Chaosium Digest Volume 12, Number 11 Date: Sunday, January 28, 1996 Number: 1 of 1 Contents: The Society Della Santa Fe (Steven Harris) CALL OF CTHULHU Mulderian Maunderings (Marc Zender) CALL OF CTHULHU Editor's Note: Welcome to the special Unaussprechlichen Kulten edition of the Chaosium Digest. Due to a once in a lifetime alignment of the planetary fields, two articles related to that blasphemous book have arrived in the same week. As a followup to last week's "Secret Societies... for CoC" article, Steven Harris has provided a new organization for CoC, The Society Della Santa Fe. Nephilim fans will want to take a look at the article, since it could also be used as background to that game. Marc Zender also offers a followup article, giving further insights into the CoC-XFiles connection, discussed previously in V12.7 and V12.10. I hope the great CoC and Nephilim material keeps coming in. However, I've also noticed that Pendragon and Elric! articles have been a bit scarce since last November, and would love to see some more in the coming weeks. So, if you've been working on some ideas for those games, send the articles this way! Shannon -------------------- From: "Steven Harris" Subject: The Society Della Santa Fe System: Call of Cthulhu In the last Digest (V12.10), Shannon Appel talked about secret societies being used in Call of Cthulhu. Readers of that article might be interested in The Unaussprechlichen Kulten Web Page: http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~sh323089 The UK Web Page contains a detailed listing of many of the cults and secret societies that appear in Von Junzt's Unaussprechlichen Kulten. The cults and societies are tailored to the world of the Cthulhu Mythos, but Nephilim players could also find inspiration from some of them. To give people an example of what the cults and societies are, and how they are written, I offer the following secret society (which was a real historical society). NAME: The Society Della Santa Fe AREA OF INFLUENCE: Strongest in Italy, but prevalent throughout Europe. Late 1700's to early 1800's? HISTORY: This society is mentioned by Jean de Witt in his Les Societes de France et d'Italie (Paris, 1830) as being a group dedicated to the eradication of post-revolutionary political forces in Europe. According to De Witt, this reactionary body was spread all over Europe and was slowly bringing about a return to the ideals of the pre-revolutionary order. To cover its designs, it purported to aim at the liberation of Italy from the Austrian government. It was also known to go under a variety of names, like Del Anello and even Bruti. The Society is thought to have been started by certain individuals within the Society of Jesus, a.k.a. The Jesuits. These individuals felt that the strong anti-Roman Catholicism ideology that was inherent in the French Revolution had to be fought if the Church was to ever return to its former glory. ORGANIZATION: The headquarters of the Society was in Piedmont, Italy. The reason for this was that Piedmont was under French rule from 1798 to 1814. Because of this, the Society Della Santa Fe was able to increase their power in France due to the ease in movement from Piedmont to Paris. The grades of power within the Society consisted of three in number: the Initiate, the Knight, and the Provost. The Initiate of the order was only able to contact the Society and receive orders from them through the use of the confessional in particular churches, usually those of St. Luke, patron saint of surgeons. The Initiate was commonly chosen through the same method. If an individual confessed to activities, such as murder or involvement in the occult, that person would be placed on a list of possible candidates for entry to the Society. If that person was a powerful figure or had skills necessary for the Society to further its interests, they would kidnap the person by the use of a drug that would cause the person to be unconscious for several days. When the individual awoke, they would find themselves in a representation of Hell, complete with fire and demons. These demons, from descriptions, were more than likely puppets or members of the Society in costumes. During this experience, the individual would be drugged again and awakened later by a representative of the Society who would tell the Initiate that they were brought back from Hell through the intervention by prayers of Society members. The individual was told that they were poisoned by "revolutionary elements." At this point, the representative would detail how the Society needed them and how they could help further the aims of the Society. Loyal Initiates would eventually find themselves raised to the status of Knights. Knights were the active fighting part of the Society. Their responsibilities were to manage Initiates, plan assassinations, attempt to personally gain political power, and compose and distribute propaganda. All Knights carried a small dagger with a red handle that carried the Society's emblem upon it. This dagger was vital to the ritual the Initiate underwent to gain the grade of Knight. The dagger had to be used by the Initiate by plunging it into their thigh while reciting a pledge to the Society's aims. The Provost grade was restricted to priests or those of royal blood. Little is known of the responsibilities of this grade or even the ritual toward entering the grade. SYMBOL: The symbol of the Society Della Santa Fe was composed of a circle with five dots contained within it. These five dots were said to be representative of the five wounds of Christ. The Society likened these wounds with the wounds of the Roman Catholic Church (i.e. the body of Christ) brought about by the French Revolution. Thus, their identification with St. Luke and surgeons. VON JUNZT'S COMMENTS: Von Junzt, in Unaussprechlichen Kulten, mentions De Witt's account, but he dismisses De Witt and his details of the group's beliefs and aims. Von Junzt feels that De Witt was only acquainted with the information given to Initiates and that given to Knights. Initiates were told that the aim of the Society was to liberate Italy from its foreign invaders. Knights were told that the true aim of the group was the restoration of pre-revolutionary Europe. The Provosts, the true heads of the Society, were actually attempting to achieve a much more sinister goal. According to Von Junzt, who hinted that he knew someone or was himself accepted into the Provosts, a member of this grade would learn that the organization's ambition was to unite Europe under the powers of Charlemagne, the long since dead Holy Roman Emperor from 600 years earlier! This unbelievable claim is further complicated by the fact that Von Junzt holds that the Society's Provosts believed that Charlemagne's spirit resided in a bronze replica of a human head and was known to give advice to the Society's leaders! While many took Von Junzt's account of this secret society as further proof of the author's insanity, it should be said that Von Junzt never says that he himself believed that this bronze head was truly Charlemagne's spirit. In fact, Von Junzt makes the cryptic remark early in his account that the members of the Society Della Santa Fe were "...of a number of deluded societies." Whether this refers to the large number of those in the lower grades not being told of the Provost's true aims or if this refers to the Provosts themselves as being deluded in thinking that the bronze head truly held Charlemagne's spirit we can never know. NOTES: Few modern occultists or historians refer to the Society of Della Santa Fe except in brief references. One of the few exceptions is George Compton's article "Secret Societies in Revolutionary France" from History and Society (Pg. 323, Vol 13, 1953) Compton spends most of the article arguing against Nora Webster's thesis that Masons were behind the Revolution, but he does devote two paragraphs discussing The Society Della Santa Fe. He refers to the commonly held belief among conspiracy writers that Victor Emmanuel II, who became the first king of united Italy in 1861, was a member of this Society because he came from Piedmont, the Society's headquarters. Compton dismisses this idea, but he doesn't explain why. Another article, "The Sun Will Never Set: Legends of the Templar's Survival" by Paul Curmode from European Tales (ed. Michael Tillings, Farnway Press, 1991) mentions the Society Della Santa Fe in relation to the idea that the Society held a talking bronze head. Curmode sees a connection between this idea and the accusations brought against the Templars in 1307 of having a bronze head they worshiped. To Curmode, this was one of many legends and stories that grew up after the disappearance of the Templar order and, as he makes clear in his article, he feels they are all untrue. Curmode's thesis is that the Templars left a void in the European society that was never filled and this caused many people to create the idea that they were still in existence. The stories told of the Society Della Santa Fe provided the necessary societal component that was missing. -------------------- From: MVZENDER@okuc02.okanagan.bc.ca (Marc Zender) Subject: Mulderian Maunderings (Errata & Addenda) System: Call of Cthulhu My last article created quite a stir in some circles, and, having received a welling tide of e-mail, I decided that I would take this opportunity to clear up one or two minor points. First, Gottfried Mulder does not turn up in the Robert E. Howard stories "The Black Stone" and "The Thing on the Roof", but in the Lin Carter tale "Zoth-Ommog" (in the paperback collection DISCIPLES OF CTHULHU). He is also mentioned in H.P. Lovecraft's SELECTED LETTERS V (p.299) as the author of the GHORL NIGRAL. Other than a brief mention in Lovecraft's almost impossible-to-find DREAMS AND FANCIES, this is the extent of Gottfried Mulder's appearances in the corpus. (Sorry to cause so much confusion, and those who have been hunting down copies of REH's tales for mentions of Mulder can now turn to the more fruitful task of hunting down copies of "Zoth-Ommog".) Second, some additional information for the enterprising Keeper: Gottfried Mulder wrote the foreword to Von Junzt's (in)famous UNAUSSPRECHLICHEN KULTEN (Dusseldorf edition) in 1839. After Von Junzt's death in 1840, Mulder devoted himself ever more to publishing, which task had actually alienated him from Von Junzt prior to the latter's death and caused him to take Alexis Ladeau with him on some of his more harrowing adventures. This unfortunate occurrence, however, probably saved Mulder's life, for both Von Junzt and Alexis had been dead seven years when Mulder finally published THE SECRET MYSTERIES OF ASIA, WITH A COMMENTARY ON THE GHORL NIGRAL (1847) in Liepzig. Over a decade later, Mulder would again write about the mythos. In 1858 he published the GHORL NIGRAL itself (whether he actually *wrote* this work or translated it from a much older text that came to Earth from distant Yaddith is still a matter hotly debated by scholars). That year, Mulder fled to Metzengerstein to escape a hanging. The authorities were outraged over his book, and his long association with Von Junzt finally bore its terrible fruit. I am indebted to Steven Marc Harris for much of the above information, and strongly urge anyone who is interested in either Mulder, Von Junzt or their respective works to check out his truly excellent website at: http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~sh323089 Thanks to everyone who wrote to me (whether with criticism or compliments), and I look forward to hearing from more of you, Yrs. for the irreverberate blackness of the Abyss, Marc Zender mvzender@okuc02.okanagan.bc.ca -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial electronic 'zine about Chaosium's Games. 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