In case you were wondering where the ominous title originates...

Who or what is the Prince of Darkness?

Seven answers:

- The Adversary

- The Devil 

- A universal literary concept

- Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne

- An 80s John Carpenter movie

- An old nickname

- The working title of my first RPG

 

The Adversary

The Hebrew term 'the satan' roughly translates as "one who opposes, obstructs or acts as an adversary." In the biblical book of Numbers, the satan is an angel who blocks the path of Balaam at the behest of God. The satan also plays a key role in the tale of Job. In this story the satan first displays a hint of malice. From here the adversary becomes equated with evil. And becomes-

 

The Devil

You've probably heard of this guy, he's quite famous. Also back in the day the granddaddy of all RPGS, Dungeons & Dragons was accused of promoting devil-worship. This was grossly unfair to both parties; it made D&D sound dark & exciting and Satan sound desperate.

 

The Dark Power in Literature

Stories are always about morality. Good vs Evil, Light vs Dark. The Prince of Darkness is an anthropomorphised version of the forces of evil. A symbolic monster to be overcome by the heroes of light. The first time I came across such a character, actually referred to as "The Prince of Darkness" was in the Beaver Towers books I read during my childhood. For more on this concept I recommend The Seven Basic  Plots by Christopher Booker.

 

Ozzy

What more can I say about the  bat-biting brummy legend? He's the Prince of Darkness, just look at his family...

 

Me - J.J.P.

Back to me. I've been called the Prince of Darkness before so it must be true. I design games and I write. My main focus are games for the murky subculture known as roleplaying (I like to hyphenate but it's a role-play faux pas apparently).

Role-playing, it's a funny old culture basically existing in a strange niche between board-games and theatre (a board and the boards as I'm fond of saying). I'm well placed, because I also design board-games and write the odd play like my Dad. I'm fond of comedy and would like to develop one of my sitcoms in the future.

 

The Shadow of The Prince of Darkness

That was the hefty working title of my first game, mercifully abbreviated to PoD. This fantasy heart-wrencher went through many, many iterations and revisions. It started off as a bastard hybrid of Feng Shui and AD&D, changed into a collectible card game and then moved to playing cards. All the time running an epic campaign which sadly will never be concluded. One thing the game lacked was an actual reference to the Prince of Darkness...So PoD the CCRPG died. But all was not lost, from the ashes of PoD came two new games: Call To Adventure & Swansong. CTA is the true child of PoD, and the next CTA revision will be the game I originally wanted to write (with CCG potential)!

The Prince of Darkness is now a vital part of CTA & Swansong - he makes the game as the players' dark adversary. 

 

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