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Library of Lovecraft Mythos in Miskatonic University

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H.P. Lovecraft Wikipedia

Lovecraft Mythos. Forbidden Knowledge.

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An encyclopedia of strange fiction, its creators, places and mythos. Follow the sources; draw your own conclusions.

Tagged: Shantak-birds

A winged interstellar creature passes above a remote summoning site.
Entities & creatures

Byakhee

Byakhee are the winged star-steeds familiar from later Mythos fiction and Call of Cthulhu. Their game treatment is often compared with the unnamed hybrid mounts in Lovecraft’s The Festival, but the two accounts should remain distinguishable.

2 min read · 341 words

The black onyx and gold city of Inganok gathers around its many-sided temple.
Places

Inganok

Inganok is the northern country and onyx-built city whose people bear the features Carter recognizes from the divine image on Ngranek. Its beauty, regulated rituals and prosperous stone trade exist beside an impassable mountain barrier and an unacknowledged route toward Kadath.

4 min read · 789 words

A low windowless monastery stands within rough monoliths on Leng’s cold plateau.
Places

Leng

Leng is the feared cold plateau reached by Carter beyond the mountains east of Inganok. Its stone villages, almost-human inhabitants and prehistoric monastery reveal the connection between the black-galley trade, the moon-beasts and the guarded approaches to Kadath.

4 min read · 770 words

Faceless winged night-gaunts crossing an abyss in the Dreamlands.
Entities & creatures

Night-gaunts

Night-gaunts are silent, faceless, winged creatures whose disturbing touch and aerial abductions recur in Lovecraft’s dream imagery. In The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath they first carry Randolph Carter into the subterranean darkness, but later become essential allies through their connection with ghouls and their allegiance to Nodens.

7 min read · 1,348 words

A horse-headed scaled shantak spreads its wings in the northern wastes.
Entities & creatures

Shantak-birds

Shantak-birds are enormous, scaled, horse-headed flying creatures used as guards and mounts in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. They carry Carter across the northern mountains and later toward Nyarlathotep’s intended trap, but their fear of night-gaunts gives his allies a way past them.

4 min read · 664 words

Carter’s feline allies rescue him beside a black galley on the moon.
Literature

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Randolph Carter searches the Dreamlands for the gods who can explain a city he has seen only at sunset. His journey crosses trading ports, the moon, subterranean kingdoms and the frozen north, gathering allies whose frightening appearances conceal loyalties more dependable than the assurances of a god.

17 min read · 3,432 words