The Shroud of Kaymakli is a previously unknown Noddist text. The original form of the text is a pressed platinum disc inscribed in Enochian and Latin; the shroud itself is a parchment wrapping bearing an impression of the inscription.
History[]
The disk was first discovered by the Cappadocian scholar Echriso Varakut in an underground chamber beneath the city of Sidon. He spent decades studying and translating the Enochian text, and intended to share his findings with his clanmates at the Feast of Folly — unaware that the gathering was a trap. Like so many of the Clan of Death, Echriso was entombed in Kaymakli; he spent the end of his existence scratching an account of the Feast of Folly into the disk. When he was finally murdered, his blood soaked into the parchment in which he'd wrapped the disk, creating an impression of both texts on its inner surface.
The disk, parchment, and Echriso's remains lay entombed in Kaymakli for centuries until Beckett, Okulos, and Korenna came to investigate the underground city circa 1999. Korenna was killed by the wards, and Okulos trapped inside; as he explored the city, he stumbled upon the disk and its wrapping, and managed to pass them to Beckett.
Beckett, in turn, sent the artifacts to his mentor, Aristotle de Laurent, in the care of the D'habi ghoul Rhania. De Laurent took custody of the disk in order to translate it at his leisure, and sent Rhania to Montreal with the shroud; he then told Beckett that Rhania never arrived, to distract his adopted childe.
In Montreal, Rhania delivered the shroud to the Librarians, a coven of Noddist scholars that included Christianius Lionel. With advanced forensic techniques and Rhania's grasp of Enochian, they were able to recover the majority of the disk's text from the shroud and translate it. Over Lionel's objections, the Librarians announced the existence of the shroud to Noddists around the world, and made plans to put it on display, with Archbishop Alfred Benezri opening the city to non-Sabbat for the occasion. However, fearful that Echriso's account of the Feast of Folly would undermine the authenticity of the shroud, they prepared a fake of the shroud to display publicly - only a select few luminaries such as Sascha Vykos would be permitted to view the real thing.
An infuriated Lionel stole the authentic shroud and kidnapped Rhania shortly before the unveiling, leaving the agitated Librarians with nothing but the fake to present. The affair attracted the attention of Vykos, the Sabbat Inquisitor Mercy, Benezri, and Agaitas, a member of the Harbingers of Skulls. Rhania eventually escaped, while Lionel went to ground in his childhood home to continue studying the shroud. Its message of Gehenna drove him to suicidal despair.
References[]
- VTM: Nights of Prophecy, p. 131-133, 152-153