by Daniel Harms
(The Magical Revival, Grant (O); Outer Gateways, Grant.)
LAMP OF ALHAZRED
Device constructed by the mythical Arabian tribe of Ad, the builders of Irem, and possessed at one time by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. The Providence author Ward Phillips was the last to own the Lamp, and it was disposed of following his disappearance. When filled with oil and lit, the Lamp projected images of Mythos-connected locations upon the walls and objects around it. It may have also acted as a gateway to various times and places, though this effect probably worked only at certain times.
(“The Lamp of Alhazred”, Derleth and Lovecraft (O).)
LANG, PAUL DUNBAR
Professor at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, specializing in English literature and known for his work on Poe and Chatterton. Near the end of his life, he became interested in the Voynich Manuscript, professing he had discovered flaked ink in the manuscript. While following up leads from the translation, he fell in with a Colonel Urquart, an author of occult literature, who convinced him the human race was in peril from invisible monsters. He, the Colonel, and the plane on which they were traveling to Washington, DC vanished on February 19, 1969. The wreckage was never found.
(“The Return of the Lloigor”, Wilson (O).)
LANIQUA LUA’HUAN
Deep one-dolphin hybrids whose life cycle resembles that of the human cross-breeds. Though confined to the ocean, they occasionally construct elaborate snares to entrap victims to be sacrificed to Cthulhu. Their leader is Tsur’lhn, a being that resembles a giant razor clam.
(“The Sand Castle”, Berglund (O).)
LAPHAM, SENECA
Graduate of Miskatonic University’s class of 1879, and later Professor of Anthropology at the same institution. He is best known for his role in the investigation of the death of Ambrose Dewart, managing to obtain several of Dewart’s books for the university library.
(“Zoth-Ommog”, Carter; “The Lurker at the Threshold”, Derleth and Lovecraft (O).)
LAST KING
Title given sometimes to Aldones, a character from the play The King in Yellow, and sometimes to the King in Yellow himself.
See Aldones; The King in Yellow. (“More Light”, Blish; “Carcosa Story about Hali” (fragment), Carter; “The Repairer of Reputations”, Chambers (O).)
LEGENDRY AND CUSTOMS OF THE SEVERN VALLEY
Work by Victor Hill (though some sources give the names Professor Winston Hill or A. P. Hill) describing odd occurrences in the Severn River Valley. Published in 1954, it includes pictures of standing stones and a lengthy description of Ploughman’s Path near Camside. Some of the information is related to the Mythos, though no specific names are used.
(Ramsey Campbell’s Goatswood, Aniolowski and Sumpter; “The Pattern”, Campbell; “The Room in the Castle”, Campbell (O); “Unseen”, Love.)
LEGENDS OF LIQUALIA
Book on aquatic horrors by Oswald. Titus Crow’s library had a copy of this book.
(“De Marigny’s Clock”, Lumley (O).)
LEGENDS OF THE OLDEN RUNES
Manuscript found in a golden box thrown from a volcano during the rise of Surtsey in 1963. Thelred Gustau discovered the box and spent the next nine years translating the hieroglyphics on the documents within, sometimes assisted by Titus Crow. When he released news of his discoveries to the world, his colleagues ridiculed Gustau, despite his formerly high reputation. After his disappearance, his work was published in a very limited version.
The manuscript was the work of the sorcerer Ten Atht, a wizard of the primal land of Theem’hdra. The volume contained information regarding the land and inhabitants of Theem’hdra, with tales regarding some notable events in this land’s history. Along with these are notes regarding the worship of such beings as Ghatanothoa, Cthulhu, Hastur, and Yibb-Tstll. Some incantations, such as a ritual intended to summon a byakhee, and another that protected the user from all baneful magical influences, were also included.
See Gustau, Thelred; Teh Atht; Theem’hdra. (“Introduction” to The House of Cthulhu, Lumley (O); “Name and Number”, Lumley.)
LEGRASSE, JOHN RAYMOND
New Orleans police inspector who led a raid in 1907 against a bayou cult of particularly abhorrent nature. Legrasse could learn little of this sect, but his arrival at the American Archaeological Society Meeting in 1909 with a small idol taken in the raid was one of the first clues to the existence of the worldwide Cthulhu cult.
In his later investigations, Legrasse returned to the bayous to confront the Cthulhu cult again, and attended a séance with Anton Zarnak. Scarred by what he had seen, Legrasse withdrew from society for fifteen years to study the lore of the Mythos. Re-emerging to fight off a Deep One incursion on his beloved New Orleans, he set out for Nepal to find the cult of Cthulhu’s headquarters. Although he returned and lived for many more years thereafter, the inspector of police never seemed to be himself again.
See Zarnak, Anton. (“Nothing to Fear but Dust”, Henderson; “Patiently Waiting”, Henderson; “To Cast Out Fear”, Henderson; “Where Shadow Falls”, Henderson; “The Call of Cthulhu”, Lovecraft (O).)
LEMURIA
Lost continent in the Pacific Ocean. According to one (probably exaggerated) estimate, it reached from the Himalayas to Antarctica and from Madagascar to the Pacific past Easter Island.
Lemuria was at one time inhabited by a species of tentacled, human-headed beings, but these had probably died out by the time humans arrived. In Hyperborean times, barbarians already inhabited Lemuria. When glaciers rolled across Hyperborea, the Dragon Kings, or serpent people, fled to Lemuria, where they were defeated by the humans in the Thousand Year War.
After this war (which occurred around half a million years ago), the humans settled in the first kingdom of Nemedis. The forces of Chaos destroyed this land, and the humans migrated to the west, where they founded the Nine Cities. The wizards of the eastern land of Nianga were corrupted by Chaos and threatened to overcome the world, until their own sorcery destroyed them. After the threat had passed, the Nine Kingdoms bickered among each other constantly until they were united by the barbarian Thongor and his Golden Empire of the Sun, which went on to conquer half the world with its flying ships.
This age of prosperity would not last forever. A series of volcanic eruptions sent much of the land into the ocean, leaving only a chain of large islands. Many of the land’s people fled to Atlantis, but some remained behind.
By the Hyborian Age, the land’s high civilizations had fallen, and it was renowned for its pirates. At the same time, however, its magical lore was regarded as powerful, and its mercenaries often became generals and kings of more civilized lands. Though it showed signs of recovery, Lemuria would never again become a world power.
The remnants of Lemuria were destroyed at the beginning of the Hyborian Age in the same cataclysm that sunk Atlantis. Refugees from Lemuria fled to both K’n-yan and Shamballah, but the majority went to the Thurian continent to the west, where they were enslaved. Millennia later, they overthrew their masters and headed west, where they established the kingdoms of Stygia and Hyrkania. Some have suggested that the Sanskrit language may be a descendant of Lemuria’s tongue.
[Nineteenth-century evolutionists sought to explain the presence of a number of different animals, including the primates known as lemurs, in both Africa and India. They hypothesized that a land bridge had once existed between the two lands, and the zoologist Philip Sclater coined the name “Lemuria” for this area. Since then, biologists have come up with more reasonable scenarios for this situation, so Lemuria’s supporters are now mainly occultists who have decided the continent was actually in the Pacific.
[Most of Howard, Lovecraft, and Carter’s information on Lemuria came from writings of Theosophists Madame Blavatsky and W. Scott-Elliot. They picked and chose what they took, and they omitted some of the Theosophists’ more bizarre assertions — such as that the earliest humans on Lemuria were beings of spirit which reproduced by bud
ding. Lin Carter stated that the two continents of Lemuria and Mu were the same, but since this contradicts other sources on the Mythos, I have chosen to list them separately. Their relationship to each other and to the “lost continent” of R’lyeh is a matter I leave to future scholars to puzzle over.]
See Atlantis; Hyperborea; Kull; Quy; Shamballah; Shining Trapezohedron. (The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky (O); The Black Star, Carter; “The Seal of Zaon Sathla”, Carter; Thongor and the Wizard of Lemuria, Carter; Thongor Fights the Pirates of Tarakus, Carter; The Hyborian Age, Howard; “The Tower of the Elephant”, Howard; “The Mound”, Lovecraft and Bishop; “The Diary of Alonzo Typer”, Lovecraft and Lumley; “Captives of Two Worlds”, Petersen; The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria, Scott-Elliot.)
LENG (or PLATEAU OF LENG)
Area near Kadath in the Cold Waste. Scholars usually place the Plateau in central Asia, and one even names China’s Xinjiang Province as its location. Reports from the Pabodie Expedition of 1930–31 place Leng somewhere in the frozen wastes of Antarctica. Others hold that it is in Burma, and experienced dreamers say it lies in the northern part of earth’s Dreamlands. Alhazred mentions it as a place where various alternate realities come together, which may explain these discrepancies.
No matter where it is, the casual visitor should avoid the Plateau, since its semi-human inhabitants — the Tcho-tchos, or possibly a race with hoofed feet and horns — do not take kindly to being visited. Many belong to a cult, the symbol of which is the amulet of a winged hound, that practices cannibalism. At one time, these beings built the great city of Sarkomand to the south of the Plateau and fought against the great purple spiders which lived in Leng’s vales. Today they are content to live in their small stone villages, carrying out their religious duties and serving their moon-beast masters. Even more remarkable beings might be encountered on Leng, wearing robes that conceal their shapes.
A lighthouse on the Plateau sends forth a beacon across many miles which fills all who see it with dread. Nearby a ring of monoliths surrounds a great stone monastery. Within the labyrinthine corridors of this monastery are murals depicting the history of the Plateau’s people. The only living thing to dwell in this place is its High Priest, whose face, according to the experienced dreamer Randolph Carter, is not good to look upon.
[Frenschkowski suggests that the origin of Leng may lie in “Ling”. According to legend, Ling was a fabled southern land and the home of Gesar, hero of the Mongolian and Tibetan national epics.]
See Amulet of the Hound; Atlach-Nacha; black lotus; Brick Cylinders of Kadatheron; Dhol Chants; glass from Leng; Han; High Priest Not to be Described; hounds of Tindalos; Inganok; Kadath; Mnomquah; moon-beasts; Naggoob; nightgaunts; Nug and Yeb; Nyarlathotep (The Thing in the Yellow Mask); Nyogtha; Pharos of Leng; Pnakotic Manuscripts; Sarkomand; Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan; shantaks; Sung; Tcho-tchos; Tsang; Unaussprechlichen Kulten; Yian-Ho; Zin. (“The Dweller in the Tomb”, Carter; “The Lure of Leng”, DeBill; “Beyond the Threshold”, Derleth; “The Alchemist’s Notebook”, Hurd and Baetz; “At the Mountains of Madness”, Lovecraft; “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”, Lovecraft; “The Elder Pharos”, Lovecraft; “The Hound”, Lovecraft (O); The House of the Toad, Tierney; The Complete Dreamlands, Williams and Petersen.)
LERION, MOUNT
Dreamlands mountain near the towns of Hatheg and Nir. The river Skai flows from the valley of Mynartha at the mountain’s base. Some say that the breezes from Lerion at sunrise carry with them the sighs of the gods of earth. On the mountain’s northern face lies the ruined city of ’Ygiroth; this, and rumors of goblin activity, keep most people away from the mountain.
See Nyarlathotep (Thing in the Yellow Mask); Skai. (“In ‘Ygiroth”, DeBill; “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”, Lovecraft; “The Other Gods”, Lovecraft (O); H. P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, Petersen et. al..)
LESSER OLD ONES
Name given by Harold Hadley Copeland to the servitors of the Great Old Ones. Included among the Lesser Old Ones are Dagon, Hydra, the deep ones, the fire vampires, the mi-go, and the cthonians. Unlike the Great Old Ones, the Lesser Old Ones are usually free to move about and do their masters’ biddings.
See Great Old Ones. (“Zoth-Ommog”, Carter (O).)
LETTERS OF NESTAR
Book providing the rituals of Cthugha. The letters were written in Pahlavi by the Persian Nestar Mobedan Mobed. A Rabbi Hatikva rediscovered this work in the twelfth century and created a Hebrew translation and reinterpretation of the book, entitling it Ha-Sepher Shel Teefays Or or The Book of the Climbing Light.
(“The Truth Shall Set You Free”, Ballon; “This Fire Shall Kill,” Bishop (O); 1990s Handbook, Rucka et. al.)
L’GY’HX
Planet known to humanity as Uranus. Its inhabitants are a species of cubical, many-legged creatures made of metal, living in the core of the planet, that worship the curious bat-god Lrogg.
Many years ago, the shan arrived on this world in their teleporting temple of Azathoth. The natives allowed them to remain on this world for a while. Soon, however, various individuals from both groups became converts to the religion of the other. In the end, this caused a conflict that forced the Azathoth-worshiping shan to leave in their temple, leaving their heretical fellows on L’gy’hx with the natives.
See Nyarlathotep (Lrogg); shan. (“The Insects from Shaggai”, Campbell (O); Delta Green: Countdown, Detwiller et. al.)
LH-YIB
“Sister city” of Ib. Its exact location is unknown, but according to the Brick Cylinders of Kadatheron, it lies buried beneath the land of Cimmeria. It is likely that this city survived long past the destruction of Ib.
See Bokrug; Ephiroth; Ib; Thuum’ha. (Beneath the Moors, Lumley (O).)
L’HISTOIRE DES PLANETES (or HISTORY OF THE PLANETS)
Tome written in 1792 by the Frenchman Laurent de Longnez. It may have been a translation of a seventeenth-century work called Die Geschichte den Planeten by Eberhard Ketzer, a monk or tutor from Schleswig-Holstein who lived in the court of the King of Prussia. (Surprisingly enough, this book recently appeared in a prestigious series of history’s greatest scientific works.) If this is correct, the book describes the cacophonous “music of the spheres” and the consequences that will befall humanity when all may hear them.
[The data on the French book is from Joshi, while the other material comes from Price. I have attempted to rectify it as best I am able.]
(“The Recurring Doom”, Joshi (O); “Saucers from Yaddith”, Price.)
LIAO (also known as the PLUTONIAN DRUG)
Mind-altering substance distilled from the black lotus. Centuries ago, a Chinese alchemist named Liao discovered the formula for this substance. During his use of Liao, Lao Tze envisioned the universal concept of Tao that served as the foundation of his philosophy. The formula for Liao travelled from the East and reached the Saracens. While a captive of the Saracens, Ludvig Prinn learned of it from his teacher Emendid Kejir, and Prinn dutifully copied the formula into De Vermis Mysteriis. Considered rare for many years, Liao is increasingly seen as an ingredient mixed with other drugs to provide different mind-expanding effects.
The drug allows the user to perceive the past, usually from the viewpoint of his ancestors. This may extend far back along the evolutionary chain with a higher dosage, but the user should be carefully that they avoid certain beings that can travel to the future and exact their vengeance.
[The Plutonian drug of Smith’s tale was not the same as Liao, but authors have since been used the two terms to mean the same substance.]
See black lotus; De Vermis Mysteriis; Pnakotic Pentagram. (“A Dangerous High”, Berglund; “The Madness out of Time”, Carter; “The Invaders”, Kuttner; “The Hounds of Tindalos”, Long (O); “Signs Writ in Scarlet”, Ross; “The Plutonian Drug”, Smith.)
LIBER DAMNATUS DAMNATIONUM
Volume written by Janus Aquaticus and published in London in 1647. Miskatonic University possessed a handwritten Latin copy of
this book at one time, but it has likely been stolen. Another copy could be found in the library of Joseph Curwen. Those who despair of finding a copy should known that much of this book was shamelessly plagiarized in Janus Cornelius Wasserman’s The Occult Foundation.
The book contains a great deal of information on the “Great Dying”, a time when most of humanity will be destroyed and those who aid the Great Old Ones will be admitted to their ranks. It also contain a formula which allows a sorcerer to become immortal through the actions of one of his descendants, an incantation for contacting Yog-Sothoth, and information on places where the veil between the dimensions becomes thin around the equinoxes.
(“The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”, Lovecraft (O); House of the Toad, Tierney; “The Barrens”, Wilson.)
LIBER IVONIS
See Book of Eibon.