, she seemed to have absolutely no social connections amongst Hell, an intriguing rarity amongst its politics. So, I decided to summon her, external to Hell, in a plane where... well, I feel I mustn't reveal too many of my methods.
The first thing she did was search the whole room for things to; I presume; steal, only to give up in frustration. Then she came to me to ask about services, payment, ect-cetera, and was not only surprised, but consternated to realize I had simply done the summoning as a request to talk.
Her insistence that she had nothing to talk about herself, that what she was "didn't matter to anybody," and that she "was only worth what she could do" melted away with shocking rapidity with my questioning, as the poor thing ended up breaking down into tears.
From what I could surmise as I... attempted to comfort her, she seems very lonely in a way that suggests an immense desire for companionship, but cynical and selfish in ways that suggest it was unreciprocated.
Not surprising within the cutthroat politics of Hell, but a testament to the way in which Hell is a place of alienation...
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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The design, as one might guess, was based on the Hand from the old M.U.S.C.L.E. toyline (Which has its own bizarre backstory too long to get into) combined with the Hand of Glory, but her story...
...well, I was thinking of ways to attach something to the design, and I thought of how hands often symbolize singular action but also alienation. The Invisible Hand of the Free Market, the Hand of Glory, another thing one often does with their right hand, ect-cetera.
That combined with the Hand of Glory inspo basically worked to make this design an actual character. So yeah!
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
#my art#my writing#character design#creature design#demon#demons#helloween#hand#hand of glory#alienation
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HELLOWEEN #12: VALLAS
-VALLAS is a Knight-Errant of Hell with 12 techniques and 53 swords of doomed angels to his name. He may grant the summoner expertise in all types of swordsmanship and war magics, and may provide the conjurer with assorted demon weapons and arms. He appears as a swordsman with the head of a walrus and a sword of white fire with a booming, jovial voice.-
Vallas is... a character. He is affable in ways that are genuine and warm, eagerly willing to invite me to his palatial estate for a tour when I attempted an interview, and even offer a room to stay for "a learned fellow such as yourself" (I politely declined).
But then one is reminded that he is a demon defined by his capability to inflict violence by the trophy room of severed arms. Or the fact that when a break in occured, he calmly with one motion of his sword decapitated the intruder, who promptly ran away with his head between his arms, and resumed our conversation without any gap in his speech.
The entry from the Last Testament was not an example of redundancy, by the way. He literally gives out those trophy arms of demons (amongst other species) for the use of those who desire their power, he finds it a very good business. Though, as he proudly said, he never uses them, preferring to trust instead in his own strength of arms.
He was exuberant and eager to show off the stories of his arms, and I distinctly remember him saying "I got this one in the war you know. I was the only one who was on my side of the war of course, but that's what made it a jolly good war!"
I recall in fact he inadvertently repeated that a couple of times. He talks about various "wars" he's been in, but more and more it seemed like these events were more akin to a mercenary being sent out to die in front of an army and somehow succeeding in cut . But if he was aware, he seemed to bear no grudge, talking about what "jolly good fun" his various escapades were.
He was also proud to talk about how he got his estate in a duel early in Hell's history, being one of the second-born and all, and how the duel took an entire year to a standstill and left the crater that currently serves as the acid pond in his estate.
"Nobody duels for things anymore," he said, "It's all contracts and cash payments now. A lot of rot if you ask me, we left Heaven to get away from these things!"
This was not the only statement he would perhaps not have stated in Hell's polite company, as he casually mentioned he was offered a job as torturer, a high-ranking one too. I prodded a bit as to why he never took it, and he replied "...To tell you the truth, I never had much the stomach for it."
This was after talking about impaling a High Yokuza official on a skyscraper through "a clever bit of basic trickery," and taking all four of his arms. The eyes in the palms of which were looking at us as he spoke. And yet the mundane horrors of Hell's infrastructure were too much.
Perhaps that's why Giobella called him "A beastly old blowhard, but one of the few I think you or I could trust" ...
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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Fun fact: the base of this guy was a picture I took of a Marth Amiibo.
And yes, for the record, he does have a British accent, and yes it sounds exactly like the sort of British accent you would expect from a walrus-man involved in war and violence.
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
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-TRESSCHANKA is an Equestrian Colonel of Hell, with 1500 rider-horses and 23 non-contiguous fronts of combat. She may grant perfect aim with artillery and expanded range with explosives, and may teach in all arts millitary, equestrian and pseudo-equestrian.
She appears as a woman in a general's outfit with the head of a horse, riding a great bear of metal festooned with cannons. Do not question her advice or she will cause great injury to your houses-
...As a person Tresschanka is one who would coloquially be called "an old war-horse" if one weren't worried about a 21--centimeter shell to the skull upon saying this. Which I very much was, given that is exactly what happened when one demon whispered that while I was at her training camp asking for an interview.
She was one of the earliest generations born in Hell, as she will loudly and vociferously state to anyone within earshot of insufficient obsequiousness, and will talk at end upon end about the reason Hell isn't fighting Heaven now is sheer weakness rather than pragmatism (or, at least, overtures towards acnowleging pragmatism) and her training camp shows it, given the amount of bodies of the "weak" I noticed in the architecture. And the weaponry. And the rations. And the furniture.
Her ruthlessness even applies to her symbiotic "mounts," which despite their animal intelligence and undying loyalty she has a very... well, a friend of mine by the name of Ooky-Spooky would put it as a "We're gonna need a new Timmy" attitude to the organisms, and I would say perhaps that sums it up well.
While I have seen many sights on this multiversal axis I would rather not have, seeing her drag her upper torso from one war machine to another, organs trailing as she barks invectives is one more of those.
While the training camp she runs is harsh and austere where it's not baroquely decorated with what were formerly the "unworthy," a striking feature is the gargantuan guns jutting from the top. She takes massive pride in them, speaking all the time about how she erects new and greater ones constantly, how stiff and sturdy they are and how she polishes them all the time. I decided it was wise not to comment.
And it is for the ultimate purpose of her academy that the guns are used. It is known that her dropouts; the ones that escape anyway; are some of the most brilliant martial minds in hell. But those that stay, are fated to be very literal cannon fodder.
For, she aims her guns at heaven, firing horsemen to lead a charge of the light brigade against the light... only to land upon the battlefields of Hell instead with a puddle of gore, most of it the riders' own.
The battlefield, curiously, is always Troupier's, no matter how high she builds those guns, serving as additional munitions of torture to those souls on that battlefield. From looking at records, Troupier also appears to be the most major source of funds and students for her training school. If she is aware of the implications, she does not speak a whisper of it.
Though, I do not think she is. She is too much a true believer in war and the great lie thereof to know the truth of where it ends...
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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...So, this one ended up a lot darker than I initially thought it would. Which is good at least I think, I worried I wasn't including enough darkness in my Hell setting, and I think this at least added a proper bit of thematic nastiness back in.
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
#my art#my writing#helloween#demon#demons#war#war crimes#horse#war machine#character design#creature design
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HELLOWEEN #14: XMECHANE
-MANGINIX is a Lesser Carnifex of hell, with 14 sites of operation and 28 varieities of sausage to his name. He may teach the art of the finding and preparation of meats rare and unnatural, and may provide spices that alter the body and mind or to transform enemies into discrete forms of sustenance. He appears as a great carrion heap in the shape of a man with a handsome human face, holding a great butcher's cleaver-
...And here we reach a point where the Last Testament is far out of date, which is a feeling I am more than depressingly familiar with in my own recordings. For, Hell too changes as our own societies do; though perhaps more slowly due to the semi-immortality of its inhabitants, and the former Manginix is no exception.
Manginix is at this current moment one of the most terrifying things in Hell: A true believer. He speaks of his old life with a bitter contempt, even as both records and Giobella's testament show that he enjoyed his work and was quite good at it, and was even one of those rare showers of true compassion on occasion.
But compassion is not a world I would describe with his current state, not after walking through his factory, a place of war machines and cybernetic limbs birthed from twitching steel wombs, of pipes like sclerotic veins and furnaces like bleeding lungs, a place of where demon and soul and machine blur into a form of life hostile to all but itself.
He speaks of his old life as a former, dull dream, that he was one of the few demons who saw the speed and efficiency of the machines which now have taken up half his body, evangelizing the powers of speed and and creation. He was very proud, almost like a disciple of The Anti-Sun describing being "born again," as he delved into his discovery of the strange enigmatic machines manifesting in the higher circles, and how only he was the only one able to hear what they told him, what he'd known all along about his body.
He was suspiciously cagey about what happened to his crew however, and he also says that he views Hell as undermechanized due to their lack of understanding of the glory of mechanization, which having walked through the dark satanic mills that reach even to the Giants' Well and beneath the waters of Bloody Mary, horrors untold yet still less hideous than his own, I find that difficult to take as true.
More likely, I suspect and Giobella does as well, that the machines from which his design draws are not from Hell. For, there are powers in the multiverse far more terrible than hell.
There is a Machine at the corners of the cosmos, a Machine ever-churning that heaven fears. The oil of worlds devoured runs through its veins, the thoughts of trillions stolen run through its mindless mind. It exists to consume and grow and consume and grow again. And in the heartbeat of that factory I heard the sound of it's soul.
When I obliquely mentioned this, offhand from carelessness, he... froze for a second. Then he emitted a high-pitched screeching sound and attempted to turn my pages into cinders with the cannon upon his arm for several seconds. Then he resumed speaking as if there were no conflict at all, ignoring the smoking holes in his grand edifice.
I've seen that behavior before. I know who he really believes in.
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
So, when starting this project I knew I wanted to do a demon that was half-and-half flesh-and-technology, evoking Doom. The inspiration there's probably more obvious in the head, which I made because I wanted to blend both halves, and that was an obvious way to do it. And yes, I was thinking of that one Doom 3 demon in the back of my mind, that too.
The idea for them being secretly an agent of The Machine, a nasty faction from my work y'all might be familiar with, followed logically from trying to think about this guy's hook. Because like, there's a reason Heaven considers The Machine far more of a threat than Hell, and it does speak to Hell's poorly organized state that it was able to slip in so easily.
Also, I am still proud (perhaps more than I should be) of making the Goetia-type entry out-of-date in universe, I came up with that on the spot.
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
#my art#my writing#helloween#demon#demons#hell#monster#cyborg#body horror#gore#meat#creature design#character design#the machine
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HELLOWEEN #13: DIVAFFE
-DIVAFFE is a Lesser Propagandist-Engineer of Hell, with 44 new and innovative conceptual-schema and 26 steps. He may dispense any liquid the proprietor asks and is willing to provide conceptualization for any schema of art and science the conjuror may desire, though most is erroneous or lies. He appears as a bat with the horns of a bull and the body of a drinking cup.-
As with many in our worlds, the lowly status of imps in Hell leads to ambitions being heightened rather than lowered, though it is rare that they succeed, even if their insights and abilities warrant such. Or rather, especially if their insights and abilities warrant such.
For, also as in our world, the most petty-minded and lucky seem to be able to rise to the top if their incompetencies flatter the powerful, and thus so with Divaffe. The way Giobella puts it, he basically got lucky via working for a powerful torturer as a living beverage-dispenser and coming up with his one good idea "the caffine loop" that managed to succeed via pure luck and that was cynically utilized by those above him to make a "trendsetter" that would advance their views of hell. Not that he will admit this.
His ideas are regarded as trendy and tastemaking by the upper eschelons of Hell, but by the working class he is regarded as deluded, a reasoning that became clear to me as I spoke with him. He was able to speak with the most utmost, perfect and smug confidence about the absolute stupidest ideas.
What was remarkable is that, unlike many of those I spoke with, he seemed stubbornly uninterested in speaking of himself, and more about promoting his latest concept, the "Gassy Pudding Room," a torture superficially grotesque but conceptually incoherent. When I questioned him about this, my already flagging confidence further waned.
When I asked him about the failures of concepts Giobella had mentioned to me, in particular about the logistical failures of the "wine sharks" torture-mechanism or the catastrophic escalation of the "Caffine Highway," he deflected with criticism of the public, his superiors, his inferiors, anybody but himself.
When I tried to ask if he had any friends outside of work, he paused for a moment, left the room, and I could hear profuse sobbing for about an hour until he came back in.
I may as well also mention, at the beginning of our conversation, he attempted to offer me coffee. I declined (Not for the reasons you would think as a book, I'm simply not fond of the taste), but then he followed up with no delay in offering me his "new patented crystal coffee-powder."
I analyzed it later, after taking it and surreptuously not imbibing it. I'm pretty sure it was just PCP.
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
You might correctly suspect I took inspiration from venture capital dipshits like Nathan Masri of Garfield Eats for this character, and you'd be correct, but the actual impetus was this very specific Frank Zappa bit about "the hippie that gets the coffee," hence the design.
Frankly, VC douches kind of are the direct ideological descendants of The Hippie That Gets The Coffee, but that's neither here nor there!
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
#my art#my writing#helloween#demon#demons#creature design#character design#coffee mug#frank zappa#venture capital
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HELLOWEEN #11: TROUPIER
-Troupier is a Crucible-General with 100 ghost-companies and 5000 engines of war to his name. He may summon great engines of war or ballistic and chemical bombardments from nowhere, may inflict pain or bloodlust upon the conjurer's enemies, and instructs in acts of torture and other wartime atrocities to be done in the name of victory.
He appears as a soldier with the head of a rabbit and a cannon for an arm, with a great wound in the middle of his chest. Do not believe any speech he makes about the conjuror, as each always contains one malicious lie even if there is also a truth contained within.-
It may surprise you to learn that relatively few demons in hell are torturers. Torture is in fact the engine that makes Hell run, the producer of the pain that feeds both its citizenry and the wheels of its great machinations, but the advances of production have created killing fields so vast and so advanced in their nature that it is an elite position to man the wheels of pain in this place, while the rest maintain everything else in a bloated industry of services and pseudo-services.
Torture is a position to which the toiling masses of demons aspire, and meeting one of those torturers shows the horror of what that means, the horror which even many of those who aspire to it would perhaps shirk if they saw its true meaning.
I saw on the great battlefield of Wrath, with its lakes of boiling blood and scabbed beaches, the fields of the damned in a forever war, killing and being killed again, with no release and no respite but further war. I saw them slaughtered by other souls and by great beasts of hell, mowed down by war machines that follow no engineering logic but that of a nightmare, human against human, torturing and being tortured in the endless mire with no release.
And I saw at the top of the highest hill, like a grim conductor, sending orders to the beasts of hell and firing indiscriminately on whims of his own, Troupier.
I attempted to speak with him. He simply looked at me and grinned, and said some things. Not about himself, but about me. And my sister, and our creator. Horrible things. Things I knew were untrue but were wrapped in enough truth to make me uneasy.
I left just as quickly as he came. Luckily his indiscriminate firing served him poorly when attacking a fleeing book than in a crowded battlefield.
Giobella had more to say about him. She said that, to those who are his actual peers, he's simply a bully with bad taste, that if you can stand in the face of his lies without fear and match his physical force, he goes down easily.
I find that perhaps hard to square with the fear I felt up there. Perhaps I am not the right one for the job, albeit, I have always preferred subterfugue...
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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Kinda like how thus creepo came out design-wise, I was going for McFarlane-y edgy and I think I managed it. Of course, it probably helps I used part of a mask of Eddie from Iron Maiden to make the face, hence the name!
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
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HELLOWEEN #10: ACABUS
-ACABUS is a Constable of Hell with 3,921 Watch-Men and 42 co-signed laws to her name. She may be summoned to prevent entry and egress from contained spaces, produce sigils to command those in their wake, produce a cubic oubliette preventing all egress and cause injury to those who have broken contracts.
She appears as a knight with a long tower for a head with an eye at the apex, wielding a hammer in one arm and a telescope in another. She requires a contract for her services, do not sign it with your dominant hand or else you are doomed to damnation.-
As there are landlords in hell, there are also cops. And amongst cops, a decent sample is Acabus. Petty would be the word I use to describe her, but not for her own indulgence's sake (at least not overtly), but rather for the sake of the Law.
This was clear to me when I contacted her within an entire city block she had taken over due to a simple parking violation, barricated from every avenue of egress, automobiles and pedestrians alike crushed into cubes due to being complicit in the viscinity of the parking violation, all surfaces festooned with tickets like freshly fallen snow.
Despite her pretentions, she is more or less a low-level traffic cop of hell, dealing with loitering, violations of driver safety, ticketing, and barricades amongst others. She really loves barricades. She waxed baroque of the art of making them as glorious yet painful and difficult to egress from as possible, and the ones in the location I had met her indeed seemed to bear an elaborate artisanship, albeit a grotesque one given the amount of twisted forms adjacent to humanoid and flame-belching skulls (conscious and unconscious alike) therein.
But, despite her low level, she was extremely proud of her work, saying that hell would devolve "like those filthy lemurs above," without her, her hatred of the souls of sinners and desire to punish as terrifying as it was sincere (despite being notably unhappy about her own limitations) and emphasizing to an almost suspiciously insistent degree that all she did was "by the book" unlike those who were here.
She did not seem to like most of hell either though, given the way the conversation (More a monologue on her part) escalated to her contempt for the hosts of hell, and I recall the line "Were I the ruler I would make Pandemonium itself a prison!" was uttered.
I quickly gave my leave after her comments on Pandemonium, heaven knows what she might do to me, but there was one other notable thing about her.
She told me her proudest moment was being brought on for inducing a traffic-jam for participating in large-scale torture of souls, who had been released onto a 'street" in "cars" and told they were free. Not even the main torturer, just as an assistant, but to her it was the closest moment to pure justice in her mind.
Of course, the justice of Hell was never supposed to exist, because the justice of pain is a false one. But I didn't tell that to her out loud. God no.
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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This one's one of my favorite designs I made for this project, and I am at least sorta proud of the "small-name big-ego traffic cop" personality I gave her.
The design's impetus was actually based on Road Rage from Ultimate Muscle, if anyone remembers that, and the love of traffic barricades is an Earthbound reference!
And yes, she totally would fight a small child who wanted to get past one of said barricades, that is something she would enthusiastically do.
Also, Xavier's not just being poetic, in my setting, Hell was a gargantuan cosmic mistake, a maelstrom-wound that drives the wicked into its folds, but in a way that was never ever intended. So yeah, there's that bit of lore.
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
#my art#my writing#demon#helloween#monstergirl#she counts#acab#cops#demons#creature design#character design
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HELLOWEEN #6: ANATAXIA
-Anattaxia is a Grand Wrecker of Hell with 4000 ruins and 50 blunt instruments to her name. She may be summoned for acts of demolition; consentual and otherwise, to bring injury and ill co-ordination to one's foes, and induce acts of defenestration within 500 acres of the summoning area.
She appears as a horrid imp with the wings of a dragon-fly and the horns of a goat. It is not advised that the summoner complete the conjuration in their own home, for the structure in which she is summoned will be destroyed upon the instant of her manifestation.-
In the realms of hell, while there are few hard and fast rules of hiearchy until the moment one desires to use the law-as-written as a weapon against one's rivals, one of the most consistent hiearchies is those deemed as "imps" being at the bottom of the social order.
Consigned to the roles of servants, couriers, maintainers, disposable spies, gunsels in both senses, and otherwise maltreated professions, an imp's life in Hell is to be used as a treasured footrest at best and a disposable stepping-stool at worst.
But, Annataxia occupies an unusual position in her hierarchy in that she represents a physical threat. A quite formidable one too, manic in her disposition and requiring some... negotiation to avoid having my pages ripped out.
She is a legbreaker for those debts unpaid and for those peers one wants to disappear in "unfortunate accidents" along with the adjacent three floors of the spires they currently occupy.
It has gotten her far, a position at the top of the bottom rungs, and her desire for violence is almost admirable in its simple purity so I suppose she enjoys her labors.
But, I suspect there may be a ring of tragedy to her origins, as inspecting the records of hell (At no small expense of bribery and... aggressive persuasion may I add) shows her origin comes from a lineage of crafter-imps, sent to do delicate repair and creation of fineries for hell, and the wild imprecision that characterizes her violence may be due less to desire than to a bodily condition that prevents her from doing so.
I have said she enjoys her labors, and this indeed appears to be so, and her position in hell here is higher than that of those crafters, but I hypothesize she had to get there from being ejected to the very bottom, clawing her way back up through violence I cannot even concieve.
Certainly, she appears sorrowful of what she could never have. In the rubble she calls her abode, I saw several attempted fineries, imperfect from what I saw of their construction, but beautiful in their own ways. They were the only things unbroken in that entire place.
I, of course, did not speak to her of this. As I feared my own breaking within our conversation...
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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So, I wanted to make a design inspired by the "wretched imp" archetype, and also to focus more on expressive faces since at least one friend has said my photomanips tend to lack them. I probably spent the most time on her face out of all the parts of her design.
Though the tragic angle actually came from the name, originally she was just going to be straight-up manic and destructive for fun. It flitted to mind from a Will Wood song's brief mention, I looked up the meaning, and the story came from there.
I think it fits with the theme. When I compared Hell to the USA in which I live, I of course include the horrible ableism, given how many people I know impacted by such...
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
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HELLOWEEN # 5: MIINOS
-MIINOS is a Great Judgement of hell, with 44 courts and 12 jails to his name. He may give false judgements to thy enemies, transmogrify dwellings into labyrinths and haul 320 stone of burden across a road. He appears as a man in chains with the head of a bull and a great scales across his back like a yoke-
In hell, there is the possibility of advancement to true diabolatry for souls that are canny and ruthless enough. And yet for most of them, they are consigned to the lower ranks of hell, all their ambition that consigned them to damnation only allowed enough egress to make the misery of their lowliness all the greater.
Thus is the case of King Minos the Second, his hellish name obnoxious to say perhaps as a joke on his personage.
While one may associate Minos the first with the courts of hell, for reasons I was unable to ascertain, one would not intuitively associate his descendant of many follies with them too.
And yet, he is, but in the lowliest possible way, more akin to a piece of equipment than a true judge, he is utilized as a means of analyzing data and determining guilt or innocence. Albeit, in an unorthodox way.
In that, whatever he says, the opposite reading is taken, guilty means innocent and vice-versa. Perhaps that is his reputation for bad judgement proceeding him. That is, when he is not utilized simply for menial labor, in-between his transport to the courts.
One might pity him until one talks to him. His ego was unspeakable, continuously self-justifying for his many sins related to the Labyrinth which he carries a piece of still within.
I did not bring the subject to mind, he simply spoke of it unprovoked. Though, speaking as one who knows both the other stories of the Minotaurs or the true tragic path of Daedalus after his escape and loss, I will assert Miinos' self-justifications are selective at best and generally made up of half-truths and total falsehoods.
Perhaps if you had been a true father to Asterion this would not have happened, you son of a bitch.
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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I basically made this guy as an improv-thing, and when giving him the bull head I thought of Judge Minos and how there's apparently two Minoses, and the whole story followed from there.
And yes, for the record, the whole reverse-judgement thing was inspired by the Quintessons.
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
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HELLOWEEN # 4: WERFFER
-Werffer is a Doctorae Chymist of Hell, with 6 laboratories and 616 patents to his name. He may enhance the concoctions and potions of an alchemist, in particular those of fire, which he may make burn thrice as long and thrice as hot and may make burn through bone with poison or cling to skin unextinguished by water. He appears as a grotesquely masked face with great claws like a scythe and blazing wings. A minor act of arson is required for his summoning, though this may be evaded by the clever conjuror.-
...There are few delicate ways to phrase this, but the first thing one must know about Werffer is they possess an intense pyromaniacal drive.
Now, pyromania is a respected professision in Hell, but it was quite... terrifying as someone who's own profession is extremely flammable. So, I was surprised to see their affability towards my personage. Books, it seems, are one of the few things they express distaste towards the burning of.
They spoke to me while burning souls in a device they called "The Doctor's Hookah," and were eager to tell me about their latest inventions and conflagrations. Amidst the screaming and melting of soul material.
Cross-referencing their descriptions of their work with the significantly older entry in the Testament, their work appears to have advanced significantly since providing Colonial alchemists with napalm and white phosphorus.
In particular they were extremely cheered by their production of soulflames, a process that could convert souls into flame instead of simply using them for fuel, and in particular his application of their usage to burning the icy towers of the lower hells.
They were quite chipper about the near-destruction experiences and the multiple assassination attempts after they had made themselves a political threat to those in the gelid spires, in an amicable way perhaps more unnerving than if they were hostile.
They also asked about the creatures of flame within my pages, which I felt it would be... rude to not show, though I will confess I made a lie of omission and showed him only the ones I percieved had benign applications.
Their eagerness when reading those entries makes me nervous though...
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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This dude I named after the Flammenwerfer, an old-timey term for flamethrower, which for some reason I took from the way I gave them a gas mask (because for some reason that and the wings makes me think of a flamethrower) and the rest followed from there!
For the record I imagine his personality basically being like if Styropyro had no regard for human or demonic life. Which is a terrifying thought if you're familiar with Styropyro!
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
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HELLOWEEN #3 HARKHAROLD
-HARKHAROLD is a Great Lesser Herald of Hell, with 54 sour notes and 128 pieces beneath his command. He may be summoned to aid in the summoning of other Demons (though will not provide this for Amduscias) and may grant the acme of compositional skill or the presence of cacophony or sour notes when desired. He appears as a robed man with a unicorn's horn playing a trumpet, emerging from a brass automaton that walks on four legs-
Bitter and envious seems to describe this individual, who would appear by all accounts to be a successful emcee and composer for the powerful and the aspirational. I have listened to his work, and it is surprisingly... well constructed. Not pleasant, but elegant in the very least.
And yet, he seems to have an unending bitterness for Amduscias, the chief musician of Hell, who he has tried upon multiple occasions to poison, both aurally via means such as his "sour notes" and by other means.
it seems to be motivated by the feeling that Amduscias is a talentless hack, that he got there by proximity to one of the Council of Satans, seemingly more on principle than on logic (And perhaps a small amount of spite for past incidents he refused to elaborate upon).
I mentioned that poisoning would likely not be the triumph that he thinks he would be, as the act of poisoning does not seem related to the talent that appears to be the axis of his envy. He threw me against the wall for that...
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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SO, I made this person after I asked for ideas and someone suggested the idea of a "herald" demon that announces the prescence of other demons. I got to thinking about instruments and then about Hell's existing musician in folklore, and the rest sort of followed from there.
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
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HELLOWEEN #2 CHABRONII
-CHABRONI is a Sentinel of Hell with command of fourteen doorways and 69 offices. He may block passage to any and all doors, and may author the building of strength, accentuation of cruelty within or infliction of violence upon others. He Appears as a muscular man with the legs of a crocodile, a singular eye in the middle of his chest and a cap worn on no head, his appearance preceded by a stench of strong perfume.-
The individual known as Chabroni may at first appear to be a simple brutish idiot, a low-level bouncer within Hell's many social clubs and businessrooms. But, in fact, he is also deeply cruel; lecherous and stupid; but in a way that only the learned may be.
He knows large amounts of torture techniques, and will gladly talk to you over a few pints of dorsebrau (Which I, unfortunately as a book, teetotaler, and abhorrer of dorses had to drink) over his knowlege on the subject. He appeared to have a high technical proficiency, but bizarre and unhinged ideas about their production economy. Moreso than is inherent in Hell's business of torture in general anyway.
He asked at one point if I contained any pornography. I was honest and stated that though there was no prurient intent in the writings, there were nude feminine and masculine figures of creatures I had profiled in the past therein. I wish I hadn't been.
-Xavier X. Xolomon , Monsterologist and Understudy to The Librarian Of Babel
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So yeah, I'm kinda proud of this as a gnarly "bruiser" demon, name derived from "Chad" and Jabroni and not the phrase Brony. He would probably hate MLP anyhow.
When I was making this guy, I ended up reworking his head totally into the non-head before I was satisfied. Originally he had the head of a dolphin, but I couldn't get it to look right. Though I am slightly pleased that I was able to basically say he smells like Axe body spray in a suitably old-timey grimoire-y way. And also that I was able to casually reference that yes, in fact, there are Dorses in Hell.
As per usual the whole descriptions, designs, ectcetera from this project are free to use as you see fit under a CC-BY 4.0 license so long as I; Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!
#my art#my writing#demon#helloween#body horror#muscle#eye#fedora#dorse#yes dorsebrau is made of what you think it is#hell
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