The Tome of Ceïhkal (Tomus Ceïhkalis).
This is a part-autobiographical work written in horribly tortured Latin around 1550 by an anonymous author. An analysis of the Latin style suggests, while not proving conclusively, that the author's first language was German, or possibly Dutch, a hypothesis supported by a few passing references to places where the author claimed to have lived and studied. The meaning of the title is unknown, being nowhere explained in the text; it is speculated that "Ceihkal" is a corrupted or fabricated angelic name. The work opens with the statement, "This is the book CEÏHKAL, the record of my Knowledge of and Communications with those from Outside, now set down for the benefit of those who desire true Triumph in the Ways of the ancient Wisdom"; the name is not mentioned again.
The Tome has never been printed; it exists in a handful of quarto and folio MS codices, six of which are known to exist in various institutional collections (Keeper's whim as to which); a seventh was stolen from a private collector in 1974. Additionally, since the 1950s, duplicated copies of a typescript of the work with partial English translation (frequently either inaccurate or descending into gibberish through over-literal translation of the convoluted Latin sentence structure) have been circulating amongst occultist groups and occasionally come up for sale. While the original typist did in fact transcribe the entire work (the complete TS. of the original Latin runs to 326 foolscap sheets, single-spaced), most extant copies have pages missing, out of order, or rendered illegible by scorch marks or suspicious stains.
Amidst the autobiographical account of the author's encounters with various practitioners and teachers of magic, secret cults and scholars of ancient lore, can be found information from which a number of Contact and Contact Deity spells (for, inter alia, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep and Cthulhu) can be constructed; the author was more concerned with communicating with Those from Outside than actually summoning them to visible appearance or physical manifestation, regarding the latter as dangerous in all cases and pointless in most; there are hence no Call / Dismiss or Summon / Bind spells in the work. While the work refers to few of the Great Old Ones or other Cthulhoid entities by name, using various periphrastic titles instead, a reader with a small amount of Mythos knowledge will be able to deduce who or what given passages refer to. The work also contains the knowledge of the true Elder Sign. For the complete work, +8 Mythos, 1d6 / 2d6 SAN, spell multiplier 3.
["Ceihkal" is an acronym of "Cthulhoid Entities I Have Known And Loved," the allusion being to the series of drug-culture books by Ann and Alexander Shulgin.]
Calmar's "Rite to Calle Yogge-Sothothe" is conceptually viable (unlike that in Ye Booke of ye Arab which was deliberately written to be ineffective), but is only given in outline and needs to be worked up (successful skill check [DC 25 Spellcraft in d20] needed, and major expenditure of magic points and POW needed to actually get a physical manifestation In a modern (ca. 2000 or later) setting, a ritual which has been thus worked up is in internet circulation.
Calmar's "Rite of Cthulhu" will serve as a Contact Cthulhu spell if the magician can write a reasonable invocation of Cthulhu to put in the centre of it; that provided is incomplete and uninspired, a "poor pretence at poetry." His "Rite of Dismissal" is completely useless against Cthulhoid entities, or anything else for that matter, although his instruction for "ye formation of ye Magick Circle," by substituting in the correct form of the warding Elder Sign is a valid form of the Empower Circle of Protection spell (Calmar erroneously states that the true form of the Elder Sign is an ancient rock carving he saw near Ilkley in Yorkshire; this, while one of the "Old Ones' Signs" is not the Elder Sign and has virtually none of the powers attributed to the Elder Sign). The piece "Ye Feaster from ye Starres" is partly plagiarised from De Vermis Mysteriis and contains the Summon / Bind Star Vampire spell.
Under the head "Ye Charactrs of Magick Arte" Calmar gives the 32 Aklo letters, with their phonetic value and a few magical correspondences; Calmar gives no information about the Aklo language and appears to have been unaware of the 48 Aklo Unveilings. "Concernynge Hym in ye Gulph" gives a brief account of Azothoth, mostly plagiarised from other writers and containing nowhere near enough information to even start constructing the Call / Dismiss Azathoth spell (a fragment purportedly by Calmar titled "To Call Furth Hym in ye Gulph" exists but on internal evidence (specifically, the presence of some glaring anachronisms) is a later fake.
"De Magno Innominando" gives no clue about the real identity of the Not-to-be-Named One, probably because Calmar didn't have a clue to give. "Of ye Lorde of ye Woodes, & ye Black Goate" is a set of vague ramblings about Shub-Niggurath, including a postscript purporting to give an account of a ritual of Shub-Niggurath which Calmar had been permitted to attend on the condition that he should give a pledge of secrecy, and should not know the place of the rite nor see the faces of the worshippers. Of the six extant copies of this section, three omit the postscript entirely, two give a heavily abridged version of it, presumably containing all that Calmar felt his pledge of secrecy permitted him tell even his closest colleagues, and the remaining one, believed to be an early draft, is (a) written in a cipher (English rendered phonetically in the Aklo script) and (b) very cryptically expressed even then, although it does appear that the ritual produced a physical, or at least visible, manifestation of the goddess; unfortunately (?) even the fullest account is too vague to reconstruct the Call Shub-Niggurath spell.
The Tome has never been printed; it exists in a handful of quarto and folio MS codices, six of which are known to exist in various institutional collections (Keeper's whim as to which); a seventh was stolen from a private collector in 1974. Additionally, since the 1950s, duplicated copies of a typescript of the work with partial English translation (frequently either inaccurate or descending into gibberish through over-literal translation of the convoluted Latin sentence structure) have been circulating amongst occultist groups and occasionally come up for sale. While the original typist did in fact transcribe the entire work (the complete TS. of the original Latin runs to 326 foolscap sheets, single-spaced), most extant copies have pages missing, out of order, or rendered illegible by scorch marks or suspicious stains.
Amidst the autobiographical account of the author's encounters with various practitioners and teachers of magic, secret cults and scholars of ancient lore, can be found information from which a number of Contact and Contact Deity spells (for, inter alia, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep and Cthulhu) can be constructed; the author was more concerned with communicating with Those from Outside than actually summoning them to visible appearance or physical manifestation, regarding the latter as dangerous in all cases and pointless in most; there are hence no Call / Dismiss or Summon / Bind spells in the work. While the work refers to few of the Great Old Ones or other Cthulhoid entities by name, using various periphrastic titles instead, a reader with a small amount of Mythos knowledge will be able to deduce who or what given passages refer to. The work also contains the knowledge of the true Elder Sign. For the complete work, +8 Mythos, 1d6 / 2d6 SAN, spell multiplier 3.
["Ceihkal" is an acronym of "Cthulhoid Entities I Have Known And Loved," the allusion being to the series of drug-culture books by Ann and Alexander Shulgin.]
Concernynge ye Old Ones.
This is the collective title for a collection of writings in 16th-century English and bad Latin by one Michael Calmar, which exists in a handful of MS. copies, the most complete in the occult special collection at Leeds University Library (this is a collection of fair copies made by Calmar for a colleague, crudely bound, and the overall title is unique to this copy); while many rough drafts and first fair copies of individual pieces are extant, they have been split up and dispersed. It contains some useful Mythos knowledge, but interspersed with instructions and ritual fragments on Solomonic-style ceremonial magick, digressions, fulminations against rival magicians and denunciations of the author of De doctrina antiqua et mysterio iniquitatis and the editor of Ye Booke of ye Arab (a forged Necronomicon with a fake translation credit to John Dee that circulated in MS. amongst magicians in the late 16th century and was eventually printed in the 1970s).Calmar's "Rite to Calle Yogge-Sothothe" is conceptually viable (unlike that in Ye Booke of ye Arab which was deliberately written to be ineffective), but is only given in outline and needs to be worked up (successful skill check [DC 25 Spellcraft in d20] needed, and major expenditure of magic points and POW needed to actually get a physical manifestation In a modern (ca. 2000 or later) setting, a ritual which has been thus worked up is in internet circulation.
Calmar's "Rite of Cthulhu" will serve as a Contact Cthulhu spell if the magician can write a reasonable invocation of Cthulhu to put in the centre of it; that provided is incomplete and uninspired, a "poor pretence at poetry." His "Rite of Dismissal" is completely useless against Cthulhoid entities, or anything else for that matter, although his instruction for "ye formation of ye Magick Circle," by substituting in the correct form of the warding Elder Sign is a valid form of the Empower Circle of Protection spell (Calmar erroneously states that the true form of the Elder Sign is an ancient rock carving he saw near Ilkley in Yorkshire; this, while one of the "Old Ones' Signs" is not the Elder Sign and has virtually none of the powers attributed to the Elder Sign). The piece "Ye Feaster from ye Starres" is partly plagiarised from De Vermis Mysteriis and contains the Summon / Bind Star Vampire spell.
Under the head "Ye Charactrs of Magick Arte" Calmar gives the 32 Aklo letters, with their phonetic value and a few magical correspondences; Calmar gives no information about the Aklo language and appears to have been unaware of the 48 Aklo Unveilings. "Concernynge Hym in ye Gulph" gives a brief account of Azothoth, mostly plagiarised from other writers and containing nowhere near enough information to even start constructing the Call / Dismiss Azathoth spell (a fragment purportedly by Calmar titled "To Call Furth Hym in ye Gulph" exists but on internal evidence (specifically, the presence of some glaring anachronisms) is a later fake.
"De Magno Innominando" gives no clue about the real identity of the Not-to-be-Named One, probably because Calmar didn't have a clue to give. "Of ye Lorde of ye Woodes, & ye Black Goate" is a set of vague ramblings about Shub-Niggurath, including a postscript purporting to give an account of a ritual of Shub-Niggurath which Calmar had been permitted to attend on the condition that he should give a pledge of secrecy, and should not know the place of the rite nor see the faces of the worshippers. Of the six extant copies of this section, three omit the postscript entirely, two give a heavily abridged version of it, presumably containing all that Calmar felt his pledge of secrecy permitted him tell even his closest colleagues, and the remaining one, believed to be an early draft, is (a) written in a cipher (English rendered phonetically in the Aklo script) and (b) very cryptically expressed even then, although it does appear that the ritual produced a physical, or at least visible, manifestation of the goddess; unfortunately (?) even the fullest account is too vague to reconstruct the Call Shub-Niggurath spell.
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