My First Dive Into Dark Fantasy

Hey everyone!

Hope your Thursday is going well! We’re more than halfway through the week and the weekend is just around the corner. Just today and tomorrow! I recently pulled some muscles in my back this Sunday and it’s been pretty painful. Thankfully I’ve been able to put a massage gun to use. I mean, holy cow the relief is just something else. There’s still pain but it’s night and day compared to how it started out. Apparently, you’re not supposed to use it on the high settings on your back from what I’ve heard and there are certain massage “heads” that can be bad for your spine, so I’ve steered clear of those. The question that came to my mind after hearing that was “So why have a high setting if you’re not supposed to use it?” My only guess is for muscle areas like the biceps or calves if you get a real nasty cramp, but I don’t know for sure. If you know more about it then please, leave a comment explaining it! Aside from recovering from some nasty back pains the week has been pretty good so far. I can’t wait to share the third story of The Hunt series with you all. Speaking of stories, let’s jump into today’s topic!

I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts and feelings on The Black Company by Glen Cook. I remember the day I found the book. It was just before my first fall semester at URI in 2018. I was in a Barnes and Noble exploring for a new book to read. Then I spied the cover of Chronicles of The Black Company from one of the shelves. I eyed it, read the title, laughed, then continued my search. As I scoured the bookstore something in my head started latching onto that book. “Take a look,” it said. I tried to shake the thought, but it just dug deeper. It was about time to head out, but I couldn’t leave without giving it a chance. I rushed back over, hoping that no one had claimed the book. I was relieved to see it was still sitting on the shelf waiting for me. I picked up the book and read the back cover. My interest grew and I opened to the first page and gave the first paragraph a read. The book hooked itself to me. I had to have this book, read about this “Black Company.” So, with a satisfied grin I purchased the novel and brought it home with me. To my pleasant surprise it was in fact three books in one as it was a copy of Chronicles of The Black Company. That night I started reading it and then, when school started, every morning before class or in the library as I waited for my friend to finish up his classes before we went home. I couldn’t stop reading it, I had to see what trouble this mercenary company would get itself wrapped up in and how it would get itself out. The story is darker than what I was used to reading in fact I think the darkest story I've read prior to this is A Song of Ice and Fire. And yes, I would argue that it is darker than A Song of Ice and Fire as the fantasy elements are more prominent in The Black Company. This allows the story to explore horrific events and situations that simply cannot happen in A Song of Ice and Fire. There is one event that comes to mind in The Black Company where Croaker witnesses a horrific ritual that he is only able to recollect pieces of it due to the nature of what he saw. I won't say too much about it as it is a pretty large detail in the story. This is just one example, there's another from the second book but I won't touch on that because of how important it is to the plot but take my word it's morbid.

The Black Company is written as if it were an actual historical account by the character Croaker who has the position of “Annalist” for the company. His job is to record the history of the company. That history is kept in what is called the “Annals.” I like Croaker as a character, and he and the rest of the company were quick to grow on me. The dynamic and interactions between the characters of One-Eye and Goblin were among my favorite in the book, I loved seeing how these two wizards who specialize in creating illusions would mess with each other and work together. Another group of characters that I loved to see appear were those belonging to the group known as the Ten Who Were Taken. Anytime one of these characters showed up I could feel their presence. A sense of dread mixed with some sort of morbid curiosity would build and I would lean forward to get a better view of what I was reading because I didn’t want to miss a single word. I haven’t met many antagonists in books, TV or movies who can evoke the same feelings. That said though, I would have like more from the Ten Who Were Taken. While they all have unique names befitting the position legendary figures, I wish they had more prominence or did more to stand out. Off the top of my head, I could name three of them: Limper, Soulcatcher, and Shapeshifter. I believe the others have their moments in the story, but they aren’t prominent except in the last act of the first book. It may have been the best move though; less is often more with characters like these and I’m not sure if I would have liked them as much if they appeared all the time. Overall, I like the story and how events play out especially when the war they get involved in goes from bad to worse for them.

I have an upcoming Pathfinder campaign that I will be running for my group soon and The Black Company is what gave me a much-needed spark of inspiration for it. When I was brainstorming for the campaign, I knew that I wanted it to be set during the apocalypse with the four horsemen making a mess of things and that magic would be dying: basically, it would be a real horror show for all the poor denizens of the continent. But I needed something to toss things up I couldn’t have my players start in a tavern again, this is the sequel to my first campaign. It must be bigger and wilder! Then it hit me when I was reading one morning - use a mercenary company as the means of storytelling. What an awesome way to have a campaign go, following the exploits of a mercenary company where the player characters personal beliefs might just come into conflict with whatever contracts they might take. Furthermore, in the apocalypse, a mercenary company would be a fantastic family, or at least it would be semi functional. A mercenary company is not a perfect surrogate for something like family, but it would work in a hostile world where the only people you could trust are right next to you. Also, it means my players characters have more reason to get along instead of squabbling. I remember I initially had envisioned this mercenary company the players would be a part of facing off with otherworldly monsters and tribes of wild savages similar to something out of Mad Max in a desperate struggle to protect what bastions of civilization remain. I had a thought that stuck in my mind – there are only so many mercenaries and too many cities bidding for their help and as time passed, one by one they would fall. Many of these ideas have long since evolved or outright changed but one thing remains, the players will be soldiers for hire in a land ripe with suffering and evil. If it wasn’t for Glenn Cook, then my players would probably have ended up being in some tavern or a caravan that gets attacked and not really have much to do with each other save for some shared trauma and NPCs begging them to band together. In other words, they would have lacked the necessary emotional investment in one another,

Time to wrap up the post. If you haven’t read The Black Company yet, give it a read! I couldn’t recommend it enough. Keep a lookout tomorrow for “Tendrils”, the third story in The Hunt series. Hope you all enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks for reading and have a great one!

Best,

Aaron Kirby