Miskatonic Arcihves

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

Tagged: Tower of Koth

Entities & creatures

Ghasts

Ghasts are predatory creatures of the Vaults of Zin in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Their vaguely human faces, powerful hopping gait and pointed hooves distinguish them from both ghouls and gugs. They are hunted by the giants above them, yet emerge during the gugs’ sleep to attack whoever they can find. Two encounters with ghasts shape Randolph Carter’s escape from the underworld.

5 min read · 884 words

Entities & creatures

Ghouls

Lovecraft’s ghouls are corpse-eating, dog-featured beings associated with graveyards, tunnels and the boundary between human and nonhuman life. Pickman’s Model presents them as a terrifying reality behind an artist’s work, while The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath develops their language, friendships, political cooperation and capacity to assist a human traveler.

7 min read · 1,413 words

Entities & creatures

Gugs

Gugs are gigantic, black-furred inhabitants of the underworld in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Formerly dwellers in the enchanted wood, they were banished after an unspecified abomination offended the gods of Earth. Their city, cemetery, hunting grounds and guarded route to the surface form a dangerous obstacle in Randolph Carter’s journey. Their anatomy and behavior are described unusually concretely, while the offense that caused their exile remains concealed.

6 min read · 1,161 words

Characters

Richard Upton Pickman

Richard Upton Pickman is a Boston painter whose portraits of ghouls prove to have living models. Pickman’s Model recounts his disappearance through the testimony of an admirer; The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath finds him in ghoul form, still able to remember a human friendship and organize assistance for Randolph Carter.

6 min read · 1,077 words

Places

Sarkomand

Sarkomand is the ruined prehistoric port beneath Leng whose twin winged lions guard a stair into the Great Abyss. Carter reaches it after escaping the monastery of Leng, discovers the captivity of his ghoul guides and turns the abandoned city into the meeting point of a rescue alliance.

4 min read · 751 words

Places

Tower of Koth

The Tower of Koth is the central tower in the subterranean city of the gugs. Its immense stair reaches a stone trapdoor in the enchanted wood, providing Carter and three ghoul guides with a dangerous route back to the surface of the Dreamlands.

4 min read · 803 words

Places

Vale of Pnath

The Vale of Pnath is the dark, bone-filled region in the Great Abyss where night-gaunts abandon Randolph Carter after carrying him away from Ngranek. Its terrible reputation conceals a practical connection to the ghouls, whose discarded remains accumulate below their high domain.

4 min read · 820 words

Places

Vaults of Zin

The Vaults of Zin are the deep regions associated with the ghasts in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Their openings connect a predatory underworld with the gugs’ city, while rumor also links them to the pit inside the monastery of Leng.

4 min read · 779 words