In Murmur, the names of the sabball, the demon-gods of the senses, are taken from compendiums of demons in the Anglo tradition. All except for Fig – I think he just appeared on his own. He’s the first member of my pantheon, there before the rest.

The idea for the sabball (a combination of the Pali word Sabba meaning All, and, well, All) came to me a long time ago when one day I was perusing a compendium of demons (as you do when you’re a morbid young thing) and quickly realized that what made the demons scary and dangerous was their advanced knowledge – they are all experts in some form of higher learning, be it science, philosophy, medicine, et cetera. Makes perfect sense that their power lies in knowledge. And isn’t it interesting that higher thought is the very thing many proponents of ridged laws and narrow viewpoints blame for humanity’s fall from grace? Hmm….

So that’s how my demons were born. I’ve kept some of their recorded characteristics – for instance, Murmur is capable of necromancy, Gaap is a philosopher, Ose’s expertise lies in the liberal arts, and Vine is a warrior. Fig is his hedonistic, earthy self. I’ve also added characteristics, and assigned to each the powers of the senses and the elements, divvied up as I chose. Quite randomly, I admit.

Murmur smell/water

Gaap sight/air

Ose sound/the void (a fifth element found in Indian, Asian and Greek cultures)

Vine taste/fire

Fig touch/earth

Another bit of trivia about Murmur: there’s a little Easter egg hidden in the text. Not something I set out to do intentionally, but it came about as I was writing a particular passage, and had a certain song running through my head as I did.

A little clue: I’m an indie/old school person, so don’t expect to find pop song references in my writing.