The Witch Hunter General Rides In

Witches are only one part of the equation for many stories. Out there lays the one thing that even the forces of evil fear, the Witch Hunter General and his men. These men are both stalwart champions of good and scourges of evil. Turmoil and death follow in their wake to a degree only paralleled by the most fiendish witch. Their arsenal is vast, their knowledge of their prey complete, their interrogation skills consummate. None dare to stand against the General and his cadre. There is no hiding. There is no pleading--except to plead guilty. There is nowhere that their influence and power does not reach. Wicked, beware. Who are these enigmatic paragons? How frequent are they encountered? How many are there? Most importantly, how do they impact the horror expressed and demanded by witches, singularly or even by the coven? All will be revealed for goodness' sake.

The question of how many will depend on your setting. More witches mean more witch hunters in only some cases. More hunters could mean lesser skills or more dangerous witch powers. It is important that the hunters do not overpower the setting and dissipate the horror. They can be so powerful and unstoppable that witches have no chance against them when push really comes to shove, but this might be mitigated by the wait for the Witch Hunter General and his men to come to the rescue or the level of collateral damage created by the conflict between the two sides. Do not forget the flip side that where the hunters go the innocent fall prey to them as well over hysteria, jealousy, and other general finger pointing. They are feared by all who do not feel they measure up to that level of righteousness. Pride comes before the fall as well, be warned.

Secrecy is one of the weapons in the witch hunter's arsenal. Fear of the unknown extends to the wicked just as much as the virtuous. Stories from the witches' perspective doing away with hunters are possible if not mainstream. Extended stories of the witch hunter's training and seminaries will tend toward a more fantasy than horror feel, especially with the hunters working from such a strong base position. Even with a story from a hunter's perspective--regardless of whether high or low in rank--less is more to maintain the mystique. The line between folklore surrounding the hunters and their true power can be revealed, but benefits from being unleashed little by little--much as the most spectacular part of any story must be the climax. Come back next time for a look at the signs of witchery, witch's habits, and the tools of the witch hunter's trade.

Mood: seasoned.

Music: Fear Is The Key by Iron Maiden and Catch Me If You Can by Alice Cooper.

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Time Period and Horror

Since it has become one of the driving forces in all of my writing from the RPG material, to the horror short stories and novels, I thought that today I would talk about the affect of changing the time period in which the story takes place. For my first novel I started with a certain amount of work already done. The work was short and it was rough, but it was highly detailed. It was set in the modern day—at the time that was the early 90’s. When I sat down to turn this into a novel I asked myself a very important question. What can I do to really punch this story up and make it sing? Really crystallize the horror and heighten it.

The answer was to change the time period portion of the setting. I started with the idea that there was a man who, much like most monsters, was more than a match for the people who would try to stop him. Someone who can do great bodily harm, and has the will to do it in the most horribly imagined ways, is scary only up to a point. Then it becomes, yawn, yeah the guy can tear people limb from limb literally. So what! Similarly, there is only so much terror to be had from seeing innocent Joe Blow off the street get smeared. This lead to the decision that the big bad man had to go after people who were less than helpless, even people who were just as vicious.

Okay, that’s two factors changed. However I made the best of both of them, merging them together. I still have to believe that the time shift is the stronger change of the two. Now, we have a monster of a man versus trained, high-tech, warrior-types. This to me just screamed much nastier. Think of it in terms of the Aliens movie franchise. The first one has people with not much to defend themselves with and they are way over their heads. The second has soldiers with heavy-duty gear and they are still way over their heads. Ask yourself, what if in the second film there was still only one alien and things went just as badly?

Right there I made a large difference. Other factors may be involved but that is where my second novel, the one I’m working on currently, comes in as an example. It is set back in time around twenty years. Why? In this case I was first looking to remove certain elements from play, and second I needed a more gentle and innocent time. Imagine it, all of the terrible nasty news stories of the last how many years never happened yet. No Columbine Massacre, no 9/11, much less coverage of every crime in painstaking detail with hours of coverage. The setting also poses limitations like no cell phones and no Internet. The advantages are many and tailored to the kind of story I’m telling. That’s the key. It can’t just be for the sake of doing it. It has to affect the exact story you intend to tell.

Mood: tired.
Music: Gunslinger by Demons & Wizards and Time Will Tell by Royal Hunt.

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