by Mark Latham
Cthulhu Worship in Rome
Behind closed doors, the rich and powerful of Rome gave praise to Cthulhu as they have been instructed to do by the priesthood. Lararia, or household shrines, containing statuettes of tentacled creatures sat side by side with idols of Jupiter, Apollo, and Minerva, yet the rituals demanded of the great houses of Rome went far beyond mere prayer. The plebeians would have baulked if they had witnessed the hedonistic festivals held in honour of this strange, alien god: slaves provided by wealthy lanistae – trainers of gladiators – were forced to fight to the death as entertainment during lavish feasts, the entrails of the fallen used as auguries in strange rituals; decadent orgies were held within steaming bath-houses, in which some of the attendants bore disturbing deformities – cephalopodan ‘stigmata’ of repulsive and yet somehow alluring appearance. It was said that one in 100,000 noble-born babes of Rome bore similar deformities. Many of these were sacrificed to Great Cthulhu; some were hidden away by their distraught parents, or sent far from the capital; others still were taken by the priesthood for some great, unknown fate.
Though only the 15 priests of the quindecimviri sacris were inducted into the deepest mysteries of Cthulhu, they maintained a cult of novitiates from other religious colleges, notably the pontifices, augures, vestales, flamines, and the septemviri epulonum. This Cult of Cthulhu operated in secret, carrying the priesthood’s decrees to the noble houses of Rome, and offering candidates for consideration when the priesthood required new members.
BESET BY BARBARIANS
At every frontier of the Empire, Rome was beset by marauding barbarians, comprised of many disparate peoples fighting for their own identity in the face of Roman invasion. And yet they possessed power that Rome craved – knowledge of ancient gods, an attunement with the earth’s vast energy, and strange relics of civilizations past.
Across the Roman Empire, rumours abounded of the barbarians’ strange customs and supernatural powers. The druids of Britannia, Gaul, and Numantia, it was said, could turn aside arrows and make potions that increased the strength of their warriors. The men of Germania, including the much-feared Goths, were believed to run with beasts, some being more wolf than man, while their filth-encrusted witches foretold the future in the entrails of slaughtered cattle.
‘To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.’
– Tacitus
Britannia
Across windswept moors, rocky shores, and deep woods, the tribes of Britannia were a constant thorn in the side of Rome’s plans. Shepherded by the druids, an ancient order that guarded arcane secrets, the Britons were ever restless and full of rebellion.
In 58 AD, after a tumultuous period of occupation, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus was ordered to Britannia as governor by the Emperor Nero. The augurs had predicted that an uprising would occur on those troubled isles, and the priesthood hand-picked Paulinus to defend Roman interests against the barbarians. A proven commander and loyal inductee of the Cthulhu mysteries, Paulinus set about at once weakening the magic in which Britannia was steeped. He waged a vigorous and zealous campaign against the druids, whose power had so far protected Britannia from the inexorable advance of Cthulhu’s influence.
Little is known of Gaius Suetonius Paulinus’ early life. The earliest record dates from 42 AD, during the reign of Claudius, when he suppressed a revolt in Mauretania and became the first Roman to cross the Atlas Mountains. When he was appointed governor of Britain, only the area southeast of a line between the Wash and the Severn estuary was under Roman control – a situation he set about changing at once.
THE CULT OF NUADA
Roman scholars attributed much of druidic worship to a ‘triad’ of deities, originating in Gaul and venerated across the Celtic world in one form or another. Most commonly the principal deities were named as Teutates (‘the Protector’), Esus (‘the Lord’), and Taranis (‘the Thunderer’), with myriad lesser deities and guardian spirits invoked for a variety of purposes, much as in Rome. In Britannia, something different united the druids – a secret cult that tapped the very peculiar magic of the ancient isles, and was particularly attuned to the sea. By the practice of drowning sacrifices, this cult protected their realm from invasion, repelling several Roman attacks before the magic of Great Cthulhu eventually prevailed. However, the worship of their mysterious sea-god continued in secret enclaves: with each sacrifice to him, Roman power in Britannia was weakened, giving heart to dissidents and paving the way for rebellion.
The priesthood of Rome studied the practices of this cult, who called their terrible god ‘Nuada’ of the Silver Hand, and came to recognize this deity as none other than Nodens, mentioned in the Liber Ivonis as the Lord of the Great Abyss. Depicted as a white-haired man with a great fish tail, the Romans traditionally appeased Nodens through the sanitized worship of Neptune; but in Britannia his followers embraced his capricious, wild aspects, and Nodens thus enjoyed great power and freedom.
One of the Elder Gods, Nodens’ power was waning due to his dwindling worship, but it had once surpassed that of the Great Old Ones. He often appeared as a benevolent protector, which accounted for his willingness to watch over the druids and thwart Roman conquest, but his true motives were much more sinister, at least to Roman minds. Nodens was a hunter, who enjoyed the sport of tracking and slaying the servants of the Great Old Ones. In these endeavours, Nodens employed his physical servants, the Nightgaunts. These faceless, horned, winged creatures were also worshipped by the druids, and the Roman authorities in Britannia struggled to quell tales of legionaries being carried off by Nodens’ demonic servants.
The Druids
Paulinus, like his predecessor Quintus Veranius, understood all too well that the reason why the Romans had been so vehemently opposed in Britannia was because of the influence of the druids. Initially discounted as little more than primitive priests, the Romans soon learned that the druids’ history went back a long way indeed, and that they held positions of power in Britannia that even the priesthood of Rome did not enjoy back in the Empire’s capital. The druids were the glue that held the disparate Celtic tribes together; high priests, advisors, healers, law-speakers, diplomats, sorcerers, and scholars, the druids had carved out for themselves the most invaluable and highly regarded roles in the barbarians’ society. Paulinus ruled that none should be so highly regarded by a subjugated people, save the Emperor himself.
And yet, for every druid put to death, others seemed to appear like the heads of the mythical hydra, rabble-rousing and encouraging insurrection. The druids had no fixed place of worship save for a few stone circles so old that not even the oldest among them could remember their original purpose. Neither did they possess holy texts, instead committing ancient rituals to memory through many years of study. Their faith was passed on through folklore, and it was said that the very act of storytelling was a method of spellcraft for a druid, and that to heed his words too closely was to invite bewitchment just as surely as drinking his magical potions.
The druids were not peaceful holy men like many of those from other conquered nations. Sacrifice was commonplace, both human and animal. Slaves, conquered enemies, and even willing volunteers were slaughtered like cattle or burned in massive effigies in order to gain the blessings of ancient, forbidden gods whose names could not be uttered. It was this practice that Paulinus used to swing opinion against the druids and to sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of their followers. The Romans, he said, were not nearly so bloodthirsty. The Romans would offer peace and progress, while the druids offered only death. When he had garnered enough support, Paulinus marched on the one true stronghold of the druids in all the isles of Britannia – the Isle of Mona.
Druid dedicated to the Elder God, Nodens.
The Plant y Daear and Plant y Môr
The other great protectors of the druids and their followers came in the form of devilish spirits, which the common Britons referred to as ‘fair-f
olk’. In the western parts of Britannia they spoke of a fairy court of the Tylwyth Teg. The members of this court could take many forms, from beautiful nymphs and human-like maidens to tiny sprits and hideous reptilian serpent-folk. Near the sacred groves of the druids, the Romans knew not to loiter after dark except in large numbers, for the Wild Hunt of the Tylwyth Teg claimed the lives of many unwary men.
Of these fairy spirits, those that resided upon the Isle of Mona were the most powerful, and the least likely to shy away from human contact. Beneath ancient barrows there dwelt the Plant y Daear, the Children of the Earth: ugly, misshapen dwarves with reptilian eyes and wicked claws, lurking in the darkness to drag wounded legionaries to the underworld. Along the rocky beaches, the river passes were protected by the Plant y Môr, the Children of the Sea, who were believed to be men with either the heads or tails of great fish, and who capsized Roman boats at the behest of the druids, to feast on the flesh of the invaders.
Stories of these wicked creatures were whispered around campfires throughout the legions, and as a result there were few Roman soldiers who rejoiced when Paulinus gave the order to take Mona once and for all.
A Ban’shee – a Celtic druidess from the Isle of Mona. Devoted to Nuada, Shub-Niggurath and other forbidden gods, the Ban’shee were the favoured daughters of the Tylwyth Teg, said to have blood of the faeries flowing in their veins.
The Isle of Mona
Paulinus went about mustering support for his decisive attack on Mona. He spread tales amongst the Britons of druidic altars slaked with the blood of virgin daughters, and of filth-caked sorcerers who had long forsaken their sacred oaths, and now worshipped vile deities. For many in the more settled parts of Britannia, these practices were alien, since the people of the province had come to live in relative peace. They believed the stories that Paulinus wove, and readily joined the auxilia in order to destroy this island of depravity and evil.
The Romans constructed a fleet of shallow-bottomed vessels to make the crossing to Mona. Some parts of the great strait were fordable by horses, and many cavalrymen rode across or swam alongside their horses. Before they were even halfway across, the wails of the druids could be heard, loudest amongst them the screeches of the Ban’shee, an ancient caste of druidess rarely seen beyond Mona’s shores. At their cries, the surface of the grey-black water bubbled, and the Plant y Môr came from the depths, dragging Roman soldiers to their deaths with scaly hands.
Paulinus had planned for such an attack, and had kept his entire fleet clustered around the shallows. His soldiers fought back from the boats with long spears and nets, until the entire river around the Roman advance was choked with ropes and blades, and the water’s grey surface bubbled again, this time with the red blood of the Children of the Sea.
By the time the Romans reached the shores of the island, the Ban’shee were silent. They stood upon the rocky beach, arms held up to the heavens, long black hair and immodest black robes framing their painted faces. They fixed the soldiers with such an eerie stare that at first none dared advance. A volley of arrows was loosed, but none found their mark: each shot turning aside before striking an enemy.
Paulinus himself, his courage bolstered by secret charms given him by the priesthood, advanced first, slaying one of the Ban’shee where she stood. Her eyes lit upon the ornate, many-tentacled hilt of Paulinus’ gladius, and he knew from her expression of fear that the power of Cthulhu would bring him victory. At this, there came a great uproar; druids poured from the woods, hopping on one leg and shouting curses, until the sky overhead blackened and rumbled with thunder, and the flapping, winged servants of Nodens appeared, circling like great vultures. Undaunted, Paulinus sounded the advance, and his legion raced forward, hacking at the druids until none was left alive, and the beach was slick with blood.
The Romans marched across the breadth of the island, uncovering many more enclaves of druids and Ban’shee, and encountering things that Paulinus would not describe. It is said, indeed, that the Britons who marched with him were put to death rather than risk them returning home with tales of the druids’ true power. Following this example, every legionary was sworn to secrecy about the terrible things he had seen. Paulinus ordered that the sacred groves be cut down, the altars toppled, the menhirs dug up and thrown into the sea, the barrows opened and reconsecrated in the name of the Roman gods, and the remains within burned on pyres. The greatest magical treasures of the druids – said to include great cauldrons made of gold that could restore the dead to life and a sacrificial stone that could alter the destiny of kings – were carried off to Londinium. Soon after, a garrison was installed on the island, and the primary order of its commanders was to quell any worship of the old religion of Britannia.
This should have been enough to destroy any further insurrection in Britannia, but it was not so. The ancient tradition of the Ban’shee was too deep-rooted, and too secretive, to be fully extinguished. Soon, a follower of their teachings would surface to challenge the might of Rome: a warrior-queen of the Iceni, named Boudicca.
THE LOST LEGION
The mysterious fate of the Legio IX Hispana (the ‘Spanish’ Ninth Legion) has been the subject of much speculation. All that is known is that, shortly after completing work on the improved fortifications at Eboracum (modern York) in 108 AD, the legion marched north and was never heard from again. That an entire Roman legion with such a storied history could vanish without a trace, seemingly stricken from every record, is almost unbelievable. The truth of the matter is so dreadful that the priesthood of Rome was forced to take drastic action, suppressing records and employing much-feared enforcers to ensure the silence of every soldier and commoner who would dare whisper the name of the Ninth.
In 108 AD, a revolt by the Brigantes tribe had threatened to sweep into Eboracum before the new fortification had been fully garrisoned. The Ninth had met the Brigantes, but had met heavy opposition that put the Roman commanders in mind of the Boudiccan Revolt – a thought that filled them with dread. The Brigantes fled north to Caledonia, and the Ninth was dispatched with orders to run them down, to leave none alive, and to return to Eboracum with the heads of the Brigantes’ lords to serve as warning to the other tribes.
The Ninth marched beyond the borders of Roman-controlled territory, not realizing that they were walking into a trap. Their journey took many weeks, during which time they suffered continuous night-time raids and the hardships of travel across an inhospitable, mountainous territory. The Brigantes had treated with several Caledonian tribes, who lured the Roman legion deeper and deeper into the wilderness where the wild magic of their ancestors was strong. Amongst a range of massive hills, battle was joined, but the Ninth faced no ordinary enemy. They had stumbled into a great range of barrows, housing the most powerful kings and sorcerers of Caledonia’s ancient past. At the call of the druids, these long-dead creatures crawled from their resting-places and attacked the legion. Their deathless, inexorable advance was telling, and the legion broke.
Those who survived were pursued into a labyrinth of caves that stretched deep underground. There they became lost, and one by one succumbed to death. Those who survived the longest must have seen something truly terrible in those dark, primordial caverns – evidence of a time before man was truly man; a time where dark gods cavorted and rutted with humans in the earth’s dark embrace.
The next time any evidence was seen of the Legio IX Hispana was when its eagle was sighted near a northerly border fort. The few survivors of that surprise attack reported serried ranks of skeletal warriors whose touch was like ice and whose eyes burned with baleful fire. They were Romans by their garb and fighting style, but they were not living.
Several more such attacks followed, until the Romans were forced to withdraw from the northernmost forts. The Roman hold on Britannia became precarious once more, until finally the Emperor Hadrian visited the province with two of the priesthood to advise him. After hearing the evidence for themselves, the two priests turned very pale, and in
a whispered exchange spoke of ‘Yog-Sothoth’. At once, they prepared a great ritual – one of the most ambitious they had ever attempted. Furrows were dug across the entire breadth of Britannia, cutting off that accursed northern land. Salt was sown in these furrows, and sacred charms laid at regular intervals, before work began on building a vast wall stretching east to west. The Emperor decreed that Caledonia be cut off from the rest of the Empire, never to be entered by any Roman again.
Germania Magna
The lands around the Rhine were long contested by the expansionist Romans, who saw this part of their northern frontier as an invaluable source of raw materials. However, so fierce was the resistance to Roman occupation there that the territory could never be held for long. Not all of Germania was a barbaric hinterland: indeed, many of Rome’s finest legionaries hailed from the subjugated parts of this territory, although such compliance was an uncommon trait in the hardy folk of Germania.
The great tribes of northmen and warriors of Germania, which included the feared Goths, were a savage and relentless foe. Their witches long foretold the coming of the Romans, and more than one Roman expedition met an ignominious end in the dark forests, never to be seen again.
The Elder Tribes
Much of Germania’s warrior heritage came from its collection of seemingly disparate tribes, descended from Gaul, Scandinavia, Dacia, and probably farther afield. Strong of body and belligerent of attitude, the tribes were ever willing to war with each other, though always ready to stand together against a common enemy, setting aside old enmities only temporarily to do battle with invaders such as the Romans.
Of the many tribes, the oldest and most respected were the Goths, Vandals, Thuringians, and Saxons. These four tribes once stood alongside the Cimbri, Teutones, and Ambrones, who were annihilated in 102 BC by the Roman general Marius, a transgression against the Germani that was never forgotten. The remaining four ‘Elder Tribes’ gathered to their banners the stragglers and remnants of the others, and grew in power and influence. Though they came often into conflict with other tribes and clans, it was understood that the Elder Tribes held the favour of the gods, and that their wise-women and shamans were the most learned, and blessed.