This anonymously written book is printed in a thin, black octavo with a bile-colored sign embossed on its cover. The symbol is offensive to all who see it, regardless of race or culture. It has abnormally sharp edges and juts and curves in so disturbing a manner that it can scarcely be described, sickening any who gaze upon it for long. The first page indicates in plain lettering that it is titled “The Nazakranoth”, but the majority of the book is written in the same, unsettling hieroglyphs on the cover. It is difficult even to attempt to translate these words without weeping, as the edges of each letter sting the eyes unrelentingly.
A few passages are written in the common tongue, and they read as follows:
- Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven.
- Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
- Blessed are they who surrender their possessions to the appeasement of the gods.
- Blessed are they who reign in dreaming, waiting to be reborn.
The remainder is illegible to only the most learned scholars, a palpable sense of evil stirring within its yellowed pages. However, there are multiple slips of parchment inserted into the book, acting as dividers. In these segments are detailed notes pertaining to certain sections of the Nazakranoth, as transcribed by Augustus Armitage, Head Librarian of Valanice.
The sixth and final divider reads:
“Religious proselytizing dominates what little left I have bothered to translate. Continuing seems fruitless, as reading and re-reading this accursed tome has left me with strange visions and awful headaches that seem to subside only once I remove myself from its presence for an extended period. Perhaps I will pick this back up at a later time, but for now I cannot say these writings are little more than the frenzied scrawl of a madman. It reads like a fever dream and I grow tired of devoting myself to its insanity.”
The fifth divider reads:
“The author seems to have either gone mad or remembered he spoke of grudges earlier in the book and became excited over a recent revelation. The words “A MAN IS A GRUDGE” is repeated for several pages, over and over. I did not bother to count how many times.”
The fourth divider reads:
“Specific beings are mentioned here: Volisar the Mouthed is prevalent – I cannot be sure how that title makes sense. Most things have mouths. Jubilex is another anomaly, a terror upon children, brought into being by their suffering. It is said to flit about the interstices between realms, hiding within their troubled minds and eating their dreams, if not their souls. There are other names I dare not think of finding meaning in.”
The third divider reads:
“Blasphemy abound! I could scarcely go more than a few sentences without seeing calls to slaughter or perform heretical acts. Reading this book has been a strain on my eyes – translating it a strain on my heart. These passages that follow detail the carnage of battles long past in places I have never heard of. Yleng, Zorst, Etovia; no places such as these exist in Rembrant. But the book speaks of wars, of the dead climbing out of their graves, of ancient monsters surfacing from the sea, and ghastly intelligences from the stars. I am not sure how much is to be believed, and choose to sequester my own mind from the idea of such horrors.”
The second divider reads:
“I cannot for the life of me make much sense of the following passages. They are bunched together so as to force me to ply their words apart, and the ink is smeared in some places. What I can make out among this mess are promises of death, of burning, of genocide on a worldwide scale. There is much anger here, and a distinct reference to holding and recording grudges as well as transplanting them onto items. In this manner, the items gain some manner of life, for they wield the hatred of their owners with violent power. A method for inscribing grudges is written in shorthand, once again burdening me with further translation. I do not think these spells fit within the normal confines of Rembrant’s magic as we understand it, but perhaps some experimenting could go a long way to puzzling out this seemingly lost art.”
The first divider reads:
“References to foreign gods here, nameless but of terrible visage. Eyes are a prevalent theme, indicating power and forbidden knowledge. Foreword alludes to dead or sleeping deities who ‘reign in dreaming’, and that those who suffer under them shall be comforted. Lady Lunai receives a brief acknowledgment here before the scrawl heads into homunculi made in the images of the Rembrant pantheon as we know it, but seems to suggest that such is in poor form. No gods we are familiar with are named outside Lunai, but are heavily implied to be Protomas, Din, and Death.”