Eckhardt’s Anatomy

Artwork by Paschal McGuire, an artist for Tomb Raider – the Angel of Darkness

The post Eckhardt’s Anatomy appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

We continue to publish exclusive Angel of Darkness documents from Murti Schofield, the writer of the game. This one reveals more details about Eckhardt

1345 –  ECKHARDT RETURNS TO EUROPE

When Eckhardt returned from his exhausting travels to the central plains of Anatolie and his meetings with the Nephilim he set about building the foundations of his hundred years task with ferocious energy. To enable the Nephilim to repopulate the earth an improved version of humanity was required to become the worthy receptacles for the seed of the newly revitalised race. Eckhardt intended to take selected samples of sturdy human stock and breed viable receptors for the Nephilim insemination.

STARTING THE GREAT WORK

As a master alchemist he had long since perfected the transformation of base materials into gold but this was not the peak of his ambitions and was something he performed only to fund his higher goals.  As a member of a cabal of six advanced black alchemists based around Europe he was able to utilise the powerful connections of their greed-motivated patrons to locate and isolate twenty small communities in remote areas of Europe, the Russian borderlands and the Nordic nations.

THE COMMUNITIES – NEPHUMAN

These unknowing people were to be the building blocks of his Great Work, the guinea pigs in a prolonged series of alchemically based genetic improvements of the human race – the Nephumans As long as the landowners and gentry were paid off with small miracles of gold (only a tiny portion of what could be produced) and half-promises of much more the Six Alchemists could do as they pleased within the communities.

HUMAN BREEDING STOCK – THE BREEDING COMMUNITIES

Kept in complete isolation the communities were tyrannised, treated like cattle and subjected to repeated experimentation to improve their health, stamina and overall physical vitality. Eckhardt believed that it was possible to use the alchemic principles of breaking down and rebuilding ‘Solve et coagule’ to gradually change the very basis of human body chemistry and eliminate the causes of mortality and ageing. He felt this was an essential preparation for the planned infusion of Nephilim ‘seed’ into mortal stock. His plans required the creation of a stock of living incubation vessels, a new hybrid genus – the Nephuman.

But it was a ruthless process. There were many fatalities. Some communities died out and had to be restocked. Alchemic genetics at that stage was a primitive art with untried methods and materials. Much of the processes involved purging toxicity from the ‘resonant stratum of the fleshly clay’ and replacing it with refined ‘concentrated virtues of vital flux’. But slowly, painfully, progress was made. The results began to show within a few generations.

PURIFICATION BY FIRE

Because they were considered mere specimens, little better than cattle, the survivors were never allowed to benefit from their improving physical natures and were kept ignorant whilst being worked to death. Every kind of brutally was used on them to keep them cowed and fearful. Their bodies were constantly subjected to atrocious chemical assaults. As well as their work on the land, keeping themselves and their owners fed, they were kept hard at work building strongholds and underground sanctuaries where their masters could carry on their monstrous practices. Grindingly brutal labour, indistinguishable from slavery, was not uncommon for the peasantry of the day, but what went on in these remote locations was shocking. The Alchemists were only interested in the most recently matured products of each generation. The rest were totally expendable. Everyone was worked to death, ‘refined by purifying fire’, another alchemic principle. Those who survived became hardier with each generation, and further removed from normal humanity. They also made a valuable slave workforce for the Cabal.

GETTING RESULTS WITH THE BLOODLINE

What began to emerge in the isolated communities promised everything that Eckhardt hoped for. Changes were visible in the human cattle. He knew he was on the right path.  He could complete the task set him by the Nephilim within the period allotted. The ground would be prepared, and worthy, for the bloodline to be introduced.

It was now time to assert his own unchallenged mastery over these massive undertakings. The stakes were almost unimaginable for anyone ruthless enough to seize the day. Because of his partial longevity, a gift of the Nephilim, Eckhardt had been left unchanged by the ravages of the decades. The other five alchemists were showing the effects of ageing and believed his unnaturally extended vitality was due to his incautious personal use of secret formulae being developed in the communities. They were not prepared for what came next.

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE

1368 – Eckhardt’s treachery took them all unawares. In a series of orchestrated attacks he almost succeeded in doing away with all five of his rival alchemists in a single night. Poison took care of two of them, assassination a third. The last two barely escaped with their lives because of natural caution and quick thinking, though both bore the scars and were crippled for the rest of their lives. Eckhardt was left as undisputed master of the communities and the Great Change they would eventually yield. When the time came to show the Nephilim what had been achieved in 100 years there would be only one human to negotiate a suitable reward.

THE CABAL OF FIVE

The two surviving alchemists swore a blood-pact to revenge themselves on the traitorous Eckhardt and set about re-forming a Cabal of Five. They recruited highly ambitious, ruthless individuals to make up their numbers. Eckhardt’s progress within the hidden communities was cautiously followed and recorded. As the original alchemists aged they recruited younger initiates to be tutored in the secret arts as well as the cautionary history of the treacherous Eckhardt.

At this stage Karel-Nephilim was close to the events centred on Eckhardt’s life and treacheries in the guise or identity of Régis Limoux. He acted as witness and observer of the despicable humans’ activities as was his nature. The  Angel-human hybrid or Grigori were known in Biblical times as watchers.

[Ref: see Enochian Gospels.]

The Cabal’s plan was to bide its time, kill Eckhardt and take over the Great Workwhen the time was right. The ultimate Transformation would be theirs. Unfortunately it became increasingly noticeable that time was not on their side. Decades rolled and Eckhardt did not appear to age. By the time Eckhardt’s agreed 100 years was up there were none of the original five alchemists remaining.

HAVE IT ALL – WHY NOT USE TREACHERY?

Eckhardt had not changed physically in the intervening years but his ambitions had inflated like a virulent cancer. It dawned on him quite early on how absurd it was to yield up the results of his labours for some further paltry extension of life when, with well applied treachery, he could take it all. He could rule everything!

A long suppressed prophetical text of the heretical Bishop Bedian inspired him in this megalomaniac vision:

‘Through the Golden Lion the Nephilim will enslave the sons of man and inherit the Earth.’

From another translation – the Limoge version – ‘ The Golden Lion will rule the sons and daughters of angels and breed a new nation throughout the Earth.’

It was understood that this referred to a sleeping Nephilim hero awaiting the call to arise and defend and elevate his sacred race – the actual Golden Lion.

No, he would become the Golden Lion, not some possible, future Nephilim entity.He would rule over the new hybrid race of beings, the restored Nephilim. He was convinced that with his mastery of alchemic arts he could successfully rebreed the Nephilim and also transform himself, evolveinto a higher being and become equal with the Nephilim themselves. The new race to emerge from his work would be his to rule over for many centuries not just one. For this reason he set about creating his own unbreachable occult defence against the Nephilim, a means to control them and bend them to his will.

THE SANGLYPH OR FIVE IMAGES OF POWER

The Five Images of Power (known in a later age as the Obscura Paintings ) were regarded as one of the greatest achievements of alchemic science. Five painted images of occult significance were created by black arts involving human sacrifice. To aid him in the execution of the paintings Eckhardt enrolled a Renaissance artist involved in demonology, Jehan De Gruas. After the Sanglyph or Five Paintings were completed around 1445 the artist was never seen again.

The Five Images of Power were a vital part of Eckhardt’s great plan but their real power lay not in the images but what was hidden beneath them. Buried inside the wooden frames were five metallic symbols of purified Nephilim elements. Brought together at the right time and fused to his other great creation the Alchemic Glovehe would be able to achieve unheard of alchemic transformations in any elements natural or organic. But they had to remain hidden until he was absolutely sure the time was right.

SECRET SUBTERRANEAN BASE

In a remote mountain region on the borders of Bohemia and Saxony (14^th century Czechoslovakia and Germany) he excavated a massive subterranean labyrinthusing the slave forces from the ‘Communities’. Here he could carry on his work uninterrupted. The layout was based on the extensive underground cities he had witnessed in Cappadocia Turkey where he had first met with the Nephilim.

This stronghold was where the final alchemical awakening of the Nephilim would take place. It never happened because the Nephilim, outraged at his attempts to cheat him incarcerated him in a pit. Intended as a temporary punishment things went wrong for Eckhardt and the Nephilim when the Lux Veritatis invaded the subterranean labyrinth and permanently imprisoned the Black Alchemist in an unbreachable occult prison utilising the power of the three Periapt Shards. This was where he stayed until the 20^th century.

THE THREE PERIAPT SHARDS

The inspiration for the Sanglyph – Five Images of Power – came from Eckhardt’s research into of a series of three Nephilim artefacts, metal fragments – the ThreePeriapts Shards, which conveyed tremendous power on their users. Evidence of their existence came back from the middle east with the Crusaders (Knights Templar) in the 1200’s. It was recorded that three such objects had been brought to Europe at that time but they disappeared in the Languedoc region of France and Eckhardt was unable to uncover any trace of them. [reference Rennes le Chateau and Montségur]

Note: the three Periapt Shards were in the possession of the Lux Veritatis and were used to confine Eckhardt within what became the Kriegler stronghold after Eckhardt  failed to cheat and subdue the Nephilim.

Note: Eckhardt’s main base of operations in the 20^th century was moved to Prague where he had originally had his 14^th century laboratory. He transported the mythical, and recently uncovered Nephilim Sleeper, to the Strahov Complex to finish the plan interrupted back in 1445. The time was right to bring the five metallic components hidden inside what was now known as the Obscura Paintingstogether. Fused into their intended configuration and combined with the Alchemic Glove he would be ready to complete the master plan and become the Golden Lion of prophesy.

NB Reference the Ancient Anatolian/Turkish/Cappadocian legend of Yedi Uyuyanlar Mağarası cave of the Seven Sleepers, Ephesus.

The post ECKHARDT’S EARLY TASKS FOR THE NEPHILIM appeared first on Tomb of Ash.

We continue to publish exclusive Angel of Darkness documents from Murti Schofield, the writer of the game. This one reveals more details about Eckhardt

ECKHARDT AND BREEDING

KURTIS & LARA AS PRODUCTS OF ECK’S BREEDING COMMUNITIES (?).

1. The long term story arc for both     Kurtis and Lara would be fascinating to explore if they were the     contemporary results of some obscure branch of Eckhardt’s breeding     community experiments from the 1300s onwards. It would explain some of     their outstanding qualities and drives.
2. Obviously the Lux Veritatis     and other family trees could believably have ties with improved bloodlines     branching off from Eckhardt’s improved humans experimentation.
3. I’ve long felt that some deep     shadowy part of Lara’s past, as yet undisclosed, might link her to some     ancient historic forces that have been battling in the shadows of mythic     & recorded history. She might be more deeply tied into the ancient and     archaic world than has ever been hinted at before. And that, of course,     was the starting point of AOD, taking Cappadocian angelic myths and the     idea of ancient beings. But what if the links to her own genetic past (and     that of Kurtis) were to be explored.
4. After returning from his meeting     with the Nephilim in 1345 with the promise of 100x years of extended     life he forged ahead in his attempt to create a Nephuman bloodline     capable of becoming incubation vessels for the emergence of the     neo-Nephilim. Many improvements were bred into his human stock. Strength     and cognitive abilities would be enhanced as well as many other desirable     human traits.
5. Once the ‘improved’ human stock     began to exhibit stable signs of endurance and vigour Eckhardt would     introduce sample individuals into the population at large to ‘seed’ a     wider genetic pool. The development and improvement of such seeded     bloodlines would be closely monitored and selected individuals exhibiting     the qualities he sought would be reintroduced back into his more closely     controlled breeder communities. This would more rapidly enhance and     advance his genetic pool, his ‘…crucible for the flux of vitality and     transcendent celestial potential.’
6. Generations on there would be extraordinary     individuals appearing in the world at large but it would be almost     impossible to keep track of every emergent exemplar. The Lux Veritatis     would be constantly on the look out to recruit families with outstanding     abilities or potential as warrior mystics.  They would watch and nurture any specials     and Kurtis’ family tree could be one of these promising branches, a     line traced back to one of these ‘lost’ Eckhardt breeder-batches.
7. Lara too could easily be a     twentieth century product of a family line with roots deep in the dark days     of medieval genetic transmogrification. There would be a certain     cosmic irony there.
8. The coming together of Lara and     Kurtis in Paris could have been chance or possibly the culmination of     circumstances manipulated from the shadows regions by an ancient agency of     a malignant and undying force. To be explored…!

NB Reference Philip Jose Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe where he creates a common point of origin, a bllodline, for such eternals as Tarzan, Doc Savage, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Nathanial Bumpo (Hawkeye of Last of the Mohicans), Dr Syn, Bulldog Drummond, Sherlock Holmes, The Spider, James Bond et al. Also Warren Ellis’ Planetary for reinterpreted & revitalised heroes of yore.

FURTHER TO THE FOLLOW ON GAME:

1. Explore the bloodline of new     character Morgau Vasiley, daughter of the renegade LV Mathias     Vasiley as a part initiate into LV skills and know how. She will have gone     to the dark side and can go head to head with Kurtis wielding similar     weaponry and abilities in ding-dong smash ups! Yeah! Reference document on     alternate LV Chirugai-like weapons.
2. See document on revised last     meeting between Lara, Kurtis and Karel at the end of AOD. As a kick     off for game II this is one of those, ‘Oh, so you think you know what     happened at the end of AOD huh! Well…get THIS!’ For a precedent, see how     the third Bourne film fits almost completely into the tiny gap between     Bourne’s leaving the rail station in Moscow and turning up in New York to     have it out with Jessica Landy.

Clearly this all needs more thinking about and some timelines drawing up but the depth it gives to both L and K promises many exciting & worthwhile story possibilities.

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