That which is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die
-- Kitab Al-Azif - The Book of the Approacher

The Kitab Al-Azif

The original (and still the best) Arabic Necronomicon

This tome circulated in manuscript form between scientists and philosophers from the 8th century, to the 10th century, and was finally declared lost to man in it's original form in the 12th century.
Though it has been copied and translated many times, to get closest to the true meaning of the text, it should be read in the original Arabic form.

A form that was thought lost.

Until now.


(8th century AD)

The book travelled to China... and was acquired by a Chinese sorcerer who carefully read the work, and cast many spells to secure it from danger, rendering it almost immune to the ravages of time.
He passed it on to his apprentice on who passed it on to his, through the centuries, many times it was taken by a greater magician who had bested the current owner in a contest of spells and wit. The Al-Azif always sought a more worthy student.

(19th century AD)

It was brought to the United States during the boom era when gold was discovered all over America, and the rail-roads were being built. It came over as part of the last effects of a direct descendant of the original sorcerer, carried by one of his many sons.

It was bought from the descendants of the original owner by the sorcerous Carnby Twins, one of whom, John Carnby slew the other, and in turn was slain by the animated-corpse of his dead-brother. It was last seen by His erstwhile secretary, a Mr Ogden, who left the book after the second Carnby twin joined his brother in whatever afterlife awaited them.

Their Oakland mansion was abandoned for several years after their death, until it was destroyed in the in the 1906 earthquake , when the book was thought to be lost, but moisture was baked out of it, and falling rubble sealed it, seemingly forever, into a dark dry tomb.

Never again to be exposed to man.

(20th century AD)

Until the 1989 San Francisco earthquake which re-opened the rubble under which tome had lain.

Patiently.

It was discovered by a homeless man who added it to his shopping basket of possessions, and made sure it was protected from the cold, and the fog, and the rain.

Until he was run over by a speeding car.

His body and effects were taken to the county morgue, where it was discovered by an over-worked morgue attendant who had been placed by Stefan Alzis one year before the earth-quake struck, with orders to examine the effects of every John Doe to enter the morgue.

He was shot in the Emergency room one month later by a drug-crazed patient.

His effects and the rubbish-filled contents of a storage unit he rented were auctioned off to a junkyard owner.

Who overdosed and died in a fit.

and so on.

In the last year, the book came into the possession of a chemist for the San Francisco tongs, who was also a student of the occult.

As he skimmed through the warped and smoky manuscript, he became more and more fascinated by the Chinese annotations to the work. small cramped ideograms formed a counterpoint to the swirling Arabic glyphs on each page. The Al-Azif had been translated into Mandarin.

Tong-Chemists' Notes

Obviously, the tong chemist did not speak Arabic, however he did possess a smattering of Mandarin, and the where-with-all to obtain more. He had made some progress on transcribing the accursed book into English, his parent's adopted tongue.
These notes were mostly nabbed by the fireman, and passed on to the leader of the American Underground army, it is from these that he has gained his (limited) occult power.

Mandarin Transcriptions

Translated and scribed by a number of Chinese wizards, this book has been faithfully passed down from wizard to wizard for nearly one thousand years! Even so, the transcription is not complete, and only a partial set of spells and mythos information is present in Madarin.
However, to make up for this, one or two _extra_ spells were scribed by Sorcerers who wished to keep all their knowledge in one place!

Technical Details

  Arabic Original Mandarin Translation Chemist's Notes
Language: Arabic Mandarin English
Sanity Loss: 1d10/1d20 1d6/1d20 1d3/1d10
Cthulhu Mythos: +18% +15% +5%
Spell Multiplier: x5 x4 x1
Study Time: 12 Weeks 16 Weeks 1 Week
Spells: Call/Dismiss Azathoth, Call/Dismiss Cthughua, Call/Dismiss Hastur, Call/Dismiss Nyogtha, Call/Dismiss Shub Niggurath, Call/Dismiss Yog Soothoth, Contact Cthulhu, contact Deep One, Contact Elder thing, Contact Ghoul, Elder Sign, Mind Transfer, Voorish Sign, Dismiss Bugg-Shash, Create Gate (From the Sphinx to Yog-Sothoth,
Chant of thoth, Dominate
 Steal Life, Shrivelling, Mental Suggestions, Mind Transfer, Elder Sign, Voorish Sign, Send Dreams Shrivelling, Dominate
Condition: Bad; the front three pages are missing, and some burning around the spine and corners. There is also a little discolouration from smoke The book has had a hard existence! Average; a few pages are missing at the start and end, and the paper is smoke damaged, it is also a hand-written transcription, and not a published manuscript.
References Return of the Sorcerer by Clark Ashton Smith Thanks to Dan Harms :);
Call of Cthulhu v5.0

Curse of the Necronomicon

It has been said that "those whom the gods wish to destroy, first they make mad", in the case of the Outer Gods, they give them a copy of the Necronomicon, in one form or another.
This copy is no different to any of the others, any person who came into possession of it - and who was not worthy of the esoteric knowledge contained within - has died, quickly. Perhaps it is the book itself that causes these unpleasant coincidences, perhaps the curse of the original Chinese sorcerer, trying to defend his property from the foreign dogs who have taken it. Perhaps it's is all coincidence.

No Matter.

Anybody who possesses the book will suffer.

Unless they possess stronger magics themselves.

Quotes

"We returned to the study, and Carnby brought out from a locked drawer the volume of which he had spoken. It was enormously old, and was bound in ebony covers arabesqued with silver and set with darkly glowing garnets. When I opened the yellowing pages, I drew back with involuntary revulsion at the odor which arose from them -- an odor that was more than suggestive of physical decay, as if the book had lain among corpses in some forgotten graveyard and had taken on the taint of dissolution. "

I deciphered the paragraph, slowly and with some difficulty, and wrote down a rough English version with the pad and pencil which Carnby offered me. Then, at his request, I read it aloud:

'It is verily known by few, but is nevertheless no attestable fact, that the will of a dead sorcerer hath power upon his own body and can raise it up from the tomb and perform therewith whatever action was unfulfilled in life. And such resurrections are invariably for the doing of malevolent deeds and for the detriment of other's. Most readily can the corpse be animated if all its members have remained intact; and yet there are cases in which the excelling will of the wizard hath reared up from death the sundered pieces of a body hewn in many fragments, and hath caused them to serve his end, either separately or in a temporary reunion. But in every instance, after the action hath been completed, the body lapseth into its former state.'

-- "Return of the Sorcerer" - Clark Ashton smith

Links

Dan Clore's Necronomicon Page

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