“Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still.”
— T.S. Eliot
Echoes of Antiquity is a collection of 10 iconic and beloved cards from Arkham Horror: The Card Game that have undergone a complete transformation, now translated into a diverse range of languages and scripts spanning the entire history of human written language, and encompassing all corners of the world.
The Mission
This project started on a whim when I translated Astounding Revelation into Biblical Hebrew as a single card alter. I was looking for representation of my heritage in the game and wanted to take matters into my own hands, in a symbolic way. I remembered how excited I was when I discovered that Magic: The Gathering released translated cards to promote a new set in 2002, and I saw the card Glory written as תהילה.
There in the bottom-right. That adorable, eldritch abomination of a translation.
After receiving positive feedback, I had decided to expand the project to include additional languages, specifically those from ancient or archaic stages of their respective histories. I had three main reasons for making this decision. Firstly, I wanted to showcase the diversity of AHLCG, where different cultures are woven into the lore rather than portrayed as exotic or magical, and certainly not “alien”. Secondly, this would be my first foray into creating custom content for the game, and I wanted to become more familiar with the Mythos Busters Discord community and make my (small) mark as a content creator. I had plenty of ideas for custom investigators or campaigns, but I needed time to play through what’s already out there and learn from it. Lastly, I wanted to start with something small and relatively achievable, something I knew I would be passionate about throughout the entire process without losing steam midway, without it ever seeing the light of day (or screen).
Both the end result and the process were much more wonderful than I ever imagined. I made some great new friends in the community, learned a lot about the world of AHLCG Homebrew, and the people involved, and, to show for it all, I get to present to you a set of creative and truly unique bling for some heavily-played or iconic cards. I hope they’ll see play, both physically and digitally.
When I shared my idea and some prototypes with the community at the Mythos Busters Discord server, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Some community members saw this as a way to get representation for their own cultural heritage; others simply liked the idea and wanted to contribute.
All this inspired me to embark on a month-long journey of research, learning, and creativity, supported by old friends and newfound ones, all of whom generously shared their expertise on language and culture.
The cards chosen for this set reference cultures, languages, and civilizations throughout humanity’s history and across the globe. Some combination of each card’s name, art, flavor text, and/or the concepts it conveys or objects it represents is tied to a unique snapshot of a culture or civilization. Our primary goal was to make these cards look badass while also granting a glimpse of a portion of that snapshot. Whether it be encountering a new writing system, noticing a new detail about a familiar one, encountering an unfamiliar quote, or even just learning some trivia by reading even some of this article. The languages in the set range from the Bronze Age to the 18th Century, spanning nearly the entire history of written language. We made a concerted effort to match the end result to the aforementioned “moment”. For example, while the Egyptian language still exists in the form of Coptic, the card “Voice of Ra” evokes Ancient Egypt and the God Ra 𓁚. Thus, we tried to capture its essence through the use of the extinct Ancient Egyptian language, written purely in Hieroglyphs. We adopted a similar approach for the rest of the cards in the set, opting for ancient or classical versions of languages, and sometimes long-dead writing systems, all to best evoke that “moment” in a culture’s development. Throughout this process, a great deal of research was done about each language and its associated culture. Some of the knowledge gained was fascinating, some tragic (so few tablets with Nahuatl glyph writing remain intact, that attempting to translate Tooth of Eztli or Yaotl was an exercise in futility), and sometimes just small insights and bits of trivia. Why is it that Mayan Glyphs depicting people or faces often have crooked, protruding teeth? Read on to find out.
Do you have anything other than teeth?
Do I have something in my teeth?
The Shadow Over Lovecraft
I would be remiss to ignore H.P. Lovecraft’s disappointing and harmful views regarding “race” and cultures he considered to be “alien” or even “inferior”. Not to mention the harm he had done by putting some of those beliefs onto paper in genre-defining literature. I certainly won’t have anything new to add to the endless internal debate among fans of Lovecraft’s works and the wider Mythos, about separating the artist from his work, hating the sin but not the sinner, etc. This article is an excellent read from a Jewish perspective on the topic.
“The population of [New York City] is a mongrel herd with repulsive Mongoloid Jews in the visible majority, and the coarse faces and bad manners eventually come to wear on one so unbearably that one feels like punching every god damn bastard in sight”
— H.P. Lovecraft, 1931
Paradoxically, despite his hatreds, prejudices, and biases, Lovecraft was often deeply captivated by these same “alien” cultures’ languages, folklore, stories, and mythologies. I won’t attempt to explain this cognitive dissonance but rather provide a glimpse into an example of it in action. Though a virulent antisemite, upon viewing the 1921 film “The Golem,” which delves into the Jewish legend of the Golem of Prague, Lovecraft had nothing but appreciation for the “weird literature of the Jews”. Expressing in his correspondences similar sentiments upon further engagement with Jewish myth and folklore.
“The Semitic mind, like the Celtic and Teutonic, seems to possess marked mystical inclinations; and the wealth of underground horror-lore surviving in ghettoes and synagogues must be much more considerable than is generally imagined. … Jewish Folklore has preserved much of the terror and mystery of the past, and when more thoroughly studied is likely to exert considerable influence on weird fiction.”
— H.P. Lovecraft
In constructing his Mythos, Lovecraft occasionally incorporated elements from various languages, cultures, and mythologies that caught his interest, often quite haphazardly. In an attempt to craft “alien-sounding” names or phrases, he often cobbled together fragments from disparate languages. For example, “Nyarlathotep” combines “nya-” from the names of gods in several African tribes with “-hotep” from Ancient Egyptian religion. Lovecraft acknowledged that many names he devised were meant to evoke the sounds of Semitic languages, such as Hebrew or Arabic. Some examples include Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath, Yig, and Shoggoth. Dagon, the horrifying fish deity of the Deep Ones, was originally an Ancient Syrian god. A medieval rabbi hypothesized that Dagon’s name was related to “Dag,” Hebrew for “fish.” Coincidentally, this notion was debunked by scholars shortly before Lovecraft penned “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” highlighting his lack of due diligence on these types of matters.
H.P. Lovecraft’s literary, or rather, imaginative brilliance is tainted by the undeniable prejudices that mar his works. While he drew from an array of cultures for inspiration, his interpretations often lacked both depth and respect. The true enigma of Lovecraft lies in the duality of aversion and admiration present in his creations. Today, the Lovecraftian Mythos is experiencing a renaissance. Contemporary artists and writers of diverse backgrounds are not merely reclaiming but saving the Mythos from a Lovecraft compromised by demons he could not overcome himself. Their enriched tales introduce multifaceted characters that challenge Lovecraft’s troubling views, turning the narrative’s focus towards truly alien horrors, rather than imagined alienness seen in the people surrounding him. These new characters, rather than being the usual thinly-veiled self-inserts simply reflecting Lovecraft’s own fears, have a depth to them that is harnessed to provide for all-encompassing terror, unique to their traits and past.
The introduction of diverse and deeply complex characters also allows reflection upon the complex potential of humanity — both its beauty and its dark undercurrents, where humans of all backgrounds are equally capable of the greatest of accomplishments and acts of heroism. However, that is certainly not the goal of the genre. Instead, showcased plainly, again and again is the diversity of ways humankind can sink into the greatest depths of depravity. The capability to perform unspeakable acts so heinous, that by their very callousness evoke that feeling of inscrutable, sheer alien terror. This is made all the more horrifying knowing that rather than alien, such acts and behavior are a part of humanity, and unlike many or most of the Mythos’ entities, actively driven by malice and hatred, rather than sheer Eldritch indifference.
I imagine Lovecraft would be horrified seeing what his creation has been molded into, a rejection of all his base assumptions about racial divisions and hierarchies. But I’d like to think, or at least I would hope, that part of him which contained the curiosity that overcame his hatred, would be fascinated by all the richness and depth the extension of his works gained, supplanting his fear of all the “otherness”.
Contents May Have Shifted
Certain cards undergo a contextual shift due to their very translation. For instance, an Arabic Necronomicon card may very well be none other than the original Kitab al-Azif itself, the original work penned by Abdul Alhazred in the early 8th century. It was thought to have been destroyed long ago, along with any remaining copies written in Arabic. Like in any act of translation, details are said to have been lost, entire sections forgotten, and its potency greatly reduced as translations of translations slowly shifted the text away from the writer’s intentions. The Necronomicon translation, for instance, has an amended title, subtitle, different artwork, and new flavor text to align with its newfound provenance.
“In his last years Alhazred dwelt in Damascus, where the Necronomicon (Al Azif) was written, and of his final death or disappearance (738 A.D.) many terrible and conflicting things are told. He is said by Ebn Khallikan (12th cent. biographer) to have been seized by an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses.”
— History of the Necronomicon by H.P. Lovecraft
In the Card Breakdown section, the specific changes made to each card are detailed, and the reasons for the choices made are elucidated.
Every adjustment and change was made with the deepest respect for these cultures, their languages, and those who owe their heritage to them. Any unintended offense is sincerely regretted, and please feel free to reach out to me to share your thoughts if something I wrote rubbed you the wrong way. I’m @Buteremelse on Discord, usually hanging around the Mythos Busters server.
Red Herrings in R’lyeh
We encountered many cards that seemed like they might be associated with some human culture or language but were just another elaborate creation. There were countless other cards that didn’t make the cut for a multitude of reasons. Many, such as The Chthonian Stone, Eye of the Djinn, Blessing of Isis, and Nephthys, touched on languages we were already covering. Others, such as De Vermis Mysteriis, Eureka!, and Eye of the Djinn, tilted the class balance too far in one direction. Lastly, and most sadly, some just didn’t make the cut for playability reasons, because we couldn’t get in contact with a native speaker of the language, or because the resources available online to produce a translation would require research much more extensive than I’m capable of.
A few we’ll keep in mind for the next time around are:
Winds of Power – “Oya” is an important figure in the Yoruba faith
Protecting the Anirniq – “Anirniq” is an Inuit concept.
St. Hubert’s Key
Jewel of Aureolus
I’ll always be really happy to receive more tip-offs and suggestions for the next set around, which is sure to happen eventually. Everything will be taken into consideration and recorded. @Buteremelse on Discord.
This was, in fact, a trap. Apparently “Tyr’thrha” doesn’t appear in any culture’s mythology. Pop quiz: do you still remember how to spell it?
Translation Methodology
Our methodology was rooted in extensive online research on my part. Academic dictionaries and indexes based on primary sources were extremely helpful for the more ancient languages. For post-Ancient languages, much more written material was available to serve as examples, and a wealth of research made everything easier to understand and much more certain. Whenever I was working together with a native speaker, I felt much more assured that I wasn’t botching things too terribly.
Ancient Egyptian and the Mayan Languages (there being a wide variety of Mayan Languages, I’ll refer to the amalgam we ended up with as “Mayan”) both required the most research by far and certainly yielded the least accurate translations. Both languages, in their ancient forms, were written mostly using logograms—characters representing words. This meant that translation would involve an approximation of words as concepts and the constant search for replacements for missing words. This required searching through a vast amount of academic dictionaries for the languages, lists of Hieroglyphs, and even more problematic, catalogs of Mayan glyphs, as well as a lot of guesswork and imagination. We also utilized translation technology, like Google’s Fabricius, an AI-assisted translation tool for Ancient Egyptian, albeit one with a very limited vocabulary, and AI and basic translation tools as an additional check on things staying true to the source.
The primary source I used for many of the alters. I’ll be returning it now…
Translating modern languages to their classical counterparts, especially those dating back thousands of years, is no simple feat. It’s particularly daunting for someone not fluent in the language. Moreover, a significant challenge we encountered was that many modern terms and concepts lack ancient equivalents, especially when pertaining to a card game. We aimed to provide accurate translations wherever feasible, substituted with semantically similar terms or phrases when necessary, and resorted to anachronistic, more modern forms of the language when other options proved unviable.
Card Descriptions
Astounding Revelation
We tried to imagine what kind of revelation would so be astounding so as to get this Rabbi out of bed and into Shul in the middle of the night, as depicted.
The card’s illustration depicts a devout Jewish man in full religious attire, carefully reading through a Torah scroll with a Yad (“hand”), a metallic stylus. The nighttime setting in a synagogue’s prayer room, absent of a congregation, suggests he is likely a Rabbi (some might say of the “surprised” variety). His decision to read from the Torah scroll instead of a simple printed Hebrew Bible on his bookshelf suggests a profound discovery, discernible only from the ancient text itself.
For the translation of this card, I ventured into Biblical Hebrew for the first time since my Bar Mitzvah, attempting to emulate the writing style of certain parts of the Torah. This required substantial changes in grammar, phrasing, vocabulary, and even diacritics (the dots and lines mostly found below the letters) compared to a Modern Hebrew translation. I consulted with friends who have excellent knowledge of the language, as well as @Sycopath on the Mythos Busters Discord, who has extensively studied the Hebrew Bible and its associated interpretational writings. When direct translation of game terms proved impossible, I utilized archaic Modern Hebrew. Certain terms were adapted; for example, “deck” became “library.”
One intriguing challenge was the keyword “myriad.” There isn’t an exact Hebrew equivalent, particularly an archaic one. Looking into the origin of the word “myriad” itself, μυριάς, myrias comes from Ancient Greek, meaning “10,000 in number.” Biblical Hebrew does have an exact equivalent in the form of “רְבָבָה” (Reh-va-va).
In speculating on the Rabbi’s revelation, I turned to Jewish Mysticism: Kabbalah. The Alphabet of Sirach, an infamous apocryphal text predating the 10th century A.D., recounts various esoteric proverbs and tales. One of these speaks of Lilith, created with Adam out of the same dust but refusing to submit, eventually uttering God’s true name (an act of heresy) and flying off. The card’s new flavor text quotes the line in question, surely shocking someone who has always known Eve to be the first woman and Adam’s first wife. Lilith links the flavor to the Cthulhu Mythos, where she is a demonic being loosely associated with Nyarlathotep in Lovecraft’s writings.
Charon’s Obol
Charon’s Obol is not simply an artifact or relic, but a depiction of an ancient Greek burial practice. It was customary to place a coin or “obol” in the mouth of the deceased to pay Charon’s toll for passage across the river Acheron and into the underworld. Alex Rigos, a friend of @Sergey from the Mythos Busters Discord, provided invaluable help with the translation process, as some of the phrasing throughout the translation process proved to be tricky. A unique challenge lay in the fact Classical Greek texts were often written in a form of scriptio continua—without word spacing, punctuation, minuscule letters, or any of the breathing marks or diacritics that aid in reading the language. The translated card’s flavor text was chosen from a short poem by “Leonidas of Tarentum,” which is compiled in The Greek Anthology.
“My luggage is but a flask, and a wallet, and my old cloak, and the obol that pays the passage of the departed.”
leonidas of tarentum (The Greek Anthology)
Disc of Itzamna
This task presented a significant challenge, requiring an in-depth exploration of Maya Civilization linguistics and history. Despite my efforts, a Mesoamerican scholar may find the result more of an homage than a true translation, conveying some of the card’s meaning through the enduring Maya cultures and languages.
The Maya Script combines logograms and syllabic glyphs, but lacking the means to translate pre-Colonial Maya Languages and work with syllabic glyphs, I opted for a Logographic-only translation in the traditional block-column format.
The order in which Mayan glyph blocks are read.
The card’s title, “Disc of Itzamna,” begins with a “disc” glyph, followed by a glyph block for “of Itzamná”: one of the many glyphs representing the god Itzamná (often “Itzam”) combined with a “possessive suffix” glyph. In the rules text, Arkham’s “reaction ability” symbol seamlessly merges with an “Appear” glyph, playfully adapting to the system’s rules. The card’s core rules are then conveyed through successive glyphs, organized in two-block wide columns. Each column is read from left to right, then downwards, repeating until the column concludes before moving to the next.
Fey
If the word “Fey” brings to mind fairies, you’re not alone—that’s a common misconception. But it actually has a much older meaning, particularly in Britain: “doomed; fated to die.” Translating this card was a delightfully unique challenge. The card’s Curse mechanics clearly align with the “doomed” definition. And to give the flavor text an authentic feel, I turned to Geoffrey Chaucer’s works, as “Fey” is found in them but not in any of Shakespeare’s. I tried to capture the essence of Chaucerian Middle English, with the help of dictionaries, online corpora, thesauruses, and an AI language model. The flavor text I chose is from “The Monk’s Tale” in Chaucer’s legendary Canterbury Tales, warning that misfortune cannot be avoided. I love how every element of this card—the already archaic name, the concise and impactful rules text, and the resonant quote—comes together to create a coherent and captivating whole.
The source of our new flavor text (The Monk’s Tale) gets across the concept of being doomed and fated to die quite well. Seventeen times, in fact.
Geas
Many may recognize the concept of a “Geas” from the eponymous D&D spell, which means “a binding edict, often magical, the breach of which can lead to misfortune or death.” Initially, I thought it was from the Semitic root G-I-S, linked to “conscription,” but I had never heard the word actually pronounced, ending in an /ʃ/ or “sh” sound. Thanks to @ElseWhere from the Mythos Busters Discord (and his proud Irish heritage), I learned about the importance of the Geas in Irish mythology. We decided against adapting “Ríastrad” as our Irish card, as it didn’t quite do the myth justice.
Delving into Old Irish, or Old Gaelic, was enlightening. The language initially used the “Ogham” script, which is evident in the card’s title and type. This unique script features a continuous vertical line with protruding strokes, each segment representing a letter. It was primarily used for inscribing names, commemorations, and marking land rights. By the 5th century A.D., the Latin script became more dominant for more detailed writing, leading to the distinctive Irish “Insular script.” This writing style deeply influenced English calligraphy over time and played a role in the evolution of most English typography used today. The rest of the card’s text is written in Insular script, which is much more suited for this use case. The card’s use of both Ogham and Insular script would place its “origins” somewhere between the 6th and 9th centuries, just in time for Irish to lead the way in abandoning “scriptio continua,” which we previously encountered.
Uniquely, Irish uses shorthand for the word “agus” (and) in the form of ⁊ as a punctuation mark. The text would have likely been unpunctuated, perhaps written without word breaks.
Irish and Scottish monks and scholars at the time gradually introduced word spacing and some of the basic punctuation marks we’re familiar with today. They grew increasingly frustrated while grappling with making out foreign Latin words from long lines of letters.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
The “youngest” card in the set features the youngest investigator—the dark horse known as Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales). While not an iconic card, it has powerful, if niche, applications. Wendy Adams, the stunning card art’s secondary subject, is probably the rare individual who had a childhood that makes these fairy tales seem soothing in comparison.
The translation initially seemed relatively straightforward, as the tales were compiled in the early 1800s. We used a slightly archaic version of Hochdeutsch (High German), and my good friend Yael, who is fluent in German and has studied linguistics, helped me proofread and translate modern/gaming terms to ensure authenticity. Much of the work went into finding the typefaces used in the original printed copies of the books and creating colorful drop caps for a storybook feel. The new flavor text is probably morbid enough to make Wendy smile.
“My mother, she killed me, My father, he ate me, My sister Marlene, Gathered all my bones, Tied them in a silken scarf, Laid them beneath the juniper tree, Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.”
― Brothers Grimm, Grimms’ Fairy Tales
Long after I had thought the set was a done deal, Serazahr from the Discord pointed out some inaccuracies and anachronisms in the card’s translation and typography. We set about remaking the card, this time keeping things as authentic as possible.
Serazahr based their translation on the language and phrasing used in a transcription of the 1812 first edition of the Tales. The scans referenced there served as a basis for the typography used. Every word that appears on the card, bar one, appears in some edition of the Tales up to the 1837 version. Some words simply required a switch to more archaic spelling. For example, “Vorteil” the official AHLCG German term for “Asset” became “Vortheil”. Serazahr also consulted 1952 and 1954 editions of a German dictionary the Brothers Grimm had published, to adjust for the contemporary usage of certain terms. To avoid the use of any anachronisms, they also consulted a modern German dictionary, making sure that the words chosen appeared in contemporary publications. For example, the word “Emittler” for “Investigator” didn’t appear until the mid-20th century. However, the word “forschen” for “investigate” did appear in the Grimms’ Tales themselves, so “Nachforscher” was chosen instead.
At the time, both Hochdeutsch (High German) and Plattdeutsch (Low German), or just “Platt”, were in common use in various parts of Germany. The Grimms’ collection, being based on folklore collected from the entire region contains both dialects. Von dem Machandelboom (The Juniper Tree) as it appears in the flavor text is Platt. Representing the diversity of the language at the time.
The Fraktur font from the card’s original translation was kept the same, but making extensive use of typographical quirks of the time. Some of which are unsupported by Unicode or many modern photo editors. For instance, ligatures such as ſz, tz, ch, ck. ſz went on to become the iconic letter ß.
Another typographical challenge was brought on by the lack of standardization for umlauts at the time. ä, ö, ü. These diacritics had evolved from a small letter ‘e’ placed above these vowels, and some printed texts of the time, the early editions of the Grimm’s Tales included, used the earlier form, wholly unsupported by any software, and eventually manually placed.
Holy Spear
This beloved weapon and Bless engine was an easy win for Latin. From the very beginning, @Antimarkovnikov from the Mythos Buster Discord was eager to take part in this project. He reached out to his partner, LatinLilly, to see if she would be interested in working on the translation of this card, being a former student of Latin. She enthusiastically embraced the chance to brush up on her skills and took on perfecting “HASTA SANCTA” as a pet project. Many discussions were had over the little details, such as which anachronisms we should concede to for readability, what the Spear’s “backstory” could be, and from which era the translation should be derived. We agreed to set aside the more historically accurate scriptio continua, adding anachronistic interpuncts ⟨·⟩ to allow for at least some readability. Through this process, I learned a great deal about the intricacies of Latin over the ages; it was a truly collaborative effort. The flavor text for the card is a passage from Virgil’s Aeneid, where Aeneas kills Turnus with his spear. LatinLilly’s enthusiasm, passion for the language, and attention to detail really made this one of the most enjoyable cards to work on.
The Black Fan
Delving into the Mythos and exploring even its farthest reaches, I searched for a card that had a prominent connection to an East or Southeast Asian culture, while being a part of the greater Mythos world. As a disclaimer: this section may contain spoilers for Masks of Nyarlathotep. I was unfamiliar with the highly acclaimed Masks of Nyarlathotep. Within its storyline, this powerful artifact is wielded by one of Nyarlathotep’s countless avatars, known as the “Bloated Woman”. With the fan, demurely covering its face, the hideous being appears as a mesmerizing Chinese maiden, ensnaring unsuspecting onlookers to meet a grim end.
Throughout this journey, I received invaluable support from @Sergey, a member of the Mythos Busters Discord community. Sergey, ever helpful, reached out to his friend Yuan Tian, who played an instrumental role in crafting the translated text for the card. Yuan Tian ensured that the translation captured the essence of Classical Chinese, offering an authentic representation of the language.
However, this translation was not without its challenges. One such obstacle involved fitting the traditional top-to-bottom, right-to-left script onto a horizontal card. Additionally, we faced the task of identifying an era-appropriate font that would faithfully mimic the calligraphy styles of that time.
“Behind the black fan the soul-twister simpers, snake-armed and slickened, inflated with blood fat. The dragon-toothed feaster gluts down gray lilies, The gracious donation of children left twitching…”
— Liu Chan-fang, Goddess of the Black Fan
The Necronomicon: Petrus de Dacia Translation
This was one of the cards I was most excited to tackle for multiple reasons: its iconic status as perhaps the most well-known Lovecraftian creation, after Cthulhu, appearing across the Fantasy and Horror genres; its rich backstory and lore; and the many versions and translations that even appear scattered throughout the LCG.
The Necronomicon’s, or rather, Kitab al-Azif’s fictional history is inextricably tied to its creator, Abdul Alhazred. A “half-crazed” worshipper of Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu, the character is often seen as insensitive or offensive: his moniker being “the Mad Arab,” his first name being a botched Arabic attempt, while his last name isn’t Arabic at all. Despite multiple versions of the Necronomicon being featured in Arkham: LCG, we’ve yet to see its genuine form. While in-game scholars may be familiar with its Latin and Greek translations, these versions are said to lose vital details in translation. I aspired to capture the Necronomicon in its authentic 8th-century essence: “Kitab al-Azif” or “The Book of Falsehoods.” Contrary to Lovecraft’s belief, “Azif” pertains to falsehood or forgery, not the supposed demonic nocturnal howling.
“The History of the Necronomicon” – H.P. Lovecraft
“That is not dead, which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.”
— “Abdul Alhazred” (H.P. Lovecraft)
This card underwent the most drastic changes within the set. Not only was its title changed, rather than just translated, but its subtitle was as well. The text is written in Classical Arabic from around the early 8th century A.D., approximately a century after the Qur’an was written. The added flavor text is a quote from Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism. Among the great Sufi poets, and perhaps one of the greatest Persian poets, Rūmī once profoundly wrote, “What you seek is seeking you.” What he meant was that the things you seek are meant for you and will eventually find their way to you. Whether it involves seeking something within Divinity or within yourself. This innocuous quote serves as the flavor text for the card “Kitab al-Azif: Abdul Alhazred’s Original”. If you choose to be tempted or deceived into seeking the Eldritch secrets of our existence, the forbidden knowledge, with its dire consequences and costs, will find its way to you. This may seem like a perversion of the quote and its original context, but it can be seen as a warning that some things should not be sought out.
Voice of Ra
This card was one of the first ones I tackled in this project, but it ended up being one of the last to complete due to the challenges posed by Unicode’s lack of support for stacking Glyph characters on top of each other. It was a tedious process to assemble all the parts together. Despite being exposed to Egyptian Hieroglyphs in media throughout our lives, we rarely have the opportunity to delve deeper and truly understand the intricacies of these symbols. One of the first things I learned is that not all Hieroglyphs are “logograms” as commonly believed, representing whole words or concepts. Many actually represent syllables or individual letters. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time or resources to fully grasp the Ancient Egyptian Language, so I had to rely on predefined symbols for words to express the card’s text. This, naturally, resulted in a less accurate translation that captures the “essence” of the original but required compromises on fidelity versus feasibility. Fortunately, Google’s Fabricius AI-based project provided basic translations of certain words and phrases into Hieroglyphs, including those representing syllables and letters. However, for most cases, I had to consult Academic dictionaries and cross-reference them with Wikipedia’s extensive “List of Egyptian Hieroglyphs” to find the appropriate Unicode characters to include in the text.
A Voice of Pure Gold
Now, here’s a fun fact about Egyptian Hieroglyphs that you probably don’t know: Many symbols are visibly “facing” a particular direction, and this direction consistently indicates the side from which the reader should begin reading the line. In the case of this card, all the glyphs face left, indicating that the text should be read from left to right.
Conclusion
In wrapping up this little project, it’s important to acknowledge the many hands and minds that made it possible, even for such a small piece of content, or such a baby step into the world of Homebrew content. Each person contributed a unique piece to this vast puzzle. I’d like to express my gratitude to everyone named in this article, and anyone else I didn’t mention who hung around the thread from time to time. Feeling you’re working on something people care about makes a huge difference. Our expert team of translators: Yuan Tian, Alex Rigos, LatinLilly, @Sycopath, @Serazahr, and my friends Ali and Yael, your expertise and patience were invaluable. Thank you @Sergey for finding such awesome friends who were willing to contribute to some random stranger’s project, and I hope I’ll be seeing more of you around. A shout-out to Myriad for his help with TTS metadata. Thanks to @Ektheleon for reminding me momentarily that I often need total passion or dedication to achieve anything, because that’s just how my brain is set up. Thanks to @caieddie and @theamazingfidget for giving this project a home, even though it doesn’t quite fit the usual mold, and this article being a….monst…*ahem* A special warm shoutout, hug and slight glare to @coldtoes – your support and contributions were beyond measure. I could have died a happy man not knowing about the low-res frames.
The Mythos Busters Discord community deserves a wholehearted thank you. Your enthusiasm and insights provided motivation throughout this small endeavor. But much more importantly is the warm welcome that I’ve received since joining the Discord not long ago.
There’s a profound beauty in reaching back through time to capture a card’s cultural “moment” as I mentioned in the Introduction, and it’s something we do quite a bit of every time we play this game we love, discuss the era it’s set in and the characters molded in its image (except Suzi, I disapprove). Translation under ideal conditions is a difficult and fickle art, and being mostly unfamiliar with the languages in question, in most cases, and those languages having ceased to exist a few thousand or hundred years prior do not ideal conditions make.
I love this so much! The thought and care put into this project is why I love the community around this game! Thank you for creating something so beautiful<3
Wow!!! This project is absolutely incredible. All of the contributors should feel proud, it’s beautiful to see how much thought and effort has gone into this.
That’s so kind of you to say! You really made my day, you have no idea how much seeing this kind of response means to me, and I’m sure to the others involved as well.
Thanks so much for the feedback, and keep on being the awesome person that you are!
Mysterious Chanting 
That was a very enjoyable read to happen upon. Well done for carrying through such a lovely and distinctive project to completion!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love this so much! The thought and care put into this project is why I love the community around this game! Thank you for creating something so beautiful<3
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow!!! This project is absolutely incredible. All of the contributors should feel proud, it’s beautiful to see how much thought and effort has gone into this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s so kind of you to say! You really made my day, you have no idea how much seeing this kind of response means to me, and I’m sure to the others involved as well.
Thanks so much for the feedback, and keep on being the awesome person that you are!
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