Need a safer way to contact the dead? Just let your fingers do the walking….

Alexander Konstantin, a Greek bibliomancer involved in the antiquities trade, came up with this method of contacting the souls of the dead to better help with acquisitions (his favorite method of which is to loot archaeological sites). Neither a necromancer himself nor knowing anyone who was stymied his efforts to beat his rivals to valuable finds. While heady from recent purchases plundered from the Baghdad Museum in 2002, Konstantin hit upon a method that utilized his school’s speciality: he let his fingers do the walking.

The Necrotelenomicon is the Book of the Telephone Numbers of the Dead, specifically a 1908 London telephone directory. Using the book is simple and usually quite safe. Simply close your eyes and think of the person you wish to contact from Beyond the Veil and run your finger down the open pages of the Necrotelenomicon. Your finger will stop at an apparantly random telephone listing. Reach for a convenient telephone and dial the numbers your finger is pointing to (removing your finger ruins your attempt at contact) and you will have reached the deceased individual you were looking for. If you do not know the individual’s name you can concentrate on knowledge desired instead and a spirit who knows the information will be contacted (however, this is risky: see below).

Since the contact is taking place through an intermediary force (a telephone), there is no danger of possession unless such was bargained for. However, there are certain problems associated with the Necrotelenomicon. One is, of course, that the caller typically has no method of actually controlling the spirits of the dead he contacts–the spirit is free to lie, cheat, and betray at will. Overuse of the Necrotelenomicon will result in the user getting calls back from spirits he has bargained with in the past as well as calls from random ghosts and demons (prank calls, offers of power and knowledge in exchange for bodily possession, unearthly screaming, and so forth); a nearby telephone simply starts ringing. These calls often come at inoportune times and at random locales (at home, at work, at restaurants on a night out, etc.) Heaven help the Necrotelenomicon user that has a cell phone, he never get’s a moment’s peace!

The worst danger comes if the spirit the caller is attempting to contact is not available (destroyed, trapped, possessing a body, passed on to a greater reward, etc) or if the information sought simply is not available (GM’s discretion). In that instance, the caller hears a chilling shriek and risks having his soul syphoned out of his body to fill the “out of service number” (make a Soul roll–even if you succeed, your Soul stat is reduced by half, which is regained at 1 per day). Calling an “out of service” number (and surviving) is a Rank 10 Unnatural challenge.

Konstantin was found comatose by the cleaning staff in a Cairo hotel with the Necrotelenomicon in his lap and a phone in his hand….the book has subsequently disappeared.