CHARLES
ST. CYPRIAN, THE ROYAL OCCULTIST
CREATOR:
CHARACTERS:
“Formed during the reign of
Elizabeth I, the post of the Royal Occultist, or ‘the Queen’s Conjurer’ as it
was known, was created for and first held by the diligent amateur, Dr.
John Dee, in recognition for an unrecorded service to the Crown. The
title has passed through a succession of hands since, some good, some bad; the
list is a long one, weaving in and out of the margins of British history and
including such luminaries as the 1st Earl of
Holderness and Thomas Carnacki.
It is now 1920, and the title
and offices have fallen to Charles St. Cyprian who, accompanied by
his apprentice/assistant Ebe Gallowglass defends the battered and dwindling
British Empire against threats occult, otherworldly, infernal and divine even
as the wider world lurches once more on the path to war…”
The Royal
Occultist is the man or woman who stands between the United Kingdom and dangers
of an occult, otherworldly, infernal or divine nature. Whether it’s werewolves
in Wolverhampton or satyrs in Somerset, the Royal Occultist will be there
to confront, cajole or conquer the menace in question. There have been many
Royal Occultists, and there will be many more, thanks to the strong British
sense of tradition, bloody-minded necessity and the ridiculously short life
expectancy for those who assume the post.
The current occupier of the office is
Charles St. Cyprian. St. Cyprian is Rudolph Valentino by way of PG Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster—impeccably dressed, handsome, and a bit of a twit. He is a
slim man in his late twenties, with an Old College, Oxford intonation
and an inordinate fondness for the sartorial creations of Savile Row. Prior to occupying the foremost occult
office in the Empire, St. Cyprian was a stereotypical example of the ‘idle
rich’ with an attention span limited to the retention of cricket scores and the
occasional bout of auto-polo. While he takes his responsibilities seriously, St.
Cyprian is nonetheless prone to thinking that he’s cleverer than he actually
is.
He’s aided
in his efforts to investigate and
occasionally suppress that which man was not meant to know by his assistant,
Ebe Gallowglass. Gallowglass is a short, slender
woman of Egyptian descent in her early twenties, with a propensity for dressing
like a cross between a Parisian street-Apache and a newsboy. In contrast to
St. Cyprian’s hapless earnestness, Gallowglass is murderously effective, and often
heavily armed.
St. Cyprian and Gallowglass made their first
appearance in 2010 in the short story, “Krampusnacht”. They have since appeared
in close to twenty short stories, in a variety of anthologies and magazines. A
novel, THE WHITECHAPEL DEMON, is forthcoming in 2014.
To
see forthcoming stories go to: http://royaloccultist.wordpress.com/forthcoming/.
To
download the ROYAL OCCULTIST PRIMER, a free PDF containing three previously
published stories go to: http://db.tt/olBj1ufo
To visit
the site, set your browser for: http://royaloccultist.wordpress.com/
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