Nyarlathotep

“ And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare. „ -H.P. Lovecraft, about Nyarlathotep.

Nyarlathotep, known to many by his epithet The Crawling Chaos, is an Outer God in the Cthulhu Mythos. He is the spawn of Azathoth. He is the creation of H. P. Lovecraft and first appeared in his prose poem "Nyarlathotep" (1920).

Nyarlathotep appears in numerous subsequent stories by Lovecraft, and is also featured in the works of other authors, as well as in role-playing games based on the Cthulhu Mythos.

Description

“ -a tall, lean man of dead black colouration but without the slightest sign of negroid features: wholly devoid of either hair or beard, and wearing as his only garment a shapeless robe of some heavy black fabric. His feet were indistinguishable because of the table and bench, but he must have been shod, since there was a clicking whenever he changed position. The man did not speak, and bore no trace of expression on his small, regular features. He merely pointed to a book of prodigious size which lay open on the table.... „

Nyarlathotep differs from the other deities in the Mythos in a number of ways. Most of the Outer Gods are exiled to the stars, like Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth, and most of the Great Old Ones are sleeping and dreaming like Cthulhu; Nyarlathotep, however, is active and frequently walks the Earth in the guise of a human being, usually a tall, slim, joyous man. He has "a thousand" other forms and manifestations, most reputed to be quite horrific and sanity-blasting.

Most of the Outer Gods have their own cults serving them; Nyarlathotep seems to serve as He serves several cults and takes care of their affairs in the other Outer Gods' absence. Most Outer Gods use strange alien languages, while Nyarlathotep uses human languages and can easily pass for a human being if he chooses to do so. Finally, most of them are all-powerful yet evidently without clear purpose or agenda, yet Nyarlathotep seems to be deliberately deceptive and manipulative, and even uses propaganda to achieve his goals. In this regard, he is probably the most human-like among the Outer Gods.

Nyarlathotep enacts the will of the Outer Gods, and is their "messenger, heart and soul", "the immemorial figure of the deputy or messenger of hidden and terrible powers" He is also the servant of Azathoth, whose fitful, spastic wishes he immediately fulfills. Unlike the other Outer Gods, spreading madness is more important and enjoyable than death and destruction to Nyarlathotep. It is suggested by some that he will destroy the human race and possibly the earth as well.

In the Mythos

Nyarlathotep's first appearance is in the eponymous short story by Lovecraft (1920), in which he is described as a "tall, swarthy man" who resembles an Egyptian Pharaoh. In this story he wanders the earth, gathering legions of followers through his demonstrations of strange and seemingly magical instruments, the narrator of the story among them. These followers lose awareness of the world around them, and through the narrator's increasingly unreliable accounts the reader gets a sense of the world's utter collapse. The story ends with the narrator as part of an army of servants for Nyarlathotep.

Nyarlathotep, again manifested in the form of an Egyptian Pharaoh when he confronted Randolph Carter as an avatar of the Other Gods, executing their will on Earth and in Dreamland (HPL: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath).

Nyarlathotep meets 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 with the appearance of the Christian Devil (His footprints suggest cloven hooves instead of feet) associated with New England witchcraft lore (HPL: "The Dreams in the Witch-House").

The being of pure darkness dwelling, possessing a "three-lobed eye", in the steeple of the Starry Wisdom sect's church is identified as another form, or manifestation of, Nyarlathotep (HPL: "The Haunter of the Dark").

Nyarlathotep's name is spoken frequently by the fungi from Yuggoth in a reverential or ritual sense, indicating that they worship or honor the entity (HPL: "The Whisperer in Darkness").

According to certain sources he is currently living or imprisoned on the planet Abbith.

The Masks of Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, the Black Pharaoh, the God of a Thousand Forms, the Faceless God, the Haunter of the Dark, Nyarko-san, Randall Flagg, Sauron, The White Man, the Howler in the Night... it has many forms. All of them infinitely powerful. All of them dangerous to any who would oppose its goals. Whether it plays by any rules or not depends on the incarnation, but there's one very important thing to remember. There is only one Nyarlathotep. Even if multiple versions of it meet, they're all the same one. Even if they're fighting, they're the same being.

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Trivia

Ooh boy.