CODEX OMNIVERSA

In 1609, Jan Lippershey invented the telescope while Henry Hudson struggled to get England to approve a voyage to find a faster route to India.

Gotham City

In 1635, Captain Jon Logerquist, a Swedish mercenary, founded Gotham. He named the settlement “Fort Adolphus” after Gustavaus Adolphus, the Swedish general. 

In 1674, Forth Adolphus was ceded to the British and General Adam Howe was named its first governor. He renamed the territory, “Gotham City.”

Between these two dates, and unrelated to the founding of Gotham City, in the summer of 1662, Alienor Frych wrote a book detailing the life and death of her friend, Amity Arkham, who was burnt to death for witchcraft in colonial New Jersey. It contained at least one spell to summon Amity’s vengeful ghost…

Jason Blood/Etrigan

By the end of the 16^th century, Jason Blood had let Viking raiders into convents, sent explorers to their distant doom, sold out every king in Europe and pushed the finest men he knew through the gates of Hell.

I have everything I desire.

Lucifer makes Etrigan a bargain and…

Having fulfilled his side of the bargain, Lucifer grants Etrigan anything he wants.

Arion

In 1659, Arion was living his life in Paris as aristocrat Vicomte Jean-Simon Giscard D’Arion. One night, he had an unsettling dream…

Feeling disturbed by this “vision”…

…he used a crystal ball to peer into the future.

Don’t they know what they’re tampering with? What forces they’re throwing into turmoil?

Let’s see if I can’t fix it before at’s all too late, hm?

Tituba

In Anno Domini, an American colony,  in 1689, Tituba gave birth to her daughter, who she claimed was going to be special…

Three years later, in 1692, four young girls danced naked around a fire…

Tituba said not to punish the girls…

I… I did this. I am the witch. There is no one… no one else to blame.

Death Takes a Holiday

Hob Godling had lived for 300 years. In 1389, when Dream and Death overheard him say that he had no intention of ever dying, they decided to allow him to live until the day he truly desired to die.

In 1689, during the fourth time he met Death, Hob had become a drunkard and admitted that he hated every second of the last 80 years. 

Do you know… how hungry a man can get? If he doesn’t die? But doesn’t eat?

His wife had died in childbirth. His son died in a tavern brawl when he was 20. He was accused of witchcraft. Death asked him:

Are you crazy? Death is a mug’s game. I got so much to live for.

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