Picking up from where we last left off.
Tlācayoh
A headless spirit, said to have been born from the anger of a woman murdered by her wicked husband for trying to escape with her lover. While frightening, she is depicted as a neutral or even helpful figure so long as she is treated respectfully. Petitioners will occasionally receive direct aid from her in the killing or cursing of abusive fathers or husbands.
The Classical Nahuatl name listed above is a compound of tlācatl (“human being”) and the suffix -yoh (“made of, full of, covered in”).
n!Kai
A hapax legemenon, claimed to be the name of a legendary subterranean city in the journals of an anonymous Franciscan friar writing in New Mexico province c. 1680. The friar claims to have heard the term from the local Pueblo in reference to a mythic underworld reserved for monstrous creatures and humans who have transformed into them, but this is not substantiated by either Spanish or indigenous sources. The brief description of the word’s pronunciation is sufficient enough to identify an alveolar nasal click; no known language of the Americas, extant or historical, features click consonants of any kind.
The Slave Market at Dylath-Leen
An 1874 painting by artist and professional dilettante Sir Calvin Halsey that is nothing short of a crowning achievement in how many orientalist stereotypes one can fit onto a single canvas. It depicts a short, dark-skinned and narrow-faced man with an orange turban pacing through a moonlit plaza, inspecting the unclothed bodies of a line of captive women. Cloven feet and the tufts of furry ankles peek out from beneath the man’s silk robes and an opium pipe smolders in his ringed and jeweled hand.
Draft sketches of the painting were discovered by chance in 1996, revealing that the slaver had undergone significant revisions in design; the first iteration was an unclothed, rotund, furry creature with a flat face, wide mouth, short horns, enormous ears and six eyes, described by one art historian as “the cousin that Ewoks buy their meth from”.
The Venus of Boncuklu Tarla
8cm black granite figurine of an obese, masturbating woman. The announcement of its discovery in 2018 was immediately beset by controversy on all fronts:
- The discovery was neither announced nor verified by the Mardin Museum, which oversees excavations at the site.
- The discovery was published in the Journal of Truth-Centered Archaeology and Anthropology, which regularly espouses fringe and conspiratorial theories of human history.
- While the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B culture would potentially have had the means to shape granite with flint or emery, it is unlikely that they could do so with such precision and realistic proportion at such a small scale.
All together, the figure is considered a modern forgery. But, while she failed to revolutionize archaeology, she has gained some small online fame both for the expected reasons, and for triggering the Twitter meltdown and resignation of the Journal's head editor after the Venus was depicted in fanart as a protestor against UK gender-essentialist legistlation.
Tablet 65
Fragmentary Akkadian-era cuneiform tablet describing an exorcism performed on a man that had started eating the dead and speaking in their voices, and who had only been captured after the killing and consumption of a six-year-old boy. The lack of formality in the text indicates that the text was a private missive, but beyond the address of the recipient as “my brother priest of Nanna-Sin” there’s no identifying information present for either party. The author asks for guidance, feeling that he is unfit to continue in his office, as well as aid with a matter obscured by a lacuna in the text.
H.P. Lovecraft
A prolific but forgotten-in-his-time writer of gothic fantasy and historical romance stories, who gained post-mortem fame when he was used as a shared pen-name by over two dozen science fiction authors as the center point of an elaborate metafictional shared universe / comedic bit.
Bigfoot (Austrolopithicus gigantus pattersoni)
A descendent of the robust austrolopith lineage, averaging 6-8 feet tall. Migrated out of Africa ~2 mya and underwent relatively rapid gigantism to adapt to the Tibetan Plateau and northeastern Siberia, with populations migrating to the Americas through Beringia ~100 - 80 KYA. Driven to extinction by arrival of H. sapiens, with the most recent remains dated to ~11 KYA.
History of the Kings of the Divs
1868 French 'translation' of a supposed Classical Persian text detailing the sordid three-thousand year-long political history of the demonic dynasties of Mazandaran (separate from the Iranian province of the same name) and culminating in the defeat of Div-e Sepid by the hero Rostam.
While near-certainly a modern invention (no source text or substantiating manuscripts have ever emerged), the author was at least familiar with the Shahnameh and had a solid grasp of the language. With that factored in, it is a surprisingly solid fantasy epic filled with grotesque monsters, daring-do, a crumbling empire, wicked sorcerer-viziers, and mild-to-moderate period-appropriate racism.
Tape #53 (08-14-76)
8-track cassette tape recording of a conversation overheard by amateur radio enthusiast Charles “Chuck” Angstrom of Coconino County, Arizona sometime between 1:30 and 3:00 AM on August 14th, 1976.
The six-minute conversation, spoken entirely in Navajo, consists of four men (callsigns Bear, Fox, Owl, and Turtle), coordinating the hunt of a presumably-rabid coyote. All four speakers use both conversational and coded speech, indicating that at least one of them had been trained as a code talker.
The original 8-track cassette was in poor condition at the time its contents were digitized by Charles’ son in 2007; much of the conversation is difficult to understand even for native speakers, and several sections have yet to be deciphered. The tape ends mid-conversation with Owl saying “Two, no, three up ahead. Yeah, three of them,” followed by the slam of a car door.
The Pohnpeian Mermaid
Daguerreotype of a hairless, fish-tailed hominid, taken in 1852 by missionary Laurence Douglas in situ on the shoreline where it was discovered. Subject appears deceased. Douglas later wrote in his journal that he believed the being to be pregnant, and he gave it a Christian burial in an undisclosed location on the island rather than let the corpse be burned per the wishes of the local Pohnpeians.
Sagart & Carey Plastics
A small plastics manufacturing company headquartered in Jackson’s Hole, Wisconsin. Made national news in March of 2023, when a DEA raid turned into a 3-hour long siege and gunfight. An estimated 60-80 employees escaped the premises and remain at large.
Aihoat
Signature monster of the 1973 horror movie God In the Labyrinth - a many-legged and many-eyed off-white blob inhabiting a seemingly endless maze outside normal time and space (see: Navidson Tapes). The effects aren’t great, but the puppeteer and cameraman do their best with the resources they have. The film is somewhat infamous in cult horror circles for the suicide of the writer-director during editing, with the last three sequences prior to his death being the “tunnel chase”, “human pens” and “Cistine (sic) chapel contact”.
At the end of the film, it is revealed that Aihoat’s luring of humans into its maze and subsequent implantation of parasitoid larva is the monster’s attempt to preserve some of humanity against nuclear war. The surviving characters are offered a choice: live as a zombified host for Aihoat’s larva, try to survive on their own in the labyrinth and find other survivors, or brave a return to the now-irradiated surface. The film ends before choice is made.
“The Majestic 12”
Informal name for a group of US Air Force officials affiliated with Project Blue Book and the investigation of unidentified flying organisms.
Rochefocauld Group
International economic think-tank and financial lobbyist group, active from 1981 to 2008. Predictably common inclusion in New World Order conspiracy theories, even after the group dissolved during the financial crisis. Likewise predictably common inclusion
First and Last Dynasty of Mu
1974 science-fantasy novel by Alphonse Lowe about the collapse of the titular lost continent’s royal family. One is unlikely to find a more corrupt collection of incestuous backstabbers than this horrid lot, and Lowe revels in the grossout horror of it all to a degree most modern readers would find concerning.
The Harvestman
Urban legend: a gigantic arachnid that, when seen at a distance and under low light conditions, appears as an exceptionally tall human with obscured or blank facial features. Also called “Mr. Long Legs”.
Point Nemo Anomalous Exclusion Zone
An 850 km diameter no-sail, no-fly zone maintained around the oceanic pole of inaccessibility. The cordon began as an American endeavor (with support from the United Nations) in 1962, with Soviet ships present under the Nautilus Treaty from 1972 to 1979.
No verifiable information has been produced regarding the purpose of the cordon or the Zone’s contents. Photographs taken from the ISS and leaked to the press in 2006, if not doctored, indicate an island in the center of the Zone that is otherwise not accounted for in public-facing satellite imagery.
All civilian attempts to breach the cordon have been rebuffed with force.
The Cruel Empire of Tsan-Chan
An early roleplaying game in the vein of Dungeons and Dragons, set in a tyrannical sci-fantasy empire of far-future Earth. While never particularly popular, the novel setting attracted a small and dedicated fan base until posthumous revelations that its author had kidnapped and imprisoned a woman in his basement for over a decade before burying her dismembered body on his property.
The Navidson Tapes
Handheld camcorder footage chronicling the discovery and exploration of a featureless, lightless and seemingly-infinite labyrinth within the home of a man who introduces himself as “Will Navidson”. Five copies of the tape were found in storage at the University of Richmond’s film department in the fall of 2000, leading most to assume that it is either an abandoned student film or an elaborate hoax; None of the persons in the film have been identified due to intentional face-blurring of all involved parties, though the place and time of shooting have been narrowed down to Virginia in the spring of 1990.
Ixion
15 Jupiter-mass brown dwarf orbiting at a distance of 1.68 light years from the Sun, discovered by the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer in 2011. This discovery spawned a wave of panic among the public due to its similarities with the Nemesis hypothesis and it was immediately tied to apocalyptic theories regarding the end of the Mayan long count calendar in 2012; the available evidence does not support its involvement in a mass-extinction cycle on Earth, but subsequent observations have confirmed at least two major moons, the larger of which is estimated at 0.84 - 1.2 Earth masses. Unmanned missions to Ixion have been proposed, but have been judged unfeasible by multiple space agencies given the time cost.
The Gollynack
Urban legend emerging in the mid-80s nightclub scene of southwest England with a core narrative as follows:
A woman returning home alone after a night out is stalked and then attacked by a man (usually described as a serial rapist and murderer escaped from a nearby prison or mental institution) who pursues her into an abandoned house. Cornered in the cellar, the woman decapitates her attacker with an axe and buries the still-moving body behind an unfinished brick wall. There the killer transforms into a flabby, headless monster with mouths in its palms that incites victims of its influence to acts of violence and sexual depravity (though stories differ on whether the creature’s influence forces its victims to act, or simply encourages tendencies that were already present.)
The creature’s popularity has remained relatively consistent over time, thanks to the Aristocrats-style one-upmanship that flows naturally from the premise, but has never been particularly high for the same reason.
Liao
Opium derivative encountered by American troops during the Vietnam War, predominantly in the highlands by the Laotian border. Users commonly report highly distorted perception of time and hallucinations of threatening entities; additional effects include extreme paranoia, an irrational fear of man-made enclosed spaces, and seizures triggered by sustained observation of right angles, all of which may persist after the drug’s other effects have worn off.
Copycat street drugs (Reverb, Black Lotus, Dog’s Paw, Picasso, etc) have occasionally surfaced in the United States since the 1970s; these have thus far all been invocations of liao’s mysterious reputation applied to ordinary and often adulterated heroin, LSD, or ecstasy.
Crom
Celtic name of unclear provenance; known only from a single Primitive Irish inscription along the blade of a bone knife found alongside the body of Gallagh Man II: “By Crom (this thing) is done”.
Scholars are divided as to whether the name is in reference to a deity or a human figure, and further divided as to whether it is related to Old Irish cromb (“bent, stooped”), the PIE root *ker- (“host, warband”), or a substrate borrowing.
Liber Ivonis
Purported pre-Roman grimoire, though no copies can be dated to earlier than the 1620 Venetian manuscript. It was predictably banned from publication by the church and later elevated as a core text by the 19th century occult revival, despite its actual contents being a biting and unsubtle satire of European esotericism. The egomaniacal, bloviating Hyperborean’s increasingly absurd attempts at avoiding his creditors, compounded with his repeated failure to accomplish any of the fantastic feats he claims to be able to do and the total indifference of the spiritual entities he encounters, make for a remarkably funny book even 4 centuries after it was written. The trip to Saturn episode in particular has earned the text a spot in many histories of science fiction.
Don't worry, there will be a third installment
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