The Almanac of the Beyond

Heavily critisised, widely feared, and reverently admired, the Almanac of the Beyond is the largest collection in Tariksan of lore about great old ones and similar entities. It is a highly contentious book due to the disturbing amount of dispassionate detail about such entities and their cults, and it is likely that at least one of the six major authors was actually a warlock of a great old one.

Authouring such a tome was deeply dangerous work, as five of the six authours died in persuit of knowledge. It is believed that in the spaces of time between authours who made significant contributions, there are other people who attempted to contribute, perhaps managing a paragraph or two before the beyond claimed them and they faded into obscurity.

Purpose

Whilst each author of the almanac had different opinions about their task, in general it's function was to record and categorise entities and forces that seemed to arise from no plane. This includes creatures know as "the great old ones," which are known to supply arcane power to further their adgendas on all planes, in particular Nardish due to it's state of interposition with the arcana.

The book is written dispassionately, and it is unclear if it is designed to serve as a warning against the forces it describes or a guide to encountering them. The amount of detail about various practices would have required the author to be present at "secret ceremonies," although whether they were undercover or not remains in contention.

Document Structure

Publication Status

Only 10 copies of the original book were made: six of these are under close guard in libraries, the other four are believed lost. While reprints exist they loose a lot of the detail of the original, usually due to fear that the book will be used for ill.

Access to the book in Astora requires special permission, which is usually not given to strangers. Access to censored copies is usually permitted, but monitored closely. Critisisms of the almanac are freely permitted provided they do not quote more than a paragraph at a time of the original text.

Read the Document

The Almanac of the Beyond

More than 100 forces and entities are described in some capacity in the almanac.
In the opening paragraph the final author Brossen le'Vale writes:
By four, and by four, the planes hang between the future and the past. For this we thank Valthelod, Samdin, Corbaltiss, Janzil. They exist outside of the regular pattern they created, entities of the void outside our comprehension, creatures of the beyond. Is life so regular? Do the flowers have four petals, a stone have four sides, or a lord have four lovers? Or is there more to our existence than just what we have already seen.
Out there, past the reaches of our eyes to see and our minds to fully comprehend, is the answer. Trapped in our existence we may never reach up to touch the face of our creator, or witness the company she keeps. But through the cracks they make themselves known to us anyway.
Let this bloody tome guide your soul to them, let it teach you how to see past the veneer of reality and recognise the mark of them on our lives. See the eldritch, the old ones, the beyond.
May your eyes, once opened, never close.

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Medium

Vellum / Skin

Authoring Date

302G