Tom's Portfolio
Scriptwriting
Call Me V
A teaser episode for Season 3 of my urban fantasy fiction podcast The 100 Handed, written and sound designed by myself. Two tattooed magicians raid a sorcerer’s lair, only to make a disturbing find. Audio and script below.
Sweet Dreams
Another mini episode for The 100 Handed. Vasquez, a veteran Imagomancer, has made a deal with a malevolent entity, Vincula. Vincula takes Vasquez on a tour to witness his nightmarish powers.
Orcsmasher - A Ten Minute Play
Two Dungeons and Dragons players debate the finer points of smashing orcs. Performed at Texas State’s D2 Play Festival ‘Masks’ in 2019.
Lore
A sample of world-building for The 100 Handed that covers core narrative concepts, as well as an extended timeline of the fictional universe.
Ezra's Compendium
I don’t know how you found my Compendium, Inkling, but if you are still reading this it means your eyes haven’t burst out of their sockets. This is of no consequence to me, but if you are going to snoop through my library with unruptured optical nerves, you may as well learn something. Feel free to copy this to the ‘world-wide web’, if you must. Given what absolute nonsense you mortals of the Flock believe, I fear nothing of this knowledge being taken seriously.
The Madhouse
Our order, so named after the abandoned insane asylum we operate out of. As for why my siblings and I chose San Antonio, well, that’s a longer story, and not pertinent to your Tasks. The Imagomancers, by drawing on Solomon’s tattoos, my knowledge, and the Gloomwatcher’s power, pledge their lives to the Madhouse. All of us play our part in keeping the cancerous Gloom from poisoning reality more than it already has.
Imagomancers
That’s you, dear Inkling. An Imagomancer acts as the will of the Gloomwatcher and practices the discipline of Imagomancy, seeking out violations of the Pact and responding with the appropriate level of violence. If you haven’t gotten that far in your studies, this entails the inking of magical tattoos that render an Imagomancer into a walking spell book. The tattoos can be used at will, unless they are burned for an empowered magical effect. Burning a tattoo expends it, and an Imagomancer cannot use it again until they visit my sibling Solomon to provide another. The more violent tattoos also inflict Imagomatic backlash upon the Imagomancer. Many an Imagomancer has had to decide between an early retirement or an early grave.
The
Gloom
The
Glimmer
A malevolent, permeating force of evil in the world. Hell, Yin, Chaos, Isfet, the Abyss, whatever you want to call it, the Gloom invades our reality and warps it out of shape. Beings that draw their supernatural nature from the Gloom are known as Creeps, while magicians who seek to harness the Gloom’s dark power are known as Magi.
While the Gloom pervades reality, the Glimmer is much more remote. So far, the only beings known to be able to manipulate it are Solomon, myself, and the Gloomwatcher. Unlike the Magi’s more direct relationship with the Gloom, the Imagomancers are only able to interface with the Glimmer via Solomon’s tattoos. In my studies, however, I have encountered hints that there may be some gifted mortals with an innate connection to the Glimmer…
The Pact
An accord struck long ago. The intent behind the Pact, also known as the Pact of Porcelain for its fragility, was that the Creeps, the Magi, as well as agents of the Glimmer, would abide by its terms as a tenuous ceasefire. The Pact forbids the harvesting of the young and the elderly, as both groups are close to the source of all power beyond being and non-being. The Pact also forbids Creeps from running amok, which has led to the formation of Creep organizations such as the Menagerie, run by more intelligent Creeps to keep their more instinct-driven ilk in line. As you can imagine, the blurry lines of age, as well as what constitutes running amok, make enforcing the Pact fraught with difficulty. The Pact carries real weight, but the enforcement of it is as murky as any human affair. I do not envy your future in enforcing it, Inkling.
Creeps
Creatures of the night. Vampires, werewolves, as well as other, lesser-known but no less dangerous monsters are nicknamed Creeps. They far exceed humans in diversity, with some Creeps primarily driven by insatiable hunger and others possessing an intellect and cunning exceeding that of the most brilliant human mind. The Creeps share in common their relationship to the Gloom, as well as the Craving, an insatiable urge of some sort, be it flesh, sex, power, or even darker desires.
Magi
Barring some exceptions, most Creeps are ‘born’, not made. The same is not true of the Magi. Nobody accidentally becomes a Magi. The Magi consciously direct their will towards the manipulation of the Gloom for some sort of gain. Even Magi that start out with good intentions quite quickly find themselves compromised by deceit, desire, and lust for power. Discipline in Magi circles is much looser than that of the Madhouse, resulting in a wider variety of magical prowess as many Magi are autodidacts or part of an occult lineage.
Prop
A Prop is an enchanted tool used to facilitate a Magi’s working of the Gloom. For example, Magi involved in the harvesting of psyches will use a specialized stiletto to draw the soul out of the nasal cavity.
The History of Mystery
(A Timeline)
Outside of Time – Magus travels Olympus, Asgard, Vanaheim, and other realms, slaying gods and other mythical beings, incorporating their parts into his body.
1st Century A.D. – Simon Magus’s presumed death at the Roman Forum. A weakened Magus retreats into hiding, beginning a millennia-long scheme to wreak havoc on the Earth and to capitalize on the souls sacrificed.
1346 – The Phos, including the Gloomwatcher, Solomon, and Ezra, come down to Earth during the Black Plague, which has been unleashed by Magus in a mad attempt to steal power in a mass slaughter.
1348 – The duel between the Gloomwatcher and Magus. As reported by historians, ‘fire fell from heaven’, and an earthquake destroyed 16 cities and killed over 40,000. Both the Gloomwatcher and Magus are hideously wounded, though alive. The Pact of Porcelain is struck between the Gloomwatcher and Magus, though the Creeps are largely left out of deliberation. The Pact grants the Gloomwatcher awareness when it is violated.
1439 – Magus, barely clinging to his unnatural life, meets Gilles de Rais. De Rais retreats from public life, and Magus takes de Rais under his wing in exchange for a stream of victims to prolong his power. One of the Phos, the being who would later become Vincula, is disgusted by this perceived act of weakness on the part of the Gloomwatcher and leaves. The Gloomwatcher, aware that Magus has already reneged on the pact, helplessly watches as the plight of the innocent goes unanswered.
1440 – De Rais begins selling Magus’s secrets after learning that Magus isn’t the only sorcerer in existence, in exchange for more forbidden knowledge. De Rais betrays Magus in a catastrophic battle and slays his master. De Rais preserves the corpse of Magus, fakes his own death, and begins leeching off of the Maguscorpse to prolong his own life. De Rais begins searching for the Athaneum Abyssus, an extradimensional library that holds all possible knowledge…including Magus’s own. De Rais, using the fraction of insight Magus gave him, severs his own hands and becomes The Handless One, appropriating the Hand of Tyr and the Hand of the Magus from the Maguscorpse when needed, and founding the Hundred Handed.
For the next three centuries, the Handless One toils behind the stage of history, much as his old master did. The Maguscorpse has a will of its own, however, and the battle of wills between the Handless One and the dead Maguscorpse preoccupies much of his attention. Meanwhile, technological progress and political power struggles wrack the continent of Europe.
Vincula, the wayward Phos, seeks pleasure beyond pleasure in a vain attempt to satiate a lust for his lost home dimension of the Glimmer. He sinks deeper into the Gloom, becoming a twisted mockery of the beautiful creature he once was while resenting it all the same.
The Gloomwatcher, Solomon, and Ezra (sometimes called the Triumvirate) try and fail multiple times to establish an order in Europe to combat the Pact violations. As soon as they gain a toehold, some calamity befalls them, setting them back to square one.
After the United States is formed in the fires of revolution and the frontier recedes before industry, opposing powers descend on Texas. A coincidence, at first blush, but people and creatures aren’t the only things with power. Places, too, possess a mystical charge, and the players in this drama are drawn inexorably to the area near one of the oldest continuously inhabited regions in North America for 12,000 years: San Marcos, Texas.
1868 – Bexar Lunatic Asylum opens its doors, mostly taking in disturbed Civil War veterans and non-combatants. It gains a terrible reputation due to the experiments of Dr. Kyle Stross.
1871 – Mere years after the Bexar Lunatic Asylum opens, a Hellbound-type Creep takes possession of both the staff and patients, leading to a bloodbath. The asylum shuts down and gains a reputation for being haunted. The Triumvirate, now in America, moves in and dispatches the spirit, though at a grievous cost to Ezra. They establish the Madhouse and it becomes the longest-lived order in their stay on Earth. They begin training Imagomancers, magicians who use tattoos powered by the blood of the Gloomwatcher and inscribed by Solomon.
1945 – The Handless One, eyeballing San Marcos and its ley-line for some time, waits for the opportune moment. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the wider carnage of World War Two, creates a massive disturbance in the Gloomwatcher’s capacity to detect violations of the Pact. The Handless One seizes the opportunity to construct his base of operations in San Marcos. He founds the Hundred Handed, seeking disciples to scour the earth for arcane knowledge so that he might one day access the Athaneum Abyssus.
From here, both the Madhouse, the Hundred Handed, as well as the Creeps of Central Texas have been locked in a war cold enough to chill the bones. That is, until an Imagomancer named Michael Washington is killed in action in 2018, starting a chain reaction that will threaten the very fabric of reality.