We’re back guys--and it certainly wasn’t long, because as several of you will know--the
longer that you linger within the outskirts of all time and space, the more prominent
the calling comes when you slip back and forth between the Dreamlands.
Oh, wait.
I mean--that’s how it goes for everyone, right?
The point is--it’s been a long time coming for us to traverse the infinite landscapes
of the Cthulhu Mythos--and merely a part one of this series simply won’t suffice.
Lovecraft, and many of his contemporaries fleshed out an entire cosmos of cosmic horror
for us to painstakingly stumble through--so I guess we better get back to it.
Hello horror fans, what’s going on--and once again welcome back to the scariest channel
on YouTube--Top 5 Scary Videos.
As per usual, I’ll be your horror host Jack Finch--as today, we curiously take a look
at the Top 5 Scariest Places In Lovecraftian Fiction--Part 2.
Roll the clip.
For the curious amongst you--that clip was from Clive Barker’s awesome 1990 monster
spectacular--Nightbreed, which depicts that very strange place at the bottom of a graveyard,
Midian.
Of course it’s true--gods an astronaut, Oz is over the rainbow--and Midian is where
the monsters live!
And believe it or not--Midian is technically considered to be a place in the Cthulhu Mythos--given
the fact that it’s widely considered to be smack-bang right there in the Dreamlands!
Or--well, maybe Clive Barker just had a thing for Lovecraft.
But yeah--there we guy, today’s most honorable of honorable mentions.
Let’s begin, shall we?
Kicking off at Number 5--The Severn Valley
And believe it or not--this one hits a little close to home for me, given the fact that--well--the
River Severn is very much a real river in England, and I grew up not so far from the
*actual* Severn Valley.
Ehhh… yeah, that might explain a few things.
Forget about that for a moment though--because what we’re concerned with is The Severn
Valley of the Cthulhu Mythos--and just like how Lovecraft himself had his own Fictional
County of Arkham in New England--so too did one of the brilliant later writers of cosmic
horror--Ramsey Campbell.
Although, in the real world The Severn Valley is primarily in Wales and the West Midlands--this
version of Campbell Country lies roughly between the cities of Gloucester and Bristol--and
much like Arkham, it’s home to some pretty terrifying pit stops.
You see, just like Arkham has the Miskatonic University--the Severn Valley has Brichester
University--albeit much more mundane and home to the manky cracks in the fabric of reality.
Perhaps the most terrifying place in The Severn Valley--undoubtedly--is the Goatswood, and
if you’re familiar with Shub-Niggurath, AKA The Black Goat of the Woods with A Thousand
Young--then you’ll know that the Goatswood is a place that you certainly wouldn’t want
to stumble toward after a few nightcaps by the River Severn.
First described in The Moon Lens--the Goatswood, at first glance is merely an isolated town
in the middle of a dense forest--close set dull-red roofs--narrow streets--encircling
forests that all seem somehow furtive.
As if they’re hiding something that just shouldn’t be.
And that’s before you’d meet the residents of the town, though--the locals of The Goatswood,
described by Campbell as being revoltingly goat like--resembling a medieval woodcut of
a satyr--clad in grotesquely voluminous garments--endlessly worshipping their perverse fertility deity--the
All-Mother, The Black Goat of the Woods.
Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend it for a day-trip.
Swinging in at Number 4--The Nameless City
And despite being pretty damn vague--The Nameless City is actually one of the most fully formed
locations in the Lovecraft Mythos.
Go figure, right?
Once again, ambiguity reigns supreme.
First appearing in Lovecraft’s 1921 short story of the same name--The Nameless City
is an ancient ruin, roughly located somewhere in the vast expansive deserts of the Arabian
Peninsula.
It’s origin is mired in ancient mystery--but it is certainly older than any human civilization.
In ancient times--it was said that The Nameless City was built and inhabited by an unnamed
race of reptiles--with a body roughly shaped like a hybrid between a crocodile and a seal--with
a strange head common to neither--and a set of bizarre horns atop an alligator-like jaw.
Errrr--yeah.
Sound pretty gross, right?
Well--even stranger still--these creatures moved by crawling on their bellies--and so
the architecture of the Nameless City are endless rows of incredibly low ceilings.
Now--how would a race of belly-crawling crocodiles build the capital city of an ancient civilization?
Yeah--welcome to cosmic horror.
As is explained in the Necronomicon by the notorious mad poet Abdul Alhazred, The Nameless
City is the place that he dreamed of on the night before he sang his unexplained couplet--That
is not dead which can eternal lie--and with strange aeons, even death may die.
You see, part of the terrifying intrigue to The Nameless City is the concept of a long,
lost--alien race--far more powerful and far more intelligent than mankind ever could be.
The theme itself would go on to inspire countless cosmic horror and sci-fi authors who took
the concept of an impossible antiquity and left it for bewildered human explorers to
discover.
The Nameless City, in many ways, exemplifies the entire point of cosmic horror--the evidence
of something far, far more powerful than our civilization could ever be--even if it *is*
a set of ancient ruins buried deep in the middle of a forgotten desert.
Next up at Number 3--Unknown Kadath
And yeah--of course--and while with this entry, I *am* pretty much including the whole of
the Dreamlands--as detailed in Lovecraft’s 1927 novel, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath--the
final destination of the whole horrifying tour, is the ancient city of Kadath--home
of the dream-gods of the Mortal Plane--the Great Ones.
You see, as Randolph Carter himself found out throughout Lovecraft’s novel--the precise
location of the city that he dreamt of, Kadath, is entirely uncertain in the universe--and
there is a dense confusion as to whether it exists in the dream world of the Dreamlands--or
indeed, in the waking world--or, even further still--in a bizarre mixture of both.
You see, in our previous video--we spoke about the strange inter-spatial properties of many
Lovecraftian Locations.
Particularly with the incomprehensible Plateau of Leng--it is also strongly suggested throughout
many other examples of Lovecraft’s fiction--that Kadath is actually located beyond the Antarctic
Plateau that appears in At The Mountains of Madness.
And yeah--whilst many people called for that location to appear on this list--it has already.
Twice!
Plateau of Leng.
Kadath.
It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside--it’s anyone's guess, really.
The thing is though--despite the eternal uncertainty as to where this ancient city actually is--with
it’s bizarre massive pillars of stone--it *is* discovered by Randolph Carter at the
end of the novel.
After his trek into the cold waste--and his passing through the ancient ruins of Sarkomand--Carter
ultimately ends his journey at Kadath and the abode of the gods.
And guess what?
He finds it empty.
Nothing--barren, desolate, abandoned.
Not the city that he dreamt of as a child--just a husk of nothingness.
But then--a strange, pharoah like man appears from the distance--leading a massive procession
of the inhabitants of the Dreamlands.
And guess what?
It’s Nyarlathothep.
And what does he do to Randolph Carter, after all of that?
He tells him a lie--slaps him on a massive bird--and sends him flying through time and
space toward the court of Azathoth.
Now, I’m not sure about you--but Lovecraft didn’t have a very optimistic outlook on
impossible dreams.
Sad--really.
Coming in at Number 2--N’kai
And this may way be one of my favourite places in the whole of Lovecraftian Fiction--mainly
because it’s perhaps the most metal place in the whole of the ancient cavernous city
of Yoth--which we’ll maybe touch on in a later video, but yeah--put it this way.
Yoth is already a terrifying enough place--and in that regard, N’Kai is the most popular
joint in town.
Also known as the Black Realm, The Gulf of N’Kai--The Black Abyss--The Gulfs of Nether
Horror--N’kai first garnered mention in Lovecraft’s 1931 novella, The Whisperer
In Darkness.
It is described as a vast, lightless cavern below Yoth--it is home to the Great Old One
Tsathoggua, which we’ll get to in the moment--and is whispered to be a place of lightless, inky
seas in which the unspeakable race of Shoggoths roll and splash hideously.
As detailed in The Whisperer In Darkness--there are openings which human beings know nothing
of--some of them in these very Vermont hills--great worlds of unknown life down there--blue-litten
K’n-yan, red-litten Yoth--and black, lightless N’kai.
The thing is though, it's heavily alluded to that N’kai is far, far older than both
Yoth and K’n’yan--and that they were both built upon by these surviving races of ancient
civilizations--almost like looking at the rings in some impossibly old tree.
It is said that N’kai was discovered in term, after aeons--by each extinct civilization--and
because of that, N’kai is right at the bottom of them all.
And perhaps the reason for that--is that the Great Old One himself--Tsathoggua--has made
this place his home for all eternity.
The amorphous, toad-like god-creature first mentioned in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and
the Necronomicon.
It is said that in the centre of N’kai--there is a squat, plain temple of black basalt blocks
without a single carving--and containing only a vacant onyx pedestal.
It was built to house a very terrible black toad-idol--that of the toad--which had always
been there, at the bottom of the endless depths of the black realm.
Just a temple of darkness--and the toad.
And finally--coming in at our Number 1 spot--Azathoth’s Court
And we did briefly mention this in our Number 3 entry--where the unfortunate Randolph Carter
was strapped to a canter-bird by Nyarlathothep himself and ushered forward to Azathoth’s
Court at the centre of the universe.
Fortunately for him, he woke up from his metaphysical dream before any of that could come to fruition--but
if he would have arrived at his destination--yeah, our minds cannot even comprehend the eternal
torment that would have befallen him.
As noted in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath--outside the ordered universe is that amorphous blight
of nethermost confusion, which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity--the
home of boundless daemon sultan Azatoth.
Here, it is said that unlighted chambers beyond time and space exist amidst the muffled, maddening
beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.
Yeah.
It’s always flutes, right?
What is it with cosmic horror and flutes?
Hey, we may never know.
The point is though, in many ways--The Court of Azathoth is both the end game and the origin
of cosmic horror.
If we take the mythologies laid out by Lovecraft as gospel--then the Court of Azathoth--outside
of existence as we know it, is where it all began--and for any human being to ever even
comprehend the physicalities of this place--their mind would collapse and splinter into infinitesimal
fragments of nothingness.
You see, there can be no definite description of the Blind Idiot God himself because every
glimpsed vision of him is perceived differently--and his existence is constantly shifting and changing.
However, in the Cthulhu mythos--there *is* some evidence that the physical manifestation
of Azathoth and his court is directly in the centre of our galaxy--a place otherwise known
as Sagittarius A*--the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.
And yeah--fiction aside, there *is* a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way
known as Sagittarius A*.
Is it Azathoth’s Court?
I’m saying nothing.
Well, there we have it folks--our list for the Top 5 Scariest Places In Lovecraftian
Fiction--Part 2.
What did you guys think?
Feel good to stretch our legs through the landscape of cosmic horror?
Let us know your thoughts down in the comment section below, as well as any choice picks
of your own.
Before we depart from today's video though, why don’t we first take a quick look at
some of your more creative comments from over the past few days.
First up, ensitu says--
When will this man learn to speak English?
--- Hey, come on buddy--I’m trying my hardest here.
It’s a difficult language.
And finally, Steampunk Pixie says--
I think you are doing a Great Job.
Do not let the grammar police get to you Jack.
-- And you know what, thank you very much Steampunk Pixie--and thank you to everyone
who has a kind retort--but, I do have to clear it up.
When I pick comments like that, I’m just having a bit of fun.
If you can’t laugh at yourself--what can you laugh at?
On that note, unfortunately that’s all we’ve got time for in todays video--cheers for sticking
around all the way until the end.
If you were a fan of this video, or just Top 5 Scary Videos in general--then please, be
a dear and hit that thumbs up button, as well as that subscribe bell, and I’ll be seeing
you in the next one.
As per usual, I’ve been your horror host Jack Finch--you’ve been watching Top 5 Scary
Videos--and until next time, you take it easy