He also co-wrote The Blood of Colyn Muir with his foster brother Don Studebaker (who writes fantasy under the name of Jon de Cles) and Hunters of the Red Moon and The Survivors with his sister.

Zimmer was also one of the original members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, where he was known as Master Edwin Berserk, as well as being active in Bay Area poetry and neopagan circles.

Zimmer habitually wrote at night, and many visitors can attest to him pacing up and down as he thought through plot and wording problems, or pausing to do a martial arts dance with his swords.

Zimmer died while a guest of honor at Albacon, a science fiction convention in Schenectady, New York, which he attended in part so he could visit his older brother on the family farm.

This theft broke the spell that held the Dark Lords at bay behind the vast mystic barriers erected by Hastur and allowed these fell beings to return.

To make matters worse Hastur himself and his ally Awan A'Towith had disappeared, leaving only their less powerful descendants to face the might of the eight Dark Lords and their hordes of evil servants.

Drained after their efforts to banish their great foes and too weak to rid the world of these lesser creatures, the Hasturs raised mystic wards that fenced in the area infested with the dark things.

The danger of the dark things is ever present... A thousand years ago the Shadow consumed the Empire of Tarkkaria forcing the last of the Takkars to flee to a province that was all that remained of their land.

Little more than a century ago a Seynyorean mercenary Ricarrho Divega married into the royal family and begun to forge a kingdom, he humbled the proud Mondavans and conquered Mahapor, he also brought the many squabbling principalities and city states into line.

Dark Things, evil creatures that rule the shadow, the realm founded on the mountain range of the main continent fenced in by the mystic barriers of the Hasturs.

Istvan Divega, a world-renowned swordsman who is a master of the three swords school and mercenary leader, who travels the world fighting for various kings and emperors as well as the Hasturs when required.

Zimmer told his friend Bruce Byfield that Divega was based partly on watching noted science fiction and fantasy writer Fritz Leiber as an old man fencing.

Olansos is aware that Chondos has personal issues that could lead to his undoing once he is gone and hopes that Istvan may aid the young prince in sorting them out before they become a danger to himself and the Kingdom at large.

However, he wears a close fitting suit of dwarf forged plate armour that is proof against mystic Hastur and Elven swords, rendering Svaran virtually invulnerable in combat.

He has fought all along the borders of the three kingdoms that lie on the edges of the vast forest of demons on the Island continent of Y'Gora battling the armies of Sarlow and their allies the Norians.