Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Chaosium Digest Volume 05 Number 11
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
