Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia
Page 31
See Black Seal; Brothers of the Yellow Sign; Colour out of Space; Elder Things; Ghadamon; Ghatanothoa; Ghisguth; Ghooric Zone; Hastur; Lesser Old Ones; N’gah-Kthun; proto-shoggoths; Seed of Azathoth; Shining Trapezohedron; shoggoths; Shub-Niggurath; Winged Ones; Yog-Sothoth; Yuggoth. (“The Temple of the Moon”, Aniolowski and Szymanski; “The Dweller in the Tomb”, Carter; Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game, Cook and Tynes; Machinations of the Mi-Go, Detwiller; Delta Green, Detwiller, Glancy, and Tynes; Outer Gateways, Grant; Keeper’s Compendium, Herber; “At the Mountains of Madness”, Lovecraft; “The Whisperer in Darkness”, Lovecraft (O); “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”, Lovecraft and Price; “Convergence”, Tynes; Necronomicon, Tyson.)
MIGHTY MESSENGER
See Nyarlathotep.
MILLION FAVOURED ONES
Beings said to be Nyarlathotep’s spawn, although this relationship is likely only symbolic. These Favored Ones are said to come from all the worlds of the universe and serve their lord Nyarlathotep unswervingly.
(“The Million Favored Ones”, Carter; “The Whisperer in Darkness”, Lovecraft (O).)
MIRI NIGRI
“Strange dark folk” created by Chaugnar Faugn from amphibian tissue. These beings worshiped their maker, living near his home in the Pyrenees. In Roman times, they came down from their homes to trade in the nearby town of Pompelo and kidnap sacrificial victims for their May-Eve and Halloween rites. One year the Romans sent a cohort to disrupt these rites, and the Miri Nigri destroyed them to a man. After these events, Chaugnar ordered them to leave the area, so the Miri Nigri bore Chaugnar to his new home on the Plateau of Tsang. The intermingling of Miri Nigri with normal humans created the Tcho-tcho people.
[The name “Miri Nigri” came to Lovecraft in a dream. “The Very Old Folk”, another version of this story published elsewhere, does not include this name.]
See Chaugnar Faugn; Tcho-tchos. (“The Curse of Chaugnar Faugn”, Barton; “The Horror from the Hills”, Long; Selected Letters II, Lovecraft (O).)
MISKATONIC RIVER
Body of water that springs from the hills to the west of Dunwich, Massachusetts. The river flows east past the town of Dunwich and continues in that direction for many miles before turning to the southeast a few miles south of Bolton. Next, the Miskatonic runs through the town of Arkham and empties into the sea two miles to the south, just northeast of Kingsport.
The Miskatonic’s name may have originated from a Native American tribe known as the Misqat, an offshoot of the Massachusetts Indians who lived within this valley.
[Lovecraft described the word “Miskatonic” in a letter as “simply a jumble of Algonquin roots” that he had invented.]
See Arkham; Aylesbury Pike; Dunwich; Kingsport; Themystos’ Island. (“With Malice Afterthought”, Anderson and Lehmann; Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Aniolowski et. al.; “Dreams in the Witch-House”, Lovecraft; “The Dunwich Horror”, Lovecraft; “The Picture in the House”, Lovecraft (O).)
MISKATONIC UNIVERSITY
Educational institution located in Arkham, Massachusetts. The origins of this university remain shrouded in obscurity. One history holds that this school began as the Salem Academy in 1690, which moved to Arkham in 1776 and renamed the Miskatonic Liberal Seminary. Another states that “the College of the Miskatonick Vallye”, or Arkham College, was founded in 1690 and reinvigorated in 1765 with a bequest from Jeremiah Orne, one of Arkham’s foremost merchants. (It is possible that this college merged with the Salem Academy in 1776, thus accounting for the discrepancy.)
At first, classes were held in only one building, but Miskatonic College grew so quickly that soon after the Revolutionary War, the people of Arkham presented their former town common to the school in recognition of its achievements. In 1861, Miskatonic College combined with Elder Faith Seminary to become a university, and in 1880, its world-famous medical school opened.
Over the years, Miskatonic University has gained a great deal of prestige and is often considered to be one of the Ivy League schools. Even now, over two hundred years after its foundation, Miskatonic remains at the fore in scholarship and research. Its expeditions into the far parts of the world, such as the Pabodie expedition of 1931 and the later Australian excavations of 1935, though not entirely successful, have earned the university acclaim from the scientific community.
Of especial note to the visiting scholar is the University’s library, which includes the largest collection of rare occult material in the Western Hemisphere. Also of interest is the Miskatonic University Exhibit Museum, which is known to hold some intriguing artifacts of an unknown culture, and the Nathaniel Derby Pickman Nuclear Laboratory.
[Much recent Mythos fiction has depicted Miskatonic as a place where magic and witchcraft are taught as a matter of course. Lovecraft himself, on the other hand, depicted Miskatonic as a bastion of rationality and scientific thought.]
See Arkham; Armitage, Henry; Black Book of the Skull; Book of Eibon; Boyd, Claiborne; Celaeno Fragments; Chalmers, Halpin; Codex Dagonensis; Copeland, Harold Hadley; Crow, Titus; Cthulhu Among the Victorians; Cultes des Goules; Dannseys, Peter; De Vermis Mysteriis; Derby, Edward; Dhol Chants; Dunwich; Dyer, William; Ellery; Emeritus Alcove; Fallworth, Eliphas; Freeborn, Tyler M.; Frontier Garrison; Ghorl Nigral; Hike, Herbert; An Investigation into the Myth-Patterns; Invocations to Dagon; Kester Library; Krypticon; Lapham, Seneca; Llanfer, Morgan; Necrolatry; Necronomicon (appendices); Orne, Simon; Pabodie Expedition; Peaslee, Nathaniel; Peaslee, Wingate; Phillips, Ward; Pnakotic Manuscripts; Revelations of Hali; R’lyeh Text; Sanbourne Institute; Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan; Shrewsbury, Laban; Sorcerie de Demonologie; Spellman, Martin; star-stones; Starkweather-Moore Expedition; True Magik; Tunneler Below; Unaussprechlichen Kulten; Upham; Upton, Daniel; Waite, Asenath; Walters, Harvey; Whateley, Wilbur; Wilmarth, Albert; Wilmarth Foundation; Witch-house. (Miskatonic University, Antunes; Arkham Unveiled, Herber; Miskatonic University, Johnson et. al.; “To Arkham and the Stars”, Leiber; “At the Mountains of Madness”, Lovecraft; ““The Dreams in the Witch-House”, Lovecraft; “The Dunwich Horror”, Lovecraft; “Herbert West — Reanimator”, Lovecraft (O); “The Shadow out of Time”, Lovecraft; Miskatonic U. Graduation Kit, Petersen and Willis.)
MISQUAMACUS (also QUAMIS)
Native American wonder-worker who was possibly the most powerful shaman on the North American continent. He is believed to have lived through many lives as a member of several different tribes, who keep their tales of him as one of their greatest secrets. The records of outsiders, however, only relate his incarnation among the Wampanoags of Massachusetts. While among them, he taught Alijah Billington a great deal about spirits, including the god Ossadagowah, but was forced to take action after Billington’s departure to stop what he had done.
[Misquamacus was Lovecraft’s creation, as he appears in one of the short fragments from Lovecraft’s notes that Derleth incorporated into “Lurker.”]
See Billington, Alijah; Billington, Richard. (“The Lurker at the Threshold”, Derleth and Lovecraft (O); Return of the Manitou, Masterton.)
M’NAGALAH
Being appearing as a mass of entrails, eyes, and tentacles. M’nagalah once dwelt on another world, later dwelling in the sea of Tethys between Laurasia and Gondwanaland. During telepathic contact with other beings, M’nagalah has claimed that its will gave rise to life on earth and created the savage side of human personality. When summoned, M’nagalah takes on the form of a growth on its summoner’s arm which quickly grows by devouring its host and other victims. This creature must reach its full size before the stars are right. M’nagalah is mentioned in the Revelations of Glaaki.
(“The Tugging,” Campbell; Nightmare’s Disciple, Pulver; Swamp Thing #8, Weir and Wrightson (O).)
MNAR
Land of the Dreamlands, though according to others, it is actually present-day Saudi Arabia. Wherever it may be, Mnar is a very ancient land which time has left untouched. Upon the winding river Ai in the land of Mnar, the towns of
Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron sprang up. The great cities Ib and Sarnath were also built within the land of Mnar, though neither survives today. An unknown being or beings took a grey-green stone from Mnar and created the artifacts called the “star-stones of Mnar.”
See Brick Cylinders of Kadatheron; Elder Sign; Ib; Ilarnek; Ilarnek Papyri; Sarnath; star-stone. (“The Lurker at the Threshold,” Derleth and Lovecraft; “The Doom that Came to Sarnath,” Lovecraft (O); The Burrowers Beneath, Lumley; The Transition of Titus Crow, Lumley.)
MNEMABIC FRAGMENTS
Work of which almost nothing is known. Its translator is supposedly one “deLancre,” perhaps a reference to the seventeenth-century witchcraft judge Pierre de Lancre.
(“The Last Work of Pietro de Apono”, Aletti (O); “The Tree-House”, Pugmire and Price.)
MNOMQUAH
God worshiped in both Theem’hdra and Earth’s Dreamlands who often takes the form of a bipedal saurian. In Theem’hdra, Mnomquah and the moon deity Gleeth were often linked, but the two were entirely different beings. Gleeth was the blind, deaf god who did not answer his worshiper’s prayers, while Mnomquah’s great influence made its cult rich and powerful.
Mnomquah is imprisoned within the Black Lake of Ubboth at the moon’s core. At one time its power was much greater, but then a rogue spawn of Azathoth was sighted on a collision course with the Dreamlands’ moon. Working with the sorcerer Haon-Dor, Mnomquah wove a spell which kept the spawn at bay but drained most of his energy. Someday, Mnomquah will be freed from its prison, coming down from the moon to Sarkomand to mate with Oorn.
The Thuun’ha and the creatures of the Nameless City once served Mnomquah. In the Dreamlands, the moon-beasts and their servitors from the Plateau of Leng worship the god.
See Gleeth; Oorn; Ubboth; Yarnak. (“Mnomquah”, Carter; “Something in the Moonlight”, Carter (O); “Introduction” to The House of Cthulhu, Lumley; Mad Moon of Dreams, Lumley; “The Sorcerer’s Book”, Lumley; The Complete Dreamlands, Williams and Petersen.)
MONSTRES AND THEIR KYND
(also MONSTERS AND THEIR KINDE, full title Monstres and Theyr Kynde, Being a Compyled Historie of the Earlie Kings and Druids, Bifore Christendome Come to These Shores, and Also a Bestiarie of Theyr Unhallowed Servants and the Means by Which They Were Brought Forth and Bound Faste). Book compiled from a number of Mythos texts. It was most likely the work of a monk working for a rich patron. (Rumors linking it with a Protestant minister named William Pynchon are most likely apocryphal.) Censors destroyed the only published edition, from the press by Fisher’s Market, in 1577. The only known surviving copy was stolen from the British Museum in 1898, though some say the Marsh family of Innsmouth has another.
Both the Necronomicon and the Book of Eibon influenced the author of this book. Among other subjects, Monstres says much about the Dragon Kings, a line of cannibalistic warlords who ruled over Britain in prehistoric time, and an incantation which Eibon was said to have used to obtain knowledge.
(“Sacraments of Evil”, Behrendt; “Horror at Vecra”, Hasse (O); Keeper’s Compendium, Herber; Mythos: Dreamlands Expansion, Krank and Vogt; Nightmare’s Disciple, Pulver.)
MONTAGNY, PIERRE-LOUIS
French courtier who was old in the time of King Louis XIII and who is known for his “secular meditations.”
(“The Terror from the Depths,” Leiber; “The Shadow Out of Time,” Lovecraft (O); “The Adventure of Exham Priory”, MacIntyre.)
MOON-BEASTS
Creatures native to the Dreamlands’ moon. They are slippery white toad-like beings whose only sensory organs are pinkish tentacles protruding from their snouts. (How the moon-beasts perceive their surroundings is unknown, though they seem to communicate by playing flutes.) They prefer to dwell on the dark side of the moon, but may also be found aboard the black galleons of the men from Leng as rowers and officers.
Unlike the same region in the waking world, the dark side of the Dreamlands moon has vast forests and oily seas, providing an ideal habitat for the moon-beasts. Here these creatures have reared great cities, built with the labor of many different slave races, and plied the oceans of their home in their black galleons, which may also fly them through space to other worlds. In addition to this body, the moon-beasts are known to have colonies on earth, especially on the nameless rock in the Cerenerian Sea.
The moon-beasts realize that the civilized folk of the Dreamlands would not abide their presence if they came to trade openly. Therefore, these creatures have enslaved many people from the Plateau of Leng. Unlike the moon-beasts, the Lengites can usually pass for humans if they wear the proper attire. These almost-human agents usually disembark at ports to sell the rubies mined by their masters and obtain slaves with their profits, though the moon-beasts themselves remain below-decks during this time.
These creatures are known to be allied with the cats from Saturn, and at times serve Nyarlathotep and Mnomquah as well.
See High Priest not to be Described; Leng; Mnomquah; Sarkomand. (“The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath,” Lovecraft (O); Mad Moon of Dreams, Lumley; The Complete Dreamlands, Williams and Petersen.)
MOON-LENS
Device built by worshippers of Shub-Niggurath and stationed in Goatswood. The mysterious Glass from Leng was used in its construction. The lens is usually set on a high tower with several mirrors positioned about it to concentrate a beam of moonlight on a certain spot.
The moon-lens is used so that Shub-Niggurath may be summoned at full moon, instead of the dark of the moon, the normal time for her summoning.
See glass from Leng; Goatswood; Shub-Niggurath. (“The Moon-Lens,” Campbell (O); “Dark Harvest,” Ross.)
MORDIGGIAN
Dark god who is revered through ritual cannibalism and other unsavory activities. This being usually takes the form of a cloud of darkness which changes shape at will.
Mordiggian was at one time the god of the ghouls, though only one faction of older ghouls openly supports him today. His cult was once strong in the catacombs beneath Paris before relocating to South America, from which it has spread. The god travels around the world in search of corpses to eat and has spent the past century in Egypt. Mordiggian is said to provide his worshipers with the ability to speak with the dead, immortality, and reversal of aging. His cult among humans will be revived in Zothique, centered in the city of Zul-Bha-Sair.
In 1804, a heresy began among the worshipers of Mordiggian. A ghoul from Calcutta named Daggaggibree claimed that the next stage of ghoul evolution will occur when his fellows devour their god. Most ghouls view this position with disgust and animosity.
(“Reflections of Dust and Death”, Ambuehl; Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game, Cook and Tynes; Realm of Shadows, Crowe; Delta Green, Detwiller, Glancy, and Tynes; “Identity Crisis”, Kruger; Cthulhu Live: Lost Souls, Salmon et. al.; “The Charnel God”, Smith (O).)
MORGAN, (DOCTOR) FRANCIS
Professor of Medicine and Comparative Anatomy (or Archaeology) at Miskatonic University. Along with Professors Rice and Armitage, Morgan was one of the three individuals who confronted the Dunwich Horror, and he is believed to have had a greater role in that matter than many scholars have hitherto believed. Morgan was driven insane and vanished during the ill-fated Miskatonic expedition to British Honduras in 1937, but eventually reappeared to be recruited into the OSS during World War II. He was still active in university affairs as late as 1993. Many of the older faculty members at Miskatonic considered him to be untrustworthy and watched him carefully.
See Armitage, Henry; Dunwich; Emeritus Alcove. (Arkham Unveiled, Herber et. al.; A Resection of Time, Johnson; “To Arkham and the Stars”, Leiber; “The Dunwich Horror”, Lovecraft (O); Other Nations, Marsh and Marsh; “Stacked Actors”, Worthy.)
MORTON, JAMES.
Expert in both bacteriology and chemistry at the Partridgeville Chemical Laboratories. He analyzed certain material found on the corpse of Halpin Chalmers and vanished shortly after completing his analysis.
&nbs
p; (“The Wild Hunt”, Ballon; “The Hounds of Tindalos”, Long (O).)
MOTHER HYDRA
See Hydra.
MOUNTAINS
See under name of mountain.
MTHURA
Dark world whose inhabitants are of a crystalline nature. Wizards of Yaddith visited this place while searching for the formulae that would save their home world. Mthura is the home of the Great Old One Q’yth-az.
See Q’yth-az. (“An Early Frost”, Aniolowski; “Shaggai”, Carter; Visions from Yaddith, Carter; “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”, Lovecraft and Price (O).)
MU
Sunken continent one thousand miles south of Easter Island. Mu rose from the Pacific Ocean in the time of the Elder Things. It was later colonized by the Cthulhu-spawn, who retained it after the war with the Elder Things until they sank beneath the waves with R’lyeh.