Back the White COurt and Venatores for a moment here's a direct transcription of the scene in Back Up where Thomas explains the Oblivion War to Bob.
"Look. You know that for the most part the old gods have grown less powerful over the years or have changed as they were incorporated into other beliefs."
"Sure." Bob said "There hasn't been a First Church of Marduk for a while now. But Tiamat got an illustration in the Monster Manual and had that roles in that cartoon so she's probably better off."
"Uh okay" I said. " I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about but generally speaking you're right. Beings like Tiamat needed a certain amount of mortal belief to connect the to the mortal worlds."
The eyelights brightened. "Ah". the skull said. "I get it! If no one remembers some has-been god, there's no connection left! It can't remain in the mortal world!"
"Right," I said quietly. "And we're not just talking about pagan gods. We're talking about things that people of today have no words for, no concept to adequately define. Demons of such appetites and fury that the only way mortals in some parts of the world survived them at all was with the help of some of those early gods. Demons who had to be stopped, permanently."
"You can't destroy a primal spiritual entity" Bob mused. "Even if you disperse it, it will re-form in time."
"But you can forget them" I said. "Shut them away. Leave them forever lost outside the mortal world unable to do harm You can consign them to Oblivion."
Bob made a whistling sound.
"Ballsy" Bob admitted. "I mean, fighting a war like that... The more people you brought in to fight on your side, the more the information would spread, and the stronger a hold these demons would have. So you'd have control who had the information. You'd have to lock that down hard.
"Very" I said. "I know there are fewer than two hundred Venatori in the world. But we're organised in cells. I only know one other Venator."
"Venatori?" Bob said. "There's like five thousand of those dried up old prunes. They've been helping the Council fight the war remember?"
I waved a hand. "Those are the Venatori Umbrorum."
"Yeah Bob said. "The Hunters of the Shadows."
"One way to translate their name" I said "an it's the on they believe is correct, But it's more accurate to call them the Shadows of the Hunters. They don't know it but we founded them. Gave them their store of knowledge. Use them to gather information, to help us keep an eye on things. And they're camouflage too to make our enemies have to work a little harder to find us."
"Enemies right" Bob said " A war has to have two sides"
I nodded "Or more. There are a lot of... people... interested in the old demons. They're weak compared to what they once were, but they're still a route to power. Cults, priests, societies, individual lunatics. They're trying to keep the demons nailed to this world. We're trying to stop them." I shook my head. "The Oblivion War has been going on for more than five thousand years. Sometimes decades will pass without a single battle being fought. Sometimes it all goes insane."
....
"You know about the Prosthanos Society?" I asked.
"Buncha lunatcs in the Baltic region" Bob replied immediately. "They lop of their bits and pieces and replace them with grafts from inhuman sources. Demons and ghouls and such. Patchwork immortality"
I nodded. "The Stygian Sisterhood does the same thing- only with their psyches instead of with their physical bodies. They slice out the parts of their human personalities they don't want, and replace them with pieces torn from inhuman minds."
"Cheery" Bob leered. "sorority huh? They Hot?"
"It's generally advantageous" I said. "So for the most part yes. They're dedicated to the service of a number of old demon-goddesses of whom they're trying to keep in the world through the publication of a book of rituals called the Lexicon Malos
....
"And the Council will do with it what they did with the Necronomicon in order to defuse it.
"And we might never be rid of them- just as we'll never be rid of the faeries"
Bob suddenly looked wistful. "You were trying to ditch the faeries"
"The Venatori tried yes" I said "But the G-men stopped us cold"
"G- Men? What like the government?" Bob asked. "Like the Men in Black"
"Like Gutenberg and the Grimms" I replied"
Okay so gimme a minute that's like three pages of typing....
We know from this and the scene in Cold Days where Harry picks up a copy of the Brothers Grimm dedicated to Mab, that Mab came up with the idea of using the dessimination of information to alert the public first using vague folktales of the Brothers Grimm.
Hard to say if this was the inspiration for the White Council's policy of dessimination like they did with the
Necronomicon or they got the idea's directly from the Venatores like Mab did.
Lara in turn used this policy with Stoker's book who was a pretty poor playwright as a go to guide to kill Black Court during the Black Court Purge, and if Quantus and that WOJ is to believe who are themselves tainted with the Outside.
All of this is a great indicator that Lara can't simply be blocked into "the bad guy" category I find Thomas's paragraph monologue at the end unconvincing.
I snorted. "You want me to tell you that it's because in our secret hearts we long to be heroes? Or that deep down there's something in use that cries out for humanity for redemption?" I shook my head and smiled at him showing teeth. "ath the end of the day? Because we don't like competition"
Seems like a lot of millenia of work to cut down competition.
Also whose Marduk and Tiamat?
There's a thread on the board by a roman historian whose an expert on Latin that Jim made a msitake with this Latin translation of "
Venatori Umbrorum" just like he did with
Die der Erlking. I jokingly suggested that he did it intentionally that there's a triple meaning to Venatori. Who know's maybe there is?
The Prosthanos Society seems like dead ringers for the Fomor maybe they're apart of them? It'd make sense as the Fomor is an amalgamation of dark gods and goddesses who've been forgotten likely largely due to the efforts of the Venatores.
Also if the Archive leads the Venatores and presumably knows of the Fae's role as Guaridans of the Outer Gates as well as they're obviously more connected role with the natural world and the change of seasons... Why try to get rid of them? Presumably the chaos of the 1600s and 1700s were one of those insane periods Thomas was talking about.
How would Thomas even know about those insane periods if theirs no recorded history of the Venatores activities?
Okay so to sum up let's make some presumptions on some dark gods, pantheons who the Venatores have been partially succesful against, as obviously we wouldn't know of the totally succesful ones.
In the book series that we know of.
Books:
-Black Court (Lara's direct involvement with Stoker)
-Fomor (speculative given Leansidhe's description during Bombshells. I can quote it at request but I feel like this post has enough of that for one post)
-Kemmler (The destruction of all copies of Kemmler's other works and of that of Die der Erlking combined with Thomas's shifty behaviour and help)
-Red Court (If you're including Lara and Thomas's support during said Chicken Pizza operation)
- Inca and Mayan gods that appear in the DFRPG Paranet Papers
Speculative outside the Books
Real World:
-Titans (Probably they're greatest failure as they are so closely tied with Greek myths and much of our ancestral knowledge in a variety of fields comes from Greek culture)
- Egyptian demons like Apophis (Second greates failure thanks to Stargate)
-Gaulish deities (The fact that we know so little of Gaulish myths and what we do know is innacurate colorful descriptions by Julius Caesar which have largely been discounted. No other evidence of the wicker man for instance nor do we know whom Obelisks were supposed to worship. Finally Apollo and Mars seem to have taken over most of their gods in the Roman period)
Any others people can think of?
