Spoiler Thread for Leaf 004 (Patreon)

Welcome back! Page 7 has our first glimpse of a ritual. The Emanation of Yoth is a throw away reference from one of Lovecraft’s lesser known collaborations, The Man of Stone. Yoth plays a much bigger role in the story The Mound (both of these were collaborations with Hazel Heald). For the purpose of this spell I am drawing on references to the Flying Polyps from The Shadow Out of Time and how they settled on other planets in the solar system as well as Earth. The star-shaped pattern on the top of the page is an actual astronomical event that Venus charts out in relation to Earth every seven years. I couldn’t help but throw it in! The term Sfanomoë comes from the Clark Ashton Smith tale A Voyage to Sfanomoë where two intrepid scientists from Atlantis flee their sinking continent and fly to Venus. A little out there, but the word is fun and adds some character. The reference to Nyarlathotep dwelling in the center of the Earth is from Rats in the Walls. I like how Lovecraft refined and rethought his creations from story to story and I want to leave room for all the iterations.

The Black Goat mentioned towards the end will be expanded upon in an upcoming section in an interesting way.

So here is a spoiler I would generally leave for folks to eventually discover on their own: the six character code at the end of the margin and Sir Randolph’s sly reference are instructions to fold the corner of the page so that the tip touches the center of the cross in the diagram. Doing this will reveal something Sir Randolph intended only for the eyes of true believers. Call it a fail safe…

Page 8 doubles down on the codes. Yes, it all translates! The idea though is that even if the book fell into the wrong hands the knowledge would still be protected. Speaking of the wrong hands, Abdel has no time for the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign. 

Jumping ahead to page 41, we find that the proceeding forty pages were simply the preface to the Necronomicon! The creatures in the flourish at the top of the page are not accidental…There is a little joke at the bottom about how the book is perfectly safe, unless you try to use it!

Page 42 begins our narrative of the life of Abdel Hazred. Why doesn’t he introduce himself? Because any historical work that starts with “I, [Famous Person] wrote this” absolutely was not written by that person. The historian in me had to draw the line at that. What we learn of Abdel’s origin is vague, but the circumstances echo the events in Lovecraft’s Transition of Juan Romero. The Serat is a mountain range in Yemen, just a little geographical note.

The woodcut on the bottom depicts Arab astronomers during an earthquake (“terrae motus”) but Abdel knows the true cause of such events.