The Book of Previous Creation
Kitab Al-Kown Assabiq
(The Book of the Previous Creation)
The Brotherhood of The Perfect Knowledge has been studying The Cursed Book for two hundred years, since its discovery in what is present day Saudi Arabia. The Cursed Book is a thick tome, written in a language obfuscated both by magick and linguistic complexity. This language is known as Loghat Al-Mala’ika, or the Language of the Angels.
Every one of the three hundred thirty-three pages smells differently and has a different texture. The language in which it is written has no known relative, though it looks startlingly similar to the cipher used in the Codex Seraphinianus.
Written in Kitab Al-Kown Assabiq is a translation of every page from The Cursed Book. In order to be taught Loghat Al-Mala’ika, one must first know seven languages. These seven languages must be learned on three different continents. It doesn’t matter what the languages are, one of the brothers learned Hebrew, Japanese and Klingon in Asia, English in North America and Esperanto, Logban and Maori in New Zealand.
The Language of Angels is taught within a small mosque in Saudi Arabia called “Masjed Al-Haroof Al-Hirama,” or “The Mosque of Forbidden Letters.” The language is taught by a stern demon named named “The Select Teacher.”
Once you learn the sacred language of the book, you are set to the task of translating a single page into Arabic. The texture and odor of the page are aspects of the language itself. You become familiar with each nuance of each letter, the feel of the texture of the page and the odor of the page itself, as well as the odor of the page that follows. It is believed that each page was written by an archetype of Al-Kown Assabiq, the previous creation.
The language can only be deciphered during the month of Ramadan. The deciphering cleric must translate the text during the night and he must obey the fasting rules set down by Islam. At the end of Ramadan, the brother dies. It is believed by the mostly Muslim brotherhood that his soul procedes directly to heaven for his sacrifice. If the page has not been translated, another attempt cannot by made until the first day of the following Ramadan.
All members of The Brotherhood are men. It is unknown whether or not women can learn Loghat Al-Mala’ika.
The Cursed Book explains that it is written as an epistle to “The New Creation.” It claims to be written by “The Great Walkers of the Sky.” The Brotherhood of Perfect Knowledge believes this to be a book written by the Invisible Clergy of the world that came before this one.
The cosmology described by The Cursed Book describes “The Outer Sacred Rings.” These Outer Sacred Rings seem to be the Invisible Clergy of further and further distant worlds. Various constellations are described as “The Mendicant” and “The Glass Gardener.” These are assumed to be the Invisible Clergy of the previous world and, The Brotherhood believes, worlds that preceded it.
Pretty cool! It ties in nicely with the Lovecraft Mythos crossovers that have been attempted, or it could be made to very easily.
Great background but what does it do. If my PCs were to steal this forgotten artifact would they get nifty powers along with the chase by enraged cultists?
On the otherhand it is very cool and a great cabal – Cult of the Book.
C.
The artifact itself is desired by anyone who knows what it is. I had quite a few thoughts about what it did. It almost certainly gives some kind of bonus to any avatar that holds it.
The Select Teacher is not actually limited to the Mosque of Forbidden Letters. He is attached to the book. You DO need to know 7 languages in order to learn the Language of Angels.
If you speak Loghat Al-Malai’ka you get a bonus to controlling demons. Does 10% sound good?
I intend to create a campaign setting based around the Middle East, but specifically Dubai. The Cult of the Book is one of the political players I’m planning. More to come.
The book CAN be read by both men and women AND at any time of the year. From the first letter of the book you read, you have a single lunar month to live.
At the end of that month, you die of heart attack or stroke.
Right. For that coutsing down month what awesome shit do people have or possess? Can they act like God and change one event in their lives?
Can they command demons as Solomon of the Old Testament?
Having a little bonus to avatar skill is a little weak and weird since none of those avatars – like the Walking Menagerie – do not have any existence in our universe.
C.
Actually, it’s good by itself.
See, “getting powers” is what EVERY occultist in the underground expects to get when they find a major artefact. They have these EXACT ideas: It’s about Avatars, I bet it’ll get me closer to MY Archetype OR It’s the language of Angels? I bet Angels are like the Cruel Ones and that means…
But what if it just what it’s described as? A book of statospheric cosmology that kills you in a month. Hell, maybe it CAN only be deciphered over Ramadan, the unnatural is weird and full of odd requirements after all (or maybe it can be read at any time, but only translated during Ramadan, maybe reading doesn’t kill you but translating does, who knows?)
So the players steal it, dreaming of world-shaking consequence, but what they end up with is a major artefact with no real (easily) applicable use. Maybe each page is the summarized (if nuanced) autobiography of one of the Invisible Clergy from the last incarnation? Sure, maybe you’d be able to figure out how to make a ritual, maybe, but you probably wouldn’t know how. Maybe it would be helpful in figuring out some of the secret laws of the universe built in from the last reset.
Maybe it’s a backdoor entrance built by the clever Clergy of the last world that feeds into them (feeding them the souls of the readers who’ve been clicked into just the right shape by their language learning to slip through a crack) or out of them (allowing them to slowing put little bits of themselves into dead human bodies for whatever reason).
Maybe it’s an incredibly boring and basically incomprehensible (obtuse and highly symbolic) instructional manual handed out to the Archetypes (or Cruel Ones…) once they’ve ascended. Something that sounds really tasty, but references ideas, concepts, situations, etc that are entirely outside the human plane of reference.
Maybe it’s a book of poetry and just describes the last set of Archetypes and what makes it important, that no one in the OU really thought about before, is that it describes OTHER worlds’ Clergies…
And given the way surgical and implant technology is proceeding, we might get the Walking Menagerie sometime soon.
Or maybe it’s already gotten short-circuited thanks to the hordes of kids playing Pokemon on game-boys.
Hang on – “Written in Kitab Al-Kown Assabiq is a translation of every page from The Cursed Book” – does that mean the whole thing has already been translated? Why bother learning Enochian and dying after a month then?
But they’re an interesting bunch, the Brotherhood (aka the Brethren of Purity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brethren_of_Purity ) – they’re the ones who gave Ludvigius the key to the Moor’s cave.
Hypothetically, because the Cursed Book is not translatable at ALL by humans, is not available, or is you know Cursed. All good reasons why it might not be translatable but it also might be that it had to be simplified/translated to Enochian out of the original language which wouldn’t just kill you eventually but explode you immediately (Or just not be readable at all).
The write-up says that The Brotherhood of Perfect Knowledge has been studying the Cursed Book for 200 years and that they have only attempted to translate 1 page / year. The Cursed Book doesn’t have a name.
The Kitab is a translation of 200 pages of The Cursed Book into Arabic.
Forgive my lack of clarity. I hadn’t considered it at the time of the writing, but this is about *two* books. One of them, you can kind of chill out at a Starbucks and read 200 pages of the history of the universe if you happen to know Arabic.
The other one is a heavily guarded secret of a spooky Islamic brotherhood, encoded in The Language of the Angels.
I understand, also, that Enochian is called The Language of The Angels. I did not intend for those things to overlap and I certainly did not intend for the Cursed Book to have been written in Enochian.
Again, I’m sorry for my lack of clarity.
As to what the book would allow one to do, according to Break Today it’s known to about three or four people in the world (besides The Comte) that you can create rituals if you know what happened in a previous universe, and would do just about anything to get hold of such information.
And there’s also at least one Mak Attaxer in Canada who’d find the book shockingly familiar if she ever got a look at it.