Liber Squamis
Description: hardbound (red cloth) book, printed in 1895 by Zann and Grieg publishers. 128 pages of musical notation, for a number of unnamed pieces apparently scored for a flute; despite the Latin title, what text exists is in French and German. No author. There is a handwritten dedication to a ‘Herbert Vaughn,’ but the signature is illegible.
The Liber Squamis (“Book of Scales”) is considered a joke in the occult literature world, given that it’s not actually any sort of mystic or occult book at all. Despite its name, the Liber Squamis is simply a book of Victorian-era flute music of middling quality. More than a few occultists have carefully performed the songs found in its pages, only to find that nothing happened. And not the mystical and ominous Nothing Happened, either; truly, this book has no inherent supernatural impact at all. In fact, it’s not even unique; other copies of Liber Squamis are available for purchase.
But there’s one particular copy of Liber Squamis that has quite the death toll associated with it: twenty-five dead definitely, fourteen probably, and there’s a hotel fire (sixty-three dead) that’s rumored to have started over a dispute over possessing the book. It seems that the Liber Squamis encourages a certain type of occultist: the incompetent, yet power-hungry ones who are always looking for shortcuts. That crowd has convinced itself that the Liber Squamis is truly a Damnable Book of some sort, and they’ll cut each other to ribbons to get their hands on it. And they’ll accept no substitutes.
All of which means smart occultists avoid acquiring the Liber Squamis anyway: it invariably attracts the sort of people who might or might not stab you if they think that you’re keeping their destiny from them. Or if they’re sufficiently paranoid. Or if they think that the book itself is telling them to do it. Besides, if that rumor about the hotel fire is true then the Liber Squamis can legitimately be said to have taken the lives of perhaps a hundred men. That’s not a great thing to have around the sanctum, frankly. After a certain point all that accumulated death energy might start sticking to the pages, you know what I mean?