Hello there! I’m trying to promote my book, Christmas in Pandemonium, and naturally, it helps to have material. I have material, namely, I have the first thing on Pandemonium I have ever written: a brief history of the town. This was originally part of the book, but I had to cut it as it was 12,000 words of pure exposition. I will be presenting it to you in four parts. Part II will be out next week.

A Brief History of the Island and Town of Pandemonium

By Acton Ravenwood

     It is a common, and overly broad, statement that America was founded by religious fanatics with guns.  This pithy quotation, of dubious lineage, oversimplifies a rather large philosophical debate over when a nation comes into existence. America has been founded and re-founded multiple times, sometimes by men of God, other times by men of fortune, then by traitors against Crown, and again by abolitionists.  However, there is some truth to the idea that we are a nation of heretics of one stripe or another, as the British colonies were often founded for the purpose of providing a haven for those with unusual beliefs.

            Our own illustrious community began 400 years ago for very similar reasons, when a sea captain met a prospective passenger in Amsterdam.  That passenger, Fr. Richard Cramner, arranged a meeting with Captain John Miller in a local tavern on April 9, 1620, to discuss passage for himself and 65 others to the southern coast of North America.  Fr. Cramner, an Anglican priest who had been excommunicated for unorthodox religious sentiments, desired a discrete voyage, for unlike certain other travelers to the New World, he did not have a royal charter.  Fr. Cramner planned to settle far south of the Jamestown colony, so as to avoid prying eyes.  Captain Miller agreed he could find a place both remote and fertile for Fr. Cramner’s congregation, for the right price.  This right price turned out to be very high, as Captain Miller boasted that he alone had the skill to avoid royal entanglements which he had earned over a lifetime of smuggling, narrowly escaping the clutches of English, Dutch, Spanish, and French authorities, to say nothing of the odd privateer.  Furthermore, Captain Miller continued, he had been to the New World several times and knew the East Coast of North America so well that already he could select five or six excellent spots from memory.  Fr. Cramner did not believe a word of the sea captain’s puffery, but Captain Miller had a reputation that spoke for itself.   Captain Miller’s reputation said he was an avaricious and impious man, deeply in debt, who would not likely go to the authorities given the large price on his head across all of Christendom regardless of what he had witnessed.  As with that, the Old Heretic and the Drunkard (the affectionate sobriquets we have given our illustrious founders here in Pandemonium) “shook on it” and the voyage was set. 

            Fr. Cramner’s congregation boarded Captain Miller’s ship, the Charon, the following month after they had bought the supplies and prepared themselves for the long journey. Captain Miller’s crew were 35 in number, plus one prostitute from Aberdeen.  The Captain had taken her aboard after she had been chased out of her village, on the charge of witchcraft (the irony of this situation is notable, but not particularly relevant to our tale).  In an attempt to avoid offending the piety of the staid passengers, the Captain presented the whore as his wife.  In a biblical[1] sense, she was his wife, and everyone else’s.  Fr. Cramner’s followers could guess that they were among impious people, and they had accepted the crew’s company for the time being.  As one of those adventurous settlers wrote at the time, “They were Strangers to the faith, and to any faith.”[2]  The term “Strangers” has stuck with these people to the present day. 

            Before setting sail, Miller’s first mate saw fit to mention to his captain that everyone in the crew noticed that one of the passengers was carried aboard, bound and gagged as if the other passengers were afraid he would attempt an escape.  Miller, desperate for cash and unscrupulous in his morality, told the crew to ignore whatever oddities these people displayed.  They were considered heretics by wider society for a reason.

            Miller regretted this policy almost immediately.  The first night after setting sail for America under cover of night, Miller asked Fr. Cramner what deviation from the Church of England made it necessary to put so many miles between himself and James I. Cramner, seeing that they were already out of port and that Miller had been paid half, as per the agreement, decided there was no danger in telling him.  The Old Heretic explained to the Drunkard that he and his followers worshiped the Devil.  “Aye” Miller is said to respond “but do ye worship the Devil in Rome, or the Devil in Wittenberg, or the Devil in Geneva?” Cramner elaborated “Worship we the devil in Hell.”

            Cramner would soon prove himself true to his word.  That night, Cramner and his congregation, dressed in black robes, drug out the prisoner they had brought with them and tied him to a stake built in the middle of the ship.  In full view of Miller’s crew, the black robed cultists began a strange ceremony those old mariners had never seen before[3] invoking the lord of darkness and denouncing the Christian savior.  Cramner, standing before the hostage, gave his sermon preaching that in this New World they would create the Kingdom of Hell on Earth, a place where money and passion were prized above virtue, power held more sacred than truth, and pride found greater than love. Then, Cramner withdrew a knife from his robes and plunged it deep into the sacrificial victim’s stomach.  As the poor soul screamed in pain underneath the gag in his mouth, Cramner set to work disemboweling him while an assistant gathered the blood and organs that poured out of the sacrificial victim’s body into a silver bowl with ancient runes engraved on its exterior.  That night, the cultists commandeered the kitchen on board the Charon, cooking the blood and organs of their poor victim, until every cultist was able to partake in the meat.  Other parts of the body, namely the muscles, would be salted so as to preserve them for the remainder of the voyage.

            As all this occurred, Miller’s crew fled the top deck.  These men were not known to be candidates for canonization, but while they had seen war, piracy, rape, murder, and the other ordinary everyday sins of their day, not one of them had witnessed an outright act of human sacrifice.  As the seamen huddled together in the lower decks, all eyes turned to the captain, the one who had signed them up for this.  While the crew whispered mutiny, Miller cried that he had no idea that these unassuming and seemingly pious Englishmen were servants of Old Nick.  All that he knew was that Cramner needed to get his Congregation to North America without anyone knowing about it and that he was willing to pay a rather handsome amount to achieve that end.

            At the moment Miller pled that he knew nothing about Cramner’s theology, Cramner, much as the Devil is wont to do, appeared, having descended from the top deck, announcing that his Black Mass was complete.  Cramner, still wearing his robes, calmly explained to Miller’s crew that they were in no danger.  The ceremony he and his fellow occultist had just performed would not be reenacted while they were aboard, as communion was not taken regularly in those days. Cramner committed the sacrifice so that their Dark Lord Below would bless the journey, and repeating the ceremony would be unnecessary until they landed.

            To this day, the more elderly Strangers still tell stories as to what happened on the Charon for the remainder of that trip.  The author of this brief history has a passion for oral history and has collected tales of the Devil himself appearing at the wheel of the ship, of children levitating and speaking in tongues, and shadows of wolf-like creatures prowling the lower decks.  Of course, this may be less evidence of the magical power that our forefathers had and more the product of the ignorant and superstitious imaginations of an illiterate and uncultured batch of sailors from early modernity.  No one can doubt they were competent at the task set before them, though, as within two months of departing, Captain Miller and his crew reached the eastern shore of what is today South Carolina and quickly began searching for a place to offload their diabolic passengers.[4] Cramner knew damned[5] well that Miller had never been to North America and knew of no hiding places, but legend has it that Cramner had communed with the Dark Lord in private and was told that a place had been prepared for them, both on Earth and in Hell.  Whether this part of the founding myth contains any truth on either a literal or metaphorical level or is merely hogwash, it appears providence did have a place for the Charon to land, or at least wreck.  While searching the coast of South Carolina in early August, a freak storm struck the Charon, breaking it against a before unseen island off the coast, shrouded by an impenetrable mist. The cultists had found Pandemonium, and Miller’s crew had found themselves without a way back home, as the Charon was no longer seaworthy. 

            On the island, Cramner thanked Miller for finding this place, and handed Miller the remainder of his payment in the form of gold.  Miller responded that he and his crew were now marooned in the middle of nowhere thousands of miles from any white man not dedicated to pure evil, and gold could just as well be lead for all the good it did him. Cramner threw his hands in the air and said he could not solve the problems of others while he had a settlement to build.  Jamestown was to the North and Florida to the South, so if Miller’s crew wanted to be either Anglicans or Catholics he had best start walking, but only Witches would stay on this island. Miller’s crew would be allowed to live among them for two months for the sake of gathering their things but were then expected to leave. 

            The Witches set about building their new home from the supplies taken aboard the Charon and the resources available to them on the island, whereas the Strangers stayed aboard the wrecked decks of the Charon and made plans.  Making the long trek to Jamestown through territory controlled by Indians would be dangerous.  Most of the supplies on the ship were lost in the storm, and few of them knew how to scavenge for food on this strange continent.  Cramner announced that in order to commemorate the voyage, they would sacrifice yet another virgin to thank Satan for a safe passage and begin their colony on unhallowed ground.  The Old Heretic set a date for the ritual on All Saints Day.  The Witches rejoiced at the news, and the Strangers began to pack quicker.

            The Captain’s “wife” has heretofore not been a large part of our story.  Formerly considered just a whore, she felt that she had been given a promotion and was content to keep quiet.  During the long voyage from Amsterdam, the Witches performed several minor rituals in addition to their initial human sacrifice, one of which involved the desecration of the newly published King James Bible. The cultists sprinkled their victim’s blood on the scriptures and tossed them below deck.  The whore picked up the discarded holy book and laid it out to dry.  As a child she had once been part of a family of pious peasants before a famine led her to a life of ruin, and she could remember her mother telling her that if a woman wanted to know God she should go to her husband.  After the good book had recovered from its befoulment, the whore brought it to her “husband” and asked that he teach her the Gospel.  The Drunkard rolled his eyes and shouted a few holy sounding phrases before telling her lay down again. 

            The night before the planned satanic ritual, the fallen woman tried again, but this time something took hold of the old sea captain.  Miller actually knew how to read bits and pieces because it was occasionally useful in his line of work, though it took him much effort to get through a sentence.  Heavily under the influence of terror and ale, Miller fumbled through the pages of the desecrated tome looking for some guidance as to where he went wrong and where he should go from here.  There are any number of passages he could have stumbled upon from “the rain shall fall upon the just and the unjust alike” to “thou shalt not kill” all the way up to passages concerning talking donkeys.  But for some reason fate led him to a passage in Exodus that said “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” and with that the Drunkard set upon a course of action.  Miller put on his finest vestments[6] and dressed his “wife” up in the only form of dress she had that did not designate her publicly as a prostitute and proceeded to hold “church” in the crew quarters.  This was the first worship service in the history of the Strangers’ Church, a religious community that exists to this very day. 

             The Strangers initially thought their captain had too much to drink and that the whore was a bad influence on him.  We should have left the bitch in Aberdeen, the first mate would later write, she definitely gave Captain Miller some strange ideas. However, the first mate soon found himself in the minority as Miller’s passionate preaching reached the hearts of his men much as it had found its way into his.[7]  Having been to a church only once or twice in his life, both times in the process of looting it, Miller made up his service as he went along.  His sermon centered on the text in Exodus, and the “plain reading” method which was so popular at the time meant they all knew what to do.

            After their leader’s rousing speech, the Strangers, fueled in equal parts by alcohol and terror, appointed themselves holy warriors and raced to the building containing the Witches’ sacrificial victim, torches in hand. The witches had only posted one guard, who fled when he saw Miller’s “congregation” coming for him.  The Strangers then picked up the poor woman who was to be the sacrificial victim and carried her back to the ship.  There would be no sacrificial rite, as the intended victim would not be disemboweled as an animal for the purpose of an unholy ritual, but burned as a witch for the purpose of divine justice.  Different explanation, same result.   The Strangers tied their prize to a wooden stake and proceeded to roast her.  Screams of pain and pleas of mercy echoed throughout the night without effect.  The victim spoke strange words in a strange tongue the Strangers had never heard before.  Assuming she was calling out to her dark master, the Strangers stoked the flames higher, hoping to kill the witch before she could work her magic.

            The next day, as expected, the Old Heretic came to have a word with Miller about the events of the previous evening.  Miller was unrepentant, though somewhat hung over.  He explained to Cramner that he and his men had a spiritual revelation the night before and would no longer tolerate a Witch to live. Cramner then informed Miller that there might not be any Witches left on this island soon, nor any white man of any kind as the Strangers had not burned a Witch last night but had instead burned a Stono Indian Princess.  Cramner explained that the cult’s sacrificial victims were never cult members, both because they were few in number and because the entire point of worshipping Satan was to gain his favor in this life, the act of sacrificing oneself being counterproductive.  The sacrificial victim on the ship had been a brigand who attempted to rob Cramner in Holland. The witches had randomly kidnapped an Indian woman on the shore of the mainland, not knowing she was local royalty.  The chief of the local village arrived earlier that morning demanding the return of his daughter, with 100 Stono warriors backing him up.[8]  Cramner, for his part, would have been glad to choose another sacrificial victim at this point, but unfortunately his deed had been set in stone by the Strangers.

            Miller ran to the burnt stake from the night before, and no longer under the influence of alcohol and misguided piety, realized upon examining the charred corpse that the woman they had murdered last night was not European in complexion.  Miller then remembered the dark ceremony[9] they had performed last night in a new light. Upon further reflection, the woman spoke in a strange tongue because she had never heard English in her life.   Cramner drug Miller back to the chief to explain that his daughter was dead for reasons so stupid, that other related tribes (for the Stono are now extinct) would forever roll their eyes when the white man claimed that he came to the New World to bring “civilization.”  The chief told both white men, whom he could not distinguish and did not care to at this point, that the next day he would return, kill all of them, carry off their women, and then burn the newly built village to the ground.

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[1] John 4:18

[2] Translated from the English of its time of course.

[3] Though admittedly, some of them had never been to any religious ceremony of any kind.

[4] No one can claim that the crew of the Charon were not good at their jobs as they actually reached their destination unlike certain others ships at the time bound for Virginia which ended up as far north as Massachusetts.   Though admittedly, they may have had extra motivation.

[5] Excuse the play on words.

[6] There was one coat he had never vomited on.

[7] The Strangers had determined they could not carry the beer they had on board with them to Jamestown and so they were determined to finish the remainder of what they had that evening.

[8] Cramner and the chief were able to communicate through an interpreter who knew Spanish from his dealings with the colonial government in Georgia.  Cramner spoke several languages, being an educated man who had traveled extensively.  

[9] Dark enough that no one was able to tell the night before that their Witch looked nothing like a white settler.