The expedition managed to overcome this barrier through [DATA 
EXPUNGED] means and proceeded to retrieve the tomb's artifacts 
(no other SCP items were among them but they were later 
impounded at a Foundation facility anyway - see annex 531-B). The 
last items to be retrieved were SCP-531 themselves. One of the two 
statues was hoisted down from its alcove and crated for transport, 
with the plan being to crate the second one the next day. At some 
point during the night [REDACTED] went missing and a new 
replacement statue was found occupying the vacated alcove. The 
expedition decided to re-seal the tomb with these two statues 
remaining in their alcoves. The statue they had placed in a crate 
was taken with them to the institute, where another individual 
went missing and another new statue was found in storage paired 
with the original. It was at this point that Foundation staff retrieved 
both pairs of statues along with the other artifacts from the tomb. 


Note: Due to sloppy record-keeping by [REDACTED] (who was lost 
during early testing of SCP-531's properties) it is not known which 
two of the four statues impounded by the Foundation at that point 
were the ‘originals’. 


Properties: 


When a pair of two SCP-531 statues are facing each other they 
produce a powerful suggestive effect preventing anyone passing 
between them. This is a psychological effect; no measurable 
physical force is generated. It is conjectured that this is the primary 
function of the statues, and in and of itself this effect is harmless. 


If the line of sight between the two statues is broken, a more 
dangerous aspect of SCP-531's effects manifests itself. Observers 
will be drawn to meet the gaze of one of the orphaned statues 
themselves. Once the gaze is met by an observer he is unable to 


Dr. Montauk: But how would that save the 
world? 


Pol-3172: Doctor, is this really necessary? 
You took away his daughters years ago and 
ended up killing most of them. You have 
already annihilated our society, and I'm sure 
you know all about what went on within it. We 
worshipped the King, pretending he was Satan 
or some other ancient god of evil. Our inner 
circle believed in violation as the ultimate holy 
act. We failed, you and the Bookburners 
destroyed us, and the matter has been put to 
rest. 


Dr. Montauk: You seem awfully calm while 
describing the destruction of your life's work. 


Pol-3172: What else can | do? | know how this 
is going to play out. Maybe | always did. 


Dr. Montauk: Why do you refer to the Global 
Occult Coalition as the "Bookburners"? Were 
you and your group affiliated with the 
Serpent's Hand? 


Pol-3172: That's- it's complicated. 
Dr. Montauk: It's a simple enough question. 


Pol-3172: But there isn't a simple answer. 
Still... yes, we were affiliated with the 
Serpent's Hand. Most of us passed through 
there at one time or another. They will disavow 
us, of course, if you ask them about us. 
They're not monsters like we are. They have 
moral precepts, you see. Their whole point is 
to look for wonder, and since they see no 
wonder in the King, they repudiate us utterly. 
But they know, deep down, that they need us. 


Dr. Montauk: They need you? What for? 


Pol-3172: For the same reason they let us 
live. We raided the library, fought them, 
skirmished with them. They had a huge 
quantity of dirt on us, far more than you do. 
But they never finished the job. They're as bad 
as you Jailers, in their own way. The same 
compartmentalisation, the same singular 
goals. Their existence is based in nothing 
concrete. The empty time of history, that's all. 
Indeed, they came into being at the same time 
as you. You're more similar than you realise. 


Dr. Montauk: That's impossible. The 
Serpent's Hand has been documented as 
existing long before the Foundation in any 
incarn- 


Pol-3172: No, no, you miss the point. The 
Library's always been there, yes, but not the 
Hand. The Hand was something new, like you 
all are. You think anybody ever cared about 
"wonder" in the old days? Nobody cared about 
wonder. They cared about food, family and 
blood. 


Dr. Montauk: What's that supposed to mean? 


Pol-3172: It means... ah, you wouldn't get it 
anyway. But the Hand would. | think even the 
Bookburners do, in their own way. But the 
Hand is scared. They try to blot us out, forget 
us. We're what they should be but never can 
be, you see. 


Dr. Montauk: Look, Dipesh, | have tried to 
make things more comfortable for you, but we 
need some give and take. You're speaking in 
clichéd, cryptic riddles, and | want some 
answers. 


Pol-3172: | can't tell you everything. You 
wouldn't treat the information properly. You'd 
treat it as scientific fact; something to be 
swallowed, understood, contextualised. 


Dr. Montauk: And what is wrong with that? 


Pol-3172: Why are you doing this, doctor? 
Why are you dredging this stuff up again? 


Dr. Montauk: | shouldn't tell you, but... ahh, 
screw it. I'm tired of this. I've been working on 
SCP-001 for two decades. Project lead for 
almost 9 years, after | came up with the 
Procedure. | don't know. I'm tired. Everywhere 
| turn | see the Scarlet King, but nothing about 
him makes any sense. Some big horned devil? 
Arcane blood god? It's all so small, so obvious. 
The Foundation has changed in the last 
decade, you see. We've faced conceptual 
demons, malevolent genre dwellers, sevenfold 
destroyers, all of which are far worse than 
some old sacrifice deity. But there, behind 
everything, | see this smile in fire. That dread, 
that old dread, it lingers. And this is despite 
seeing horrors far less easy and far more 
subtle trying to break the world on a daily 
basis. | just want to understand, | suppose. 
Peel back the layers, the tales upon 
contradictory tales, and find out who he really 
is. 


Pol-3172: You're being awfully candid. 


Dr. Montauk: To be honest, I've stopped 
caring. This job gets to you. The things you 
have to do, the regrets... well, I'm too high-up 
for anybody to touch me now, and I've run into 
too many dead ends to get hung up over 
protocol by this point. Just tell me something, 
Dipesh. Anything. 


Pol-3172: OK. Look. | like you, Montauk. You 
must be a cold-blooded bastard somewhere in 
there, or you wouldn't have come up with- well. 
Who am | to judge, eh? I'll tell you where to 
start. 


Dr. Montauk: I'm all ears. 


Pol-3172: There are three things to 
understand about the Scarlet King. Three laws 
which, when put together, make up a complete 
picture. One is the law of blood. One is the law 
of concrete. And one is the law of howling. 


Dr. Montauk: Three laws, eh? That the King 
set down for his followers, or that were 
imposed upon him? 


Pol-3172: Both. The first was his law. The 
second was somebody else's. And as for the 
third, well, you'll find out about the third when 
you've cracked the first two. 


Dr. Montauk: Very cryptic. 


Pol-3172: That's all | can tell you for now. You 
need to learn in the proper way. 


Dr. Montauk: That's really all you'll give? 
Pol-3172: That's all. 
There is a pause for several seconds. 


Dr. Montauk: Alright, Dipesh. Good talking 
with you, as ever. 


<End Log> 


Document 2: The following is an extract from the 
memoirs of one Jack Hearst, a defector from the 


Children of the Scarlet King. Hearst was a high-level 
reality bender, capable of entering the bodies of humans 
in the past and experiencing their thoughts and emotions 
first-hand. The following is a description of what Hearst 
called the "Battle of the Ghemelleth", purportedly a battle 
between SCP-001 and his followers against a group 
called the "Children of the Urns". Hearst apparently 
experienced the battle from the perspective of a foot- 
soldier in SCP-001's army. These memoirs were written 
shortly before Hearst's death in 1976. They were among 
the first documents consulted by Dr. Montauk during his 
investigation. 


The fortress was monumental, made of 
volcanic rock and jagged iron and built into a 
vast mountain. Every measurement, every 
angle was calculated to promote the King's 
ideology. The steel slats and bars may have 
seemed to be jutting out in random half-sawn 
directions, but if you could see the whole then 
you'd see the symmetry. It was a perfect 
expression of cosmic order, expressed in 
endless sevens. 


It's a tough trip to remember, but bits and 
pieces come back. We were slaves, | think. 
We had been taken from a far-off land. The 
nobility looked down upon us with cruel eyes, 
but the King didn't care. He rewarded us, and 
so we were the instruments of his rule. When a 
village required the justice of the King, we 
would descend upon them with blood and iron. 
The villagers feared us, and that felt right to 
me. But when the horde came, with fire and 
burning and their cries of freedom, the 
villagers were still just as scared as they had 
been of us. That was not the fear of their 
master, | think, but the fear of anarchy. They 
didn't know which way to turn. In the end, most 
betrayed us. Many had had their daughters 


taken by our master. Old rites. Blood rites. 
Arcane rites. 


But we stood upon the battlements, loyal to the 
last, our hearts bursting with happiness at the 
rightness of it all. I'm still not sure exactly what 
was going on- it was all so chaotic, and full of 
red smoke- but | could feel my host's 
bloodlust. We stood, and watched, and waited. 
The sound of rubble and explosions came 
from across the hill, and the last battle begun. 


Then something strange happened. My host 
suddenly felt afraid, and he and | were 
somewhere else. The sky was not red but 
black. | was not a slave but part of a 
conscripted rabble. The peasants looked up at 
us. They were all starving. They held out their 
hands, begging, pleading, praying. The wind 
was their master, and it screamed at them. 
The horde was coming, but they, too, were 
starving. 


Then the scene flickered back, and | was in my 
host again, under a scarlet sky. The King's 
voice raged. The rabble of his armies was 
fleeing to the gates, but they would not open. 
Our arrows, Coated in flame and pitch, flew 
back again. But the horde was undaunted. In 
my mind | could see nothing but the fire, the 
fire of the king. | drew my sword. We all drew 
our swords. We all charged into the fray. 


And then, as it were, the scene changed 
again. There were no battlements, only the 
dark sky and the wind and a more ragged and 
lonely sky. The peasants pleaded, the nomads 
laughed, cheered, wept. "The wind will rage no 
more!" they said. 


The two scenes shifted in and out. A red fort 


bled into a black field. | have ruminated on it a 
long time, but | think they were the same 
battle, seen through two different eyes. Or at 
least the memories of two different battles. The 
whole thing felt strange; it was not like most of 
my trips. It was like a half-remembered 
cacophony, two ideas ripping at each other. 
There was a timeline showing what really 
happened, in that blackened wasteland. And 
there was one that had been made to be true, 
imposed throughout time on the truth. 


The last thing | remember was being sliced by 
a nomad sword, of a frail urn being held high, 
of seven brides being ripped from a castle- or 
were they ripped from a field, taken as the 
spoils of war by some obscure tribe in some 
lost steppe? | remember the King screaming, 
writhing, thrashing as he was sealed. 


And then | died, and woke up back at the 
ritual. For a second, | wondered if the others 
had just made up the King, and sent some 
image of him back to the past. But | don't think 
that was true. They lacked the power; and 
besides, it was never a fofal lie. There was 
something in that wicked wind that reminded 
me of some of the older rituals. 


It was then that | decided to leave the 
Children. | went that night, without a word. 
They didn't stop me; probably figured it wasn't 
worth the effort. They were so certain in the 
success of their mission. But | wanted no part 
in that any more. The things | saw were based 
upon the law of blood, and | can only pray that 
they never come to pass. 


Document 3: The following is a log of all known 
attempts by anomalous groups to force SCP-001's entry 


into the prime dimension since the containment of 


SCP-231. 


Date 


01/03/09 


Group of 

interest 
Provisional 
Children of 
the Scarlet 
King 


Details of Result 
attempt 
Summoning Attempt 
attempt was prevented by 
performed by a Foundation 
the ritual raid. 
smearing of 
blood and 
then the 
destruction of 
rubble 
recovered 
from the 
demolition of 
the Cochran 
Gardens 
housing 
project 
complex in St. 
Louis, 
Missouri. It is 
believed that 
the Children 
of the Scarlet 
King 
manipulated 
state officials 
into the 
demolition 
over the 
course of 
several years, 
and that this 
splinter group 
continued 
their work as 
the original 


12/05/12 


02/07/14 


Red Guards 


Children went 


into decline. 
Appeared to 
be using the 
blood, bones 
and spinal 
fluid of 
several 
animals, 
combined 
with ritual 
chanting, to 
create a 
portal to 
SCP-001.A 
large number 
of SCP 
Foundation 
logos, carved 
out of bone, 
were placed 
around the 
ritual site ina 
defensive 
position; 
these logos 
were slightly 
incorrectly 
carved. 


Global Occult Unknown. 


Coalition 


Attempt not 
detected by 
any Gol, and 
came 
extremely 
close to 
SUCCESS. 
However, it 
appears a 
critical 
mistake in the 
words of ritual 
instead 
resulted ina 
large 
explosive 
blast, 
destroyed all 
of the 
assembled 
members of 
the Guards. It 
remains 
unknown why 
the Guards 
apparently 
wished to 
invoke 
Foundation 
protection for 
their 
ceremony. 
Unknown, but 
did not 
succeed. 
GOC records 
pertaining to 
the incident 


01/01/17 


Army of the 
New Dawn 


are missing, 
with the 
exception of 
the name 
"Operation 
Historical 
Frontier” with 
the mission 
statement "To 
exacerbate 
tensions of 
historical time 
in order to 
bring forth 
and destroy a 
significant 
occult threat". 
It is believed 
that several 
GOC 
operatives 
were killed in 
the attempt. 


Attempt Attempt 
involved the’ prevented by 
ritual burning members of 
of several the Serpent's 
calendars Hand. All 
adhering to} materials 

the Gregorian were 
calendar, recovered 
while and taken to 
members of the 

the group Wanderer's 
raised up Library. 
blood-soaked 

calendars 

adhering to 

the Julian, 


Hijri and 


break eye contact without an effort of will beyond the capability of 
most people. 


The trapped individual will feel a mental pressure forcing him to 
crouch down so that his eyes are level with the statue's. After 
several minutes in this pose the subject's body begins to slowly 
stiffen and become heavier as a transmutation effect takes hold, 
converting the subject into a duplicate SCP-531 over the course of 
approximately one hour. The subject remains aware throughout the 
process but will remain unable to break the statue's gaze. Once the 
physical transmutation has begun there is no known way to halt or 
reverse it. 


The duplicate is an exact copy and produces the same effects as 
the original SCP-531 statues. It is unclear whether this duplicative 
effect was intended by whatever agency created the original 
SCP-531s or if itis a side effect of the powerful link between the two 
statues. 


For the most recent round of experiment logs, see Experiment 
Log 531 


Memo 531-BB: Proposed use of SCP-531 for containment of other 
SCP items 


It is proposed that SCP-531 statues could be put to use as part of 
Foundation security and containment measures. They could 
theoretically constrain the movement of sapient SCPs that physical 
barriers are ineffective against.