Prophecies

During the run of Scary Go Round, several eery prophecies have cropped up, concerning major and minor characters. Note however that those prophecies often didn't come to pass 1:1, which is either a reason to question their authenticity and truthfulness, or just means that the Tackleverse isn't a strictly deterministic universe, with prophecies merely giving a glimpse at future events that *could* happen with a certain probability.

## The Prophecy of the Painted Nephilim

Upon the arrival of Amy Chilton and Shelley Winters in 1840, Bob Crowley consulted a tome in which the prophecy about the coming of the **Painted Nephilim** was written down.[1] He came to the conclusion that this prophecy indeed refers to Shelley and Amy, and started to think up a plan to use this to his benefit.

The prophecy is illustrated with a picture of the two women (wherein Shelley is bearing wings). Interestingly, it is claimed that one of the nephilim "cannot be smote".[2] This might refer to Shelley and her "laissez faire attitude to the afterlife".[3] The prophecy also describes the Teapot That Reverses Time (the means by which Shelley and Amy traveled into the past) in intricate detail.

Due to an absent-mindedly included note, we know that someone named Dieter was involved in writing down the prophecy. Either he was the one this note was addressed to, or he wrote and signed the note.

## The Prophecy of the Child

In Chapter 20, a mysterious **Child** "of indeterminate age, gender, origin or religious persuasion" (much later revealed to be named Poh [4]) appeared in Tackleford, delivering an ominous one sentence message: **"Things are going to change."**[5]

This eventually caused severe civil unrest [6], too much for Mayor James Mayor to handle and get under control [7], which was correctly anticipated by his assistant Shelley Winters to have a negative effect on his chances for reelection.[8] By the time he had lost the mayor's office to Tim Jones [9], the Child thus stated: "Things are different now."[10] This might imply that this was the change the Child was referring to.

The Child appeared again and repeated his statement years later.[11] While the personal lives of several major characters did indeed undergo large changes shortly afterwards, not to mention that, on a meta level, Scary Go Round ended and was followed by Bad Machinery, the impact wasn't that severe on Tackleford as a whole, this time.

## The Prophecies of the Little Sisters of Belial

### The Prophecy of the Pipers Three

The Little Sisters of Belial, an order of Satanist nuns, was in the possession of a tome that foretold the coming of the **Pipers Three**.[12] Under the leadership of Mother Superior aka Rachel Dukakis-Monteforte (who had been studying and/or forging this and other prophecies together with her friend Sister Nausicaa aka Tessa Davies), it was considered an important duty of the order to sift "every refusenik, wastrel and soak" in order to find them. At the time the comic informed us of this prophecy, three very likely candidates for the Pipers Three were in the custody of the order.

The Pipers Three consist of:

The **Dreamer** - Mother Superior claimed this to be Ryan Beckwith, who was named Tumnus by the order, due to him suffering from amnesia and not remembering his real name. The prophecy accurately describes him as one who "has walked among the dead". The accompanying illustration shows him with either Friend or Comrade Bat.

The **Kraken** - Mother Superior claimed this to be Desmond Fishman.

The **Seer** - Mother Superior claimed this to be someone who was called Monty by the order, a man who was actually Prof. Werner Braun, a brilliant academic and working at the University of Tackleford.[13] Like Ryan, he suffered from amnesia at that time, though his brain seemed to have been damaged far worse than Ryan's. He was later kidnapped by Bob Crowley's henchmen [14] in order to help them building the portal to Hell.[15]

### The Prophecy of the Lady

Later, we see another prophecy with an illustration done in a similar style to the illustrations of the Pipers Three.[16] This prophecy too was in the possession of Mother Superior and Sister Nausicaa, but it isn't clear if all these prophesies are in fact in the same book. (Or, for that matter, if there is any connection to the book with the Painted Nephilim prophecy.)

The illustration depicting whom the text is calling the **Lady** is bearing a strong resemblance to Shelley Winters. The text also mentions two people called the **Sea Maid** and the **Wasp**. An illustration in the lower corner suggests that the Sea Maid may be Gibbous Moon, but there is no clue to who the Wasp might be.

## The Prophecy of Mother Shipton

In Chapter 36, Shelley and Amy consulted the old witch Mother Shipton, after someone had delivered "weird pages" to Shelley.[17] Those seem to be excerpts from the prophecy book(s) of the Little Sisters. Mother Shipton elaborated upon this by showing ancient cave paintings to the two women, and told them how to thwart the nefarious plans of The Devil and Bob Crowley.

Like the prophecy books, she used various mysterious sounding names to refer to people and things involved in the prophecy:

The **Lady** and the **Princess** - Shelley and Amy, respectively. (Note in Shelley's case the overlap with the prophecy from the Sisters of Belial.)

The **Beast**, the **Swan**, and the **Needle's Eye** - Bob Crowley, Erin Winters, and the portal to Hell, respectively.[18]

These five entities were called the **Old Gods** by Mother Shipton:[19]

**Ould Gabby** - Mr. T. Wogun, leprechaun [20] and media personality.[21]

**Paninatu** - A volcano god[22], located at Armageddon Island.[23]

**Mr. Lapin** - Mr. Rabbit, (also known as Mr. Pooka), a giant talking rabbit who is one of Bob Crowley's henchmen.[24]

**Phoebus' Torch** - The Moon, a celestial body orbiting the planet Earth. (And Shelley's personal nemesis.[25])

The **Kraken** - A sea monster living near the Orkney Islands.[26] (Note the conflicting terminology in regards to the Three Pipers prophecy: There, the Kraken is Desmond.)

Finally, it should be noted that Amy discovered that the ancient paintings in Mother Shipton's cave were still suspiciously fresh...[27] (Because of this, she later developed the opinion that the prophesy is actually a "load of old pony".[28])