Category: After Dark

One of the most ancient rituals mankind still engages in is the creation and wearing of masks. Since the oldest civilizations, humans have concealed their identities for rituals, for war, to commit crimes, and for celebrations and sports. In today’s society, we wear masks for health purposes. But we also use them in other ways:…

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Marvel Comic universe, there exists an esoteric object of incredible magical power: the Eye of Agamotto. Possessed by Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme Dr. Strange, the Eye of Agamotto is a storytelling device which offers up a solution to many problems. Need to get to another location quicker than conventional…

We return to our metaphorical museum of curiosities this week for a very curious object indeed. Spoken about in passing in the Bible but discussed in greater detail in Kabbalah literature, we examine The Ancient of Days, a device of some sort which had to be assembled and cleaned in a specific manner during the…

This week on Dragon King Dark, we enter our mythical museum of curiosities and find a real object that can be periodically seen and studied: the Shroud of Turin. Over the centuries, many Christians have revered this cloth as the burial shroud of Jesus Christ. The reason? A faint, but distinct image of a man…

There is a carving in the ancient Egyptian temple of Dendera that seems, on first sight, to show an Egyptian holding a giant light bulb. The image is striking and begs the question: What were the ancient Egyptians doing with an electric light bulb? Is the explanation that simple? Come inside the DragonKing Dark museum of…

We return to our mythical museum of curiosities again, looking at objects of mystery and power. This time, we examine the Helmet of Fate. Though the helmet is a fictional object of comics and television, it tells us something about our fascination with magic, ancient Egypt, and forbidden knowledge. The stories of Dr. Fate and…

Join host Karl Stern as we open the museum of curiosities again this week and pull out an actual real artifact. This is one that you can really see in a museum, study it, and make models of it: the Antikythera Mechanism. It’s a vastly complex analog computing device dating to presumably 200 BC or…

DragonKing Dark returns, relaunched and rebranded with a new focus. It’s DragonKing Dark 2.0 and we are now curators of a massive and mythical museum of curiosity. Some items are real, some imagined, and some are something in between. But, all the items and objects we will study tell us something about who we are,…

Before next week’s DragonKing Dark relaunch with a new theme and idea, we present an episode of our sister podcast Those Who Wander where I am joined by Tonya from When It Was Cool to discuss near death experiences and how they have affected those who have had them. Have some people caught a glimpse…

We conclude our seven deadly sins series by examining gluttony and the sin that I think is the most sinister of them all: pride. Are these “sins” simply religious dogma or is there honest truth in avoiding them? We examine these questions and more in this bonus size edition of the DragonKing Dark Podcast.

A giant size DragonKing Dark Podcast is here as myself and Tonya from When It Was Cool begin a discussion of the seven deadly sins, kicking it off with sloth and wrath aka laziness and anger. How do they affect mankind? Are there times when it’s good to be lazy or mad? This is part…

On this week’s extra-size edition of DragonKing Dark special, Karl reviews two classic TV series — The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. Both shows were similar, but The Outer Limits had a sci-fi twist to it. Join us for this retro review of two iconic TV shows.

We are going on a trip to Grand Canyon National Park later this week and while the Grand Canyon is one of the most beautiful places in North America, it can also be very dangerous. People routinely use bad judgement and plunge to their death while others hike aways on trails and the weather gets…

There is no question about it: we live in an age of conspiracies. What is real about the virus sweeping the world? What is real concerning this week’s election? Is there a rogue government agent posting insider information on the Internet? Conspiracies happen every day that are real. You might even be conspiring about something…

True crime podcasts and television are very popular. Entire TV channels are devoted to the genre and true crime podcast series often reside near the top of the podcast charts. What is our morbid fascination with murder? Why do we gawk at the misfortune of others, often forming our opinion based less on fact than…