Monday, August 8, 2011

Crackpot Demonology


The Pandemonicon is a treatise on demonology widely known in the City. All extant copies of the work are amateur printings; the original copies were reproduced from a typed and hand-notated manuscript via jellygraph (hectograph)--in fact, the original gel, imbued with a malign (and murderous) life of its own, has been encountered in the City. The work’s author is given as “Secundus Rune,” but that appears to be a pen name of Alpert Sturne, an unemployed bug powder junkie.

Sturne’s work would be easy to dismiss, if it weren’t for the lengths certain powers go to obtain a copy. Wealthy infernalists have been known to pay handsomely for copies; Hell Syndicate bosses have killed for them. The Unknown have urged their destruction.

The Pandemonicon contains demons not mentioned in older works. Scholars are divided as to whether these new forms are merely different interpretations of older beings or if they represent evolution in the abyssal chaos. A couple of the demons described by Sturne are given as example, exactly in the way he describes them in the text:

Lepidopterist: These are of the Collectors. Defined things are a novelty to them. Pin souls to cards and arrange them by taxonomies of suffering. The pretty colors! You shall know them by their glowing red eyes in featureless faces and their wings like rainbows in oil slicks that beat and stutter like pictures in a flip book. Careful of their pins.

Misericordians: Sometimes they make you think they are succubuses and sometimes angels but they are neither. They look like that pin-up nurse I saw in that gas station calendar, but they don’t have her smile. No faces. Only scars. Only scar tissue. There are small scars too if you get close but you don’t want to get that close. They assisant a certain surgeon who it is not good to look upon. They know secrets of the flesh, how it can be twist and remade, but you have to be careful and avoid their mersy [sic] to learn them.

All the entries are number, though they are presented seemingly at random. The lowest is “1” and the highest “616.” The text has some illustrations which seem to have been cut or traced from older texts, sometimes with crude revisions by the author.

11 comments:

The Angry Lurker said...

Those Misericordians sound like the nurses from the Silent Hill game.

Chris C. said...

Cool! I love the title "Pandemonicon" -- very clever!

James said...

Damn! :) As always, you've hit every note, just right!

Porky said...

I love how complex this is getting, how rich and deep the world is.

christian said...

I love the amateur printing aspect. It's like a Satan's fanzine. Very cool.

Trey said...

Thanks guys!

@Angry Lurker - They were the visual inspiration there--at least the ones in the movie, which I assume are similar.

@Christian - That was kind of the genesis of the post. Doing Lovecraft's blasphemous book on a indie budget.

Needles said...

This is the type of book that might be found in a bathroom in a subway or the ruins a church. This is a very urban entry into the world of the demonic. I rifted of this but in a different way. Basically the Tijuana bibles of demonology. Nice stuff

Trey said...

Thanks. I like the Tijuana Bible idea, too. They make their appearance in the Strange New World, too--as the vector for stolen dreamstuff.

The Happy Whisk said...

It's five-thirty in the morning and I'm awake because of Miss Wiggy. Not because I want to be. Anyway, now when I get up this early I think of if you're on your way to work or not.

That's funny. Funny how we get to know people on Blogger.

Well ... maybe I'll have a little breakfast and get to work.

Here's hoping you have a groovy day.

PS: Felt like fall here, yesterday.

Trey said...

I was indeed on my way to work at that time--eating my bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit on the drive. I'm at my second job (well, my first of the day). It did not feel like fall here, but I'm glad somebodies getting it.

Have a groovy day, yourself. :)

The Happy Whisk said...

I'm considering going back to bed since I don't start work until 10am. Just read your most recent post. Well written.