Shaal Fragments

Gore Rayne -FOLIO- Grimoire of Note

Text of the Fragment

And when She made preparation to return, and the world broke in two.

The Childer of Caine on one side, The Childer of Lilith on the other, And it was Gehenna.

They named her Shaal for her questions, Though her names were many and maddening to hear.

The Childer's Childer recognized opportunity in chaos. Arikel sought unity, Ashur sought divinity, Loz sought war, Malakai sought peace.

Malkav sought wisdom through bargain with Ilyes, Who told his brother, "Your wisdom shall come with the centuries of madness, Allowed to purify into something whole, The vitae of the mad will pour afresh in years to come. The old forms shall wither on the vine, And declare the end times. Only the children of Enoch, Shall see the new age."

The breaking of the world near complete, The sacrifice of a generation prevented Shaal's Gehenna. She would try again, And again. Each time a new sacrifice, More burdensome than the last.

Malkav's blood shall pour forth, The Book of Chaos in the Underworld written, To prevent Shaal's Gehenna. Sargon's get will understand, But they will not share their understanding. The Brides of the Dragon will understand, But their fee will be high.

Her hatred is as the phases of the moon. Gehenna follows the path of Her ire.

• • • • • • • Damaged pages, unreadable**********

There is always a bit of the truth in the most con-vincing of lies.

The lie is that the dark was empty and formless be-fore the Light came. The truth, there, is that it was only mostly formless. There was life in the void, before the birth of the sun. Potent beings had lived for eons in the blackness of night only to be forced to flee the burning of the Light.

They fell like stars from the sky. Where they crashed into the ground, the Earth split and heaved, creating massive chasms. Within these darkened pits, the old gods hid from the searing sun… and they slept. These beings came to be called the Children of the Outer Dark, or Those Who Wait. Their existence began in a reality beyond our understanding—and their power is absolute.

Over time, people built great cities over the slum-bering gods, not realizing that the power of the Chil-dren was what drew humanity. Like flies to honey, tribes flocked to these locations, drawn there by dreams and visions. These places were foci of great power, the sleeping deities below the ground saturat-ing the very earth with foul energies.

The first people to discover the body of one of these gods lived outside of a great city called Ashur. We refer to them as the First Tribe. We do not speak their true name or acknowledge it. Giving voice to their name gives power to their connection to the Children and can attract unwanted attention.

While digging a well outside of the city, the First Tribe uncovered the desiccated body of a sleeping Child of the Outer Dark. As the light of the sun struck it, the Child screamed in agony, calling out to its brethren in a language that was old before time began. There was power in these words—a power that shook the ground and rent the souls of the First Tribe.

Even as this Child of the Outer Dark’s flesh melted and its bones collapsed in the onslaught of sunlight, the First Tribe realized what they had found. The words and names that had been spoken burned them-selves into the souls of all those present and forever changed them.

They could hear the secret whispers that flowed into the night from the sleeping titans. They could sense the burning power that the names of the Children had granted them—power over the very laws of crea-tion, itself.

The First Tribe was as power-hungry as any mortal group—or immortal, for that matter. They sought out ways to petition these beings, using the names and words they had learned to entreat the slumbering...

The Tribe did not realize, at first, that power is a two-way street. Utilizing the names and language of the Child-ren granted them temporal power, yes… but it also stirred the Children in their dormancy, making...them more and more aware of the world around them. When the First Tribe had realized their mistake, it was already too late. The Children had begun to grow restless in their sleep, and in their dreams, the First Tribe witnessed the beings rise from their earth-en wombs, striding as titans of disease and misery across the world.

In a panic, the First Tribe designed wells, in honor of the first Child they had discovered, and performed profane rites and rituals of sacrifice and bloody orgy so that they might appease their patrons and sing them back into blissful dreams. As time went on, the First Tribe developed more gruesome and bloody rites of degradation to better cater to their dark gods.

Still, those within the First Tribe longed for the power granted by using the names of the Children. As a result, they began to dilute the beings’ names. They changed the names through human language, modify-ing them and distilling as much power as they could without drawing the sleeping deities’ attention. It didn’t always work; some names were too strong, even when altered.

What horrors the First Tribe unleashed upon the world are best left unspoken… but we do know that it was not long be-fore they attracted the attention of a wandering demi-god. The early children of the dark One and his lot were akin to deities… walking across the land and bringing death and undeath as they chose, bending a knee to only The Dark One, himself. As genteel as they wish to paint their early societies, they were as bloody as the First Tribe.

Whether it was out of boredom or out of a desire to destroy possible competition, an undead god came to Ashur. There, it discovered the great well of sacrifice. It witnessed the atrocities and perversions the First Tribe visited upon captives and slaves in times of war… and how they devoured their own in times of peace to appease their dormant gods. It found these evils pathetic.

The demigod strode into Ashur, deciding to wipe away the childish rituals of the First Tribe. Its gaze destroyed the minds of those who stood before it. Those that were able-bodied were twisted and rent into weeping distortions of flesh. Those that were beautiful were turned into horrors. It swept through the First Tribe like a scythe fitting of The Dark Ones fields.

Those that survived were thrown into the well of sacrifice. There, the beast who had destroyed them left its blood for those desperate and determined enough to live.

Nergal, the ambitious destroyer was the first to emerge from the pit, covered in the blood and shit of his fellows, his hunger clawing at the very depths of his soul. Moloch was the second to emerge, his mind enlightened by the depths of depravity and calm wick-edness of their sire. The third… the third emerged a broken and hideous thing. It departed from its sib-lings and sank into the night. Some say it was one of the pair of lovers, twisted together by the dark power of the cainite who found them. Others say it was the most beautiful of the First Tribe and that the undead god who embraced them could not bear its destruc-tion. To this day we have not discovered the truth of the matter. To this day, we do not care.

After clawing their way to the surface, Nergal and Moloch looked upon the stars and howled in rage. New strength flowed through their bodies and the knowledge of the Children was still seared into their souls.

...and such was the blood lust, the hunger from the Child of Brujah, it infected Moloch, and their passion knew no end

To feed them in thirds, no two would satisfy them, for three is the sacred cradle...

Moloch schemed to make her more his, and tricked her with the fifth, subverting the cradle to a grave, a well to eternity...

Glefthos and Balank twisted the geometry, and death and time were invoked, split through water and earth

...crowning the triad protection as the flow marked the five and the seven, growing against the nines till the power of the moon was only an inverted seed as are the bones of the fingers, the calling of the life.

Malikhairs Commentary

• 1. If She is “returning,” who is She? The Crone, perhaps? Zillah?
  
• 2. Not the first time I’ve seen a reference to the childer of Lilith. No reason the Clans may not have separate progenitors, ultimately.
• 3. Shaal is “to ask” in Hebrew.
• 4. Most Toreador I know of revel in disharmony. A shame they’ve fallen so far from the tree.
• 5. Could this be a reference to Cappadocius?
• 6. This name is unknown to me.
• 7. As is this one. Loz and Malakai could be childer or grandchilder of Lilith, of course.
• 8. Ilyes is one name I’ve seen given to the Brujah Antediluvian. Not a typical recourse for wisdom.
• 9. Far too much ambiguity in this statement for my tastes.
• 10. Could this be why the Second Generation fell?
• 11. If this truly is a part of the Book of Nod, it’s the only one to refer to multiple Gehenna events.
• 12. A Malkavian is said to have penned the Book of the Grave-War. Was he compelled to do so by an elder of his bloodline?
• 13. If the Dragon is Dracula (as was once assumed), a trip to his castle may be in order.