| You now know what the Scarlet King is. He is a creation of swirling anomalies, of so many different times, all over the world. He is the memory of a world that is lost, the premodern world, made manifest in a form of hatred for modernity, the new, the humanism and smiling coldness that marks our day to day existence. Forged from a perfect balance of irreconcilable anomalies and our breaking minds. He is an entity created by this overwhelming, unavoidable tension. Of the howl of the old world when faced with a cold, grey, purposeless new. He is the revenge of our fallen past. He is the idea of the ancient in a world which discards and fetishes it. | „ | |
| ~ Dipesh Spivak on the Scarlet King in Tufto's Proposal. |
He is an ancient and evil god who is often tied to the end of the current world, and is one of the many SCPs proposed for "SCP-001". He is often seen as the archenemy of the Wanderer's Library or Isabel Wondertainment V.
Contents
- 1 Biography
- 2 Appearance
- 3 Powers and Abilities
- 4 Followers
- 5 Quotes
- 6 Other Media
- 7 Trivia
- 8 External Links
- 9 Navigation
Biography
Possible Origins
Due to lack of canon in the SCP universe, there have been several stories telling the origins of the Scarlet King. The readers are free to choose whatever origin for their headcanon.Dust and Blood
The Scarlet King was one of many gods born with the planting of the Tree of Knowledge, called Khahrahk at the time. He was the smallest of his siblings, but the only one aware, and it brought him great pain. He decided that existence itself is painful and that he'd have no part in it, as well as destroying existence itself. He started by consuming his siblings and growing stronger on their essence.He vowed to destroy the Tree, the Creator and Creation, and consumed or subjugated all the other gods, naming himself "King of the Darkness Below". He declared war on creation itself, one which will not end until the very end of everything. He took Sanna, one of the gods he subjugated, forcibly as his wife and sired seven daughters on her. Sanna died after birthing them, and the King took his seven daughters as his new brides, sealing them so they would not die as their mother had. The seven brides and the seal put upon them were referred as: A'tivik (vaduk [dominion]); A'ghor (kifenn [longing]); A'distat (hezhum [desolation]); A'zieb (ba [wrath]); A'nuht (ner [lack]); A'tellif (usheq [hidden]); A'habbat (xokib [hope]). From his seven bride-daughters he had seven children called Leviathans.
Other gods and older beings agreed to follow him as well, among them were Jeser, Goran, Moloch, and the Hanged King.
Some Are Born To Endless Night
The Scarlet King was originally created alongside other anomalies through the dreams of Jacob Montauk, alongside other SCP-3553-A instances. Jacob was one of the many SCP-3553-A instances, children who were mysteriously transported to a dark dream dimension through a SCP-3553-B event. They could use their imagination to affect the world they were as well as reality on Earth, but they would cease to exist if they stopped imagining, or stopped exchanging their memories with each other. Eventually, as the children began fading away, Jacob used his imagination to merge with the remaining children and with their combined imagination brought back those faded children and had them absorbed into their mass. After all of the children are fused together they began dreaming of higher concepts such as deities, eventually creating in 19th March of 3994 the concept of the seven brides and the Scarlet King who represented their determination, suffering and hopelessness.Beneath The Council
The being that would become known as the Scarlet King was originally just a king of the Icha people of "Not-Men" created alongside Men by the Flesh on Karakine's order. He reigned over the Icha for some years until the Fifth Son gave the Charrun, another race of the Not-Men, the Not, a dark force encompassing and at the same time opposing both order and chaos. As the Not began destroying all life, Men and the Not-Men races warred against one another, while trying to find a way to stop the Not. The Icha King however decided to learn more about the Not and slew the seven kings who were on his way and entered the center of the Not, becoming one with it. After merging with the Not, the Icha King became on the same level as Karakine's Council of All and waged war against the Fifth Son, until he was finally able to banish it for good.Channeling Flows
The Scarlet King was once an ancient denizen of Alagadda. He was monstrous abomination who wrecked havoc alongside others. Eventually, the Scarlet King and the other terrible monsters were sealed away into another dimension behind the Great Seal by numerous alchemists, some of which would die during the process. However, this is generally considered a myth by most alchemical scholars.Antiquity
After the Scarlet King manifested himself on Earth, he granted the Daevite civilization great dark power and so they came to serve and worship the evil god. As the Daevites kept conquering different lands under the name of the Scarlet King, his influence grew more and more. At some point, the Scarlet King, alongside the King Worm, the Unseelie Queen and the Verdant Mage which were also worshipped by the Daevites, were summoned by the Daeva matriarchs who mated with the gods in order to conceive powerful demigods that would aid the evil empire. The Scarlet King bored on of the matriarchs a squid-like monstrosity that would become known as Hgan the Scarlet Prince and together with his fellow hybrids would form the Covenant.When the Daevites began approaching the Valley which was inhabited by the People of the Valley and guarded by Nahash and Hakhama, the People's greatest protector, Hevel set out to directly fight the evil army of the Scarlet King, but after a great number of years the Daevites used Hevel's vanity to brainwash him into Ab-Leshal causing the once noble hero to swear allegiance to the King. However, following the destruction of the valley, Hevel became ashamed of what he had become and rebelled against the Daevites and started a slave revolt. After killing the Daevites' different idols, Hevel directly challenged the Scarlet King to which the king responded by manifesting himself before him. Hevel then proceeded to use his power granted by the All-Mighty to cause the Flood which reset the universe and cut the king's influence on Earth.
Eventually the Scarlet King and his followers began rising in the land of Iran, but were opposed by some local tribes known as the Children of the Urn and the Hindu god Skanda. The King's armies fought against Skanda and the tribes, but despite delivering grave damage to their enemies, Skanda was able to defeat the Scarlet King by killing the King's body using seven spear. Skanda then used the tribes' seven urns to lock the King's True-Delf away while they being scattered through time and becoming the time travelling anomalies that would be known collectively as SCP-3838. This battle was possibly foreseen by SCP-3514-3, Ismail I, when he briefly looked into the future. Eventually the Scarlet King's army from the future were able to destroy six of the seven tribes along with their urns, leaving the SCP-3838-4 tribe to try to unite the power of the other tribes before their demise.
SCP-231
Eventually in the modern world either the Children of the Scarlet King or Lilly kidnapped several young girls and performed a ritual on them that involved horrible torture in order to turn them into effigies of the Scarlet King's brides causing the girls to become pregnant with the king's abominations. After Lilly/SCP-231-1 gave birth to the first child this caused a catastrophe that would become known as the Cornwall Incident that alarmed both the Global Occult Coalition and the SCP Foundation. The Foundation was able to detain the remaining six brides, but eventually each gave birth to their respective monsters which resulted in further great catastrophes. SCP-231-7 was the only one that was left and was prevented from giving birth by using Procedure 110-Montuak, developed by Robert Montauk, a scientist who became angry at the evil god for possibly taking away his younger brother.What the procedure actually involved was unknown, but it is heavily implied that it involves brutal acts of violence, such as rape and torture, in order to keep the Leviathan away. Another source claimed that the Scarlet King and his Leviathans cannot see reality the same way that humans could, meaning that concept of brutal acts of violence against SCP-231-7 could keep them away, allowing the Foundation to discontinue the procedure once they realized this, simply making the Scarlet King believe they were still using the procedure which was just telling the horrible bedtime story to her.
However, the O5 Council became suspicious after realizing that the Children of the Scarlet King had devised the ritual, leading them to suspect that they were playing into the Scarlet King's hands. Following research, they discovered that the seventh bride of the Scarlet King was not like the others: she had given birth to great heroes who fought to stop the Scarlet King, and his Children had deliberately allowed them to discover the ritual in order to stop the greatest one from being born.
With this in mind, the Foundation stopped Procedure 110-Montauk, leading to the birth of SCP-999, now believed to be the only thing to be able to defeat his father/grandfather.
SCP-2317
Iteration 5 of SCP-2317 claimed that the Scarlet King is the untold horror imprisoned inside SCP-2317-Prime, a salt desert-dimension locked behind a 19th-century wooden door. In Iteration 6, it was revealed that the entity designated SCP-2317-K was actually ████, Devourer of Worlds or Dread Devourer, a Keter-level Devourer entity that would enter the Foundation's reality within thirty years.The O5 Council were surprisingly apathetic to the Devourer's inevitable attack, as several other SCP entities were projected to destroy the world in the meantime, and consider maintaining staff morale to be more important than fruitless attempts to re-imprison the Devourer. Thus, the myth of the Scarlet King was created, alongside a fake ritual, Procedure 220-Calabasas, which can supposedly "appease" the entity.
Whether the Scarlet King truly exists and whether SCP-2317 is worthy of that title is left as an exercise for the reader, as the universe of the SCP Foundation has no true canon. Some writers treat them as one in the same, while others claim the Dread Devourer is even more powerful than the Scarlet King. In the SCP-001 Proposal it was stated that SCP-2317-K originally had nothing to do with the Scarlet King, but because most Foundation personnel believed that the two were the same, the living idea of the Scarlet King absorbed SCP-2317-K and became one and the same. In SCP-5641, it is stated that 2317-K is simply a false decoy created after the King's image in order to seal away the truth about the King's existence. In SCP-6462, SCP-2317-K was stated to actually be one of his children.
Possible Endings
When We Came Home
The Scarlet King was summoned by the revived Daevites and rose from SCP-1844 with his armies to destroy creation. He destroyed most of creation and casted down all the other gods in his fury. The dead were revived and marched to kill the King, but were destroyed by his hordes. However, he was greatly weakened by the assault.Finally, the only remaining resistance to the King were a group of "thirty-six saints gathered on the mountaintop". Exactly what they do is unknown, but it's implied that they summon the seven warriors who will destroy the King.
The first six warriors attack the King with spears and impaled him through the eye, heart and other areas. The final warrior, Isabel Wondertainment V, then killed him by driving her spear through his skull, leaving the youngest of the Brothers Death to claim his soul while his corpse sank back into the Abyss.
SCP-5317
Eventually, SCP-2747 fought the Scarlet King and imprisoned him inside a tower located in the Atacama Desert, Chile, which was made out imagery of several groups of interest. However, the Scarlet King simply laughed as he broke the seals of each floor, but this proved be in vain, because 2747 manipulated the narrative in a way that he would never be freed. The king realized his defeat and remained trapped with the tower for eternity which allowed 2747 to use him as its pawn to destroy everything, with the Scarlet King destroying worlds while 2747 destroyed universes.SCP-6140
When the Children of the Scarlet King performed a ritual on SCP-140 in order to bring the Daevites to the modern times, the ritual instead destroyed 140. Because SCP-140 was a false history created by SCP-140-A who used occult magic to turn it into reality and rewriting the real Daevites, its destruction resulted with the Daevites reverting to a normal civilization with all of the related anomalies ceasing to exist. Since the Scarlet King was completely made up by 140-A as part of 140, the Scarlet King and his anomalies also ceased to exist since they never actually existed.SCP-001 (Ihp/Locke proposal)
As a result of Site-100's manipulation, SCP-001 (Tufto's proposal) was cross-tested with SCP-001 (I. H. Pickman's proposal), the living Narrative established by the authors of the SCP wiki from higher narrative. This resulted in the Scarlet King and his children trying to destroy everything, but their efforts not mattering as the narrative of reality would always remain in the aftermath of their destruction.Appearance
In the tale "Three Short Scenes About Death" the Scarlet King is given a little description. His fist are described as massive and gnarled, holding the chains of his consorts and concubines. The same fists could effortlessly smash a man's throat. The King's voice is described as similar to "the chittering of a billion infinitesimal insects", and swirling and constantly moving. His voice also was neither "high nor low nor cacophonous nor methodical", simply just being. When the Scarlet King first appeared to the Serpent, he took the form of a girl in red clothes sitting on a rocking throne.According to Tufto's SCP-001 proposal, the King is more akin to a living idea than an individual entity; in effect, he is the idea of nihilism and a force of chaos, and can assimilate an entity thought to be him into an aspect of himself just as it did with SCP-2317-K. He is always depicted as figure with a crown-like ornament over his head showing royalty and associated with the color red (SCP-6996), or in the cases of alien cultures lacking the perception of the color red the King would be associated with a color that would be synonymous or close with the color. In SCP-4989, Dr. Simon Kells described looking at the King as being "like staring at a Pattern Screamer only more hollow".
In "Dr. Wondertainment Goes Out With A Bang", the Scarlet King was described as having an anorexically thin humanoid body, standing exactly seven feet tall and emitting blinding red light. His skin resembled that of a burnt corpse, his hands were gnarled claws, and possessed two great antlers behind his head and multiple eyes on his face. When confronting Cornelius Wondertainment he wore a military uniform covered in medals and rank markers.
In SCP-5641, the Scarlet King was described as ten trillion times Skanda's size, possessing seven mouths which spoke profanities, eyes that killed anyone who looked into them, and fourteen hands which he used to form all types of mudras.
Powers and Abilities
The Scarlet King's true power is unknown, though he can conquer and destroy entire worlds and civilizations, and threaten other low elder gods. For regular humans his true power is presumably beyond comprehension. The Scarlet King is stated to be powerful enough to threaten all of Creation and the Tree of Knowledge itself, making him a multiversal threat if not worse. He also feeds on the negative feelings of people as he did with Dr. Clef which resulted in the latter's madness and is responsible for giving most reality-benders their powers. Although he and his followers were able to defeat both Mekhane and Nahash, in another account he was described as being weaker than his uncle Yaldabaoth and the Brothers Death. He also was no match for SCP-2747 which used his powers for its own plans.Followers
The Scarlet King has gathered many followers, among them were The Factory, Jeser, Goran, Moloch, and the Hanged King. He, alongside the Hanged King and Bobble the Clown, formed a version of the Trinity which was known as the "Trinity of the Red Court". He was also associated with the King Worm, the Verdant Mage, and the Unseelie Queen, who were all worshipped alongside him by the Daevites.Humans also follow the King, most notably the savage Daevite civilization, the time-traveling Turkmen tribe designated SCP-3838-8, the reality-bender Lilly, and the Children of the Scarlet King, a "Satanic" cult which poses as an American right-wing millennialist fire-and-brimstone Christian church. The group consist of eight thousand actual cultists, and about sixty thousand Christians, who unknowingly serve the interests of the inner circle.
He also corrupted the Little Mister known as Mr. Redd, turning him from a friendly and lovable individual into a psychotic murderer and pervert, acting as the King's dark messiah and spreading chaos and pain. Another cult worshiping the Scarlet King named the Reypay 'Eveng (Blood Children) was formed on the planet designated SCP-4547 which was inhabited by the alien race known as the taronyu. It is implied in SCP-4150 that Cool Yet radio, an Are We Cool Yet? cell, have been influenced by the King.
Quotes
| “ | When all is naught but Dust and Blood, And scarlet soldiers ride Our once great world reduced to mud, He comes to claim His brides The Erikesh have lost their spark, The Khansmen soon as well, The urns now fall to endless dark, The great pearl houses hell. The black moon howls and wails in fear, The king of oysters screams, The child of summer drawing near, A vanguard for His queens. With law of concrete, law of blood, And law of howling, third; The men of earth shall fall in floods, As His great prison blurs The world shall fall to Khnith-h'gor, The God of Dark Below, His children’s children march to war, Their eyes a crimson glow. And on that day, when battle comes And hellish armies walk, The Scarlet Khan and his wartime drums, We’ll fall before Kharahk | „ |
| ~ A poem of the Scarlet King from "Book Club". |
| “ | But surely, the most outlandish theories concerning the Daevite religion are formed around their worship of an entity called the Scarlet King. If such an entity even existed – and there’s no real evidence it did – there’s no link between what we concretely know about the Daeva Matriarchy and what little has been written about the Scarlet King. This writer finds the concept of a matriarchal society worshiping a two dimensional patriarchal deity implausible at best, orientalist at worst. | „ |
| ~ Dr. Wentworth Sullivan about the connection between the Scarlet King and the Daevites from the "Daevite Hub". |
| “ | Like a child, he is blind to the contradiction of his desires; he wishes to destroy all things to experience the peace of nonbeing, yet is terrified of death. | „ |
| ~ SCP-6462-C-1 (A'nuht) to Dr. Anvi Madras when talking about the Scarlet King. |
Other Media
In Music
The Australian-based band known as The Atomic Beau Project released on March 23, 2019 a song based on the Scarlet King and SCP-2317 titled "The King".Trivia
- The concept of the Scarlet King was originally created by author DrClef in SCP-231, but the character was properly developed by other authors such as Djoric and Tufto.
- DrClef when creating the both SCP-231 and SCP-2317 was partially inspired by the now deleted version of SCP-363 titled "Tree-Like Horns" which had been based on "The Walkers" painting by Justin Cherry.
- The Scarlet King has been influenced by numerous entities across religion, mythology and fiction, with some being: The Devil, Abaddon, Typhon, Chernobog, Hastur, Nyarlathotep, the Crimson King, Ahriman and Z̤͂â̢ḷ͊g̹̓ȯ̘.
- The Procedure 110-Montauk was named after the conspiracy theory of the Montauk Project, which was about a series of secret governmental projects.
- Given that the Scarlet King was revealed in the SCP-001 Proposal to be the embodiment of the conflict between premodernity and modernity created by human thought, this makes him similar to the Idea of Evil from Berserk. The Scarlet King's depiction in SCP-6462 was based off Jagganoth from Kill Six Billion Demons.
- The hidden poem in the SCP-231 article hints that instead of working against the Scarlet King, they may be unwittingly or even knowingly playing right into his hands. If this is true, that is presumably why in one canon, "New Job", the O5 Council decided to stop the Protocol, which resulted in the birth of SCP-999. SCP-999 is described as a being that can cure depression and PTSD. As the Scarlet King's background is tragic due to being born aware and possibly suffering from some sort of existential crisis, the O5 Council plans to defeat him "with light and love and laughter that can brighten the blackest of hearts".
- The Scarlet King is often theorized to possibly be the true or final stage of SCP-2317-K, an untold horror that even the SCP Foundation has difficulty containing and documenting. Since the wiki has no real canon, it is ultimately up to reader to believe if SCP-2317 and the Scarlet King are one and the same. However, 2317's creator personally believes that it and the Scarlet King are completely separate entities.
- He is the father of SCP-166, SCP-682, SCP-999, Jack of Spades/Hgan, SCP-4547-B4 and an unborn child from SCP-5832. His DNA was also used to anomalously augment a group of thirty dolphins which would be designated SCP-5953
- SCP-3806-A claims that Yaldabaoth and the Scarlet King are known to snatch human souls in the astral plane. She also suggests that Odin is also gathering honorable souls to form an army in order to fight either the Scarlet King or Yaldabaoth in the end of times.
- The Scarlet King is often associated with whales. This is because the author Djoric joked about SCP-231-7's race being redacted, and that since it was five letters long she could have been a whale instead of a human.
- The Scarlet King and his fellow gods, SCP-3004-1 and Thoth, have all attempted to takeover the religion of Christianity in their respective stories and were somewhat successful.
- Li’l Lollipop of Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting once tried to cite the Scarlet King's mythos as "a 'patriarchal yet functional' example of polyamory."
- In the universe of SCP-6001 where the Compendium, a benevolent amalgam organization of different GoIs, took over the world and declared worldwide peace with all anomalies, it is mentioned that they were capable of vanquishing and probably even killing the Scarlet King and his pantheon.
- In the joke tale "Tim Wilson KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE!!!", the Scarlet King is one of the many notable beings killed off-screen by Tim Wilson of Wilson's Wildlife Solutions.
- In the case that the Scarlet King managed to enter reality the Foundation plans to use SCP-4261, a shofar that if blown seven times would bring upon Earth the prophesied Rapture.
- In the comedic tale "Dust and Shopper's Rewards", the Scarlet King goes shopping to Walmart in order to provide food for his daughter/wife and there he also meets O5-1 who informs the King on how 231-7 was doing. After he became annoyed from the service of the store the Scarlet King tried to leave before realizing that he became trapped there in a similar manner to SCP-3008.
- In the year 3870 A.D. in the universe of Earth-7M, the Scarlet King was able to manifest himself in that reality and proceeded to have intercourse with the universe's sun. The Scarlet King also destroyed the universe where SCP-4221-1 originated from.
- In "Old Kansas Sector ~ 11: Intermission" set in August 11 2119 in which the world is ending, the Scarlet King is mentioned to be running for president against Ronald Reagan.
- It is heavily hinted that the mysterious philanthropic entity behind SCP-2137 is in a continuous pursue after the Scarlet King with the intent of defeating the evil god who is tricking humanity into thinking that he is more powerful than he truly is but is in fact just a manipulative evil liar.
- In SCP-6747, after Dr. King partially merged with SCP-2747, becoming a powerful antinarrative entity designated SCP-6747-C, he took the title of the Scarlet King.
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