The Necronomicon

This book makes a fine addition to any Library! It's been bound in alien flesh and bone and written on human skin! Impress your family! Astound your friends!

Right. And anyone who actually wants it stand up. The fact is, no single book anywhere has the nasty reputation of the Necronomicon. It contains forbidden lore and stuff Man Was Not Meant To Know. This makes it virtually irresistable to some players. My players don't want it, though, because I gave it to them once. They live in dread of ever finding it again.

The Necronomicon is worth four points of Library all by itself with regards to researching the Qlippothic Spheres of the Nephandi, and five points for the purposes of learning Demon Lore, Spectre Lore, Alchemy, Occult, and Wyrm Lore. Unfortunately, every hour (that's right, hour) of time spent reading the thing requires a willpower check (rolled by the Storyteller, difficulty 7) in order to avoid getting a derangement of some kind. Of course, the first time this happens, the cat's out of the bag. That's not its only danger, though.

The Necronomicon is actually a sentient creature that is usually in a state of repose. It even has a set of statistics, thus:

Strength: 1         Charisma: 5         Perception: 1
Dexterity: 1        Manipulation: 5     Intelligence: 5
Stamina: 4          Appearance: 0       Wits: 3

Alertness: 2
Awareness: 2

Arete: 6            Willpower: 8        Quintessence: 11

Correspondance: 3   Life: 4         Prime: 4
Entropy: 5          Matter: 3       Spirit: 5
Forces: 2           Mind: 5         Time: 5

Health: OK (x10),-1 (x5),Incapacitated

Fortitude 4     Thaumaturgy 7- All known paths
Countermagick: 4 dice

This is generally regarded as a Bad Thing. It gets worse, though. The only way to shut the Necronomicon down is to smash it until it is Incapacitated. This puts it to a deep sleep until it heals back to full health, which usually takes 16 years (one for each health level). It then stirs fitfully until it is touched by a being that has been at least partially Awakened, at which time it gets a Perception+Awareness roll at difficulty 9 to awaken.

You don't want to push it over Incapacitated. It discorporates like a spirit and appears somewhere else in the world, at full health and awareness. It will probably be mildly irritated.

The most annoying habit of the Necronomicon is its tendency to try to summon Things That Should Not Be from the outer reaches. It only does this when the time is ripe, and will not summon them willy-nilly. The stats of these things vary widely, as do their power levels, but they often require Willpower checks of characters that gaze upon them, just to avoid collecting derangements. The weakest of these Things do not have this ability.

You should have seen the looks on the faces of my players when they realized that they had allowed the Necronomicon to subvert Autochtonia] to its own designs. Imagine cybernetic Horrors...

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