Hugo Rune, full name Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune, is a fictional character appearing in several of Robert Rankin's novels, generally being portrayed as a kind of anti-hero, possessing a fundamentally good character with various assorted eccentricities.
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Rune's exact origins and the circumstances of his childhood are unknown; while some sources suggest he has lived a relatively normal life span- such as him mentioning in The Witches of Chiswick, during an appearance he made in the Victorian era, that his father was in the brewery trade, although this was later confirmed to be false-, Rune himself has been recorded as stating that he was actually the thirteenth disciple of Jesus Christ, who requested that his name be left out of the New Testament, and has subsequently walked the Earth ever since. He stated in The Brightonomicon that he comes of Highland stock, and that his ancestors include the Rankins, but this fails to establish further details about how he became the man he is today. Despite two separate books stating that Rune is recorded as having died, penniless, in a Hastings boarding house in his ninetieth year, Rune is generally portrayed as being more or less immortal, simply faking his death at irregular intervals in an attempt to escape his debts (Although he was briefly killed by a shot to the head in "The Brightonomicon", he was resurrected by Jesus Christ's last living descendent).
In the book Retromancer, he explains to his acolyte, Rizla, that the evil Count Otto Black, Rune's arch-enemy had somehow persuaded angels to cut Black's name from the book that contained all the people who will ever live. As his name no longer appears in the book, it can no longer be crossed out, thus Black can never die. However as pages have two sides, the person whose name was on the other side also does not appear, and thus is also immortal. That other person was Rune.
Rune's physical appearance is the most obvious detail about him that makes him stand out from the crowd, being described as a large, bald man with a tattooed pentagram upon his head, of great weight and colossal hands, the fingers of which are covered with silver rings covered with occult symbols. His trademark clothing is a suit of green Boleskine tweed, brown size-twelve Oxford shoes, and several watches, giving him the appearance of someone from the 1930s while still leaving him with a great sense of charisma.
Personality-wise, Rune is best described as an eccentric genius, mainly due to his refusal to pay for anything from food to clothing; he argues that he offers the world his genius- which, to be fair to him, is indeed portrayed as being exceptional, if hard to follow at times-, and all he asks in exchange is that the world cover his expenses. He has also been shown to have a significant ego, causing him to often demand to see anything remotely related to him, and on one occasion even stated that he never disrobes in public for fear of inciting jealousy or lust from those around him. Despite his evident ego, Rune has been shown to be a very compassionate man in his way, mourning the deaths of his friends and generally genuinely driven by a desire to help the world. His intellect has led to him making extraordinary deductions and reaching equally remarkable conclusions about the world we live in, many of which fundamentally make no sense but, at the same time, are practically impossible to find fault with. For example, Rune has deduced that Earth's population is in decline due to one person requiring two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents and so on simply for them to exist; the argument clearly cannot work, as Earth's population is constantly on the increase, but at the same time it is hard to find fault with his reasoning.
His other theories include the Small Screw Phenomena- whereby the appearance of two small screws whenever an electric device is taken apart and put back together is explained by the fact that screws breed inside electrical appliances-, Spontaneously Generated Crowd Phenomena- crowd mentality is caused by spores that drift throughout Earth and form wherever a potentially crowd-causing situation occurs-, the Mystery of the Biro- Biros are actually sentient creatures that hate their role in life and constantly seek to escape-, the Forbidden Zones- the A-Z of London actually stands for 'Allocated Zones', referring to the zones where human beings are allowed to live, with other zones, the aforementioned 'Forbidden Zones', being used by the secret masters of the world- and other such theories.
Rune's list of apparent accomplishments is equally remarkable. If all available sources are to be believed, he has walked the earth as Nostradamus, Uther Pendragon (although he also reveals himself to have been Merlin), Count Cagliostro and Rodrigo Borgia, can open a tin of sardines with his teeth, strike a Swan Vesta on his chin, rope steers, drive a steam locomotive, hum all the works of Gilbert & Sullivan without becoming confused or breaking down in tears, was taught how to stop his heart by the Dalai Lama (In exchange for teaching him how to play darts), once climbed Mount Everest in a smoking jacket and plus-fours to win a bet with Oscar Wilde, swam the Atlantic Ocean to win a bet with Humphrey Bogart, reinvented the ocarina- thus giving it more holes and allowing it to open portals to the aforementioned 'Forbidden Zones'-, an expert swordsman, a gourmet chef, a world traveller, poet, painter, stigmatist, guru to gurus and hater of Bud Abbott.
Rune has also claimed the personal friendship of many well-known figures in history and society as a whole, his list including the likes of H.G. Wells/Arthur Conan Doyle (Portrayed as the same person, with Wells being the 'real' identity due to an elaborate bet in university getting out of hand), Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Sigmund Freud (A conversation with Freud actually resulting in the Sultan of Brunei acquiring his wealth when Rune attempted to prove that one of the really wonderful things in this world is to be in the right place at the right time), Pope Pius XII (Allegedly Rune was responsible for him joining the priesthood; he was originally interested in football, but he had a weak left foot), George Orwell (Although Orwell was a member of the secret society that knew about the Forbidden Zones and hence was not entirely trustworthy), Albert Enstein (He claims to have taught Einstein everything he knew, but adds that Einstein made it all out to be more complicated than it really is to make himself appear smarter), Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, and many others. He is also known as a detective, having been recorded as working with Sherlock Holmes on at least one occasion- although he implies that there were other collaborations- and demonstrating some significant prowess at solving mysteries in "The Brightonomicon" (Although many of these were solved thanks to Rune's knowledge of secret facts about the world that only he is truly aware of).
Throughout the books, Rune has been recorded as having at least two children- Cornelius Murphy, the hero of the Cornelius Murphy Trilogy, who rescues Rune from the 'Forbidden Zones' and helps to defeat the secret rules of the world, and the Campbell, the villain in "The Book of Ultimate Truths" and the grandson of the secret king of the world, who was conceived as a result of Rune's attempts to become a prince only for him to be killed at the conclusion of the novel-, although his active sexual lifestyle would suggest the possibility that there are other children out there. In "The Witches of Chiswick" he summoned his descendents from the 25th century, Will Starling and Tim McGregor, into the Victorian Age, but exactly how they are related to Rune was never expressly stated.
The fate of Rune's parents and other immediate ancestors and siblings, if he has any, are unknown; the only even vague references to his upbringing to date include his comment that his father was in the brewery trade, and even that was later proven to be false, and another claim that he comes from a Highlander background with his ancestors among the Rankins (Which, while still questionable, is slightly more plausible when Rankin's decision to set Biblical events in Britain is taken into account). In "The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived", having learned the secret of perpetual reincarnation- allowing himself to be reborn over and over again on his original birth date, retaining all his memories of his previous life-, Rune arranged for his soul to be reborn as quintuplets, thus giving himself four identical brothers. Unfortunately, these four brothers all went evil, masterminding a plot to destroy all but a small percentage of the human race before they were defeated by Cornelius Murphy, leaving only the original Rune (Who had long since abandoned his other selves in pursuit of matters that would benefit mankind as a whole).
To date, Rune has appeared in the following novels: