2025-02-01 0:22:00 ¶ ●

I love the way the Horror™ works in the Magnus Universe, because the way we understand it is wildly ill-equipped to actually describe what’s happening beyond the immediate context. It’s all vague descriptions of patterns and motifs. The only detailed taxonomy or pantheon we get is Robert Smirke’s, and while I like it for what it is, I am fascinated by how other people in other cultures and time periods would organize these ideas.

For example, I think you could combine The Buried and The Vast into one idea- the fear of space. It’s just two extremes of the same scale, it’s about feeling helplessly small against a force that doesn’t even care to notice you. It’s not vindictive, it’s apathetic. There is no bargaining with the ocean, no fighting with the sky, no compromising with the crumbling cave.

Can you really say that the Flesh and the Slaughter are particularly different? Sure, the Flesh is about the horror of being meat, but what makes someone more aware of that than the ruthless cutting of a life? Isn’t there inherent body horror in rot? At what point does a parasite cross from Corruption to Web?

And then we have the avatars. Would you call Ink5oul a being of The Eye or of The Flesh? Simon Fairchild is obviously of The Vast, but can you say with confidence that The Lonely doesn’t benefit from his shenanigans? Jared Hopworth is 100% Flesh, but when your body is twisted around in impossible ways until you are unrecognisable… That sounds like being made into a Stranger to me. The Eye wouldn’t be nearly as distressing without the paranoia of paranoia you get from The Spiral, and how can you doubt a reality you can’t perceive?

I hope that Protocol takes advantage of this nebulousness going forward to explore other frameworks besides Smirke’s, it’s so damn fun to think about.