Researcher's insight into the Armored
Undated

I've used the works of Scognamiglio himself to illustrate the comprehensive analysis of the Armored, a rare pleasure as so few survived. A more physical analysis is available from Harold Black. It follows:

The Armored, its name has proved remarkably ambiguous. Some invoke a defensive figure, one that is willing to slip back into its shell. That could not be further from the apparent truth, as many accounts suggest the opposite. A creature well protected, enabled to go on dangerous offensives. A shock troop; with more mobility, and so flexibility, than the gigantic Meathead.

To paraphrase George Washington, "offensive operations are the surest means of defense." So, this specimen is seemingly equipped to relentless pursuit of its targets, protected from their retaliatory fire. One account cites it intelligent enough to smash through doors, though this cannot be verified.

So, what is its armor protecting? A fool would think itself. No. Again and again, these enemies are encountered in proximity to Rifts, those apparently vulnerable or important locations to the beast. They lurk behind doors, linger on doorstops: all potential chokepoints, all vital locations to control.

The hunters' name for it was pragmatic; they did not dabble into occultism to explain it. While it's as certain this creature existed, as certain as the Grunts at least, its taxonomy is indeterminate.

Some think of it as little more than an Armored Grunt, some mutation having thickened the skin and developed a chitinous exoskeleton. I would differ on this point, it's frequently noted that the Armored's husk is particularly flammable, and was vulnerable to all manner of incendiary devices.

Others, who perhaps align more closely with my own beliefs, think of it as something distinct in its own right. That such a mutation must have a more significant purpose.

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De Servus Diaboli
Author: Tamrat Scognamiglio
Manuscript, translated from Voynich, bleached leather binding, 11" x 17"
1/2

The Armored, named for their inhuman chitin, flesh dried, hardened. A hollowed husk of hope, a knight errant arrived dead on his horse.

The lord of pestilence has stripped the Walls of Dis of their guardsmen. Now, the cursed roam the nine circles free. Hell has been harrowed a second time, but the saved souls are not deserved to rise to Heaven. To Earth instead, to sanctify our hallowed ground with their Satanic sentiment.

I've written thus far of the miser Grunts and glutton Meathead. Fitting analogies, for beyond the Walls of Dis is the refuge of the truly penitent, sinners of malice.

A legend from my childhood. A debtera, wandering the desert, is visited upon by a tempestuous mārid. Undeterred by the swirling smokes and sands, for he knows that it will pass, he staggers on. The noxious winds rise to a tempestuous whirlwind. The man walks on, even as the skin is shorn from his bones. He arrives at a camp, the travelers recoil in shock. He is now clothed in light. He rests at the fire and recounts his tale. At sun up, he finishes abruptly, for he has turned to stone.

The legend is true across the world, even here. There's an old tale of a fisherman who sails deep into the gulf to catch a great fish. He fights it for three days, until it comes close enough to spear. On the journey home, sharks eat the fish. The exhausted man returns with the bones, which are large enough to impress the other fishermen. He has nothing but glory.
Stubborn, resolute in the face of death, vainglorious in his onset. These are the traits that raise men and woman to great feats. Then doom them.

These are the raw virtues and sins of those who are made Armored. Indomitable will, that in death, catalyzes their petrifaction. A curse and a blessing, for the hardened chitin is at the mercy of our own hellfire. A spark of ignition enough to set it ablaze and burn the will out from within.

-71-

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Clippings from the New Orleans True Crescent
Authors: Unknown
Newsprint, variable sizes

August 24, 1858

A TOUGH YARN. Frederick Lichten returned from the Yukon with a strange tale of an unfortunate friend. This companion, Ernest Spleger, had found some geodes, masses of quartz, while prospecting. In one such mass, there was a cavity lined with crystal, containing fluid, called the water of crystallization. Spleger, with a jesting remark, drank the fluid, and soon after complained of a weight and pain in stomach and bowels. He soon died, his body instantly rigid. In not a few hours, petrifaction took place. The whole body, flesh, blood, heart, liver, etc., becoming solid.

April 16, 1893

WANTON COMBUSTION. The unfortunate but nonetheless remarkable story came to us of the poor fate of a man at one country sawmill. Having had a mishap using animal fat to clean up sawdust, he made merry with friends, heartened by his bizarre visage. As she is want to do, tragedy struck suddenly, when he caught the spark of an oil lamp, and caught alight immediately.

March 27, 1895

PETRIFACTION BY ARTIFICIAL MEANS. Charles D. and Frank T. Boyds, of Lafayette, think they have discovered a method of turning human bodies into stone, preserving them forever. In the basement of their establishment on Cottage Grove Avenue is the body of a young man who died July 18th last. The body was treated, and turned to a substance resembling stone. All of the blood was withdrawn and the fluid injected. After two weeks, there was no trace of decomposition and the flesh began to harden. Strange growths, resembling that of papery wasp nest, still puzzle the men, who declare that not long more is needed to perfect the fluid.

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De Servus Diaboli
Author: Tamrat Scognamiglio
Manuscript, translated from Voynich, bleached leather binding, 11" x 17"
2/2

Tales akin to the Armored's enhuskment are rare, yet petrifaction innumerable, spanning cultures separate by centenaries and continents.Treating these allegorically, we are first familiar with Greek mythology: the prototypical Medusa, curses of various Gods and the ship of the Phaecians. They occur across Catholic hagiography, from the miracle of Saint Hilda, to the shepherd punished by God after betraying Saint Barbara. Giants caught by the break of day recur throughout Germanic legends as often as lone men turned to stone pillars do Slavic ones. I know of oriental stories, from French Indochina and Japan, featuring ill-fated valiant heroines.

For stories originating from our own continent, I know of two. There is a hill in North Carolina where a Cherokee lookout was punished for cowardice. And there are the more recent Apache tears, where seventy five Apache riders, facing defeat in battle, rode their horses off cliffs rather than be captured. Their wives' tears turned to stone upon hitting the ground. But, these stories explain geological phenomenon, irrelevant thanks to the field of Geology. We are able, for instance, to explain phenomena like the stone wood in Mississippi.

But these fall flat here. Hunters return with stories of hard men, which bullets ricocheted off. Yet clearly, their substance is that of a hardened wood pulp, layered thick and robust. There are medical legends of a Treeman syndrome, turning flesh to bark, but this too seems inappropriate.

At an apparent dead end, I wrote to two others I knew to have a background in science: Dr. Reinhard Winkler and Harold Black. Dr. Winkler was preparing to embark on an investigation into the anatomy of the basic Grunt, and was unable to assist me. Mr. Black agreed, and I'm indebted to him for his physical analysis.

A friend of mine, from when I rode with the Sinners, came to me with an opportunity. Armed with no more than a sword, he had hacked at an Armored, to no avail. When he thrust the blade, he was able to stab clean through an armor plate and pull it free.

-73-

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The Journal of Harold Black
Undated
Black leather bound, handwritten, 6" x 8.25"
1/2

When I arrived at the laboratory, a Turk was leaving. Tamrat met me and led me through to the yard, showing a carriage full of waspish armor plates.

Tamrat was younger than I imagined, his writing having a quality heavy with the weight of years. I swiftly picked apart what little he knew of Natural Science.

First, physical tests. These seemed a novelty to Tamrat. Smaller caliber bullets seemed unable to penetrate the thickest pieces, the impact absorbed. Larger calibers were able to punch through. To test the degree to which the power diminished, we armored a dead swine. The first two shots found a bad angle and glanced off, however the third pierced, and then went deep into the pig.

Visually the plates were similar to paper, akin to the large cocoons found in Healing-Water's Church. Their composition far dissimilar. The material somewhat similar to chitin, commonly found in exoskeletons of crustaceans and insects, and scales of fish and amphibians. On a microscopic level, these are fibers, like whiskers, that fuse at the ends and form into a dense mat. Impossible to determine if they are naturally human, or not.

The day after, we awoke to find the armor gone. Or rather, disintegrated. Covering the laboratory was a layer of dust. On closer examination, we found tiny black maggots crawling among the granules, writhing, and feeding.

We torched the house and rode from Algiers before the crime was discovered. Tamrat was forlorn at the loss of his library, and we parted ways at the docks. But we had learnt a vital lesson. Never bring anything back into the city.

I had read enough legends myself to know not to steal fire from the Gods.

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The Journal of Harold Black
Undated
Black leather bound, handwritten, 6" x 8.25"
2/2

I had a brief encounter with Dr. Winkler, before he departed. He stated the investigation was fruitless, the Armored was little more than a Grunt with an exoskeleton. I would have to find a live specimen.

Their behavior was fortunately predictable. As their tough exterior testifies, they're used primarily as protectors. I needed several blooded hunters to assist me. But I lacked the funds, and Tamrat was drinking away the loss of his books.

Isabella agreed to my terms. A conduit, I was confident her attunement could lead us to a virulent rift. Isabella curiously rejected the notion that she was a seer. She had troubles enough being typified as a mystic or practitioner of voudou. Few contracts were offered to a black woman, suffering the worst of both discrimination, so she was at least affordable.

We found an Armored quickly, however were unable to control it. A shotgun blast dismembered its lower body, slowing it down, prime for a clean kill. However, the arrival of other hunters forced us to abandon it.

Isabella found and drew a second into a bear trap. Immobilized, she was able to precisely hit its cranium, dispatching it in a single shot.

The specimen was fresh, but our time limited. In the forty minutes we spent there, it's a sure death to spend more than an hour in the hunting grounds, I noted that the chitin plates seemed to grow, some two inches, even after death.

Deep in the chest cavity, a disturbing anomaly. A third arm, slender and sinewy, sprouting what could only be described as fangs. It was crooked and underdeveloped, though an incision showed, thick with muscle. Could it be growing? Emerging to give the Armored some new ability? Or was it evidence of something lost along the way? An underutilized specialization?

Dr. Winkler's thesis proved false.