Entity inspired Tarot by Grace Holsten

“Small spaces, crushing, you can’t breathe. You’re at the centre of everything and it all pushes down on you. If The Vast is like losing yourself in too much space, The Buried is being trapped without enough.”
- Gerard Keay, MAG 111

The Buried is one of the Entities. It is the manifestation of a collection of fears that deal with being trapped without enough space: claustrophobia, small spaces, of being unable to breathe and the underground and dust, of being at the centre of everything and it is all pushing down.

Deep water can be associated with The Buried, but only when the effect is described as claustrophobic, crushing, drowning, heavy, sinking, etc. The Buried is also associated with certain “crushing” money issues, such as desperate poverty, “drowning in debt,” and seeking or borrowing money under bad terms.

Aliases

The Centre
Choke
Too Close
I Cannot Breathe
Forever Deep Below Creation

Fears

Claustrophobia
Being Trapped
Suffocating
Drowning

Manifestations

Deep water
Debt/financial issues
Dirt/earth
Tight space
Caves
Coffins
Graves

Episodes

Statements

Other Appearances

Characters

“The Governor”(MAG 50 - Foundations): A figure described as short and wide; wears a tall black hat that reveals grey wisps of hair and carries around a black cane with an iron tip. His presence is made known by the jangling of keys. After hearing this jangling, Sampson Kempthorne experienced the sensation of walls closing in around him to the point that he could hardly breathe or move.
George Gilbert Scott(MAG 50 - Foundations): An architect who worked alongside Henry Roberts - who himself had studied under Robert Smirke - and George had consequentially studied some under him as well. Scott revised and drafted many buildings to produce designs that were described as claustrophobic and extremely impractical.
Karolina Górka(MAG 71 - Underground): Was trapped in an underground train, which continued on a never-ending route and got progressively dirtier and more crushed in by earth. Karolina woke up at Walthamstow Central after resigning herself to death in the train as dirt piled up around her. She decided it could not have been a dream because she was still covered in dirt when she woke. Left a great deal of dust behind after making her statement.
Enrique MacMillian(MAG 88 - Dig): After reading the DIG book, he became seized with the urge to dig because, to him, “below” felt comforting while “above” felt overwhelming. Attempted to dig into the floor of the Head Archivist’s office with his bare hands after seeing something below the floorboards that no one else saw.
Hezekiah Wakely(MAG 152 - A Gravedigger’s Envy): A gravedigger who envied the dead’s peacefulness at the bottom of graves. Was eventually buried alive and became an avatar for the Buried.
“Breekon and Hope (characters)”: Agents of The Stranger who became bound to The Coffin.
“Man Whose Teeth Were Always Stained With Mud”: An agent of the Buried who may have been an avatar, entombed a servant of The Web under Hill Top Road during a civil war.

Artefacts

The Coffin: Also known as The Pit, is a coffin that is usually locked and held closed with chains. The coffin is a gateway into The Buried, and screams, moans and scratching of wood can be heard from its victims when it rains or when objects are placed on the lid.
_DIG(MAG 88 - Dig): A Leitner Book apparently filled with pages that read nothing but “DIG.” It imbues its readers with a fascination with being covered in dirt and the untameable urge to dig. Could possibly also bestow its readers with the ability to see things of value beneath the earth’s surface.
The Box(MAG 66 - Held in Customs): A box that traps a person inside it the morning after they touch it. Each time its prisoner feels any kind of hope of getting out, The Box seems to get smaller. Time moves differently inside The Box, its victims seemingly experiencing multiple days and nights within a 24 hour period.
The Seven Lamps of Architecture: A Leitner Book that, when read in full, causes walls to close in around the reader. When read near Robert Smirke’s architecture, the reader is able to change or move parts of the building.

Locations

The Buried: A separate, subterranean dimension that is absent of any life, with the exception of any victims sent there. Victims within the Buried will find themselves squeezed from all sides, with little chance of escape. It is the direct manifestation of the Entity itself, thus is capable of appearing on its own accord.
Bucoda, Washington(MAG 97 - We All Ignore the Pit): An American town where the Buried’s ritual was attempted. It was destroyed by an earthquake after the ritual was interrupted.
The Field of Worms(MAG 166 - The Worms): A domain in the post-The Change world that appears as an open field with thin, vertical tunnels leading deep into the earth. In these tunnels are ‘worms’, once human, now only able to crawl slowly upward and be pushed down by the eventual rain.

Ritual

The Buried’s ritual is called “Sunken Sky”. It took place on June 17, 2008, in Bucoda, Washington, where the townspeople began silently climbing into a massive pit. Gertrude Robinson stopped the ritual by tossing the dismembered body of Jan Kilbride, which had been touched by The Vast, into the pit. An earthquake that struck later that night destroyed the town.

Connections to other Entities

The Buried is in many ways the opposite of The Vast, as they represent opposing forces of not enough space vs. too much.
These entities were proven to be somewhat antithetical to each other, given that the body of a single person touched by The Vast was able to destabilize The Buried’s grand ritual.
However, it is noted that entities like this that oppose each other directly would struggle without one another, implying that The Vast and the Buried may be closely connected.
The Lonely and The Buried seem to have several features in common. Naomi Herne describes the second half of her experience in ways more commonly associated with The Buried: thick fog pressing in and making it hard to breathe, open graves trying to suck her in, frequent mentions of dirt and pressure, and lost time/memories. Andrea Nunis describes being thirsty and hot in a manner reminiscent of experiences of Buried victims.
Many statements make note of all ways The Buried isolated the statement givers, such as Joshua living completely alone in a large building, Laura and Kulbir being separated from their family, and several lone travellers being taken on the night train by The Buried.
Anchors also seem to be effective in overcoming both The Lonely and The Buried. Andrea survives her experience by thinking of her mother as Gerry advised in a way similar to Kulbir’s anchoring to his grandfather via his knife.
An agent of The Buried entombed a servant of The Web alive under Hill Top Road, though there is no other mention of hostility between the two entities.
The Lonely, The Vast and The Buried are the only Entities that can manifest themselves as separate realms.

The Physhbowl

Explorer

The Buried