The town of Arkham, Massachusetts is the backdrop of many Cthulhu Mythos stories, both those written by H. P. Lovecraft and the authors who came after him. The same is true of RPG campaigns that take place in this setting. While the town itself is rather sprawling, one of its central features it boasts is Miskatonic University... and one of the university's central features is its library. Or, more specifically, the restricted collection found within the Miskatonic Library. Many stories in the mythos are focused on the books kept under lock and key behind the gates of the library's restricted section, from the dread Necronomicon, to tomes like Unaussprechlichen Kulten, to translations of the book of Eibon, these dangerous grimoires are often the centerpiece of a particular plot arc, or even an entire campaign.
This supplement, though, is for filling out the rest of the library.
The books contained in this list largely reference various parts of the Cthulhu Mythos, events mentioned in Lovecraft's fiction or they're homages to the time period, conspiracies that might play into a given game or just red herrings that can be used to throw players off track if their research skills aren't up to par. But if you don't want your investigators to conduct a full heist to try to get their hands on one of the relics held in the restricted section, many of the books in this supplement can be used to give them necessary pieces of information to solve their current plot... or to at least set them on the right track.
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- The Crimes of Joseph Curwen: A necromancer who met his end in 1771, Curwen's list of crimes is long and heinous. This text is about his history and the nature of his occult activities, and it was written by Emil Harkness as part of a series of books delving into the darker parts of the witch craze in both America and Europe. This book presents the journal entries and witness testimony that was made public at Curwen's trial, along with the recovered artifacts from his home and laboratory, which suggested that he had been seeking some form of immortality right up until the time of his death.
- Reflections of The Black Stone: The Incomplete Works of Justin Geoffrey: A collection of works by an English poet who died in an asylum in 1926, Geoffrey's poetry and half-finished short stories are haunting to say the least. The collection had a minor print run, and only a few copies of them made their way across the pond over the years. A man with a violent temper, his life was a tattered tapestry of blood and insanity, which ended with this bizarre series of works to mark his passing through this world.
- Ghouls and Gargoyles: The Previously Unreleased Work of Edgar Gordon: Largely considered a failed horror writer responsible for ghastly stories like Gargoyle, The Principle of Evil and The Soul of Chaos in his archive, he disappeared under some frankly bizarre circumstances. The unsolved nature of his disappearance meant that suddenly his "unpublishable" work was a somewhat valuable commodity, and an unscrupulous publisher bought up the rights and put out two print runs of this anthology before the mystery of its author's whereabouts was no longer an interesting selling point.
- Parish Nightmares: A memoir written by retired New Orleans detective John Raymond Legrasse, this book discusses the most unsettling and macabre cases he ever investigated. Wedged in between tales of murder, fraud, abuse and worse is the very strange case of a cult that operated in the area. Legrasse was one of the officers on-scene when the cult's members were arrested, its ritual paraphernalia taken as evidence, and the site locked down. According to him, though, the bizarre idols went missing from lockup, along with the dagger, medallions and other evidence the police had collected, which resulted in many of the charges being dismissed due to "departmental negligence," though he maintains the belief that the case was sabotaged by unknown persons for reasons he can only speculate about.
- An Esteemed Foundation: A dry-as-dust text on the founding and history of Miskatonic University itself, this book focuses on the origin of the campus library, and the earliest donations made to it by the college's first president, Ward Phillips. While many of the books listed in the exhaustive record are simple texts (many of which are laughably out of date in this modern era), others remain part of the library's restricted section to this very day.
One page is the front cover, one the front matter and one is ads.
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