View source for Testament of Carnamagos

'''Testament of Carnamagos'''

Origin: Clark Ashton Smith, "The Treader of the Dust" (1935)


==Description==
==Description==

<blockquote>
On the old lecturn or reading-stand which he used for his heavier tomes, ''The Testament of Carnamagos,'' in its covers of shagreen [(shark skin)] with hasps of human bone, lay open at the very page which had frightened him so unreasonably with its eldritch intimations... the writings of that evil sage and seer, Carnamagos, which had been recovered a thousand years agone from some Graeco-Bactrian tomb, and transcribed by an apostate monk in the original Greek, in the blood of an incubus-begottten monster. In that volume were the chronicles of great sorcerers of old, and the histories of demons earthly and ultra-cosmic, and the veritable spells by which the demons could be called up and controlled and dismissed.... It was said that only two copies had ever existed, and that the other had been destroyed by the Spanish Inquisition early in the Thirteenth Century....
<br>— Clark Ashton Smith, "The Treader of the Dust"
</blockquote>

One of the less frequently encountered tomes of the Mythos, ''The Testament of Carnamagos'' was written by an evil Cimmerian sage and seer of that name, recovered in the tenth century from a Graeco-Bactrian tomb, and transcribed by an apostate monk in the original Greek, in the blood of a monster. It is a testament of events of the distant past and of the future, containing prophecies and the histories and deeds of great sorcerers, accounts of demonic beings, and spells for summoning and commanding an assortment of entities. According to legend, only two copies had ever existed, and one was destroyed by the Spanish Inquisition early in the thirteenth century.

Extreme caution is required in the presence of this tome, for it contains an invocation of the [[Great Old One]] Quachil Uttaus so potent that merely reading it is sometimes sufficient to bring about the appearance of this entity. The sole warning sign that will alert the investigator to the imminence of this danger is that everything in the vicinity of the book will show signs of decay and extreme antiquity


===Writings of Carnamagos===
Language: unknown, probably [[Cimmeria]]n

Physical Description: aged scrolls of hand-written original forming the original testament of Carnamagos; retrieved in the ninth century from the Graeco-Bactrian tomb in which it was hidden in the 3rd Century BCE, and then used as the foundation of the Greek Translation

General Content: Writings of the sage Carnamagos containing ultra-cosmic prophecies and histories, the chronicles of great sorcerers and demons of old, and spells for calling, controlling, and dismissing those demons, including [[Quachil Uttaus]].

Number of known copies (if rare): One copy, perhaps lost.

Last known location of surviving copies (if rare): The original copy disappeared after translation, and is presumed lost.



===Original Greek===
Language: Hellenistic Greek

Physical Description: Shark-skin pages bound with hasps of human bone, inked in the blood of an "incubus-spawned monster".

General Content: A transcription of the writings of the sage Carnamagos containing ultra-cosmic prophecies and histories, the chronicles of great sorcerers and demons of old, and spells for calling, controlling, and dismissing those demons, including [[Quachil Uttaus]].

Number of known copies (if rare): only two original copies

Last known location of surviving copies (if rare): One the two original copies was lost to the Spanish Inquisition in the early 1200s; the other has passed through the hands of a number of private collectors, many of whom have met strange dooms soon after obtaining the tome.

'''Mythos Content'''
Spells:  Contact, Summon, Bind, Dismiss spells for various mythos "demons"

* Sanity Loss: 1D6/2D6
* Mythos Knowledge: +15 Percent
* Occult Knowledge: ?
* Study:  Average 36 weeks to study and comprehend
* Skim: 72 hours to skim (if Hellenistic Greek is known)


==Quotes==
* "...The olden wizards knew him, and named him Quachil Uttaus. Seldom is he revealed: for he dwelleth beyond the outermost circle, in the dark limbo of unsphered time and space. Dreadful is the word that calleth him, though the word be unspoken save in thought: For Quachil Uttaus is the ultimate corruption; and the instant of his coming is like the passage of many ages; and neither flesh nor stone may abide his treading, but all things crumble beneath it atom from atom. And for this, some have called him The Treader of the Dust. Though Quachil Uttaus cometh but rarely, it had been well attested that his advent is not always in response to the spoken rune and the drawn pentacle. Few wizards, indeed, would call upon a spirit so baleful. But let it be understood that he who readeth to himself in the silence of his chamber, the formula given hereunder, must incur a grave risk if in his heart there abide openly or hidden the least desire of death and annihilation. For it may be that Quachil Uttaus will come to him, bringing that doom which toucheth the body to eternal dust, and maketh the soul as a vapor for evermore dissolved. And the advent of Quachill Uttaus is foreknowable by certain tokens; for in the person of the evocator, and even perchance in those about him, will appear the signs of sudden age; and his house, and those belongings which he hath touched, will assume the marks of untimely decay and antiquity..."  - [[Clark Ashton Smith]], "[[The Treader of the Dust (fiction)]]"



==Heresies and Controversies==
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==Keeper Notes==
<!-- Optional. Suggestions for using this tome/artifact in the CoC RPG, and in fan-fiction. -->
* deities:
** [[Quachil Uttaus]]


==References==
* Clark Ashton Smith, "[http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/222/the-treader-of-the-dust The Treader of the Dust]" (1935)


[[Category:Mythos:Tomes]]