pH-Webworld - bypass banners - quick lynx - bottom of page lynx


Search:

Lynx for pHantaBlog RSS: http://phantacea.com/blog/?feed=rss2

This free script provided by
JavaScript Kit

Welcome to 'The Trigregos Gambit' Introductory Webpage

- Top of Page Search Engine - Phantacea Publications available in print and digitally - Bottom of Page Ordering Lynx -

Phantacea Publications in Print

- The 'Launch 1980' story cycle - 'The Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories' Fantasy Trilogy - The '1000 Days' Mini-Novels - The phantacea Graphic Novels -

The 'Launch 1980' Story Cycle

The War of the Apocalyptics

Front cover of War Pox, artwork by Ian Bateson, 2009

Published in 2009; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here;

Nuclear Dragons

Nuclear Dragons front cover, artwork by Ian Bateson, 2013

Published in 2013; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here;

Helios on the Moon

Front cover for Helios on the Moon, artwork by Ricardo Sandoval, 2014

Published in 2014; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here;

The 'Launch 1980' story cycle comprises three complete, multi-character mosaic novels, "The War of the Apocalyptics", "Nuclear Dragons" and "Helios on the Moon", as well as parts of two others, "Janna Fangfingers" and "Goddess Gambit". Together they represent creator/writer Jim McPherson's long running, but now concluded, project to novelize the Phantacea comic book series.

Top of Page Search Engine - pHantaPubs in Print - Page Highlights - Upwards - Downwards - Fresh Graphics - Bottom of Page Ordering Lynx

'The Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories' Epic Fantasy

Feeling Theocidal

Front Cover for Feel Theo, artwork by Verne Andru, 2008

Published in 2008; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here

The 1000 Days of Disbelief

Front cover of The Thousand Days of Disbelief, collage prepared by Jim McPherson, 2010

Published as three mini-novels, 2010/11; main webpage is here; ordering lynx for individual mini-novels are here

Goddess Gambit

Front cover for Goddess Gambit by Verne Andru, 2012

Published in 2012; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here

Circa the Year of Dome 2000, Anvil the Artificer, a then otherwise unnamed, highborn Lazaremist later called Tvasitar Smithmonger, dedicated the first three devic talismans, or power foci, that he forged out of molten Brainrock to the Trigregos Sisters.

The long lost, possibly even dead, simultaneous mothers of devakind hated their offspring for abandoning them on the far-off planetary Utopia of New Weir. Not surprisingly, their fearsome talismans could be used to kill Master Devas (devils).

For most of twenty-five hundred years, they belonged to the recurring deviant, Chrysaor Attis, time after time proven a devaslayer. On Thrygragon, Mithramas Day 4376 YD, he turned them over to his Great God of a half-father, Thrygragos Varuna Mithras, to use against his two brothers, Unmoving Byron and Little Star Lazareme, in hopes of usurping their adherents and claiming them as his own.

Hundreds of years later, these selfsame thrice-cursed Godly Glories helped turn the devil-worshippers of Sedon's Head against their seemingly immortal, if not necessarily undying gods. Now, five hundred years after the 1000 Days of Disbelief, they've been relocated.

The highest born, surviving devic goddesses want them for themselves; want to thereby become incarnations of the Trigregos Sisters on the Hidden Continent. An Outer Earthling, one who has literally fallen out of the sky after the launching of the Cosmic Express, gets to them first ...

Top of Page Search Engine - pHantaPubs in Print - Page Highlights - Upwards - Downwards - Fresh Graphics - Bottom of Page Ordering Lynx

The '1000 Days' Mini-Novels

The Death's Head Hellion

- Sedonplay -

Front cover for The Death's Head Hellion, collage prepared by Jim McPherson, 2010

Published in 2010; main web presence is here; Character Companion starts here; ordering lynx are here;

Contagion Collectors

- Sedon Plague -

Front cover for Contagion Collectors, collage prepared by Jim McPherson, 2010

Published in 2010; main web presence is here; Character Companion starts here; ordering lynx are here;

Janna Fangfingers

- Sedon Purge -

Front cover for Janna Fangfingers, collage prepared by Jim McPherson, 2011

Published in 2011; two storylines recounted side-by-side, the titular one narrated by the Legendarian in 5980, the other indirectly leading into the 'Launch 1980' story cycle; main web presence is here; Character Companion starts here; ordering lynx are here;

In the Year of the Dome 4825, Morgan Abyss, the Melusine Master of the Utopian Weirdom of Cabalarkon, seizes control of Primeval Lilith, the ageless, seemingly unkillable Demon Queen of the Night. The eldritch earthborn is the real half-mother of the invariably mortal Sed-sons but, once she has hold of her, aka Lethal Lily, Master Morgan proceeds to trap the Moloch Sedon Himself.

In the midst of the bitter, century-long expansion of the Lathakran Empire, the Hidden Headworld's three tribes of devil-gods are forced to unite in an effort to release their All-Father. Unfortunately for them, they're initially unaware Master Morg, the Death's Head Hellion herself, has also got hold of the Trigregos Talismans, devic power foci that can actually kill devils, and Sedon's thought-father Cabalarkon, the Undying Utopian she'll happily slay if they dare attack her Weirdom.

Utopians from Weir have never given up seeking to wipe devils off not just the face of the Inner Earth, but off the planet itself. Their techno and biomages, under the direction of the Weirdom of Cabalarkon's extremely long-lived High Illuminary, Quoits Tethys, have determined there is only one sure way to do that -- namely, to infect the devils' Inner Earth worshippers with fatal plagues brought in from the Outer Earth.

Come All-Death Day there are more Dead Things Walking than Living Beings Talking. Believe it or not, that's the good news.

Top of Page Search Engine - pHantaPubs in Print - Page Highlights - Upwards - Downwards - Fresh Graphics - Bottom of Page Ordering Lynx

phantacea Graphic Novels

Forever and Forty Days

- The Genesis of Phantacea -

Front cover of Forever and Forty Days; artwork by Ian Fry and Ian Bateson, ca 1990

Published in 1990; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here

The Damnation Brigade

- Phantacea Revisited 1 -

Front cover of The Damnation Brigade, artwork by Ian Bateson, retouching by Chris Chuckry 2012

Published in 2013; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here

Cataclysm Catalyst

- Phantacea Revisited 2 -

Front cover for Cataclysm Catalyst, artwork by Verne Andru, 2013

Published in 2014, main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here

Kadmon Heliopolis had one life. It ended in October 1968. The Male Entity has had many lives. In his fifth, he and his female counterpart, often known as Miracle Memory, engendered more so than created the Moloch Sedon. They believe him to be the Devil Incarnate. They've been attempting to kill him ever since. Too bad it's invariably he, Heliosophos (Helios called Sophos the Wise), who gets killed instead.

On the then still Whole Earth circa the Year 4000 BCE, one of their descendants, Xuthros Hor, the tenth patriarch of Golden Age Humanity, puts into action a thought-foolproof, albeit mass murderous, plan to succeed where the Dual Entities have always failed. He unleashes the Genesea. The Devil takes a bath.

Fifty-nine hundred and eighty years later, New Century Enterprises launches the Cosmic Express from Centauri Island. It never reaches Outer Space; not all of it anyhow. As a stunning consequence of its apparent destruction, ten extraordinary supranormals are reunited, bodies, souls and minds, after a quarter century in what they've come to consider Limbo. They name themselves the Damnation Brigade. And so it appears they are -- if perhaps not so much damned as doomed.

At least one person survives the launching of the Cosmic Express. He literally falls out of the sky -- on the Hidden Continent of Sedon's Head. An old lady saves him. Except this old lady lives in a golden pagoda, rides vultures and has a third eye. She also doesn't stay old long. He becomes her willing soldier, acquires the three Sacred Objects and goes on a rampage, against his own people, those that live.

Meanwhile, Centauri Island, the launch site of the Cosmic Express, comes under attack from Hell's Horsemen. Only it's not horses they ride. It's Atomic Firedrakes!

Top of Page - Upwards - Downwards - Bottom of Page Ordering Lynx

pH-Webworld

- Jim McPherson's phantacea Online -

Logo for Phantacea reads Anheroic Fantasy since 1977

| List of ph-Webworld's Online Serials | Page Contents | Introduction |

THE TRIGREGOS GAMBIT

-- TRIGODDITY --

[Saturna Island HEAD IN THE CLIFF, Photograph by Jim McPherson, 1995]

SEDON IN THE CLIFF
- B.C.'s Saturna Island -

THE LAUNCHING OF THE COSMIC EXPRESS

Web Serials

CENTAURI ISLAND

WAR OF THE APOCALYPTICS

THE TRIGREGOS GAMBIT

HELIOS ON THE MOON

© copyright Jim McPherson, 2003
Top of Page - Page Contents - Upwards - Downwards - Bottom of Page Lynx

Introductory Comments

Although both 'The War of the Apocalyptics' and 'The Moloch Manoeuvres' ended quite some time ago out here in Cyberia, and 'Centauri Island' was concluded comparatively recently, new installments of 'Helios on the Moon' are currently appearing simultaneously with those of 'The Trigregos Gambit'.

In time, GAME-Gambit will not only catch up to Island, and carry on from where it left off, it will after a fashion do much the same with War-Pox. Will also, be forewarned, meld with Moon. That is to say some of those who survive ENDGAME-Gambit will crossover to Moon and seek their ultimate fates there.

As for PREGAME-Gambit, it begins with a different ending, -- that of a Great God!

Top of Page

'The Trigregos Gambit' had its origins in the phantacea comic book series, where it was most often known as 'The Soldier's Saga'. Most of it was reprinted in "Cataclysm Catalyst", a Phantacea Revisited graphic novel released in the Spring of 2014. Jim McPherson, the creator/writer of the Phantacea Mythos, incorporated a similar, albeit vastly expanded version of this storyline in "Goddess Gambit", Book Three of 'The Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories' epic fantasy.

Ordering lynx are at the bottom of this page.

Top of Page - Page Contents - Upwards - Downwards - Bottom of Page Lynx

THE TRIGREGOS GAMBIT

-- The Web Serial --

Potential Front Cover for 'The Trigregos Gambit', prepared on PHOTOSHIOP by Jim McPherson, 2005Sedon's Head originated not so much with a bang as a splash, -- the Great Flood. Also known as the Genesea, it did not swamp the now Inner Earth, Hidden Headworld, Big Shelter. Were it not for the Moloch Himself, the Demon King Sedon, raising the Cathonic Zone out of his own essence it would have. Even so, it's a fragile thing, this Cathonia or, more simply, the Dome. Has sprang more than a few leaks in its nearly six thousand years of existence.

For the most part though, it's served its dual purpose. Has kept the Head, and all those myriad many and multifarious upon it, separated from the Outer Earth. Has kept the devils beneath it and their forever foes, the equally extraterrestrial Celestials, beyond it. Kept the Genesea's flood waters, in the form of the North Pacific Ocean, away as well!

Lately, as in the last thirty-five years (the bulk of the action in Gambit taking place in late 1980), it hasn't been quite so impervious however. Has sprang more than a few leak-links to the outside. The primary reason for that? Nothing less than the invention and increasingly indiscriminate use of Atomic Power on the Outer Earth!

Dr. Aristotle Zeross should be a happy man. He's thirty-seven; in better shape than ever; has a lovely, shall we say statuesque wife; and three charming daughters. He would be too, happy that is, except Harry's haunted.

Alexander III by Benjamin West, scanned in from a postcard bought in Edinburgh in 2003 then adjusted by Jim McPherson on PHOTOSHOP, 2007Twenty years earlier, 1960 on the Outer Earth, his first wife, Belificent nee D'Angelo, was kidnapped on their wedding night. A few days later she was murdered in cold blood, -- by a devil, pure as driven Hellfire no less; one Strife by both name and inclination.

Actually Strife's worse than any devil because, by Sedonic Decree, it's no more acceptable for Sedon Spawn to murder someone than it is for them to, say, swim in a lake full of Molten Brainrock. (Which she also did.)

This is primarily for reasons religious. Master Devas, as the Sedon Spawn are more generally known, survive largely due to the unquestioning veneration of their lesser, entirely mortal, adherents. Put simply, killing someone, anyone, deprives devils of a potential convert.

Should any one of his descendents go against their grandfather's dictates, the Demon King would cathonitize, atomize, the miscreant instantly; fuse them with Cathonia; make them stars in the Night's Sky above his Head.

An infectious spirit more than anything else, Strife has avoided that fate for going on two millennia by now. Did it by fleeing beyond the Dome, the Sedon Sphere, to the outside world; losing her daemonic body, if not her essential evilness, in the process. Should she be foolish enough to return to the Inner Earth cathonitization would indeed be her fate.

But it is not Strife that haunts Harry. Not Strife that similarly obsesses his wife, Melina nee Sarpedon, her fraternal brother-in-law, Saladin Devason, and their fellow Utopians -- the mainly Trinondev descendants of yet another group of early-on, pre-Genesea-arriving, extraterrestrials, the very Utopians appearing in Moon as it happens. No, it is Strife's entire race: devazurkind; the Gods and Goddesses, the Demons and Monsters of Ancient, Whole Earth Mythologies.

Postcard bought at the British Museum in 2003, it's of a Pictish warrior reminiscent of Gambit characters Attis and Vetala's soldier, painting by John White (active c. 1575-93), scanned in by Jim McPherson, 2004Only three weapons have any history of effectiveness against Master Devas. These are the Trigregos Talismans: a Brainrock blade, a Gypsium looking glass, and a crown/tiara made up of glowing-red apparent rubies or bloodstones. Respectively, to use their most common appellations, these are the Susasword, the Amateramirror, and the Crimson Corona.

For over two thousand years wielded by the far-famed Attis, best known as the Universal Soldier, they have been lost since Thrygragon in the Year of the Dome 4376. Truth told, lost is not quite the right word. Somehow or other, they have been separated from each other since Mithras's murder slightly over 1600 years ago. Not for much longer though, Harry's convinced.

He even thought he knew where the Crimson Corona could be located, -- in Crimefighter Central, the subterranean headquarters of a long gone band of supranormals known as the King's Own Crimefighters. Yes, Harry is a supra, the last of them he believes; is none other than Ringleader. As a twelve year old, it was he who left the ten members of War's future Damnation Brigade to their fates, and the Magnificent Psycho, a quarter century earlier.

Built beneath Grouse Mountain, above Vancouver British Columbia, in the late Forties, the hideaway still existed. Was still undiscovered when he went out there looking for the bloodstone tiara a few years earlier.

There was no sign of it then, -- how was he to know Wilderwitch had masked it with a glamour? -- but he eventually learned of the potential whereabouts of the mirror. And, as Harry had also learned, one Sacred Object would necessarily lead to the other two.

All the more so if one was Gypsium-gifted. Which, even though constant use of it occasionally made him sick, Ringleader definitely was. Was also, along with his pseudo-Etocretan Cousins, Romaine Kinesis and the twelve-years dead Kadmon Heliopolis, one of the Gypsium Triumvirate!

Meanwhile, another would-be deva-slayer, one Kronokronos Mikoto by name, has a lead on the Susasword, the weapon Unholy Abaddon used to dispose of Datong Harmonia (his litter sister in Lazareme and the Unity of Balance as well as Panharmonium, which began circa 5000 Year of the Dome) just before the start of the First War Between the Living and the Dead.

It's in the Crystal Mountains. In fact, so too might be the remains of this Harmonia.Part of a cover for PHANTACEA 5, written and published by Jim McPherson, cover artwork by Verne Andru, circa 1979

Of course, this being PHANTACEA, there are many another player involved throughout all of Gambit. The most notable of these is Nergal Vetala, the somehow reborn, rejuvenated at any rate, Vampire Queen of the Haddit Zombies. She's a soldier too, -- not Attis, not the Universal Soldier, but one who's been places Attis never could venture. Likely never even knew were accessible. And weren't. Not to him.

Who is he? We may never know, not for sure, but a few things can be said about him. He's a regular Hellion, armed to the teeth, nearly mindless, completely devoted to Vetala and, a dozen years earlier, was likely the one most responsible for the Male Entity's first death.

Oh yes, he may also be Harry's nephew and Rom's brother!

From Thrygragon through All-Death Day to the first couple of weeks of December 1980, Tantalar 5980, follow the seemingly never-endingly violent history of the Three Sacred Objects, and those unfortunate enough to possess them, (nearly) every month in 'The Trigregos Gambit', perhaps the bloodiest presentation of PHANTACEA on the Web.

(Oh, and did I mention there's a certain ever-smiling fiend ever-lurking in the background? Didn't! Must have forgot.)

(Nota Bene: Chrysaor Attis was a major character in "Feeling Theocidal", which Phantacea Publications put out in 2008. The full story of the Disunition of the three Unities of Lazareme appeared in "The Thousand of Days of Disbelief", which Phantacea Publications first published as three, complete-unto themselves, mini-novels in 2010 & 2011.)

Top of Page

'The Trigregos Gambit'

  1. "Thrygragon"
  2. "Unholy Abaddon"
  3. "Balance Betrayed"
  4. "Lord Order"
  5. "The Smiling Fiend"
  6. "Death, Delirium, and Desperation"
  7. "The Three Guinea Pigs Bluff"
  8. "The Amateramirror"
  9. "The Susasword"
  10. "The Crimson Corona"
  11. "The Damnation Brigade"
  12. "Farewell, Great Byron"
  13. "Sraddha Isle"
  14. "The Dead and The Damned"
  15. "Trigregos Triumphant"
  16. "Dust Devils"
  17. "Coda"

Top of Page

Graphical Click Backs

[Saturna Island HEAD IN THE CLIFF, Photograph by Jim McPherson, 1995]Potential Front Cover for 'The Trigregos Gambit', prepared on PHOTOSHIOP by Jim McPherson, 2005Alexander III by Benjamin West, scanned in from a postcard bought in Edinburgh in 2003 then adjusted by Jim McPherson on PHOTOSHOP, 2007Postcard bought at the British Museum in 2003, it's of a Pictish warrior reminiscent of Gambit characters Attis and Vetala's soldier, painting by John White (active c. 1575-93), scanned in by Jim McPherson, 2004Part of a cover for PHANTACEA 5, written and published by Jim McPherson, cover artwork by Verne Andru, circa 1979

Top of Page - Page Contents - Bottom of Page

Webpage last updated: Summer 2014

There may be no cure for aphantasia (defined as 'having a blind or absent mind's eye') but there certainly is for aphantacea ('a'='without', like the 'an' in 'anheroic')

Ordering Information for PHANTACEA Mythos comic books, graphic novels, standalone novels, mini-novels and e-booksSun-moon-kissing logo first seen on back cover of Helios on the Moon, 2015; photo by Jim McPherson, 2014

Downloadable order form for additional PHANTACEA Mythos Print Publications

Current Web-Publisher's Commentary

Jim McPherson's Worldwide Email Address -- jmcp@phantacea.com

PHANTACEA: The Web Serials

pHantaJim's Weblog


Website last updated: Autumn 2015

Written by: Jim McPherson -- jmcp@phantacea.com
© copyright Jim McPherson (www.phantacea.com)
Phantacea Publications
(James H McPherson, Publisher)
74689 Kitsilano RPO
2768 W Broadway
Vancouver BC V6K 4P4
Canada

Welcoming Page

Prime Picture Gallery

Main Menu


Websites featuring, at least in part, Jim McPherson's PHANTACEA MythosLogo reads Jim McPherson's PHANTACEA on the Web

Phantacea Publications: http://www.phantacea.com

Jim McPherson's PHANTACEA Mythos (pH-Webworld): http://www.phantacea.info

Jim McPherson's Phantacea Blog (pHantaBlog): http://www.phantacea.com/blog

pHantacea on pHacebook: http://www.facebook.com/phantacea

pHantacea on pHlickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/89008792@N06/galleries/

Phantacea Publications on Google-PlusPhantacea logo from 4-Ever & 40

Jim McPherson's pre-2010 Travels: http://members.shaw.ca/jmcptimps

The Wonderful Weather Wizard of Oz's 2011 Travels Site: http://members.shaw.ca/jmcp_oz11/index.htm

Jim McPherson's post-2010 Travels: http://members.shaw.ca/jmcp1749

Search Engine at Top of Page