Black Book of the Law of the Dead is the Archive’s name for the Necronomicon, the cursed grimoire of forbidden knowledge. Its black copy, made by Olaus Wormius in Byzantium-Constantinople in 1051–1055, is the most faithful to the original.
| Type | Artifact (book) |
| Original title | Al Graz’zt; also Al Azif |
| Era | Templar Age |
| Spanish entry | Libro Negro de la Ley de los Muertos |
History
- Original title “Al Graz’zt”, a direct tie to the primordial demon; also Al Azif, its oldest Arabic name. The Arabic-Ge’ez original is lost.
- 950 AD — Theodoras Philetas translates it into Greek: the Necronomicon proper.
- Patriarch Miguel bans and burns it; survivors circulate in clandestine libraries for a century.
- 1050–1055 — rediscovered in the uchronic cycle of Constantinople. In 1051–1055 Wormius makes the Latin version, the black copy, while Swann rules Byzantium as a Time Bandit.
- 15th century — German edition in Gothic type. 17th century — an edition, probably Spanish.
Origin
The Necronomicon is a copy of the Blue Book / Eisagogika. The chain: the Eisagogika of Paulus of Alexandria (Alexandria, 378 AD) reaches the Mediterraneum and the Templars as the Blue Book, which Marcos the Mage stole from the Library of Hell; Wormius copies or translates it in Byzantium; the result circulates in five color variants.
The five colored books
Blue, green, red, white and black. The black is the most faithful copy. Teófilo the Bactrian, the philosophical facet of Wormius himself, gave the other four to the Venerables and kept the black in his line.
Link with Lovecraft
The Constantinople days fall in the period where Lovecraft places one of the Greek copies. The shared cosmos integrates the Cthulhu Mythos: its Necronomicon and Lovecraft’s are the same object. This supports the presence of the King in Yellow, pacts with Death, and Wormius’s final corruption (a body of worms, a yellow cloak).
In Uchronic Paris the book powers time-navigation rituals and control of demonic forces, with references in the Valley of Death; at the end Wormius appears as a necromancer of worms.