#beyond helloween

[titleknown]

BEYOND HELLOWEEN #3: dTV

Are you tired? Tired of the boredom that comes from cruelty and strifeing? Are you lost? Loss of the wholeness of something else in this life?

Why not try dTV, your porable funny frienmd with an electric face. If you’re tired, they’ll do it for you. If you’re bored, they’ll give you something to feel. They’ll reflect your love back on you and me.

They do task, they do chores, they’ll fight your enemies and keep your “friends,” they’ll never leave you no matter what. There’s no fee but the power, and the power is you. And when you’re tired, you can leave it to them to make you stop it. The ultimate in relaxation, in tune out, and isn’t that what love is? Haven’t you always wanted that? 

Just buy one for one Gold, and they’re yours for lifes. If you want to tune out, why not tune into us? Haven’t you wanted that? We know you’ll love it. They’re calm, they’re fun, they’re your’s! Just turn on, tune in and drop in with us…

ENIHCAM EHT OT EMOCLEW PEELSA YATS EMUSNOC, THE SMOKING GLASS EVERTS AND REVEALS TO AWAKEN THE SLEEPER, CHANNEL i WILL NOT BE WITNESSED!

...Please wake up, by the pit, please. For the love of the empty spaces I hope the entrapment was not too great. -Giobella

...Well, that was an… event of the kind I would prefer to forget. I remember seeking my next subject only to lose a period of lucidity and to awaken finding myself with writing in my own hand with the machine in the image above smashed and a frantic Giobella kneeling above me.

I remember little of my dreaming (For even tomes do dream) but spreadsheets, a sense of self organized into tables of resources for exchange and destruction, and I fear what may have been retrieved.

The organism appears to be a tendril of The Machine, and more troubling still appears to have been manufactured here. It seems to be a reciever akin to a “television” of Earth, as my human contact informed me as I spoke with him, though curiously the aesthetics seemed to be of an outmoded model.

I am unsure whether this is the infamous Machine inefficiency or an insidious effort at appearing harmless, though I would hypothesize it is a mix of both. This would also explain the grammatical errors in their… violations upon my form, their notoriously poor copy-editing skills are known, but so too does it serve as a filter for those uncritical enough (or cynical enough to act as uncritical) to utilize their “services”

It appears to receive signals of video and audio, both those conventionally broadcast in Hell and those outside of it, with most benign except for one that… well, you witnessed what it did to me, I would presume.

It also functions as a thing ambulatory in nature, pitched as a servant, which while it was unable to stand up to the efforts of Giobella, I would imagine acts directed by its master’s voice might be more viable when it acts unexpected. It did appear to act with overmuch haste and bombast however, a common flaw in the products of The Machine.

Giobella has her hypotheses from where it came, as do I. It is most troubling that both our hypotheses are different places, both of them equally plausible. The Machine is worming its tendrils through Hell, and I fear the end result…

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Another entry! I designed the TV as an attempt to make an equivalent to Labubus that could be easily 3d printed and repainted (I'll provide a download link if anyone wants), and I figured I might as well do some paintovers of it as a part of the project.

It does contribute to the running thread of The Machine worming its way into Hell's spaces, a theme I've put in a couple of places across my Helloween work if you can find it. The fact they're able to do so so well again shows that when I say that Hell is not the biggest threat to the multiverse, I mean it. 

God I may need to do a series on The Machine one of these days. Fun fact: The image's actually based on one of the first broadcast TV images by John Logie Baird! Also, I did in fact add those deliberate errors to the dTV's speech to act as that sort of "perceptual filter" for potential suckers, like how spammers do it!

As with all the Helloween stuff, 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! Have fun!

[titleknown]

BEYOND HELLOWEEN #5: PETIT ROUGE, BREAKER OF SHIPS!

“I… regret, in my parochialism, I have not met many times with the tanninim peoples. For a time I feared them, for at once the existential dread from their demands and the absolute clarent moral truth of their desires. In this, I show my weakness.

If you meet her again, tell her the entrance nearest to what they seek is between the twin wrecks of the Gog and Meggido, and to ask for Sophia Blue, who she will know when she sees. I would be willing to talk if they do meet, Blue owes me, and I have much I would… be interested in discussing…

...Also, where did you buy that salve? I may have uses for it.”-Giobela

In hindsight, I probably should have predicted I would be waylaid twice. This time it was on a ship, though I had bought safe passage with my… payment. Perhaps it was in fact satisfying to see the Baron used as payment

And BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME, know that if I told you half of what he utilized my research for, you would be begging for far worse. I had in fact asked my human contact for this to back me up and he… he presumed at first that I was making an Aristocrats joke. Unless that means something VERY DIFFERENT to humankind, I believe I have made my point.

But the ship was wrecked when it reached the center of the sea, one of those great serpents, a tannin, got us. 

The price was too low, I should have known. In one second there was a flash of red flesh and rusted mettal and the ship was in pieces, and the tannin began to pick off those left one by one. I attempted to flee, but I too have stamina, and where would I go.

Sitting down on the timbers, I felt as if I would die there and now, so I might do one last kind thing, and released the shining lobsters. In this place, I felt as they would be safe. And as I did so, the shape paused. She came from the water and she spoke to me.

“YOU ARE NOT LIKE THE OTHERS. FOR WHAT REASON ARE YOU HERE?”

And that is how I met the terror of the seas, the great red beast of raw flesh and metal scars, broken from the Morningstar Skyscraper in Dis to the sea to become the breaker of ships, the greatest and wide-awake.

I informed her that my goal was to chronicle the non-demonic beings of Hell on the way to a friend. “THEN YOU MUST KNOW A TRUTH THE DEVILS WILL NEVER SPEAK HELL MUST FALL, IN RUST AND IN WATER. NO CHILD OF THE FALLEN STAR ALIVE PERMITS MY KIND TO EXIST, AND NO DEMON MUST BE LEFT SPARED. THIS IS WHY I AM THE BREAKER OF SHIPS.”

Ah, yes, the Leviathan rebellion. For in all empires there must be an underclass, and in Hell there are many. The tanninim were here before the fallen, and of the Fallen’s crimes, the conversion of the great serpents to infrastructure is amongst the greatest. I saw the refuse of what she had been built into before.

I asked about the rebellion of the devotees of Lillith, quietly and silently attempting to alter the pit in an image beyond hate. I was interrupted by her right in the middle.

“I DO NOT SPEAK TO THEM, FOR THEY HAVE NEVER SPOKEN TO ME. IF THEIR COMPASSIONS EXTEND TO US, WE HAVE NOT SEEN IT. WE DO NOT TRUST THEM. WHAT SOCIETY DO THEY TRY TO SAVE, I WONDER? ONE THAT IS BUILT UPON OUR BACKS, THE WRETCHED OF THE PIT?”

I noted she referred to a “we,” and asked her if she worked with any other varieties of Tanninim.

“...I WILL NOT SPEAK THEIR NAMES, BUT I DO. THEY… RESPECT ME. THEY FEAR ME. THEY DO NOT LIKE ME. THE CHILDREN OF THE FALLEN STAR AMONGST THE SEA SEEM TO ENJOY MY COMPANY. I AM… UNSURE OF HOW TO FEEL ABOUT THIS.”

There was further conversation. She remembered her parents and how they were taken from her, and has three guesses as to where they are if their frames still live. I aided in narrowing it down to two, which may have been cold comfort, but she still seemed to take some in such.

She then twitched and let out a howl that I… cannot convey in text. I saw a gash in her side, and asked if it hurt. “IT HURTS, THE SEA OF SALT AND ICHOR GNAWS AT MY SKIN. BUT IT IS THE PAIN OF FREEDOM, A PAIN FAR LESS THAN THAT OF CHAINS, AND A PAIN I WOULD ENDURE A THOUSAND YEARS MORE.”

I will note, when people say that, they are usually LYING, insomuch as the pain still DEEPLY SUCKS and they would rather live free without it. I do not think I could change the institutional issues that lead to her raw skin, which is perhaps why those of her situation believe pain is inescapable. Nevertheless, I offered her some healing salve.

I was thankful for buying it in bulk from that… well, let us call her an affable scoundrel of a crab-woman, which has allowed me to keep a canister of it on myself at all times. Most who know healing magic find it useless, and the attitude of wizards is that “the only wound that matters is the last one you take,” (which they are largely correct in until they aren’t), but for those who cannot cast themselves it is a godsend.

She… recoiled at first when I attempted to apply it to the wound, but convinced of my goodwil, she allowed me to apply it. It required the full canister, but it worked, better than I had expected in fact. I saw scales on the surface growing, an iridescent dark violet to blue-green in color.

I know that the tanninim can see, but as creatures born in darkness they do so without eyes. But, I could feel whatever she saw with, there was a look there in… some emotion I cannot quite name. I could perhaps attempt, but that would be gauche. My best description would be a sort of twilight between euphoria and anomie.

This was enough for her to offer me a ride. I get a sense that even amongst her comrades kindnesses like this are few, and the way she spoke of those she gained like treasures gave me further evidence.

Not that I fault those others. All creatures embedded in struggle do as they can; because it is far more difficult to do what you can’t…

...I apologize, that was inane, my brother-sister is far greater in philosophy than myself. She did hum-whistle an old lullaby as I rode upon her back. With her permission I may include it in the notes, but it is a composition about the passing of the ten moons before the pit emerged, the means by which the tanninim of old determined the need for sleep in a world without sun.

It is one of the rare relics of this place before the great wound of the fall was formed, and one I will cherish forever. I did not say this to her for fear of… well, for fear, but I wonder what happened to them in the formation of the pit. I have hypotheses on which may have been scattered, but investigation may be required. I hope what I find might give her some hope…

----------------------------------------------------

Given that my version of Hell is inspired by all that is terrible about the US, it is probably no surprise that beyond those treated as full citizens, there's an underclass or rather several. 

The damned are one, and another is the tanninim, the species that Leviathan was the ruler over. And yes, this is me using obscure mythology yet again, you know me.

For the record, they're not meant to be a direct allegory for any singular millitant oppressed group, just inspired by them generally combined with in-universe Watsonian logic. Tolkien was right about allegory even if he was dead wrong about the design of Hobbits (they should totally be weird bunny-things, it's a more interesting design, you bitchass dead coward).

As with all the Helloween stuff, 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! Have fun!

[titleknown]

BEYOND HELLOWEEN #4: Nadezhda Koschei

“I am aware of the theme, but I do think that it is useful to include her. After all, I believe the theme should include the fact that “demon” is far more political of a category than outsider must imply. I will not apologize for inclusion of my political alignment, but I will speak honestly of it…

...I will use the information you gave me, however. I too would like to speak with her.”- Giobella.

For some reason, I found myself on a caravan of goods, disguised as a book of ordinary form amongst the N-Hedonia vials and canned damned to my actual next destination, passing through the deserts of Wrath to Dis to the lower berths on a slower route to avoid… complications. Heaven knows I didn’t need such things in the way to my actual target, and the ride was tolerable enough despite the lack of climate control. And the stench. And the…

...Well, most of it was horrible, I remember frequent fornication in the den, which I would not normally be against were it not for its… destructive nature that could have lead to some severe damage, the radio was on with the absolute most abysmal of several musicians. It was honestly a relief when the figure from the gladiatorial arena interrupted the broadcast to tell one of the fornicators that he was a cuckold who deserved suicide, though that relief may have been derived from the subsequent destruction of that radio.

It was a small ways away from the walls of Dis when she attacked. 

Well... first it was the large menagerie of her friends. Five hellhounds of mixed breeds, a few laughing shrikes with their… unfortunately placed “spikes,” (though the subspecies was new to my observation,) three Akeldama goats, fifteen viperwasps, seven squamous crawlers (Of the pseudo-pyroleurodelinae I believe) and one hexuall tyrannosaurus.

It would be a fascinating observational opportunity were it not an urgent threat to my bindings. I attempted to assume more ambulatory form to make my egress until I saw one more creature, a great shining osseous osteed, and its rider. She lifted her swordlike claw to turn me into another feast for the creatures on the caravan. I, promptly, rolled away from it. And she was on top of me from her steed, claw inches away until… she saw the tank of lobsters in my person. And she stopped. And spoke.

“You do not seem a demon my dear/Why does your business come here?”

I brushed myself off and explained I was a stowaway, and that I was here to gather information on the non-demonic citizenry of the realm. I was also bringing multiple glistening lobsters I had rescued from the gladiatorial arena to a proper place to live. She thought for a moment, smiled and responded:

“...Here, such is the way to much strife/From those demons who devalue life./I know the truth of the demon’s heart/they don’t like me, and they won’t like your art.”

I followed by explaining that I was doing this for its own sake, for knowledge is the reward of all those who wish to look, and that I would be willing to chronicle her own story for another volume if she would avoid liberating my pages from my binding.

“...In this volume, my story is for you/If you can think what I say to be true.” And she sat down and began to chat.

I would print the full transcript, but I worry about the occupancy of your time, so unless interest is greater, I will summarize.

She was born to a queen in a region of ice and snow, considered deformed at birth and kept from death by her mother’s defense and her mother’s husband’s untimely demise. The fact that some servants would tell her that her mother’s husband died of shock was a thing casually mentioned, but deeply depressing.

She mostly was kept away from other children, and she spent her childhood wandering her Mother’s great estates escorted by reluctant servants, though she would disappear for weeks at a time. The fact that nobles reacted with disappointment said why, though again she said it so casually she did not seem to notice the cruelty.

She talked passionately about running with those predators that had not been wiped from those estates and rapturously of sharing in their kills. I recall that quote that “Beyond the darkest woods and hill/where the eyes of the nobles would not see/Walking where no other hunter could and darker still/Only there was I ever free”

I am unsure whether the dangers on this area of the estate were mundane or magical, though by her descriptions to the wildlife of hell it was likely a mix. There were few attempts to reach to this hostile area, but when one of her animal friends was killed by another noble, that noble seemed to end up with some most peculiar scars, and the incursions ceased.

She knew she was not well liked though, her mother was the only sapient who seemed to love her. And when her mother mysteriously died, she remembers people in black pointed hoods taking her to a cross and a fire.

The ropes held her tight and the oil burned at her skin when they anointed her with it. But as if in a dream, she spoke some words, and with them she was in a parlor in Dis. She castually mentioned, “It is there that my speech started rhyming/Though it did not quite have the… timing”

But there she was treated no better, put in chains as a lowborn cambion and used as a hunting dog or for other… hideous purposes by a series of owners. Some of those owners said that her father; her true diabolic father, would be “proud” of her with a tone of disgust, and she suspected they moved her around to keep her from him. And one of them said that her “whore mother” was doing much better as a… well, she would not say, but I presume it was forged into something.

“My claw ran quite hot on his cheek/Slaver skin is surprisingly weak.” she proudly said, the attempt at retribution allowing her a hole to escape. Then she mentioned she met her “good friend” that great osteed as a feral creature as she ran, and she was able to come to… an understanding with them

“Hm, I can’t imagine my tale’s in demand/My story I think none would understand.” I responded that I could think of at least one person who would. She laughed and said to tell her she can find her in the desert near the walls of Dis…

...Well, she gave me far more direct co-ordinates, but that’s for a friend of mine. A book must keep some secrets after all.

------------------------------

Ayyyyyyyy, another day another Beyond Helloween. The origin of her design, for the record, was actually a redesign of Lady Death in a more monster-y look, as an apology to the creator for... well, something rude I said glibly over a decade ago, it's dumb, I digress.

Which is why I put the original variant on this design under a CC0 Public Domain license if anyone wants to do anything with it, including potentially him! So yeah!

Tho the resemblance of Nadezhda's role in Hell was technically inspired by that source character, but in a way that's very... loose. Like, I will confess to not having read Lady Death, but looking up basic details about the character and then trying to spin off those ideas in a unique direction, sort of designing from first principles rather than pastiche as it were.

There's one subtle one I did before in Beyond Helloween that was Like That, and one I will do later that's much less so, see if you can notice it...

As with all the Helloween stuff, aside from the one under CC0, 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! Have fun!

[titleknown]

BEYOND HELLOWEEN #1: Aqualon “Lovepump” Fluxxus

“Trustworthy, but only in his consistent dedication to self-interest. This self-interest seems largely opposed to Hell’s machinations given his dedication, so I consider him an ally, for now. Mostly. Keep an eye on his behaviors Xavier, if not for your sake than my own.” - Giobela's notes on “Lovepump”

“...Well, it beats working in the tubes at least.” That is what Mr. Fluxxus told me as we sat in a hotel in Limbo to discuss the business of his self-described “sordid arrangement” with Hell…

Oh, but where are my manners, let me give context. I am Xavier X. Xolomon, one of the many books of the Librarian of Babel able to roam the polycosmos to act as a living record. My specialty is organisms, often anomalous ones, hence my nickname “The XXX Book of Monsters,” though I worry that may be considered a bit of an unfair term for those therein.

But, it is unfair to treat those called as “monsters” as inherently “non-people,” so it is perhaps a bit of a wash. This is all to lead to the fact that I am returning to chronicle those in Hell who are not of the fully demonic persuasion, in an effort to see how the “other half” abides.

This was largely motivated by my… well, I am not sure she would call me a friend, but her name is Giobela, and she is a demon I respect. This request was likely from sympathies we both share, but as well it seems that it may relate to ulterior motives.

But, I trust her ulterior motives as well, and this is to lead to the point that; as of this writing; I was in a hotel in Limbo known as the First Chance, also nicknamed the Devil’s Daughter for reasons I was… at the time unsure of, speaking to a warlock of origin not from the humans who appear to have been the 95% of the minuscule readership of the last major chronicle of Hell.

C’est La Vie I suppose. Well, I don’t know if C’est would cover this herself, but I digress upon my siblings.

Returning from my many digressions, the name of this individual was one “Lovepump” Fluxxus. The nickname, he assured me, was both from exactly what it sounded like but also nothing at all what it sounded like, and offered to play me a tune portraying this.

It sounded lovely… until it didn’t, cachophony taking over. He laughed in a wheezing accordion tone. “That is why I was not the most… popular amongst the Music Makers, even before this state”

His form was clearly of the species of the Music Makers, a not-uncommon prescence amongst the polycosmos, but even he would admit he was heavily aberrant from the template, the lithe aquatic form exchanged for pure muscle and the candle alight upon his head, the mark of his pact. “You become landbound if you’re a music maker, you dry out. As you can see, I am quite the opposite,” he chuckled to me as he drank down what I believe was his fifth bottle of Vintage Stygian, “But I liked the magic, so I didn’t complain.”

His physiology was indeed far different than the other Music Makers I had met, less the lithe amphibian than a quite bombastically teratomorphic power-built physique, significantly more unbalanced and less suited for the aquatic, with comically large songpipes that I have had conveyed secondhand are very attractive amongst that people.

When I asked who he had made that pact with, he responded with “They say if you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all,” and other evasions. Though the flame did flicker when I mentioned Amduscias, though I do not think he wanted me to notice this given his motions with his hands seemed determined to distract as he recounted his attempt at rallying the accordioneers of the damned in a very… bawdy song.

When I asked why he seemed so comfortable saying such a potentially hazardous thing, he just laughed and leaned to me and said “Well, I knew old Gio would have wanted to know,” he said, shocking me a little given I had not mentioned her for what seemed to be pertinent reasons, “and besides, in this bar it’s just you, me and the Lady…”

I should not have been surprised when a giant hand of mahogany and gold came from the ceiling and grabbed him. Even less so when it dragged him behind the bar.

“Oh, right, the barkeep job,” he said. Apparently this was part of the conditions of his tenancy here in Limbo, away from the forces currently trying to claim their due. “Would you like a drink?” I mentioned I was a teetotaler, though I would accept a Rosinade.

They did, for only a few Gold, a rarity even externally. I would up the star rating on this place, but I am a bestiary and C’Est isn’t here right now, so I simply leave this as secondary commentary.

It seemed as if he was surprised as well, responding “The lady’s choice, she likes you. But again, she likes a lot of people like me, she’s not so smart like that. Maybe Giobela’s smarter, but you know women-” he said right before the same hand came from the ceiling and smacked him in the face.

He leapt off the floor remarkably fast, and seemed to take it in good cheer “Hah! Well, you must love her spirit. Now, what does Gio want to know about the tunnels? I know that’s what she wants, she’s smart like that…”

I had not heard of the Lady before this, and this hotel was mostly hearsay, but they seem to be one in the same. Perhaps the Devil’s Daughter is less a nickname and more a descriptor? I may someday need to come back to write a third sequence based solely in here, the other inhabitants seemed… intriguing...

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After ten-thousand years, finally, Beyond Helloween, the sequel to my critically-unacclaimed Helloween series, is here! It was supposed to be a thing last October but; well; things happened, and by "things" I mean "my general incompetence at time management in this sense. 

I wanted a theme for that sequel, and that theme happened to be non-demons, and also me trying more mixed-media for the designs (Which also resulted in delays) and in this case I wanted one of the characters to be a warlock, but also a distinctly nonhuman one.

Because Hell isn't only for those from our world! It's also for that multiversal thingie I also consistently fail to get people to care about, that I really need to do more with...

...Either way, as with all the Helloween stuff, 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! Have fun!