The Cthulhu Mythos

Eldritch Abominations

In the beginning, there was nothing. Then, the universe was birthed in the great explosion of creation known as the Big Bang. It was probably sometime after that event that the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods emerged, and the universe never was the same.

These beings - whose true forms, often existing in multiple dimensions, have been proven to be incomprehensible to humans and next to impossible to witness without going insane from the revelation that something like that could even exist in this universe - number in the hundreds, ranging from menial servants like the protoplasmic and versatile shoggoths to immensely powerful monstrosities. A few fitting in the latter category include Yog-Sothoth, an omniscient and mind-consuming deity who is one with all time but lives outside our universe; Azathoth, a “blind idiot god” who lives in the center of the cosmos surrounded by a maddening sound resembling pipes and drums (there is no sound in space - which makes this all the more terrifying); Cthulhu, a giant who sleeps in the sunken city of R’lyeh and will emerge to bring chaos “when the stars are right;” and Nyarlathotep, their sinister messenger and the only one that understands mankind, to our great misfortune. With the exception of the latter, these beings are largely totally unaware of humanity, and those who are regard us in much the same manner as we to insects. Many of them are dead or in some state of suspended animation, as with the sleeping Cthulhu, so even the most powerful ones are not to be feared too much - though they can be awakened if summoned with the correct rituals, in which case they are to be feared.

The Great Old Ones and Us

With that said, these aliens have had a tremendous impact on the history of our world and our species. Millions of years ago, when the Elder Gods were not so elderly and the Great Old Ones were not so old, they spread throughout the universe (and possibly other universes), propagating and intermingling with the native species. It is now supposed by those few scientists and agencies who know of and try to study these monsters that this could be the origin for all the monsters and supernatural beings, and perhaps even for the existence of magic itself in our world. At the very least, it is known that this tendency continues to this day, such as the strange case in England of the noble Jermyn family;and the relations between the people of Innsmouth, Massachusetts and a race of marine humanoids native to the Polynesian Islands called “the Deep Ones.”*

Despite being absolutely dwarfed by the magnitude of these Old Ones’ mere existence, some members of our typically tenacious species have refused to stay down. This began in the turn of the 20th century, part of an era of scientific upheaval when people realized the universe was far larger than just the Milky Way, humans were not always homo sapiens, the Earth looked very different millions of years ago, time itself was not fixed, and we are not alone in the cosmos. A Massachusetts author and scholar named Randolph Carter actively investigated people and events connected to the Old Ones, even at the risk of his own life. The information he gathered was directly responsible for the growth of a field in study specifically dedicated to the Old Ones, including learning how to defeat them. World governments soon developed organizations and bureaus for this purpose. Now, Britain has “The Laundry,” which operates on the idea that “magic is applied mathematics;” the United States has the Black Chamber, well-funded and unscrupulous because of all the Old One activity within the country; Germany has the Faust Force, created by former Nazi scientists who researched ways to weaponize these creatures for the Third Reich; and Russia has the Thirteenth Directorate; which began as a branch of the KGB that put down any cults with the speed and mercilessness one could expect from the Soviet government.

Of course, it has not been easy, as anyone with any experience with these eldritch monstrosities could attest - including the Necronomicon’s original author, Abdullah Alḥa ẓred, a Yemeni poet from around 700 AD whose wild experiences in the Arabian Desert led to his being nicknamed “the Mad Arab” by his countrymen who was devoured by an invisible monster*. Many of Carter’s associates met tragic ends, including Carter himself, who disappeared into time and space in 1927*. Robert Upton Pickman, a painter who captured these creatures in controversial portraits, also disappeared in 1927*. Robert Harrison Blake, an author who investigated the Church of Starry Wisdom in Providence, Rhode Island, was killed by Nyarlathotep in 1936*, and his friend, writer HP Lovecraft, was mauled by a “star vampire” the year before*. An ill-fated Antarctic expedition by the Miskatonic University in 1930 led to the discovery of an ancient city created by aliens and a terrible creature that has killed most who dare explore it*. Charles Dexter Ward, a member of the prominent Dexter family of Rhode Island, was killed by Joseph Curwen, an ancestor of his who was a necromancer and owner of the Necronomicon, after Ward accidentally summoned him in 1918*.

Most disturbing of all is the fate of Dr. Ambrose Dexter, a nuclear scientist with an interest in the occult. He was Ward’s maternal cousin, and his death put Dexter in touch with both Carter, who worked with him extensively in his research of the Old Ones, and Blake, who formed a cult-busting team with him that traveled New England documenting and destroying cults dedicated to the resurrection of the Old Ones. After Blake’s death at the hands of the Starry Wisdom Cult, Dexter tried to get rid of the Shining Trapezohedron, an ancient artifact that the group tried to utilize to summon Nyarlathotep. However, just before he could throw it into the deepest point of Narragansett Bay, he was tricked into peering into the Trapezohedron, and Nyarlathotep possessed his body. This allowed Nyarlathotep to actively guide the development of mankind’s most destructive creation, which could potentially wipe out the human race: the atomic bomb. When two of the completed bombs fell on Japan and mankind reached the point where they could not turn back from this terrible invention, Nyarlathotep was satisfied and abandoned the body of Dexter, who hung himself*.

However, the sacrifice of all these people was not in vain. Because of all this research, effort, and random happenstance, it is now known, at least to those who know about and study them, that the unbelievably powerful Old Ones are capable of being defeated or even killed. Hastur is the best example of this. He was originally about as feared as his brethren, to the point that the Asgardian trickster Loki named his moon-devouring wolf child after one of Hastur’s names, Fenric. Then, in Constantinople in the third century, he was weakened in a chess match and sealed in a flask by a Time Lord known as the Doctor. He escaped from this flask in 1943 but was again defeated by the Doctor and left in an incorporeal form, forcing him to escape into the cosmos. In that time, he discovered that due to a shoddy translation of the Necronomicon, he was briefly and hilariously worshipped in some parts as a benign god of shepherds. Finally, in 2010, he, along with many cult followers of him and other Old Ones, was permanently destroyed in a skating rink set to explode by a disgruntled 48-year-old stoner known only as Henderson. The event confirmed the theory that these gods entered a state of fatigue upon initial summoning, which could be exploited to destroy them (and incidentally, considering that Hastur is said to be the force of entropy itself, the matter about the inevitable heat death of the universe may have been resolved, though there is still very little anyone knows about the depths of Hastur’s nature). However, some scholars think that Hastur may only have been defeated because he had been weak for centuries before his death.

New England

For unknown reasons, the majority of recorded incidents involving these Great Old Ones and humans can be found in New England, specifically the cities and towns along the Miskatonic River in northeast Massachusetts: Dunwich, Innsmouth, Arkham, and Kingsport. The rest of the state has scattered places of varying degrees of danger - even Amity Island, located not too far from Y’ha-nthlei, the now ruined city of the Deep Ones. In 1973 the normally peaceful tourism hotspot was besieged by a monstrous and supernaturally enormous shark believed to be connected to the Great Old Ones and their ilk, taking five lives before its destruction. Probably because of all this lunacy, Massachusetts is also known for two notable mental institutions: one in Briarcliff, itself a sight of disturbing events; and one on Shutter Island that, while not haunted, is still creepy with that New England fog constantly obscuring sunlight, and perhaps not the most conducive environment for sufferers of insanity. It is really no wonder why for hundreds of years, and in some towns well into the twentieth century, various townships and villages would hold annual rituals where one of their own was chosen in a lottery and promptly stoned to death by their fellows, as a sacrifice to appease the dark beings that haunt them.

Disturbingly, it seems that New England in general is home to many horrors, and while every location in the world has its fair share of unpleasantness, this particular region is worth describing. The state of Maine seems to be just as much a nexus for the supernatural and horrific as Massachusetts. For starters, there is the Belasco House, also called Hell House, with a reputation as among the most haunted houses in the world (local tourism boards call it the most haunted). For an unknown length of time possibly stretching as far back as 1740, the town of Derry was haunted by an eldritch shapeshifting being that would awaken every twenty-seven years to hunt children. This pattern of child disappearances and killings ended in 1985, coinciding with a catastrophic storm that severely damaged the downtown area. Castle Rock descended into madness and violence in 1991 due to the machinations of shop owner Leland Gaunt. Jerusalem’s Lot is a hive of vicious, if directionless, vampires, while fog-plagued Silent Hill has been known to warp the minds of visitors and make their darkest thoughts tangible. Even Cabot Cove, which appears to be an idyllic seaside town, tries hard to downplay the absurdly (perhaps paranormally) high murder rate it had in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Within Connecticut, far from big cities like Bridgeport and Metropolis, is the town of Stepford, where the local men’s association used robotics to make docile housewives out of feminists and independent female professionals in the 1960s and ‘70s. When Stamford police finally caught on and closed in on the men’s club, they took in for questioning what they believed were the men involved, but later turned out to be android decoys. Now, no one can ask how they did what they did, and one can only wonder how they handled the matter of marital relations. Women are still advised to pass quickly through Stepford and continue to neighboring Stars Hollow, known for its unusually high number of stores specializing in porcelain unicorns. Also in Connecticut is Winter River, which has a haunted house that, unlike most others, has a happy harmony between its former and current owners.

As for the rest of New England, New Jersey has local legends in the dreaded Jersey Devil and the notorious serial killer Jason Voorhees. It is also home to the three abandoned Freddy Fazbear pizza places, which used to be known for their extremely high-tech animatronic figures in the 1970s and ‘80s (funded by local wealthy eccentrics Gomez and Morticia Addams, who thought it would be “hilarious”) and later became known for its connection to various murders, disappearances, and violent incidents that led to their closing. Maryland has the Black Hills near the tiny town of Burkittsville, home to folktales of the Blair Witch, and the depressing ruins of the Usher manor, destroyed one stormy night in 1839 with the last carriers of the twisted bloodline. Additionally, Maryland has a small boardwalk town named Beach City, known for it's regular monster attacks and extraterrestrial protectors, The Crystal Gems. Vermont has Hill House, a manor with a long history of murders, suicides, and violence since its construction in 1879, and Halloran House, once lavish and now dilapidated after the Halloran family vainly squandered all their money in anticipation of a doomsday event in 1958. And there is the pervasive influence of “witchcraft,” more precisely the fear of it, on its history, from the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692 (which resulted in the deaths of 19 innocents and no practitioners of magick) to smaller things like the naming of local landmarks (the Mystic River in Massachusetts) and even shops (Mystic Pizza in Connecticut).

There are many theories as to why New England of all places is so haunted like this. Speculation includes the presence of a Hellmouth in Brooklyn, though that may be better for explaining why New York City is a hotspot for supernatural activity and a weirdness magnet in general. The region may be under a curse by vengeful witches and wizards, angered at the madness of the aforementioned hysteria in Salem. There is also the matter that these former colonies were former American Indian lands, meaning they are built on top of hundreds of Indian graveyards, which has led to incidents with malevolent phantasms in the past. But it may have more to do with the legacy that the first American settlers brought with them from their homes, all the hate and prejudice and guilt inspired by their cultures and religions. Regardless of why, New England is certainly home to many interesting locales that lovers of the unusual and paranormal can explore for themselves.

American South

Of course, New England is not the only region in the United States with a large amount of paranormal events. While it is more infamous for it’s strange occurences, New England is just one of many regions of the United States with it’s own fair share of such events. Take the American South for instance.

What better way to start this region off with the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.? One of the most gruesome events in the capital’s history was the 1971 demonic possession of young Regan MacNeil by a demon claiming to be the Assyrian and Babylonian spirit Pazuzu. Both the priests involved in the exorcism died in the process . Regan was not the only demonic child in this state, as Damien Thorn, who many regarded as the Antichrist, could attest to. Additionally, there are also tales of a spirit known as Candle Jack, who kidnaps people who say his name out loud.

Further south is Virginia, no stranger to strange events. In 2008, two young sisters named Victoria and Lilly Desange disappear after their father’s suicide. In 2013, they were discovered, claiming to be raised by a protective figure they called “Mama” , who turned out to be the spirit of asylum patient Edith Brennan, the entire time they were missing. On the subject of female spirits, Powhatan legends going back to the time of Matoaka, more well known as Pocahontas, speak of Grandmother Willow, a sentient tree that gave advice to the members of the tribe. Moving away from that is the town of Middlesex, where unexplainable events occurred in the late 1980’s, mostly involving the death of local teenager Donnie Darko.

One of the most famous West Virginian tales is the legend of the Mothman, a flying black entity who would sometimes be sighted before catastrophes in the town of Point Pleasant. An acclaimed novel by journalist and UFOlogist John Klein, The Mothman Prophecies, attempted to figure out the secret of the Mothman, notably attempting to link it to a seemingly extraterrestrial figure calling itself Indrid Cold. Klein was also the man who popularized the idea of the “Men In Black” much to the actual organization’s disdain.

Moving to Kentucky, we have the legends of the a satyr-like being in the Pope Lick Trestle in Louisville. This legend is similar to other “Goatman” legends across the country, such as the anecdote of a black teenager spending time with family in Alabama and encountering one of said creatures. Quite possibly just as strange is the story of Talking Man, a mute wizard who owned a junkyard on the state line.

Moving west into Tennessee, legends persist of the Bell Witch, an entity which terrified the Bell household in the 1800’s, claiming the be the vengeful bitter spirit of their neighbor, Kate Batts. On the east of that is North Carolina, with tales of Pumpkinhead, a monstrous demon who could be summoned to destroy whomever the summoner wanted, but not before going on a killing spree, forcing the summoner to experience the murders through Pumpkinhead’s eyes. There is also Mowgli’s Palace, an abandoned Disney resort, one of the company’s many dark secrets, as well as an unmapped cave system below the Appalachian Mountains home to cave-dwelling humanoids out for flesh. South Carolina, North Carolina’s sister-state, has it’s fair share of events as well. For example, there was a meteorite crash in the small town of Wheelsy in 2006, which unleashed a plague of extraterrestrial serpentine parasites on the town.

As for Georgia, one of it’s most famous folk legends is that of a young man by the name of Johnny encountering an entity that appeared to be the Devil himself and getting into a fiddling match, with Johnny coming out on top and receiving a golden fiddle as a reward. Later in life, the entity challenged Johnny to a rematch, with him coming out on top yet again. It is possible that the "devil" encountered by Johnny was actually Nyarlathotep. On a more bloody note, there is the town of Pleasant Valley, a literal ghost town that appears once every 100 years to slaughter traveling Northerners, an act of revenge towards the Union soldiers that destroyed the town in the American Civil War.

Florida has an ancient being known as The Creeper, who appears every twenty-three springs to feast on human flesh for 23 days. It also has many secrets secrets within Walt Disney World, such as the abandoned River Country waterpark, which contained a strange amoeba with intense effects on the human body, as well as the legendary Room Zero, a immense bomb shelter below the park where unusual events occurred in the 1960’s.

Moving somewhat Northwest into Alabama, we have a more recent story. In 2006, several film students attempted to develop a student film titled Marble Hornets only to be interrupted by an entity they called The Operator. Strangely, the Operator was almost identical in appearance and actions to the Slender Man, a being created by thoughtform who the Marble Hornets crew had no prior knowledge of. Mississippi is home to a disease carried over from Europe known as Mercritus which affects men, causing them to emit an odor causing a hormonal reaction within woman, causing them to go into a berserker rage. This unusual disease caused a riot in 1959, with many locals claiming to have been affected by it or claiming to know someone who has.

Out of all the southern states, Louisiana is quite possibly the most famous for its paranormal activity. This is most likely due to the presence of a Hellmouth underneath the Seven Doors Hotel. This state is home to Moonscar Island, allegedly haunted by the spirit of infamous pirate Morgan Moonscar, Gracey Manor, a haunted mansion located in the bayous, and Bon Temps, a town where humans and vampires coexist.

Arkansas has the Fouke Monster, a Sasquatch-esque being sighted in Miller County, famously documented in the docudrama The Legend Of Boggy Creek. The state also has the Texarkana Moonlight Murders committed by a masked “Phantom Killer” which inspired a film called The Town That Dreaded Sundown . Oklahoma has a motel where two people lit themselves on fire because they believed the government sent an infestation of insects after them, where it is said that their ghosts still haunt the burnt remains of the motel.

To end this tour of the American South, we move on to Texas. This state is home to the Grand Central Cafe, which used to be inhabited by the Sawyers, an inbred family of cannibals, one of which is the famous Tom Sawyer, who found treasure during his youth. As an older man, Sawyer bought the cottage, and it was the place where he accidentally murdered his good friend Huckleberry Finn. It was then that Sawyer realized that even though he felt sorry for killing his friend, it made him feel good in a way. Knowing that he had to hide the body, Tom cooked and ate Huck’s corpse, feeding the rest to the neighbors. This was merely the beginning of the home’s bloody history. After the Sawyer family was arrested and forced out of the house, the house was moved and converted into a restaurant, using it’s dark history to attract tourists. Perhaps more strange is The Shady Rest Retirement Home, which was the home to two odd men claiming to be rock-star Conrad Byrdie and Former President Timothy Kegan, the latter of which underwent intense plastic surgery and was made into a black man. The home was plagued by an Egyptian mummy, before being defeated by the combined efforts of the two men.

American Midwest

The state of Kansas is home to a temporal rift in the sky. It was first discovered by a young farm girl named Dorothy Gale in 1900, when a twister sent her house to a nation called Oz which appeared to be on another plane of existence. She would return there several times before moving there permanently. This rift was also exploited by the Kryptonian scientist Jor-el to send his son to Earth, as well, as well as alien prisoners, who just happened to be the last eight members of a race called the Crites.

Nebraska has the town of Gatlin, inhabited entirely by a religious cult of children who would sacrifice those over the age of 19 to “He Who Walks Between The Rows”, a demonic being possibly related to the Old Ones. Similarly, Iowa has the ruins of Ogden Marsh, a town that was ravaged by an experimental virus nicknamed “Trixie” and had to be bombed.

After going down to Illinois, one can hear local legends in Chicago of a the ghost of a black man killed in a lynch mob who could be summoned by saying the name “Candyman” five times. Chicago is also home to the story of Charles Lee Ray, a serial killer and voodoo who infused his soul into a “Good Guy” doll to continue to murder after his original body died several times. Moving away from Chicago is the town of Haddenfield, plagued by the legacy of serial killer Michael Myers.

Indiana has the town of Hawkins, where many unusual events occured in the 1980’s, including the disappearance of young Will Byers. Ohio has the town of Springwood, known for it’s infamous Elm Street, where the dream demon known as Freddy Krueger committed many acts of murder. Nearby is the town of Warren Valley, also home to mysterious deaths, most on Halloween. Michigan has a sexually transmitted curse that causes an entity to walk towards and kill whoever got it most recently before moving on to the one who passed the curse on. In the city of Detroit, there is the legend of the Crow, the vigilante spirit who prowled the city in the late 1980’s.

Wisconsin has Bog Lake, inhabited by an aquatic bug-eyed monster. Near the town of Devil’s Kettle in Minnesota, there is talk of a vigilante with demonic powers who got her powers after being bitten by her possessed friend, Jennifer Check.

As for the Dakotas, North Dakota has a farm owned by the Solomon family, which was ravaged by supernatural occurrences. More strangely are the tales of a murderous leprechaun out to retrieve his gold. In South Dakota, there is the mysterious Warehouse 13 , where mysterious artifacts are stored. Additionally, there are tales of a gold mine inhabited by a strange beast in the 1950’s.

American West

Montana has the mysterious disappearance of the McPherson family in Lake County, allegedly committed by extraterrestrials. On the subject of extraterrestrials, there is the arrival of three aliens from the planet Taros near Aladdin, Wyoming.

Further down south in Colorado is the site of the legendary Overlook Hotel, which was destroyed by a disgruntled caretaker in 1977. Years later, a painter named Alexander Pomeroy was murdered trying to sketch the ruins of the hotel, and while some suspected it to be because of the supernatural, it was later discovered to be the fault of his insane lover, Annie Wilkes. Still, the fact that the locals suspect Pomeroy’s death to be caused by the spirits of the Overlook shows that the hotel’s ghostly legacy still persists. Also in Colorado is the town of South Park, while usually a normal town, has the occasional weird event, such as the constant resurrections of a young Kenny McCormick, and the frequent appearances of a man appearing to be Jesus of Nazareth.

Most people have heard of the Roswell Incident, where a UFO crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, only to be identified as a weather balloon by the US Government. However, what few know is that the UFO was really an alien spacecraft, and that the survivors lived among the people of Roswell. Arizona has the town of Sand Rock, which was invaded by extraterrestrials in the early 1950’s. In the neighborhood of Sugar House in Salt Lake City, Utah, there is talk of a group of devil-worshipping little people living in Allen Park. These are really a tribe of Hobbits who survived the disappearance of Middle Earth and worship Morgoth. Nevada is home to massive subterranean sandworms called Graboids dwelling under the sands.

The Pacific Northwest is filled to the brim with strange activity. In California are the towns of Santa Carla, known for it’s vampire activity, Woodsboro, where several people used the mantle of “Ghostface” to commit murders, and Antonio Bay, a coastal town that was once ravaged by a mysterious fog. There is also the infamous Bates Motel, where several grisly murders were committed by Norman Bates, who suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Similarly, there are legends of a mysterious “Hotel California” that is inhabited by vampires. Moving up north into Oregon, there is the strange town of Gravity Falls, which underwent a “Weirdmageddon” in 2012 due to a being known as Bill Cipher, as well as the town of Springfield, which while mostly (somewhat) normal, has had several unexplainable occurences . Near the city of Portland is the Greenbriar Mansion, which has somewhat of a strange, albeit non-paranormal history involving it’s reclusive owner, Oscar Masan, and his relatives who inherited the home. Up north furthermore is Washington state, with legends of a VHS tape that causes those who view it to die in seven days, although these may just be derivatives of an uncannily similar legend from Japan. The state also has the town of Twin Peaks, which has many mysteries surrounding the death of homecoming queen Laura Palmer, Bright Falls, home of a malevolent dark prescense, and Forks, a small town inhabited by a coven of peaceful vampires called the Cullens, was well as a tribe of indigenous shapeshifters.

To conclude this tour of Haunted America, we shall now briefly move on to the states away from the mainland United States. In Alaska, there is the town of Barrow, where night time can last for thirty days during winter. This would be tolerable if not for the one year that a coven of bloodthirsty vampires invaded the town, taking advantage of the extended night time². Finally, further down south to Hawaii, there is talk of a small blue alien creature living with a family on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i. Much more terrifying is the nearby tropical Fruit Salad Island, inhabited entirely by sentient fruit. The supreme creator of the island is known as "Coconut Fred", a powerful entity with the ability to materialize everything he imagines. All who do not go along with Coconut Fred's antics are terrorized and bullied by him.

Additional Information on Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep has been sowing chaos on this earth for at least a few thousand years and was especially fond of Egypt, where he has ruled as a pharaoh and where most of the ancient and modern cults centered on him were/are based. In the autumn of 1920, after a dormancy period of unknown length, he made his “second coming” in Egypt in the familiar form of the Black Pharaoh. His return was preceded by so pervasively ominous an atmosphere, it was said that the Great Sphinx itself turned its head toward Bethlehem. This was around the time when Egypt was close to gaining independence from the British Empire, and his presence as a supposed pharaoh from 2700 years prior, part of Egypt’s glorious past, stirred nationalism in the country. This upset the British Empire, but not nearly as much as when he started putting on shows of dark, impossible powers, which helped convince the terrified British to give them independence. Nyarlathotep, pleased with how easily he brought humanity’s most dominant society to their knees, spread out around the world once more. Nyarlathotep has done much since then, for nebulous but more often than not nefarious purposes. In his form as the Royal Pant, he has given musicians, particularly blues musicians who confuse him for the Devil, advanced musical skill in exchange for their “soul,” which to him means their free will. Robert Johnson met him on a Mississippi crossroads, as did Tommy Johnson, who scored his first hit shortly afterward with “Man of Constant Sorrow” featuring the Soggy Bottom Boys (as recorded in the book O Brother, Where Art Thou? by Sinclair Beckstein). Robert, for his part, died at 27 for unknown reasons, but both became blues legends. He has also made an ongoing bet with Philemon, a wise spirit guide, about the fate of humanity: while Philemon believes that the species can collectively achieve enlightenment, Nyarlathotep contends that they will only lead themselves into self-destruction - and does what he can to ensure he wins. Lastly, and most puzzling of all, is his newest discovered manifestation, though it may be one of his “Million Favoured Ones”: Nyaruko, a silver-haired Japanese schoolgirl. She (he?) has taken a strong interest in classmate Mahiro Yasaka to the point of entering a romantic engagement with him. It remains to be seen what his (her?) true intentions are, but for all anyone knows, perhaps the Crawling Chaos has gone soft.

Additional Information on Randolph Carter

Before getting mixed up with these eldritch beings, young Randolph Carter was used to high strangeness as an explorer of the Dreamlands, a fantasy land and a subsection of the realm of Dream. He first got into this shortly after the age of ten, when relatives discovered that he could sometimes see the future in his dreams. He soon learned how to do this from a British lord who would only be known to him by his dream moniker of Kuranes, a young man of Cornwall gentry stock (and friend of notorious Parisian eccentric Jean des Essientes) who enjoyed the world of dreams more than waking life. Kuranes showed Carter how to go beyond his own dreams and into the wider world itself, allowing him to explore these Dreamlands further and longer.

Unfortunately, this escape into dreams can be highly addictive, and shortly before Carter turned twenty, Kuranes killed his “waking self” in order to reign in his dream city of Celephais*. Carter, now distraught, also began to tire of the waking world and desired to find his own dream, and he embarked on a quest to the Dreamland city of Kadath to find it. It was on this adventure that he ran into Richard Upton Pickman, a fellow Bostonian and friend who was now a dream ghoul; Kuranes, who deeply regretted his decision and missed the waking world; and Nyarlathotep, of whom who he had only heard from fearful whispers by Dreamland people in previous visits. Ultimately he discovered that his dream city was indeed Boston, in the waking world, and he heeded his deceased friend’s words and ceased his sleep adventures for a time*.

Shaken by his experience with Nyarlathotep and close shave with Azathoth, Carter instead devoted his life to learning more about the Old Ones, figures that some of the more unusual texts and people in Miskatonic University alluded to. He became perhaps the first person since the author of the Necronomicon to actively compile information on these beings, and was probably the first ever to do so for non-sinister reasons. He investigated events from all over New England, both modern and historical, that may have any connection to these creatures in the hopes that understanding them could show humanity how to fight back. These hunts led him to a failed inquiry into a “blasted heath” in Arkham*; in-depth research on the viol compositions of German-French musician Erich Zann*; and the development of a friendship with Boston painter Robert Upton Pickman, whose controversial paintings were actually of the creatures that Carter was investigating. (The two bonded over this, but it was a brief friendship, as Pickman would later disappear in 1927 into the Dreamlands, where he turned into a ghoul. He would somehow recursively meet Carter in the Dreamlands during the scholar’s search for Kadath.)

Besides heavy research (and a brief stint on the French battlefields of World War I), he decided some close encounters were in order, despite the extreme danger involved in trying to invoke even the softest of them. In 1915 he befriended an occultist, Harley Warren, who mysteriously perished in 1919 on an expedition to an ancient Florida graveyard*. In 1925 he and another companion, high school principal Joel Manton, encountered and survived an attack by an “unnamable” creature that haunted a dilapidated Arkham manor**. All the information he gathered in this time was given freely to Miskatonic University, but initially it was only begrudgingly accepted by head librarian Henry Armitage, who hid away Carter’s notes because he believed them to be nonsense. However, they proved to be invaluable when an enormous invisible monster burst forth from the local Whateley family’s barn and carved a path of death and destruction for several days. Armitage and two other Miskatonic personnel used Carter’s information to destroy the creature, which turned out to be some horrid hybridized part of the family*.

Tragically, as Carter learned more and more about the horrible true nature of the world, he increasingly yearned for retreat. A sliver of the information he obtained had previously driven others insane, and naturally he wished to return to a time when things are simpler. In 1929, when he was 55 but already looking and feeling far older, he disappeared from this plane with an enigmatic silver key*, and he traveled not across time, but across space, meeting Yog-Sothoth itself, learning staggering secrets of the universe, and ending up in the body of an extraterrestrial sorcerer. He made a brief reappearance at the sale of his own estate in 1932, when he was officially declared dead, to explain to the acquaintances he had left just what happened to him. He has not been seen or heard from since*.

Additional Information on the Necronomicon

The occult tome now known as the Necronomicon was originally written by Abdullah Alḥa ẓred* (which has been anglicized as Abdul Alhazred), and his writing of the book in Damascus. The book has been translated several times, often with the result of or after getting banned by a country’s government, and despite efforts made throughout history to destroy the book, it has survived, in one language or another, to this day. The last known Greek copy was lost in the arson of a library owned by Salem wizard Joseph Curwen, an ancestor of the previosuly mentioned Charles Foster Ward, during the 1692 witch hunts. Other copies in various languages are kept under lock and key in national libraries and museums of countries like Britain and France, as well as certain universities like Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts.

The Necronomicon is notable for making those who read aloud from the text capable of summoning abominable and incomprehensible beings of supernatural power. This goes back to Alhazred himself, who worshipped entities he called Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. A 12th-century biographer wrote that he was devoured by an invisible monster, which he may have summoned using the book. It then passed into the hands of a wizard called Flagg, who lived in the feudal European kingdom of Delain. This is similar to the strange case of Wilbur Whateley, who was allegedly born to Yog-Sothoth and, with assistance from his sorcerer grandfather, raised an invisible beast that may have been kin to or even the same entity as that which killed Alhazred.

Upon Whateley’s untimely death in 1928, when he was killed by a guard dog while attempting to pilfer the Miskatonic University’s copy of the Necronomicon, the monster escaped and wreaked havoc on the backwoods town of Dunwich, Massachusetts before being defeated by Miskatonic scholars. This copy had previously been studied by a Baltimore scholar who was driven insane by the appearance of a talking bird while he was poring over the volume of forgotten lore. Somehow, a Sumerian translation owned and studied by an archaeology professor Knowby made its way to Tennessee by 1981. A group of Michigan State University students discovered it in a woodland cabin and accidentally unleashed the evil spirits of the dead, which were brought about by the supernatural forces that the book typically summons. There were no survivors, though the corpse of one member was never found.

One copy is said to exist in the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, not far from the National Library where the Book of Sands has been hidden. That book seems intended to drive its readers mad with an infinite amount of constantly-shifting pages and may have a similar origin to the Necronomicon. It was last owned by Jorge Luis Borges, former scholar at “El Universo” and at the time retired from his position as Master Librarian of the National Library of Argentina. After realizing the evil of the supernatural tome, he stashed it in a forgotten shelf of the National Library and it has not yet been found, which may be for the better.

The Necronomicon is not the only one of its kind. Another written work capable of driving readers to insanity is The King in Yellow, a play written in 1889 by an author who may have had connections to cults worshipping the monsters the Necronomicon can summon and committed suicide shortly after publishing the play. It has since been censored, as those who read the second act apparently go mad. It has been speculated that the cause is revelations in the second act, though it is uncertain if they are dark secrets regarding the universe and its nature or merely plot twists for The King in Yellow. These books, as well as the Book of Eibon from the ancient continent of Hyperborea (present-day Greenland) and horror novelist Sutter Cane’s In the Mouth of Madness, might all have the same origins as the Necronomicon: inspired by encounters with supernaturally powerful entities beyond human understanding.