Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia

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Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia Page 27

by Harms, Daniel


  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.

  LIFE OF EIBON. Book by Cyron of Varaad dealing with the Hyperborean sorcerer Eibon and the world in which he lived.

  (“The Fishers from Outside”, Carter (O); The Life of Eibon According to Cyron of Varaad, Carter.)

  LILLIBRIDGE, EDWIN M. Reporter for the Providence Telegraph who vanished in 1893 while investigating the Starry Wisdom cult.

  [Robert M. Price’s story “The Prying Investigations of Edwin M. Lillibridge” contradicts material in Lovecraft’s original, such as the Starry Wisdom cult having vacated the church.]

  (“The Haunter of the Dark”, Lovecraft (O).)

  LIN TANG-YU. Decadent Kweilin antiquities collector. The brother of a warlord who supported Chiang Kai-Shek, Mr. Lin is remembered among bibliophiles for his unscrupulous practises, and for a daring theft of many valuable works, including a complete copy of the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, from his collection. An old man in the 1920s, it is unknown whether Lin Tang-Yu or his descendants survived until the present day.

  (“The Truth Shall Set You Free”, Ballon; Masks of Nyarlathotep, DiTillio and Willis (O).)

  LIVRE D’IVON. See Book of Eibon.

  LIYUHH. German translation/analysis of the R’lyeh Text, including notes on the text. An four hundred-copy limited edition of this book was printed in the eighteenth century. An unnamed private collector holds at least one copy.

  (“Darkness, My Name Is”, Bertin (O); Ex Libris Miskatonici, Stanley.)

  LLANFER, DOCTOR CYRUS (also WILFRED?) (?-c. 1950). Armitage’s successor to the directorship of Miskatonic University Library. Having finished his education at Miskatonic in 1902, Llanfer went on to become assistant director of the library, taking over his superior’s post some time before 1936. Llanfer presided over the acquisition of many important volumes, carefully screening the individuals he allowed to consult the Special Collections of occult books. His greatest contribution to the library was “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, a massive catalog that listed and gave extensive information upon the books in Special Collections which was nearly complete at the time of his death.

  (“The Strange Doom of Enos Harker”, Carter; “The House on Curwen Street”, Derleth; “The Return of Hastur”, Derleth (O); Arkham Unveiled, Herber; Ex Libris Miskatonici, Stanley.)

  LLOIGOR. 1) Being who is the twin of Zhar. Lloigor is imprisoned beneath the Plateau of Sung in Burma, but can manifest itself elsewhere when Arcturus, from whence it came, is above the horizon. In its natural form, Lloigor is a huge winged mass of wailing tentacles that uses winds to trap and seize its foes.

  Lloigor is worshiped by the Tcho-tchos’ Brotherhood of the Star Treader. See Bethmoora, black lotus; E-poh; elemental theory; lloigornos; Nug and Yeb; Sung; Tcho-Tchos; Twin Obscenities; Zhar. (“Cold War”, Aniolowski; “The Sandwin Compact”, Derleth; “The Lair of the Star-Spawn”, Derleth and Schorer (O); The Sussex Manuscript, Pelton.)

  2) Immaterial beings composed of some unknown type of psychic energy, but who manifest themselves at times in tremendous reptilian bodies. Long ago, they came down from the Andromeda Galaxy and ruled over the land of Mu, using human slaves to further their designs. As time progressed, however, the lloigor slowly lost power and withdrew into the ground, leaving their slaves free to leave Mu and populate the earth.

  The lloigor still survive today, but are unable to muster enough strength to overthrow humanity. They can still use their power in underground places to demagnetize compasses, to affect photographic equipment, and to exert psychokinetic force on people and objects. If the lloigor require more energy than this, they may draw more power from the sleeping inhabitants of nearby populations. Those drained by the lloigor awaken the next day feeling ill, but they recover their vitality by nightfall. Using the energy so gained, the lloigor can cause a ship or plane to disappear for a short length of time (causing the “lost time” effect often reported in UFO encounters), or create a huge explosion which leaves great crevices and pools of blue-green water in its wake. Many believe that the lloigor caused the Llandalffen explosion and a detonation near Al-Kazimiyah in Iraq.

  The lloigor’s mental influence extends to the people who live near them, and rampant crime and degradation characterize the regions in which they live. Sometimes, the lloigor recruit the most degenerate members of the population to do their bidding in the upper world. Though these individuals often believe that they will gain great power from their masters, they mean nothing to the lloigor, who casually dispose of them if they prove unnecessary or troublesome.

  At times, the lloigor have been known to take on material form, creating bodies which resemble the dragons of legend. This may explain why myths of huge reptilian beings are prevalent in many cultures, but no physical traces of any such entities have been found. Taking this hypothesis further, the lloigor are possibly the basis for the lake and sea-monsters which have been sighted for millennia yet have never been caught or discovered via technological means.

  The lloigor are filled with a never-ending pessimism. Their minds are not divided into the id, ego, and superego, as those of humans are. As a consequence of this, they are unlikely to put any of their plans into action. Still, it should be realized that they may be dangerous foes to those who learn of their existence.

  Centers of lloigor activity include Iraq, Wales, Lebanon, Ceylon, and Providence, Rhode Island. The lloigor are servitors of the Great Old One Ghatanothoa, but the extent of his control over them is unknown. One source claims that the lloigor are only localized manifestations of their master. They may be linked to the Great Old One Lloigor in some way, and one authority has stated that all Great Old Ones and lesser spirit-entities are their work.

  See Ghatanothoa; lloigornos. (“False Mythologies”, Ingham; Call of Cthulhu Rulebook, 5th ed., Petersen and Willis; The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Shea and Wilson; “The Return of the Lloigor”, Wilson (O).)

  LLOIGORNOS. Beings of the air that serve Lloigor and Zhar. Though the title suggests the lloigor, the Sussex Manuscript states that they are actually the creatures more commonly known as flying polyps, even though these are usually thought to be independent of any Great Old One.

  (A Guide to the Cthulhu Cult, Pelton; The Sussex Manuscript, Pelton (O).)

  L’MUR-KATHULOS. Being associated with the League of Hastur. In ancient times, initiates would undergo the most excruciating tests to become one of his pupils. This being might also be the same as Kathulos, a sorcerer from the lost continent of Atlantis who one source names as an embodiment of the spirit of Cthulhu.

  [Lovecraft included a “L’mur-Kathulos” in “The Whisperer in Darkness” as homage to Robert E. Howard’s creation “Kathulos”. Howard stated that there was no link between his “Kathulos” and Lovecraft’s “Cthulhu”, but Carter and Price link them anyway.]

  (“The Strange Doom of Enos Harker”, Carter and Price; “Skull-Face”, Howard (O); “The Whisperer in Darkness”, Lovecraft; The Sussex Manuscript, Pelton.)

  LOBON. Great One worshiped in Sarnath. Lobon is generally depicted as an ivy-crowned you
th with a spear in one hand. In Hyperborea, he was thought of as the god of warriors who protected against enemies, but the people of the Dreamlands think of him as being a more peaceful god.

  (“Wizards of Hyperborea”, Fultz and Burns; “The Doom that Came to Sarnath” (O), Lovecraft; H. P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, Petersen et. al.)

  LOMAR. Legendary northern land that rose from the depths of the ocean in prehistoric times. In Hyperborean times, a species of prehuman beings who could exchange minds with beings in the future dwelt in Lomar. Popular tradition, however, begins with the invasion of the Zobnarians who fled the northern cold, slaying the cannibalistic Gnophkehs who lived there to establish their own kingdom. Their civilization prospered and grew, and a number of cults, including that of Tsathoggua, flourished there.

  The capital of this land was Olathoë, which lay between the mountains of Noton and Kadiphonek. The people of Lomar were quite accomplished; they raised great monuments out of marble and devoted their time to the studying of the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the annals of their Zobnarian forebears. Despite the encroachment of the cold that had destroyed Zobna, the Lomarians flourished for over a hundred thousand years. In the end, the primitive Inutos destroyed them, leaving no trace of their splendor. (In other versions, Lomar was destroyed when the Gnophkeh returned to slaughter all its inhabitants, or when the cold overwhelmed it as it did Zobna.) Some of the inhabitants fled south, pursued by the Gnophkeh, until they passed through a magical gate to the Dreamlands. There, the land of Lomar survives, the product of the dreams of a reincarnated inhabitant.

  Some of the Native American tribes who lived in the Massachusetts area claimed to have come from “Lamah”, which possibly indicates a modern link with the people of the polar land. A gateway to an underground realm where a colony of Lomarians survives may exist somewhere in the region.

  See Aphoom Zhah; Book of Eibon; gnoph-keh; Hyperborea; Inutos; Noton and Kadiphonek; Olathoë; Pnakotic Manuscripts; Tsathoggua; Zobna. (“At the Mountains of Madness”, Lovecraft; “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”, Lovecraft; “Polaris”, Lovecraft (O); Selected Letters IV, Lovecraft; “The Shadow out of Time”, Lovecraft; “The Mound”, Lovecraft and Bishop; “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”, Lovecraft and Price; “The Round Tower”, Price; “The Shunpike”, Price; The Complete Dreamlands, Williams and Petersen.)

  LONDON, TEDDY (THEODORE). New York private eye and foe of the Mythos.

  London grew up in the small town of Rosie, Arkansas. He studied law at a major northern school, returning home to marry Genevieve Hollister, his childhood sweetheart. Genevieve died in a car accident four months later, and a heartbroken London dropped out of sight for some years.

  When Teddy London resurfaced, he was running a detective agency in New York City. An assignment to protect Lisa Hutchinson brought him into contact with the Mythos. Some attribute the Conflagration—the destruction of the Elizabeth, New Jersey refineries that led to a great loss of life in Manhattan—as a last-ditch effort to stave off the forces seeking Lisa, but no credible evidence of this exists.

  Since then, Teddy London and his partner Paul Morcey have fought against psychic vampires and stopped a major inclursion of the Hounds of Tindalos that led to massive deaths in Switzerland and Russia. Some say he even took on a case for the Great Old Ones themselves and fought Nyarlathotep to a standstill.

  (“False Prophets”, Henderson; “Juggernaut”, Henderson; One Grain at a Time, Henderson; The Things That Are Not There, Henderson (O).)

  LROGG. See Nyarlathotep (Lrogg).

  LUVEH-KERAPHF. High priest of Bast who lived during Egypt’s Thirteenth Dynasty. He is best known for writing the Black Rites, which are in truth only one of his Scrolls of Bubastis.

  [Elsewhere, Bloch claimed that Luveh-Keraphf lived at the same time as Klarkash-Ton, which would probably have placed him in Atlantean times.]

  See Black Rites. (“The Suicide in the Study”, Bloch (O); Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep, DiTillio and Willis; “The Treasure of Horemkhu”, Tierney.)

  M

  MAD BERKLEY’S BOOK. Untitled grimoire by a man named Berkeley a few centuries ago. This English writer brought together material from several different works, including the Cthaat Aquadingen, the Necronomicon, and Unaussprechlichen Kulten, to compile his work. Within may be found an incantation to summon Bugg-Shash. The rock group Fried Spiders used portions of this rite on their LP Ocean of Minds.

  (“The Kiss of Bugg-Shash”, Lumley; “Demoniacal”, Sutton (O).)

  MAGIC AND THE BLACK ARTS. Book by “Kane” that contains a passing reference to B’Moth, the Devourer.

  (“The Scourge of B’moth”, Russell (O).)

  MAGLORE, SIMON. Poet and author. Maglore’s ancestors were regarded as sorcerers in their native Italy, and were forced to immigrate to the New World due to the Inquisition. Maglore’s life was a tragic one; his mother died giving birth to him, and Maglore spent much of his life in boarding schools far away from his native Bridgetown. His college career held promise, and his short poem “The Witch is Hung” earned him the Edsworth Memorial Prize, but his father’s death forced him to leave school in 1933 and return to his home, where he died after a few years.

  (“The Mannikin”, Bloch (O); “The Winfield Heritance”, Carter.)

  MAGNUM INNOMINANDUM (roughly “Great-One-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Named”). Deity mentioned in the incantation to summon a star vampire in De Vermis Mysteriis. The Miri Nigri worshiped this being long ago. It may also be a book.

  [“Magnum Innominandum” means roughly “The Great Not-to-be-Named One”, and thus could refer to Hastur. Given the use of Lovecraft’s fragment in “The Horror from the Hills”, however, it might also be seen as a title of Chaugnar Faugn. Lin Carter took it to be a title of the Nameless Mist.]

  See Chaugnar Faugn; De Vermis Mysteriis; Hastur; Miri Nigri. (“The Shambler from the Stars”, Bloch; “The Shadow from the Stars”, Carter; “The Horror from the Hills”, Long; Selected Letters II, Lovecraft (O); “The Whisperer in Darkness”, Lovecraft; Nightmare’s Disciple, Pulver.)

  MAGYAR FOLKLORE. Book by Dornly that discusses the Black Stone in its chapter on “dream-myths”.

  (“The Black Stone”, Howard (O).)

  MAINE WITCH COVEN. See Cult of the Skull.

  MAJESTIC 12 (or MJ-12). Top-secret government organization dedicated to retrieving and studying alien life and technology. Majestic-12 was formed in response to a crash of an alien spacecraft near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. Informed of the crash, President Truman ordered the creation of a group headed by twelve scientists and military officials to investigate this and future alien encounters. Activities within the group remain secret, but leaked documents hold that Majestic-12 forged a treaty with an interstellar species in 1980. Further information on this organization is available only to those with TOP SECRET MAJIC clearance.

  [Majestic-12 is a legend in the UFO community, relating to a series of “leaked” documents sent to various researchers in the paranormal field.]

  (Delta Green, Detwiller, Glancy and Tynes (O).)

  MAK MORN, BRAN. See Bran Mak Morn.

  MALONE, THOMAS F. New York police detective who was instrumental in the Red Hook raid. He was born near Phoenix Park, Ireland, and attended the University of Dublin. Malone had delved deeply into the occult, an avocation that stood him in good stead when sent to investigate the mysterious events in Red Hook. During a raid on one of the smuggling centers, a row of buildings collapsed, killing several officers and leaving Malone so shaken that he was given a leave of absence.

  (“The Horror at Red Hook”, Lovecraft (O).)

  MANUXET RIVER. River in eastern Massachusetts that reaches the ocean near Innsmouth.

  (“The Shadow over Innsmouth”, Lovecraft (O).)

  MAO. Ceremony or game that may be found in the Necronomicon, and that aids in communication with the beings from the Gulf of S’glhuo. After using the incantation, the caster falls asleep and may speak with the Gulf’s inhabitants through
dreams. The Mao ritual is dangerous if used over long periods, though, and the people in the Gulf prefer other methods of speech.

  The Mao games, witnessed only by select initiates, were played every fourteen years in the theater of Ool Athag in the Dreamlands town of Monat until that place was burned to the ground.

  See Necronomicon (appendices). (“The Plain of Sound”, Campbell; “The White People”, Machen (O); “Ool Athag”, Webb.)

  MARIGNY, ETIENNE-LAURENT DE. See De Marigny, Etienne-Laurent.

  MARIGNY, HENRI-LAURENT DE. See De Marigny, Henri-Laurent.

  MARSH, OBADIAH. Ancestor of Obed Marsh and a famous captain in his own right. Obadiah is most famous for turning up in a rowboat in Innsmouth harbor in 1797 with his first mate Cyrus Phillips, claiming that his ship and the rest of his crew had been lost in the South Pacific. The captain married a woman from Ponape, and some have said that it was around this time that the Innsmouth look began to show itself among the Marshes and Phillipses.

  (“The Seal of R’lyeh”, Derleth (O).)

  MARSH, OBED. Innsmouth’s most prominent merchant-captain and founder of that town’s Esoteric Order of Dagon. Obed’s three ships, the Columbia, Hetty, and Sumatra Queen, did a brisk business in the Pacific trade beginning in 1820 and lasting for over twenty years. As a result of this prosperity, the Marshes became Innsmouth’s most powerful family.

  On one of his early trips, Captain Marsh stumbled across a group of Polynesian islanders who possessed a large number of golden ornaments. According to Walakea, the tribe’s chieftain, a race of fish-beings had brought these to them in exchange for human sacrifices. For a few rubber and glass trinkets, Marsh procured a large amount of the natives’ gold.

  In the following years, Obed visited the islanders many times, trading for more gold and listening to their legends. When Marsh journeyed to this island in 1838, however, he found that natives from the surrounding isles had killed his trading partners, and that his source of revenue was lost. The repercussions of this disaster were felt throughout Innsmouth, and the town soon plunged into a depression.

 

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