The High Coronach

Death comes to all things that have life. This is the truth of the universe. Nowhere is this more apparent then the city of Cemeteria, the city that borders the spiritual realm. Naturally, with that proximity to the beyond, a system of ritual and religion has built up. The majority of Cemeterians revere the idea of death, not only as an ending, but as a source of continuance. The apple dies, but the one who eats it gains nourishment. So it is for souls. When a person dies, the afterlife becomes stronger. The crux of it involves the quest to make sure the souls feeding the afterlife are good ones. The head of this religion is the High Coronach. Elected pope-style, from the lesser clerics. When the city of Cemeteria is exposed to the world by a supervillain’s attack, the Coronach wants to start spreading the religion to the rest of the world. This proselytizing is not welcome everywhere in the world, and so the ruler of Cemeteria, Queen Deathknell, has to try to smooth things over politically.

I remembered Queen Deathknell just recently and figured “Hey, that’s a pretty ‘supernatural’ idea, lets build on that” so I’m doing it. The next character is also from Cemeteria:

Morrie

Cemeteria is not a perfect place. As with any large city, there is a criminal element. But they have to deal with Morrie. Morrie has served as the police chief of Cemeteria for over a century. With supernatural gun-summoning abilities, Morrie has stopped the soul smugglers and ghost bandits and, of course, grave robbers that are brave or stupid enough to try their luck. Morrie is a grizzled, rough old man, who was a great ally to Queen Deathknell’s mother and is now especially protective of the current monarch. While this is very welcome when it comes to him doing his job (Cemeteria doesn’t have a military, at least not yet), he has been known to cause some embarrassing situations when dignitaries from the outside world are in town.

It doesn’t come across too well, because I’m not good at this, but Morrie is supposed to be unnaturally tall and lanky. I had the Arch-Vile from Doom in mind. I named him Morrie as a reference to the phrase Mememnto Mori, which seemed appropriate.

Agla the Great

The ocean is a big place. It’s bigger than that stupid surface world that you think so highly of. Only stupid air-breathers would be surprised to learn that there’s a lot going on down there. So often the surface world thinks that the people of the sea want to conquer the surface, but that’s stupid. Agla the Great, a magic using crimelord, has no desire to even go to the surface, not when she can run a whole criminal empire in an area larger than most continents. With a small army at her command to do all sorts of crimes, Agla is living the high life deep below. At least, that was, until a certain quartet of half-fish teens comes along to ruin things…

So I’m doing two mer-people in a row. You got a problem with that? No. You don’t. Because ain’t nobody care about this but me. Anyway, since making the boss of the Aqua-Vikings last time, I’ve been mentally sketching out my undersea world. That’s what I do.

Scary Monster

Picture a scary monster. It’s some kind of ghostly thing, with claws and fangs and it shouts and howls and lunges at people. It dwells in the woods and frightens campers. It’s a monster that is scary.

But is being a scary monster enough? As time goes on, and dozens, or even hundreds, of people have been scared, does the monster feel fulfilled? Not really. It’s his job, but not his passion. He has hobbies (carving things from wood, bird watching, and so on) and sometimes he wishes he could focus on that. Someday, maybe. Someday…

I had a sketch among my notes that was literally just labelled “scary monster”. Can’t argue with that. And so I wrote some sentences there…

The Voider

This is going to sound harsh, but someone has to say it: Devils are jerks. Sure, they seem nice when they show up and offer you some kind of great deal. Riches, fame, power to stomp down your enemies? That stuff is all really great, and all it costs is your soul? Well gee, you say, who needs a soul anyway? It probably isn’t even real! This smiling devil seems to know the score, he’s got a nice suit, and all he wants is your name, signed in blood, on this contract? Easy as pie!

And that’s how they get ya. The soul-buying devils are the con artists of the supernatural set, but one man is through with their nonsense. Motivated by nothing more than his belief that deceitful devils are being unfair to their victims, the man known as the Voider, apparently some kind of street-fighting mystic, has made it his life’s work to void as many supernatural contracts as possible. If possible he will help victims get out of their suffering by making use of obscure escape clauses and loopholes, but if that comes to a point where his only option is to hang out at crossroads at midnight and beating the holy heck out of anyone who shows up, well that’s just how it is going to be.

Sea Chieftan

The Aqua-Vikings are a mer-people tribe that values strongness and toughness above all else. As it turns out, this means that many of the most prominent members of their clans are the ones who maintain more fish-style attributes. As you rise in the hierarchy, you find more scaled faces and webbed fingers. But when you reach the top, you find a merman who has barely any man in him at all: The Sea Chieftan. almost like a whale in size, but a shrimp in intellect, the boss of the Aqua-Vikings maintains control of the Secret Faction whose territory covers most of the Earth with his sheer strength. But beyond maintaining that control, the Chieftan has no real goals. He’s content to just tread water while the other Factions decide the fate of the world at large.

I’m gonna level with you: I spelled “chieftain” wrong at the inking point of the drawing and didn’t catch it because I hardly ever use the word. I could have fixed it when I noticed it, but instead I decided it was a character thing. I can do that. Nobody ever said I couldn’t.

I’m sick, so I’m using my alien wizard buffer characters again…

Zerbdoffer

When Zerbdoffer became a Wallfixer, he decided that the best way to help maintain the stability of the multiverse would be to work as a translator when first contact was made between species from different dimensions. So now, Zerbdoffer tries to show up in such circumstances, to keep things running smoothly and peacefully. This has made a lot of enemies among the various organizations trying to conquer as many universes as possible. (His species)

Vantour the Living

Vantour is from a species that has defeated life. Vantour’s people have devised a process of transferring their consciousnesses into computers. Vantour is the sole member of the species who has not undergone this process. As the rest of the species was moving into their future, Vantour was discovered by the Wallfixers. Since the upgrade process would risk losing mystical powers, Vantour decided to remain as is, a living anachronism devoted to protecting a world that is now more online than off.

As much as possible, I’ve been trying to make the Wallfixers aliens who don’t look at all human. Vantour here seems to be an exception. Still, a tail, pointed ears, strange skin. Could be worse. At least the rest of the species is apparently even less human now.

Prime Painter

Though born as an ordinary human, called Jericho, the man now called the Prime Painter was favored by the Space-God of Creation known as Genitor. So impressed with Jericho’s devotion to creating works or art, Genitor decided to grant him with a mystical paintbrush that allows him to alter reality.

Always having hoped to improve the world with his art, Jericho began to use his new powers for the greater good. Though he originally tried to fight against poverty, disease, and world hunger, the Space God of Hopelessness caught wind of his actions and began to actively oppose him. Since then, Jericho has been publicly seen as a sort of superhero who has had to spend a large amount of his time reacting as the Monsters of Despair work to make the world look terrible. Jericho is saddened that his efforts are hampered by this “supervillain” nonsense, but what can he do but keep fighting?

Weggles

Weggles was born deformed in a harsh world during a great battle between good and evil forces. His parents were both killed in war within a week of his birth. The odds were very good that the infant Weggles would not survive long. The only reason that baby did not starve to death in his bed was the arrival of the Old Sage, who knows that anyone can be useful, deformed or not. The Sage took Weggles to some of his allies, who raised him, and whenever possible the Sage would return to instruct young Weggles in all manner of obscure knowledge. As Weggles now approaches adulthood, he is leaving home for the first time to work at a newly formed school to help other children across the war-ravaged realm accomplish their potential.

It’s worth noting: I’ve got a whole lot of notes dating back to the same era as my superhero notes that are about a vast fantasy world. It occurred to me that I ought to dig into those for Supernatural Sundays, since a fantasy world should surely count as supernatural. I’ve got enough characters in those notes to keep me going until the end of this year’s theme even without thinking up new ideas (not that I intend to do that).