So what’s the deal with this Hat Man?

Youtube recently recommended to me a video about a monstrous figure that wears a hat and haunts people. Apparently the Hat Man is a known variation of the Shadow Person folklore that has cropped up, According to Wikipedia, there have been reports of him since at least the “late 2000s”. But what the video reminded me of is that I basically invented that guy myself in 2014.

The Hatwearer, I called him. Hat-wearing guy who haunts people, and in my version, kills them. I was just trying to create something evocative of the Creepypasta stories I was learning about around that era and thought he was generic enough to work. Obviously the big difference between my Hatwearer and this Hat Man fellow is that my one isn’t a shadow person. He has corporeality going on and everything. Detailed features, messed up though they are by our human standards. But the basics are similar enough that it made me think.

I’ve never had a sleep paralysis event, and I have never had a need to take Benadryl. Those, Wikipedia says, are the main sources of seeing the Hat Man. I guess I just tapped into the zeitgeist and trod some mental territory that was already well-trodden. I can only apologize for being unoriginal.

Anyway, I didn’t mention it at the time, because I hoped I’d do it some day, but my intended use for the Hatwearer was for him to appear in a specific story. I had, in those days, hoped I’d be able to get stories about the Hateful King made, and it was my intention to have the King just casually kill off that particular demon with ease, to show how powerful he could be. It’s more than a decade later and I’ve made no progress on any Hateful King stories, so I guess that story can now be told here. In this form. Consider this hackneyed demon to have been slain.

Super Sunday: Supernatural Aliens

After I did Superhero Sundays and Supervillain Sundays, I did Supernatural Sundays, so here I have three aliens that have supernatural powers:

Wise Chargan

Planet Gurx is a world where knowledge is highly valued and collected, but sometimes forbidden knowledge has escaped the records and now only exists in the minds of those who call themselves “The Wise”. Chargan is one of the wisest Strondovarians in this sense, full of occult knowledge that is too dangerous to be made public. Chargan employs a small army of loyal subjects who infiltrate all sections of Strondovarian society and keep Chargan informed if any important “secret” information should be discovered. When that happens, everything in Chargan’s vast power is done to make sure that information is lost anew.

The project to create a New Gurx, a giant replacement planet for the tiny homeworld, is secretly being financed and led by the Wise. They have had their secret employees filling the interior of the planet with occult runes with meanings unknown even to those employees.
Universe: Blue

Dark Victor

Centuries ago, the planet Jinnar was ravaged by wizards who wanted to wrest control of the planet from the technology-based governments that had ruled for so long there. A long war resulted, which left that planet in ruins, but at least the wizards were wiped out. That is, save one. A single one of those wizard found terrible secret ways to cheat death. So now, as the only remaining survivor on either side, that one wizard can safely declare himself the Dark Victor of the war. But even having survived, the Dark Victor did have to leave Jinnar to find a better place to recover. The Victor now roams from planet to planet, haunting the cosmos as a magical alien ghost monster, occasionally attempting to take over some other nice species. It’s a good gig, but it also makes him a prime candidate to be hunted by Konwaag the Magic Hunter.
Universe: White

Haphaff

There was a time when otherworldly beings were present on the planet Dellwell and they were worshipped as gods. Though those beings seem to have left the world, their traces remain, but none more strong than Haphaff, who claims to be descended from those very beings. Essentially this makes Haphaff a demi-god, and his strength and durability seem to agree with that assessment. Though boisterous, Haphaff has not drawn too much attention to himself over the years, but there are elements working on the planet who would like to get their hands on him.

I didn’t mention it when I did the Dellwellians’ profile, but this is a species that was one I found among my notes from back in my youth. It was just two pages, one with a few Delwellian “superheroes”, and the other with the Dellwellian religion. Haphaff was the thing combining the two. I maybe thought it was clever that the species is hunched over normally, but this example of a more “bestial” Dellwellian stands upright, a reverse of how that might go with humans.
Universe: Orange

Super Sunday: Smoldor and Evil Toe

Smoldor

Smoldor is a magical creature made from a mass of burning coal. Created by an evil pollution-loving corporation to fight CommandOak and the Forest Force. Smoldor is a strong, but dim-witted guy, but his burning touch is a formidable threat (especially to enemies made of wood) so he can’t be written off entirely. Still, most of the time he just makes stupid remarks and gets belittled by his superiors. It’s possible Smoldor might not actually be such a bad guy, he may actually just not know any better.

Good old Smoldor is just me continuing to grow the Forest Force’s resemblance to the 1980s cartoon franchises I liked as a kid. Every good villain in those days had at least one idiotic henchman. I have not actually designed any of the evil corporate people that Smoldor works for yet, but we do know that occasionally he would work alongside Mr. Slime. Also worth noting: The Forest Force are living tree people. It is my (admittedly limited) understanding that coal can be made from wood. How did the evil corporation create a living coal person? The answer may be very dark.

Evil Toe

The wizard Mak Skyruiner was a terrorist known all over the world. He and his forces sowed chaos with numerous bombing attacks on the capital city of the island kingdom Islopia. The superhuman law enforcers of Islopia (including the Beam) tracked Mak down and, in a violent climactic showdown, seemingly destroyed the wizard once and for all.

But the wizard was not entirely destroyed. A single toe remained, and was not noticed by the good guys. Having transferred enough of his essence into that solitary digit to remain conscious, the wizard used what magic power he had remaining to develop a small mechanical body to keep himself mobile. While he may now be much, much less powerful than he was, he is still alive, and where there is life, there is the opportunity for this Evil Toe to rebuild himself. And, perhaps more importantly, to cause whatever mischief he can to make things harder for the good guys.

Super Sunday: Skask and Clettox

Skask

The underground kingdom of King Mederex tries for a medieval aesthetic, but they do have access to modern technology, especially the higher ups. The lizard people in the kingdom are rarely higher ups, but Skask was an exception, because his of his technological skills. Using his computer prowess, he helped to guide the forces of Mederex during the conflict now known as the Secret Factions War. But that war was not won by Mederex’s kingdom. When the Secret Government finally fought their way into the tunnels and Mederex himself prepared to surrender, several members of the king’s court took their own lives. None of that for Skask, though. Instead, he uploaded his consciousness into the powerful computer system he had spent years developing. When they found his body, they assumed he was dead, but he lives on as a sort of electro-ghost. With the right technology, he can project himself into the world as a hologram, but often he will remain hidden in the form of information. No longer loyal to the king he sees as a coward, Skask is out for his own desires. What those are, remains to be seen.

Holographic Lizard Man Ghost Hacker. I dunno.

Clettox

The demon Clettox was left trapped on the Earth after some wizard summoned it her via a ritual, but was disappointed with the tiny demon he caught. Since then, Clettox has lived in the oceans, usually submerged, resting near the bottom, but when it gets hungry it will bob up to the surface and hunt down a meal, generally a human being. Moving quickly by skimming along the surface, Clettox can chase down a powerboat and devour those within in a matter of minutes.

I basically doodled this guy on the corner of a page to fill up space. I had no idea what to do with it, so it just sat there. Months later I had a dream in which someone had created 3-D computer models of some of my characters, including this guy, and he was depicted skimming across a water surface. Dreams are good enough for me.

Super Sunday: Wallfixers 6

Wallfixers

Last week I finished up with the Efmon Family, so why not go back to the other buffer I was doing this year for this week? You can’t stop me. These are the Order of Wallfixers are the good guy space wizards.

JuAb

There is an awful lot of freedom for those alien wizards in the Wallfixers. Once a being with suitable power is trained in the use of their power and they swear to use them to protect the multiverse, they’re free to go (To date nobody has sworn that oath and then gone on to break it by acting in their own self interests. After all, their training shows them pretty clearly what goes wrong when multiversal forces are monkeyed with, and it isn’t pretty). Some Wallfixers settle down somewhere they think they can do good works, others travel the multiverse looking for any trouble that may crop up. JuAb is more into preventative measures. Rather than patching up dimensional tears after they’ve happened, JuAb investigates evil types who have the technological knowhow to pierce universal barriers and, if it seems like they’re up to know good, JuAb will make its presence known. And JuAb isn’t diplomatic about it either. JuAb doesn’t offer warnings, JuAb hits them like a one-reptilebirdthing SWAT Team.

Nyrveek

Nyrveek is one of the elder generation of Wallfixers. She is very powerful and has located and, in her long years of service trained many younger members. But even an old alien wizard like she does not know the secrets of the founding of the Order of Wallfixers. As she gets older (several centuries old by human standards), she sees the multiverse around her in generally good shape (and her students are keeping an eye on it), so she has decided to look into the questions of the origins of her group. She now spends most of her time visiting the oldest alien laboratories and libraries looking for any clue to where the group originated.