| Zanthu Tablet | |
| Set | |
|---|---|
| Forbidden Alchemy | |
| Type | Subtype |
| Exploration | Artifact |
| Card Text | |
| Action: Test Lore. Pass: Choose to have the keeper discard either 2 threat or 2 random Mythos cards. Fail: Take 1 horror. | |
| FR-145: Zanthu Tablet [U] | |||
| File:Zanthu Tablet FR-145.png | |||
| Type | Subtype | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Support | Attachment Item | ||
| Faction | Cost | ||
| Neutral | 1 | ||
| Card Text | |||
| Attach to a character you control. Attached character gains  .Response: after Zanthu Tablet is placed into any discard pile from play, pay 1 to return it to its owner's hand. | |||
Zanthu Tablet is an Exploration Card that appears in the Mansions of Madness First Edition Forbidden Alchemy, and a Support Card that appears in the Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Forbidden Relics.
Artwork[]
FR-145 uses an illustration[?] by Lars Simkins.
Mythos[]
Zanthu Tablets first appeared in the story The Dweller in the Tomb (Lin Carter, 1971).
The Zanthu Tablets are ten (or twelve) black pieces of jade inscribed in hieratic Naacal by a high priest of Mu named Zanthu. This Zanthu, who according to some brought down the wrath of the gods upon Mu and caused its destruction, fled to the Plateau of Tsang in central Asia, where he later died.
In 1913, the controversial anthropologist Harold Hadley Copeland, following the instructions given in the Ponape Scripture, mounted an Asian expedition to discover the tomb of Zanthu and reclaim the tablets. Three months after he set out, Copeland walked into an outpost in Mongolia, raving of the things he had seen and having no idea of the other members' fates. Following his recovery from this ordeal, Copeland worked on his translation of the tablets. He published his findings at San Francisco in 1916 in a privately published thirty-two page pamphlet, The Zanthu Tablets: A Conjectural Translation. Both the public and the scientific community denounced this work. Two years after its publication, Copeland was committed to an asylum.
The original tablets were held at the Sanbourne Institute in California until stolen in 1933. Copies of Copeland's pamphlet may still be found in various collections. Scholars have noted the similarities among them, the Celaeno Fragments, and the Pnakotic Manuscripts.
The Tablets contain the writings of Zanthu, including how the great wizard destroyed the continent of Mu through his summoning of Ythogtha.[1]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Harms, Daniel, "Zanthu Tablets", Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia.