by Donald Tyson
In contrast to these bucolic legends surrounding Cathuria, "wise dreamers" such as Randolph Carter know that the twin Basalt Pillars of the West are really the gates of a monstrous cataract where the oceans of dreamland drop into empty space toward other worlds and other stars, and ultimately to the voids beyond the known universe that are ruled by the daemon sultan Azathoth, where dance the blind and mindless Other Gods, whose soul and messenger is Nyarlathotep.
(The White Ship; The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
Located near the beginning of the dreamlands that surround the Earth, it is accessed from light slumber by descending a stair of seventy steps. The bearded priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah preside over the temple in the cavern, which has a pillar of flame. Randolph Carter offered sacrifice in the temple, and consulted the priests about his intention to seek unknown Kadath in the Cold Waste. They advised strongly against it.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
A thriving port city located on the river Naraxa, in the valley of Ooth-Nargai near the shore of the Cerenerian Sea. Snow-capped Mount Aran rises not far distant, its lower slopes covered with a forest of gingko-trees. A great stone bridge spans the river near the bronze city gates on the landside, eastern approach. The city has a white marble wall dotted with bronze statues, above which the glittering minarets of the port are visible to those approaching from the sea. Its streets are paved with onyx. Low hills extend behind the port to the east, dotted with groves, flower gardens, cottages, and shrines. Beyond these low hills, the purple ridge of the higher Tanarian Hills marks the horizon. Noteworthy features within the city of interest to tourists are the turquoise temple of Nath-Horthath, and the Street of Pillars that runs from the gate to the seaside wall. The galleys sailing from its port do considerable trade throughout the dreamlands that ensures its continuing prosperity. Many merchants live in the city.
The city appeared as a vision in one of Lovecraft's dreams. In the dream, Lovecraft found himself flying over its rooftops and minarets, gazing down upon it. This was the inspiration for his story Celephais. In that story, the city was dreamed into existence by a nameless wandering pauper, a native of Cornwall and former indigent resident of London who, after his death, became King Kuranes of Celephais. Randolph Carter had known Kuranes in life, and later visited him in Celephais, seeking advice about the finding of Kadath. Within the bounds of the city there is no passage of time.
(Celephais; The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
Called the "billowy Cerenerian Sea that leads to the sky" due to the way the clouds massed along its distant horizon make it appear that the sea and sky merge together without division.
(Celephais)
This is the name Lovecraft gave to all those places intelligent beings visit during their dreams. Each planet has its own dreamlands. The dreamer Randolph Carter spent most of his time in the dreamlands of Earth, which are divided into two zones, the upper and lower dreamlands. The upper dreamlands are divided into regions of the east, south, west, and north. The lower dreamlands are called the underworld and are inhabited by ghouls and other creatures of darkness. Earth's dreamlands extend to the Moon, which has its inhabited region on the far side that is never seen by astronomers on this planet. Sometimes Lovecraft refers to the dreamlands of Earth in the plural, and sometimes he talks about Earth's dreamland in the singular. The dreamlands of Earth are subdivided into many regions, each occupied by its own peoples or inhuman races, and having its own cities and towns.
In The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, the bearded priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah in the cavern of flame near the entrance to the dreamlands of Earth tell Carter that only three human souls have crossed the black gulfs to the dreamlands of other worlds, and of the three, two came back insane. The dreamlands of Earth are ruled "feebly" by the gods of Earth, who have "no power or habitation elsewhere." The gods of Earth are all those gods conceived by men, such as the gods of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
Costal city of the dreamlands built of basalt, with tall and angular black towers that are visible from far out at sea. Its streets are dark and uninviting, and the many taverns near the wharves throng with foreign seamen, some of whom may not be native to this planet. Among them are the turbaned and almost-human men of Leng who trade rubies from the black galleys on behalf of their masters, the moon-beasts, who are not human in the slightest degree.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
A vast emptiness in the lower dreamland that lies below the dreamland city of Sarkomand, which is located in a valley below the plateau of Leng. In the midst of the ruins of this city is a circular plaza with "cyclopean pedestals whose sides were chiseled in fearsome bas-reliefs" upon which crouch two enormous winged lions carved from diorite, their heads twenty feet above the plaza. They are the guardians of the entrance to the Great Abyss. Between the lions, in a tiled court, a patch of darkness marks the black well that is the opening to the "black nitrous stairway," which winds down into the Abyss. The steps are narrow and steep, slippery and worn with the tread of countless aeons.
The Lord of the Great Abyss is "hoary and immemorial Nodens," a god who is beyond the control of Nyarlathotep. His servants are the faceless night-gaunts, "mindless guardians of the Great Abyss whom even the Great Ones fear, and who own not Nyarlathotep but hoary Nodens as their lord." In The Strange High House in the Mist, Lovecraft observed, "there are strange objects in the great abyss, and the seeker of dreams must take care not to stir up or meet the wrong ones."
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath; The Strange High House in the Mist)
A peak in the dreamlands crowned with an "aureole of mournful mist," located thirteen days journey deep in the stony desert beyond the village of Hatheg, from which it takes its name. Other villages nearer the foot of the remote mountain are Ulthar and Nir. Barzai the Wise, companion of Atal the priest of Ulthar, climbed it in an effort to watch the gods of Earth dancing on its summit by moonlight. He was drawn up into the sky screaming and never again seen. When the men of Hatheg, Ulthar, and Nir climbed the mountain to search for him, they found only a strange symbol some fifty cubits wide blasted into the naked rock of the summit.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath; The Other Gods)
A town in the dreamlands, built on top of a hollow glass cliff that overlooks a dark sea in which dwell the aquatic Gnorri. The town is noted for its many turrets, magnificent domes, and for the opal throne from which its king rules. At the zenith of its alien sky shines a single red star. It was rumored by an elderly eccentric of Providence, Rhode Island, that Randolph Carter became the king of Ilek-Vad. This elderly eccentric was Ward Phillips, a character undoubtedly intended to represent Lovecraft himself.
(Through the Gates of the Silver Key; The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath; The Silver Key)
This thriving port city with its many squat domes is noted for its onyx trade and its beauty. Much of the city is built of polished onyx. The streets are paved with this semiprecious stone. They radiate like the spokes of a wheel from the great central Temple of the Elder Ones, which is a massive tower with sixteen sides surmounted by a flattened dome from which rises a pinnacled belfry. The temple is set within a walled garden of seven gates, in the center of an enormous round city plaza. The gates are never closed but provide entry for the residents of the city to the wonders of the temple garden, which is filled with tiled lanes, quaint shrines to ancient lesser gods, fountains, pools, and basins designed to reflect the fires that burn in tripods around the base of the high dome atop the tower.
The other great wonder of the city is the palace of the Veiled King, set upon the crest of a hill behind massive fortification walls and buttresses. A visitor must climb a series of steep flights of steps to reach the onyx terraces and colonnaded walks within its garden. The garden is filled with flowering trees, lifelike statues in veined black marble, bronze urns, tripods, blossoming vines, fountains containing luminous fish, and miniature te
mples of iridescent singing birds atop stone columns. No visitor is permitted to enter the palace itself, the central dome of which is said to contain the father of all shantak-birds.
The architecture of the city is quaint with "inlaid doors and figured house-fronts, carven balconies and crystal-paned oriels." Some of the older houses near the waterfront bear signs of gold above their arched doorways, in honor of the lesser gods that guard the houses. There are many small plazas decorated with statues that are scattered throughout the city, and that afford the visitor breathtaking vistas across the domes and spires of its rooftops.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
Kadath in the Cold Waste is a lofty mountain located in the dreamlands. Before Randolph Carter succeeded in reaching it, no man had ever visited Kadath or had even known in which part of space it stood, or whether it was in Earth's dreamlands or those of another star system. On its summit is a great fortress of onyx in which dwell the gods of Earth's dreamlands, known as the Great Ones. Ruling over them is Nyarlathotep, emissary of the Other Gods who are the protectors of the gods of Earth, but also their masters. The summit is described in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath:
There were towers on that titan mountaintop; horrible domed towers in noxious and incalculable tiers and clusters beyond any dreamable workmanship of man; battlements and terraces of wonder and menace, all limned tiny and black and distant against the starry pshent that glowed malevolently at the uppermost rim of sight. Capping that most measureless of mountains was a castle beyond all mortal thought, and in it glowed the daemon-light.
Kadath is mentioned in the portion of the Necronomicon that is quoted in The Dunwich Horror concerning the Old Ones: "Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath?" It may have a material correspondent in Antarctica, as does the plateau of Leng. This is suggested in the story At the Mountains of madness, where mention is made of the whispers concerning Kadath in the Pnakotic Manuscripts. It is explicitly stated in The Mound, where reference is made to a civilization "at the South Pole near the mountain Kadath."
(The Dunwich Horror; The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath; Medusa's Coil; The Mound; The Other Gods; The Strange High House in the Mist)
Called "orchid-heavy" Kled, a land through which flows the golden river Oukranos. It is a land of forgotten cities that contain palaces of veined ivory columns, where elephant caravans tramp through the flower-scented jungles. One of its cities is named Thran, and is noted for its gilded spires.
(Through the Gates of the Silver Key)
A large black tower glimpsed in the dreamlands at twilight by some dreamers. It has an occult symbol in bas-relief fixed above the archway of its "colossal doorway" that is called the sign of Koth. Lovecraft used the term "fixed" in two places rather than "carved," so the symbol is probably on some sort of separate stone plaque or metal plate. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Doctor Marinus Bicknell Willett encounters the symbol chiseled above a small door in the chambers deep beneath the farmland of Joseph Curwen. The Tower is located not far from the cave in the dreamlands that is the entrance to the Vaults of Zin. Its doors stand open, so that its shadowed interior is visible from the outside. Within, a great flight of stone steps leads upward to the upper dreamland and the enchanted wood.
(The Case of Charles Dexter Ward; The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
One of the mountains upon which the gods of Earth sometimes return to dance. Another such mountain is Thuria. These were once the homes of the gods, but the intrusion of human beings climbing the mountains caused them to depart to dwell in the fortress atop Kadath in the Cold Waste. Kadath is the tallest of Earth's mountains in the dreamlands, and has never been climbed.
(The Other Gods)
This river flows beneath a great stone bridge of the city of CelephaIs and into the sea.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
A sacred river in unknown Cathuria that arises from a grotto. Its scented waters are said to flow beneath the glass floor in the palace of the king of Cathuria, the god or demigod Dorieb. In the cunningly lit waters swim gaudy fish unknown outside that land. All of the palatial houses of the cities of Cathuria are built over fragrant-scented canals that carry the waters of the sacred river, in imitation of the palace of the king, beneath which the river proper flows.
(The White Ship)
A turquoise temple in the port city of Celephais that is presided over by orchidwreathed priests.
(Celephais)
Mountain of the dreamlands the side of which was long ago blasted by the wrath of the Other Gods, leaving only "sheer crags and a valley of sinister lava." On its peak is carved the stone face of a god of Earth. It is two-day zebra ride away from the port of Baharna.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
This land lies beyond the Tanarian Hills. It holds a valley near the Cerenerian Sea that contains the city of Celephais.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
A golden river that runs through the land of "orchid-heavy" Kled, with its forgotten ivory cities. There is a jasper temple on the bank of the river devoted to the river god. It was visited once a year by the king of Ilek-Vad prior to Randolph Carter's ascension to the throne of that city. The river god sang to the king while he was a youth living on the bank of the river, and for this reason the king came annually to offer the god his prayers. The temple to the god of Oukranos has seven towers with pinnacles. Its walls and courts cover a full acre of land. Part of the river flows through the inner shrine of the temple via hidden channels, producing a singing sound that may be heard in the stillness of the night. This is interpreted as the singing voice of the river god. The temple is tended by silent priests who make music to accompany the singing of the river. Only the priests of Oukranos and the king of Ilek-Vad are permitted to enter this temple.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath; Through the Gates of the Silver Key)
This is a dark valley in which "crawl and burrow the enormous bholes." It is filled with "mountains of bones." The night-gaunts fly ceaselessly back and forth between the Vale of Pnath and the passes to the outer world.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
The ruins of a clay-brick city lie on the far shore of Lake Yath, opposite the canal that runs under the port city of Baharna, on the island of Oriab. The name of this city is not remembered by the people of Oriab.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
A deserted port city of the dreamlands that fell to ruins a million years before the evolution of mankind. Presently it consists of basalt quays, crumbling walls and sphinxcrowned gates, broken black columns, and tufts of grass growing up from cracks between its paving stones. It was ruled by the nearly human inhabitants of the plateau of Leng, before these horned creatures were enslaved by the monstrous, white, amorphous moon-beasts, who descended from the Moon to the Earth in their black galleys. The basalt cliff supporting the edge of the plateau of Leng rears high above the city. In the side of this cliff, which is carved in bas-relief into repellent scenes, is an arched entranceway to a passage leading up to the monastery of the High-Priest Not To Be Described. Twin winged stone lions of titanic size untouched by time guard a flight of steps that extends down from Sarkomand to the Great Abyss.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
This city lies to the northwest of the port city of Inquanok. The great caravan road runs north from Inquanok to the small-domed village of Urg, then turns west to Selarn.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
Sky-city built of pink marble amid the low-lying clouds on the horizon of the Cerenerian Sea. It is possible to sail in galleys on the west wind from the port of Celephais off the edge of the sea and into the clouds. King Kuranes rules over Celephais for half the year and over Serannian for the other half.
(Celephals; The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
A river in the dreamlands. Not far beyond it, near a stony desert, lies the town of Ulthar. The river is crossed by a br
idge at Nir.
(The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath; The Cats of Ulthar)
The Land of Fancy, in which there is "neither time nor space, neither suffering nor death." It is a land with green pastures and groves, many flowers, musical streams, and clear fountains. Splendid golden-domed cities occupy the countryside, filled with happy people who do not experience pain or death.
(The White Ship)
Three days sail from Dylath-Leen in the dreamlands, ships pass over a sunken city so ancient that its very name has been forgotten. The ruins can be seen through the clear water by moonlight on calm nights. Dolphins sport amongst the fallen pillars of a great domed temple at the end of an avenue of "unnatural sphinxes" that leads to a public square. Beyond the houses of the city, on the crown of a submerged hill, there is a basalt temple of a simpler and more ancient design, yet in better repair. It is square with towers at its corners and round windows. A strange phosphorescence emanates from within it. From an open courtyard in its center rises a great monolith. To the side of this stone block dead sailors from passing ships are sometimes glimpsed, tied in sacrifice to an unknown god with their heads downward and their eyes cut out.