Strange noises were heard coming from the ceiling beneath the attic space on the far east towers of the Archive. By the gentle prodding (and when we say gentle we mean rough and rudely, and when we say prodding we mean prodding mostly done with pointy sticks aimed firmly at her fanny) of her devoted interns, our good old lass Babel Jean Tea Hymn was convinced to investigate. Ms Tea Hymn was a bit skiddish at first, to blindly go into these dark and mostly unused areas of the Archive, but after a bit more gentle prodding (and by gentle we mean… oh you get the picture, we threw the fussy old bird right into that dark old room!) Ms Tea Hymn bravely weathered the spiderweb infested attic by candle light alone. Many bets were taken as to the outcome of this spur of the moment adventure, but much to the disappointment of the interns (all of whom are still a bit spiky where Tea Hymn is concerned after her year of rude and relentless […]
Author: Bethalynne Bajema
A Nocturne for My Saturnine
The Chuthlu Crush The Magpie’s Bird Room There was once a woman born Abigail Frost who thought she saw a very strange creature when she was just a child. This fateful event put her on a path that would slowly cause her to become more and more dedicated to the task of proving the reality of what she thought she saw. This task became an obsession and this obsession would finally be satisfied, only the reward for her driven pursuit was not exactly what she was looking for. Abigail was transformed into a creature known as a Taurean and her immortal name became the Magpie. In the mythology of the Taureans and Saturnines the Magpie became a well known figure. Her fabled bird room housed countless species of bird or rumored to exist. This was her passion for decades until a chance introduction to a book about Lovecraft’s old gods caused her to make a sudden and sharp turn. Her crush on the old thing named Cthulhu found strange changes taking place in the Magpie… […]
Professor Semper Vogel’s Reading Machine
At the height of the Spiritualist Movement when creators like Huxley Auspex were inventing their other worldy creations like the Auspicmoriscope, a more mundane line of invention was being attempted by brilliant creator Professor Semper Vogel. Vogel, not content to simply teach his knowledge and try and inspire the youth of his city to push their gray matter towards more profound things, he put his talents and intellect to the task of inventing machines that would aid the afflicted in his world. His first attempts were at a clunky brand of hearing aids. Most of them proved too large and impractical for the individual use. They were little better than the old fashioned method of putting an ear horn to your head and hoping for more hearing clarity. After much frustration and failure Professor Vogel came upon an invention that seemed to conduct itself perfectly. The rather large invention was a reading machine, a device that could be placed over a page of written words that were read and clearly reproduced aloud from a speaking […]
Robyn Von Swank
A variety of histories have been offered to explain the creation of the entertaining and slightly wicked creature known as Robyn Von Swank. The more conventional creators of rumor and innuendo simply claim that Miss Von Swank was born to scientist parents long ago on a remote island in the previous century. Raised among experiments and smoking glass beakers, Von Swank found herself greatly drawn to the process of documentation. Her subject matter varies from the simple photographic evidence of zombies in our living world to the arcane practices of strange witch doctors. The more eccentric tellers of origin tales claim Miss Von Swank was really discovered in 1893 at roughly 80 to 90 feet of digging in the notorious Oak Island Money Pit. These tales claim a stone box with a variety of strange engraved markings was found and brought to the surface. Upon opening the box nothing but emptiness was discovered, however the box was cleaned off and set aside so researchers could take their time studying the strange markings. The excavationer’s went […]
Etta Diem’s Specialty Sheers
There are many things to be found in Etta Diem’s eccentric attic shop. I remember visiting once where I spent nearly an hour sorting through a shelf full of beautifully crafted bottles — often called Egyptian Tear Catchers. Each of these small and elegantly spun bottles held a small tag that offered a name of the bottle and the properties of the fluids kept inside. One of the most tall and narrow of these bottles, painted an incredibly pearl like black and crimson and extremely beautiful, claimed to contain the tears of a mythical dragon of very old legends. When Etta’s back was turned I did a rude thing on impulse and removed the stopper of the bottle and lifted it to my noise. The smell alone caused my noise to recoil in pain and my eyes instantly watered. Nervously I tipped the bottle a pinch and watched a droplet fall from the bottle and hit the wooden floor with an evil hiss of burning. That one droplet burned clear through the floor, and then […]
Mechanical Insects in the Forest
Travel Log, 27th of June, 2008, or 1908, I can never tell anymore. Mechanical Insects in the Forest . . The trip to Chicago regrettably had to be canceled because of gremlins that had taken up a home under the hood of the auto. We could almost hear the ghastly little things chewing metal just outside our window as we attempted to sleep that night. Transmission fluid and new fan belts are easy to obtain, but gremlin killer in an easy to use spray can there is not. We had to take the Archive’s auto to a proper witch doctor to first remove the gremlins, and then take the poor spent vehicle to a proper mechanic to have the damage repaired. Generally speaking in this day and age the average mechanic does not lift an auto’s hood and find himself greeted by large bite marks in the machinery. This prompted him to take a good hard, mystified look at us. Michael simply told him “What? We didn’t nom nom it.”So with our trip canceled, and […]
The Miskatonic Archive Newsletter Vol I Issue I
Archive Staffers and Visitors alike: We here in the Elder Staff members department have decided it might be beneficial to those who have gotten behind on Archive happenings, or for persons who are new to the Archive, to have a newsletter that collects together Archive events and articles. Please find enclosed your copy of The Miskatonic Archive Newsletter. . . . . Table of Contents …. ~Exhibited Artists …. ~Mint T. Zolty …. ~Articles …. ~Adventure . . . . …. ~Exhibited Artists 02.13.08 ~ Myke Amend 02.18.08 ~ Bethalynne Bajema 03.06.08 ~ Georgia Pakadakis 06.11.08 ~ Eliza Gauger 06.27.08 ~ Ramona Szxzerba . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . . . . . …. ~Mint T. Zolty Original Post February 16th, 2008 | Attention Archive Staff: […]
Ramona Szczerba
I was greeted by the most extraordinary collage creations this morning, with a small note trying to convince me the artist responsible for them had come into being by a crazy night of elderberry wine and a strange rendezvous between a gentleman octopus and a charming selkie. Luckily this biography was included in with the artwork to dispel this rumor: “There aren’t any castles in the suburbs of Delaware and there aren’t any haunted mansions with gloomy mansard roofs, either, and because that fact was nearly too tragic for me to bear as a child, Winona Cookie came to comfort me. “Appearing in a shower of cookie crumbs one rainy thunderstruck afternoon, she has been my lifetime antidote to boredom. While I trudged through graduate schools and internships, Winona has followed her own path, leaving a trail of fanciful stories, watercolors, ink drawings, collages and jewelry in her wake. She favors the darkest faeries, legendary women, arcane subject matter and inventors that never were. She is currently obsessed with the steampunk genre and is running […]