Chaosium Digest Volume 5, Number 11 Date: Sunday, February 27, 1994 Number: 2 of 2 Contents: The Island of the Dead (Alquier Laurent) CALL OF CTHULHU -------------------- From: alquier@eerie.fr (Alquier Laurent) Subject: The Island of the Dead System: Call of Cthulhu IA CTHULHU! ... and "hiya"! to all the adepts. After a long period of silence (I had to travel across the wasted and cold lands of Stuhd'ent Whorkh), I'm glad to be back on the Digest. And now that the trip is over, I hope to come back as often as possible. Anyway, for the moment, I'd like to talk to you about the french comic called 'L'Ile des Morts' (The Island of the Dead) and the interesting way that it gives a different vision of the Cthulhu Mythos. I'll try to reveal here different aspects of that bewitching story, all related to the Cthulhu Mythos. But, in no way is this article a complete story or scenario. This is for a very good reason: the comic itself is not yet finished. I hope you'll forgive me if some details are not clear or if the article itself seems incoherent... Just take it as a collection of ideas... or read the comic. "The Island of the Dead" is a hard-covered colored french comics that started in November 1991. The story is written by Thomas MOSDI, drawn by Guillaume SOREL, and released by "Vent d'Ouest" Editions [1] (in case some of you are interested in reading it). Four episodes exist so far : Vol 1: In Cauda Venenum. Vol 2: Mors Ultima Ratio. Vol 3: Abyssus Abyssum Invocat. Vol 4: Perinde ac cadaver. Vol 5: Acta est Fabula is not yet released. And, there are more to come! Approximately one 46 page book is released each year. I'll begin by a summarising the story, as it appears along the four volumes. It's the best I can do since the ending has not been revealed yet. Each volume has a quotation written on it's back cover that I will copy here and give the best translation I can find... Ready to enter the Island of the Dead? Okay, let's go. Part I : In Cauda Venenum. -------------------------- "C'etait la nuit a une heure sans nom, lorsque les chimeres en un vol delirant tourbillonnent autour du dormeur silencieux et se glissent au sein de ses visions inconscientes, lorsque la chair sur son lit terrestre git tel un cadavre et est inhabitee..." H.P.Lovecraft. [It was an untold hour of the night, when chimeras fly blindly around the silent sleeper and crawl deep inside his unknown visions, when the flesh is still and lies on its earthbound bed like a dead body.] Paris in the 20's, under the snow of a frozen night. A homeless man is dying, blood all around him, near the Seine river. Under a nearby bridge, a man watches the screaming homeless man being pulled back by invisible hands into a gully hole... in his hand, a bloody dagger. Somewhere else in Paris. A painter is awakened by Mr Crosier, his old landlord, who proposes to take some of his paintings as payment for three months unpaid rent (The painter has no name in the story and will be just known as the Painter). The painter lives in an attic with Marge, a beautiful woman who is his lover and model. As the painter heads out for the bar, Mr Crosier admires the painting he just acquired. He finds it better than the other paintings and decides to go down to a crypt under his hotel to show the painting to Them. After lighting some candles, he puts the painting on an altar and waits. Glowing eyes appears in the shadows. Later. Two people are closing a cemetary. The end of the day is coming. Under one of the vaults, Crosier is waiting for the moment when he can go out in the cemetary with Them. Late at night. After having found an anonymous warning about Mr Crosier in one of his pockets, the Painter is dreaming. He is following Marge into a cemetary at night and witnesses her making love with... with what? He could only see eyes in the dark. Startled, he wakes up to find Marge coming into their apartment almost naked and amnesic. The painter tells her to leave and never come back. After a month of nervous breakdowns, the Painter is invited by Crosier to work for him, on a view above a cemetary. The painter accepts. Some time later. Evening. The painter is bored by his work and goes out to the bar he used to go to. There, he has another argument with Marge and a strange encounter with a priest, Father Elary, who asks him to destroy The Painting. After following the painter, Marge faces Crosier who tells her to forget the painter. Later at night. The painter hears a noise downstairs. Following Crosier's cat, he finds the way to the Crypt and then discovers the passage leading to the Vault and up to the Cemetary. There, Crosier is waiting for him with Them, creatures that are crosses between human and cat (HPL's ghouls?). Crosier explains to the painter that They have chosen him to take Crosier's place and that his duty is to feed Them. He gives the painter a dagger. The painter leaves to meet father Elary. With the help of Them, he attacks the priest and leaves the body in the street. At the same time, in the crypt, Crosier cuts his wrists and let Them eat him alive. When the painter comes back to the crypt, he finds Croisers' remains and a bloody trail that leads him behind a metallic door to a huge library that goes down half a dozen floors! They are waiting for him there. They lead him to a room with walls covered by red velvet curtains. A painting is there, representing the Island of the Dead. On the boat that enters the Island, a picture of Crosier is drawn... ['The Island of the Dead' is a real painting by Arnold Bocklin, symbolist painter of the 19th century. According to the experts, five versions of that painting exist.] Part II : Mors Ultima Ratio. ---------------------------- "Voyez! La mort s'est eleve un trone dans une etrange cite gisant seule en l'obscur ouest ou les bons et les mauvais, les pires et les meilleurs s'en sont alles au repos eternel. A l'entour, par le soulevement du vent, oubliees avec resignation, gisent sous les cieux les melancoliques eaux." E.A.Poe [See! Death raised itself a throne in a strange city lying lonely in the dark west where the good and the bad, the best and the worst, rest forever. All around, under the chilly wind, lie the forgotten and melancolic waters.] In the library. After days of searching for answers about 'The Island', the Painter decides to leave Them and visit the only person who can help him now: Bocklin himself. Paris? In a station. A man is mad at some people who have taken his reserved seat. There are three men wearing black jackets and black hats and a fourth who is bald. The bald man gives a signal to his servants. At his signal, they kill the angry man with strange two-bladed daggers. The bald man watches in silence. His right hand is nothing but a bunch of slimy tentacles. Somewhere else. A woman dressed in red floats in water. She tries to escape some tentacles, to reach a vision of a man. She wakes up before she can see him. She was under drugs. Berlin. The painter meets Arnold Bocklin and asks him what the purpose of the painting is (We learn that Crosier's version is the Sixth one). Bocklin seems crazy and says that the purpose of the painting is The Death and that he can go there, on the island that 'really' exists. He asks the Painter to leave and gives him the address of a woman, Katrin, who can teach him more about it. After the painter is gone, Bocklin receives a visit from the Bald man and his darkly clad servants. Doctor Gunter (the Bald man) sends his servants to kill Bocklin, but Bocklin manages to escape. Ostende, German harbour. Marge and father Elary, who has survived the attack, are looking for the Painter. An the same time, the Painter meets Katrin (the woman in red). She explains that the Island of the Dead is a passage between life and death, a fortress, a haven for the souls who are waiting to come back to Earth. She tells him that Crosier, the creatures and the library were only trials to free him from his past, to prepare him for his trip. She says he has the qualities of Bocklin as an artist and of Crosier as a sorcerer (Crosier is an anagram for 'Sorcier' = sorcerer). At night, on the docks. The Painter meets Marge and Elary before he leaves on the boat that will lead him to the Island. He ignores Marge's warnings and is followed by Elary on the boat. Marge stays behind. (That scene is very odd. Actually it's a dream. We learn later that the painter was drugged and that his trip was a dream, shared by the priest.) Near the island. As the boat arrives on the island, the staff and captain of the boat vanish into the mists, leaving only the painter and the priest. Inside the fortress, the priest is attacked again by a group of strange men, dressed in red, and vanishes too. The painter is alone now as Crosier appears and leads him to the edge of an abyss. On the other side, a man is standing inside a pentacle, drawn on the floor. He has no skin. Suddenly, he jumps over the abyss and 'enters' the painter. At the same time, in Paris, Bockler has found the Library and lit a fire with the books and the painting. As the painting is burning, the painter is separated from the skinned-man who shouts that he will find the painter again. Part III : Abyssus Abyssum Invocat ---------------------------------- "Le sommeil est profond dans les sombres poisons, empli d'etoiles et du visage blanc de la mere, le petrifie. La mort a gout d'amer, nourriture des maudits; dans la brune ramure de l'arbre, des visages de terre ont eclate, ricanants." Georg Trakl [Sleep is profund through the dark poisons, filled with stars and with the white face of the Mother, petrified. Death as a bitter taste, food of the damned; in the brown branchs of the tree, faces made of earth appeared, sarcastic.] (It's poetry!) Ostende, 15 years later. A young man is dealing drugs in downtown. He brings the drugs to his Aunt Katrin's house. He learns he has to go to Pragues to be initiated. Before leaving, Wilfrid (the young man) and Katrin pay a visit to the Painter, in Ostende's Asylum. There, Wilfrid tells him what happened during his trip to the Island 15 years ago. The painter had been drugged by Katrin and had passed out just when Dr Gunter arrived. They had prepared him for the ritual and the trip had begun. But, something unexpected had stopped the trip and the one they were waiting for (the skinned man) had not been able to leave the fortress. So, the skinned man stayed on the Island and the painter went into the asylum. But, there was more. Gunter had found Marge a few days after and raped her. She commited suicide, throwing herself off a window rather than give birth to Gunter's child. But, she gave bith to him anyway. She gave birth to Wilfrid. The painter listens in silence. Leaving the painter, Wilfrid gives him Crosier's dagger. The painter uses it to escape from the asylum at night. Pragues, at night. Gunters' servants capture a prostitute and bring her to their master. When she enters Gunter's room, she faces the tentaculous and amorphous creature that Gunter has become. A few days after. The servants are preparing Wilfrid's initiation. A baby has been brought, and the adepts are ready. Katrin and Wilfrid arrive at Gunter's home. He's ready to receive them. When Wilfrid realizes what his father has become, he becomes mad at Katrin and blows up her mind with a burst of power he didn't knew about before. Now, he knows What he is. Gunter brings Wilfrid to the ceremony. All the adepts are there, celebrating Cthulhu and the Old Ones. When they do the sacrifice, Wilfrid receives the blood of the baby and starts to travel in dream over R'lyeh, learning about the Ancient gods and their return on earth. During the ceremony, the painter has reached Gunter's house and killed the servants that were guarding it. But, it is too late. The ceremony is over. Wilfrid tells him then that he too was a parent of Gunter and of Crosier in a way. They were all predators with a common ancestor, a sorcerer who lived two centuries ago and who had found a way to live forever between life and death. One day, Crosier had found a way to bring him back to real life, through a painting which had access to the Island. That's why the painter was needed for, to be the gate through which the sorcerer would come back to life. As Wilfrid asks the painter to kill him before he becomes like Gunter, the Painter shows him a hole that has opened in his chest, meaning that he is already part of the sorcerer and that the sorcerer is part of him. Part IV : Perinde ac cadaver ---------------------------- "Quel sentiment troublant! Tenir dans sa main, ficele, scelle, le legs d'un mort. C'est comme si, pareils a des toiles d'araignees, des fils tenus, invisibles, s'en echappaient, pour vous conduire bien au-dela, dans un empire de tenebres." Gustav Meyrink. [What a confusing feeling! Holding in his hand, tight, scaled, the legacy of the dead. It's as if, like spider webs, tiny invisible threads were coming out of it to lead you far beyond, into an empire of darkness.] Vienna. The Painter is watching an opera, Wagner's 'Den Fleigneden Hollander'. Covered by the shadows of a private balcony, he murders an officer (a general?) who was watching the opera too (probably another adept). On his way out, he kills another man who was coming out of a balcony with some of his friends (another adept?). Walking outside in the snowy streets, he is followed by silent folks. Rome, the Vatican. A secret council is held, concerning the attitude of the Church with regard to the doomed painting. They decide to preserve all the versions because they can use them to watch over the adepts. They make another decision too, about something that's happening in Vienna. Vienna. In a popular theatre, a play is over. Backstage, the actors are tired, especially Frozzi, the red-haired leader of the group. Tired of everything, he goes out to join the bordello where he is used to finding the affection of young kids. Later that night, on his way home, Frozzi is followed and attacked by the same strange folks that followed the Painter. They steal the pictures Frozzi has made in the bordello, the things he cares about the most. He is told to come the day after, alone, to the ruins of an old church if he wants to get the pictures back. Somewhere else in Vienna. Brother Carlo and sister Agnes have a private meeting with a representative of the Church in Vienna. They talk about their mission, to find and neutralize the man they are following. That man has been seen in the ruins of an old church. The Painters home. The painter reads a letter he received with a red-covered book. The letter is from Wilfrid, about the weapons that could help the Painter to survive as he, Wilfrid, is going to die. Wilfrid is slowly changing and can do nothing about it... he is about to become what his father was. To be alone, he has moved to France, to the old house of his ancestor, the sorcerer, with Gunter's servants. He learned there about the sorcerer, Aristide de Lunac, and the Scarlet Clock, the book where he could find a way to never die. But, he still doesn't know why Gunter and Crosier wanted to bring Aristide back to life. Vienna, the streets at night. A man his murdered (by the painter?). Somewhere else. He wakes up in a strange place, near a fortress and is led inside by a young woman (Marge). He is on the Island. Marge leads him into the place where Aristide de Lunac is waiting, watching an endless orgy of dead people. Now, the man knows why he is here. Marge first, then the other people in the room, come near him to feed from his dead soul. Vienna. Frozzi is walking to the church, talking to invisible friends around him. He is still followed by the strange flying folks. Inside the church, a man talks to him from the shadows. He talks about what's behind mankind's reality, about what is waiting to wake up again, and about the version of the 'Island of the dead' that Frozzi owns. He is told to give him the painting. Vienna, the Public Zoo. The Painter meets people and receives another contract. His employer are brother Carlo and sister Agnes. They ask him to murder one of them, a priest, he met years ago. Father Elary is alive and has to be killed. Frozzi's house. Alone in his house with only puppets to talk to, Frozzi is scared. He doesn't know what to do about his pictures and his painting. Suddenly, everything changes around him. Through the power of the painting, Aristide has attracted Frozzi to the Island. He talks to Frozzi as one of his descendants and is mad at him because he was about to give away the painting. The sorcerer moves the puppets against Frozzy, who throws himself through the window. His body will be found on the street. Back in their room. Brother Carlo and sister Agnes are about to make love to each other. They don't notice the silent flying folks entering the room. When they wake up, they are lying on an altar in the ruins of a church, naked. Elary is here, with blind eyes and white hair, transformed by his experiences. He sacrifies brother Carlo and leaves sister Agnes mad. She will be found mindless in her room, naked, next to the body of Carlo. Elary told her he was back to protect the world from the truth. The Painter's house. While working on one of his paintings, the Painter is attacked by the flying servants of Elary. Elary is here to tell him the Truth of what he has to fight against: the Beast is not the Devil, it is worse. The beast is waiting beneath the sea, dreaming, a blind god who waits for the stars to be in their right place, so that he can claim the Earth as his. Telling the truth, Elary raises a gun and fires at the Painter, blowing away his left eye. On the island. Aristide is wounded exactly as the Painter is. At his side, Marge is afraid he could be dead, but he is not. Not yet... [end of part IV] Wow! That was longer than I expected, but as you might have noticed, if you came through it, the story is very complex and the atmosphere is a great part of it. There is a part of it I can't show you here, the graphical aspect of the comics. Each page is like a painting itself. The characters are hard to get used to at the beginning, but the way they are drawn is in perfect harmony with the atmosphere. I don't know yet how many parts are to come. Time will tell. The story so far has the interesting approach to mix the Cthulhian Mythos with religion and with an explanation of life and death (at least the beginning of an explanation). It follows the usual progression, starting from reality and going further into the 'real' face of the world. I find it really interesting because it reflects exactly the way Call of Cthulhu can be played in France. It is a mix of the Cthulhian Mythos and other inspirations. Who knows, maybe it has given you some ideas about the real plan of Aristide the Sorcerer or some other ideas for another scenario. I only hope that I have been able to show you the interest of a comic which is, by definiton, a "visual" story, rather than a sysnopsis as it appears to be here... See you next time, in a week or two, for a real scenario that time... CTHULHU FTHA'GHN Agiel. ----- [1] Editions Vent d'Ouest, 31-33 rue Ernest Renan, 92130 Issy les Moulineaux. Tel : 40 93 01 01 Fax : 40 93 05 58 -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial discussion forum for Chaosium's Games. To submit an article, mail to: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu. The old digests are archived on soda.berkeley.edu in the directory /pub/chaosium, and may be retrieved via FTP. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------