D

Dunwich: Dunwich is a fictitious town that appears in the H.P. Lovecraft short story "The Dunwich Horror" (1929) and in his poem "The Ancient Track." It is located in the fictional Miskatonic River Valley of Massachusetts and is described as economically poor, with many decrepit and abandoned buildings, while its inhabitants are depicted as inbred, uneducated, and very superstitious.

"Across a covered bridge one sees a small village huddled between the stream and the vertical slope of Round Mountain, and wonders at the cluster of rotting gambrel roofs bespeaking an earlier architectural period than that of the neighbouring region," Lovecraft writes in "The Dunwich Horror." "It is not reassuring to see, on a closer glance, that most of the houses are deserted and falling to ruin, and that the broken-steepled church now harbours the one slovenly mercantile establishment of the hamlet. One dreads to trust the tenebrous tunnel of the bridge, yet there is no way to avoid it. Once across, it is hard to prevent the impression of a faint, malign odour about the village street, as of the massed mould and decay of centuries. It is always a relief to get clear of the place, and to follow the narrow road around the base of the hills and across the level country beyond till it rejoins the Aylesbury pike. Afterward one sometimes learns that one has been through Dunwich."

E

Eryx: Eryx, also known as the Erycinian Highland, is a vast plateau on the planet Venus. It was used by H.P. Lovecraft as the setting for his quirky science-fiction short story "In the Walls of Eryx." In variance with reality, Lovecraft's Venus has a tropical climate and is filled with lush, swampy jungles. It does have an atmosphere poisonous to humans but it is not so toxic as to require the use space suits or other sealed protetive gear.

F

"Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" (The Wolverine, March and June 1921): This short story examines the strange and disturbing ancestry of the title character and the results of his examination into it. It was republished three years later in Weird Tales, much to Lovecraft's chagrin, as "The White Ape" (prompting him to comment in a letter "If I ever entitled a story 'The White Ape,' there would be no ape in it."). The story was thereafter titled simply as "Arthur Jermyn" until it appeared in Dagon and Other Macabre Tales in 1986. See full publication history and electronic text. See publication history and electronic text.

G

Gug: Gugs are a race of horrifying giants that appear in the H.P. Lovecraft short story "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath." They are speechless, communicating only by facial expressions, but tend to make strange, random sounds.

"It was a paw, fully two feet and a half across, and equipped with formidable talons," Lovecraft wrote. "After it came another paw, and after that a great black-furred arm to which both of the paws were attached by short forearms. Then two pink eyes shone, and the head of the awakened gug sentry, large as a barrel, wabbled into view. The eyes jutted two inches from each side, shaded by bony protuberances overgrown with coarse hairs. But the head was chiefly terrible because of the mouth. That mouth had great yellow fangs and ran from the top to the bottom of the head, opening vertically instead of horizontally." (Shown here is a plush Gug toy produced by the Toy Vault.)

According to Lovecraft, the Gugs were banished to the underworld by earth’s gods, the Great Ones, for an unnamed blasphemy and now reside in a terrifying, underground city, dwelling in lofty, round, cyclopean towers. Nearby, colossal monoliths mark the cemetery of the Gugs. In the midst of the gug city, the Tower of Koth contains a stairway that leads to the Enchanted Wood in the upper Dreamlands. There it is sealed by a huge stone trapdoor with a large iron ring. Because of a curse of the gods, no Gug may open that door, although no such restriction prevents a Gug from climbing to the very top of the tower.

Gugs prey on the ghasts that live in the Vaults of Zin (though prior to their banishment, they had been known to devour wayward dreamers). When in sufficient numbers, ghasts may likewise prey on the gugs. Though gugs would seem to have the advantage, they nonetheless superstitiously fear ghouls. The gugs often indulge in great feasts and, once engorged, retire to their great towers to sleep.

M

Munroe, Arthur: A reporter who accompanies the narrator in an investigation of Tempest Mountain and the ruins of the Martense manor in the Lovecraft short story "The Lurking Fear." He is slain while sheltering in a squatter shanty on the slopes of the mountain during a storm.

Nitokris

Nitokris: Nitokris is a legendary figure who may actually have been the last pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty. She appears as queen of the ghouls, leader of an army of abominable composite mummies, and consort of undead King Kephren in "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," a short story H.P. Lovecraft ghost-wrote for Harry Houdini. Nitokris, "who once invited all her enemies to a feast in a temple below the Nile, and drowned them by opening the water-gates," is presented by Lovecraft as a sinister but beautiful woman, the right side of whose face has been "eaten away by rats or other ghouls."

Nitokris is the subject the "The Queen's Enemies," a play by Lord Dunsany, pointing once again to the heavy influence of that author on Lovecraft.

T

Tempest Mountain: A fictitious mountain set in the Catskill Mountains of New York state created by Lovecraft for his serialized short story "The Lurking Fear." It has a reputation in the local area for being haunted and is characterized by terrible storms and lightning strikes, fulgurites, and oddly-shaped mounds in the woods clinging to its slopes. Its peak is occupied by the ruins of the Martense family mansion, the remains of Dutch gardens, groves of misshapen trees, and the burying ground for the family.