Welcome first time readers as well as loyal subjects!

The Gormogons website began in the 1700s, when it was originally done in pencil. In July of 2008, our short-lived marketing department decided what a super-secret society that lived in the shadows of your worst fears really needed was a cool website. Of course, when we say they were “short lived,” we naturally mean they were executed within minutes for exposing us to the public.

But you know, after a few days, we started to like the idea. And while we mostly regret butchering our marketing department, at least we didn’t have to apologize to any of their spouses: they were marketing people. No one marries them.

The Gormogons are an antient and noble—but quite secret society—dedicated to the restoration of the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania, the imprisonment of Esperanto speakers (many of whom you can visit in our dungeons…but please do not engage them in conversation), and our eternal dedication to the eschatological doctrine of the Return from Occultation of the Thirteenth Imam, Val Kilmer.

Our numbers are in the many tens of billions. We are aware that, from your frame of reference, this exceeds the number of people who are alive today. We certainly get that question a lot, and while it annoys us to
no end, the inquisitor is gently invited to (a) consider that our membership roster includes the past and future of many dimensions and worlds, and (b) shut up.

The Gormogons base their doctrine of enlightenment on our illustrious founder, the secret first Emperor of China Chin-K’wa Kai-Po (秦胯戤魄), who decoded the famous Voynich Manuscript (now available in paperback at our gift shop) using an occult algorithm derived from Paracelsus’s Archidoxis of Magic (also available in our gift shop) and the metrical scansion of Doug E. Fresh’s “La-Di-Da-Di” (not available in our
gift shop due to licensing restrictions).

Whether the Gormogons are a force for good or evil is irrelevant, as our means and motives are to us and us alone. We remain a silent, arcane power behind the scenes, and our secrecy is our most precious asset. Just ask: we are happy to tell you all about it.

Anyway, our happy little site of horror is hosted by and written by six of the major Gormogons, while still others live in the shadows. Here we are:

孔夫子, the Œcumenical Volgi (The Notorious ŒV)
The very first Gormogon in history was 孔夫子, usually known by his office of Œcumenical Volgi, or called the Notorious ŒV, Kung Ch’iu, K’ung-fu-tzu, Chih-sheng Hsien-shih, Wan-Shih-Shih-Piao, or, very occasionally, “Confucius.”
Visitors not fluent in Zhou Chinese are welcome to refer to him as the Volgi (pronounced Vol-ghee, and never as Vol-jee).
The Volgi was born in 551 B.C., outside the city of Ch’ü-fu in the suburb of Elm Grove Heights. Serving as Minister of Justice, and knocking out a couple of books, the Volgi is credited with founding the semi-religion that bears his name; however, he did so on a winning wager against L. Ron Hubbard and does not practice it himself. That religion, of course, is Confucianism.As minister, he discovered his love of foreign policy and sarcasm. Dedicated to life-long learning, the Volgi is only one of several people with a doctorate in Umlautology, as evinced by his hyperdiacritical ravings.
In addition to unlocking the secrets of the cosmos, the Volgi discovered the proven method of immortality, upon whom he and he alone bestows upon certain members of the Society (immortality is not available in our gift shop). The Volgi spends his off-time hours travelling the various Circles of Hell to pick out destinations for those whom he does not like. He travels the world, appearing and disappearing at will, and has mastered over 160 languages along the way. His favorite topics are foreign affairs, popular culture, and history. He further has a strange predilection for vampires (the scary ones, not the Boy Band ones).The Volgi occupies the third through fifth floors of the Castle with his pet yeti, དགའ་པོ. (Lovey).

The Volgi is the primary and only permanent resident of the Castle. If you see him by the bar in the lounge, do not be afraid to stroll up and say hello. The Volgi is very friendly, and will welcome any visitor who buys him a glass of the Liao drug at the bar.

Do not attempt to pet the yeti.

Ghettoputer F.X. Gormogon
Words like “charming,” “elegant,” and “witty” frequently come to mind when discussing anyone other than ‘Puter. His frightening face and temperament belie his vast and powerful legal mind. Ghettoputer is the main reason we don’t get sued, and has an IQ that can only be rendered with the calculus.

‘Puter does most of his work in the Castle Rumpus Room, so called because a traditional rumpus results in bloodshed. There he sits at his IBM XT with the Coleco monitor, thumping his thumbs against a keyboard with most of the keys missing. He is so skilled at argumentation that he can defeat pretty much any argument he selects; once, he defeated an opponent using only punctuation.

He’s an avid lover of anything that will make his family apologize for it. When away from the Castle, ‘Puter lives in western Upstate New York where he enjoys in the art of cooking, good manhattans, and shooting the crap out of little woodland creatures.

‘Puter joined the Gormogons in the late 1980s, arriving at our Castle with steamer trunks, an untranslated letter of introduction, some spurious claims of familial relationship to a dead member, and a lizard man.

His essays and thoughts on our site remain among the most popular. Your guess is as good as ours as to why that might be.

GorTechie
Generally known as GorT, this eight-foot-tall robot from the 51st Century has incredible, limb-ripping strength, the ability to process quadragigs of exobytes, and time travel. The latter proves useful, as his ability to steal things from the future, bring them to the present, and then patent them (“retroinvention”) pays for all our bills. The next time you use VCR+, remember to thank him for it.

GorT has no knees and only one eye that shoots a powerful laser. His massive claw like hands are capable of lifting heavy loads, tearing apart the strongest armor, and even Jenga. His ability to play the violin is, perhaps, slightly more limited. He knows all the quadratic formulas by heart, even the dirty ones.

Despite his total control of emotion, incredible strength, and ruthless combat mastery, GorT truly understands the value of human life and rips apart people only when he feels like it. GorT joined our order in the year 5086, about the same time he stole Hot Pockets’ crisping sleeve technology and brought it back to 1991.

GorT spends time at his cloning facility in greater Washington DC. Were it not for him, you would not be reading this site as most of it is actually hosted in a massive storage facility located in his right heel.

The Czar of Muscovy
Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй, which is another way of explaining that the Czar is the psychotic, rage-filled autocrat of Muscovy, a scenic and pleasant hamlet located in the western suburbs of Chicago. The Czar was born in 1267 in the wild fields outside Moscow. He was prepped from childhood to be the tsar upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich; however, in 1283, his second cousin Daniil Aleksandrovich became Czar due to a clerical error involving the application processing fee. Enraged, the Czar was awarded the rule of the small suburb in which he now resides. Of course, he seethes at this injustice to this very day and will rant on and on about it until you find anything else to do.

The Czar met the Mandarin in 1287, and in turn the Volgi in 1294. By 1308, both had been successfully recruited into the Gormogons. The Czar enjoys smoking and grilling, firearms, and other forms of violence. On the nicer side, he loves dogs (especially the kind that hunt serfs on sight). The Czar is also a skilled knife thrower, but prefers to handle his executions personally with a massive collection of axes.

The Czar heads up his own okhrana, who are staggeringly incompetent and wrong on just about everything they discover. He uses their information to develop incisive articles for our site involving journalism, science, religion, and politics. He also likes baseball and hockey.

The Inscrutable Mandarin
The mysterious Mandarin is perhaps the creepiest of the Gormogons, in that his soft charm is usually underscored by massive weapons and orbiting mind-control satellites. A technological wizard, the Mandarin delights in tormenting people with bizarre, quasi-alien technology, and frequently collaborates with GorT, designing evil orbiting mind-control satellites, portable disintegration devices, and plastic wrap that sticks to itself but not dishes.

His real name is 吏恆, but the year and place of his birth is impossible to align with this dimension. He often vanishes for months at a time, and spends most of his Castle visits locked in the basement, a spooky glow shining below the door to his lab. He owns a wonderful manticore named Barry that lives in our menagerie. You are welcome to pet it, although it will certainly kill you.

The Mandarin is the originator of the now famous meme of “gut booting,” by which he demonstrates his displeasure of someone, however mild, by kicking him in the stomach. He does not do requests, unless your request is to receive a boot to the gut. This request may be granted without you even asking. Or expecting it.

Some of his lab experiments involve animals, such as the time he put a metronome in front of a cat and watched the cat spend ten minutes swatting it. This seems like a strange experiment to do to a cat, but he swears he had an idea for something when he set it up.

The Mandarin most famously brought us to England in the 1700s, just before we moved to the United States in 1776.

Dr. J.
Our resident physician, Dr. J. was born in New Atlantis where he attended the Academy of Sorcery, Alchemy and Surgery, where he specialized in force chokes, shooting lightning, and cardiology. He is now the Surgeon Emperor for the Gormogons, and writes on topics ranging from myocardial infarctions to My Little Pony and pretty much nothing in between.

Once, when King Orin of Atlantis fell ill with the Ick, Dr. J. stepped in with an elixir he devised from a combination of minerals, herbs and saps. Curing the king, Dr. J. gained significant notoriety which afforded him the luxury of time to devote himself to his side hobbies which include porpoise racing, the study of supply-side economics, cooking and raising his lovely merchildren alongside his lovely bride the archconservative Mrs. Dr. J.

Dr. J. understands the terrible burden of running a galactic empire, maintaining his world-class cardiological credentials, and frightening millions of alien populations. He also likes Cavalier King Charles spaniels, although he wishes the dogs could be a bit more cavalier than their name would suggest.

Dr. J. spends a lot of time in the Castle complaining about the fragrences in the soap dispensers. He knows a lot about stuff. Seriously, you guys.

And many of you already know some of the other Castle residents!

Sleestak
Sleestak is a horrible-looking reptilian thug that follows the Ghettoputer around the Castle. He speaks in a series of sibilant noises, and whether or not ‘Puter understands him or not is a matter of debate.

His real name is unknown, but because of his strong resemblance to a well-known fictional character, ‘Puter named him Sleestak. The latter is so severely unattractive that usually we represent him with a stock photograph of the television character. There is no mistaking him in the Castle; if you see him shuffling in the hallways, you should consider staying out of his way.

Fortunately, Sleestak will spend most of his day in ‘Puter’s room, leaving only to run errands or fetch hard-to-obtain items around town for his Master. One of his key jobs is Charnel Master of the Castle, which shows that he is much more responsible than little Dat Ho.

How he came into ‘Puter’s care is a bit of a mystery. The Volgi seems to recall that ‘Puter came home after a four-day bender, clutching a large, speckled egg. His memory regarding how or where he obtained the egg was entirely missing, as was his clothing. ‘Puter refused to let anyone cook and eat the egg—or in the Czar’s case, eat the egg uncooked—and locked it in his room. Eventually, the egg hatched, and whatever slithered out imprinted itself on ‘Puter’s horrified face and the reptilian idiot has been living in the Castle ever since. To our knowledge, ‘Puter has never brought Sleestak home to meet his family.

Dat Ho

Although Dat Ho is ostensibly the Czar’s personal assistant, he generally performs a wide variety of tasks for all the Castle residents, such as pilfering and theft.Dat is about 12 years old. We think. We generally spend very little time talking to him. In fact, not only do we not know where he came from, we’re not even sure Dat Ho is his real name.

Little Dat spends most of his rare off-time learning unbroken English in order to say he is sorry for folding the Czar’s socks with the heel to the left instead of the right. There will probably be a beating, or at least a serious throttling, for some transgression; for verily he knows what he did in the kitchen, when he thought he could pocket an extra parsnip for dessert. With underlings, you know, you must be very strict in their discipline, even it means fabricating accusations against them.

Inetef-Te-Henqet
Inetef-Te-Henqet is Castle Gormogon’s butler and major-domo, a position he famously held for Sneferu, founder of the Fourth Dynasty, before dying in 2591 B.C. He was brought back to life in 22 B.C. by the Volgi’s unholy sorcery when the latter was disappointed in the quality of dry-cleaning available.

Inetef-Te-Henqet does not speak English. Inetef-Te-Henqet is incapable of learning new languages, likely because his brain was removed with a hook through his nose during the mummification process and the resin in his skull cavity cannot form new synaptic paths.

2-1B
The American College of Graduate Medical Education has continuously ratcheted up the resident work-hour restrictions. As a consequence, rather than taking an apprentice that could only work a mere 80 hours a week, no more than a dainty 16 hours straight during the first year with an overly generous 10-hour break after a given shift (and he could go on and on and on about the work-hour restrictions, thank you Libby Zion), Dr. J. used his eldritch powers of cybersorcery and super-science to construct the most powerful medical minion in the universe, 2-1B.

2-1B doesn’t require breaks, only a Thunderbolt cable to keep him going when his erbium hafnide batteries run low. Furthermore, he does all of the work that Dr J. would rather pass on, such as lancing ‘Puter’s buttocks boils. Dat Ho likely has a trephening appointment with 2-1B this week, although he probably doesn’t realize it.