Cultes des Goules
The Cultes des Goules is the title of a fictional book created by Robert Bloch. Both H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth have claimed to have been the book's creator. The fictional Comte d'Erlette, created by H.P. Lovecraft, is an homage to August Derleth, and said to be the author of the infamous tome.
Contents
Description
Cultes des Goules is a book of black magic written by Francois-Honore Balfour (Comte d'Erlette) in 1702. It was published in France (Paris?, 1703) and later denounced by the church, but also resulted in a crackdown by Paris magistrates on alleged practitioners of the cult in response to hysteria following the publication, with dozens of accused members hanged, and others fleeing Paris or committing themselves to obscure insane asylums and convents where they seem to have disappeared under suspicious circumstances.
Only a handful of copies of the book remain in existence. One of the known copies was kept for 91 years in an arcane library of the Church of Starry Wisdom in Providence, Rhode Island. After Robert Blake’s mysterious death in 1935, Doctor Dexter removed the grimoire and added it to his library.
Contents
Catalogs a large cult practicing necromancy, necrophagy, and necrophilia in France.
Original French Version
French, by François-Honore Balfour, Comte d’Erlette, 1702? Published in 1703 in France (Paris?), in a quarto edition. Only fourteen copies are known to exist, the most recent surfacing in Providence, RI, in 1906.
Expurged French Version
TO DO
Italian Translation
TO DO
Role Playing Game Stats
- Original French Version
- Sanity Loss 1D10/1D4; Cthulhu Mythos +12 Percent. Average 22 weeks to study and comprehend/ 48 hours to skim.
- Expurged French Version
- Sanity Loss 1D8/1D4; Cthulhu Mythos +10 Percent. Average 17 weeks to study and comprehend/ 34 hours to skim.
- Italian Translation
- Sanity Loss 1D8/1D4; Cthulhu Mythos +9 Percent. Average 15 weeks to study and comprehend/30 hours to skim.
Rumors and Speculation
- At least two parts of Cultes des Goules detail the Comte d'Erlette's controversial "Elemental Theory":
- One part describes a sort of "family tree" of the Great Old Ones and supernatural creatures categorized by the classical elements (water, fire, earth, wind) Comte d'Erlette believed they represent.
- One part describes the origin and history of the Ghouls, which Comte d'Erlette claimed were fallen "fire elementals" called djinn, banished by "Heaven" to Earth, where they exact vengeance upon Heaven by possessing and debasing human flesh.
- The Comte d'Erlette was an 18th-century Mythos investigator whose repulsive tome was an ill-advised expose' of the activities of a secret cult of Ghouls hidden in upper-class French aristocracy; d'Erlette's investigations resulted in his death by their hands.
- The Comte d'Erlette was a Ghoul, and the shocking activities of the Ghoul-Cults in his tome are auto-biographical.
Timeline
- 1635: Antoine-Marie Augustin de Montmorency-les-Roches is born. According to some, he is later known as the Comte d'Erlette, author of Cultes des Goules. (Ex Libris Miskatonici, Stanley)
- c. 1665: If Antoine-Marie Augustin de Montmorency-les-Roches is indeed the Comte d'Erlette, then Cultes des Goules is probably completed around this time. (Ex Libris Miskatonici, Stanley)
- 1703: François-Honoré Balfour, if he is the Comte d'Erlette as some believe, probably publishes Cultes des Goules in this year, before shutting himself out from the world. (Call of Cthulhu 5th Ed., Petersen and Willis et al)
- 1724: The Comte d'Erlette Francois-Honore' Balfour vanished. Four days later he was found 'torn apart by animals' on the grounds of his estate. His burial instructions included being sealed in a solid brass casket and placed in a newly-constructed concrete vault. ("Down in the Delta", Scott Glancy, 2014)
- 1737: According to some, Cultes des Goules by the Comte d'Erlette is published in Rouen, France.
- c. 1793: The d'Erlettes flee France and settle in Bavaria at the time of the French Revolution. They change the family name to Derleth. (Factual)
Quotes
- "Comte d'Erlette's Cultes des Goules? An invention of Bloch's. The name Comte d'Erlette, however, represents an actual (and harmless) ancestor of August W. Derleth's, who was a royalist emigre from France in 1792 and bacame naturalised in Germany under the slightly Teutonised name of Derleth. His son, emigrating to Wisconsin in 1835, was the found of the Derleth line in America." - H.P. Lovecraft
Appearances
- The Comte d'Erlette and Cultes des Goules are mentioned at least twice by H.P. Lovecraft in his published fiction, but only in passing, among lists of fantastical books studied by background characters in "The Shadow out of Time" and "The Haunter of the Dark".
