The Catalogue of Flesh is an incredible index of all things Daemonic. Each page is devoted to some new horror conjured forth from the dark imaginings of the Ruinous Powers.[1b]
Penned by the foul Daemonologist Adel Alsden of Wolfenburg some 200 years ago, this book exudes raw malevolence. The cover—strange red leather covered in coarse, black hair—feels warm to the touch and almost seems to pulse. The pages are made from Human skin, and the words are written in a perverse mixture of Human blood and Warpstone dust. In the reader’s peripheral vision, the text sometimes appear to writhe on the pages.[1a]
According to the Witch Hunters that tracked this Black Magister down and burned him, Heinrich was obsessed with Daemons and their kind and made it his life's work to create a full index of all their different forms. Each entry has a corresponding illustration that expertly captures the summoned abominations. Most believe that Adel illustrated the Daemons as he brought them forth from the Realm of Chaos. The truth is that he actually bound the entities into the book, using the blood of Halfling sacrifices (who are noted for their resistance to Chaos) to tie them to the tome. The Catalogue of Flesh holds some 200 entries in all.[1a]
Alsden was a potent Warlock, and he probably never would have been defeated had it not been for an accidental summoning. After one particularly loathsome effort to bring forth a mighty Exalted Daemon, nothing happened. He looked into the octogram used to conjure the beast, but it was empty—or so it appeared. As he pored over the ritual to ensure he had made no error, the Halfling sacrifice, still mewling as her lifeblood spilled out onto the floor, reached for the powdered silver, Warpstone, and blood that formed the hermetic circle. Her touch broke the ring and released the essence held within. The Warlock expected to summon a powerful beast, and indeed he did. But the power of the Daemon was not its size and strength, but rather its ability to devour the mind. No bigger than a mote of dust, the fiend latched onto the base of the Daemonologist’s neck, burrowing into the base of his spine. Like a tick, it drank the Warlock’s fluids, growing larger with his life energy. Moments after it affixed itself, Adel slumped to the floor, his mind filled with maddening visions, his body twisting in agony as the thing drank deep. Before the Daemon could finish, the Witch Hunters who had been tracking the man burst into the room to arrest him. Fearing discovery, the wet and bloated fiend disengaged from its host and slithered across the floor towards Alsden’s volume of fiends. It wrapped itself over the cover, joining with the book until such time that it could find a new host to kill.[1a]
The Witch Hunters promptly tried and burned the man and then prepared the contents of his rooms for burning. As they piled the profane devices and instruments on top of the oil-soaked pyre, the book pulled itself free from the pile and hid in a waiting carriage. Since then, the book has been lost, occasionally surfacing once every score or so years. Each time, when rumour of its existence reaches the ears of the Templars of Sigmar, there’s a rush to track down and destroy the volume, for they suspect that it is one of the most dangerous books in the Old World.[1a][1b]