The Blasphemous Tome of Forbidden Elder Lore of the Month Club (2)

[The following is a work of fiction, produced in connection with a background for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game.]

The Codex of Infinite Stars is a work of questionable ontological status. It is believed by some to be entirely mythical and by others to be a modern hoax; certainly it has never been printed in its entirety, and no known institutional collection on or off this planet (including the BL, the Bodleian, the BNF, the Vatican library, the Miskatonic University Library, the Great Library of Celaneo or the Royal and University libraries of Celephaïs), even those with carefully-guarded manuscript codices or printed copies of the Necronomicon, De vermiis mysteriis or Geschichte von unaussprechlicen Kulten has a copy, although certain purported "excerpts" and "transcriptions" have been circulated in MS. and TS. and printed in occultist journals. While sharing certain themes these "excerpts" differ so wildly in style and tone that it is difficult to believe they are all the work or the same author, or all taken from the same book. It appears that the first of these "excerpts" were manifested in the waking world in the 1970s by a member of a society called the Stellar Temple who claimed to have found the codex in a library attached to an "astral temple" encountered while fleeing a flock of nightgaunts on his way to a reputed access point to one of the Tunnels (a set of connected 'astral' realms believed to be part of the shattered remains of a previous universe). Further "transcriptions" have been made by other Stellar Temple members and freelance magicians; these include hallucinatory prose-poems, rambling pieces of speculative prehistory, strange geometric diagrams which appear to have more dimensions that can reasonably be represented on a flat piece of paper, sketches of alien landscapes and indescribable creatures, &c. &c. &c.

Individual excerpts typically have a 50% chance of having 1d3% Cthulhu Mythos value with proportionate SAN cost, and a 20% chance of containing 1 spell (spell multiplier 1-3). A disreputable publisher called the Blasphemous Tome of Forbidden Elder Lore of the Month Club is rumoured to be in negotiation with various of the "transcribers" to produce a collected edition of the "excerpts," but the BToFELotMC is better known for making extravagant claims and promises than actually ever getting anything into print.

The image heading this article is a sketch purporting to represent the temple housing the Codex, as drawn by a sometime Stellar Temple member (since expelled) called David Calmar.