The Life & Work of Harold Hadley Copeland

Harold Hadley Copeland (1860–1926)

"The shocking discoveries made since we first opened the tomb should be more than enough to inform us. The knowledge lingering in those ancient tablets may wither our souls."

-From the Introduction to “The Zanthu Tablets: a Conjectural Translation”

A noted anthropological researcher and co-founder of the Pacific Area Archaeological Association (PAAA), of which he later became the president. He began his studies in Cambridge, later graduating from Miskatonic University. He travelled widely throughout Asia in the 1890s and his published journals of these trips gained him some popularity. His early scholarly writings include “Prehistory in the Pacific: A Preliminary Investigation with References to the Myth Patterns of South-East Asia” (1902), “Polynesian Mythology, with a Note on the Cthulhu Legend-Cycle” (1906), The Ponape Scriptures (1907) (his translation of a document discovered in 1734), “The Ponape Figurine” (1910) and “The Prehistoric Pacific in light of the Ponape Scriptures” (1911). This last work met with considerable disfavour and he was forced to resign his presidency of the PAAA as a result.

In 1913, Copeland took a different tack and set off on an expedition to Central Asia, in search of the Plateau of Tsang. The Copeland–Ellington Expedition met with disaster from the outset: Ellington died in mysterious circumstances after only a few days and the group’s guides and bearers either deserted, or perished from the harsh conditions. Three months later, Copeland was found raving in Mongolia, claiming to have encountered a Muvian wizard named ‘Zanthu’, who gave him ten inscribed stone tablets. These tablets were in his backpack when he was discovered, covered with ancient hieroglyphics.

After returning from his ordeal, Copeland spent the next three years translating the tablets and published his findings as The Zanthu Tablets: A Conjectural Translation; he was then confined to an asylum in San Francisco where he slit his own throat shortly afterwards. His vast collection of papers and Polynesian artefacts was left in his will to the Sanbourne Institute of Pacific Studies.

(Source: Lin Carter, “The Dweller in the Tomb”)

“Prehistory in the Pacific: A Preliminary Investigation with References to the Myth-Patterns of Southeast Asia”

A relatively innocuous monograph, attempting to resolve archaeological phenomena found in the Pacific region with the mythography of the Southeast Asian margin of the ocean. While not outlining clear connexions between legend and phenomena, the paper provides sound procedures for using mythology to provide rationales for cultural behaviours and taboos.

English; Harold H. Copeland; 1902; 1/1d2 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +1 percentiles; 4 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: None

“Polynesian Mythology, with a Note on the Cthulhu Legend-Cycle”

Still in academically tepid waters, Copeland tries in this paper to connect several articles and journals published by the Miskatonic Press with the studies already undertaken by the PAAA. In the course of his analysis he finds great sympathy with the work of George Angell and Francis Wayland Thurston and sceptically probes the implications of the so-called “Worldwide Cthulhu Cult”. His conclusions weigh heavily on the side of there being enough parallelism amongst mythology for the paranoid observer to construct any kind of bizarre scenario; however, he does leave many suggestive coincidences unresolved.

English; Harold H. Copeland; 1906; 1/1d3 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +3 percentiles; 8 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: None

The Ponape Scriptures

The original copy of this work was discovered in the Carolinas by Captain Abner Exekiel Hoag in 1734. It was scribbled upon a series of dried palm leaves protected by a frame made from the wood of an extinct cycad. With the help of his servant “Yogash”, Hoag translated the text: some say that Hoag wrote the material himself after talking to the natives; as the original is written in hieratic Naacal, a language which should not have been available either to Hoag or his servant, this point of view is somewhat ameliorated (if only by the existence of the actual text).

Hoag’s attempts to publish the work, which seemed designed for missionary purposes, were thwarted by the religious leaders of the time who were especially concerned by references to Dagon throughout the text. It was finally published in a duodecimo format after Hoag’s death by his granddaughter, Beverly Hoag Adams, although prior to this several clandestine copies had been passed around amongst occult circles. The first printed (or “Beverly”) edition is slightly abridged and error-ridden due to cost constraints in its production. The original work is still available for view however, in the Kester Library in Salem Massachussets, USA. The most voluble proponent for the work was Harold Hadley Copeland who cited the book extensively in his essay the Prehistoric Pacific in Light of the Ponape Scriptures (1911) and who published his own translation through the Miskatonic University Press in 1907.

The book deals largely with the lost continent of Mu and the wizard-priest Zanthu who doomed the place in a fiery cataclysm; it discusses Cthulhu, Idh-yaa and their descendants including Ghatanothoa, Ythogtha, Zoth Ommog and (obliquely) Cthylla. The text has dramatically affected and informed the rites and practices of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, among others.

(Source: Out of the Ages, Lin Carter)

Hieratic Naacal; author unknown; date unknown (discovered 1734); Sanity loss: 1d8/1d12; Cthulhu Mythos +15 percentiles; average 20 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: Contact Deep One; Contact Father Dagon; Contact Mother Hydra; Contact Cthulhu

English; Capt. Abner Exekiel Hoag; unpublished manuscript translation, various dates; Sanity loss: 1d6/1d10; Cthulhu Mythos +10 percentiles; average 15 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: Contact Deep One; Contact Father Dagon; Contact Mother Hydra

English: “Beverly” edition; Capt. Abner Exekiel Hoag; 1795; Sanity loss: 1d3/1d6; Cthulhu Mythos +5 percentiles; average 10 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: None

English; Harold Hadley Copeland trans.; Miskatonic University Press, 1907; Sanity loss: 1d4/1d8; Cthulhu Mythos +7 percentiles; average 12 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: Contact Deep One

“The Ponape Figurine”

In 1909, a diver discovered a nineteen-inch tall, jade figurine of a grotesque creature from the seabed near the island of Ponape. The carving was bought by the Sanbourne Institute of Pacific Studies where it came under the scrutiny of Harold Hadley Copeland. Copeland’s examination of the piece was meticulous and exacting as far as it went – positing the origin of the image as Chinese and possibly deposited during the Chinese diaspora – but then it went right off the rails by once more citing Angell and Thurston and even mentioning the Johansen Narrative as a critical source. Even less welcome were his attempts to prove that the figurine was a cult object connected with the Ponape Scriptures which he had just finished translating the previous year, a work which had met considerable disfavour amongst Christian and academic communities. The reception of this article was cool at best and several colleagues suggested that Copeland take a leave of absence.

English; Harold H. Copeland; 1910; 1d4/1d6 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +4 percentiles; 7 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: None

“Prehistoric Pacific in the Light of the Ponape Scriptures”

Undeterred, Copeland returned to his earlier work on myth patterns in the South Asian region and wrote a ‘compare and contrast’ paper referring current Pacific mythography with the imagery contained in the Ponape Scriptures. The clear implication of the article was that there was an over-arching belief structure that controlled and directed Oceanic and Southeast Asian cultures from a shadowy background location, most likely based in China. Many academics felt that Copeland was too busy buying into the fantastic paranoia of the Angell-Thurston research and suggested that Copeland resign his post as the head of the PAAA and a take a long leave of absence.

English; Harold H. Copeland; 1911; 1d2/1d4 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +2 percentiles; 7 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: None

Zanthu Tablets

These tablets were apparently given to Harold Hadley Copeland during the Copeland-Ellington Expedition by a wizard called ‘Zanthu’, although it is unclear whether they were handed to him by that entity or if he took them from Zanthu’s tomb. Copeland was rescued in Mongolia after the expedition disappeared in 1923; he was the sole survivor. When located, the ten tablets were in his backpack; they are made of black jade and written all over in what Copeland described as hieratic Naacal, the written language of Mu. The tablets now reside in the Sanbourne Institute of Pacific Studies.

Hieratic Naacal; ‘Zanthu, Wizard of Mu’; prehuman timeline; 1d6/1d10 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +6 percentiles; 60 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: Contact Deity: Cthulhu; Contact Deity: Ghatanathoa; Contact Deity: Lloigornos; Contact Deity: Ubb; Contact Deity: Zoth-Ommog; Enchant Bell

“The Zanthu Tablets: A Conjectural Translation”

The text of the ‘Tablets is most readily encountered in this monograph written by Copeland just prior to his commitment to an asylum and suicide. There are no spells in this translation; however their presence and function are alluded to. There are claims that, in later years, more copies of the ‘Tablets have been found by fisherman around the Pacific Rim.

(Source: Lin Carter, “The Dweller in the Tomb”)

English; Harold Hadley Copeland: The Zanthu Tablets: A Conjectural Translation; 1926; 1d3/1d6 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +3 percentiles; 8 weeks to study and comprehend

Spells: None

Review "Penny Dreadful"

LOGAN, John (Creator), J.A. Bayona, Coky Giedroyc, James Hawes, Dearbhla Walsh (Dirs.) “Penny Dreadful”, 2014, Desert Wolf Productions/Neal Street Productions.

Question: What do you do if you want to make a TV series based on Alan Moore’s graphic work “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, but you don’t own the rights to it?

Answer: You do it regardless!

Seriously, if you’re an über-fan of Moore’s patchwork fantasy of literary superheroes, you shouldn’t look too closely at this show: there are strong ‘borrowings’ here that will make die-hard aficionados grit their teeth. Personally, I could almost care less, since – as Moore and his fans are also aware (or should be) – the framework for these types of shows is public domain material and so the story is what’s on show here, not the characters per se. For the record, I was not impressed by the film that came out a few years back with Sean Connery topping the bill: it bent Moore’s whole premise so far out of shape that it was painful to watch. In fact, I had to pretend I was watching some other show that merely borrowed from Moore’s comic in order to see it through. Coming to “Penny Dreadful” therefore, it kind of griped my cookies that this series also sneakily borrows from the movie version of the “League” in places, a fact which initially had my alarm bells ringing.

Let’s compare and contrast: In Moore’s comic we have Allan Quatermain, Mina Harker, Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll (and Mr Hyde) and all of their particular quirks which they bring to the tale. The movie version added Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray to the mix and radically altered the other personalities involved with varying (mostly limited) degrees of success. In “Penny Dreadful” we have Sir Malcolm Murray, African explorer and father of Mina Harker (née Murray); Vanessa Ives, childhood companion of Mina and sometime spiritual gateway to Forces From Beyond; Ethan Chandler, a trick-shooting American, lately detached from the travelling rodeo circus in which he performed; Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his rebellious Creature; and Dorian Gray. Along for the ride is Billie Piper playing Brona Croft, an Irish prostitute with tuberculosis.

From the foregoing, it’s easy to see that the roles and archetypes match pretty much point for point. John Logan takes a line from the “League” movie by inserting the gun-toting Yank and Dorian Gray; however, while the addition of this latter character to the film arguably was not a bad thing, here the suave Mr Gray is a messy addition that muddies the waters too much to no real effect (apart from titillation, of which, more anon). The real difference here is in the tone of the performances and the story being presented.

Sir Malcolm Murray fulfils the Quatermain role deftly, complete with mysterious African manservant and driven by a need to rescue his stricken daughter Mina, or avenge her death if rescue is not an option. Timothy Dalton is surprisingly perfect casting here, just arch enough to project the Victorian melodrama and brooding enough to sell the damaged psyche propelling him onwards. Eva Green who plays the equally-damaged Vanessa really cuts loose with the flip-flopping tortured repression and raw sexuality of this character and ends up treading a rather fine line. She has that brittle sort of beauty that can so easily shade into creepiness with just the quirk of an eyebrow. Josh Hartnett brings real down-to-earth physicality to his role – the hard-drinking, hard-bitten, guilt-ridden, ladies’ man types suit him perfectly. Along with these, guest stars like Alun Armstrong playing a tired Grand Guignol vaudeville actor and David Warner playing the “haematologist” van Helsing, not to mention Simon Russell Beale playing the spectacularly fey Egyptologist Ferdinand Lyle, are all luminous bright spots along the way.

As to the rest, I’m not so convinced. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) is too sniffy; the Creature (Rory Kinnear) too one-dimensional (but I kinda get that); Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) is all smarm and not much else. None of the actors really own these roles to any great degree and so they tend to fade a little into the background.

And, speaking of which, what a background it is! Finally, a London-based Victorian drama where the art directors bothered to look through Gustave Doré’s engravings of the city before getting to work! This version of London positively reeks: it makes you feel greasy just watching it! For starters, there is pea-soup fog – London particular – doing what it should do and doing it well. It coils and obscures; it reveals dramatically; it enfolds and haloes lights: the directors know exactly how to use the stuff for great effect. Next, there are rats: not just a few squeaking around the joint; limitless supplies of them crawling up the walls. I’ll admit the ratting scene - in which a terrier is cast into a rat pit while punters bet on how many rats it can kill within a designated time – was something I fast-forwarded through: it generally doesn’t bother me if a human character gets torn to shreds on the screen but I can’t watch any kind of cruelty to animals, even pretend versions. The constant shifting between the palatial homes of the well-to-do and the seedy dens of the impoverished is another strength here, painting the fine line which divides the Haves from the Have-Nots.

The horror shots are frankly spectacular also. Wherever there’s a Harker, you know that vampires are not too far behind and the show kicks off with Sir Malcolm, Vanessa and Ethan penetrating a vampire nest and dealing righteous vengeance. Here again the art directors and set designers hit all the right notes: these buggers are festy indeed, with piles of shredded corpses strewn around and plenty of creepy ghouls in the wings to keep them protected. These are leeches which really enjoy rolling around in their leftovers. The violence is visceral, dark and unflinching; this is one of those vehicles where you don’t want to get too attached.

There is a flip-side to all the death and dismemberment though, and that’s sex. Frankly I’m tired of it. Nowadays, if an episode of a TV show is running short by a handful of minutes, the creators just fill the gaps with sex; as “Game of Thrones” repeatedly demonstrates, if that sex can be non-consensual and violent, then all the better. I mean, I’m dragging my way through “Helix” at the moment and even in the midst of a grotesque viral outbreak, the cast see fit to fill in a few unoccupied minutes of dead air by doing the Wild Thing. Give me a break! In “Penny Dreadful”, sex is everywhere: Vanessa’s repressive guilt comes from her unrequited lesbian attachment to Mina; Sir Malcolm’s guilt comes from somewhere messy and vaguely incestuous; Ethan moons over Vanessa and makes do with Brona, herself suffering from the cruelty of lovers past; and Dorian Gray sleeps with all of them. Yes, it’s that kind of show, folks. You can easily develop carpal tunnel syndrome from constantly pressing the fast-forward button on the remote.

The advertising tag-line for this show when it first aired was “There is some thing within us all”; I assume that they weren’t referring to Dorian, but rather implying that sex is the root of all evil hang-ups.

It’s an unusual show in that it displays all kinds of excess; but while the sex is definitely gratuitous, the violence isn’t, despite being plentiful. I get the distinct feeling that Mr Logan knows his horror to a pitch-perfect degree, but that a bunch of studio execs were pushing the accelerator on the sex angle. And it’s not just endless parades of naked flesh and people humping either; the language turns the screen blue also. The scene wherein Vanessa is possessed by the dire spirit of Amunet can only be described as ‘brave’, seeing as it pushes the very extremities of acting credibility along with decency. Like I said: fine line. Douglas Adams mentions a trophy for the most gratuitous use of the F-bomb in a screenplay in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; “Penny Dreadful” has definitely scored a spot on the short-list for this award.

In the final analysis, I’m somewhat torn. I like the look of this show; I like most of the actors (even Timothy Dalton, who I find usually falls somewhere between “camp” and “high camp” in his performances); many of the ideas presented here are very cool (such as vaguely insectoid Egyptian vampires which hearken back to The Beetle). The scares are strong and very deftly presented; the tone and the look of the time and place are superbly captured. The interrelationships of the characters are complex and fascinating and don’t fall into place too easily or obviously – I didn’t spot who the werewolf was until after the second episode, for example. And I never felt that I was watching a tired rip-off of Alan Moore’s original idea.

But please, for God’s sake, would it have killed them to try and keep their clothes on?!

Three-and-a-half tentacled horrors.

Review: "The Relic"

HYAMS, Peter, Dir., “The Relic”, Paramount Pictures/Cloud Nine Entertainment/Pacific Western Productions, 1996

Everyone has a movie that makes them feel good. When it’s cold outside and you just want to snuggle up on the couch with a hot chocolate and a favourite film, everyone has their ‘go-to’ DVD. For some it’s the BBC’s “Pride and Prejudice”; for others it’s “The Sound of Music”. For me it’s Peter Hyam’s film adaptation of “The Relic”.

(What? Not snuggly enough for you? Bite me.)

There are a lot of things that are plenty ludicrous about this film: the premise is whacky; the McGuffin shouldn’t work; there are some gaffes in the performances. But still, apart from these things, the rest of it just works. It’s not anything especially to do with the director, and it’s certainly not the special effects; it’s the art direction, the actors and, more than anything else, it’s the writing.

This film is like a Swiss watch: every beat, every line of dialogue, every piece of action, dovetails into every other part and the whole just works a treat. That doesn’t mean that you can coast while the action unfolds: oh no, this is a film during which you need to pay attention; but, at the end of the day, if you come away from it saying “What? I don’t get it”, then you’ve got no-one to blame but yourself.

Let’s start with the cast. This could have been just another monster flick, but right from the start, the cast lifts it to another level. The four headline actors are deluxe thespians, with a wide range of delivery and expertise. When this film came out, Tom Sizemore wasn’t anybody special; it wasn’t ‘til his run in “Heat” that people sat up and took notice. Here he has two parts of a role that shouldn’t work together – hard-nose policeman plus superstitious crank – and he makes it happen. Penelope Anne Miller has plenty of experience playing the heroine in opposition to unearthly forces (exemplified by her amazing turn in “The Shadow”) and I’m guessing that she took what she learnt here about playing opposite rampaging hulks and put it to good use in “Kindergarten Cop”. She plays Dr Margo Green, an evolutionary biologist at the Natural History Museum in Chicago, struggling to obtain more funding for her lab project and dreading the need to schmooze for the cash at an upcoming gala. Then we get an Oscar® winner: Linda Hunt. As the diminutive head of the Museum, she could have gone several ways with this role – whiney walkover or ball-breaking bitch being the two obvious options. Instead, she completely humanises the character bringing to it a believability and compassion that not only works, but provides a solid backbone for all the other characters to bounce off. Finally, there’s James Whitmore as the curmudgeonly head of the Anthropology Department. Without this guy, our two leads don’t get to word one: Millers’ Dr Green has no time for superstition and Sizemore’s Sergeant d’Agusta doesn’t take well to those who dismiss his ‘gut feelings’. Whitmore is the bridge between them and the source of much humour along the way.

Singling these four out doesn’t, by any stretch, diminish the support players. There are many actors in the wings here and each of them has but a handful of lines and some movement to work with; nevertheless, there’s not a single instance where the player doesn’t take these broad strokes and breathe life into the role. The trash-talking coroner; the unscrupulous lab researcher; the Museum’s head of security; the two kids playing truant in the exhibition; the guy who wrangles the domestid beetles – every single one makes their character work.

One of my favourites is the City Mayor who’s an officious jerk, not afraid to throw his weight around and abuse his power to get what he wants. If you look closely and jog some brain cells, you’ll recognise him from “Die Hard” as the guy in the aeroplane at the beginning who spots Bruce Willis’ gun and who tells him to “make fists with his feet” to alleviate tiredness. He starts off this role as an arrogant son of a bitch but by the end he’s done a complete 180 and we’re all cheering for him.

If anything, there’re too many characters here and the sheer excess causes some detriment. The two ‘coffee cops’, uniformed shmos who share the love of a good cup of joe, are really wasted: we don’t get enough time with them to really grasp what they’re all about.They should have been left unsketched and then left to die dramatically; the extra information about them that we have is too much with no point. (Sorry: I should have said “spoiler alert” there, I guess; but seriously, if you can’t see the targets painted on the backs of these guys then you can’t call yourself a horror movie buff!)

The art direction and sets in this movie are pretty fantastic. The Museum and the “Superstitions” exhibition which it is displaying during the film are amazingly detailed and it’s obvious that much love went into making these backdrops happen. Like most movies of this type (“Alien”; “Deep Blue Sea”; “The Thing”), the setting becomes the unofficial ‘other character’ in the piece, and it pays to listen to the information that the actors provide about it. If you miss that line right at the beginning about the coal tunnels down at the harbour, you’ll be floundering later on.

My favourite bad moment in this flick is when the monster slices a SpecOps guy in half just when we think he’s made it to safety: his buddy takes in what’s left of him and then, with a ham sandwich tucked firmly into each cheek, emotes to the back row. ‘Makes me chuckle every time. I guess there’s nothing wrong with Juilliard handing out wetwork credentials along with acting ones in these straitened times; it certainly pays to diversify. Oh, and, um, “spoiler alert”.

The premise of the film is that there’s a fungus with a virus-like ability to blend the genotypes of creatures which ingest it and then produce an admixture of phenotypes, a blended aberration known as a ‘chimera’. Such a beastie wriggles its way into the basement of the Museum of Natural History and starts decimating the population, driven by a need for hormones to keep it intact, hormones which, we discover, are found abundantly in the human hypothalamus. Much head ripping ensues. This is, of course, all bollocks: the actors mutter fervently about “reverse transcriptase” as much as they can to lend credence to the theory, but this kind of a genetic nightmare is just not possible. Nevertheless, it’s one of only two things that the script asks us to take on faith and, in the end, it’s no more unpalatable than being asked to believe that the moon turns people into wolves: if you fight too hard against it, you’re not going to have a good time.

The other thing that threatens suspension of disbelief is the program that Dr Margo Green is throwing together with the aid of her grant. It’s a computerised system which analyses processed DNA samples and identifies the component genetic sequences found in those scrapings. In terms of the movie working, such a McGuffin has to be here or the big reveal about the monster would never happen; however, since my sister has been working on such a device for the last ten years, I’m in a privileged position to know that such a gizmo was not possible back in 1996. Still, the producers and researchers have done their work here, and, although it’s anachronistic, it looks and sounds at least credible. Again, if you want to hang your head and lament Hollywood’s abuse of Science while the film rolls, go ahead: it’s your dime.

The special effects are a bit ordinary too, but Stan Winston does his best. There are a few places where the beastie looks a bit iffy but by that token we might as well dismiss every film that was made before the advent of CGI. I do have a reservation at the point where they forget that it’s a gecko’s relatively light weight plus its special toe-pads which allow it to walk on walls, not the toe-pads alone: a 600 kilogram behemoth won’t creep blithely up a smooth surface no matter what kind of shoes you give it. But it’s a small quibble.

There are some moments which make me roll my eyes a bit: the fact that Margo’s nemesis in the academic grant stakes is Asian, that the black janitor is killed after smoking pot, and the fact that the monster has to dribble all over Margo during the final confrontation – this is all just Hollywood playing to expectations. If Guillermo del Toro had directed this, those two kids who sneak into the Museum while on the wallaby wouldn’t have come back out in one piece either – audience expectations certainly didn’t stop him in “Mimic”! If anything, it’s the fact that this movie doesn’t break any rules or stereotypes which makes it the perfect haunted house romp. If it had been a teensy bit braver in what it was doing, it wouldn’t be passing in and out of production as it has over the last few years.

My boss alerted me to the fact that this DVD was available again a few weeks ago and I demanded a copy forthwith. Having bought the VHS tape back in 1997, and not upgraded to DVD during the first release in that format, I was feeling bereft of my comfort viewing. Now, I no longer have to make do with a lesser vehicle when I feel like cocooning in my doona and slurping my cocoa. I can unleash the Kothoga anytime I like!

Four tentacled horrors.

Ancient Chinese Magic

From the earliest days in China magic was usually one of either two types: a learned style codified in books and experimentation called fangshi; and an innate, animistic form, much akin to shamanism, known as wu. Fangshi included alchemy, astrology, cosmology, divination, medicine and was largely indistinguishable from ‘science’, as we would term it; wu on the other hand was a spiritual process, involving sacrifice and mediumship. In time, fangshi would come to encompass Taoism and such disciplines as feng shui, but in the early days of Chinese Imperial history, it was a muddle of different disciplines codified and studied mainly by male members of the literati. Wu, on the other hand, was seen as more of an aboriginal talent, strongest amongst the barbarian outsiders, and the province mainly of women, who dispensed its arts of healing, midwifery and the tending of crops and livestock.

Fear of the potential abuse of power which these devotions represented, were the reason for some spectacular purges during the first dynasties, resulting in the extermination of entire families and bloodlines. Both fangshi and wu were thought capable of inflicting curses upon chosen targets and the drive to discover and terminate these evil practitioners was intense indeed.

There were three main forms of attacking victims using this ancient magic and they are as follows:

Invoking Curses

This is hard-core wu magic. The shaman summons evil spirits either by summoning them through the sacrifice of animals (generally cows), or by allowing them to possess an entranced medium and to use this purloined vessel to conjure the curse. In both cases, the efficacy of the spell is enhanced by performing a Rite of Propitiation to pacify the regional spirits and ask them to look the other way while such evil magic is being conjured in their territory. Additionally, these spells require something which is taken from the target – hair; blood; clothing – so that the curse will attach sympathetically to its object.

Rite of Propitiation (Chinese Wu)

The Rite requires the caster to purify the locale, by creating a circle of positive energy. This is done by sweeping a circular area with a new broom and sprinkling fresh water to the four compass points. Gold paper – paper replicas of cash, sometimes referred to as “Hell Money” - is burnt to appease the spirits which watch over the region. While this takes place, the caster chants constantly and expends 3 Magic Points. After this, the caster makes a Luck Roll: if successful, the Rite has worked. Once the purified zone has been established, its influence lasts until the next sunset; another attempt at this spell cannot be made until after the next sunrise.

The result of the Rite is to ensure the greater effectiveness of wu magic for the caster. A subsequent Ancient Curse has a base 40% chance of working; a Spirit Curse has a base 20% chance of working. Manikin-based spells of the wu variety are more likely to affect their chosen targets if cast after a Rite of Propitiation: the target’s Luck Roll against these spells is reduced to half its normal rate (rounded up).

Ancient Curse (Chinese Wu)

The Ancient Curse is a baneful influence over the target: by singling out the victim to maleficent spirits, the fortunes of the target begin to wane. The caster creates a small bag containing various herbs and small animal bones, along with a some of the target’s hair or fingernails, or a small item which belongs to them. While chanting, the caster expends up to 10 Magic Points and 1/1d6 SAN; for every Magic Point they spend on the spell, they pit a 10% chance of the spell working against the Luck of the target in the Resistance Table. Performing a Rite of Propitiation before the Ancient Curse, the spell has a base 40% chance of working.

If successful, the Ancient Curse lasts for 6+1d3 months. During this time, every roll the victim makes is rolled twice and the lowest result taken; their Luck Rolls are halved (rounded down); all monetary negotiations and transactions made by the character will result in at least a 20% detriment against them; and all interpersonal and communications skills will suffer a 20% penalty. Once the duration of the Curse has ended, the bag and all of its contents disintegrates into dust. The only way to lift the Curse is to find and destroy the bag; some warding magicks or magical blessings might remove the influence at the Keeper’s discretion.

Spirit Curse (Chinese Wu)

To cast this spell, the caster needs to act as a medium to house evil spirits; alternatively, they may call upon the aid of another individual to act as a medium on their behalf. The medium enters a trance (due to chanting, dancing or the inhalation of drugged incense) and evil spirits enter the vessel. During the chanting from 1 to 10 Magic Points are spent; for each Magic Point, a d10 is rolled: if the first roll is greater than 1, an evil spirit enters the medium; if the next roll does not equal 1 or 2, another spirit enters; the next roll admits a spirit on any roll greater than 3, and so on. Once a spirit fails to enter, or when the number of rolls equals the Magic Points expended, the process stops.

The spell requires a piece of the victim – hair; fingernails; skin – or a personal item taken from them. Using this item, the evil spirits focus upon their target, leave the medium and begin to adversely affect the victim. Each of the spirits focuses upon a particular skill of the victim: the level of that skill is matched upon the Resistance Table against the power of the spirits, which is equal to the Magic Points invested in the Curse multiplied by 10 (a Rite of Propitiation successfully cast before the Spirit Curse gives this spell a base 20% effectiveness). If successful, the spirits then begin to obsess the victim, giving them strange visions whenever they try to use the afflicted skill: guns seem to writhe and turn into snakes; maps and charts seem to blur and move; hands start to tremble uncontrollably whenever an attempt at First Aid is tried. These incidents are shocks worth 0/1d2 points of SAN but, as weeks go by, these visions and the penalties steadily increase until the target develops a phobia concerning the skills over which they formerly held sway.

If the character makes their SAN Roll when trying to use one of the affected skills, they may then utilise the skill as usual; they may even gain experience and increase the level of the skill as per normal. However, if they fail the SAN Roll, they may not use the skill and may go insane, either temporarily or permanently, as per the usual rules.

The spell is permanent until any of the following takes place: the target undergoes an Exorcism or some other magical process which casts out possessing spirits; they enter a holy place which is anathema to the possessing spirits; or they win the favour of the caster, who may dismiss the spirits at any time they choose with but a word. At the Keeper’s discretion, some magical wards may quell the effect for a certain duration.

Manikins

There are a number of different spells which are invoked by creating a wooden or paper figure and imbuing it with the power of evil over its target. These are not like Western “Voodoo Dolls” but are the created vessels of inimical spirit energies which cast a malefic influence over the target. There are wu and fangshi versions of this magic; wu styles involve a vaguely human figure carved from wood, while fangshi practitioners often use human figures cut from paper and covered with script, although they might also use the wooden manikin, covering it with inked characters.

The wu versions of this spell are somewhat fraught with inexactitude: once the manikin is made and enchanted, it must be hidden within the house of the target or buried in the earth alongside a road or path which the target is known to tread. When the target passes by or nears the manikin, thus activating the spell, they must make a Luck Roll to avoid becoming the target of the baneful magic. If they succeed, another nearby entity attracts the spell and becomes its focus instead. The fangshi versions, wherein writing is involved explicitly identifying the target, have no such issues.

Manikin of Ill Fortune (Chinese Fangshi)

The manikin – either a wooden figure or paper cut-out – is inscribed with writing, using a pear-wood pen (pear wood is considered to be spiritually “neutral” or pure). The text of the spell must identify the target using references to their ancestry. This figure is then buried in the earth at a point where the target will pass by, or is hidden within the target’s home. When the target passes within 2 metres (6 feet) of the manikin, the spell activates.

Creating the manikin requires that 1 POW is sacrificed by the caster and imbued within the image; additionally, during the writing process, 10 Magic Points are expended along with 0/1d3 SAN. Once the spell has been activated, the victim suffers a -20% penalty on all of their physical skill rolls (Dodge; Throw; Shoot; Drive; etc.) and none of their Luck Rolls will succeed from that time on. The spell can be broken only by finding and completely destroying the manikin.

Manikin of Haunting (Chinese Wu)

By means of trances and chanting, evil spirits are summoned and housed within the wooden manikin figure. This costs the caster 15 Magic Points and 1/1d4 SAN. After this ceremony, the manikin is hidden in the earth near where the intended target will pass by, or in the target’s home. When the target, or some other person, passes with 2 metres (6’) of the figure, the evil spirits will emerge and begin to haunt the victim in the manner of a poltergeist.

The victim will be followed by strange knocking and rapping sounds; muttered, indecipherable conversation will float around them; small objects, such as stones, rice, or cutlery, will shower down around them, whether inside or out. Furniture will start to throw itself at the target and doors will shut and refuse to open in the target’s presence; even stranger, objects such as bowls or books will throw themselves through the air and seem to pass through walls, or cracks and other openings far too small to admit them. Finally, objects near the victim will spontaneously burst into flame.

The only way to stop these attacks is to locate the manikin and destroy it. Other magicks designed to ward or protect areas against evil spirits will halt the onslaught for a single day, after which the cycle will begin once more. If, by Luck, the intended victim avoids becoming the focus for the poltergeist but another member of the household is targeted, the caster of the spell may well be content to leave it at that, since the disturbance will most likely encompass the target anyway.

Manikin of the Yanmei (Chinese Wu)

This spell must be cast at night within a graveyard. The ritual infuses the manikin with one sacrificed point of POW and 10 Magic Points; this costs the caster 1d6/1d8 SAN. At the height of the ceremony, the spirit of a vengeful spectre arises and is bound within the wooden manikin, thereby becoming a yanmei, or ‘spectre in submission’.

The manikin is hidden in the usual fashion. If successfully cast against the target, the yanmei starts to visit the victim starting on the night of the next new moon. While they sleep, the yanmei breathes the ‘odour of death’ into their mouth and nose, slowly robbing them of their life force. Each morning, the victim awakens, having experienced horrible nightmares, and a randomly-determined statistic will have been reduced by 0-2 points (roll 1d3). Once one of their statistics is reduced by 50%, the victim begins to see images of the dead around them – in mirrors; reflections; in dreams – and each incident incurs a 1/1d4 SAN penalty. When a statistic reaches 4 points, the victim becomes bedridden and all skills are halved; when a statistic reaches 0, the victim dies and the yanmei is released from its duty.

As per usual, the only way to end the haunting is to locate and destroy the manikin. This frees the yanmei, at which point the caster must make a Luck Roll or find themselves to be the target of the creature’s assault. Traditional wardings and other protections against the undead will temporarily avail the victim, but the attacks will start again at the next new moon following. If rescued from the yanmei, the victim will recover at a rate of one attribute point per week; however, one stat will have been permanently reduced by 1d4 points and this should be determined randomly.

Demonic Manikin (Chinese Fangshi)

Again, since the heredity of the target is inscribed on the wooden or paper manikin, the target of this spell is never in doubt. The spell creates an hideous demon which attacks the target immediately that the spell is activated. The caster sacrifices 2 POW to the manikin, along with 25 Magic Points (spent over time during the manikin’s creation) and 1d4/1d6 SAN. The manikin should be made of pear-wood, or inscribed on paper using a pear-wood brush or pen.

Depending upon which type of manikin is used, the demon appears to be made either out of wood, or of paper. It appears suddenly next to the target and begins its attack, but it can only do so during the hours of darkness. Magical wards and shielding may keep it at bay, but it is otherwise resolute in its purpose and capable of great cunning.

Depending upon the target (or the whim of the Keeper) the demon may appear in a myriad different forms: it might appear as a giant warrior, or a great beast; it might seem to be a dragon, or an hideous hag. Regardless, the damage it inflicts is the same. Of particular interest is the fact that nothing the target can do – weapon; spell; device – is of any use in repelling the creature: all their efforts will avail them naught. Their friends might fare better and they may also discover that the demon is especially vulnerable to fire, taking double damage from such attacks. Nonetheless, even if they seem to have destroyed it, it will return the next night and start its attack once more.

The only way to end the assaults is to destroy the manikin with fire. This is not so easily done, since, having been imbued with spirit, the image moves around and follows the target closely, mystically attuned to their location and never straying more than 100 metres (300’) from their vicinity. During its prowling, it uses the following skills: Hide 80%; Sneak 80%; Dig 75% (if a wooden figure), or Float On The Breeze 75% (if made of paper).

Gu

The Chinese word gu has come to mean a variety of different things over time, including emanations of evil, the casting of spells and the evil spirits of criminals whose decapitated heads have been impaled on poles. It has even come to mean ‘black magic’ generally. During the first dynasties however, it had a specific meaning, that of “poisoning magic”.

Create Gu-Creature (Chinese Fangshi)

The character for the word “gu” is explicitly tied to this form of magic. In ideographic fashion it depicts three winged insect-like creatures hovering over a pot. This is derived expressly from the process of creating a Gu-creature.

First, the caster must make a large pot with a lid that can be sealed tightly; while creating this item, they must expend 2 points of POW and infuse the pot with at least 25 Magic Points (this need not be done all at once). Next they must find one each of the “Five Poisonous Creatures” – a Centipede; a Scorpion; a Snake; a Spider; and a Toad – and place them alive within the pot, which is then sealed. The pot is then buried and left alone for a year.

At the end of the year, the pot is unearthed and opened by the caster: within will be found a single surviving creature which, having ingested the potency of the defeated animals, will have grown in power and dangerousness. The type of creature can be determined on the following table:

01-20%	Centipede
21-40%	Scorpion
41-60%	Snake
61-80%	Spider
81-00%	Toad

The gu-creature obeys the telepathic commands of its creator and can be sent to attack anyone who offends its master. Generally, the gu-creature will attempt to insinuate itself within its target’s home, wait for the best opportunity to attack, and then escape. Anyone besides the creator who touches the gu-creature must make a Luck Roll or suffer a POT 20 poisoning; the bite or sting of the gu-creature is POT 40. If killed, the gu-creature exhales or emits a 3-metre (10’) diameter cloud of POT 30 poisonous gas.

A notorious trick of the gu-creature is to burrow into the body of its victim while they are asleep; thereafter they nestle amongst the victim’s intestines, slowly oozing poison until the victim dies in exquisite agony; this can take up to a month. After death occurs, the gu-creature awaits a convenient time to emerge then creeps away.