The Magnus Archives

The Magnus Institute, nestled in the heart of London, is a sanctuary of secrets. Established in 1818, its purpose is singular: to investigate, document, and preserve accounts of the strange, the impossible, and the terrifying. For over two centuries, its archives have served as a repository of whispered fears and hidden truths—a monument to humanity’s struggle to comprehend what lurks beyond the veil of understanding.

Jonathan Sims arrives as its newly appointed Head Archivist, stepping into a role abandoned under troubling circumstances. His predecessor, Gertrude Robinson, left behind an archive in disarray—a labyrinth of fragmented statements and scattered records, haunted by the weight of secrets both buried and exposed.

Tasked with restoring order to the chaos, Jon approaches the job with clinical skepticism and a methodical determination to impose structure where shadows reign. Initially, he attempts indexing the written statements by recording himself on his laptop as he narrates the disheveled files. Frustratingly, this method fails, the recordings strained and unusable. Through the distortions, “*Vigilo... Audio... Opperior...*” can be heard in a voice unknown. The refrain, faint and staticky, becomes an invocation of the Institute’s purpose—to watch, to listen, to wait. It isn’t until an old tape-recorder is found, that Jon can finally make some progress in his work.

But the Magnus Institute is no ordinary institution. Its walls seem to breathe, its shelves groan under the weight of stories too heavy to bear alone. The statements Jon catalogs whisper of horrors that defy explanation—a coffin that moans when touched by rain, an alley where voices speak without mouths, a swarm of worms that devours stone and flesh alike. With each recording, Jon’s belief in rationality begins to fray, replaced by an unsettling awareness that the threads of these stories form a web more intricate—and more alive—than he could have imagined.

For those who choose to step into this archive, the stories contained within are not merely tales of fear. They are windows into the unknown, a mosaic of human encounters with the extraordinary and the terrifying. To understand them is to understand the Magnus Institute—and perhaps, to come closer to the truths it guards so jealously.