Faceless stalker pathfinder series#

Faceless stalker pathfinder series#

Īlan Moore's limited comic series Neonomicon (2010-2011) utilizes Nyarlathotep in the form of Johnny Carcosa, a masked drug dealer who frequents Cthulhu-themed clubs and occult shops. Though he does not appear in Lovecraft's original short story, Nyarlathotep in his 'Black Man' form appears in the 1993 comic book adaption of The Music of Erich Zann ( Caliber), in flashbacks for the eponymous Erich Zann. Nyarlathotep appears in the guise of the Dark Man in Larry Correia's story 'Dead Waits Dreaming' (2013). The light novel and anime series Haiyore! Nyaruko-san (2009) is based on the Cthulhu mythos, with the main character Nyaruko directly referring to Nyarlathotep. Nyarlathotep has also appeared outside of Lovecraft's own writings. Lovecraft wrote to a correspondent that he reused the phrase because he 'liked the sound of it'. Nyarlathotep does not appear in Lovecraft's story ' The Crawling Chaos' (1920/21), despite the similarity of the title to the character's epithet. In The Shadow Out of Time (1936), the 'hideous secret of Nyarlathotep' is revealed to the protagonist by Khephnes during their imprisonment by the Great Race of Yith. In ' The Rats in the Walls' (1924), Nyarlathotep is mentioned as a faceless god in the caverns of Earth's center. Though Nyarlathotep appears as a character in only four stories and two sonnets, his name is mentioned frequently in other works. Joshi writes that 'this seems a clear allusion to Nyarlathotep disguised with Akeley's face and hands but if so, it means that at this time Nyarlathotep is, in bodily form, one of the fungi - especially if, as seems likely, Nyarlathotep is one of the two buzzing voices Albert Wilmarth overhears at the end.' Joshi notes this is problematic, because 'if Nyarlathotep is (as critics have termed it) a 'shapeshifter', why would he have to don the face and hands of Akeley instead of merely reshaping himself as Akeley?' But due to the mention in the chant to Nyarlathotep wearing the 'waxen mask and the robes that hide', S. And he shall put on the semblance of man, the waxen mask and the robes that hide, and come down from the world of Seven Suns to mock.' At the end of The Whisperer in Darkness, the main character to his horror discovers a loose dressing gown and the dismembered head and arms of Akeley lying on the couch, presumed in the story to have been a Mi-Go in disguise.

In the story, the Mi-Go chant his name in reverential tones, stating 'To Nyarlathotep, Mighty Messenger, must all things be told. Lovecraft suggests that the fake Henry Akeley that appears at the end of The Whisperer in Darkness (1930) is also Nyarlathotep. įinally, in ' The Haunter of the Dark' (1936), the nocturnal, tentacled, bat-winged monster dwelling in the steeple of the Starry Wisdom sect's church is identified as another manifestation of Nyarlathotep. Although inhuman, some characters mistake him as a human of African descent, though his facial features are described as Caucasian. In ' The Dreams in the Witch House' (1933), Nyarlathotep appears to Walter Gilman and witch Keziah Mason (who has made a pact with the entity) in the form of 'the 'Black Man' of the witch-cult', a black-skinned avatar of the Devil described by witch hunters. The 21st sonnet of Lovecraft's poem-cycle Fungi from Yuggoth (1929/30) is essentially a retelling of the original prose poem. Leiber describes Nyarlathotep as 'evilly intelligent' in this story, in contrast to the mindless Azathoth, his master. Nyarlathotep subsequently appears as a major character in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926/27), in which he again manifests in the form of an Egyptian pharaoh when he confronts protagonist Randolph Carter. Fritz Leiber proposes three interpretations of the character based on this appearance: the universe's mockery of man's attempts to understand it a negative view of the commercial world, represented by Nyarlathotep's self-promotion and contemptuous attitude and man's self-destructive rationality. These followers lose awareness of the world around them, and through the narrator's increasingly unreliable accounts, the reader gets an impression of the world's collapse. In this story he wanders the Earth, seemingly gathering legions of followers, the narrator of the story among them, through his demonstrations of strange and seemingly magical instruments. In his first appearance in ' Nyarlathotep' (1920), he is described as a 'tall, swarthy man' who resembles an ancient Egyptian pharaoh.