Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia

by Harms, Daniel

  See K’n-yan. (“The Mound”, Lovecraft and Bishop (O); S. Petersen’s Guide to Cthulhu Monsters, Petersen et. al.)

  H

  HADDATH (also HADDOTH or possibly URAKHU). World that was at one time the home of Shudde-M’ell. This fiery world is still be the home of many cthonians. The star it circles may be the eye of the constellation Hydra.

  (“The Color from Beyond”, Cabos (O); “The Shadow from the Stars”, Carter; “The Worm of Urakhu”, Tierney.)

  HADOTH. Sealed valley by the Nile amidst the hills of Neb, possibly just east of the Pharaoh Akhenaten’s city of Tel el-Amarna. This vale holds the catacombs of Nephren-Ka, also known as the Labyrinth of Kish. Abdul Alhazred dwelt in Hadoth during his apprenticeship to the wizard Yakthoob.

  (Cairo Guidebook, Anderson; “The Doom of Yakthoob”, Carter; “The Thing under Memphis”, Carter; “The Outsider”, Lovecraft (O).)

  HAGARG RYONIS. Great One of the Dreamlands. Hagarg Ryonis usually appears as a huge reptilian monster with black scales, six irregularly spaced eyes, and obsidian claws and teeth. In Hyperborea, Hagarg Ryonis was considered the guard of tombs and houses who extracted justice upon the unjust. She is still worshiped in the Dreamlands, but has lost her beneficial traits and is sent out to kill when the Great Ones have been offended.

  (“Wizards of Hyperborea”, Fultz and Burns; H. P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, Petersen et. al. (O).)

  HALI (or HALEY). Place or person often linked with the King in Yellow and Hastur. Three possible interpretations exist for this name.

  1) Lake whose cloud-waves wash the shores of the alien city of Carcosa. Though some have suggested that this lake has dried up and its basin become the Gobi Desert, those who have seen it assert otherwise. The Lake is the dwelling of Hastur the Unspeakable One, and beneath its waters live tentacled horrors whose faces are terrible beyond words. Hastur or his minions visit those who gaze upon the Lake soon thereafter. See Carcosa; Great Old Ones; Hastur; King in Yellow. (“The Yellow Sign”, Chambers (O); “The Gable Window”, Derleth and Lovecraft; “The Ring of the Hyades”, Glasby; “Tatterdemalion”, Love, Ross, and Watts, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Shea and Wilson.)

  2) According to Marion Zimmer Bradley, Hali is also the Arabic name for the constellation Taurus, in which Aldebaran and the Hyades lie. Since these constellations are said to be the home of Hastur and the King, this explanation is also possible.

  3) Hali might also be a necromancer who lived in the Immemorial City on the planet of Carcosa. This Hali may be the one whose name has been given to the lake of Hali. See Revelations of Hali; Thale; Uoht; Yellow Sign. (“Carcosa Story about Hali” (fragment), Carter.)

  [Two individuals have come to be known by the name “Hali” or “Haley”. The first of these, as Marco Frenschkowski points out, is Khalid ibn Yazid ibn Mu’awiyah (668-704/709?), a potential heir to the caliphate who gave up his claim for the life of a scholar. Though there is nothing in the historical record to suggest it, he later became known as an alchemist, and many medieval treatises on the subject were attributed to him.

  [The name “Hali” was also a corruption of Ali ibn-Ridwan, an Arabian doctor, philosopher, and astrologer of the eleventh century. He was one of the foremost medical authorities of his time and the author of over a hundred books, but at the end of his life he went insane after a servant-girl stole most of his money. This doctor was later mentioned in The Canterbury Tales.

  [These Halis may be unconnected with the one mentioned in The King in Yellow, but it is likely that at least Bierce was aware of one of them when he used the name in his stories.]

  (“The Death of Halpin Frayser”, Bierce; “An Inhabitant of Carcosa”, Bierce (O); “The Repairer of Reputations”, Chambers.)

  HAN (also DARK HAN). Lesser deity of divination mentioned in De Vermis Mysteriis. It appears as a tall cloaked man with glowing eyes enshrouded in fog. Han provides insight into the future, but brings with him the risks of blindness and madness.

  Han is often spoken of along with Yig and may in fact be Yig’s child. It is known that the serpent people once worshiped both of them. Upon the return of the Great Old Ones, Han will come forth from the frozen Plateau of Leng.

  [The Lakota of the Great Plains call their personification of darkness Han, but this is probably only a coincidence.]

  (Malleus Monstrorum, Aniolowski; “The Shambler from the Stars”, Bloch (O); “The Book of Preparations”, Carter; “The Utmost Abomination”, Carter and Smith; “Scales of Justice”, Mackey.)

  HAON-DOR. Powerful prehuman sorcerer who lived in Hyperborea. He usually appears as a figure cloaked in a brown robe that keeps his face hidden, but he has also been known to manifest himself as a fifteen-foot rattlesnake.

  Haon-Dor is one of an obscure species driven from their homes on the isle of Ultima Thule by the “Voors”. Haon-Dor once had a glimpse of the tablets of Ubbo-Sathla, and this vision left him fearful of light and the sky for the rest of his life. To control his phobia, he took up residence beneath Mount Voormithadreth in Hyperborea, where he was accompanied by thousands of vampiric familiars. Later, Haon-Dor departed for the Hyperborean colony of Krannoria; when Abhoth attacked that colony, he used Eibon’s gateway to Saturn to escape. He now lives on in the Dreamlands, where he may be developing a way to reattain his former power in our world.

  As with many other sorcerers, Haon-Dor left behind his own grimoire known as the Testament of Haon-Dor. Little is known of its contents, save for the eleventh chapter dealing with reincarnation. No records of it have been found since the time of Hyperborea, however.

  See Atlach-Nacha; Mnomquah; Voormish Tablets. (“The Descent into the Abyss”, Carter and Smith; Return to Dunwich, Herber; “The Pits of Bendal-Dolum”, Lyons; “The House of Haon-Dor”, Smith; “The Seven Geases”, Smith (O); “The Letter”, Vance.)

  HARAG-KOLATH. Underground city in southern Arabia to which Shub-Niggurath came when she left her former home on Yaddith. She waits here, served by her spawn, until Hastur is free to come to earth once again. It has been said that “dreams” swarm here, though what this means is unknown.

  See Shub-Niggurath. (“Harag-Kolath”, Tierney (O); “The Seed of the Star-God”, Tierney; “The Soul of Kephri”, Tierney.)

  HASTUR (also known as THE UNSPEAKABLE ONE, HE WHO IS NOT TO BE NAMED, ASSATUR, XASTUR, or KAIWAN). Great Old One who lives or is imprisoned on a dark star near Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus. He is related to Carcosa, the Yellow Sign, the Lake of Hali, and the King in Yellow, and is often associated with decadence, nihilism, and stagnancy. Paradoxically, the Unspeakable One also is sometimes referred to as the patron of shepherds.

  There is considerable confusion about Hastur’s appearance, with possibilities ranging from an invisible force that can only be sensed psychically, to a two-hundred-foot bipedal lizard covered with tentacles. He has at least one avatar, the Emerald Lama, an alien-looking monk in a green robe. In the rare cases of possession, the victim’s skin becomes scaly and their limbs seem boneless. The nature of Hastur’s true form (if he has a “true form”) is still a mystery.

  The Tcho-Tchos and the people of K’n-yan are both known to worship Hastur. In the past, he was also revered in Samaria, Attluma, and Hyboria. His cult is considered particularly abhorrent, even when compared with those of the other Great Old Ones. The members of the cult are dedicated to bringing Hastur to Earth, as well as torturing mi-go to gain knowledge. Worshipers may call up Hastur when Aldebaran is in the sky (the best time being Candlemas Night when Mercury is in trine), usually in the presence of nine monoliths in a V-shape in imitation of the constellation Taurus.

  In addition to his cults, Hastur is served by the interstellar race known as the byakhee. Some say the mi-go and Ithaqua are Hastur’s minions, but there is little evidence to support this and much to contradict it. The Outer God Shub-Niggurath and Hastur are closely linked, having mated to produce their own foul offspring called the Thousand Young. There seems to be some conflict between Hastur and Ct
hulhu; when the minions of the two beings have met, they have endeavored to destroy each other.

  According to some sources, Hastur is not an actual entity at all, but rather an embodiment of the cosmic principle of entropy.

  [In Bierce’s “Haïta the Shepherd”, Hastur is the benevolent god of shepherds. Chambers later appropriated Hastur and used the term as both a person and a place in his own stories. Derleth took Hastur from Chambers’ fiction and referred to it as a Great Old One. The title “Him Who Is Not to be Named” does appear in Derleth, but the idea of people being destroyed merely for speaking his name appears first in the Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia, and later in Call of Cthulhu.]

  See Alar; Aldones; Brothers of the Yellow Sign; byakhee; Cthulhu; Demhe; elemental theory; Great Old Ones; Hali; Hastur; Ithaqua; King in Yellow; K’nyan; Legends of the Olden Runes; L’mur-Kathulos; Magnum Innominandum; Nug and Yeb; Outer Gods; Pallid Mask; Sapientia Magorum; Set; Shub-Niggurath; Tcho-Tchos; Unspeakable Promise; Yellow Codex; Yellow Sign; Yhtill; Yog-Sothoth; Zann, Erich. (“Haïta the Shepherd”, Bierce (O); “H. P. Lovecraft: The Gods”, Carter; “The Return of Hastur”, Derleth; “The Lurker at the Threshold”, Derleth and Lovecraft; Delta Green: Countdown, Detwiller et. al.; Secrets of Japan, Dziesinski; “The Ring of the Hyades”, Glasby; Necronomicon, Levenda; “The Mound”, Lovecraft and Bishop; “The Shadow Out of Time”, Lovecraft; “The Whisperer in Darkness”, Lovecraft; Call of Cthulhu Rulebook, 5th ed., Petersen and Willis; “The Seed of the Star-God”, Tierney; Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia, Ward with Kuntz.)

  HATHEG. Town on the Dreamlands’ river Skai established forty thousand years ago, at the same time as Nir and Ulthar. Hatheg is a quiet town renowned for its iridescent textiles. In the desert beyond it lies the mountain Hatheg-Kla.

  See Hatheg-Kla; Lerion. (“In ‘Ygiroth”, DeBill; “The Cats of Ulthar”, Lovecraft (O); “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”, Lovecraft; “The Other Gods”, Lovecraft.)

  HATHEG-KLA, MOUNT. Peak in the Great Stony Desert beyond the Dreamlands town of Hatheg. On certain nights, the gods of Earth come to Hatheg-Kla in their cloud-ships to dance upon its summit and recall the days of their youth.

  Only two humans have climbed to the top of Hatheg-Kla to find the gods. One of these was Sansu, who, according to the Pnakotic Manuscripts, found nothing at the top but wind and stone. The other was Barzai, a high priest who vanished as he approached the peak in hopes of seeing the gods.

  See Atal; Barzai; Hatheg; Pnakotic Manuscripts; Sansu. (“The Other Gods”, Lovecraft (O).)

  HAUNTER OF THE DARK. See Nyarlathotep (Haunter of the Dark).

  HERO, DAVID. Traveler in the Dreamlands and companion of Eldin the Wanderer. In his waking life, Hero was a moderately successful artist who was killed in the same accident that took the life of Professor Dingle.

  See Eldin the Wanderer. (Hero of Dreams, Lumley (O); Mad Moon of Dreams, Lumley; Ship of Dreams, Lumley.)

  HE WHO IS NOT TO BE NAMED. See Hastur.

  HERMETIC ORDER OF THE SILVER TWILIGHT. See Masters of the Silver Twilight.

  HIDDEN THINGS, BOOK OF. See Book of Hidden Things.

  HIERON AIGYPTON (roughly “Temple of Egypt”). Work in Greek written on papyrus and dating from 200 B.C. It details the rites of the miri nigri and other unpleasant secrets, including a revelation granted to one Anacharsis.

  (Selected Letters III, Lovecraft (O); Cthulhu Dark Ages, Gesbert et. al.)

  HIGH PRIEST NOT TO BE DESCRIBED (also ELDER HIEROPHANT, TCHO-TCHO LAMA OF LENG). Being which dwells alone in a monastery on the Plateau of Leng and wears a yellow silk robe and mask. Its servitors are the men from Leng, with whom it communicates by playing a flute. Some have said that this figure could be a moon-beast or Nyarlathotep himself, but those who have been in close contact with him dispute this. According to them, he is a human who contains the tulku, or psychic avatar, of Nyarlathotep, and who is periodically replaced. Kenneth Grant has equated the High Priest with his Old One Lam.

  [Lovecraft developed this character before reading Robert W. Chambers’ collection The King in Yellow.]

  See Leng; Nyarlathotep (Thing in the Yellow Mask). (“The Book of the Gates”, Carter; “The Strange Doom of Enos Harker” Carter and Price; “Celephaïs”, Lovecraft (O); “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”, Lovecraft; “The Elder Pharos”, Lovecraft; Selected Letters V, Lovecraft.)

  HIKE, HERBERT. Professor of medieval metaphysics at Miskatonic University (M.A. U. Michigan, Ph.D. University of Salamanca). He is best known for his A Preliminary Celaeno Catalog (1983, U. of Michigan Press) and Lamp-Eft Anatomy and Physiology (1981, U. of Michigan Press).

  [See E. C. Fallworth.]

  (“Miskatonic University Graduate Kit”, Petersen and Willis (O); S. Petersen’s Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands, Petersen et. al.; S. Petersen’s Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters, Petersen et. al.)

  HINTERSTOISSER, DOCTOR STANISLAUS (August 23, 1896–October 10, 1977). Viennese occult scholar and the president of the Salzburg Institute for the Study of Magic and Occult Phenomena. Hinterstoisser received his Ph.D. in political theory from the University of Dresden in 1925. He became a well-known cryptographer and even accompanied a German expedition into the Antarctic in the early Thirties.

  In 1933, Hinterstoisser had a nervous breakdown and moved to Zurich, where Carl Jung treated him for two years. It was under Jung’s guidance that the doctor first became interested in the occult. The Nazis destroyed his magnum opus on the subject, Prolegomena zu Einer Geschichte der Magie (1943), although a few copies may still exist. After World War II, Hinterstoissier founded the Salzburg Institute, which he ran in his spare time. The doctor is most famous for his discovery of Lovecraft’s father’s ties to the Freemasons, but he died shortly after he made this public and was unable to attain the prestige that he deserved.

  See Necronomicon (appendices). (The Necronomicon: The Book of Dead Names, Hay, ed. (O).)

  HLANITH. Town of the Dreamlands at the mouth of the Oukranos on the Cerenerian Sea. Hlanith has tall granite walls and oak wharves. Its people are known for being more rational then other Dreamlands inhabitants, and scientists of great creativity dwell there.

  See Cerenerian Sea. (“The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”, Lovecraft (O); The Complete Dreamlands, Williams and Petersen.)

  HOADLEY, REVEREND ABIJAH. Clergyman who took up a post at the Congregational Church in Dunwich in 1747. He is known as the author of Of Evill Sorceries Done in New-England of Daemons in No Human Shape, and as a possible correspondent of the younger Ward Phillips. He preached a sermon (later published in Springfield, Massachusetts) on strange underground voices which he claimed were those of demons. Hoadley vanished shortly after delivering the sermon.

  See Of Evill Sorceries … (“The Dunwich Horror”, Lovecraft (O); “Acute Spiritual Fear”, Price.)

  HOAG, CAPTAIN ABNER EZEKIEL (1697-?). Arkham mariner credited with discovering the original manuscript of the Ponape Scripture. Hoag’s father Isaiah came to Arkham from New Plymouth in 1693, and dark rumors were to follow their family for quite some time. Hoag began sailing at the age of fifteen, and married Bathsheba Randall Marsh of the Innsmouth Marshes a year later. He served as a captain for the first time at the age of twenty-one, and in 1732 he became one of the first New England traders to trade rum and copra among the Pacific islands.

  Around 1734, Hoag discovered the Ponape Scripture during his stay on the isle of Ponape. He spent many years translating the volume with the help of his servant Yogash, but the Scripture remained unpublished due to ecclesiastical outcry until after the captain’s death.

  See Ponape Scripture. (“The Dweller in the Tomb”, Carter (O); “Introduction” to Dreams from R’lyeh, Carter; Keeper’s Compendium, Herber.)

  HOAG, WILBUR NATHANIEL. Poet and last of the Hoag family line who vanished from his home in Arkham on September 13, 1944.

  (Dreams from R’lyeh, Carter (O).)

  HODGKINS, ARTHUR WILCOX (c. 1900-?) Assistant curator of m
anuscripts at the Sanbourne Institute who took over the collection after the confinement of Dr. Henry Blaine in 1928. After a brief trip to Arkham, Hodgkins returned to the Institute on March 26, 1929, when he allegedly killed a night watchman, torched a gallery, and attempted to steal a statuette called the “Ponape Figurine”. Following his capture, Hodgkins was himself committed.

  (“Out of the Ages”, Carter (O); “Zoth-Ommog”, Carter.)

  HOLT, RICHARD. See Terrible Old Man.

  HOUND, AMULET OF THE. See Amulet of the Hound.

  HOUNDS OF TINDALOS (also TIND’LOSI HOUNDS). Creature which comes from the distant past, or possibly another dimension. The Hounds appear much like green hairless dogs with blue tongues, or like black formless shadows—it is difficult to be sure of the Hounds’ true forms. They dwell in Tindalos, a city of corkscrew towers, but have been known to travel to other places and times to track their prey.

  The Hounds of Tindalos are the embodiment of foulness, and they lust after something found in humans. Long ago, an event took place in which the Hounds of Tindalos and humanity both took part and upon which the tale of the Fall from Paradise is based. The Black Tome of Alsophocus suggests that the cause was both species’ attraction to the power of the Shining Trapezohedron. Humanity did not wholly participate, thereby retaining some element of “pureness” which was lost to the Hounds. The Hounds hate all natural life because of this, seeking to destroy any such beings they encounter.

  Attempts to journey back in time via psychic means attract the Hounds’ attention. After an observer has been “scented”, the Hounds can follow them through time and space until the person is caught and killed. According to Halpin Chalmers, the noted occultist, these creatures have descended through “angled” time, while normal life has developed through “curves.” This is not readily understood, but it is known that a hound must materialize itself through an angle; thus, a person kept in a perfectly round room would be safe from the beast’s attack. When this occurs, however, the hounds usually contact some of their metaphysical allies in this time-period, such as the “satyrs” (possibly Shub-Niggurath’s minions) and the dholes, to do away with these defenses in some way and allow them access to their prey. They may also send telepathic images of the hunt to these individuals, slowly driving them mad.