Welcome to the lower birth,
The greatest show unearthed:
We appear without a sound,
The darkest show around,
We will leave you in a daze -
Madness, murder, dismay!
We will disappear at night,
With blood on the concrete
The greatest show unearthed:
We appear without a sound,
The darkest show around,
We will leave you in a daze -
Madness, murder, dismay!
We will disappear at night,
With blood on the concrete
— Creature Feature, "The Greatest Show Unearthed"
We are thieves, Jamie. We steal something more precious than life; if only it were as simple as killing those who fall into our trap! Each part of the show is designed to part the tricks with the most precious thing they have: the human soul, Jamie. We steal them by the dozen. It began a long time ago: Kurt Pilo Senior established the circus as a farm for human souls, and that is what it remains...
— Fishboy, The Pilo Family Circus
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most terrifying show on the planet earth; Professor Screweyes Eccentric Circus! We will scare you ! We will frighten you ! We will shock you witless with our dreadful, terrifying, vile, monstrous program. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, we give you the infernal grand demon parade.
— Professor Screweyes, We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story
You've made it to our main attraction:
The Three-Ring Circus in the Big Top tent!
We hope our clowns will entertain you
Before making you the main event!
The Three-Ring Circus in the Big Top tent!
We hope our clowns will entertain you
Before making you the main event!
For centuries, almost millennia, it has traveled the backroads and byways of the World of Darkness. And as it wandered, the stain on its festival soul thickened. Now it answers to the name of Anastagio's Olde Time Lunar Carnival and Midnight Circus. Its taste for souls has grown ever keener, and it's still hungry. The calliope beckons like a lorelei... will you enter? Within the tents and sideshows of the Midnight Circus lurk horrors and visions that stretch and defy imagination. But the Circus is not managed by mortals, oh no. Fae glamours mix with eldritch magicks; the Kindred quietly stroll along the midway while the Restless Dead flit through the carnival air. Garou or mage, undead or living, there's something to suit everybody's tastes in the Midnight Circus. And the ticket's a bargain at twice the price! Just watch where you step and what you look at, because not all the attractions are free...
This is the dark fantastic! This is how we celebrate the kill! This is the CARNIVAL. OF. CARNAGE!!!
The circus has traveled far and we have brought joy to many sad people. They join us now like a big family, growing week by week! Now they feel no pain, they know nothing of misery. I call them my Dollotrons. To each new home, we move at night, finding a fresh patch of earth to inhabit: secret places in forgotten parts of town, ugly wastelands where the locals stumble unawares into our candy-stripe tent. The Dollotrons are the first to greet them, with open arms and... perfect faces! The climax of the show is when I take them to see Mother! Oh, I tell you, they are amazed by my imagination, confounded by my dexterity as each is transformed into a beautiful work of art! But, Mother is hard to please! She wants more, always more, never satisfied, always driving me to work harder, to obtain perfection! And I will! Night has drawn its curtains yet again and the circus moves on, our numbers swollen, to a different patch of earth. On the dark horizon, the building tops glimmer, the heat and smog of industry shrouds a den of criminals and beasts. Gotham is her name! Janosz, I tell you, the circus has come home!
—Professor Pyg, Batman: Arkham Knight
Peri: What now?
Tog: The same. Innocent trappings for the same vile contamination.
Peri: Strange-looking carnival all the same...
From the gloom emerges a procession of wagons drawn by emaciated horses. The once-colourful canvasses of these decrepit carts are torn aside, and gangrenous daemons jump out. Plaguebearers prepare for the performance while nurglings bicker underfoot. From the largest carriage shuffles a hulking Great Unclean One, the plagued ringleader of the show.
The daemons begin their Dance of Death around the chosen settlement. Nurglings sing in falsetto, the plaguebearers in tenor, and the Great Unclean One provides a deep baritone. They sing of the delicious doom that awaits their victims. As the pageant progresses, the cacophony gets louder, and is joined by the howls of dogs and lowing of cattle from the nearby settlement. Pandemonium seeps into the dreams of the sleeping villagers, while those awake lie paralysed with fear.
Upon the seventh circuit, the hullabaloo rises to fever pitch. Butter curdles, and milk sours. As a pale sun dawns in a sallow sky, silence falls. Then the daemons begin the main entertainment, afflicting every known disease upon their screaming audience. By nightfall, only rotten bones tell of the carnival’s passing.
—Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Liber Infectus
The parade. Oh, the silent but laughing. A fluttering thing. See His cloak of stars and night. This trickster, this endless jester. The Bringer of Night, fooled, diverted, mesmerized, overcome. Laugh with the Laughing God, outplay the great enemy, the great Ymgir-Star-Hungry. And his ancient horde, his data-trove, guarded by dancing shadows. The Library held in ice. We laugh beyond mirth. The punchline is a blade.
—Psychic reading of an Eldar Harlequin artifact, Warhammer 40,000: Xenology
So let's run away to the poisonous circus —
The snake-handlers say it's a definite blast!
The Mercury Midway is waiting to daze us,
And all the games wager on how long we'll last.
If we bring anti-venom and use it quite sparingly,
I bet we can survive at the circus quite daringly,
And I can't think of anything I'd rather do,
Then go and court horrible death at the circus with you.
You can't trust the funnel cakes,
The corn dog batter's mixed with lead,
And just a few mistakes
Will guarantee you end up dead,
But the Ferris Wheel is high as hell,
And if you're not bothered by the smell
Of the folks who drank the water,
We can merry-go-right-around the slaughter!
The snake-handlers say it's a definite blast!
The Mercury Midway is waiting to daze us,
And all the games wager on how long we'll last.
If we bring anti-venom and use it quite sparingly,
I bet we can survive at the circus quite daringly,
And I can't think of anything I'd rather do,
Then go and court horrible death at the circus with you.
You can't trust the funnel cakes,
The corn dog batter's mixed with lead,
And just a few mistakes
Will guarantee you end up dead,
But the Ferris Wheel is high as hell,
And if you're not bothered by the smell
Of the folks who drank the water,
We can merry-go-right-around the slaughter!
The tent would appear at sunset. There was no announcement on the radio or in the newspaper, no warning except the faint sound of calliope music riding the breeze. The people came anyway. They walked away from open cash registers and running baths. They left their cars running and their dinners half finished on the table. Because everyone loves the circus... to death.
— Johnathon Blaze, Ghost Rider #4
