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Psalms of the Frog

You find a demonic psalter bound in human skin and sewn with pages made from the colourful hides of poisonous frogs. If viewed by someone carrying a token of Tsathoggua, the psychedelic pages clear to reveal beautiful gold-leafed illuminations that depict black meteors coursing aflame through the night sky and crashing to the ground, and what looks akin to a gargantuan toad consuming mountains and trampling over entire cities. Spidery calligraphy in gold-leaf, forming unnaturally into the language of whomsoever reads it, states: “Millennia past, from Dark Yuggoth, He came, and the Elder Gods did weep, for thus their Dominion was doomed.” The writing emanates an ineffable malignancy.   Further pages depict what look like Elves in a cave holding a black stone aloft, and, in another panel, mutated toad-men all bowing before a similar geometric stone. Another illustration shows a man in the attire of a Pharoah, with a face of malevolent aspect, carrying a flute, with images of Death gathering about him, and in yet another there is a host of demons rising from the earth to do battle with dragons and giants. The following page is shrouded in magical darkness, with the words “And then Our Lord was bound and suffered, and Men strove to forget…” seeming to glow from black mists.   Then there are pages of depictions of wars between men, armies of undead and civilisations ravaged by battle magic. There are Elves in caves worshipping spider demons, Dwarfs in golden halls worshipping wrathful fire gods, and then a horde of twisted, baleful entities like innumerable demons running in great swathes over the lands of men. “For a second time, he poisoned the earth and sacked the kingdoms, including the proud Realm of Arcady under cruel Bahotep. If not for Light and Darkness Our Lord of Madness would have prevailed. Ten thousand curses upon the sword-wielder who vanquished His host, She who forged it by grace of the Djinn, and He whom She sacrificed – and who gave Himself willingly in his despicable selflessness – to banish and keep Our Lord so incarcerated!”   Upon the final pages are more swirling images of dark clouds and stars in unrecognisable constellations, and the darkness seems to suck the reader into a vertiginous stygian abyss of purest evil. Ominous words speak directly into the reader’s mind: “Fear not, for the Third Coming shall come to pass, and this time when he awakens in N’Kai, He shall prevail. Nyarlathotep has foreseen it and heralds it with His cataclysmic song. Zvilpoggua shall amass a new legion at the Lodestone of the Dark Planet, Yuggoth. K’Varn shall unite the denizens of the Underdark. And Cassius shall water the seeds of corruption that will fulfil the prophecies already whispered by the darkening forests. As Our Lord laid waste to the Empires of Old – Thassilon, Zakhara and Khoria – so he shall again, with the self-styled Demon-Lords enthralled to His Will, and the Great Tarrasque as a puppy unto his Unspeakable Might. No Elder Gods nor Devils nor Dragons can stop him. He is the Great Darkness. The Great Old One Beneath the Earth. The Great Poison Toad. The WorldSwallower. The Frog God…. Tsathoggua…”   And this last is spoken in a whisper so filled with dread and ill-omen, echoing in the mind of the reader so as to drive him beyond the brink of despairing madness, such that he must close the book immediately or be reduced to irreparable raving insanity.

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