Of Unspeakable Volumes

In my many years as a librarian and bibliographic scholar, first in the Imperial City and recently in the Library of the Ebon Tower, few written works that I have had the privilege and burden to study have been as ensnaringly esoteric and abhorrent as the ones I am about to describe. Let me warn any reader who wishes to seek out these books, perhaps in hopes of gaining from them some antediluvian secrets or truths, that what has been once read can never be unread, and that the knowledge these volumes hold are more than enough to drive anyone to the very edge of madness.

"Mysteries of the Worm"; a loathsome necromantic tome, the origins of which are shrouded in unnatural mystery. The original author behind its vermiculate sigilwork and disgusting soul-trapping enchantments is suspected to have been a servant of Mannimarco living in the First Era. Most volumes that have survived to our times, however, date back no further than to the sixth century of the 2nd Era. I dare not to suggest that the author of those versions isn’t the same as the original's given their unholy nature. In Morrowind there are mostly rumors of existing copies in the possession of certain conjurers and cultists, but at least one known copy was kept by a Telvanni wizard lord for scholarly study until very recently.

"N'Gasta! Kvata! Kvakis!"; a manuscript by the Sload necromancer N'Gasta written in an old and peculiar Thrassian dialect. So far, all scholarly attempts at deciphering the full meaning of the text have failed as the would-be translators have, line by line, descended deeper and deeper into insanity. It is an unnerving fact that this accursed book is all too commonly found in the libraries of amateur antiquarians and magicians across the Empire who have miserably failed to understand its dangerous nature. The few deciphered words and sentences give way to a troubling feeling that the contents of the book are not of this world but beyond the walls of time and reality.

"The Peryiton"; a grand Western demonology, dedicated to the draconian Lord Peryite, in five volumes: one volume for each compass point of the Void and one for its outer fringes. The books have grotesque and troubling woodcut illustrations carved by the mad Breton Ateiggaer of Alcaire and each one contains a multitude of nauseating instructions for demonic summoning rituals. A number of volumes of the Peryiton exist in Morrowind, including two in the Library of the Ebon Tower, but no individual person or institution is known to possess the full pentalogy.

"Arkay the Enemy"; a sinister book containing words of the unholy King of Worms, it is suspected to be either a transcription made by an unworthy scribe in his service or written down by himself in some nigh-forgotten age. It contains the necromancer's orders of blasphemy and murder as well as faint promises of an undead immortality for his followers. Copies of this rotten call to arms circulate mostly among renegade sorcerers who know no better, as well as the charnel members of the Worm Cult. In Morrowind they are persecuted, and rightfully so, by the native Temple.

"Oghma Infinium"; a gruesome codex bound in living leather that the ancient scribe Xarxes was driven mad enough to create after succumbing to the spectral visions sent by the obscure and primordial outer being known to us uncomprehending mortals only as Herma Mora or the Woodland Man. There is only one known copy of the book, the original one, but its certain location is mercifully unknown to all.

There are, of course, certain codices which I have wittingly excluded from this catalogue to protect what remains of my own sanity by not delving any deeper into their eldritch origins and contents. I will name them here, nonetheless, if only to warn my readers; to urge them to shun these volumes should they, under some ill-fated stars, ever cross their path. They are the queer "Sermon Zero of Vivec", the blasphemous and unsettling "2nd Pocket Guide to the Empire", and the dreaded "Mysterium Xarxes" rumored to be written by Lord Dagon himself.

Of the unfathomable "Elder Scrolls": the less, said the better.