By Mark Morrison, © 1994
[Mark’s column this time was about Mythos books, and fit quite well with the Mysterious Manuscripts feature. I considered it the first step towards having a “theme” issue, which achieved substantial success in TUO5 and TUO6. We haven’t done a real theme issue since those two, but hope to again sooner or later. —John Scott Tynes, 1994]
The case; that infernal case. The Suitcase of Doom. The Portmanteau from Hell. The Luggage from Beyond. How its mirthless mocking smile haunts my dreams and plagues my waking life.
Readers not suffering from short-term memory loss may recall in the last installment that the case had apparently swallowed a load of books, neatly regurgitating them in the form of one dark volume: Dr. Laban Shrewsbury’s Cthulhu in the Necronomicon. Astonishing as this seems, it is not an isolated incident when dealing with those black books that are the legacy of the Cthulhu Mythos. Investigators shudder not only at the thought of the knowledge in these hideous volumes, but also at the circumstances of their discovery, and the bad luck which befalls their owners.
The Call of Cthulhu rules give a list of Mythos tomes, with Cthulhu Mythos knowledge, sanity loss, and spell multipliers. This information is fine enough, but it’s the equivalent of saying that Moby Dick is a book about a big fish; there’s a lot more to them. The Books of the Mythos are evil, leprous, abominable collections of soul-blasting knowledge. Introduce them into your campaign with bearing and gravity, not mere game statistics. All should carry a sense of dread, a promise of things man was not meant to know. The author was a fool for setting it down, and the reader is a fool for picking it up.
Before the investigators acquire a Mythos tome, do some research. Find out about it. Consult articles such as “Fischbuchs” by Kevin Ross, in the second issue of this journal. Return to the source stories; for Unaussprechlichen Kulten, read over R.E. Howard’s “The Black Stone.” For that hoary ancestor of all, the fabled Necronomicon, turn to Lovecraft’s essay “A History of the Necronomicon.” If you can’t find specific facts, invent some; the thing that walks like an editor, John Tynes, discussed this in “Creating and Using Mythos Tomes,” in the first issue of this shuddersome periodical (although his focus was on bibliographic details, neglecting to deal with the peril such volumes bring). The important thing is that when the players look at you querulously and say “What’s it about?” you have something to provide beyond “Well, it gives +8% Cthulhu Mythos and you lose 2D6 Sanity.”
Mythos tomes are never in the stacks of the local library; they are never on sale in a popular edition; they are never reviewed in the literary press. They are hidden, forgotten, and shunned. They are produced in limited runs, often rolling off the press scant hours before the building burns down. They are twice-cursed; those that revel in the dark lusts of the Mythos wish to hoard the books, and those who live to destroy such evil folk wish to see the books ripped up. These twin perils face those who own such threatening publications.
Mythos tomes should never be discovered randomly, in profusion, without risk, or without import. When the sweating investigators lay eyes on one, don’t skimp on the detail. These things are extraordinary, and require detailed description. Some may be gaudy and shining, with gleaming gilt edges and gorgeous seductive covers; more often they are dismal, dark things, bloated with damp and mold, with frayed edges and peeling bindings; others make plain their subject matter with their composition, boasting covers of flayed human skin, or with human teeth inset as decoration, or printed in dried blood.
Inside the covers, the book should be equally distinctive. Some books have pages of florid illumination, clearly and mercilessly depicting torture and nightmare; others have no such aesthetic presentation, but are instead the ravings of a madman, without concern for grammar, cohesion of thought, or legibility. Some are in English, or other modern languages; others are in arcane and ancient scripts, often in bizarre dialects or forgotten tongues.
An old book might have fading or brittle pages; or they might be soggy and damp, in which case the ink may have run, or the pages stuck together. The thing may stink of decay and putrescence, so badly that no reader can stand to peruse it for more than a few minutes at a time. Previous owners may have tried to burn it, or thrown it down in horror, or slashed their wrists over the open pages; or they may have used it in conjunction with rituals most foul, splashing the pages with alchemical concoctions, ichor, blood, and worse.
While the investigator is reading, the dark world outside is stirring. Trees scrabble and scrape at the window; rats gibber and squeak in the walls, scampering about in terror; the wind moans, gusting across the roof and knocking tiles off; the fire flickers and cowers, shying away; shadows pass across the moon; the room becomes chill, and the house creaks and settles. Could this be coincidence? Are the forces of nature supplying a warning? Do those who would rather the investigator didn’t read the book stalk softly along the hallway towards the library door?
When the investigator closes the book and goes to bed, their research does not end. Imprinted in their eyelids are dancing characters and swirling glyphs. As sleep drags them down, they disappear into a world of dreams, dreams in which they see themselves as the irrevocably damned author of the book, and undergo their terrors, their madness. To their somnambulist lips foul words steal and creep, and to their empty bedroom they whisper dread syllables of power and awe, mindlessly reciting the rituals they have read, unconsciously summoning slavering horrors to their bedside. There’s nothing like a cosmic abomination drooling on your pillow to make you wake in fright.
In their waking hours, things remind them of that which they have read. Once they’ve read Alhazred, how can they contemplate Arabia without a shudder? After viewing the hideous wood-cuts in Regnum Congo, how can they walk past a butcher’s without gagging? Who can go near the ocean after absorbing Cthaat Aquadingen? To read one of these awful books is to carve a ragged mental scar that will never heal.
The books may have more dire effects on the reader. The more the words of an ancient grimoire become clear to the investigator, the less they are able to comprehend and absorb the everyday language of newspapers and popular fiction. The investigator’s speech might also begin to transform. As well as the poison in the words, a more literal threat may be posed. A black smear from the book’s ink might not wash off the fingers. The next day this smear has moved up into the palms. In subsequent days it seeps up the arms, to the shoulders, spreading towards the heart.
Mythos tomes can sometimes have a peculiar life of their own. The investigator last perused it on the desk, yet now it is on the window-sill, as if apprehended in the act of escape. Maybe it is still on the desk, but the ink-well has been upset, ruining the notes and translations the investigator has made so far. Perhaps all the other books and stationery are scattered on the floor, as if they could not bear to be in proximity of such an evil thing. Or maybe the investigator sits down to read, opens the pages, and finds flattened in the book the tiny corpse of a mouse, drained of blood.
There are a number of sources to consult on the evil that books do. Fred Chappell’s excellent Mythos story “The Adder” ascribes verbal vampiric qualities to the Necronomicon. Wilbur Whateley’s lust for that same unspeakable tract laid him low in “The Dunwich Horror.” Insane bibliophiles act in deadly opposition in the marvelous scenario “Still Waters” from Great Old Ones. In the Evil Dead films, reading aloud from a black book wakes the dead (augmented in the title sequence for Evil Dead 2 by Call of Cthulhu artist Tom Sullivan, in which our leprous volume gibbers and flips its own pages and eventually flaps away).
But despite all this, Mythos tomes must be read. In many cases the only way to combat the Great Old Ones is to gain an understanding of them, no matter how dim or fragmented. If their dark plans can only be thwarted by spells, then only in these books will those spells be found. If their actions are guided by prophecy, then only in these books are those predictions recorded.
Some investigators have been known to hire translators to take on this onerous task; but that is akin to sending them ahead to test a minefield. The risks are intense and personal, and no human should undergo them without warning. The callous investigator who passes an innocent scholar a copy of Cultes des Goules for perusal is in effect handing them a loaded revolver; their honest and diligent research will pull the trigger. One investigatorial agency tried to solve this problem by sending a book out in chapters, to different experts, in the hope of lessening the shock; but this resulted only in an even higher toll of suicides, murders, breakdowns and disappearances.
With these warnings in mind, but with a sense of higher purpose, I cautiously returned to the case to consult Cthulhu in the Necronomicon. I threw open the lid, and confetti gusted up and puffed about the room in glittering clouds, drifting out the open window. Of the book there was no sign, nor ever will be. In a way, I am glad.