1. Featured Story

"In the year of the Lord 376," the philosopher told the patriarch over pre-dinner drinks at the get-acquainted gathering put on by the Alliance of Man the evening of January 12, 1938, "Ignorant Christians seized the grandest cave-temple of the Great God Mithra. It was right here in Rome; on Vatican Hill, no less. Seized it and all its treasures.

"I say ignorant because it was an act of religious zeal. They had no idea what they had and probably could care less. Some old-timers, possibly Xuthrodites, did, however. They secured the treasuries, which were housed in Tantaluses, transparent display cases supposedly sealed by magical means. These treasures were the spoils of war, of Roman conquest, -- as you probably know, Mithraism was the dominant religion of the Roman soldiery. Those who salvaged them sought to return them to their rightful nations."

"And they were lost."

"Two have now been found. I hold the keys, the Signet Rings, required to open them. Have had since the Summoning, although I only discovered their importance late last summer when our Treasury was found off the coast of Trigon, the Aegean Island where I spend most of my leisure time. But I am more than just a simple Ringkeeper, I am a Ringleader. Would prefer to provide them to my own people. Nonetheless, they are yours, -- once you have killed the lecherous, devil-sent bastard who lusts after my baby sister, Argiope Bright Face.

"Once you kill Etzel Sangati!"

-- from 'Blood Beasts Prime', the first chapter of 'The Moloch Manoeuvres', which was revised in the Spring of 2002

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3. Hestia-Housekeeping

So much for the obligatory introductory remarks, ==> onto our usual Hestia Housekeeping. (Why I call it that is explained elsewhere.)

First up is where last time up's pHpubs went. Now that that's out of the way, next up is what's new this time up. A fay-fairy-fair bit actually. Should mention straight off that, no, you didn't miss a couple of seasons of PHANTACEA on the Web. I did. World was too much with me and all that.

Main thing to report, other than I'm gainfully unemployed for the first time pretty much since I was thirteen, is that most of the new material out here has to do with 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'. That's because I've been occupying a lot of my income-free time completely revising it. That and trying to interest agents and publishers such that Manoeuvres can become gainfully in-coming, income-wise, for me.

Want some more dot-dot-dots to see how I'm doing in that regard? Consider it done... And, just for good measure, that was another one. (In case you didn't notice already there are even more down below.) Do contact me if you know of any agents or publishers who might be interested in assisting me get Manoeuvres out there in non-WWW.Dotland, that is to say in actual book form. [jmcp1749@hotmail.com]

Haven't abandoned the two other web-serials I began running last time up: 'The Damnation Brigade' (Year One - After Limbo), which starts out in December 1980, and 'Helioddity', which eventually picks up from where Manoeuvres left off in January 1938. Have three new story sequences, plus synopses, for each and even got around to scanning in some new images as well.

As always, -- good reading!

• 'Year One - After Limbo'
  1. "Trigregos Diver"
  2. "Sedonsex"
  3. "D-Brig At Rest"
  
  
• 'Helioddity'
  1. "Hunter and Huntresses"
  2. "Helios Goes Nuclear"
  3. "Old King Kad"

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Good viewing too, -- since for the first time in quite awhile I've scanned in some new images to perhaps entice you to have a more in depth look around PHANTACEA on the Web.

Most of the black and white scans found on this webpage are sketches made by Ian Fry, the artist who drew 'Forever And Forty Days', which is still available. They were done in the late-Eighties when I was contemplating writing and publishing another graphic novel. (I still have the script but seem to have lost or hopefully only misplaced some of the sketches.)

The colour scans found throughout on the Web are mostly from my own photographs, as taken during occasionally far-ranging Travels in my Pants. I use them in the Features sections and Photo Essays I sometimes publish out here in Cyberia.

Often the pictures I take are of objects such as statuary (as below)) or masks, which remain my personal favourites. The graphics that follow, together with their day-glow links, exemplify what I'm saying. They are suggestive of characters, themes and even events found in PHANTACEA.

Once in awhile I find an etching or an old painting, the model for which had to have been one of my characters. Examples of these last are the two images found further down the page. In my view the etching is of the very essence of Wilderwitch, -- complete with fearsome soul-self, what she can unleash even when she's so out of it she's lying on her back otherwise unaware of what's happening to her --, while the painting has to be of John Sundown, albeit with features more Mayan than Cheyenne.

Thus far PHANTACEA on the Web has presented events from three distinct time periods: that of the late-Thirties (starting in early January 1938); that of, in terms of the United States, the 2nd Eisenhower Mandate (roughly from late '55 to early '60); and that of little more than a couple of weeks in December 1980. Other than the Dual Entities, probably the main constant throughout 'pH-Webworld' has been the Summoning Children.

There were any number of these Summoning Children. Very few, less than two dozen, their younger selves rather, were named in Manoeuvres and, of them, perhaps only half a dozen could be considered major protagonists.

However, at least five were charter members of what eventually became 'The Society of Saints', which flourished during World War Two, and a total of eight Summoning Children first went into action as part of different group, one that preceeded that SOS but was also an SOS, one whose collective souls very much needed saving on January 13, 1938.

Little has been said about the SOS's predecessor group thus far in PHANTACEA. That is because I, um, neglected to mention it until I revised 'The Molech Manoeuvres' in Spring Two Thousand Two. Four of the eight were men. Which, perhaps suprisingly given PHANTACEA's ornery quirkiness, made the other four non-male. These latter four, they of the female persuasion, found a way, in 1938, to resist being categorized as anything less than full partners in their joint enterprise.

So, equality in numbers amazingly begetting equality in naming rights, -- what to call this aforesaid, first SOS? Answer, they decided, was the Sorority (for the female four) of Sausages (for the male four). Well, they were teenagers back then.

I won't tell who belonged to the initial SOS. All right, so I will tell you that one of the boys was Gentleman Jervis Murray, he who can become Wildman Dervish Furie, -- but who in 1938 initially described himself as a Werewolf in Shorts. (Though, sooth said, he wasn't that. He was a Werewolf in Grecian Skirts.)

Times change and by 1980 he's becoming something somewhat different. He's becoming a faun. Unless he's becoming a satyr, which is much the same, albeit strictly male, Pan-like creature of the woods. (In PHANTACEA female fauns are not called wood nymphs, they're called faunas.) And everyone knows what fauns do best!

Someone who was not an original member of SOS, either SOS, was not-yet-blind John Sundown. Neither was his childhood bride, Solace Sunrise, Sorciere. Both feature prominently in the 1938 story sequences, however. (Feature prominently in the 1955 and 1980 ones as well, though one of them isn't quite so lively by then.) And here is where we get into the thematic aspect of the photographs I take. Also get into the Serendipity stuff that seems to happen so often to me as the writer and publisher of PHANTACEA.

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5. Graphics: Footnotes and off-page links

1. Every fantasy series need its version of Death and PHANTACEA is no different. Yama Nergal, a Mithradite, is only one of them, however. Some others were Tantal Thanatos (King Cold), Mater Matare (the Apocalyptic of Death), and the Straw Man (Vanthysces, Great Byron's original Grim Reaper) while Nergal Vetala was the Vampire Queen of the Dead. Like them, albeit only a couple of times, Yama appeared during the Launch Tetralogy. One of those appearances was reprised recently in Brig-1.

   As an Underlord he was originally a God of Miners and consequently had a pickaxe instead of a scythe for a power focus. As a Nergalid he was the third part of the annual food-farming cycle. (Zuvem Nergalis, Devil Doom, he with the shovel for a power focus, he who also appeared briefly in Launch, sowed the seeds, Vetala grew them and Yama harvested the results.) In both the 1938 & 1980 story sequences he is the nominal Overlord of the Ghostlands, which were once the Laughing Lands or, in terms of Outer Earth mythology, the Elysian Fields.

2. How Nergal Vetala, the middle Nergalid, went from a fertility goddess to becoming the Vampire Queen of the Dead was told in 'The Trigregos Gambit', where she was one of the main antagonists. It came about as a direct result of the Disuntion of the Unities, which was detailed in PREGAME-Gambit #s 2-4. That Barsine Mandam was an incarnation of Vetala was hinted at in Manoeuvres.

3. As detailed in PREGAME-Gambit, around the same time Columbus was 'discovering' the Americas Unholy Abaddon, the Unity of Chaos, was driven mad by the Susasword, one of the Trigregos Talismans. Uncle Abe Chaos, as he is sometimes called, promptly went on a rampage, pinning his breed-sister, Harmonia, the Unity of Balance, to a slab of Brainrock with the self-same Susasword. She languished in a cave within the Crystal Mountains until she was rescued during GAME-Gambit, some five hundred years later. Balance thereupon started calling herself Freespirit Nihila.

   Shortly after he disposed of his Sister Unity, Chaos also attacked their breed-brother, Lord Yajur, the Unity of Order, and managed to cathonitize him. Apparently in order to celebrate his victory over his fellow Unities, Abaddon committed devic suicide, that is to say he cut out his third or devic eyeball.

   In Manoeuvres, which was set in 1938, Granny Garuda, Sorciere's teacher and psychopomp, expressed a fear that Chaos was still around and on the Outer Earth. He wasn't, but World War Two started a couple of years later, so guess who might have been outside by then?

   Both Nihila and Yajur were on the Moon, among other places, during the last book in the Launch Tetralogy. Both have already appeared, albeit with their circumstances rather dramatically altered, in 'Month One - After Limbo'. Abaddon has yet to reappear in PHANTACEA on the Web.

4. Plathon, the Bull of Mithras and Devic Lord of Apple/Apis Isle in 5938, can be cruel, kind or completely indifferent to you. As depicted in pH 4-Ever40, he was sent to tempt Anti-Patriarch Cain into destroying Power Point Sumeria, that is to say the Gates of Eden, a few hundred years before the Genesea. He did a good job.

   In fact the device Cain used to destroy the Gates themselves, the Garden itself, himself and everyone with him was crafted in Plathon's image. Was a Golden Bull. (Sound familiar? I've never been shy about stealing from the Bible.) Another image of Plathon, also drawn by Ian Fry, can be found on the order page.

5. There are three images of Wildman Dervish Furie on this webpage. The first, as drawn by Ian Fry in the late Eighties, is a rather sedate Furie in Dervish-mode. The second, like the third, are serendipitous renditions of Furie in faun-mode.

   Everyone know what fauns are good at and Wilderwitch is no exception. She is, however, Jervis Murray's lover, not Dervish Furie's, which causes considerable tumult in the early stages of Month-1. So significant is this consternation that I excerpted some segments from Month-1 and block-quoted them in a couple of its chapter synopses. ==> ==>

6. Although Wilderwitch would have been around 10 and, as such, could eventually show up in the 1938 story sequences, she does not appear in either Manoeuvres or Oddity. In 'War of the Apocalyptics' she was beaten to within an inch of her life by Mater Matare, the aforementioned Apocalyptic of Death.

   The Witch, though, has a knack for stretching an inch into inches and much of the time she appears in Year-1 she's getting better everyday. While, in terms of another meaning for inches, she won't do so with Dervish Furie, she seems to have nothing against doing so with Saladin Devason. I were him and I pissed her off, which I would never dare do but Sal might, I'd watch out for her fearsome soul-self.

7. John Sundown appears to be a Native American Summoning Child who, with the probable exception of Rings '60, has appeared in every story sequence thus far published on the Web. He isn't blind in either Manoeuvres or Oddity; is, however, Blind Sundown in Rings '55, the Launch Tetralogy, and Month-1. Is, as well, a Great Killer in all of them. Except, and this is an interesting bit, there's a suggestion in Manoeuvres that he-him may not have killed anyone anytime, -- at least up until that time!

8. Another interesting bit is that John Sundown and Solace Sunrise, while they were both Summoning Children, were both born on Christmas Day 1920, were brought up together as Cheyenne Tis-tis-tsas (Human Beings) by Shaman Manitoulin, a Wayfarer in the Weird who haunts Manoeuvres, and married each other on their thirteenth birthdays, in 1933, may not be, strictly speaking, Native Americans. During Manoeuvres Granny Garuda, who hates snakes and is herself no native of the Outer Earth, even goes so far as to hint Sundown's actual parents have voluntarily become vampires.

9. What's the connection between Raven's Head and Sundown's 1938 Raven Fetishim? I'll have to get back to you on that. Will mention that how a ravenbuck or doe came into being was detailed in 'Forever And Forty Days', which is still available. Be a good place to have a look at Raven as well since she's on the front cover. Immediately cheaper way is to click the next day-glow marker you come across and, after you click on the one after that, wait for it to load.
   
   (Note: Since Raven's Head is a ravendeer some of my characters, being prone to fay-saying, might be tempted to call her a cervine corvine. However, to look at her on the cover of 4-ever&40, she's more a bodily equine, hoof-winged, corvine monoceros.)
   
10. Granny Garuda, whom we discovered in Manoeuvres was an old-time Utopian witch named Kanin Nauroz, is hardly the only garuda to appear on the Web. Her daughter, son-in-law and a couple of their children have already shown up in 'Helioddity', the follow up story sequence to Manoeuvres.

    In fact Aquilla the Hunter, the hunter in the title to Odd-4, is Granny's Summoning Aged grandson. Really is too bad he got between the two titular huntresses, Sorciere and Sagitta. Turns out it was also too bad for another old-time witch, Kyprian Somata, the Master of the Utopian Weirdom of Cabalarkon in the 1938 series. Were it not for what happened to Aquilla Plathon, the Bull of Mithras, might never have got it into his minuscule mind to capture her.

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Jim McPherson's Worldwide Email Address -- jmcp1749@hotmail.com

PHANTACEA: THE WEB SERIAL