The Eltdown Shards is a Mythos
text that was created by Richard F. Searight in his story “The Sealed Casket”. Like many Mythos elements, divers hands have
worked upon it over time with the result that a confusion of details has
occurred and a complex knot of information needs to be teased apart in order to
make sense of it. In this instance there is a confusion as to the date of the
text’s discovery and whether it took place in England, Greenland, or the
American Midwest. There is also a question as to the original authorship. A
main issue is that the ‘Shards have
been conflated with Brian Lumley’s G’Harne
Fragments (also known as the Sussex
Fragments) and this has caused massive confusion. As I do every time I
approach one of these dissections, I start from a position where every
published fact becomes canon and I try to massage that information into a
sequence that is logical and which rings true.
There
is an argument that the Eltdown Shards
should be considered as part of the Pnakotica
and I touched on them in this context in a previous post. This overview
slightly modifies that earlier information and rounds it out more fully. Most
online discussions of the ‘Shards play coy with the Wisconsin academic institution which houses the original shards,
calling it “Baloin”, or “Beloin College”; there is a college in Wisconsin – Beloit College – which is obviously the
archetype for this place and so I have restored it correctly (along with its
Logan Museum of Anthropology) to the narrative. I hope the community at Beloit
approve of suddenly attaining a bit of Mythos notoriety!
Finally, I would like to point out that this
information is not canon, just my interpretation of a bunch of (sometimes incompatible)
details. If it works for the purposes of your storytelling then by all means
use it; if not, then just think of it as an interesting intellectual exercise.
History.
The
history of this text has been obscured by an egregious instance of wilful academic
misconduct. Two researchers, Doctors Woodford and Dalton, encountered the shards
whilst in Britain, preparing for a geological expedition to Greenland. They
discovered the fragments while staying in the Sussex village of Eltdown. From
their discussions with the locals there, they determined that the pottery
pieces had been unearthed from nearby fields and other construction works
dating back to around 1882. The local townsfolk referred to them as “fairy
pieces” and many families in the area kept them as tokens of good luck. Woodford
and Dalton arranged to privately purchase as many pieces of the text as
possible from the locals and smuggled them back to Beloit College in Wisconsin,
their base of operations. Initially, Dalton was quoted in a London newspaper
article as having discovered the fragments in Greenland during their 1903 investigation;
later, publishing their findings in an initial paper, they both declared that
the pieces had been found in a gravel pit within a stratum of earth dating from
the Triassic Period near the small town of Eltdown in Illinois.
The
Eltdown Shards – an overview
This
monograph – given the shenanigans going on in the background – is terse and summarily
executed. It provides a catalogue of all 23 fragments returned to Beloit
College, giving their weight and dimensions with a rudimentary summation of the
various characters depicted upon them. This listing is not of any particular
use to translators as the characters need to be read in relation to each other
to provide meaning. There are several engraved depictions of a few of the pieces,
but these are small and not particularly detailed. In summation, the authors
pronounced the shards to be “untranslatable”.
English; Drs. Woodford & Dalton;
1908; 0/1 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +0 percentiles; 1 week to study and
comprehend
Spells: None
In the
wake of the paper’s publication, the fragments went on show at the Logan Museum
of Anthropology at Beloit College where they attracted some passing interest. The
two ‘discoverers’ of the pieces seemed unusually willing to remove themselves
from any involvement with the find and left the college soon after to pursue
other avenues of research. While on display, many outside individuals took
sketches and photographs of the pieces and soon a plethora of manuscript ‘translations’
of the hieroglyphs began to appear along the eastern seaboard of the USA,
claiming to have interpreted the writings. Most of these documents circulated
exclusively through various occult communities with unknown effectiveness,
while a few made it into print as catchpenny pamphlets claiming to give the
purchaser the ability to find buried treasure or to summon the dead.
English; manuscript, unknown
transcribers and translators; 1908-1915; 1/1D2 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +1
percentiles; 3 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells: 20% chance of Contact Yithian being present
English; cheaply-printed pamphlet, unknown
transcribers and translators; 1908-1915; 0/1 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +0
percentiles; 1 week to study and comprehend
Spells: None of any effectiveness
In the
wake of the appearance of these grimoires, a Professor Turkoff, in residence at
Beloit College from Miskatonic University at the time, was given permission to
perform a “psychic evaluation” of the fragments. This was a fairly regular
occurrence during this period when Spiritualist notions flourished, although
not considered entirely rigorously academic – even Percy Fawcett consulted a
mystic before setting off on his expedition to South America. Through the
agency of a medium, Turkoff was able to determine that the pottery shards had
been manufactured by an alien race resident upon the Earth in the eons before
the rise of humanity. He arranged for five of the shards – numbers 1, 3, 5, 19
and 23 - to be sent to Miskatonic University in order that the text could be
compared against various writings held in the restricted section of the Orne
Library. With these pieces removed to that other institution, the Logan Museum pulled
the rest of the shards from public view – the display had been attracting too
much attention of a decidedly unsavoury nature.
Meanwhile,
in England, prompted by discovery of one of the cheaply-produced grimoires and
memories of the London Times newspaper
article in which Dalton had claimed to have discovered the shards in Greenland,
cleric and amateur antiquarian Rev. Arthur Brooke Winters-Hall began to investigate
the source of the pottery fragments. A Sussex resident himself, he had heard
stories about the village of Eltdown and its “fairy pieces” and so he went
there to talk about them with the townsfolk. He soon cottoned-on to what
Woodford and Dalton had been up to, and began a new investigation, organising
the local people into an informal archaeological dig which lasted from 1908
until after the Great War. He unearthed another 42 fragments of pottery from
deep within Triassic Era soil strata and began his efforts to translate them, a
task which took him from 1912 to 1917 to accomplish.
On Fragments
Discovered in Sussex, also called the Eltdown Sherds
This
work was self-published by Winters-Hall as a thick quarto pamphlet in a print
run of only 350 copies. It provides detailed analysis of each fragment found by
the author and a complex dissection of the hieroglyphs and their translation. The
translated text discusses certain pre-human races dwelling upon the Earth in
past times as well as giant worm-like creatures called the “Spawn of Yekub” and
their use of strange cubes to project their minds across the universe. The text
also tells of the Great Race of Yith and of their origins.
Upon
its release, the Reverend’s efforts were met with general disdain from academia,
a common sticking-point being that the translated text was much longer than the
original collection of hieroglyphs. Winters-Hall’s insistence upon calling the
shards “The Sussex Fragments” also meant that his efforts became confused with
another work of that title, along with the “Sussex
Manuscript”, a notorious translation of the Necronomicon. The Reverend finally walked away from the project
altogether, donating his collection of fragments to the British Museum where
they reside to this day.
English; Rev. Arthur Brooke
Winters-Hall (trans.); 1917; 1d4/1d8 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +11 percentiles;
6 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells: Contact
Yithian
In the
wake of the translation’s publication, a linguist at Miskatonic University
named Gordon Whitney, a specialist in ancient scripts, stumbled upon the pieces
contained in the Orne Library which had been left there after Professor Turkoff’s
investigations. Whitney travelled to Beloit College to examine the rest of the
collection; while there, he discovered a copy of Winters-Hall’s publication and
began to examine the shards in detail.
In the
course of his studies, Whitney created the cataloguing system which now
organises the fragments. The pieces located in Wisconsin and Massachusetts are
numbered 1-23; those held by the British Museum in London are numbered 24-51; where
the fragments contain duplicated information, the London pieces are identified
with a lower-case ‘s’ for ‘Sussex’. Thus, fragment 8 of the Wisconsin
collection is mirrored by fragment ‘s.8’ of the London set. In total, there are
seven replicated shards: numbers s.2, s.5, s.8, s.10, s.17, s.20 and s.21.
It
should be noted that Whitney’s focus upon the shards was not to discover what information was contained on the
fragments, but to unlock the written language
upon them. He returned to Arkham and concentrated his efforts upon the largest shards
kept there – numbers 5 and 19 – and, in translating them, corroborated much of
Winters-Hall’s work.
Whitney’s
published work on the Eltdown Shards, while not comprehensive, provides an exhaustive
overview of the hieroglyphs on the fragments and the manner in which they work
to convey meaning. The translations which he provides outline a terrible entity
named “Avaloth”, some discussion of the Great Race of Yith and incomplete
information concerning a being entitled “the Warder of Knowledge”, including a fragmentary
spell for summoning it – the dismissal component of the ritual is missing. After
its publication by the Miskatonic University Press in 1920, Whitney retired
prematurely to South Africa where he later died.
The
Eltdown Shards – A Partial Translation
English; Gordon Whitney; 1920;
1d2/1d4 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +4 percentiles; 4 weeks to study and
comprehend
Spells: Summon
“Warder of Knowledge” (incomplete)
With
the publishing of Whitney’s work, increasing attention was focused upon the shards
and their background. Inevitably, the fact of Woodford and Dalton’s academic
misconduct came to light and Beloit College resident Dr. Everett Sloan was
charged with getting to the bottom of things. He travelled to Eltdown in
Illinois, discovering only a ghost town without a gravel pit to its name, and then
went to the British Museum to see the fragments held there, from which he took
extensive rubbings and photolithographic renderings. Sloan’s concerns were
primarily with examining the conduct of Woodford (now deceased) and Dalton
(departed to parts unknown), and the validation of Whitney’s work; in his zeal,
and thrown off by the reference to Winters-Hall’s work as The Sussex Fragments, he was unaware of Winters-Hall’s previous
work until his own book went to print; a second-state issue of the title in the
same year contains a revised Introduction
which incorporates the Reverend’s observations.
In the
final analysis, Sloan was able to show that Woodford and Dalton had falsified
their discovery in order to keep the fragments to themselves, later to try and
walk away from the whole situation and the potential scandal it would inevitably
invoke. He combed-through Whitney’s work in translating the text and found it
to be everything required of such an enterprise, and a worthy effort in
linguistics. Later, in the revised Introduction,
he was also able to praise the work of Arthur Brooke Winters-Hall and remove
years of acrimony levelled at the cleric.
As to
the text contained upon the fragments themselves, Sloan doesn’t go into the
material too much, except to corroborate Whitney’s findings. He does provide a
gloss of the material contained on each fragment, prefaced with an image of the
shard in question and a collation of the hieroglyphs written upon it. There is
also a revised History of the finding
of the shards and a distancing of Beloit College from the actions of Woodford
and Dalton.
A
Re-evaluation of the Eltdown Shards
English; Dr Everett Sloan; 1922;
1/1d4 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos +3 percentiles; 3 weeks to study and
comprehend
Spells: None
Content.
So much
for the history of the Eltdown Shards discovery. The shards themselves are iron-hard
fragments of pottery of a dark grey colour, incised with hieroglyphs seemingly
contained within an engraved border. All of the pieces are broken, and some are
mere chips; their original shape has been hypothesised as being pentagonal, but
there is no longer any way to be sure. The border occasionally cuts across the
text in a blank band; the text sometimes meets the border at ninety-degrees;
sometimes the text abuts the border at an oblique angle. There is little
consistency.
The
size of the individual shards varies widely. While many pieces are unreadably
small - containing only one or two - sometimes partial – hieroglyphs, or
sections of the border - the larger pieces range from the roughly rectangular Shard
5 (10cm x 20cm) to the largest piece, Shard 14, a triangular slab 51cm across.
Shard 19 is vaguely square – about 31cm – but with the lower portion sheared
off.
The text
contained on the shards discusses matters pertinent to the early formation of
the planet and the races who throve there before the rise of humankind, or
rather, this current iteration of humankind. There are references to the
Lemurians, Serpent People and the Tsathoggua-worshipping Voormis. Shard number
2 (and s.2) talk at length of the Great Race of Yith, their arrival on the
planet Earth and their battles with the Flying Polyps. Related to this piece is
Shard 19 which contains a spell for summoning an entity called “The Warder of
Knowledge” which would seem to be of Yithian origin; however, the spell’s
dismissal component is missing and the spell – as far as is known – has never
been cast.
Shard
number 5 outlines the distasteful behaviour of a voracious demonic entity
entitled “Avaloth”. The being is not physically described, but it is revealed
that the creature can cover vast territories with “living ice and snow”. Some
esoteric groups have read this as indicating that Avaloth is an avatar of, or a
secret name for, Ithaqua. There is mention also of another demon named “Zubnian”
contained upon the shards held in the British Museum; these sections reveal how
both Zubnian and Avaloth were opposed
by the Lemurian wizard Om Oris and driven off for a time.
Shards
number 43, 44 and 47, in the British Museum, discuss the Spawn of Yekub and the
means whereby they exchange consciousnesses with other races. The information
tells of members of the Great Race of Yith discovering one of the small, transparent
cubes which the Yekubians use to effect this exchange, learning of its function
and then locking it away in a great basalt city where it will cause no danger. The
text reveals that the cube was subsequently lost when the Great Race fled the Earth
and that its whereabouts are currently unknown. Shard number 17 (and s.17)
tells of the Great Old One Ossadogawah, under the name “Zvilpoggua”.
Question
as to the authorship of the Eltdown Shards is ongoing and largely confined to various
esoteric and occult communities outside of mainstream academia. A prevailing
theory is that the ‘Shards were compiled by members of the Elder Thing race,
and there is evidence to support this idea; others – notably the shadowy
Fraternal Order of Librarians - claim that the Great Race of Yith wrote the text
and that the work should therefore be included within that body of knowledge called
The Pnakotica. Occam’s Razor would
seem to side with the latter position but the case for Elder Thing involvement
is quite compelling:
First,
where the text mentions the Great Race, the tone is distant and detached, as if
the writer were taking an observer’s position from outside of that culture. Second,
the hieroglyphs are arranged in a fivefold grid across the shards rather than
being written side-by-side or one under the other in series. The notion that
the shards were originally pentagonal also underscores the idea of authorship
by the quinquepedalian Elder Things. The crucial point, however, is the
language of the text.
While
Winters-Hall, Whitney and Sloan all succeeded in translating the text to a
degree, they were all unaware that this form of writing had already been identified
earlier, although not necessarily in academic circles. The text of the ‘Shards is that system of encoding
information known as “Pnakotic B”. This code was invented by the Great Race of
Yith as a means of recording information in any language which they might
encounter in their explorations. There are two versions of the code: “Pnakotic
A” is reserved for writing in the Yithian idiom and only by members of the
Great Race; “Pnakotic B” is a form of the code usable by other races who lack
the Yithian’s peculiar neurological makeup. Research (by Drs. Schwarzwalder,
Roshenplatt, Tripleten and Pelton-d’Est – see below) has shown that the human
mind is incapable of reading Pnakotic A without encountering serious neural
damage and this begs the question that the author of the Eltdown Shards was, therefore, not a Yithian, or that the text was
written for non-Yithian readers. Taken with the other peculiarities mentioned
above, the idea of Elder Thing authorship – while not conclusively proven - holds
up.
Analysis
of the Manuscript of the “Pnakotoi”
German; Dr. J. T. Schwarzwalder;
1895; 1/1d4 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos
+3 percentiles; 30 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells: None
The
Pnakotic Manuscripts: A New Revised Study
English; Dr. Dieter M. Roshenplatt;
1922; 0/1 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos
+0 percentiles; 12 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells: None
“Aphasiological
Considerations of the Pnakotoi”
English; Dr. Thomas E. Tripleten;
1931; 1/1d4 Sanity loss; Cthulhu Mythos
+1 percentiles; 20 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells: None
The
Mathematics of the Pnakotic Manuscripts
English; Harriet M. Pelton-d’Est,
PhD; 1958; 0/1d2 Sanity loss; Cthulhu
Mythos +1 percentiles; 30 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells: None
(For further information concerning these texts, see
my previous post “The Pnakotica”)
Spells.
Call
Deity Spells:
Call spells bring the avatar, god, or
Great Old One before the caster. Casting this type of spell is perilous indeed,
even for cultists. Only cult priests or desperate people should choose to call
a Mythos deity. A group can assist by adding power to Call spells, with the caster acting as the focus for the group.
Everyone present expends 1 Magic Point. Those who know the spell can sacrifice
any number of Magic Points (including by burning Hit Points). The total of the Magic
Points spent is the percentage chance that the spell works. For each Magic Point
spent, the group must chant for a minute, but never for more than 100 minutes.
On a roll of 100 the spell will always fail with all Magic Points sacrificed for
the spell lost. The caster also loses 1D10 Sanity points in casting the spell.
Everyone present loses Sanity points if the deity appears. Mostly, when a
Mythos deity arrives on Earth, it wants to stay and is usually hungry.
“Invoke the Ice Demon, Avaloth” (Call
Deity: Ithaqua)
Cost:
1+ magic points per person; 1D10 Sanity points (caster only)
Casting time:
1-100 minutes
Focuses the attention of Ithaqua; however, the
presence of the Great Old One may be noticed only as a whirlwind or strong icy
wind. The spell must be cast on an enormous mound of snow (minimum 10 feet
high). Legend states that the spell may only be performed in the far north of
the world, when temperatures are below freezing. Some wizards conjecture that
Ithaqua might be invoked from any high, snowy mountain, even those in the South
Pole.
“Bring Forth Zvilpoggua” (Call Deity:
Ossadogawah)
Cost: 1+ magic
points per person (min. 13); 1D10 Sanity points (caster only)
Casting time: 1-100 minutes
Creates
a channel to Ossadogawah. Must be cast at night under an open sky when the star
Algol is above the horizon. Thirteen casters are required to perform the spell.
Ossadogowah will wing down from above. A suitable sacrifice (alive and equal to
30 points of SIZ) must be offered in order to placate it.
“The Forbidden Lure of Zubnian” (Call
Deity: Rhan Tegoth)
Cost: 1+ magic
points per person; 1D10 Sanity points (caster only)
Casting time: 1-100 minutes
Attracts
the attention of Rhan Tegoth. The spell must be cast before an image of the deity
upon which the caster must drip some of their blood. The spell only works in
sub-zero temperatures. If the contactor fails a Luck Roll at the end of the spell’s casting, Rhan Tegoth sends a
gnoph-keh to the caster instead.
“Evoke the Sleeper of N’kai” (Call
Deity: Tsathoggua)
Cost: 1+ magic
points per person; 1D10 Sanity points (caster only)
Casting time: 1-100 minutes
Opens
communication with Tsathoggua. The caster chants the spell while burning rare
incense. Tsathoggua may appear in spirit form as a hazy and translucent
projection of his real self, to which normal Sanity losses apply. There is
always a 50% chance that Tsathoggua will be hungry. He usually visits only if
the caster is alone but will speak audibly to the caster.
Dismiss
Deity Spells:
A deity
who does not want to leave Earth may be Dismissed.
Every Dismiss spell differs; the
caster must know the specific Dismiss
spell for the particular deity. First, allot 1 Magic Point per 25 POW (round
down) possessed by the deity. This grants an initial 5% chance to Dismiss the god and it opens the way for
the deity’s disappearance.
Once
the way is prepared, the sacrifice of more Magic Points can tempt the deity
into departure. In this, the second stage, each new Magic Point sacrificed
increases the chance that the deity leaves by 5 percentiles. Sacrificing 10
more Magic Points adds 50 percentiles to the chance. As with the Call Deity version of the spell, a group
of people can assist one another to cast Dismiss
Deity. Roll 1D100 against the total chance for the dismissal. As with Call Deity, the caster is the focus of
the spell; other members of the group can contribute Magic Points. Dismiss Deity costs no Sanity points. Call Deity spells always require special
conditions and rituals; however, the Dismiss
portion of the spell can be cast anytime, anywhere.
“The Curse of Om
Oris” (Dismiss Deity: Ithaqua)
Cost: 1 or more
Magic Points per person.
Casting time: 1 minute plus 1 extra round per
participant who donates Magic Points
Requires
a source of flame which will flare up dramatically towards Ithaqua as the Curse is completed
“To Banish Zvilpoggua” (Dismiss
Deity: Ossadogawah)
Cost: 1 or more
Magic Points per person.
Casting time: 1 minute plus 1 extra round per
participant who donates Magic Points
A bolt
of lightning from the heavens strikes Ossadogawah, obliterating its corporeal
form.
“The Sigil of Om Oris” (Dismiss
Deity: Rhan Tegoth)
Cost: 1 or more
Magic Points per person.
Casting time: 1 minute plus 1 extra round per
participant who donates Magic Points
The Sigil is traced upon the ground in blood
by the caster; as it vanishes, so too does the deity.
“Repudiate the Great Toad!” (Dismiss
Deity: Tsathoggua)
Cost: 1 or more
Magic Points per person.
Casting time: 1 minute plus 1 extra round per
participant who donates Magic Points
If this
Dismissal fails, Tsathoggua will be
extremely angered and will attack the caster immediately.
Contact
Spells:
Contact spells allow a metaphysical
practitioner to get in touch with monsters and alien races, perhaps to learn
about magic, gods, or alien species. The caster should have a definite goal in
mind; bargains might be struck and plans negotiated. Contact spells do not give the caster the upper hand though; the
spell is merely a method of establishing contact. This is distinctly different from
Summoning spells that have the
potential to allow casters to bind the Summoned
beings to their will. Procedures are much the same for each Contact spell, though particular
conditions, or requirements, may be unique. Knowing one Contact spell is of no help in casting another. Many versions of Contact spells exist.
Cast
properly this spell always works, unless there are no such things living within
a convenient distance (Flying Polyps might journey from the City in the Sands
to some other part of Australia but might ignore a call to fly to North
America). A Contact spell takes five
to ten rounds to cast. The thing reached by the spell may appear in a game hour,
or take a game day or more, to show up. For a random appearance in hours, roll
1D100. Entities living nearby will walk, swim, dig, or fly to the spell point.
If the trip is too long, the thing called by the spell never shows up. Things
from other dimensions can appear in any characteristic or evocative manner.
The
spell brings a random member of the species, presumably with its own motives. The
caster should try to be alone, or to be with no more than a small group, in
order not to seem threatening. Once the Contacted
thing appears, it is free to depart, so if the caster has something to offer
it, the chances for an extended meeting greatly improve. If a Contacted species is large, such as a Flying
Polyp, only one will likely appear. If it is human-sized or smaller, the Keeper
may determine if several representatives arrive as a group.
There
is no guarantee that a Contacted
entity would rather bargain with, or devour, the caster. It will have an alien
motivation; however, if further interaction seems of advantage to both sides,
then some interesting roleplaying may emerge. As mentioned, each version of the
spell requires certain conditions to be in place for it to work.
“Chant of the Five-fold Ones” (Contact
Elder Thing)
Cost: 3 Magic
Points
Sanity cost:
1D3 (plus more to view the monster)
Casting time: 1D6 + 4 rounds
Unless
there are no Elder Things nearby, the chanting succeeds automatically. The most
likely locations are along the southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge or over
the geological trenches nearest Antarctica.
“Call of Ophis” (Contact Serpent
Person)
Cost: 3 Magic Points
Sanity cost:
1D3 (plus more to view the monster)
Casting time: 1D6 + 4 rounds
Unless
there are no Serpent People nearby, the chanting succeeds automatically.
Serpent People may be encountered anywhere, but usually in remote, warm
locales.
“The Song of Voormithadreth” (Contact
Voormi)
Cost: 5 Magic
Points
Sanity cost:
1D3 (plus more to view the monster)
Casting time: 1D6 + 4 rounds
Unless
there are no Voormis nearby, the chanting succeeds automatically. Voormis are
incredibly rare in the modern Waking World, but they can be found in remote
parts of Earth’s Dreamlands.
“Speak to the Masters of Time” (Contact
Yithian/Great Race of Yith)
Cost: 5 Magic
Points
Sanity cost:
1D3 (plus more to view the monster)
Casting time: 1D6 + 4 rounds
Unless
there are no Yithians nearby, the chanting succeeds automatically. The caster
of this spell creates a psychic beacon that extends from their locus out the
horizon in all directions: any member of the Great Race within this compass –
either in its native form or in possession of another creature - will detect
the call and may, if they so choose, home in on its source.
If cast
while under the influence of the drug Liao, the summons can also extend through
time, either ahead to the future, or back into the past. This requires the
expenditure of POW: 1 POW creates a ‘radius’ of 1 year, ahead or back; 2POW
encompasses 10 years; 3 provides a range of 100 years, and so on, in a
logarithmic progression. When establishing a new office, the Fraternal Order of
Librarians normally cast this spell to attract the attention of any Yithians in
the vicinity. Of course, standard protections against attracting the attention
of the Hounds of Tindalos should be observed.
Summoning
Spells:
Such
spells concern themselves with alien races and attendants - those monsters that
commonly serve greater monsters, or wizards. The general procedures for these spells
are the same, but conditions may vary from spell to spell. Knowing one such
spell is of no use whatsoever in attempting to cast another. Unless the Keeper
wishes otherwise, the Summon and the Bind portions of each spell are learned
together.
These
spells require the sacrifice of 1 Magic Point per 10 percentiles chance for
success. For example, 3 Magic Points gives a 30% chance for the spell to
succeed. In general, for each Magic Point spent, the caster must spend five minutes
chanting - the greater the chance for success, the longer the spell takes to
cast. A result of 96-100 is always a failure - a rolled result of 100 should always
have bad consequences for the wizard concerned. The caster also loses 1D4
Sanity points per spell cast, whether the spell succeeds or not.
If a
success, one being appears per spell, 2D10 game minutes after the chant
concludes. the thing appearing may also require a Sanity loss to see it. As the
Keeper wishes, the thing arrives Bound,
or the Keeper may ask that the caster make an opposed POW roll versus the Summoned being. With a success, the
thing is Bound; with a failure, it
attacks the caster and then returns from whence it came. Bound, the thing must obey one command from the caster, even to
attacking its own kind, after which it is freed and returns from whence it
came.
Form of the Command:
The
caster’s command to the thing must be specific and limited in duration:
“protect me from harm forever,” would not be a valid command; however, “slay
that man in the corner,” would be. The thing is bound to the caster until it
fulfills a command. Orders might include carrying someone somewhere, presiding
at some ceremony, being especially docile while being examined by a group of professors,
appearing somewhere as a warning to those assembled - whatever can be imagined.
Keep
commands simple. The best rule of thumb is that a command has no more words
than one-fifth of the thing’s INT. Simple gestures such as pointing will be
understood. Assume that the thing is always able to understand a
straightforward command, whether spoken in English or Urdu.
“Call the Wind Demon!” (Summon
Flying Polyp)
Cost: variable
magic points; 1D4 Sanity points
Casting time: 5 minutes per magic point spent.
Rising
winds and nauseating whistling sounds accompany the appearance of the Polyp. The
spell can be cast anywhere, although there should be sufficient space to accommodate
the creature. The caster must tie seven feathers along a length of string made
from a natural fibre (hemp, jute, cotton, etc.) while chanting; the creature
appears as the last knot is tied.
“Evoke the
Child of the Sleeper!” (Summon Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua)
Cost: variable
magic points; 1D4 Sanity points
Casting time: 5 minutes per magic point spent.
The Formless
Spawn materialises out of thin air. This spell must be cast before an altar
consecrated to the Great Old One, Tsathoggua.
“Song of the
Mind Stealers” (Summon Spawn of Yekub)
Cost: variable
magic points; 1D4 Sanity points
Casting time: 5 minutes per magic point spent.
Clicking,
twanging sounds herald the appearance of the Yekubian. This spell must be cast
outside at night in a natural setting. The caster must chant while peering
through a crystal lens which has never been exposed to direct sunlight. An
image of the creature appears in the crystal and, when it is fully in focus,
the Yekubian will appear.
Binding
Spells:
Binding and Summoning are two sides of the same coin. Sometimes they are
learned as one spell, sometimes not. At the Keeper’s discretion the effects may
be combined, or two separate rolls might be asked for, one to Summon and a second to Bind. If a monster arrives unBound or is come upon unexpectedly, it
may be Bound on the spot. The caster must
know the Summon/Bind spell for that
type of thing and must spend a round chanting before the thing can be Bound. For the spell to take effect the
caster must succeed in an opposed POW roll with the target. Each cast of the Binding costs 1 Sanity point and
variable Magic Points. A Binding
works on only one creature at a time. One option open to the caster is to
invest a number of Magic Points equal to one-fifth of the summoned creature’s
POW to gain a bonus die on the opposed POW roll to Bind the monster (of course, the caster will not know the POW of the
creature, thus must take a gamble on how many Magic Points to sacrifice).
An
attacking creature cannot be Bound by
the person it is fighting; however, it could be Bound by a person able to hold back from the fray. A creature
presently Bound cannot be re-Bound until its present command is completed.
A creature to be Bound must be
visible to the caster and within 100 yards. Binding
requires an opposed roll and opposed rolls cannot be pushed.
“A Snare for Wind Demons” (Bind
Flying Polyp)
Cost: 1
Sanity point
Casting time: 1
round
A
string with seven feathers knotted along its length is tied into a circle; if
successful, the creature is Bound
until the string is un-knotted, or its task is fulfilled.
“Confine the Dark Child” (Bind Formless
Spawn of Tsathoggua)
Cost: 1 Sanity
point
Casting time: 1 round
A bowl,
or trough, large enough to accommodate the Formless Spawn must be present for
the Binding to work; luckily, these
are a common feature of most temples dedicated to Tsathoggua.
“The Prison of Crystal” (Bind Spawn
of Yekub)
Cost: 1 Sanity
point
Casting time: 1 round
The
caster focusses upon the creature through a crystal lens which has never been
exposed to direct sunlight; as the chanting concludes, the lens is smashed, and
the creature becomes Bound.
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