Episode 122 of the Letters Page: Creative Process: Count Barzakh

The start of the second most spooky month of the year http://theletterspage.libsyn.com/episode-122-creative-process-count-barzakh

First, to answer their question, I had been looking at the incap side of SaD Benchmark's (non?)foil character card, the one that had a bunch of villains, and so I thought Count Barzakh was Baron Blade under a different name. This also led me to believe "barzakh" meant "knife"? And that it was spelled "barzoc". :B So we can chalk it all up to me being not very bright.

Second, some Amazon links to the book series Christopher was talking about: Perdido Street Station, The Scar. I'll definitely check those out one day.

Third, I was of course mentally constructing a villain deck for Count Barzakh while listening to the episode, because that's something I do, but I got a little discouraged when I realized all I had come up with was basically the Cauldron's Swarm Eater. :B

And last but not least, my favorite part of this episode was when I said "...to move you" at the exact same time as Christopher. XD Validation!

i just love how much this new info works with existing lore-

the drugs that turned J. Donnoven into Spite were reverse enginered from magic potions sold to Pike by Barzakh? yep that checks out 100%

The current Count Barzakh count is set at 2.

This episode is so much ado about literally nothing initially. I like the meta aspect of saying the comic writers basically answered a reader question with something akin to “it comes from midichlorians shut up” and then somebody else canonized it and made it s whole big thing.

That character I mentioned a while ago, who watches videos of spells being cast and realizes they can do it? For the first time today, I think their nemesis is Count Tolvazh.

As the episode evolves, I see a Count Barzakh deck taking shape. It’s a mini-villain, designed to play similarly to Bugbear mixed with Biomancer mixed with Ermine a little bit. Starts the game with the indestructible Hand of Glory at like 25 HP, it loses 1 a round, if it’s on 0 HP he plays extra cards, he damages other villain targets when it’s safe to do so, that heals the hand, and he’s immune to damage if another villain is in play. Not sure about the rest.

Very obviously, the singular entity that S&D Barzakh steals power from is Malavox. That doesn’t happen, but in the place where impossible things happen, he’s one of those things. Malavox is a weird character, because he exemplifies Conquest as a concept, but he’s not conquering anything. So it makes sense to say that anyone who is a conquerer IS ruled by Malavox.