SCP-8847 was a necromantic eigenweapon constructed by Thule Society necromancer Herwig Voss from the holotype specimen of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.
Item #: SCP-8847
Object Class: Safe
Level 1/8847
Confidential
Special Containment Procedures
SCP-8847 is to be stored in a lead- and silver-lined concrete casket within the Deep-Lake Containment Vaults of Site-246. Under no circumstances is any osseous material to be allowed to come into contact with SCP-8847.
A plaster replica of SCP-8847.
Description
SCP-8847 is a collection of bones from various different humans and animals; bones from over 20 different species and 300 different individuals have been identified, including the holotype1 specimen of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.
SCP-8847 was a necromantic eigenweapon constructed by Obskurakorps Chief Archivist and Erznekromant (Arch-Necromancer) Herwig Voss. The core of this weapon is the aforementioned Spinosaurus skeleton, originally discovered by paleontologist Ernst Stromer in Egypt in 1912. As a result of the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction event,2 this skeleton is suffused with high-intensity thanatic energy. Though the extreme age of the specimen has degraded the potency of the skeleton as a thanatic source since its initial creation, the residual energy of a global mass extinction event still persists at a level sufficient to kill an adult human within 40 hours of continuous exposure.3
According to seized Obskuracorps records, the Spinosaurus skeleton forming the core of SCP-8847 came to the attention of Thule Society necromancer Herwig Voss in 1929, after reports that the skeleton — which had been recovered as a collection of fragments — had begun to reconstitute itself in storage at the Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology. Following the Obskuracorps' rise to power, the largely-complete skeleton was removed from display and turned over to Voss, who discovered the thanatic source within the skeleton.4 In addition to acting as an extremely potent thanatic source, the skeleton exhibited unusual thanatovoric and osseovoric traits, consuming the spirits of those who died in its vicinity to sustain itself and absorbing their bones into its physical form.
Under Voss' direction, binding runes were carved into the ribs, limbs, and skull of the skeleton, allowing for control over the entity. Additionally, focusing sigils carved into the skeleton's teeth allowed it to produce a coherent beam of necromantic energy with devastating effects on both organic and inorganic material.5 Despite its offensive potential, Voss chose to use SCP-8847 to defend the Obskuracorps Kriegs-Kontrollzentrum complex underneath Munich from an anticipated Allied invasion; it was also used to eliminate subordinates whom he felt threatened his position within the organization.
Herwig Voss, posing with recovered ghoul skulls from the Paris catacombs. (November 1940)
While knowledge of the discovery of the Spinosaurus aegyptiacus holotype was well publicized above the Veil, SCP-8847 and its anomalous attributes were successfully concealed by the Obskuracorps until January 5th, 1944. On that date, the Universalist Order of the Aesir was able to finally penetrate Obskuracorps anti-scrying sigils6 with the assistance of an early-model Everhart Resonator. The Order discovered SCP-8847, along with hundreds of other artifacts and structures that had been cloaked from sight.
SCP-8847 was neutralized on April 23rd, 1944 by an Allied Occult Initiative strike team led by Special Operative Josef, a.k.a. the Golem of Prague, resulting in the destruction of large portions of Munich, the death of several AOI operatives, and the loss of several Allied occult assets as collateral damage. Due to the actions of both SCP-8847 and the AOI strike team, the Veil in Munich was effectively broken for eleven hours, which resulted in mass unrest among the civilian population. This was ended by the joint USAAF-RAF bombing of Munich on April 24th, 1944, which killed the vast majority of civilian witnesses to the assault and destroyed any remaining evidence of the existence of SCP-8847. Any remaining local rumors regarding the event were disregarded as the result of shell shock and hysteria.
AOI Documents
Following the Foundation's entry into the 7th Occult War, the remains of SCP-8847 were transferred to Foundation custody for long-term storage and disposal. The following documentation was provided by the Allied Occult Initiative along with the physical remains of SCP-8847.
Critical Report: Operation BONE ORCHARD
Prepared by Sir Robert Durant, GCVO, of the Occult Service of the British Empire
BONE ORCHARD was a strategic failure.
That failure is instructive. Much may be learned from this mission, both from what went right and from what went wrong.
First, the support mages stationed at ICSUT Zurich7 must be commended for their role. This was the third commando raid to date with no translocation casualties during insertion, which may be attributed to the new apportation procedure introduced earlier this year. However, it is not without flaw, as will be seen.
The primary objective of Strike Team Cadmus was simple, though difficult: Assassinate Arch-Necromancer Herwig Voss, as well as destroy his vault beneath the NSDAP Administrative Building and all the artifacts within.
Strike Team Cadmus boarded their translocation vessel — a captured German Krupp Protze light truck — at 2037 hours. The truck and the strike team were then apportated a realspace distance of 240 kilometers. Upon re-manifesting in Munich, all four tyres on the Krupp Protze blew as a result of intersection with the ground.
Testimony of Lt. Col. Sean O'Donovan, British Occult Service
What was originally going to happen was quite a bit simpler than what actually went down on the Königsplatz. Lot cleaner too. Less people would have died. Slightly less than actually died after but… well, those were Nazis, so I can't bring myself much to care about them.
"The tyres blew." Don't mince words, they were fused to the fucking road. You couldn't tell where the rubber ended and the asphalt began, could you? The truck was a junker anyways, the specs tore out the engine block and strapped a luck beacon8 under the hood. We never were supposed to drive in. The Golem was supposed to wheel the bastard close enough that the specs could magick in a couple hundred tons of explosives, right under the building and blow it all to Hell. Save us the trouble of doing it ourselves. The antimasons were just there for Plan B, in case something were to go wrong. Like, say, the tyres fusing to the fucking road.
As it was, we had to go with the Plan B.
Would have been a lot cleaner if we didn't have to.
After abandoning the truck, the strike team proceeded on foot towards the Administrative Building of the Nazi Party near King's Square, located at No. 10 Meiser Street. Conventional Wehrmacht and SS security forces were unprepared for occult assault, allowing Cadmus to easily and quietly eliminate the guards near a side entrance to the building. The guards were then replaced by Cadmus members wearing captured SS uniforms, who would remain behind to guard the strike team's exit route. Once this substitution was made, a silent explosive was used to break the lock on the side entrance, through which the remaining members of Cadmus entered the facility.
Testimony of Antonio del Forno, Ancient Noble Order of the Gormogons
I am glad, now, that the Oecumenicus Volgi ignored my suggestion to send only one of our antimassoni. When the truck failed, the beacon went with it, like a pinched fuse. We stole some uniforms, yes, but I do not believe any of us thought the ruse would work. We were all ready to fight our way past every fascista in the building — all of us but Josef. It was my first time working with him directly, and though I had heard stories of the things he could do, I do not know that I truly believed them, then.
Instead of charging in, he bid us wait. He called up spirits of the dead — the slaves that had died building the bunkers beneath the city, the victims of the earliest purges, the restless ghosts of specimens kept in the museum's archives — and asked them to aid us. I have seen negromanti work before, and what he did was nothing like that. It was…beautiful. They aided us willingly, happily even. They were perfect scouts, and when their service was done Josef thanked them and released them. I like to think they found peace, in knowing they were helping us to fight the fascisti.
We didn't see a single guard until we came to the door.
I have spent my whole adult life in the service of the Gormogons. I have seen and destroyed wards strong enough to seal away angry gods and ancient monsters. Nothing compares to that door. Overlapping layers of magic, built upon each other in layers like onionskin, so that if any one falls, the others would grow stronger on the lost energy, knitting together like scars. A battleship's worth of steel, inscribed with symbols stolen from half a dozen places — Lines of Arabic poetry-spells, Norse runes, and of course, Masonic script. Josef attempted to open it, and told us that the enchantments tried to sap the soul of any who touched it, trying to draw on the energy of the assailant to make the assault impossible. And so, he turned to us.
The three of us — myself, Bensaïd, and Mahar — conferred a moment. The layers of wards on the door would need to come down simultaneously, or else they would simply rebuild each other from backlash, and perhaps our souls as well. I thought it was impossible, that we would need to retreat and return again, but Bensaïd recognized some of the Arabic script from a mission he had been on with the Janissaries,9 and more importantly, he recognized a transcription error the idioti had made. It was a tiny crack, but it was enough. The three of us blew the door, collapsed the wards so forcefully that the steel glowed cherry-red.
Josef didn't even wait for the door to cool. He pushed it open, and we followed him, planting explosives behind us to collapse the vault as we went.
While the strike team entered the Obskuracorps complex, the guards on the surface underwent a change of watch. The Cadmus impostors were quickly identified, and were killed before they could signal the rest of the strike team. SS security forces triggered a silent alarm, which alerted the necromancer Herwig Voss, who responded by awakening the guardian and escaping through a bolthole in his quarters in the Administrative Building. This is the point at which the mission failed, as assassinating Voss became functionally impossible and eliminating the guardian became substantially more difficult.
If the team had been more prepared for the eventuality of Plan B, more options might have been available to them, any of which would have prevented the loss of the strike team members guarding the entrance. Memetic cards, like those under development by the American Pentagram, could have easily passed as forged documents proving the impostors' legitimacy. Other options, such as the inclusion of a Romani hypnotist or a Sidhe glamour-weaver on the strike team, were similarly ignored, as Cadmus and their support team in Zurich focused their energies on Plan A. As a result, the strike team was under-prepared for the loss of the probability beacon, to disastrous effect.
Testimony of Special Operative Josef, the Golem of Prague
"The Sages taught: What is a figure of a dragon? Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar explained: It is any figure that has spikes upon its neck."10 Job as well says that he would have flesh as hard as rock, that his breath would bring forth lightning, that his maw is ringed with fearsome teeth and that no mortal weapon against him shall prosper. There are none that rule over him, king of all proud beasts.11 He, Leviathan.
We had some idea of what we would face, of course. I know that he was no dragon, just Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, a member of an order of animal from a time long before Adam and his kin. I had seen other specimens of beasts like him, after hours in the museums made accessible to me by the Initiative. But still, scripture sprang to my mind as the vault door opened and we proceeded to the main chamber.
Had all gone to plan, he would have been dormant, allowing my comrades to go about their business in relative safety. Had we known we had been found out, perhaps we would have done differently. As it was, he waited for us just beyond the door, a parody of what had once been made by G-d, ancient stone bolstered by the bones of man and beast and fish. I could hear the screams of the spirits between his ribs, trapped as he slowly digested them.
As I realized that he was not dead, the runes cut into his form began to glow, the screaming growing higher in pitch as he opened his jaws, and his weapon fired. There was no time to react. In an instant, the vanguard crumbled, aged to dust in a blinking. Three brave knights, dragonslayers of the Order of Saint George, sent early to the grave.
The beast tried to take their spirits from their corpses. Even though he was nothing but bone, he seemed to inhale, drawing the spirits of our fallen into him. I could not allow that to happen. I used the Key within me to bind their spirits to me, so that Leviathan could not swallow them.
This just seemed to enrage the beast. It fired again, at me this time, but my body is un-aging clay and my spirit eternal truth, and neither can die. I wish that Samuel had known this. Dead not five seconds and already regaining his bearings, his spirit jumped in front of the beam, blocking it with his own essence, dissolving his echo into nothingness.
I called for retreat. Though I am mighty, I do not know that I could have slain this dragon alone, and I could not risk any more of my friends' lives to find out. The charges we had lain on our way in would have to be enough, along with any the Gormogons had managed to plant in the commotion.
Testimony of Sir Geoffrey Chandler, Order of St. George
It was chaos. Not the usual chaos of dragonslaying, you understand? That we were expecting, our order trains for nothing less. But three of my brothers were dead before they could draw their blades. Josef was calling retreat even as he charged the bloody beast, and the Gormogons were totally out of position. Montague12 glanced at me, and though I've known him since we were but initiates, slain countless monsters at his side, I'd never seen such a fearful look on his face. And so, though it shames me to admit it, we obeyed the golem. Perhaps, then, I shouldn't blame the Gormogons for trying to do something, even if it was damn foolish.
One of them — the Italian, I think — barked an order, and the antimasons unslung their weapons. I've never been much one for guns, not when a good sanctic steel blade is close at hand, but even I could recognize that these were unusual. They looked like crosses between pipe organs and revolvers, the size of a rifle, and as they sighted their target and fired, what they spat forth was not a hail of bullets but fist-sized grenades.
On an open field, they would've been frighteningly effective, I must admit. In a confined space, one already part-lined with explosives, however? All they did was start a chain reaction. My wards saved me from the shrapnel, but as the charges they had been setting blew, our way out collapsed. We were trapped in a collapsing room with an angry dragon, and the only place where the ceiling didn't look liable to cave in was behind it.
What else could we do? We ran for it. Clambered out through the hole in the roof while Josef held the thing's attention. I got a good look at where the grenades had hit the beast, and they'd done almost nothing. A few cracked bones, which before my eyes began to knit back together. We traded our best hope of escape for a scratch.
But I cannot blame them for trying.
With the vault breached and the subterranean complex exposed, the battle between Golem and dinosaur spilled out into King's Square. By this point, regular Wehrmacht forces had arrived in response to the alarm and proceeded to engage the surviving members of the strike team.
Testimony of Lt. Col. Sean O'Donovan, British Occult Service
I hear they're calling it the Battle of King's Square. It wasn't much of a battle, and the Germans call the place the Königsplatz, but I suppose it's a nice enough name for that mess.
The Wehrmacht weren't expecting the damned lizard. None of us were, really. That's the only reason any of us are still alive, the element of surprise turned on us both. When they saw it, their discipline broke down. Some of them froze, some of them fled. A few tried to shoot it. Nobody thought about us, huddled in the rubble of their records building. It gave us time to regroup, to regain our bearings, and to ready ourselves for a counter-attack. Geoff pried up rubble for us to hide behind, Tony shored up the stone with anti-antimasonic sigils, and the rest of us just sprayed and prayed.
The battle itself is mostly a blur, with just the occasional shard of memory, clear as crystal. I remember the sound of masonry cracking. The smell of cordite from the antimasons. Sergeant Baxter taking a bullet through the throat, his speech cut-off mid-word by a spray of arterial blood, covering my face in warm, slick grease.
I remember the roar of the dinosaur, the first creature to hear it in an age.
I remember thinking that this was the night I was finally going to die.
I remember praying to God, my grandmother's gods, Mohamed's God, any god that cared to listen, begging for the monster not to eat my damned soul.
Maybe there was someone listening after all.
Testimony of Special Operative Josef, the Golem of Prague
The dragon seemed drawn to my comrades, very much averse to fighting me. Perhaps he could detect my lack of a soul, and had no interest in battling something he could not consume.
I couldn't summon spirits to fight by my side and risk the creature swallowing them. Neither could I lure him away or act as a distraction. So I could only use my brute strength to slow him down.
The spinosaurus smashed through the entrance to No. 10 Meiser Street in fast pursuit of my teammates. Leviathan reared his head and opened his mouth once more to fire upon them, but I was quicker to react. I grabbed his jaws and slammed them shut, forcing an end to the reaction. But the excess energies had nowhere to go, save through me.
I had not been affected by the dragon's weapon before, but that was because Samuel's sacrifice protected me. I had no such shielding this time.
I am not flesh; clay is eternal. But the deadly energies contained in the plasma surrounding me were enough to bake me like a kiln. My legs, half-cooked, shattered at the knee, bringing me to the ground. Underneath his bulk, I was helpless to stop him from stepping upon my right arm, shattering it as well.
Even in desperation, I made a considered decision: the beast was a construct, unendowed with mind or soul, making it easy for Herwig Voss to impose his will. If the beast was provided with his own will, he might break free from the nekromant's control.
Thus, taking one of the beast's ribs in my remaining hand, I drew upon all the power at my disposal to summon the ghost of the animal that had died so many millions of years ago. It was like trying to pluck a pebble from the bottom of the deepest sea floor, such was the effort required — an effort that was very nearly beyond my capabilities. But like calls to like, and with the beast in my grasp I was able to reach beyond the years and call forth his spirit, and bind him to his former body. The result was a free-willed revenant that neither Herwig Voss nor anyone else could control. Not even I dared try to issue a command to the beast, so ancient and powerful was his spirit.
Now freed from Voss' control, the dinosaur revenant began to act on its animal instincts. The Wehrmacht, frightened by the appearance of the dinosaur, fired upon it. In turn, distracted by the sound of gunfire, the revenant charged the Wehrmacht security forces surrounding the plaza, breaking their lines. The revenant then proceeded to rampage through the city, causing widespread devastation. In the chaos, Cadmus was able to regroup and resume their mission.
Testimony of Sir Geoffrey Chandler, Order of St. George
Josef had scarcely reattached his limbs before he went barreling after the dinosaur, following in its trail. We could only keep up because whenever he came upon a civilian in need of aid, he rendered it, regardless of how they would have treated his people. I…am not sure that I would do the same, were our roles reversed.
We finally caught up to it at a large fountain, easily a mile and a half from where we had climbed out of the vault. It was drinking, or at least trying to, seemingly growing agitated as it dipped its exposed skull into the water and came up empty again and again. I wonder if it understood that it was millions of years dead.
Perhaps, then, what we did was a mercy. The antimasons fired at it again, and to much greater effect, and as it staggered Montague, Josef, and I charged in, the golem distracting it as we sliced at its joints with our greatswords. This time, it did not knit itself back together, but came apart into pieces like a museum display being packed up for shipment.
I hope that, in the end, we brought it peace. It may have been a monster, but it had little choice in the matter.
Shortly after the strike team withdrew, the United States Army Air Force and the Royal Air Force began a sustained bombardment of the city, effectively restoring the Veil by establishing a mundane explanation for the devastation of Munich. Despite this, the failure of Cadmus to keep the revenant contained, their failure to destroy it until the following day, and the ensuing localized Veilfall are all major operational failures. Additionally, they failed to apprehend Herwig Voss or prevent his flight, and the necromancer remains at large. If he is not killed or captured, he will likely present a major obstacle to any counter-invasion of Europe.
While no longer functional as an eigenweapon, the remains of SCP-8847 are still heavily infused with thanatic energy, necessitating ongoing containment. Foundation necromancers estimate that the thanatic energy of SCP-8847 will decay to safe levels in approximately ten million years.
