The Name Of Death

An adventure for Istanbul PCs, working for the Manzikert Hotel.

Omar al-Zaaneen, concierge at the King David in Jerusalem. Little fat man in a fez who constantly mops his brow and writes surprisingly good poetry in his spare time. Needs assistance tackling a mysterious death in his hotel.

Isaac Ezekiel Yahuda, collector of rare manuscripts. Runs a store in Cairo, in the bazaar near al-Azhar University. Sudanese bellhop found his corpse on the floor of his hotel suite. Beginning to stink. Overwhelming terror on his face.

The room was full of old Hebrew books.

Moses de Leon’s Zohar. The Eight Gates of Isaac Luria’s Tree of Life. The Seer of Lublin’s commentaries on Isaac the Blind’s prophecies. An 16th-century Sefer Raziel HaMalach, which explains how angels can be bound to the magician’s will.

Eleazer of Worms’ Sefer ha-Hokmah. Moses Zacuto’s Shorshei ha-Shemot. Dream diary of Doctor Falckon, the London Baal Shem. Letters from Sabbatai Levi to Nathan of Gaza, written in 1665, announcing the dawn of a new Messianic Age.

Yahuda wanted it to be widely known that he’d pay good money for interesting books. Put the word out through the yeshiva networks. Underpaid academics at Hebrew University. Enthusiastic young Zionists. Old men who come to Jerusalem to pray until they die.

The coroner couldn’t say what killed him. A fourteen-year-old Arab boy was seen to leave his room by a hotel maid the night before.

There’s been two more deaths.

Solomon Eliezer Alfandari. Former Chief Rabbi of Damascus.

Widely respected. Brutally conservative. 100 years old. Only discusses Torah with people who have beards. Discovered in his apartment by a committee of halachic scholars, led by Abraham Isaac Kook, who’d come to dispute with him on the question of whether gentiles have souls.

Bertha Spafford. Head of the American Colony.

Runs a Christian utopian commune from a pasha’s palace on the Nablus Road. Practical. Business-minded. Sells relics to pilgrims. Instructs her followers to put her in their wills. Found dead by a Swedish evangelical photographer in her antique shop by the Jaffa Gate.

Both widely known to be in the market for old manuscripts. Both spoke fluent Hebrew.

Ibrahim, the Arab boy, can be found sleeping on the streets in the Old City. Wrapped in a ragged blanket. Does not speak a word of Hebrew. Easy to pass by.

Has a book tucked under his arm. The Shi’ur Qomah. A lost 2nd-century rabbinical text. Preserved only in fragments. His edition is complete. An illuminated manuscript, mostly translated to Latin, made in the 12th century for the Knights Templar by Armenian scribes.

Been trying to sell it. Does not understand why everyone who reads it dies.

Some years after the fall of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, Rabbi Ishmael was taken into outer space by the angel Metatron, in a flaming chariot, and shown a divine being several million kilometres long.

Shi’ur Qomah describes this experience. Written by Rabbi Akiva, who was flayed to death with iron combs by Turnus Rufus the Evil for his part in the Bar Kokhba revolt. Gives measurements and sacred names for each part of God’s body - beard, shoulders, elbows, feet.

Records the true name of God. A triangular glyph of seventy-two Hebrew letters on the manuscript’s last page. Can’t be spoken aloud. Reading it causes you to perceive the true nature of reality, and instantly die.

No save is allowed. Death is immediate and permanent. Only works on those who read Hebrew - check if your PCs do before the adventure begins.

The Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, the original alchemist, possibly an Atlantean priest, was kept for millennia in Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs.

Consulted by Rabbi Ishmael, and the first-century wizard Apollonius of Tyana. Stolen during the Crusades by Raynald of Châtillon, agent of the Templars, who brought it to Kerak Castle on the Dead Sea’s eastern shores.

When Saladin took Kerak, the Templars fled to Petra. Sealed off their occult library. Disguised themselves as anchorites. Hid with the Bedul Bedouins in Nabatean tombs. Some retreated to England, bearing ancient knowledge. Established the Freemasons to keep their secrets safe across the generations.

Now they’ve returned.

Major Frederick Peake, Mason of the York Rite and commander of the Arab Legion, schemes with Emir Abdullah of Transjordan - currently a British protectorate - to rebuild the Temple of Solomon and make himself master of the world. He’s been excavating the library at Kerak, kept safe from the Mamluks and the Ottomans by secret doors and traps.

Peake has his own private army.

The Trans-Jordan Frontier Force. Senior commanders all British Freemasons. Staffed by Chechen and Iraqi officers. Job is to defend the trade routes from raids by hostile tribes. The most psychotic Chechens are recruited as Peake’s personal bodyguard - led by Hasan Ramzi, who keeps a rabid brown bear in a pit under the castle and beats thieves to death with his bare hands.

Adolf Joseph Lanz, Peake’s occult advisor, wants to create a world of castrated beastman slaves and blond sun-worshipping Teutonic overlords. Former Cistercian monk who discovered a Templar grave beneath a secluded Alpine castle, etched with the primal rune-clock of the Armanen pagan priest-kings. Believes Aryans are descended from interstellar electric jellyfish gods.

Mithqal al-Fayez, chief of the Bani Sakher Bedouin, has been tasked by King Abdullah with supporting Peake. Overlord of twelve thousand fighting men and fifty thousand flocks. Noble son of the desert who treats guests with infinite hospitality. Would sooner cut his own hand off than tell a lie. Utter contempt for bandits, Jews and the Wahhabist raiders from the south.

Selim Eid is chief of the Bedul, a desert tribe inhabiting Petra, who pretend to be Muslims but quietly worship the god Dushara in his incarnation as a faceless pillar of stone. With no sheep and no land, they eke out a meagre living by guiding tourists through the ancient city - only kidnapping and sacrificing the type of old lady who it seems no-one will miss.

They’re tasked with guarding the Smaragdine Tablet - kept safe in the labyrinth of caves under the structure known as the Treasury. Petra was built over another ancient city of the Serpent Men, full of prehistoric relics and alien tombs.

Ibrahim, an orphan child of the Bedul, was sweeping floors in Kerak, which has been refurbished by Peake to act as a Masonic secret base. He stole the book from Lanz’ bedroom, as revenge for a vicious punishment beating, and ran away.

The neo-Templars are trying to find him. They need the book and the secrets it contains. Peake’s Chechens are on his trail. You will probably run into Lanz in Jerusalem bookstores, asking the same questions as you.

T. E. Lawrence is in town, representing the British Museum, which is a front for the Black Pyramid Cult. They support what Peake’s doing in principle, as enthusiastic advocates for Empire, but think he’s going a little bit too far. Mithqal knows him from the war. All the Bedouins love him and quite a few of them have slept with him.

Hamid Hassan is an Assassin. Working for the Old Man of the Mountain. Passing himself off as a cowardly street sweeper. Awoken from his centuries-long dream of Paradise, produced by a spoonful of green honey, to find and kill Peake and the Templars - plus anyone else who might use the Tablet for their own purposes. Cautious. Not sure where to begin.