Death Dealer

Has anybody ever based either a character or a whole campaign on Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer?

Most of my barbarian characters are based off of Howard's stories and Franzette's art. Never a campaign though, I'd like it but am pretty sure those that I play with wouldn't be for it.

Death Dealer? Never heard of it... Care to give me more info on that?

Gath of Baal and his crazy helmet!! I remember reading some of those books way back when...

To answer your question, no I haven't based a character or campaign around him, but a friend had a PC that was supsciously Gath-like...

Darkness said:

Death Dealer? Never heard of it... Care to give me more info on that?

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He's the big guy with the axe on many of Molly Hatchet's album covers. Who's Molly Hatchet? They were(are?) a southern-rock band(ala Lynard Skynard, Alman Brothers, etc) popular in the mid-late 1970s named for a 17th century ax murderous.

Here's a link to their album covers

I always thought it a strange union...Death Dealer seems more apporpriate for a heavy metal band, but whatever....

Nice album covers, I've heard of Molly Hatchet but not their music.
Some of the old Conan novels also has Frank Franzetta covers. There also is 4 Death Dealer novels, not that well written, but I have endured worse.

Molly Hatchet, if I wasn't given bunk info, was from the Tampa-St. Pete, FL area... Like it matters... They had a lot of good tunes way back when, their most notable probably being "Flirtin' with Disaster"

Whoa!!!!

The Death Dealer (or Gath of Baal) is a character created by Frank Frazetta. This character was further developed by James Silke, who wrote 4 novels which are out of print and are really hard to find today.

These novels are not your average fantasy read and properly belong to the "Dark Fantasy" genre. The battles are bloody and the imagery is very descriptive. The magic has a "tantric" touch to it and the plots are very interesting.

Gath of Baal is a barbaric character whose savagery is unsurpassed by any other character I've ever read about. Imagine him like a Conan on steroids who happens to possess a magical horned helmet (actually a demon) that turns him into an unstopable killing machine when he dons it. There is a slight problem with the helmet, however. The person who wears it cannot take it off (unless he or she has a will strong enough to overcome the demon that is bound to the helmet) and will eventually die as the helmet either slowly strangles its wearer or progressively gets heavier until it rips off the wearer's head.

Silke's narrative is much more colorful and descriptive than Robert E. Howard's, IMHO. When Gath jumps into a fray, you can almost feel that you are right there witnessing how he tears an opponent's arm and bludgeons him to death with it or how his axe swings back and forth cutting through sinews of flesh. It's just a gory bloodbath....

For anyone who likes Robert E. Howard, I highly recomend it. It will melt your brain.

Eye Tyrant said:

Molly Hatchet, if I wasn't given bunk info, was from the Tampa-St. Pete, FL area... Like it matters... They had a lot of good tunes way back when, their most notable probably being "Flirtin' with Disaster"

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Yeah. It is generally good music to listen to while polishing off that bottle of JD you keep under the kitchen sink...

I read the first two novels...they were entertaining. I wouldn't call them great literature, but they definately have lots of good descriptions, interesting characters and even some good sexual tension.