If you’ve read any of the Parata books, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve included some ‘props’ in the form of images in both books. I enjoy doing this because I feel it’s more impactful than just describing these images. 

For example, the symbol in The Betrayed feels sinister and mysterious to me, but if I had just described it as a vaguely hieroglyphic symbol that seemed to include a U, a Y, a sickle and a railroad spike (along with a little squiggly that looks like a poo 😂), I don’t think it would have the same effect. 

For the new book, The Commune, I just finished my own version of an iconic symbol in Lovecraftian lore, the Elder Sign. Now, truth be told, I’d already included this symbol in The Artifact, but only in text form because the ‘official’ version of it is copyrighted. Here’s how it was described in the book:

I stooped and examined the chalk circle. The five-pointed star wasn’t quite a pentagram; it was asymmetrical, warped looking, with some points being wider or longer than others. The circle was a simple line surrounding the star, and the writing, nonsense as far as I could tell, surrounded the circle.

The Artifact

The official Elder Sign symbol, from Chaosium’s excellent Call of Cthulhu game, is basically what I was describing, I was just adding a circle and putting writing around it. The official Elder Sign symbol is shown below:

And here is my take on it:

I think the new version has a more ‘traditional occult’ feel which hits a little more viscerally, as this symbol is a little closer to the stereotypical Satanic pentagram you see in all the movies, though the Eye of Ra in the center gives it a bit of an Egyptian flair.

As always, feel free to let me know what you think about it.