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Greetings and salutations. It is I, Graham.

In all of my gaming, whether miniatures wargaming or tabletop RPGs, two concepts that have always grabbed my attention were the Gothic undead, and the idea of parallel or alternate realms involving the concept of shadow type beings. I can’t tell you why they fascinate me so much, other than they feel perhaps the safest form of “other” I can think of. I’m drawn towards Gothic romantic themes. I love Anne Rice, Goth subculture, and the whole idea of the “Vampires Are Hot” movement.

Clevenger spoke about his love of a particular spell, and a particular action sequence. For me, book one is a setup for book two, which is when I really get to tell Jesse’s story that I had planned from the start. Therefore, I don’t really have a particular spell that is my favorite. At least, not in this book. Instead, I have to do the same thing I did last week. My favorite visual, hands down, was one of the first things I wrote for Manticore’s Shadow: the assassin, the ghost, the wraith, Rhon.

From chapter one of book one, I get to do what Clevenger did on Wednesday, and feed you a quote:

A figure moved out into the open center of the room, draped in grey robes, and carrying a lantern in each hand. To call the robes grey would be wrong though. The light of the lanterns seemed to have no effect on their color or shading. And the material seemed to twist and flow as if made of vapor, or to be moved by undersea currents, or to be made of shadow. The head raised and the figure looked up at Jesse, but beneath the hood was blackness. No, Jesse realized. Not blackness. There was color there. There was a face. But it was a blue so dark that the skin was lost in the shadows of the hood covering the being’s head.

Then, from a much later chapter, they meet again:

From the darkness of the alley across the street, smoke began rolling forward, as if an unseen fire had been set. Except that it acted more like mist or fog, hugging the ground. There was movement in this fog the color of smoke. A figure, walking forward. As the figure reached the midpoint of the street, the fog condensed, pulled back, sucked back in against the figure. With eerie recognition, the form solidified, if that was the right word, into the cloaked figure from the warehouse.

How do you deal with an assassin that won’t stay still, that won’t stay solid, that isn’t even fully in your own reality? This, to me, is where the fascination comes in. So bring me Gothic Horror. Bring me Vampires, bring me Goth youths in high schools, bring me death metal band concerts. Give me ghosts and wraiths. In my reading, and especially in my writing. This is going to be a short one. I don’t really have a lot else to add on this topic. So until next time…

Don’t forget to love one another.

Graham