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Rasalom Vs Gerald Tarrant

Two things I'm noticing right out of the gate.

1. These two have a lot of similar powers, but a few of Gerald's seem a lot better, and he has counters for some of them too.

2. Why is Gerald Wall level if he has Room level Striking Strength and Durability?

Other than that, I might take a moment to think this over, since unequalized speed and prep time make things...interesting, to say the least.
 
Funny thing is my name is Gerald.


So now I'm fighting one of MrKing's rouge gallery.


Never thought the day would have been seen.
 
I am kind of eyeballing this and Gerald has the mind hax, probability hax and soul hax advantage.

I am just gonna vote via this and Kings reasons above.

Looks Rasolom could turn him mad in an instant or so or manipulate his morals, but Gerald probably should take this.

That said, I know absolutely nothing about either so my vote is subject to change.
 
Glaeken. Rasalom fears Glaeken, more than anything else in the setting. Although it's less of a "phobia of X" kind of fear and more of a fear of what he represents, and how he's capable of stopping his plans and killing the **** out of him with his sword.

If Gerald passively shapeshifts into whatever his opponent fears, that means he's going to spend the beginning of this fight looking like Glaeken, which is going to set Rasalom on-edge right from the getgo. This is actually kind of funny; it means Rasalom won't go for direct hax-based attacks right away (since he's used to Glaeken being immune to all of his best shit), but it also means he's going to be as alert as possible, and that he's going to attack with absolutely no mercy the moment he realizes "Glaeken" isn't resistant to his powers here.

  • His sword gives off a light "as blinding as a sun to look upon". At face value this would be another reason for Rasalom to believe that he's Glaeken, but it's actually what would tip Rasalom off to the truth. The light Glaeken's sword gives off drives away demons/Otherness beings and dispells Rasalom's necromancy. Doesn't seem like Gerald's sword can do that.
    • The light his sword gives off seems to "intensify rather than drive back the shadows". Another thing Glaeken's sword doesn't do, and this is also bad, because Rasalom's mere presence already sucks away all the light in an area unless he personally decides that he doesn't want it to. (Although Gerald's ESP probably mitigates that)
With that out of the way, I should probably ask; would a being like Rasalom count as "fae" in the Coldfire setting, or nah? Also, what is "the Forest" and is it relevant here?
 
I mean, Gerald's morals aren't exactly that great to begin with. He did sacrifice his wife and two of his children to achieve immortality. And then hunted thousands of random innocents down in horrible ways so that he could feed on their despair and fear.

Also, I'm pretty sure that maintaining his sanity in the presence of the nameless would help against the madness manipulation.
 
Monarch Laciel said:
And then hunted thousands of random innocents down in horrible ways so that he could feed on their despair and fear.
Click to expand...
...
This is hilarious. Rasalom did the same thing in his canon.
 
MrKingOfNegativity said:
Glaeken. Rasalom fears Glaeken, more than anything else in the setting. Although it's less of a "phobia of X" kind of fear and more of a fear of what he represents, and how he's capable of stopping his plans and killing the **** out of him with his sword.
Click to expand...
To be fair here. The extent of Gerald's "become what you fear" is never made entirely clear. I'll post the quote that explains it in a moment, and you can come to your own conclusions.

With that out of the way, I should probably ask; would a being like Rasalom count as "fae" in the Coldfire setting, or nah? Also, what is "the Forest" and is it relevant here?

Fae in Coldfire isn't the normal use of the word. It isn't a species, it's basically a semi-magical (though Gerald would disagree) energy field of the planet. Fae constructs are beings who are created by the fae from the conscious or subconscious thoughts of humans, ranging from vampires, to gods, to abstract demon things representing fears, doubts, and desires. So unless Rasalom is something along the lines of "person made of magic", then Rasalom himself would not count as a fae-construct. Actual magic and spells and stuff that he uses would be equalised to fae though.

The Forest is Gerald's home territory and isn't really that relevant here as they are fighting in Central Park.
 
Here is the quote:

"As for how that power manifests itself..." He paused. "I take on whatever form inspires fear in those around me."

"As you did in Morgot."

"As I do even now"

Damien stiffened.

"The lady knows that I can mimic the creatures that attacked her, make her relive that pain anytime it pleases me. That's fear enough, don't you think? With Mer Reese the matter is much more subtle. Say that I embody the power he hungers for, the temptation to cast aside everything he values and plunge into darkness - and the fear that he will do so only to come up with empty hands, and a soul seared raw by evil."

"And myself?" Damien asked tightly.

"You?" He laughed softly. "For you I've become the most subtle creature of all: a civilized evil, genteel and seductive. An evil you endure because you need its service - even though that very endurance plucks loose the underpinnings of your morality. An evil that causes you to question the very definitions of your identity, that blurs the line between dark and light until you're no longer certain which is which, or how the two are divided. That is what you fear most of all, priest. Waking up one morning and no longer knowing who or what you are"

So it's a little more subtle than just "I look like what you are scared of". It's more like his existence changes to become something that inspires fear in those around him. Though he can also look like and mimic the abilities of what you are afraid of, as he did with Ciani
 
MrKingOfNegativity said:
  • The light his sword gives off seems to "intensify rather than drive back the shadows". Another thing Glaeken's sword doesn't do, and this is also bad, because Rasalom's mere presence already sucks away all the light in an area unless he personally decides that he doesn't want it to. (Although Gerald's ESP probably mitigates that)
Click to expand...
If what you're saying here is that making it dark will impede Gerald, I'm going to tell your right now that it definitely won't. He can see in the dark perfectly.

And in fact, removing all the light in the area would generate dark fae, which would further amp Gerald.
 
@Monarch

I wanna tell you now if you move a storm generally, even if its tiny.

It should be somewhere in tier 8. RIP

Edit: Cuz sheer weight at this point.

IIRC
 
Well, that's different from what I expected. Certainly might be more effective (in some ways) than actually turning into Glaeken would have been, although this does mean that Rasalom won't have a reason not to open up with lethal stuff if he can.

Though, I will say that even if he does try to mimic Glaeken's form, he won't get the latter's resistances. Those come from the power held in Glaeken's runesword, and aren't available to him unless he's wielding it. The sword basically does all the work. (It was also nulling Rasalom's abilities even when the latter had become High 4-C, so there's that as well.)

Other thing:

Monarch Laciel said:
Also, I'm pretty sure that maintaining his sanity in the presence of the nameless would help against the madness manipulation.
Click to expand...
How potent is the nameless' madness-stuff?

Looking into Rasalom's eyes for barely a moment caused this to happen:

But it was the eyes, gripping Magda more fiercely than the icy hand on her arm, killing off her wailing cry and stilling her frantic struggles.
The eyes. Large and round, cold and crystalline, the pupils dark holes into a chaos beyond reason, beyond reality itself, black as a night sky that had never been blued by the sun or marred by the light of moon and stars. The surrounding irises were almost as dark, dilating as she watched, widening the twin doorways, drawing her into the madness beyond...

...madness. The madness was so attractive. It was safe, it was serene, it was isolated. It would be so good to pass through and submerge herself in those dark pools... so good...

No!

Magda fought the feeling, fought to push herself away. But ... why fight? life was nothing but disease and misery, a struggle that everyone eventually lost. What was the use? Nothing you did really mattered in the long run. Why bother?

She felt a swift undertow, almost irresistible, drawing her toward those eyes. There was lust there, for her, but a lust that went beyond the mere sexual, a lust for all that she was. She felt herself turn and lean toward those twin doorways of black. It would be so easy to let go...

... she held on, something within her refusing to surrender, urging her to fight the current. But it was so strong, and she felt so tired, and what did it all matter, anyway?

A sound ... music ... and yet not music at all. A sound in her mind, all that music was not ... non-melodic, disharmonic, a delirious cacophony of discord that rattled and shook and sent tiny cracks through the feeble remainder of her will. The world around her—everything—began to fade, leaving only the eyes ... only the eyes...

... she wavered, teetering on the edge of forever...

... then she heard Papa's voice.

Magda clutched at the sound, clung to it like a rope, pulled herself hand over hand along its length. Papa was not calling to her, was not even speaking in Romanian, but it was his voice, the only familiar thing in the chaos about her.

The eyes turned away. Magda was free. The hand released her.''
~ The Keep​
I'm gonna touch on prep in a bit, also, but I've got something I need to do IRL before I get on that, so it may be a little while.
 
KinkiestSins said:
@Monarch
I wanna tell you now if you move a storm generally, even if its tiny.

It should be somewhere in tier 8. RIP

Edit: Cuz sheer weight at this point.

IIRC
Click to expand...
...I just now saw this.


Damn
 
MrKingOfNegativity said:
How potent is the nameless' madness-stuff?
Click to expand...
This quote is from Damien's perspective, but the same stuff that he is feeling the after effects of, Gerald felt personally.

As soon as the door was open, he moved into the dark apartment -

- and malevolence swirled about his legs with such force that he nearly crashed to his knees, cold fae invading his flesh with a power that made bile rise up in his gut, his stomach spasming as if it could vomit up this repulsive evil. Loathsome, unspeakably loathsome; it took all his self-control not to abandon his search and desperately try to find a working that would scrub his flesh clean of the sickening power. Go ahead, the power seemed to urge, in a voice that stabbed like knives into his flesh. Try it. He could feel it sucking him down that path, towards that insane, doomed effort, and he knew in that moment that more than one living man had scrubbed his body raw in response to its presence, until skin and muscles both were abraded like cheap rope and even the hot blood which flowed freely was not enough to guarantee a cleansing.

With a sinking heart he staggered towards the bedroom, and somehow gathered enoguh strength to call out the Hunter's name. He no longer questioned what had happened here; the fae itself made it clear what type of creature had visited and there was only one thing a creature like that would want. "Gerald?" He search the bedroom quickly, desperately, but he knew even as he did so that the Hunter wasn't here. Cold fae stabbed into his flesh like knives as he searched the living room and the small kitchen; he felt as if his limbs were rotting away beneath him, infected by every wound. It's illusion, he thought desperately. It has to be. Ignore it. As he verified that the last room was empty, and gazed upon the basement window he had boarded up himself, he felt a black despair rise up inside him.... With an effort he managed to stagger out of the apartment, past where the malignant force now lapped hungrily at the doorsill... He fell to his knees there, and the vomit surged up in him, his stomach spasming as if somehow such an activity might exorcise the terrible unclean presence from his flesh.

At last, half blinded by the tears he had forced, he lunged forward towards the door. Malevolence stabbed into him as he braced himself with one hand on the floor, grabbing at the door with the other.

Later, after this remnant of its power is exposed to the sunlight (which should normally completely purge it), it still remains on the "spiritual" plane as a blackness.

He could feel the dark power sucking him forward like a riptide, and it took all his strength to fight its drag.

Also, the nature of the unnamed (not nameless, my bad)

Something brushed against his leg - and a wave of loathing rose up in his gut, clogged his throat, made his brain fill with images of hatred and destruction. An instant later it was gone. What-? Then another thing slithered against his back, and for an instant her was consumed by such jealous rage that all conscious thought gave way before it.

"Hate-Wraiths," Karril whispered. "Rage wraiths. And more. Every species of evil that man has ever produced is here, given independent life by the force of the planet. Congregating in this one place, like drawn to like, until their sheer mass gave them a kind of consciousness no lone demon could ever enjoy. That's your Unnamed priest. Erna's great devil. Like everything else, a creation of your own species"

And more

Things stirred in the blackness. Envies. Hates. Hungers. Echoes of darkness in the human soul, now given independent life. Sometimes a few of them would coalesce, giving birth to entities as cold and ruthless as the place was dark. Sometimes all would scatter, and only the hint of consciousness in that black realm would be whispers of hate that wafted through the darkness like errant winds Sometimes - rarely - all of them would gather together, and a Presence would take form whose nature was so powerful, so corrupt, so utterly maleficent that if its existence had been stable it would have posed a threat to every living thing on Erna.

And:

Something new stirred in the everlasting darkness. Something so powerful that the blackness became a fierce whirlpool, into which all the other voices were suddenly sucked. Something so malevolent, so utterly hostile, that the petty hates and envies of humankind were lost inside it, swallowed up by an Evil so vast that it fed on the very essence of life itself.

Basically this thing is all the nasty emotions of humanity over a thousand years transformed into demons, then merged together. Gerald was full on swallowed by it, and though he didn't get out himself, he was mentally fine once Damien saved him.
 
KinkiestSins said:
@Monarch
I wanna tell you now if you move a storm generally, even if its tiny.

It should be somewhere in tier 8. RIP

Edit: Cuz sheer weight at this point.

IIRC
Click to expand...
Oh hello

Well then.

Guess I should break out the quotes of that feat then. Because tbh it's a really slow storm moving.

Until then I'll keep this open and that is totally not because I just want a fight between two thematic villains
 
Monarch Laciel said:
-madness snip-
Click to expand...
Welp, there goes that route. All the quotes I had for Rasalom's madness-inducement were pretty much the same thing as that. Also I really gotta pick up these books sometime, because damn, that is awesome.

Onto prep. I'll be back soon-ish with something pertaining to that. (Assuming this stays open and Gerald doesn't get upgraded mid-thread)
 
I might as well wait to post what I've got until we see whether or not Tarrant is getting upgraded.

Won't be much point in pulling out more quotes if this just turns out to be an AP stomp anyway.
 
Ok, here is the first storm moving feat.

He remembered the storm that had overtaken them in mid-journey - hearing its waves lash the decks anew, seeing the storm-driven waves curl over the prow, angry froth cascading down forty, fifty, sixty feet to smash onto the deck with a tsunami's force - and he remembered thinking it was all over, that they had taken one chance too many, that this monster of the equatorial regions would surely devour them before nightfall. And then Tarrant had emerged. Daring the unnatural darkness of the storm, his skin reddened by the few spears of sunlight that managed to pierce the cloudcover. Fine silks whipped and torn by the wind, long fingers tangled in the rigging for support. And then his sword was drawn - that sword - and a working born of pure coldfire blazed upwards into the heart of the storm. The next wave that struck the ship became a wall of sleet as it slammed into the deck, coating the planks with ice as it withdrew. Overhead a rope cracked with a sound like a gunshot, and fragments of it fell to the deck like shattered glass. To the Hunter, they were mere distractions. Frost rimmed his hair like a halo as he forced the Worked fae upwards, higher and higher, into the heart of the storm - seeking that one weak spot in its pattern which would allow him to turn it aside, or to otherwise lessen its fury. It was an almost impossible feat, Damien knew - but if anyone could do it, Tarrant could.

And slowly, incredibly, the storm abated. Not banished by any means - a storm of such ferocity could hardly be unmade by a single Working - but altered in its course, so that the worst of it passed to the north of them. Icy waves no longer broke over the deck. Torn rigging hung limply, rather than whippinng about in the wind.

That's his first storm moving feat, coming from the second book. I am iffy about rating it as anything more than "possibly far higher" because he:

  • used a "weak spot in the pattern"
  • didn't actually move the storm himself, just altered its course
  • only moved it slowly, over an unknown period of time.
The second feat comes from the third book. First, we have this little preparatory exchange:

Tarrant had sheathed his sword, which meant that whatever Working he had crafted to control the wind was over and done with.

"Gerald -" he hesitated. "I can't handle a boat. You know that, don't you? I don't know the least thing about sailing -"

"Then I suggest you see if there are any books on the art lying about." The pale eyes glittered. "And pray that we make landing before dawn. Weather-Working is a chancy art at best, and to rush it as I did... that might well draw a storm."

Then we get the storm.

Tarrant wasn't the one who had to sail the vulking boat alone for twelve hours, with enemies to the norht and south, and a damned ugly weather system taking shape on the horizon. By dawn's cold light, and then by the mixed light of sun and Core, he watched as ominously dark clouds gathered to the west of him, and wrapped his jacket tightly about his chest as winds gusted heavily across the bow. Tarrant had raised a storm alright; the only question was how long it would take to reach them, and whether Damien could ride out the frignes of the squall long enough to drown them both in the heart of it.

...

By noon a pattering of rain had begun to fall, and the waves that beat against the hull more than once sent a spray of salt water up over the prow.

... The sky overhead went from pearl grey to ash grey to a steamy charcoal. A film of rain enveloped the horizon, and Damien could only pray that he was still where he belonged, in the middle of the Serpent, and not north or south where rocky shores lay hidden in the mist.

.... At last, after what seemed like an eternity, the wind began to abate. Numbly, Damien noted that they were still afloat... He watched foam topped waves break against the prow with cosiderably less fury than before, and muttered a quick prayer under his breath. Please, God, let that be the worst of it.

It was. At sunset Tarrant rose up from his hiding place within the cargo hold, and came to where Damien stood, shivering and exhaused.

"It would have been nice if you'd done something to calm down that storm," he muttered.

"I did. As much as any man can, who conjures the wind in such a hurry."

"I meant during the day. It was dark enough - "

"I did," the Hunter snapped. "Forgive me for not coming up on deck to make a show of it. Or did you think that the storm died down just in time out of liking for us? Weather working is a risky art Vryce, I told you that before. Under the circumstances, I did the best I could"

So for the first bit, he accidentally summons a storm by altering the weather patterns to create some wind. This storm appears on the horizon first, and takes several hours to develop. And apparently, during the time the storm was directly overhead of them, he was also Working the storm to get it to go away, and again he was apparently doing this over the couple hours the storm was there.

So it clearly takes some time. Hence why I don't want to rate him as anything more certain than "possibly far higher", when he's more just poking Erna and politely asking it to give him some better weather as opposed to actively taking control of the storm and moving it away in a few minutes.
 
MrKingOfNegativity said:
  • His sword gives off a light "as blinding as a sun to look upon". At face value this would be another reason for Rasalom to believe that he's Glaeken, but it's actually what would tip Rasalom off to the truth. The light Glaeken's sword gives off drives away demons/Otherness beings and dispells Rasalom's necromancy. Doesn't seem like Gerald's sword can do that.
Click to expand...
Gerald's sword might not... but Gerald himself might.

Check this out:

  • Tarrant had assured them that nothing would approach - his own nature fed on the dark fae, and would devour any manifestation that made it past his wards.
  • The Hunter's presence seemed to discourage fear-ghouls from forming, and most of the region's extant terrors preferred to stay a good distance away.'
 
Also, this bit isn't quite on the level of being mentally sound after being nommed by the Unnamed, but...

We were born the same way, Gerald Tarrant and I. Not like your kind, in the midst of a comprehensible world, born to parents who could foresee your troubles and prepare for them. Most born adepts don't make it past infancy. Or if they grow up, they grow up insane. The infant brain just can't handle that kind of input ― it's too much, too chaotic, they can't sort it out. We spend our lives trying to adapt, fighting to impose some kind of order on the universe. He did it. So did I. Different paths, but the end goal was the same: stability. Of ourselves, and of our world.

Basically, most adepts go insane at birth from the sensory overload of seeing the fae currents (and everything those currents represent, e.g. needs, fears, doubts, pain, thoughts, the past, possible futures). Gerald didn't.
 
I suppose we've already established that the madness stuff won't work very well, but the above supports that nonetheless.

Is "dark fae" just the verse's way of saying dark powers and magic? If so, then that might actually be more threatening to Rasalom himself than it would be to his creatures and undead. (Though it would affect them as well, maybe)

Which reminds me; prep. I'll go ahead and cover that in a moment.
 
MrKingOfNegativity said:
Is "dark fae" just the verse's way of saying dark powers and magic? If so, then that might actually be more threatening to Rasalom himself than it would be to his creatures and undead. (Though it would affect them as well, maybe)
Click to expand...
Eh... sort of ?

Technically there's nothing inherently different about what you can do with Dark Fae vs what you can do with Earth-Fae. Dark Fae is just stronger and more fragile.

But it is generated only in pure darkness, and has to do with the "darkness of man's heart" according to the wikipedia page (I don't remember that bit, but I have some quotes on dark fae highlighted, so I'll look them up in a moment)

I'm pretty sure that Gerald can't just absorb any dark magic coming his way, but he is the only person in the series to actually use dark fae apart from the Unnamed (which is like >>>>>>>>>> 90% of things in the verse), so... idk. Maybe he can absorb dark magic spells, maybe not.
 
If he hasn't been shown flat-out absorbing dark magic, then it might be safer to assume that his powers don't work that way.

Regardless, that may be enough to keep the Otherness monsters and such from directly harming him, though Rasalom in his 9-B form doesn't have access to the most dangerous forms of those anyway.
 
Anywho, here's what Rasalom is probably going to be bringing from his day of preparations.

The Idiot Demons
Rasalom was given the spells necessary for summoning the twelve-hundred idiot demons of the Amphitheater. We don't know an enormous amount about these things, but what we do learn from the short story they appear in is...scary, to say the least.
Rasalom elaborates on his summoning the idiot demons:

"You wish the Ring of Chaos?" he said. "Here...take it. It no longer fits me and I have no further need of it."
Glaeken stiffened visibly at the offer.

Rasalom smiled again. "No trick, I assure you. For why should I want to keep a mere Ring of Chaos when soon I shall be an integral part of Chaos itself?" The warlock's eyes began to glow as he spoke. "I, Rasalom, have called forth the twelve hundred idiot demons of the Amphitheater! It took two years to complete the task. Each of the twelve hundred had to be summoned by a separate spell, and each spell took its toll. I was once as you were told—a huge, robust man. Look at me now! But I care not. Eternity is mine!"

Glaeken's expression mirrored his doubts about Rasalom's sanity.

"I don't blame you for thinking me mad. But beyond that stone door you tried so futilely to move lies the Amphitheater of Chaos, and therein are assembled the twelve hundred idiot demons...the Choir of Chaos. They exist only to sing. There is no curse on the land...only their singing. For they sing to Chaos itself and the vibration of their song strikes discord in the life processes of all living things."''
~ Demonsong​


He mentions that it took him two years to summon all twelve-hundred. He was still mortal at this point, so we know he had to have taken a few necessary breaks in-between reciting the spells. (Sleep, for one) With that, I'd say the most he'd be able to pull out with a day of prep is like 20-25 or so, give or take. Fine enough anyway, seeing as summoning all twelve-hundred would leave him too weak to use even the simplest spell.

If you're wondering, he doesn't need all twelve-hundred (or even all that many) in order for their effects to be lethal. He hadn't even been in the eastern farmlands for very long before everything (crops, cattle, people, all of it) started to sicken and die from the song of the demons, which the natives mistook for a curse:

"It seems that the mystery of the region's woes has been cleared up. They've discovered that a sorcerer named Rasalom—a giant of a man, I'm told—entered the cavern nearly two years ago. Not too long thereafter the crops, the cattle, and the farmers in the area began to sicken. Rasalom has been neither seen nor heard from since, and the Prince's advisors seem certain that he's still in the cavern."
~ Demonsong​
"The prince's advisor's were rather vague about the plague," Glaeken said. "Do you know what it's like?"
"Stories vary, but most agree that the victims complain of a throbbing in the head and ears and slowly begin to lose their strength, becoming very lethargic. Soon they cannot get out of bed and eventually they waste away and die. But what puzzled the court physicians was the curious fact that all victims seem to improve and recover when moved out of the area. No one could give a reason for this...but sorcery explains it well: Rasalom has laid a curse of some sort on the region."

"So it would seem," Glaeken agreed.

"But what purpose could he have? Why would he want to lay waste the eastern farmlands—for not only do people sicken and die out there, but cattle and crops as well."''
~ Demonsong​
When summoning these demons, Rasalom is protected from their effects:

"I am protected, for I am performing The Task. And what a task it is! The Lords of Chaos are wise. They know that to extend their domain they must occasionally accept new blood into their ranks. But the newcomer must prove beyond all doubt that he is worthy. So The Task was set, an ordeal that only a practitioner of the greatest skill and stamina could hope to accomplish. For each of the twelve hundred demons of the choir sucks a little bit of life from the one who calls it forth. I have raised them all and yet I still live! I am wasted but I have succeeded!"
~ Demonsong​
This is what happens to people who get too close to them while they're singing:

The sound was a physical thing, washing over him with a volume and intensity that drove him to his knees. He crouched on the edge of a precipice and before him lay the Amphitheater of Chaos, an inverted cone, mistily illuminated by light that filtered up from the unguessed depths below. Carved into the rounded walls that sloped upward to the pointed roof were twelve hundred niches, and in each of those niches huddled one of the twelve hundred idiot demons.
Blank-eyed and mindless they were, shaped in every deformity imaginable and unimaginable. Faces suffused with an insane, malignant glee, they howled and caterwauled in tones that ranged from far below to far above those audible to the human ear. No two tones harmonized, all was discord and conflict. Glaeken now knew the origin of his dream the night before...the Choir of Chaos was assembled and at work.''
~ Demonsong​


They can focus their song on a single target, overpowering it pretty ******* badly:

In response, the twelve hundred increased their volume and Glaeken was knocked flat. Vision and awareness blurred as every fiber of his being screamed in anguish. Still he sang, clinging to the melody as a last thread to sanity; but he was fading, losing his grip on consciousness. His hoarse tones grew fainter as the Choir of Chaos attacked him with unwavering vocal fury.
~ Demonsong​
The range and potency of their song's effects is pretty serious. Glaeken and his horse were hours away from the demons' location when this happened:

Glaeken found himself awake and on his feet, sweat coursing along his skin in runnels. The fire had burned down to a fitful glow and all was quiet. He shook his head to clear it of the dream and glanced around for Stoffral. Gone!
Fully alert to danger now, Glaeken began shouting the horse's name. Stoffral was too loyal a beast to desert him. His third shout was answered by a faint whinny from behind the rock. Glaeken cautiously peered into the darkness and saw the dim form of his mount on the ground. He ran to its side and made a careful check. The horse had suffered no harm and Glaeken concluded that Stoffral must be a victim of the same lethargy afflicting his master.

He slapped the horse's flanks in an effort to rouse the beast back to its feet but to no avail. Stoffral's strength seemed completely drained. Glaeken remembered the cattle carcasses along the road and swore that his steed would not suffer a similar fate. He stalked to the fire and lifted a branch that had been only partially consumed. Fanning it in the air until he tip glowed cherry with heat, he applied the brand to Stoffral's right hindquarter. Amid the whiff of singed hair and the hiss of searing flesh, the horse screamed in pain and rose on wobbly legs.

Glaeken could not help but cast a fearful glance over his shoulder as he steadied his mount; horses were rare and highly valued creatures in the land where he had been raised, and any man caught doing harm to one was likely to be attacked by an angry mob. But pain or not, scar or not, Stoffral was on his feet now and somewhat revived. That was all that mattered at the moment. And the horse seemed to know instinctively that the act had been done without malice.''
~ Demonsong​
Stoffral was a perfectly healthy horse before all of this, by the way.

It's explained in one of the earlier quotes posted above that victims of the song's effects recover when they leave the proximity of the demons. The opposite is also true; As Glaeken drew closer to the demons (he brought his horse to a safe place first), the effects worsened and he grew considerably weaker over time. By the time he had actually arrived at the cavern where they were located, he'd been reduced to...this:

Dawn lightened the perpetual overcast as Glaeken stood before the high arched entrance to Elder Cavern. He felt as if his eyes had been torn out and replaced with heated coals. His head buzzed and hummed; his sword had become a drag anchor. The very air weighed upon him like a stone. He stood swaying, questioning the wisdom of entering the opening before him. His strength had steadily declined during the night and he was now so weakened that he seriously entertained thoughts of abandoning his mission.
Everything seemed so hopeless. With barely strength enough to stand, he'd be insane to challenge a giant in stature and sorcery such as Rasalom. Yet he forced himself to stagger toward the cavern maw.''
~ Demonsong​
Creatures and Necromancy
With prep, Rasalom would be capable of bringing other animals, undead and (minor) Otherness creatures into the fight. These aren't as dangerous as the demons, obviously, but he has easy access to them and can call them from pretty far away. (So it's not like he has to go down to a forest just to get himself a pack of wolves or bears; he can call them from afar. Same with the Otherness beings.)
He can control animals and undead at the same time:

He noticed movement near his feet and all around the periphery of the excavation. Small movements. He gasped—rats! Hundreds of rats surrounded the pit, squirming and jostling one another, agitated ... expectant...
Cuza saw something much larger than a rat crawling up the wall of the excavation. He stepped forward and pointed the flashlight directly into the pit—and almost dropped it. It was like looking into one of the outer rings of Hell. Feeling suddenly weak, he lurched away from the edge and pressed his shoulder against the nearest wall to keep from toppling over. He closed his eyes and panted like a dog on a stifling August day, trying to calm himself, trying to hold down his rising gorge, trying to accept what he had seen.

There were dead men in the pit, ten of them, all in German uniforms of either gray or black, all moving about—even the one without the head!''
~ The Keep​
Rasalom made a tiny gesture with his left hand, and behind him in the dark the corpses of Major Kaempffer and Captain Woermann began to struggle to their feet again, to stand stiffly erect, waiting.
In a cold rage, Rasalom strode from the chamber. The daughter would be easy to handle. The two corpses stumbled after him. And after them followed the army of rats.''
~ The Keep​
Across the courtyard lay the entrance to the cellar. She could throw the hilt down there. She began running toward the entrance but stopped halfway there. Someone was coming up the steps.
Rasalom!

He seemed to float, rising from the cellar as a huge dead fish might rise from the bottom of a stagnant pond. At the sight of her, his eyes became twin spheres of dark fury, assaulting her, stabbing her. He bared his teeth as he seemed to glide through the mist toward her.

Magda held her ground. Glaeken had said the hilt had the power to counter Rasalom. She felt strong. She could face him.

There was movement behind Rasalom as he approached. Two other figures were emerging from the subcellar, figures with slack, white faces that followed Rasalom as he stalked forward. Magda recognized them: the captain and that awful major. She did not need a closer look to know that they were dead. Glaeken had told her about the walking corpses and she had been half expecting to see them, but that did not keep her blood from running cold at the sight of them. Yet she felt strangely safe.

Rasalom stopped within a dozen feet of her and slowly raised his arms until they were spread put like wings. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Magda noticed stirrings in the fog that blanketed the courtyard and swirled about her knees. All around her, hands rose out of the mist, clutching at the air, followed by heads, and then torsos. Like loathsome fungal growths sprouting from moldy soil, the German soldiers who had occupied the keep were rising from the dead.

Magda saw their ravaged bodies, their torn throats, yet she stood firm. She had the hilt. Glaeken had said the hilt could negate Rasalom's animating power. She believed him. She had to!

The corpses arrayed themselves behind Rasalom and to his right and left. No one moved.

Maybe they're afraid of the hilt! Magda thought, her heart leaping. Maybe they can't get any closer!

Then she noticed a curious rippling in the fog around the corpses' feet. She looked down. Through gaps in the mist she glimpsed scuttling forms, gray and brown. Rats! Revulsion tightened her throat and swept over her skin. Magda began to back away. They were moving toward her, not in a solid front, but in a chaotic scramble of crisscrossing paths and squat, bustling bodies. She could face anything—even the walking dead—anything but rats.''
~ The Keep​
Tarrant has summons of his own, it seems. But that might prove to be a bad thing; Rasalom is capable of stealing control of another person's creatures with ease:

He looked over toward the cenote and saw half a dozen chew wasps rising from the opening. He guessed they hadn't been too far down.
Oh, yes…Rasalom was in for one messy, bloody, and—Jack hoped—painful death. He was glad for a front row seat.

The wasps arranged themselves in V formation and charged, homing in on Rasalom.

Jack braced himself. This was going to be ugly, but he wanted to watch every second of it.

Rasalom remained facing Semelee, his back to the cenote. When the wasps were almost upon him, Rasalom gestured with his left hand—little more than a wrist-flick, like a diner signaling a waiter that the amount in the wineglass was quite sufficient, thank you—and they stopped, hovering around him like bees guarding a hive.

Jack heard a low-pitched screech from Semelee. Her teeth were clenched and bared as she struggled for control of the chew wasps. Jack could tell by the vaguely amused twist of Rasalom's lips that he was enjoying the struggle and that she didn't have a chance.

Finally he seemed to tire of the game. Another flick of his hand and the wasps were on her like ants on a sugar cube. She dropped her shells and tried to bat them away but they attacked from all sides and she went down in sprays of red, kicking, thrashing, writhing. Her screams as they tore her flesh were awful to hear. Jack couldn't help wonder if Anya had wailed like that.

Jack looked away, toward Rasalom, and almost worse than the screams was the avid look on his face as he stood over her and watched her death agonies.''
~ Gateways​
This was a girl who could control multiple creatures (animals, Otherness monsters, etc.) into doing whatever she wanted on a whim. Also, "chew wasps" aren't actual wasps; they're oversized bugs with bodies the size of lobsters and heads that're described as being nothing but giant jaws. (Their head/mouths make up most of their size)
Unrelated to prep: I ran into something else that may factor into this fight (good or bad) while I was combing through The Keep for quotes. Apparently when Rasalom's power isn't restrained, this is what stepping into his presence is like:

Glenn's parting words came back to her: Whatever you do, don't step across into the keep. That's Rasalom's domain now. But she knew she had to step across. The malignant aura around the keep had made it an effort merely to walk across the causeway. Now she had to feel what it was like inside. It would help her decide.
She edged her foot forward, then pulled it back. Perspiration had broken out all over her body. She didn't want to do this but circumstances left her little choice. Setting her jaw, she closed her eyes and stepped across the threshold.

The evil exploded against her, snatching her breath away, knotting her stomach, making her weave drunkenly about. It was more powerful, more intense than ever. She wavered in her resolve, wanting desperately to step back outside. But she fought this down, willing herself to weather the storm of malice she felt raging about her. The very air she was breathing confirmed what she had known all along: No good would ever come from within the keep.

And it was here inside the threshold where she would have to meet Papa. And stop him here if he carried the hilt to a sword.''
~ The Keep​
Not the most pleasant guy to be around, that's for sure.
 
The Idiot Demons

"The vibration of their song strikes discord in the life processes of all living thing" - Gerald is most definitely not a living thing, nor does he have their natural life processes. So... I don't know how effective they'll be on him.

Tarrant also proved himself quite capable of defending against Sirens, who's songs had the typical mental siren "seduce you into wandering off the bow of the ship and drown" effects.

With prep, he is also capable of creating a mental/spiritual shield that actually feeds off the power of people trying to break though, making it impossible to break through the shield via sheer power, as it simply absorbs the power of the mental/spiritual attack to reinforce itself.

Necromancy

Tarrant draws strength from death. The more dead things, the stronger he'd become. Also, he could also nullify the spell used to animate them. Also, his nature would probably devour the reanimating spell, much like it absorbs beings of dark magic.

Summon Stealing

Considering there's only two summons Gerald uses, which are Karril and the worm things...

  • Karril can't be bound or controlled, and he's not so much being summoned as he is politely responding to Gerald's request to come over. I'll make a profile for him momentarily, but I don't think he'll be that big a thing in the fight... probably.
  • The worm things. Here's some quotes.
He watched as the tendrils of violet dissolved, becoming a thick purple fog that surrounded Senzei, clinging to his skin. There seemed to be movement within its substant; Damien Worked his senses to let him take a closer took - and stiffened in horror as he Saw. For the cloud was not a cloud at all, but a swarm of creatures too tiny for the unWorked eye to see. Wormlike, hungry, then searched for the surface of Senzei's skin until they found a pore or other opening large enough to admit them. Then, they slithered in, their microscopic tails lashing from side to side as they worked their way deeper and deeper into his flesh.

That quote is from when Gerald is using the worms to "heal" Senzei, by having the worms eat the diseased and rotting flesh. When he actually uses them in combat...

In answer to the rakh, Tarrant simply stared.... the pale grey eyes seemed to take on a light of their own. An unnatural light, that seared one's vision but offered no real illumination: coldfire. For a moment even the rakh were fascinated, and though no weapon was lowered it was clear that, for the moment, no one would strike. Like animals led to the slaughter Damien though grimly, mesmerized by the flash of sunlight on the butcher's knife blade. Then suddenly, the lead rakh cried out. His body convulsed in wavelike spass, which rippled through his flesh with almost audible force. A cry escaped his lips - pain and terror and fury all combined, a wordless screech of agony that man Damien's flesh crawl - a sound so like the death cry of Tarrant's last kill that for a moment it was as though they were down in the canyon, listening to that cry again. And then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The rakh's body fell to the ground, spasmed once, and then was still. Thick blood, blue-black, stained the fur about its mouth, oozed from the eyes and ears. And its groin. Damien felt his own testicles draw up in cold dread as he forced himself to look away, tried no to consider what manner of internal damage might give birth to such seepage.

"Any other objections?" Tarrant asked quietly

...

Damien forced his thoughts back onto their circumstances and forced his gaze to follow theirs, to the fallen rakh's body. Already it had begun to decompose, as if the flesh itself was anxious to decay. As they watched, deep purple carrior larvae crawled in the body's shadowed contours.

So Rasalom better be able to A) tell that there's microscopic worms inside him and B) take control of them before they eat him alive from the inside out.

Rasalon's concentrated evil

Nothing really new to Gerald. He lives in concentrated evil. Here's the description of the Forest in which he lives.

The Forest, called Forbidde in all the ancient texts. What did they know of it, even here? It was a focal point of the wildest fae, which in an earlier, less sophisticated age had been called evil. Now they knew better. Now they understood that the forces which swept across this planet's surface were neither good nor evil in and of themselves, but simply responsive. To hopes and fears, wards and spells and all the patterns of a Working, dreams and nightmares and repressed desires. When tamed it was useful. When responding to man's darker urges, to the hungers and compulsions which he repressed in the light of day, it could be deadly. Witness the Landing, and the gruesome deaths of the first few colonists. Witness the monsters that Damian had fought in the dividers, shards of man's darkest imaginings given fresh life and solid bodies, laying traps for the unwary in the icy wilderness.

Witness the Forest.

"Sheer concentration makes the fae there too strong to tame," she told him. "Manifestatial response is almost instantaneous. In plainer English, merely worrying about something is enough to cause it to happen. Every man that's dared to walk in those shadows, regardless of his intentions, has left some dark imprint behind him. Every death that's taken place beneath those trees has bound the fae to more and greater violence. The Church once tried to master it by massive applications of faith - that was the Great Wars, as I'm sure you know - but all it did was give them back their nightmares, with a dark religious gloss. Such power prefers the guarded secrets of the unconscious to the preferences of our conscious will"

And

"Look at your map again. The Forest sits at the heart of a whirlpool, a focal point of dark fae that draws like to like, sucking all malevolent manifestations towards its cente

And

"There's a creature that lives within the Forest - maybe a demon, maybe a man - which has forced a dark sort of order upon the wild fae there. Legend has it that he sits at the heart of the whirlpool like a spider in its web, waiting for victims to become trapped in its power. His minions can leave the Forest, and do, in a constant search for victims to feed him."

"You're talking about the Hunter"


Numbers advantage

I'm assuming Tarrant is not bringing any of his Forest creatures, because even with prep time that's not really in-character, the only thing he ever brought with him were horses. But even so...

Tarrant also states that he'd be reasonably confident he could singlehandedly take on an army of demons with all his power, so I don't think the numbers advantage would be that great. He's also capable of killing multiple people at once, and could likely freeze an army of rats solid simply from the AoE of his coldfire and coldfire sword.
 
It wouldn't necessarily just be an army of rats. The only reason Rasalom was limited to rats and nothing else in that scene was because he was confined to the eponymous Keep of that book, which had a system of wards that were restricting his power so that he couldn't affect anything beyond the walls of the castle. Without that in place, he would have far better than just rats at his disposal.

Still, that doesn't make much difference in the end. Going by everything that's been said, I'd say it's fairly apparent that Gerald takes this one. The guy just has better shit than Rasalom does, on top of stuff that counters some of Rasalom's own abilities. Rasalom seems to have the physical advantages; he has better speed, and his durability is most likely far better than Gerald's. (The reason he's set to Unknown is because it's repeatedly stated that man-made weapons, including things like guns and bombs, won't do anything to him.) Telekinesis may catch him off guard, and Rasalom also technically has a home-field advantage, since New York is basically his playground by the time the events of the Repairman Jack novels start.

That's about it, though. Tarrant has just about every other advantage he needs. Voting him.
 
Now we just have to hope Gerald doesn't get jumped up to a higher tier before this can be concluded.
 
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