Franz Kafka

## Franz Kafka (he/ him)

Art by @PolOfSerenity on twitter. Used with permission. If using this art as reference, please credit the artist.

## Meta Information

### Last episode

Stage Fright

Franz Kafka was the head of the Necromancy department at Prague University.

## Appearance and personality

Kafka is described as quite a clean man who did not enjoy getting dirty or being underground. According to Curie and Freud his personality was mostly subsumed by the tome after he was possessed by it.

The Kafka that the party encounters at the opera house appears distinctly cruel, and rather melodramatic.

## History

### Pre-campaign

Kafka was the head of the Necromancy department and, like all the other council members, secretly a member of the Harlequins. His office is located in a downstairs section of the university offices and has a hidden inner office hidden by an illusion. An intelligent crow is kept in the inner office but it is unclear if this is his familiar or simply an intelligent animal.

He works with Nikola Tesla for a while to design a power source for the Simulacrum and Edison later revives the project. Liliana Beekos works with Kafka as part of her PhD and a couple of weeks before LOLOMG come to Prague, she and Kafka enter Newton's study. They continue working on the power source, specifically attempting to make it smaller it by researching the miniaturisation of planar storage.

Kafka eventually finds the tome Mortis Securitas Libertas Omnium, an artefact of ancient Rome. He returns to the university with it and extracts the pages from the cover. At some point the tome possesses him and he becomes focused on enacting a citywide necromantic ritual. He flees the university with the tome, killing Elizabeth, the head of abjuration, and Henrietta Codswallop, the head of divination, in the process.

### Season 2

*[66 - 76]*

He goes into hiding in the city and starts preparing the ritual. The university council, who lack jurisdiction in the city, eventually hire Grizzop drik acht Amsterdam to track him down. Zombies start rising from Prague's plague pits as the ritual nears completion and Kafka makes his move during a performance of Don Giovanni at the opera house, which happens to be situated near the centre of the city's ley lines.

*[77 - 78]*

He appears on the stage and creates a fear effect which effectively freezes everyone in the audience and can be felt throughout the city. Hamid and Bertie attempt to fight him but Hamid is quickly neutralised by a Feeblemind spell. Bertie manages to land two hits on Kafka before he is incapacitated by a Hold Person spell. Kafka takes the time to taunt and torment Bertie by offering him the choice of simply dying or revealing how unheroic he is by sacrificing Aziza's life for his own in front of the entire audience. He casts a Suffocation spell on Bertie and just before passing out, Bertie agrees to sacrifice Aziza. Kafka simply responds with "No." and casts Aziza aside, killing her, and allows the suffocation spell to continue on Bertie.

Meanwhile, Grizzop and Sasha have arrived onstage. Grizzop fires several arrows at the tome and manages to set it on fire and tear the binding loose. Kafka's power starts to fail as the tome starts falling apart. The pages move magically and begin to plaster against him, crushing him, until he is obliterated.

### Season 4

*[193]*

Barret tells Hamid that Kafka was a die-hard Hades man, and that his scheme was one of many that the Cult of Hades had on the go. Barret doesn't say what Kafka was actually trying to achieve with the book, but he is rather disdainful about the whole scheme.

## Spells

Kafka is a high level wizard with a speciality in necromancy. He has cast the following spells:

* Feeblemind, cast on Hamid in episode 77, reducing his charisma and intelligence to 1.
* Unknown fear spell causing a citywide fear effect. May simply be a ritual effect rather than a distinct spell.
* Hold person, cast on Bertie in episode 78.
* Suffocation, cast on Bertie in episode 78, ultimately killing him.

## Additional notes

* Author of the book Mass Summoning And You: A Beginner's Guide.​​​​​​​

## Trivia

Kafka's historical namesake is author Franz Kafka, who was born in Prague in 1883.