HOME | DD

Description

Thousands of years ago, a catastrophic event happened. One single night, a sacrificial death marked the completion of a powerful "working," a particular kind of magical spell requiring extraordinary and careful effort over a long period of time. The greater the working, the more time and effort required to pull it off. And this one was unlike any other before or after it.

With the completion of the working, forces were unleashed against the innumerable gods, pantheons, and mythical entities of Earth, expelling them from the universe. Some were instantaneously ejected into the gulfs between dimensions, forced to expend considerable supernatural power to form dimensional pockets to preserve themselves. Others were not so easily banished, and hung on for years and even centuries, before eventually succumbing to the effects of the attack. Thus, even as almost all of the gods and pantheons of Earth were forced out of reality as humanity knew it, some supernatural beings and mythical creatures remained, albeit in diminished numbers, the evidence and memory of their existences greatly reduced. Unfortunately for humanity, many of these entities were belligerent or predatory even before the great expulsion, and the lack of heroes and gods to hold them back coupled with their reduced numbers and newfound obscurity, led to them preying upon mankind like they had not before. In response, this led to the formation of numerous groups of individuals dedicated toward protecting humanity from such beings, either in response to attacks or by proactively hunting the beings down. Some such groups were public and connected to known institutions, and even to the very power that had instigated the situation in the first place. But others were independent, and operated from shadows without public knowledge or official sanction.

In what is now the Indian subcontinent of Asia, one such plague of supernatural creatures was known as the "Rakshasa" or "Rak-Khosh", beastial humanoids resembling demons possessing supernatural powers and an insatiable thirst for human flesh and blood. Such beings, and the even more powerful "Asuras" had traditionally been opposed by the "Devas" and heroes such as Rama and Bhima (though there had been times where there were rakshasas who lived alongside and allied themselves with humanity and the devas). In the wake of the expulsion of those who could protect them, a new breed of warrior was needed. Thus was born the Kala-Naga, which would become known as "The Black Cobra" in English many centuries later.

Taken from the martial orders of the various empires and satraps that ruled India and its surrounding regions, the Kala-Naga were trained to highest degree in physical combat, given the best weapons, with supernatural blessings to make them potent against their intended enemies. They were dressed in hooded suits of armor that gave them the appearance of a great black cobra raised up to strike. Lastly, and most significantly, they consumed the blood of the rakshasas themselves, specially treated with herbs and potions, giving them incredible physical power and supernatural abilities that allowed the Kala-Naga knights to more evenly match the power of their enemies. However, this was not always successful, and many candidates died after ingesting the concoction, or worse became something halfway between a man and rakshasa, forcing their peers to put them down. Eventually the bloodlines of those capable of ingesting the rakshasa blood without ill effect were identified, and so the ranks of the Kala-Naga were carefully maintained to keep within these specific hereditary lineages.

The Kala-Naga worked tirelessly across the centuries to protect India from the rakshasas and hunt them down. Empires and kingdoms came and fell, yet the passage of history and the changing of the hands of power did little to affect their holy work. Over time they reduced the remaining population of rakshasas, forcing the supernatural menaces underground and trapping them. They sealed off all possible exits from this prison for the rakshasa, save for one, upon which they erected a complex in the form of a temple to Shiva. From this place they guarded the entrapped rakshasa remnant, and a new phase began for the Kala-Naga. Their numbers fell away, as they no longer needed so many to combat a menace that was now contained. Soon all that remained of the Kala-Naga were the individuals within the temple complex, and even then, it eventually reached the point where there was only a single true Kala-Naga knight, while the rest were in effect staff and servants who supported him or her. This Kala-Naga, beyond the duty to remain vigilant over the rakshasa, would dabble in watching over and protecting surrounding settlements from other kinds of threats, becoming a vigilante who the people quietly looked to for help when all other options for hope were lost. Kingdoms and empires continued to rise and fall, and even centuries of European colonialism failed to touch the Kala-Naga complex, hidden away as it was in a remote area well beyond the interests of the colonizers. However, eventually even they felt the touch of colonialism after the rebellion of 1857, and in its wake the rise of the British Raj.

The doom that befell the Kala-Naga came in the form of Sir Lazarus Fell, an officer in the British army stationed to protect infrastructure projects from rebels. Learning of the Kala-Naga complex and its inhabitants from the locals, he led his men to raid the complex under the pretext of flushing out a rebel stronghold, while in reality seeking to loot whatever valuables were kept there. He got far more than he bargained for, and witnessed the power of the Kala-Naga in action against his own men. While the Kala-Naga managed to repel him and and his troops, he failed to stop Fell from fleeing and bringing back a stronger force armed with bigger guns and explosives. While the lone surviving Kala-Naga and his followers fought off the troops, Lazarus Fell sought to find the means behind his opponents' power, eventually discovering the rakshasa blood potion and ingesting it himself, even as his troops brought the complex down and slaughtered its inhabitants. Only one person, the son of the Kala-Naga, survived the massacre, watching as the British troops left with their ill-gotten gains. As his father lay dying, he promised he would avenge them all, and from the ashes rebuild the Kala-Naga.

Over the following months the boy recovered as much as he could from the ruins, creating a new hideout for himself. Once he had everything he needed, and was certain the entrance to the underground prison of the rakshasa was sealed, he resumed the training he had been undergoing to become the next Kala-Naga. He made his own armor and weapons, and ingested the potion that would grant him the physical and supernatural abilities of the rakshasa. Beyond this, he also inserted himself into the greater society of the British Raj, taking the name Amar Chopra, learning English and educating himself about as much of the British society as he could so as to make it easier to track down the men who had destroyed his family and legacy. His initial adventures and investigations led him to several of the remaining troops still within India, but the men he was really after, especially Lazarus Fell, were no longer in the Raj, but back home in Great Britain. During this time, Amar's escapades while clad in his Kala-Naga armor started rumors, giving birth to the figure known to the British officials and soldiers of the Raj as "The Black Cobra." It was a name Amar embraced as he ventured forth from his home country.

Amar traveled abroad, expanding his studies and learning more about the modern world even as he tracked down Lazarus Fell. He established a name for himself, creating an elaborate cover identity to enable his pursuit, while using his studies to improve his skills and knowledge. The Kala-Naga was always highly educated, and Amar augmented the old wisdom with new, modern information and thinking. He eventually found his quarry in Victorian London, but the Lazarus Fell he had expected no longer existed. Because he lacked Amar's hereditary tolerance of the rakshasa blood potion, Lazarus Fell had fallen prey to adverse side effects of consuming it. All color had been drained from his body, and he had taken on a beastial aspect to his appearance. Furthermore, while he now possessed a form of the strength and power of a rakshasa much like the Kala-Naga, Fell now possessed an insatiable hunger for human flesh and blood, for he was now unable to eat or drink anything else and needed to regularly consume both, the lack of such resulting in a quick, wasting death. Thus, between his appearance and physical needs, Lazarus Fell had fallen out of society and instead now ran a secretive criminal organization specializing in human trafficking, using the wealth his ill gotten gains had provided him and promises of immortality to backers in order to support his enterprise. He was no longer Sir Lazarus Fell; now, he was known as the Bloody White Beast.

The Black Cobra and Bloody White Beast soon clashed, and Amar found his vengeance elusive. He had expected to quickly and easily dispose of Fell, but the Beast's organization, connections, and abilities made this a far more difficult task. Time and again they clashed, and time and again Fell evaded Amar, while also failing to do away with his pursuer. Realizing this strategy was not working, Amar shifted to a plan of isolating Fell, destroying his criminal empire and cutting him off from his allies. In all of this, vengeance was all he was after, but when Amar liberated the first shipment of trafficking victims, he realized there was more to stopping the Bloody White Beast than satisfying his own need to avenge the Kala-Naga brotherhood. Lazarus Fell's victims went well beyond Amar's own experience, and he vowed to stop Fell not just for the sake of the Kala-Naga, but for every single person Fell sought to victimize, either directly or as part of his criminal business.

Amar established a business enterprise of his own in the United Kingdom by applying his Kala-Naga knowledge and equipment, and made connections with the police and other law enforcement authorities so as have allies against Lazarus Fell's organization. Thus he opposed Fell on two levels: as a law-abiding member of society, and as the vigilante Black Cobra. Since both Amar and Fell possessed a form of immortality due to the rakshasa blood potion, their conflict stretched into much of the 20th Century, becoming entwined in both World Wars and the Cold War, though despite their criminal and supernatural aspects they remained largely on the periphery of the hero and villain communities, barely acknowledged by either side. The Skarn Invasion mucked things up for both of them, as Lazarus lost his entire criminal organization to the destructive carnage wrought by the Skarn, which also meant Amar lost track of his hated enemy due to that and barely surviving battles with the Skarn himself. For all that they had had to deal with in the form of the rakshasa, the Kala-Naga was ill-equipped to take on the genocidal cybernetic armies of Eschaton.

The next few decades were spent deep underground, once more attempting to seek out and pick up the trail of the Bloody White Beast. This was a dark, dirty, grungy time for the Black Cobra; no longer the proud, righteous knight seeking vengeance, he was now tired, dirty, homeless, and barely able to keep it together, and confrontations with Fell were scrappy and brutal in a way they hadn't been before. Furthermore, he learned to his horror that the rakshasa, long dormant in their underground prison, were reawakening and reaching out with psychic probes to draw in those who could unbury them and break the seals holding them down. Thus, over a century after he had left the ruined complex, Amar returned to India, discovering to his astonishment that the traditions of the Kala-Naga had been preserved and maintained by numerous people in the civilization that had grown up and around the area since his departure. Thus, he found new allies to support him even as he discovered that Lazarus Fell had partnered with a developer to dig up the Kala-Naga complex ruins at the behest of the buried rakshasa. Unfortunately Amar and his new allies failed to stop this, though the Bloody White Beast found himself betrayed by his supposed new allies as the rakshasa declined to uphold their bargain with him. For the first time the Black Cobra faced a proper rakshasa in battle...and was completely overwhelmed, his battles with Fell making him ill-prepared for dealing with the real thing. However, his newfound Kala-Naga brotherhood, plus the other heroes of modern day India, made up the difference and even Lazarus Fell provided his own aid against the rakshasa to spite them for their betrayal. All together, they were able to once again seal up the beastial humanoids, with Fell managing to slip away once again.

Though imprisoned again, the rakshasa were now active, and Amar realized the importance of the Kala-Naga becoming a full order of knights instead of a single lone warrior. He reestablished his business ventures and brought them to India, tying the new Kala-Naga brotherhood into the organizational structure as a security company, and building a new hi-tech facility over the old Kala-Naga complex ruins. With the order restored and constantly vigilant over the imprisoned rakshasa, Amar has turned his attention back to bringing Lazarus Fell to justice, especially after learning of his old enemy's efforts to rebuild the criminal empire he lost. But now, the Black Cobra no longer seeks vengeance the way he used to; with the Kala-Naga restored, he now seeks a proper, fair justice against Lazarus Fell, one to honor the memory of those Amar once knew and loved. And while he remains primarily committed to this sole effort, there is a feeling in the air that things are changing, and that supernatural powers once thought lost forever are about to return and change everything, not just for him and his personal quest but for the entire world. Until that happens though, Amar will remain the Black Cobra, brushing up against the heroes and villains of the world while he pursues the Bloody White Beast and his associates to the end.

------------

And that's the Black Cobra, a brand new character I've been sitting on for a while. The idea is a few years old, but I only just got around to developing his look earlier this year, and sorting out the details of his backstory even more recently than that. This is a character meant to be that kind of supernaturally-themed Batman-esque vigilante, in the mold of Moon Knight, Black Panther, and Azreal. Though, to be honest, the initial inspiration was my irritation after seeing a few other characters use that name and feeling like they didn't really live up to the awesome promise of a name like "The Black Cobra." So I took it, steeped it in Hindu mythology and Indian history, and thus we arrive here.

Anyway, hope you guys like this new fella, and stay tuned for more ExMythos goodness!

The Black Cobra (Amar Chopra) belongs to , and is protected under copyright law. ©
Created using Fabrica de Herois 2014

Description

Thousands of years ago, a catastrophic event happened. One single night, a sacrificial death marked the completion of a powerful "working," a particular kind of magical spell requiring extraordinary and careful effort over a long period of time. The greater the working, the more time and effort required to pull it off. And this one was unlike any other before or after it.

With the completion of the working, forces were unleashed against the innumerable gods, pantheons, and mythical entities of Earth, expelling them from the universe. Some were instantaneously ejected into the gulfs between dimensions, forced to expend considerable supernatural power to form dimensional pockets to preserve themselves. Others were not so easily banished, and hung on for years and even centuries, before eventually succumbing to the effects of the attack. Thus, even as almost all of the gods and pantheons of Earth were forced out of reality as humanity knew it, some supernatural beings and mythical creatures remained, albeit in diminished numbers, the evidence and memory of their existences greatly reduced. Unfortunately for humanity, many of these entities were belligerent or predatory even before the great expulsion, and the lack of heroes and gods to hold them back coupled with their reduced numbers and newfound obscurity, led to them preying upon mankind like they had not before. In response, this led to the formation of numerous groups of individuals dedicated toward protecting humanity from such beings, either in response to attacks or by proactively hunting the beings down. Some such groups were public and connected to known institutions, and even to the very power that had instigated the situation in the first place. But others were independent, and operated from shadows without public knowledge or official sanction.

In what is now the Indian subcontinent of Asia, one such plague of supernatural creatures was known as the "Rakshasa" or "Rak-Khosh", beastial humanoids resembling demons possessing supernatural powers and an insatiable thirst for human flesh and blood. Such beings, and the even more powerful "Asuras" had traditionally been opposed by the "Devas" and heroes such as Rama and Bhima (though there had been times where there were rakshasas who lived alongside and allied themselves with humanity and the devas). In the wake of the expulsion of those who could protect them, a new breed of warrior was needed. Thus was born the Kala-Naga, which would become known as "The Black Cobra" in English many centuries later.

Taken from the martial orders of the various empires and satraps that ruled India and its surrounding regions, the Kala-Naga were trained to highest degree in physical combat, given the best weapons, with supernatural blessings to make them potent against their intended enemies. They were dressed in hooded suits of armor that gave them the appearance of a great black cobra raised up to strike. Lastly, and most significantly, they consumed the blood of the rakshasas themselves, specially treated with herbs and potions, giving them incredible physical power and supernatural abilities that allowed the Kala-Naga knights to more evenly match the power of their enemies. However, this was not always successful, and many candidates died after ingesting the concoction, or worse became something halfway between a man and rakshasa, forcing their peers to put them down. Eventually the bloodlines of those capable of ingesting the rakshasa blood without ill effect were identified, and so the ranks of the Kala-Naga were carefully maintained to keep within these specific hereditary lineages.

The Kala-Naga worked tirelessly across the centuries to protect India from the rakshasas and hunt them down. Empires and kingdoms came and fell, yet the passage of history and the changing of the hands of power did little to affect their holy work. Over time they reduced the remaining population of rakshasas, forcing the supernatural menaces underground and trapping them. They sealed off all possible exits from this prison for the rakshasa, save for one, upon which they erected a complex in the form of a temple to Shiva. From this place they guarded the entrapped rakshasa remnant, and a new phase began for the Kala-Naga. Their numbers fell away, as they no longer needed so many to combat a menace that was now contained. Soon all that remained of the Kala-Naga were the individuals within the temple complex, and even then, it eventually reached the point where there was only a single true Kala-Naga knight, while the rest were in effect staff and servants who supported him or her. This Kala-Naga, beyond the duty to remain vigilant over the rakshasa, would dabble in watching over and protecting surrounding settlements from other kinds of threats, becoming a vigilante who the people quietly looked to for help when all other options for hope were lost. Kingdoms and empires continued to rise and fall, and even centuries of European colonialism failed to touch the Kala-Naga complex, hidden away as it was in a remote area well beyond the interests of the colonizers. However, eventually even they felt the touch of colonialism after the rebellion of 1857, and in its wake the rise of the British Raj.

The doom that befell the Kala-Naga came in the form of Sir Lazarus Fell, an officer in the British army stationed to protect infrastructure projects from rebels. Learning of the Kala-Naga complex and its inhabitants from the locals, he led his men to raid the complex under the pretext of flushing out a rebel stronghold, while in reality seeking to loot whatever valuables were kept there. He got far more than he bargained for, and witnessed the power of the Kala-Naga in action against his own men. While the Kala-Naga managed to repel him and and his troops, he failed to stop Fell from fleeing and bringing back a stronger force armed with bigger guns and explosives. While the lone surviving Kala-Naga and his followers fought off the troops, Lazarus Fell sought to find the means behind his opponents' power, eventually discovering the rakshasa blood potion and ingesting it himself, even as his troops brought the complex down and slaughtered its inhabitants. Only one person, the son of the Kala-Naga, survived the massacre, watching as the British troops left with their ill-gotten gains. As his father lay dying, he promised he would avenge them all, and from the ashes rebuild the Kala-Naga.

Over the following months the boy recovered as much as he could from the ruins, creating a new hideout for himself. Once he had everything he needed, and was certain the entrance to the underground prison of the rakshasa was sealed, he resumed the training he had been undergoing to become the next Kala-Naga. He made his own armor and weapons, and ingested the potion that would grant him the physical and supernatural abilities of the rakshasa. Beyond this, he also inserted himself into the greater society of the British Raj, taking the name Amar Chopra, learning English and educating himself about as much of the British society as he could so as to make it easier to track down the men who had destroyed his family and legacy. His initial adventures and investigations led him to several of the remaining troops still within India, but the men he was really after, especially Lazarus Fell, were no longer in the Raj, but back home in Great Britain. During this time, Amar's escapades while clad in his Kala-Naga armor started rumors, giving birth to the figure known to the British officials and soldiers of the Raj as "The Black Cobra." It was a name Amar embraced as he ventured forth from his home country.

Amar traveled abroad, expanding his studies and learning more about the modern world even as he tracked down Lazarus Fell. He established a name for himself, creating an elaborate cover identity to enable his pursuit, while using his studies to improve his skills and knowledge. The Kala-Naga was always highly educated, and Amar augmented the old wisdom with new, modern information and thinking. He eventually found his quarry in Victorian London, but the Lazarus Fell he had expected no longer existed. Because he lacked Amar's hereditary tolerance of the rakshasa blood potion, Lazarus Fell had fallen prey to adverse side effects of consuming it. All color had been drained from his body, and he had taken on a beastial aspect to his appearance. Furthermore, while he now possessed a form of the strength and power of a rakshasa much like the Kala-Naga, Fell now possessed an insatiable hunger for human flesh and blood, for he was now unable to eat or drink anything else and needed to regularly consume both, the lack of such resulting in a quick, wasting death. Thus, between his appearance and physical needs, Lazarus Fell had fallen out of society and instead now ran a secretive criminal organization specializing in human trafficking, using the wealth his ill gotten gains had provided him and promises of immortality to backers in order to support his enterprise. He was no longer Sir Lazarus Fell; now, he was known as the Bloody White Beast.

The Black Cobra and Bloody White Beast soon clashed, and Amar found his vengeance elusive. He had expected to quickly and easily dispose of Fell, but the Beast's organization, connections, and abilities made this a far more difficult task. Time and again they clashed, and time and again Fell evaded Amar, while also failing to do away with his pursuer. Realizing this strategy was not working, Amar shifted to a plan of isolating Fell, destroying his criminal empire and cutting him off from his allies. In all of this, vengeance was all he was after, but when Amar liberated the first shipment of trafficking victims, he realized there was more to stopping the Bloody White Beast than satisfying his own need to avenge the Kala-Naga brotherhood. Lazarus Fell's victims went well beyond Amar's own experience, and he vowed to stop Fell not just for the sake of the Kala-Naga, but for every single person Fell sought to victimize, either directly or as part of his criminal business.

Amar established a business enterprise of his own in the United Kingdom by applying his Kala-Naga knowledge and equipment, and made connections with the police and other law enforcement authorities so as have allies against Lazarus Fell's organization. Thus he opposed Fell on two levels: as a law-abiding member of society, and as the vigilante Black Cobra. Since both Amar and Fell possessed a form of immortality due to the rakshasa blood potion, their conflict stretched into much of the 20th Century, becoming entwined in both World Wars and the Cold War, though despite their criminal and supernatural aspects they remained largely on the periphery of the hero and villain communities, barely acknowledged by either side. The Skarn Invasion mucked things up for both of them, as Lazarus lost his entire criminal organization to the destructive carnage wrought by the Skarn, which also meant Amar lost track of his hated enemy due to that and barely surviving battles with the Skarn himself. For all that they had had to deal with in the form of the rakshasa, the Kala-Naga was ill-equipped to take on the genocidal cybernetic armies of Eschaton.

The next few decades were spent deep underground, once more attempting to seek out and pick up the trail of the Bloody White Beast. This was a dark, dirty, grungy time for the Black Cobra; no longer the proud, righteous knight seeking vengeance, he was now tired, dirty, homeless, and barely able to keep it together, and confrontations with Fell were scrappy and brutal in a way they hadn't been before. Furthermore, he learned to his horror that the rakshasa, long dormant in their underground prison, were reawakening and reaching out with psychic probes to draw in those who could unbury them and break the seals holding them down. Thus, over a century after he had left the ruined complex, Amar returned to India, discovering to his astonishment that the traditions of the Kala-Naga had been preserved and maintained by numerous people in the civilization that had grown up and around the area since his departure. Thus, he found new allies to support him even as he discovered that Lazarus Fell had partnered with a developer to dig up the Kala-Naga complex ruins at the behest of the buried rakshasa. Unfortunately Amar and his new allies failed to stop this, though the Bloody White Beast found himself betrayed by his supposed new allies as the rakshasa declined to uphold their bargain with him. For the first time the Black Cobra faced a proper rakshasa in battle...and was completely overwhelmed, his battles with Fell making him ill-prepared for dealing with the real thing. However, his newfound Kala-Naga brotherhood, plus the other heroes of modern day India, made up the difference and even Lazarus Fell provided his own aid against the rakshasa to spite them for their betrayal. All together, they were able to once again seal up the beastial humanoids, with Fell managing to slip away once again.

Though imprisoned again, the rakshasa were now active, and Amar realized the importance of the Kala-Naga becoming a full order of knights instead of a single lone warrior. He reestablished his business ventures and brought them to India, tying the new Kala-Naga brotherhood into the organizational structure as a security company, and building a new hi-tech facility over the old Kala-Naga complex ruins. With the order restored and constantly vigilant over the imprisoned rakshasa, Amar has turned his attention back to bringing Lazarus Fell to justice, especially after learning of his old enemy's efforts to rebuild the criminal empire he lost. But now, the Black Cobra no longer seeks vengeance the way he used to; with the Kala-Naga restored, he now seeks a proper, fair justice against Lazarus Fell, one to honor the memory of those Amar once knew and loved. And while he remains primarily committed to this sole effort, there is a feeling in the air that things are changing, and that supernatural powers once thought lost forever are about to return and change everything, not just for him and his personal quest but for the entire world. Until that happens though, Amar will remain the Black Cobra, brushing up against the heroes and villains of the world while he pursues the Bloody White Beast and his associates to the end.

------------

And that's the Black Cobra, a brand new character I've been sitting on for a while. The idea is a few years old, but I only just got around to developing his look earlier this year, and sorting out the details of his backstory even more recently than that. This is a character meant to be that kind of supernaturally-themed Batman-esque vigilante, in the mold of Moon Knight, Black Panther, and Azreal. Though, to be honest, the initial inspiration was my irritation after seeing a few other characters use that name and feeling like they didn't really live up to the awesome promise of a name like "The Black Cobra." So I took it, steeped it in Hindu mythology and Indian history, and thus we arrive here.

Anyway, hope you guys like this new fella, and stay tuned for more ExMythos goodness!

The Black Cobra (Amar Chopra) belongs to , and is protected under copyright law. ©
Created using Fabrica de Herois 2014