Out of Character (OOC):
Chronicle: Mage 3: The 6th Watchtower
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum
We have found a fragment of papyrus on which is written Egyptian hieroglyphics. Ancient, over three thousand years old. They speak of a blasphemy. This history exists, but it is not true yet. Egyptian cannibal-priests summoned what they called He Who Reveals Wisdom in the Fading Moonlight. They wove the demon’s body out of blessed, prophetic hieroglyphs and of flesh and blood and spread this testament far and wide.
It speaks of Cha’annys, the Land of the Broken Turtleshell, whose princes impaled the dead on bronze pikes so that their eyes could scan the living for signs of treason. It speaks of the war with dread Vah and the blood-sewers of nearby Rukhavira, all scales and cells of a larger creature, a demon made out of Time itself.
Five hundred years later, blood-quilled scrolls were offered as a sacrifice within the demon’s temples. Five hundred years after that, the demon’s charnel towers smothered the Second Temple of Judea, and now, lecterns of bone display copies in every nation, atop grand, horrible step pyramids erected to its glory.
The demon looks at its slaves through the pages of its being and eats at the will. Humanity screams in its sleep. The demon has many more titles. It’s been called Khonsu-Tohut, the Drama of the Outcast Erinye and the Secret Branch of the Tree of Possibility. It has been called the Blasphemous Scribe.
It rules the world and we are beholden to its history. What it writes is true, through the hands of its priests. There is no hope, no mercy. There is only the words in red. This piece of papyrus has the touch of corruption in its words...
Worse, they created bestial warriors by calling cannibal Manitou to possess their followers. Sharptoothed, armed, hungry warriors besieged the steading for days. The Ebon Noose knew that they would fall unless they called upon unusual aid.
The Lernaean was the Ebon Noose’s sole warlock and its greatest historian. She specialized in a thread of lore that went as far back as Egypt and beyond, to the legends of great, terrible Abyssal manifestations caused by Paradoxes and the orders of entities that intruded into the world through them. There was one entity — the Blasphemous Scribe — that could change history itself by replacing Time with its own Abyssal coils. The Lernaean knew a ritual that would bring the Scribe forth. It was not Supernal magic, but a procedure that would attract the Scribe’s attention and give it a path into the world. She kept the rite hidden because it was too dangerous to unleash, but her allies read whispers of it in her surface thoughts.
The Ebon Noose tortured the secret out of her and called the Scribe to earth through the Lernaean’s wailing soul. The Scribe needed a gap in history to appear, and an obliterated soul was the easiest method — and its favorite.
The mad coils of its being unraveled on Salem and on the enemy nation. The medicine society was erased from history. Its long house vanished, leaving an empty cove that would one day be called by the name Howard’s Rock. One member of the Ebon Noose vanished in an instant. One turned into a boneless thing that wept blood and screamed blasphemies in the High Speech, until it was burned to ash by the cabal. One took his own life in shame, and four — those who are the acknowledged survivors of the Noose’s Salem settlement — left, their memories confused as to what had happened as Time shuddered around them.
But one mage remembered. The Medusan had destroyed the Lernaean’s soul and wrote the terrible history that existed in the Lernaean’s mind. The Medusan reeled from visions and crawled away to settle in Howard’s Rock. She had two sets of memories: one of the siege and the rite and one of an anti-history, spawned in the Abyss (a cycle of events that birthed wars and atrocities).
Local New England legend tells of this terrifying cabal: “The man was missing most of his right arm. There were ragged, tooth-marked flaps of flesh left. Similar gnawed wounds had taken an eye and ear. His mind was gone, but he managed to find his way to Davy Jones, a man who he’d traded information and Mana with a week before. The wounded mage babbled about the Red Word, about cannibals and languages that should never be spoken. ‘They have taken a whole sentence from me,’ said the mad mage, ‘and I am damned for having known it.’ Then he turned a killing spell on himself.” Since then, rumors of the Red Word — cannibal occultists — stoke the fears of mages, even though stories conflict and none of the Awakened can claim to have ever seen one of them.
The cult claims descent from the mythic Egyptian priest who supposedly called the first stories of the Prince from the Abyss. The Medusan’s later influence is a minor tale, known to a few cult scholars. In any event, the Red Word place little emphasis on their own history. In fact, they rarely bother to record anything more about their past than they need to maintain social cohesion. To them, accepted history is false; the Prince’s chronicle is the true story of events, and needs to be fully told to bring it into being. The cult has compiled enough of the sacred corpus to learn of Boston’s counterpart in the antihistory, and Red Word uses this alien description as a secret code. They know the city as Rukhavira, City of Broken Eyes.
Red Word cultists ceaselessly track signs of the Prince of 100,000 Leaves. Naturally, they hope that by copying them all into a single volume, they will complete their master’s codex-body. Most Red Word members have their own handwritten books, word processing files and even websites that compile as much of the Prince as they can find. Fortunately, very few of these compilations consist of new fragments; most are recopied from other members. Cultists scour Boston’s port, museums and universities for more of the Prince; wealthy members pay antiquities dealers and smugglers handsomely for suspected fragments. The Dead Wrens have unwittingly sold these to cultists on more than one occasion.
The cultists complement fragment collecting with cannibalism, which they regard as the act of stealing a victim’s false history. According to their beliefs, every meal weakens the integrity of the current cycle, thinning the barriers that keep the Prince away.
No member of the cult is Awakened, but, thanks to the unnatural energies around Howard’s Rock, most of the local cultists are Sleepwalkers. They don’t care about occult lore outside of the sacred Prince, for it all comes from the usurping history. However, they do know that entities from the Abyss can influence mages, and so they sometimes hire themselves out to corrupt mages as thugs and intermediaries. The cultists are especially interested in mages who are bedeviled by Manifestation Paradoxes. The Red Word do not know why mages attract entities from the Abyss, but believe that such things are closer to the Prince and are thus worthy of veneration. If cultists actually meet these entities, they normally ask them for help in the holy mission of bringing the Abyss to the world. Most Manifestations do not respond at all, as they reflect faults in the mage’s own soul more than the Abyss itself. Some other Abyssal entities have responded to petitions, however. These beings might force a mage to cooperate with the cult.
"Maybe I am insane, but I feel good. Now that we’ve devoted ourselves to pure self-improvement, there’s no limit to what we can do. But we need you, Kalkin. We need your flesh to guarantee our ascension. We stumbled over the technique. That’s all it is, you know? Just like calculus, an elbow strike or a rote. We found the cult — No, best not let him know the whole thing, in case you somehow gets through the wards. All you need to know is that we discovered the formula to render power from your meat all mixed up with Abyssal religious trash. Now we wouldn’t touch that normally, but the cult we got it from weren’t happy to see us, right? Then Lupe died, we were hiding with his body in some shitty hunting shack while they were scouring with these dogs — well, not quite dogs. Backed against the wall, so we tried it out. It works. It saved us. It makes us fucking gods, for as long as we eat." - Mizong, The Hunt
The Master of the Hunt
Chronicle: Mage 3: The 6th Watchtower
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum
The following is perhaps one of the first inspirations for me to create a Mage Chronicle centered on fighting the Abyss for very advanced characters. the Prince of a 100,000 leaves. In our Chronicle, the Prince is a potential relative of the Crimson King. The Prince may also be the Crimson King.
Sources:
1a. Core text on the Prince from the Boston Unveiled sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1e
1b. Core text on the Red Word from the Boston Unveiled sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1e
2. The Hunger (or Hunger Curse) as seen in the Antagonists sourcebook for nWoD
3. My breakdown of the Hunger Curse found here, and my short story parts 1, 2, 3
4. Opening quote from the Left-Handed Path sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1 & 2e
5. Ending quote from Imperial Mysteries sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1 & 2e
6. Red Word Cult opening from Mage: The Awakening 1st Edition corebook
7. Mizong/Hunt quotes from the Adamantine Arrow sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1e
8. Mr. Hart section from the Mysterium sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1e
Sources:
1a. Core text on the Prince from the Boston Unveiled sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1e
1b. Core text on the Red Word from the Boston Unveiled sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1e
2. The Hunger (or Hunger Curse) as seen in the Antagonists sourcebook for nWoD
3. My breakdown of the Hunger Curse found here, and my short story parts 1, 2, 3
4. Opening quote from the Left-Handed Path sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1 & 2e
5. Ending quote from Imperial Mysteries sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1 & 2e
6. Red Word Cult opening from Mage: The Awakening 1st Edition corebook
7. Mizong/Hunt quotes from the Adamantine Arrow sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1e
8. Mr. Hart section from the Mysterium sourcebook for Mage: The Awakening 1e
The Red Prince of the 100,000 Leaves
"The Eldest gods of the Abyss dreams flood the anti-reality with alternate foundations for existence and negations of logic—endless possibilities that caress the cracked egg of the ordered universe. Sometimes the dreams drip in as Paradoxical Anomalies, Abyssal Verges and idea-beings that infect the Tellurian with their principles. Greater intruders include the Prince of 100,000 Leaves, a sapient history of the world where humanity experiences love through torture, sustenance through cannibalism and faith through betrayal, and where endless volumes detail all the torment that was, is and ever shall be..." -Noted from censored Baalim text
It speaks of Cha’annys, the Land of the Broken Turtleshell, whose princes impaled the dead on bronze pikes so that their eyes could scan the living for signs of treason. It speaks of the war with dread Vah and the blood-sewers of nearby Rukhavira, all scales and cells of a larger creature, a demon made out of Time itself.
Five hundred years later, blood-quilled scrolls were offered as a sacrifice within the demon’s temples. Five hundred years after that, the demon’s charnel towers smothered the Second Temple of Judea, and now, lecterns of bone display copies in every nation, atop grand, horrible step pyramids erected to its glory.
The demon looks at its slaves through the pages of its being and eats at the will. Humanity screams in its sleep. The demon has many more titles. It’s been called Khonsu-Tohut, the Drama of the Outcast Erinye and the Secret Branch of the Tree of Possibility. It has been called the Blasphemous Scribe.
It rules the world and we are beholden to its history. What it writes is true, through the hands of its priests. There is no hope, no mercy. There is only the words in red. This piece of papyrus has the touch of corruption in its words...
Salem:
Nearly 400 years ago, the Ebon Noose cabal (then called Epona’s Chariot) had its steading at Salem, ready to repel enemies from the indigenous mages and spirits that struggled with the Noose for the land’s power. One small medicine society was the cabal’s most potent foe. The society descended on the steading with spells and mortal weapons.
Nearly 400 years ago, the Ebon Noose cabal (then called Epona’s Chariot) had its steading at Salem, ready to repel enemies from the indigenous mages and spirits that struggled with the Noose for the land’s power. One small medicine society was the cabal’s most potent foe. The society descended on the steading with spells and mortal weapons.Worse, they created bestial warriors by calling cannibal Manitou to possess their followers. Sharptoothed, armed, hungry warriors besieged the steading for days. The Ebon Noose knew that they would fall unless they called upon unusual aid.
The Lernaean was the Ebon Noose’s sole warlock and its greatest historian. She specialized in a thread of lore that went as far back as Egypt and beyond, to the legends of great, terrible Abyssal manifestations caused by Paradoxes and the orders of entities that intruded into the world through them. There was one entity — the Blasphemous Scribe — that could change history itself by replacing Time with its own Abyssal coils. The Lernaean knew a ritual that would bring the Scribe forth. It was not Supernal magic, but a procedure that would attract the Scribe’s attention and give it a path into the world. She kept the rite hidden because it was too dangerous to unleash, but her allies read whispers of it in her surface thoughts.
The Ebon Noose tortured the secret out of her and called the Scribe to earth through the Lernaean’s wailing soul. The Scribe needed a gap in history to appear, and an obliterated soul was the easiest method — and its favorite.
The mad coils of its being unraveled on Salem and on the enemy nation. The medicine society was erased from history. Its long house vanished, leaving an empty cove that would one day be called by the name Howard’s Rock. One member of the Ebon Noose vanished in an instant. One turned into a boneless thing that wept blood and screamed blasphemies in the High Speech, until it was burned to ash by the cabal. One took his own life in shame, and four — those who are the acknowledged survivors of the Noose’s Salem settlement — left, their memories confused as to what had happened as Time shuddered around them.
But one mage remembered. The Medusan had destroyed the Lernaean’s soul and wrote the terrible history that existed in the Lernaean’s mind. The Medusan reeled from visions and crawled away to settle in Howard’s Rock. She had two sets of memories: one of the siege and the rite and one of an anti-history, spawned in the Abyss (a cycle of events that birthed wars and atrocities).
The Red Word Cult
The Prince’s largest and most active cult infests the Boston area and throughout New England. The extended clan of the Red Word is given to extreme wealth or poverty. For every degenerate populating a rude, isolated hillside village, a career-oriented professional makes his way through Boston’s throngs. Despite these class differences, there is little rivalry. Red Word cultists put aside their differences to engage in the cult’s twin rituals: cannibalism and the recopying of sacred texts.
The cult claims descent from the mythic Egyptian priest who supposedly called the first stories of the Prince from the Abyss. The Medusan’s later influence is a minor tale, known to a few cult scholars. In any event, the Red Word place little emphasis on their own history. In fact, they rarely bother to record anything more about their past than they need to maintain social cohesion. To them, accepted history is false; the Prince’s chronicle is the true story of events, and needs to be fully told to bring it into being. The cult has compiled enough of the sacred corpus to learn of Boston’s counterpart in the antihistory, and Red Word uses this alien description as a secret code. They know the city as Rukhavira, City of Broken Eyes.
Red Word cultists ceaselessly track signs of the Prince of 100,000 Leaves. Naturally, they hope that by copying them all into a single volume, they will complete their master’s codex-body. Most Red Word members have their own handwritten books, word processing files and even websites that compile as much of the Prince as they can find. Fortunately, very few of these compilations consist of new fragments; most are recopied from other members. Cultists scour Boston’s port, museums and universities for more of the Prince; wealthy members pay antiquities dealers and smugglers handsomely for suspected fragments. The Dead Wrens have unwittingly sold these to cultists on more than one occasion.
The cultists complement fragment collecting with cannibalism, which they regard as the act of stealing a victim’s false history. According to their beliefs, every meal weakens the integrity of the current cycle, thinning the barriers that keep the Prince away.
No member of the cult is Awakened, but, thanks to the unnatural energies around Howard’s Rock, most of the local cultists are Sleepwalkers. They don’t care about occult lore outside of the sacred Prince, for it all comes from the usurping history. However, they do know that entities from the Abyss can influence mages, and so they sometimes hire themselves out to corrupt mages as thugs and intermediaries. The cultists are especially interested in mages who are bedeviled by Manifestation Paradoxes. The Red Word do not know why mages attract entities from the Abyss, but believe that such things are closer to the Prince and are thus worthy of veneration. If cultists actually meet these entities, they normally ask them for help in the holy mission of bringing the Abyss to the world. Most Manifestations do not respond at all, as they reflect faults in the mage’s own soul more than the Abyss itself. Some other Abyssal entities have responded to petitions, however. These beings might force a mage to cooperate with the cult.
The Master of the Hunt
Not every cannibal contracts the Hunger, and the Prince isn’t the only cannibal patron in the region... there are cannibal spirits as well. But we can assume that Mizong's cabal met the Prince’s cult and after a desperate escape from their headquarters, learned a way to draw power from the dead by eating them. The cabal is addicted to the power of human flesh and wants to eat only the strongest prey — and that means Adamantine Arrows. In addition, the cabal seems to need to capture prey who know they’re being hunted, but this might just be a collective derangement of some kind.
Howard’s Rock
Two kinds of towns dot the Massachusetts coast. Picture-pretty villages amuse the tourists with historical plaques, antique architecture and friendly little shops. Visitors don’t see the other kind too often. Commonwealth authorities forget to repair their connecting roads and their moldering, crooked buildings. Erratic streetlights practically urge motorists to keep driving. Most of these towns are poor, with a hard-drinking mix of teenagers desperate to leave and aging farmers and fishermen loath to abandon their ancestral homes.
Howard’s Rock is the latter kind of town, except for two important differences. First, the village has a luxurious hotel that’s famous for its cuisine (French continental) and its friendly (if a bit rustic and ignorant) staff. Second, and certainly less well known, is the fact that every inhabitant above the age of 12 is a cannibal who worships n entity from the Abyss: the living anti-history called a the Prince of 100,000 Leaves.
The town harbors the largest enclave of the Red Word cult. Howard’s Rock is a place where Red Word cannibals can let down their hair, so to speak. They can cook severed arms on the barbeque without looking over their shoulders and freely worship a living fragment of the Prince itself. For all the utterly evil acts that the cult takes as a matter of course, many members still ape human norms enough to enjoy their hobbies and pursue career ambitions. (This doesn’t prevent devoted cultists from turning utterly mad. Rather, local culture has made it the norm, and the townspeople have learned to reflexively cover for the odd social gaffe.)
That’s why the Howard’s Rock Hotel exists. There was no particular sinister plan in mind when Ezekiel Johnston proposed the business at a town hall meeting. He’d always wanted to be an entrepreneur. He had worked hard, saved his money and earned his chef’s papers in Paris. He would have opened a restaurant in the fiercely competitive New York market, but the French police wanted him for the murder (and subsequent skinning, spicing and broiling) of a prominent saucier. Ezekiel knew very well that fellow citizens thought that the hotel would bring in meat on the hoof, so to speak, but he hoped that the cult’s sense of discretion would prevail.
For the next decade, it did. On one occasion, impulsive local teenagers caused a “boating accident” with some of the guests, but, even though Ezekiel shared in the sacred feast, the kids saw the business end of his hickory cane right afterward. Everything seemed to be running smoothly, until the Red Word attained part of their dream.
Cult scholars assembled a new, complete paragraph of their Prince’s chronicle. Combined with generations of worship, the act summoned a fragment of the Prince itself. It was called the Temple of Holy Devouring, and its arrival, sprouting out of an Abyssal Verge on coastal rock of the harbor, tore the town out of synch with the Fallen World. The phenomenon erased hundreds of records, effectively erasing evidence that the town had ever existed. A chilling mist cloaked it from aerial observation.
People in a few neighboring towns could still tell people where Howard’s Rock was and even make pointed remarks about the villagers’ notorious bad breath and odd habits, but, aside from that, only two pieces of information were still easy to find: its name and the existence of the Howard’s Rock Hotel. Both appeared on too many maps, brochures and fine dining magazines to disappear overnight. Ezekiel’s adamant refusal to allow cult business to take place inside the hotel may have shielded it from the phenomenon that hid the town.
The Verge: Eat or Be Eaten
It’s easy for urbane visitors to deride Howard’s Rock. This is something that may ensure their survival, because even though Ezekiel is strictly loyal to the cult, he has a real passion for his little hotel and resents fellow citizens who slake their hunger on the tourists. This does not mean, however, that he will shelter opponents of the cult or similar troublemakers; he may actually go to great lengths to see that they are properly marinated for their just deserts.
Now that the Temple of Holy Devouring squats on an Abyssal reflection of the shore, cultists prefer to eat human flesh there. They do not know exactly what the proper rites are (they have yet to find parts of the Prince’s chronicle that can tell them), but they believe that it is the proper thing to do. Cultists only have to walk through the Abyssal Verge to worship, and most adults have become so attuned to the place that they can even see it from a distance and have stopped noticing that it actually exists in another plane of existence. Constant exposure to the supernatural has long since dulled the Quiescence among the townsfolk; all of them are Sleepwalkers of a twisted sort.
The temple is an impressive edifice, consisting of three intertwined, twisting towers, with a fourth indescribable shape like a rippling polygon flickering in and out of an observer’s peripheral vision. The towers are built of blueveined rock, covered in green copper struts. Inside, each tower has a staircase leading to a rune-covered chamber with a free-floating, unquenchable flame in its center.
Beneath the tower, a labyrinth extends farther than any Red Word member has been able to walk. The cult has walled off certain portions so as to imprison sacrifices; another tunnel leads into the interior of the shape: a perfect sphere with one grilled drain leading into utter darkness. It is here that the Red Word performs its most holy rites.
Red Word cannibalism is based on the belief that once the cultists ritually devour a victim, that little piece of history that the victim creates with her life and actions has been obliterated. Normally, the feast is only symbolic, but when it’s performed in the temple itself it actually comes to pass. After Red Worders eat the victim, signs that she existed begin to disappear, bit by bit.
Sleeper friends and family forget they ever knew the victim and invent explanations for any traces she left behind. Eventually, even material traces fade. This is more than mere forgetfulness. The victim’s place in the universe erodes, and the discontinuities she leaves behind represent a ragged hole in reality. Sleepers with extraordinary Willpower experience a startling vision of the Void beyond reality the first time they contemplate the missing history. The experience is the stuff of nightmares; Sleepers must turn their horrified attentions away. If they fail, they are seized by temporary derangements and madness. From then on, sufferers have to fight to return to sanity over the course of weeks.
Most of these victims eventually shake off the madness, but a very small number lose their minds. These unfortunates become a danger to others, because once they fully, madly appreciate the Void, something notices. It’s only a matter of time until something from the other side possesses the victim.
Although the Awakened are immune to this effect, it does apply to Red Word cultists. The Abyss and the immoral nature of the feast take their toll on the townsfolk. The buildings fall into disrepair, enhancing Howard’s Rock’s already sinister ambiance. Visitors are likely to see rustic madmen tending the gardens outside of their teetering homes on the way downtown. If actual Abyssal
beings have taken hold of any of the citizenry, the beings are keeping a low profile, but the presence of mages may inspire any hidden demons to take action.
The Temple Hounds
Every adult in Howard’s Rock has at least the first stage of the Hunger. Over generations, town families have built up a resistance to the curse (or else the Temple of Holy Devouring has changed the curse to suit an alternate history where cannibalism is a way of life) so that it rarely progresses beyond the second stage. Sometimes the resistance doesn’t quite take, though, and a few town cannibals lose their minds to the lust for human meat. These unfortunates are not pitied, but revered. They are the Temple Hounds. The cult breaks them in with a steady supply of meat so that they won’t attack fellow cannibals. It teaches Hounds to lope on all fours and how to respond to a leash and muzzle. Seen in heavy shadow, a visitor might mistake a Temple Hound for a huge dog, but in any significant light the differences— staring human eyes, razor teeth and hairless, callused skin — are horridly obvious. Cultists tattoo Temple Hounds with fragments of the Prince to edify the devout, and then set the Hounds to patrol the Temple of Holy Devouring. When enemies invade, cultists loose Hounds to scour the town.
Temple Hounds develop excellent smell and night vision. Their claws and distorted musculature increase their speed. Exposure to the elements, the beatings used to train them and their ability to mindlessly disregard pain toughen them against blows. (In addition to the traits of a fifth-stage victim of the Hunger, Temple Hounds add two points to their base Speed, ignore wound penalties, gain one point of armor and +4 dice to perception rolls.) Aside from the Hounds’ regular handlers, they can only distinguish between cannibals and non-cannibals by smell. The Temple Hounds are, of course, trained to attack the latter.
Cleansing the Taint
Howard’s Rock is a blight on reality. The cannibals have called down fragment of the Outside so abhorrent to natural laws that the Fallen World appears to reject it. Red Word temple rites fray reality victim by victim. It’s only a matter of time until the cultists find more of the Prince of 100,000 Leaves.
Sometimes, you have to call down the thunder. Once mages discover the secret of Howard’s Rock, they might want to wipe the place from the face of the earth. This can be the center of a major, combat-heavy effort, with squads of cannibals fending off a fragile but potent alliance of cabals. Even Seers of the Throne and Banishers may be willing to put aside their enmity to join an invasion force. Thanks to the nature of the Abyssal Anomaly, invaders probably don’t need to worry about how it will all look to Sleepers until after the battle.
Besides hordes of Red Word cultists, leaders of the cult may call upon acamoth-ridden allies and dark entities for aid. Cabals may have to race against the cult’s efforts to assemble a potent sentence from the Prince’s history. This fragment could expand and empower the temple or summon potent Abyssal entities to ravage the ranks of mages. For bit of moral complexity, for all its horror, the town has uninitiated children, frail elderly and citizens who never wanted to join the cult but had to eat human flesh or be served up themselves.
Decadent and Depraved
The more refined members of the cult are fixers and informants who carefully hide freezers of human meat in their condos. Ambitious cultists can carefully (and literally) eat their way through Boston Brahmins who inconvenience them. City Red Word members are conscientious anthropophagists who never let a scrap go to waste, so their victims’ bodies are almost never found.
Cannibalism is an excellent allegory for upper-class decadence and they sometimes conceal themselves among the city’s elite. Street people might start vanishing in their new terriroties. Mages can lose contact with friends and contacts. The cult will use its prestige and influence to foil the investigations.
The are also the country cousins: isolated mutants with bloodstained faces and a penchant for using power tools in personal combat. When these people aren’t serving dark mages or ancient spirits, they provide an interesting hazard for mages traveling the countryside. Feast nights are particularly dangerous...
Cannibal Versus Cannibal
The Shadow Realm has a group of spirits that represent cannibal urges. These have been called wendigo, atcen, Bearwalkers and other names. They are found around the world, but have been most famously described through a Native lens. Some of these spirits are actually benevolent and represent the desire to cling to life against adversity.
Some of them preside over instinctual cannibalism in animal species. A rare few represent cannibalism as an expression of greed and domination. Humans in the presence of these spirits can transform into animalistic predators who lose their minds to the taste of human meat. This occurs through direct possession or the spirit’s Influence. The Ebon Noose riled up spirits like these, and the medicine society used the spirits to attack the Ebon Noose.
The cannibal-Manitou, also called chenoo, resent the alien spirits that appear with fragments of the Prince’s chronicle. Cannibalistic resonance is hard to come by, and the Prince’s extrusions into the Shadow World leave little left for the chenoo to feed on. Thus, mages who would fight the Red Word might be able to call upon some unpleasant allies. And, of course, there is only one easy way to keep cannibal spirits strong...
Howard’s Rock
Two kinds of towns dot the Massachusetts coast. Picture-pretty villages amuse the tourists with historical plaques, antique architecture and friendly little shops. Visitors don’t see the other kind too often. Commonwealth authorities forget to repair their connecting roads and their moldering, crooked buildings. Erratic streetlights practically urge motorists to keep driving. Most of these towns are poor, with a hard-drinking mix of teenagers desperate to leave and aging farmers and fishermen loath to abandon their ancestral homes.
Howard’s Rock is the latter kind of town, except for two important differences. First, the village has a luxurious hotel that’s famous for its cuisine (French continental) and its friendly (if a bit rustic and ignorant) staff. Second, and certainly less well known, is the fact that every inhabitant above the age of 12 is a cannibal who worships n entity from the Abyss: the living anti-history called a the Prince of 100,000 Leaves.
The town harbors the largest enclave of the Red Word cult. Howard’s Rock is a place where Red Word cannibals can let down their hair, so to speak. They can cook severed arms on the barbeque without looking over their shoulders and freely worship a living fragment of the Prince itself. For all the utterly evil acts that the cult takes as a matter of course, many members still ape human norms enough to enjoy their hobbies and pursue career ambitions. (This doesn’t prevent devoted cultists from turning utterly mad. Rather, local culture has made it the norm, and the townspeople have learned to reflexively cover for the odd social gaffe.)
That’s why the Howard’s Rock Hotel exists. There was no particular sinister plan in mind when Ezekiel Johnston proposed the business at a town hall meeting. He’d always wanted to be an entrepreneur. He had worked hard, saved his money and earned his chef’s papers in Paris. He would have opened a restaurant in the fiercely competitive New York market, but the French police wanted him for the murder (and subsequent skinning, spicing and broiling) of a prominent saucier. Ezekiel knew very well that fellow citizens thought that the hotel would bring in meat on the hoof, so to speak, but he hoped that the cult’s sense of discretion would prevail.
For the next decade, it did. On one occasion, impulsive local teenagers caused a “boating accident” with some of the guests, but, even though Ezekiel shared in the sacred feast, the kids saw the business end of his hickory cane right afterward. Everything seemed to be running smoothly, until the Red Word attained part of their dream.
Cult scholars assembled a new, complete paragraph of their Prince’s chronicle. Combined with generations of worship, the act summoned a fragment of the Prince itself. It was called the Temple of Holy Devouring, and its arrival, sprouting out of an Abyssal Verge on coastal rock of the harbor, tore the town out of synch with the Fallen World. The phenomenon erased hundreds of records, effectively erasing evidence that the town had ever existed. A chilling mist cloaked it from aerial observation.
People in a few neighboring towns could still tell people where Howard’s Rock was and even make pointed remarks about the villagers’ notorious bad breath and odd habits, but, aside from that, only two pieces of information were still easy to find: its name and the existence of the Howard’s Rock Hotel. Both appeared on too many maps, brochures and fine dining magazines to disappear overnight. Ezekiel’s adamant refusal to allow cult business to take place inside the hotel may have shielded it from the phenomenon that hid the town.
The Verge: Eat or Be Eaten
It’s easy for urbane visitors to deride Howard’s Rock. This is something that may ensure their survival, because even though Ezekiel is strictly loyal to the cult, he has a real passion for his little hotel and resents fellow citizens who slake their hunger on the tourists. This does not mean, however, that he will shelter opponents of the cult or similar troublemakers; he may actually go to great lengths to see that they are properly marinated for their just deserts.
Now that the Temple of Holy Devouring squats on an Abyssal reflection of the shore, cultists prefer to eat human flesh there. They do not know exactly what the proper rites are (they have yet to find parts of the Prince’s chronicle that can tell them), but they believe that it is the proper thing to do. Cultists only have to walk through the Abyssal Verge to worship, and most adults have become so attuned to the place that they can even see it from a distance and have stopped noticing that it actually exists in another plane of existence. Constant exposure to the supernatural has long since dulled the Quiescence among the townsfolk; all of them are Sleepwalkers of a twisted sort.
The temple is an impressive edifice, consisting of three intertwined, twisting towers, with a fourth indescribable shape like a rippling polygon flickering in and out of an observer’s peripheral vision. The towers are built of blueveined rock, covered in green copper struts. Inside, each tower has a staircase leading to a rune-covered chamber with a free-floating, unquenchable flame in its center.
Beneath the tower, a labyrinth extends farther than any Red Word member has been able to walk. The cult has walled off certain portions so as to imprison sacrifices; another tunnel leads into the interior of the shape: a perfect sphere with one grilled drain leading into utter darkness. It is here that the Red Word performs its most holy rites.
Red Word cannibalism is based on the belief that once the cultists ritually devour a victim, that little piece of history that the victim creates with her life and actions has been obliterated. Normally, the feast is only symbolic, but when it’s performed in the temple itself it actually comes to pass. After Red Worders eat the victim, signs that she existed begin to disappear, bit by bit.
Most of these victims eventually shake off the madness, but a very small number lose their minds. These unfortunates become a danger to others, because once they fully, madly appreciate the Void, something notices. It’s only a matter of time until something from the other side possesses the victim.
Although the Awakened are immune to this effect, it does apply to Red Word cultists. The Abyss and the immoral nature of the feast take their toll on the townsfolk. The buildings fall into disrepair, enhancing Howard’s Rock’s already sinister ambiance. Visitors are likely to see rustic madmen tending the gardens outside of their teetering homes on the way downtown. If actual Abyssal
beings have taken hold of any of the citizenry, the beings are keeping a low profile, but the presence of mages may inspire any hidden demons to take action.
Temple Hounds develop excellent smell and night vision. Their claws and distorted musculature increase their speed. Exposure to the elements, the beatings used to train them and their ability to mindlessly disregard pain toughen them against blows. (In addition to the traits of a fifth-stage victim of the Hunger, Temple Hounds add two points to their base Speed, ignore wound penalties, gain one point of armor and +4 dice to perception rolls.) Aside from the Hounds’ regular handlers, they can only distinguish between cannibals and non-cannibals by smell. The Temple Hounds are, of course, trained to attack the latter.
Cleansing the Taint
Howard’s Rock is a blight on reality. The cannibals have called down fragment of the Outside so abhorrent to natural laws that the Fallen World appears to reject it. Red Word temple rites fray reality victim by victim. It’s only a matter of time until the cultists find more of the Prince of 100,000 Leaves.
Sometimes, you have to call down the thunder. Once mages discover the secret of Howard’s Rock, they might want to wipe the place from the face of the earth. This can be the center of a major, combat-heavy effort, with squads of cannibals fending off a fragile but potent alliance of cabals. Even Seers of the Throne and Banishers may be willing to put aside their enmity to join an invasion force. Thanks to the nature of the Abyssal Anomaly, invaders probably don’t need to worry about how it will all look to Sleepers until after the battle.
Besides hordes of Red Word cultists, leaders of the cult may call upon acamoth-ridden allies and dark entities for aid. Cabals may have to race against the cult’s efforts to assemble a potent sentence from the Prince’s history. This fragment could expand and empower the temple or summon potent Abyssal entities to ravage the ranks of mages. For bit of moral complexity, for all its horror, the town has uninitiated children, frail elderly and citizens who never wanted to join the cult but had to eat human flesh or be served up themselves.
Decadent and Depraved
The more refined members of the cult are fixers and informants who carefully hide freezers of human meat in their condos. Ambitious cultists can carefully (and literally) eat their way through Boston Brahmins who inconvenience them. City Red Word members are conscientious anthropophagists who never let a scrap go to waste, so their victims’ bodies are almost never found.
Cannibalism is an excellent allegory for upper-class decadence and they sometimes conceal themselves among the city’s elite. Street people might start vanishing in their new terriroties. Mages can lose contact with friends and contacts. The cult will use its prestige and influence to foil the investigations.
The are also the country cousins: isolated mutants with bloodstained faces and a penchant for using power tools in personal combat. When these people aren’t serving dark mages or ancient spirits, they provide an interesting hazard for mages traveling the countryside. Feast nights are particularly dangerous...
Cannibal Versus Cannibal
The Shadow Realm has a group of spirits that represent cannibal urges. These have been called wendigo, atcen, Bearwalkers and other names. They are found around the world, but have been most famously described through a Native lens. Some of these spirits are actually benevolent and represent the desire to cling to life against adversity.
Some of them preside over instinctual cannibalism in animal species. A rare few represent cannibalism as an expression of greed and domination. Humans in the presence of these spirits can transform into animalistic predators who lose their minds to the taste of human meat. This occurs through direct possession or the spirit’s Influence. The Ebon Noose riled up spirits like these, and the medicine society used the spirits to attack the Ebon Noose.
The cannibal-Manitou, also called chenoo, resent the alien spirits that appear with fragments of the Prince’s chronicle. Cannibalistic resonance is hard to come by, and the Prince’s extrusions into the Shadow World leave little left for the chenoo to feed on. Thus, mages who would fight the Red Word might be able to call upon some unpleasant allies. And, of course, there is only one easy way to keep cannibal spirits strong...
Land of the Broken Turtleshell:
In this anti-history, there was no America; there was instead Cha’annys, the Land of the Broken Turtleshell, whose princes impaled the dead on bronze pikes so that their eyes could scan the living for signs of treason. She remembered the war with dread Vah and the blood-sewers of nearby Rukhavira, all scales and cells of a larger creature, a demon made out of Time. She remembered the Blasphemous Scribe itself: the Prince of 100,000 Leaves.
She carried a small piece of papyrus with her: fragments of the Prince’s history that she wrote down to finish the ritual. She now knew that the Prince was contained in such fragments: she had only to bind them together to make his history true. The Prince was this history, this chronicle. To her scarred soul, the Prince was the truest version of reality now. The spell at Salem had broken Time before her, leaving the Prince. Most of the cannibal spirits that had once plagued her cabal were replaced by counterparts from the Shadow Realm that existed in the Prince’s anti-history. Rather than mad scavenger-spirits, these beings were considered kings, for cannibalism was a sacrament in the Prince’s world.
She carried a small piece of papyrus with her: fragments of the Prince’s history that she wrote down to finish the ritual. She now knew that the Prince was contained in such fragments: she had only to bind them together to make his history true. The Prince was this history, this chronicle. To her scarred soul, the Prince was the truest version of reality now. The spell at Salem had broken Time before her, leaving the Prince. Most of the cannibal spirits that had once plagued her cabal were replaced by counterparts from the Shadow Realm that existed in the Prince’s anti-history. Rather than mad scavenger-spirits, these beings were considered kings, for cannibalism was a sacrament in the Prince’s world.
She used magic to bring the first followers to Howard’s Rock, and taught them the cannibal rites of the Prince. When her followers came to devour her a generation later, she didn’t resist. With her blood in their throats, the cult of the Red Word sang of cities that would one day exist for a thousand years and ancient lines of tyrants that would erect thrones. This history exists, but it is not true yet.
Doom Yet Unwritten
The Prince of 100,000 Leaves is a bizarre Abyssal entity that can only fully manifest by rewriting Fallen World existence to suit its own laws. Occultists have predicted the entity’s existence by postulating heretical visions of Time that might exist in the Abyss. Some of these forgotten time lines exist in Astral Space as fancies and collective speculation, but the Prince is different: it is an alternate history so abhorrent that it has been rejected by reality itself. The Prince gained a certain self-knowledge and a desire to displace the flow of real events with its presence. The entity knows the Fallen World, because it has been called before by weak-souled mages who invoked Paradoxes using Time magic. The Prince is made of the essence of Time, but only as a castoff, a shell of genuine history that has twisted in the outer dark. The Prince realizes its nature as a timeline that has never been, and resents this. It wants to be the truth. It wants the Fallen World.
The Red Word cult believes that an Egyptian scribe tried to peer too far into the future. Touching the purity of the Void, this cleric encountered the Prince’s anti-future instead, and, in his madness, decided to write the entity a “body”: a comprehensive chronicle of history under its dominion. The completed book was to consist of 100,000 papyri, but something blocked the completion of the project. This is fortunate, b e c a u s e the cult postulated that, if the whole history were ever recorded
and gathered in one medium, it would eject the c u r r e n t timeline into the Abyss. Reality would be the outcast, and the Prince would be the true history of the world.
Naturally, members of the Red Word are the predestined rulers of the nations to come — the nations that will, one day, always have existed. Since the time of that alleged event, the Prince has managed to extrude more of itself into the world through mages who fall to Time-related Paradoxes. Each victim writes a little more of the Prince. One errant sentence in an occult journal describes Azatadghil, the African port inhabited by skinless beasts that arose in the third millennium of the Prince’s reign. A mad poet may ramble onto the sadistic legal code of Vah, the theocratic Britain of the anti-history.
Doom Yet Unwritten
The Prince of 100,000 Leaves is a bizarre Abyssal entity that can only fully manifest by rewriting Fallen World existence to suit its own laws. Occultists have predicted the entity’s existence by postulating heretical visions of Time that might exist in the Abyss. Some of these forgotten time lines exist in Astral Space as fancies and collective speculation, but the Prince is different: it is an alternate history so abhorrent that it has been rejected by reality itself. The Prince gained a certain self-knowledge and a desire to displace the flow of real events with its presence. The entity knows the Fallen World, because it has been called before by weak-souled mages who invoked Paradoxes using Time magic. The Prince is made of the essence of Time, but only as a castoff, a shell of genuine history that has twisted in the outer dark. The Prince realizes its nature as a timeline that has never been, and resents this. It wants to be the truth. It wants the Fallen World.
The Red Word cult believes that an Egyptian scribe tried to peer too far into the future. Touching the purity of the Void, this cleric encountered the Prince’s anti-future instead, and, in his madness, decided to write the entity a “body”: a comprehensive chronicle of history under its dominion. The completed book was to consist of 100,000 papyri, but something blocked the completion of the project. This is fortunate, b e c a u s e the cult postulated that, if the whole history were ever recorded
and gathered in one medium, it would eject the c u r r e n t timeline into the Abyss. Reality would be the outcast, and the Prince would be the true history of the world.
Naturally, members of the Red Word are the predestined rulers of the nations to come — the nations that will, one day, always have existed. Since the time of that alleged event, the Prince has managed to extrude more of itself into the world through mages who fall to Time-related Paradoxes. Each victim writes a little more of the Prince. One errant sentence in an occult journal describes Azatadghil, the African port inhabited by skinless beasts that arose in the third millennium of the Prince’s reign. A mad poet may ramble onto the sadistic legal code of Vah, the theocratic Britain of the anti-history.
Calling the Prince
The individual fragments are mostly harmless, but a powerful enough Paradox to cause an Abyssal Manifestion involving a fragment might bring a part of the Prince in the form of a ephemeral Intruder Gulmoth that would have existed if the Prince’s history were true. A fire-spirit might be replaced by the spirit of a green flame that sheds no warmth but rots whatever it touches. These spirits are as short-lived as any other Manifestations, because they are wholly alien to the Fallen World’s ecology.
Unfortunately, these entities are actually extrusions of the Prince and, as such, are determined to lengthen their stays and create more opportunities for incursion. These entities use whatever means they can to inspire and collect more fragments. Each additional fragment (a single sentence or a rough sketch) multiplies the entity’s lifespan by the number of fragments it has added to its own. For example, a Gulmoth scribe that has a fragment inscribed alongside the one that accompanied its arrival can survive in the Fallen World for twice as long.
Unfortunately, these entities are actually extrusions of the Prince and, as such, are determined to lengthen their stays and create more opportunities for incursion. These entities use whatever means they can to inspire and collect more fragments. Each additional fragment (a single sentence or a rough sketch) multiplies the entity’s lifespan by the number of fragments it has added to its own. For example, a Gulmoth scribe that has a fragment inscribed alongside the one that accompanied its arrival can survive in the Fallen World for twice as long.
Additional Paradoxes can bring more Abyssals, which also benefit from fragment inspiration or collection. These entities attempt to twist the material world to conform to anti-history. Not all of the spirits are wholly unnatural; if one does manage to twist the Fallen World enough, the Gulmoth can exist indefinitely.
Anomaly Paradoxes can gather fragments without calling entities. The mage scribbles the fragment down, then forgets about it or believes that she intended to put it down all along. Some Paradoxes may change the mage or her surroundings to conform to the Prince’s history. Compiled fragments also multiply the duration of these changes.
The anti-beings use their special Abyssal Numina to invade and influence the dreams of a rare few Sleepers (usually writers or artists), who are then driven to record their nightmares — which are actually chronicles of the Prince’s anti-history. In this way, more fragments are created. The entities then collect these fragments (or rely on Red Word cultists to find them) to extend their stay in the Fallen World.
Sleepers who encounter an Intruder or a place where it has manifested (soaked with its resonance, even many years later) can also dream of the anti-history. In this way, secret fragments unknown to the Red Word can be found throughout the world, waiting to be compiled into a greater whole.
To compile fragments, a writer or artist must collect them and put them down together so that they form a coherent whole. It must parse as a paragraph or a properly composed work of art. Two unrelated fragments (about Vah and about the giant centipedes of anti-China) would not extend a spirit’s stay. Oral traditions can sometimes have this effect, but they must be recited to an everexpanding audience at least weekly.
Once enough fragments have been compiled, an Abyssal Anomaly occurs — even without the help of a mage or a spellcasting Paradox. These are extremely rare, for the proper combination of fragments, scattered far and wide throughout the world, rarely come together. Once gathered, they have to be put together in the right order, a task requiring skill and a certain knowledge of the Prince’s anti-history. If all these requirements are met, the Anomaly can take place. An example of one such incursion of the anti-history into the Fallen World is the Temple of Holy Devouring in Howard’s Rock.
“They've already won. This world is a facade. The Prince’s world, the 100,000 Leaves — they’re real. We’re a fading afterimage of what was. We already live in the Abyss!”
Book Collecting
Since accidents with the Time Arcanum call the Prince (in the form of an Intruder), they often get recorded in books, artwork and oral traditions. Mages may quest to find and destroy these tainted chronicles or fight against the infection itself. A particularly disastrous spell or a compilation of work may threaten the entire region. Unless stopped, Boston might be transformed into the City of Broken Eyes.
Cabals have worked at tracking down and destroying the anti-history as it makes its way to the Red Word by courier, smuggler or acamoth’s bargain. Boston has the highest concentration of the Prince’s fragments in the world. It is unknown how far the Red Word has progressed in their quest to assemble the 100,000 “leaves” of the Prince.
Sleepers who encounter an Intruder or a place where it has manifested (soaked with its resonance, even many years later) can also dream of the anti-history. In this way, secret fragments unknown to the Red Word can be found throughout the world, waiting to be compiled into a greater whole.
To compile fragments, a writer or artist must collect them and put them down together so that they form a coherent whole. It must parse as a paragraph or a properly composed work of art. Two unrelated fragments (about Vah and about the giant centipedes of anti-China) would not extend a spirit’s stay. Oral traditions can sometimes have this effect, but they must be recited to an everexpanding audience at least weekly.
Once enough fragments have been compiled, an Abyssal Anomaly occurs — even without the help of a mage or a spellcasting Paradox. These are extremely rare, for the proper combination of fragments, scattered far and wide throughout the world, rarely come together. Once gathered, they have to be put together in the right order, a task requiring skill and a certain knowledge of the Prince’s anti-history. If all these requirements are met, the Anomaly can take place. An example of one such incursion of the anti-history into the Fallen World is the Temple of Holy Devouring in Howard’s Rock.
“They've already won. This world is a facade. The Prince’s world, the 100,000 Leaves — they’re real. We’re a fading afterimage of what was. We already live in the Abyss!”
Book Collecting
Since accidents with the Time Arcanum call the Prince (in the form of an Intruder), they often get recorded in books, artwork and oral traditions. Mages may quest to find and destroy these tainted chronicles or fight against the infection itself. A particularly disastrous spell or a compilation of work may threaten the entire region. Unless stopped, Boston might be transformed into the City of Broken Eyes.
Cabals have worked at tracking down and destroying the anti-history as it makes its way to the Red Word by courier, smuggler or acamoth’s bargain. Boston has the highest concentration of the Prince’s fragments in the world. It is unknown how far the Red Word has progressed in their quest to assemble the 100,000 “leaves” of the Prince.
Even though Red Word claims that completing this work would bring about the anti-history, they have little evidence for this outside of their own doctrine. The true effect is unknown but no doubt unpleasant...
He shrugs. “Well, I made it up. I thought this Scribe of Blasphemy figure you see in a couple of coffin inscriptions was kind of interesting. When it’s time to weigh your heart in front of the gods, he tries to switch the papyrus that contains your sins with a forgery full of terrible things. I thought it was reminiscent of the King in Yellow. You could have some fun extrapolating it into…”
“…an Ancient Egyptian version of those Chambers stories. I know, Mr. Hart. But you ended up with something else, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, it never seemed like it really hit my goal for the piece.”
“Well, instead of creating a compelling fictional document, you created… well, not actually a ‘real’ bit of Egyptian scripture. Think of it as a possibility, like one of your ‘alternate universes.’ Think of the worst of all possible worlds, where torture begins at birth and where the only miracles that exist serve to keep the victims alive and suffering long enough to breed and continue it all, forever. Think of a world where the only god is composed of every story of suffering in its universe, and its thoughts are processed in a loop of time that plays back every horrific permutation, like a computer that calculates its instructions with formulae of pain.
“Somehow, you found that god, Ken. You wrote a bit of its prayer book. That makes it more real than it was when it was just a shell, cast into the darkness when this world was born. There are some crazy people who want to make it real enough to replace our world.”
His eyes stop darting, and the rest comes along quickly. I tell him about the Red Word: the cult that worships the Scribe and collects fragments of its unspeakable history. They’re cannibals; they believe that the act steals the victim’s place in Earth, opening a tear in the world-narrative that their master might be able to seep through, one sentence at a time.
“In the Vast Egyptian Weirdness chapter, you quoted what you said was an Old Kingdom inscription. We originally thought you got it from the University of Chicago archives, maybe through your wife, but I had a contact of mine come up empty looking for it.”
He shrugs. “Well, I made it up. I thought this Scribe of Blasphemy figure you see in a couple of coffin inscriptions was kind of interesting. When it’s time to weigh your heart in front of the gods, he tries to switch the papyrus that contains your sins with a forgery full of terrible things. I thought it was reminiscent of the King in Yellow. You could have some fun extrapolating it into…”
“…an Ancient Egyptian version of those Chambers stories. I know, Mr. Hart. But you ended up with something else, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, it never seemed like it really hit my goal for the piece.”
“Well, instead of creating a compelling fictional document, you created… well, not actually a ‘real’ bit of Egyptian scripture. Think of it as a possibility, like one of your ‘alternate universes.’ Think of the worst of all possible worlds, where torture begins at birth and where the only miracles that exist serve to keep the victims alive and suffering long enough to breed and continue it all, forever. Think of a world where the only god is composed of every story of suffering in its universe, and its thoughts are processed in a loop of time that plays back every horrific permutation, like a computer that calculates its instructions with formulae of pain.
“Somehow, you found that god, Ken. You wrote a bit of its prayer book. That makes it more real than it was when it was just a shell, cast into the darkness when this world was born. There are some crazy people who want to make it real enough to replace our world.”
His eyes stop darting, and the rest comes along quickly. I tell him about the Red Word: the cult that worships the Scribe and collects fragments of its unspeakable history. They’re cannibals; they believe that the act steals the victim’s place in Earth, opening a tear in the world-narrative that their master might be able to seep through, one sentence at a time.
“And that’s where I come in, Ken. You’ve seen what I can do — the pyrotechnic end of it, anyway. That was a simple trick from a vast body of knowledge — the same knowledge that sometimes hits you when you’re writing at 4 am. These are flashes of the Mystery, as potent as a bolt of flame. It’s my job to keep the fire that frees people, and snuff out anything that might rage out of control and burn them, or burn us all.”
 |
| Movie: In the Mouth of Madness - because obvious reasons |
No comments:
Post a Comment