Whispers of the Dead (Azathoth)

 

The Ritual

It must be conducted under the sky on a starry night. Attempting it on a rooftop in a city clogged with light pollution imposes a -10% penalty to the activation roll. The operator plays an atonal melody on a wind instrument, though no Art skill is needed. It's like a musical form of automatic writing. Most versions of the ritual include sheet music or instructions for writing your own. Part of learning the ritual is understanding that while great skill is required manipulate Azathoth's dreams, it is also completely irrelevant, as everything is destroyed as it comes in contact with His maelstrom of creation.

If the operator wants to perform the ritual with a non-wind instrument, they can, so long as they have any Art skill. The ritual takes anywhere from a minute to two hours to complete. If time matters, divide the operator's SAN by their POW and multiply the quotient by 120 to see how many minutes it takes. If the activation roll fails and the operator does not spend 1 POW to force a success, they collapse, breathless.

If the activation roll succeeds, the operator feels like they're at the center of the universe, or that something greater has turned its attention on them. Agents with Pharmacy or Psychotherapy might rationalize this as a neurological misfiring that dissolves the sense of self, common in synesthesia or LSD trips. Then the sky changes. The stars twist and blur as the Milky Way pulses painfully overhead. The music of Azathoth's court begins to leak out into our reality as pounding drums, shrieking flutes, warbling harps, and stranger sounds from unknown instruments. The whole experience costs 0/1D4 SAN from unnatural, unless an Agent specifically focuses on the chaotic music or examines the sky. Then they lose 1/1D8 SAN from unnatural as they hear the true melody of the song or briefly glimpse the Court of Azathoth. Anyone with Art or Science (Astronomy or Physics) can test their skill to see if they gain Unnatural equal to the amount of SAN they lost.

Alternate Names: The Cosmic Symphony, Petition of Chaos, Speak the Secret Name of Shaggai

SAN Loss Flavor

1-2 points: Instinctively look down or try to cover your ears; a moment of dissociation where one of your senses is just gone; realize you've been clenching your teeth and holding your breath.

3-4 points: Sway on your feet and try not to vomit; Collapse into a more stable position, like crouching, kneeling, sitting, or leaning on something.

5+ points: Escape to somewhere quiet where ambient noise can't remind you of the music; seek shelter from the sky; stare at the sky, jaw agape; attack anyone nearby so that creation can follow destruction; attack the operator in an attempt to shut down the conduit to otherworldly forces.

Handlers shouldn't feel compelled to use all of these at once. They're just there as tools to make the setpiece of "performing the Whispers of the Dead ritual" more interesting.

Boon

The din of Azathoth's court suffuses throughout the operator's mind. They gain INT+3D6% in an Art skill. If they already have such a skill, it increases by 3D6 points to a maximum of 99%. Anyone attempting to read or otherwise interfere with the operator's mind is subject to a SAN test as they risk gazing directly into the Court of Azathoth. Depending on the intruder's 'telepathic skill,' the SAN loss can range from 1/1D6 to 1D6/1D20.¹ Additionally, the operator doubles all WP gains from sleep and rest. The blind idiot god is a near infinite source of power, not to mention that the music lulling him to sleep easily overpowers the human mind.

Blessing

The operator is immune to asphyxiation and the dangers posed by hard vacuum, radiation, and extreme temperatures. All HP damage from fire is halved (though successful Lethality rolls still kill them). Somehow they can inhale and exhale freely in outer space, like breathing impossibly cold air. The operator can also hold their breath indefinitely in toxic environments, though this may cost SAN from helplessness or unnatural or require a POW test to resist the urge to breathe. They may spontaneously develop impossibly robust DNA repair mechanisms or only develop benign tumors. Maybe in a statistical miracle, ionized particles and waves always manage to pass through the gaps in their atomic and subatomic structures. Maybe their body keeps working like a cargo-cult, producing misfolded proteins that shouldn't work yet somehow do. Fire and cold still hurt, but never seem to inflict any damage past the first few layers of skin. If they die to the Lethality roll of a blast furnace or bonfire, their body is mysteriously intact. The cause of death appears to be a combination of heatstroke and asphyxiation instead of blood loss, pulmonary edema, or heat hematomas as would be expected.

Curse

Invoking the name of Azathoth is not without consequences. His power courses through the operator like a live wire, frying them with 10% Lethality. Invoking Yog-Sothoth's powers of time and space could resurrect a dead operator as a severely diminished copy, while entreating the Nameless King could bring them back as a burning memory (of a memory). If this is too harsh or sudden, the operator instead loses 1 POW every session (or 1D4 points before every Home scene) as their soul crumbles from having borne the weight of Azathoth's existence for a mere second. Humans with substantial Unnatural and unnatural entities are loathe to finish them off "before their time."

Side Effects

• The operator sets off Geiger counters when they're stressed or dreaming.
• Their bodily fluids sizzle and pop as if electrified or carbonated. Said fluids also smell and taste metallic.
  
• The operator is prone to nihilism. If in doubt as to what Disorder they should get from crossing a Breaking Point, try Depression or Megalomania.
• They whistle tunelessly in their sleep. The sound unsettles any animal with a brain more complex than an insect.
• If the operator is viewed through the Voorish Sign (or some other secret sight), the sound of drums and flutes is audible as well as a faint blue glow.

If you're confused as to what this is about, check out this post.

1 Zero SAN NPCs (and unnatural entities) may be unaffected by the sanity loss, but exposure to the cosmic court is still likely to have a deleterious effect not dissimilar to temporary insanity or a grand mal seizure.  ^↩