Miskatonic Arcihves

Explore the encyclopedia

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

Tagged: Shining Trapezohedron

Themes & context

Church of Starry Wisdom

The Church of Starry Wisdom is the abandoned Federal Hill building and the forbidden congregation associated with it in The Haunter of the Dark. Its fictional records connect an Egyptian artifact, nineteenth-century disappearances and Robert Blake’s fatal investigation in 1935.

5 min read · 964 words

Themes & context

Cults and rituals

Cults and rituals in Lovecraftian fiction connect human communities with powers they understand only partly. Worship may preserve knowledge, organize coercion, negotiate material benefits or maintain contact with a dangerous presence. The individual stories give these activities different institutions and consequences, from the dispersed Cthulhu tradition to the local power of the Esoteric Order of Dagon.

5 min read · 949 words

Characters

Nephren-Ka

Nephren-Ka is the fictional pharaoh named in The Haunter of the Dark’s account of the Shining Trapezohedron. He builds a temple around the stone, commits an unspecified act that results in the erasure of his name, and is followed by rulers and priests who destroy the sanctuary. Lovecraft’s surviving description is brief and does not supply a complete reign, dynasty or biography.

3 min read · 428 words

Entities & creatures

Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep is the intelligent messenger and soul associated with the Other Gods, encountered as a performer, a royal guide, a figure of witchcraft and a manifestation in darkness. His distinctive terror is personal: he understands human curiosity and desire well enough to exploit them.

10 min read · 1,919 words

Places

Providence

Providence, Rhode Island, is both a real city and a major setting in Lovecraft’s fiction. Its steep streets, old houses, family records and changing skyline shape The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Shunned House and The Haunter of the Dark. The stories make local observation a route toward discoveries that the city’s visible surface cannot fully contain.

5 min read · 883 words

Characters

Robert Blake

Robert Harrison Blake is the writer and painter whose curiosity about a deserted Providence church leads to the catastrophe in The Haunter of the Dark. His diary, art and surviving effects become evidence in a dispute over whether he died from an electrical event or through contact with the presence he awakened.

5 min read · 908 words

Entities & creatures

Serpent people

Serpent people are intelligent reptilian beings whose influential early portrayal appears in Robert E. Howard’s The Shadow Kingdom. There they survive within ancient Valusia by disguising themselves as humans, occupying religious and political institutions and replacing the people who exercise royal authority. Later Mythos fiction and games develop additional histories that must be identified by source.

6 min read · 1,186 words

Books & artifacts

Shining Trapezohedron

The Shining Trapezohedron is the dark, red-striated polyhedral object through which Robert Blake encounters remote worlds and awakens the Haunter of the Dark. Its unusual container, visionary effects and recorded passage through nonhuman and human civilizations make it one of the most extensively contextualized artifacts in Lovecraft’s fiction.

6 min read · 1,161 words

Entities & creatures

The Haunter of the Dark

The Haunter of the Dark is the presence awakened through the Shining Trapezohedron in Lovecraft’s story of the same name. It occupies the darkness of a deserted Providence church, develops an intimate connection with Robert Blake and is identified in his final diary as an avatar of Nyarlathotep.

5 min read · 893 words

Literature

The Haunter of the Dark

The Haunter of the Dark follows Robert Blake’s investigation of a deserted Providence church and the growing connection between his mind and a presence unable to endure light. Written in November 1935 and published in the December 1936 Weird Tales, it combines a local cult history, a cosmic artifact and a fatal citywide power failure.

9 min read · 1,814 words

Books & artifacts

Yekubian Crystal Cubes

The crystal cubes in The Challenge from Beyond are alien probes that attract attention and carry minds across intergalactic distances. The specimen found by George Campbell contains an inscribed disc and responds to light and concentration. Its apparent antiquity leads him toward a discovery whose purpose is examination and bodily appropriation rather than the harmless transmission of a message.

4 min read · 754 words