History Literature / JohannesCabalTheNecromancer

* WeaponOfChoice: A Webley .577 handgun, though Cabal is smart enough to carry back-up weapons.

* MoralEventHorizon: In-universe, Cabal's entrapment of Nea Winshaw -- he lays out a plan for her to kill her unborn child, but instead of getting away with it, she's soon found out. It is then revealed that her child is alive, and Cabal can get her off any criminal charges -- if she would just sign on the dotted line. Horst is disgusted, and Cabal admits its the worst thing he's ever done.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: Mundane made evilly awesome, but Arthur Trubshaw a bank clerk in Hell, is ''so'' penny-ante, '''so''' devoted to detail that he creates another layer of Hell -- now to get in you have to fill out forms. Thousands and thousands of forms made to be incredibly hard, with some of them having thousands of questions. The "pre-damned" as the poor souls on Limbo are known, all want to go to Hell because it ''has'' to be better than the forms.

* ResuscitateTheDog: After [[spoiler: Horst kills himself]].

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Dennis and Denzel. [[spoiler: Until Cabal kills them and zombifies them with Batch 247.]]

* BreakTheHaughty: The last few chapters for Cabal; he ends the penultimate chapter sobbing, realizing his life's worth was for nothing and that he will soon be dead and damned.

* KarmicDeath: While not exactly death, victims who signed their souls over to damnation were usually tempted by vices that they already had.
** At the end, Horst [[spoiler: mentions this is sort of what is going to happen to Cabal-Horst sabotaged the wager and Cabal will die. He tells Cabal that he's killed him, just like Johannes 'killed' him. Horst then inflicts this on himself by committing suicide.]]
* KickTheSonOfABitch: Most of the souls Cabal collects are people that would have gone to Hell anyway. Arguably happens to him a few times, too.

* LastNameBasis: Johannes Cabal is most often simply known as 'Mr. Cabal,' or 'Cabal.' while Horst Cabal goes by his first name.
** This is averted by Satan, who calls Johannes by his first name or by his full name-never just Cabal, and certainly wouldn't grant him the meager respect even of 'Mr.'
* TheLegionsOfHell: This is explictly mentioned and used in the text to describe the vast kinds of demons in hell, from imps to demonic Generals to Satan himself.

* LovecraftLite: While cosmic horrors are implied to exist alongside Hell and Heaven, what is missing is the "humans are hopelessly insignificant" factor-Cabal proves that a quick mind and a brave heart can serve a human being well against all kinds of threats.

* MadScientist: Played with with Cabal-he's not insane, but he's very low on ethics and morals. He's not 'mad' so much as a giant jerk. He's got the utter obsession and strange lab parts, though.

* MoralEventHorizon: In-universe, Cabal's entrapment of Nea Winshaw-he lays out a plan for her to kill her unborn child, but instead of getting away with it, she's soon found out. It is then revealed that her child is alive, and Cabal can get her off any criminal charges-if she would just sign on the dotted line. Horst is disgusted, and Cabal admits its the worst thing he's ever done.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: Mundane made evilly awesome, but Arthur Trubshaw a bank clerk in Hell, is ''so'' penny-ante, '''so''' devoted to detail that he creates another layer of Hell-now to get in you have to fill out forms. Thousands and thousands of forms made to be incredibly hard, with some of them having thousands of questions. The "pre-damned" as the poor souls on Limbo are known, all want to go to Hell because it ''has' to be better than the forms.

* NecessarilyEvil: How Cabal sees his work. Yes, he'll condemn 100 people to hell, but getting his soul back will put him further along the track to curing life.

* NoKillLikeOverkill: There is a short digression early in the book that deals with a family called the Druins, and details how one of them became a vampire but the others tried to kill her (partly for family money, partly because they were all crazy), but she always came back-being a vampire. Until one day she has an accident with a steamroller and a large amount of gelignite. This is ultimately subverted, as even this fails to truly kill the vampire.

* NoSocialSkills: Cabal realizes this, but concludes that people are simply unworthy of his time. This comes back to bite him when his wager with Satan requires him to run a carnival. Cabal is grudgingly forced to run to his brother Horst for help.
* NotAfraidOfHell: Arthur Trubshaw qualifies for this. Essentially described as the most painfully bureaucratic man to ever live, he was originally a bank teller in the Old West who was shot by a robber after informing the latter that he needed a receipt before leaving. The inhabitants of Hell gleefully anticipated breaking his will and desire for order, but found that while they were gleefully planning this, he had written out schedules to best optimize the torture, made a time and motion study for them, and reorganized their underwear drawers. Satan looked at this and decided to make use of his obnoxious skills by converting the entrance to Hell into a gargantuan waiting room where incoming souls have to fill out thousands of pages of cryptically-worded paperwork happily written by Trubshaw.

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Some of hell's demons are the typical types-imps and so forth. But Slabuth is described more as something more Lovecraftian, with no legs and being a mass of non-Euclidean angles with a horse's skull for a head-wearing an ancient Greek helmet.
** Likewise, Satan is given little in the way of description-he us explicitly said to look "exactly as one imagines", meaning his appearance might be mutable. What is known for certain is that he's very, very large-he sits on a massive throne, his fingernails are the size of tombstones, and a drop of his blood is the size of a medicine ball.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Horst has both proven and debunked many of myths: sunlight kills him, but he doesn't need the coffin. Vampirism is spread via the mixing of blood and not the bite. He still has a reflection, along with various super-powers: strength, speed, hypnotism, toughness, and blood-fueled healing.

* PayEvilUntoEvil: Cabal does this to Trubshaw (throwing him out to his public-who hate him) and Ratuth Slabuth (by besmirching his good name and indirectly leading to him being demoted to Corporal).
** Cabal takes in a bunch of escaped murderers, letting them hide from the law aboard the train-provided they sign a contract, of course and knowing their shelter will only last a year.

* PetTheDog: Cabal gets a few moments of this-in Chapter 6 he saves a ghost from its limbo at the site of its death, and reconsiders making it sign and thus go to hell. Moved by its love for its lost girlfriend, he simply lets the ghost know peace.
** Alfred Simpkons is an unrepentant killer but he ends up saving Barrow because he really wants to[[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou kill Barrow himself]]. After he saves him, he can't bring himself to kill him because it seems childish-he then gives up murder and says its easier than quitting smoking.

The first of the Literature/JohannesCabal series of fantasy novels, ''Johannes Cabal the Necromancer'' is the story of the titular necromancer and his efforts to study magic. Unfortunately for Johannes, he sold his soul to Hell for power, and magic doesn't quite work as well without one.

* AloneWithThePsycho-After being saved from Layla the Latex Lady, Barrow has a tense conversation with Simpkins about whether or not the serial killer is going to follow through with his stated desire to kill the ex-detective.

* AlternateHistory: The story is fairly grounded in the real world, aside from the more or less public knowledge of magic and its like-Cabal's world has Satan, and God, and Cthulu, and vampires, and the Fey, and many other forms of supernatural entities.
* AnachronismStew: There are various hints as to when the story might take place, but its hard to pin down-twentieth century for sure, but any dates given are written as '19--'. There are allusions to a past war that was probably World War 1, but Satan makes pop culture references as late as 1960 (Satan may be a special case). The Inter-War period is probably the best guess, though Al Capone is in hell, which puts the book in (in our world) at most 1947 at the latest.
* BadassBookworm: Cabal does not appear overly dangerous-archaically dressed, and definitely not a nice man at first glance, but not deadly and he prefers to use his brain to solve his problems. But in addition to being a scientist, he's deeply practical-when two dim-witted highwayman try to rob him he draws his enormous revolver and shoots them both dead.

* BondOneLiner: In a sense-Cabal shoots Bones in the head when the carnival decides to go nuts in their last minute of existence(and given the size of the bullet, his head more or less explodes), with Bones making a pathetic and insulting attempt to tell the rest of the carnival to stop at Cabal's orders. Cabal then says to no one in particular "I will ''not'' be mocked."

* BreakTheHaughty: The last few chapters for Cabal-he ends the penultimate chapter sobbing, realizing his life's worth was for nothing and that he will soon be dead and damned.
* CameBackWrong: Dennis and Denzil-this seems to be part and parcel of how necromancy works in the series-Cabal has had nothing but failed attempts to truly resurrect someone as they were before death, with mind body and soul intact. Shambling zombies and skeletons seem to be all one can hope for.

* CelestialBureaucracy: The novel's portrayal of Hell-Satan has a secretary to help him with the files, and is depicted as a sort of evil executive more than anything else.

* NecessarilyEvil: How Cabal sees his work-yes he'll condemn 100 people to hell, but getting his soul back will put him further along the track to curing life.
* NervesOfSteel: Cabal marches into Hell (twice) and holds a conversation with Satan like they're more or less equal.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Cabals's intentions are good-to restore life and conquer death. His methods only get more extreme as time goes on lest he suffer damnation.

* WickedCultured: Both of the Cabal brothers-Horst has more actual culture (being a people person) than Cabal, but isn't nearly as wicked, while Cabal has no scruples but is very well-educated.

* WouldHurtAChild: The carnival's constructs are about to get a young boy to sign his soul over (in a sequence that manages to be both very funny and tense) when Horst makes a [[ThereWasADoor wall-breaking entrance]] and promptly informs them "NO CHILDREN.".
** Johannes falls into this indirectly-he'd probably never hurt a child, but he didn't tell the various monsters not to take children's souls, either. He also tricks a woman into poisoning her baby (non-fatally, but no one knows that but him) in order to get the mother to sign away her soul.
* WrongGenreSavvy: Bones is quick to dismiss Cabal's chances of winning his wager (most everyone does) by pointing out that only people in stories get the best of Satan. The common thought is that Cabal is to star in yet another tragic Faustian tale ending with his death and damnation but as Cabal points out just because something's never been done before doesn't mean it can't be done.
* XanatosGambit: Satan's wager is this-if Cabal wins, Satan gets 100 souls (and he'll have corrupted Cabal in the process), and if Satan wins, he gets to kill Cabal. While Cabal is able to get the best of Satan, its a very minor victim and Satan even taunts him by saying he'd give him his soul back anyway-saying its too tawdry to keep.

* MoralDilemma: Cabal tries to enforce one on Barrow-sign his soul away or Cabal will kill his daughter. Barrow, rightly, deduces that Cabal would never kill Leonie, so this fails. It does however, put a similar dilemma on Leonie, as Cabal is perfectly willing to kill Barrow at this point-but Cabal never threatens her to sign.

* InfantImmortality: Averted, [[spoiler: then played straight with Nea Winshaw's baby.]]

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

Johannes Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy, has [[VillainProtagonist never pretended to be a hero of any kind]]. There is, after all, little heroic about [[GraveRobbing robbing graves]], stealing [[TomeOfEldritchLore occult volumes]], and [[GoKartingWithBowser being on nodding terms with demons]].

His purpose, however, is [[WellIntentionedExtremist noble]]. His researches are all directed to raising the dead. Not as [[CameBackWrong monstrosities]] but as people, just as they were when they lived: physically, mentally, and spiritually. For such a prize, [[YouCantMakeAnOmelette some sacrifices are necessary]]. [[DealWithTheDevil One such sacrifice was his own soul]], but now he sees that was a mistake. He needs it for his research to have validity, you see-- the laws of science are just not properly sciency around TheSoulless. That he needs it to be himself is... Irrelevant. [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial Yes, definitely, irrelevant.]]

Unfortunately, his soul now rests within the festering bureaucracy of Hell. {{Satan}} may be cruel and capricious but, most dangerously, he is bored. It is Cabal's unhappy lot to provide him with amusement.

In short, a wager: in return for his own soul, Cabal must gather one hundred others. Placed in control of a [[CircusOfFear diabolical carnival]] - created to tempt to contentiousness, to blasphemy, argumentation and murder, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking but one may also win coconuts]] - and armed only with his intelligence, [[HandCannon a very large handgun]], and a total absence of whimsy, Cabal has one year.

''Johannes Cabal the Necromancer'' is the first in a series of novels centered around the eponymous protagonist. For the series-wide tropes, see ''Literature/JohannesCabal''.

* SignificantMonogram: Johannes shares his initials with [[JesusChrist another guy]] who used to resurrect people.

* EvilSorcerer: Cabal deals with Rufus Maleficarus, an example of a wizard who doesn't have stereotypical smarts: as Cabal put it, all the dark knowledge he learned took up space in his brain already used by his sanity. The result is a big man with wild hair and delusions of grandeur who, nonetheless, nearly brought about the apocalypse, was able to escape from a mental institution by using finger paint to summon a Hound of Tindalos, and transports Cabal into a pocket dimension.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Rufus Maleficarus is mentioned to escape (by using fingerpaint to summon a Hound of Tindalos) chapters before he appears.

* HandCannon: The Webley .577 is an enormous revolver that Cabal carries and which he usually only draws when someone is about to die very soon.

* ShoutOut: The "Loofah Lady" is a nod to Bram Stoker's "Bloofer Lady" in ''{{Literature/Dracula}}'', and The Rufus Maleficarus episode is an extended ShoutOut to the CthulhuMythos.

* {{Badass}}: Both Cabal brothers qualify, but Horst is the physical version-as a vampire he has the strength of ten men. Cabal is deadly because he's so straightforward-if he wants you dead, he'll be very sure about it.

* BadassNormal: Frank Barrow isn't afraid of Cabal in a fight (he very nearly gets Cabal to accidentally stab him when Cabal lunges at him with a switchblade) but is overmatched by the sinfully (literally) strong and powerful Layla, the Latex Lady. Cabal himself would almost count, but he's also kind of a wizard/magical scientist.

* BigBad: Whether it's Satan or Cabal depends on who you ask.

* BodyHorror: Dennis and Denzil, as their bodies decay

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Rufus Maleficarus is mentioned to escape (by using fingerpaint to summon a Hound of Tindalos chapters before he appears.

* HeelRealization: Played with. Cabal knows he's not a hero and that what he does is evil, but he considers it necessary. [[spoiler: Until Horst's suicide shows him he's gone too far.]] Even this is ultimately subverted, as Cabal wriggles out of his deal anyway beating the Devil. Cabal's last words (made clear to the audience he says a name later) when he looks at his preserved love is that "It was all worthwhile." A combination of Horst's actions, Johannes', and getting his soul back softens him-very very mildly.

%%* TheLegionsOfHell

%%* LovecraftLite

* NoKillLikeOverkill: There is a short digression early in the book that deals with a family called the Druins, and deatils how one of them became a vampire but the others tried to kill her (partly for family money, partly because they were all crazy), but she always came back-being a vampire. Until one day she has an accident with a steamroller and a large amount of gelignite. This is ultimately subverted, as even this fails to truly kill the vampire.

** Something Wicked This Way Comes is directly and indrectly referenced-the carnival of Discord is similar to one run by 'Cougar and Dark' but Satan mentions that one is wound up.

%%* TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow

* TranquilFury: Played with in Cabal. He shows normal, shouting anger several times, but can also carry out violent acts driven by rage in a perfectly normal fashion. In the timeless pocket dimension, he cheerfully bashes a man to death with a croouet mallet in a single swing-it was a science experiment.
* TraumaCongaLine In the second to last chapter, Cabal abandons his last few morals, condemning another innocent person to hell, is then told that he will lose the wager anyway due to interference, and then [[spoiler: watches his brother kill himself simply, which is mostly his fault]], leaving him weeping and alone.

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer is the first novel written for JonathanLHoward's Johannes Cabal series. Before the novel, Howard has written several short stories in the Cabalverse. Johannes Cabal the Necromancer (2009) is followed by ''Literature/JohannesCabalTheDetective'' (2010), ''Literature/JohannesCabalAndTheFearInstitute'' (2011) and ''The Brothers Cabal'' (2014). A fifth installment, ''The Fall of the House of Cabal'', will be released in September 2016.

Howard has also written a character sheet for Cabal, [[http://wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dnd/20110311 available here]].

* AllThereInTheManual: In addition to the novels Johnathan L. Howard has also written several short stories about Cabal. These short stories can be read as standalones, but provide readers of the novels extra insight into Cabal's character. (Good luck finding “Exeunt Demon King” and “Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day” - they were published in a now-defunct magazine.) [[http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/new/new-fiction/the-house-of-gears/ The House of Gears,]] the latest Cabal short story is available online.
** Jonathan L. Howard also released a Dungeons and Dragons [[http://wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dnd/20110311 character sheet for Cabal.]] It includes a good amount of additional back-story and even includes ''floor plans'' of Cabal's house.

* GodAndSatanAreBothJerks: Cabal concludes that this must be the case, since Hell consists of eternal torment run by a bored sadist, and those who go to Heaven [[{{Instrumentality}} lose their individuality and become a sort of loving/worshipful mass of light]].

%%* DyingMomentOfAwesome: [[spoiler: Horst, again]]

* ExactWords: Cabal uses this in a layered to trick Satan, with the first attempt being obvious-in order to conceal the second. He offers Satan the box of soul contracts in return for his own-but Satan sees through that and wants the contents. He doesn't insist on a full count, and Cabal has already removed the two contracts Satan really wanted.

* FantasticallyIndifferent: Several, Cabal and Horst chief among them.

* AnachronismStew: There are various hints as to when the story might take place, but its hard to pin down-twentieth century for sure, but any dates given are written as '19--'. There are allusions to a past war that was probably World War 1, but Satan makes pop culture references as late as 1960 (Satan may be a special case). The Inter-War period is probably the best guess.

* WeaponOfChoice: A Webley .577 handgun.

* HeelRealization: Played with. Cabal knows he's not a hero and that what he does is evil, but he considers it necessary. [[spoiler: Until Horst's suicide shows him he's gone too far.]]

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Cabal goes further and further into coldness and darkness to win his soul back-in the beginning he only cons people who were going to hell anyway. But by the end, needing just a few more souls and desperately short on time, he is willing to force good people to sign.
* HiddenDepths: Cabal proves this by the end-his actions stem from a deep, obsessive love.

* InvisibleToNormals: Only special people-those who tend to have impressive will (like Cabal and Barrow) can see Mr. Simpkons. He's not a mystic creature himself-but he's a man so painfully banal that people just don't notice him except when he's showing strong emotions-which is rare. This is PlayedForLaughs and used for BlackComedy as Simpkons killed roughly fifty people to get them to notice him-but they never did.

* TheLostLenore: Cabal's love died when he was young (probably 19 or 20) and ever since he abandonded his dream to be a doctor and decided to connquer death itself. This is a somewhat downplayed example of the trope, because Cabal never speaks about his lost love.

* MadScientist: Played with with Cabal-he's not insane, but he's very low on ethics and morals. He's not 'mad' so much as a giant jerk.

%%* {{Necromantic}}

%%* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: Many.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Rufus Maleficarus is mentioned to escape (by using fingerpaint to summon a Hound of Tindalos chapters before he appears. Likewise, there's a list of escaped murderers, but this is a very minor case as the only shows up is barely even described-his name is even written wrong-which is {{Justified}} because by his unique...condition.

* FunctionalMagic: Played with. Magic exists, but it's not particularly functional-Cabal points out its major drawback is a lack of practicality compared to science. Once he decides to take Rufus Maleficarus seriously, Cabal's revolver is more than a match for Rufus magic, which takes a long time to cast.

* GirlInABox: Cabal's young love is kept in a semi-magic coffin filled with preseratives in order to keep her body stable until such time as he can restore her to full life.

* SerialKiller: Many of the prison escapees-Simpkins is the only one who gets a description and he kills people because that is the only way for people to notice him-even then it doesn't really work.

* TranquilFury-played with in Cabal. He shows normal, shouting anger several times, but can also carry out violent acts driven by rage in a perfectly normal fashion. In the timeless pocket dimension, he cheerfully bashes a man to death with a croouet mallet in a single swing-it was a science experiment.

%%* AmbiguouslyEvil: Cabal
%%* BackFromTheDead