Nyarlathotep (Lovecraft)

"Farewell, Randolph Carter, and beware; for I am Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos."

- Nyarlathotep cursing Randolph Carter out of hateful spite and warning him of who he truly is.

Nyarlathotep, also known by many other names, most notably the Crawling Chaos, is an evil Outer God and, ultimately, the main villain of the fictional universe, the Cthulhu Mythos, the work of the late famous cosmic horror writer and author H.P. Lovecraft.

He first appeared as the titular main antagonist of the 1920 short story of the same name, ​and he continued to serve as the main antagonist of the 1943 fantasy novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath​, and as the eponymous main antagonist of the 1936 short story The Haunter of the Dark. He has appeared in numerous other stories written by H.P. Lovecraft (more than any other deity) and is, without question, the cruelest and vilest entity in the entire mythos.

He is seen as a shapeshifting agent of madness, chaos and ruin who serves the other Outer Gods, specifically his father, Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God, to whom he is subservient, fulfilling his wishes without question as his messenger and emissary, though he sometimes enjoys manipulating his master.

He often visits Earth and enjoys bringing madness and suffering to inferior beings (humans are among them). He spends his time manipulating and deceiving humans, or driving them insane, for his own sadistic pleasure. It is said that he will be the god who brings destruction to Earth.

​Origins
Nyarlathotep was spawned from Azathoth himself. His siblings include Bärkatlànm, the Darkness and the Nameless Mist.

He serves Azathoth as his messanger and as the soul of the Outer Gods, though Nyarlathotep usually interferes with mortal affairs at will.

Nyarlathotep would go on to mate with Yhoundeh and spawn his son, Ugga-Naach.

History in Literature
Nyarlathotep's first appearance is in the eponymous short story by Lovecraft, 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.

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath
Nyarlathotep (usually referred to in conjunction with the subnomen, "The Crawling Chaos") subsequently appears as a major character in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, in which he again manifests in the form of an Egyptian Pharaoh when he confronts protagonist Randolph Carter. He is here depicted as an avatar of the Other Gods, executing their will on Earth and in Dreamland. The twenty-first sonnet of Lovecraft's poem-cycle Fungi from Yuggoth – not to be confused with the entities identified as the fungi from Yuggoth, or Mi-Go in "The Whisperer in Darkness" – is dedicated to Nyarlathotep, and is substantially a poetic retelling of the short story Nyarlathotep.

The Dreams in the Witch-House
In The Dreams in the Witch-House, 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 with the appearance of the Christian Devil associated with New England witchcraft lore.

The Haunter of the Dark
Finally, in The Haunter of the Dark, 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.

The Whisperer in Darkness
Though Nyarlathotep appears as a character in only four stories and one sonnet (still more than any other Great Old Ones or Outer Gods), his name is mentioned frequently in numerous others. For example, in The Whisperer in Darkness, 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.

The Crawling Chaos
Despite similarities in theme and name, Nyarlathotep does not feature at all in Lovecraft's story The Crawling Chaos, an apocalyptic narrative written in collaboration with Elizabeth Berkeley.

Appearance
Nyarlathotep is described as a master shapeshifter with over a thousand forms, many of which are seen as monstrous and capable of driving mortals insane - a trait common to Lovecraftian monsters, however unlike many of the other Outer Gods, he also frequently takes on a human form as an enigmatic male fashioned on an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh.

Personality
Unlike the other Outer Gods, who are amoral and emotionless gods, Nyarlathotep has a very different, "human" character, that of an extremely cruel, sadistic, destructive, manipulative and evil monster.

He enjoys driving humans insane and finds the act to be more enjoyable than simple death and destruction and is, as stated before, a more human-like evil than the other Outer Gods.

Nyarlathotep frequently employs deception and manipulation, even propaganda, to achieve his goals and often mingles with humans in order to seal their doom.

These traits, combined with his ability to walk freely amongst mortal life, may make him the most unpleasant and terrible of all Lovecraftian monsters, as he averts their unknowable and amoral nature, and it has been suggested by some that Nyarlathotep may be the creature that will ultimately destroy the world.

​Powers and Abilities
While nowhere near as powerful as his creator Azathoth, nor the cosmic entity Yog-Sothoth, he remains to be an Outer God and as such Nyarlothotep is immortal and incredibly powerful while also being highly complex to be understood. It is believed that Nyarlathotep is able to control mystic energies of the cosmos to varying effects at an undefined level, both cosmic and demonic as well. He is able to manifest as a vast multitude of avatars. While the god's near-boundless intelligence is behind all of them, each avatar varies greatly in appearance, power, and purpose. Some avatars are even worshiped as their own beings, the followers unaware that it is merely part of a much greater being. He is also capable of shapeshifting and can take the form of a human man. Like Cthulhu, his mere presence induces madness and insanity to mortals such as humans and can communicate with them via telepathy. He is also able to freely travel across every plane of existence and exists beyond the "archetypal infinity".

Nyarlathotep's Family Tree

 * Azathoth (father)
 * The Nameless Mist (sibling)
 * Darkness (sibling)

Relationship with the Other Outer Gods
Nyarlathotep acts as the messenger of the other Outer Gods and seems to hold disloyalty to any particular being - instead serving them everything in some fashion, though he is said to be especially loyal towards Azathoth - whose wishes he will fulfill without any questions.

Said by Nyarlathotep
"I am His Messenger."

- Nyarlathotep on Azathoth.

"Go now—the casement is open and the stars await outside. Already your shantak wheezes and titters with impatience. Steer for Vega through the night, but turn when the singing sounds. Forget not this warning, lest horrors unthinkable suck you into the gulf of shrieking and ululant madness. Remember the Other Gods; they are great and mindless and terrible, and lurk in the outer voids. They are good gods to shun."

- Nyarlathotep to Randolph Carter.

"Hei! Aa-shanta 'nygh! You are off! Send back earth's gods to their haunts on unknown Kadath, and pray to all space that you may never meet me in my thousand other forms."

- Nyarlathotep to Randolph Carter.

"Run? From you? You forget yourself, Nodens. I am not some wayward demon who cowers in the face of Elder Gods. I am the emissary to Outer Gods, messanger of Azathoth, OF CHAOS ITSELF!"

- Nyarlathotep to Nodens, expressing his ego.

"You've never dealt with MY kind before, hunter. I rule the dreamlands! Soon, my army will march through the rift into the waking world. And then R'lyeh will entomb you as well."

- Nyarlathotep reveals his goals to Nodens.

"Oh? Your followers have all but been destroyed by Cthulhu's cultists, and my army has no doubt crushed your paltry Nightgaunts by now. You are now God to no one."

- Nyarlathotep mocking a defeated Nodens.

"For your insults, you will spend eternity here in Alhazred's stead, dreaming... of me."

- Nyarlathotep as he imprisons a man in stasis where he will dream of him for all eternity.

"No army of man nor god can stand against mine, and no god will suffer my wrath as completely as you!"

- Nyarlathotep to Nodens in victory.

Pertaining to Nyarlathotep
"And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare."

- H.P. Lovecraft about Nyarlathotep.

"Don't fail to see Nyarlathotep if he comes to Providence. He is horrible — horrible beyond anything you can imagine — but wonderful. He haunts one for hours afterward. I am still shuddering at what he showed."

- Samuel Loveman (about Nyarlathotep).

"What his fate would be, he did not know; but he felt that he was held for the coming of that frightful soul and messenger of infinity's Other Gods, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep."

- H.P. Lovecraft (about Nyarlathotep of the Outer Gods).

"There was the immemorial figure of the deputy or messenger of hidden and terrible powers – the "Black Man" of the witch cult, and the "Nyarlathotep" of the Necronomicon."

- H.P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House.

"It was the eldritch scurrying of those fiend-born rats, always questing for new horrors, and determined to lead me on even unto those grinning caverns of earth's centre where Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls blindly to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players."

- H. P. Lovecraft, The Rats in the Walls.

"Trouble with memory. I see things I never knew before. Other worlds and other galaxies… Dark… The lightning seems dark and the darkness seems light… (…) What am I afraid of? Is it not an avatar of Nyarlathotep, who in antique and shadowy Khem even took the form of a man?"

- Excerpt from the diary of the late Robert Harrison Blake.

Other Appearances as a Villain

 * Nyarlathotep appears in the Megami Tensei series as a recurring demon and as a villain, particularly as the main antagonist of the first and second Persona games.
 * M, a major character in the visual novel Shikkoku no Sharnoth who initially uses the codename of James Moriarty, is revealed near the end of the story to be a manifestation of Nyarlathotep.
 * Nyarlathotep is a boss in the game Cthulhu Saves the World.
 * Nyarlathotep is the main antagonist in the story Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute.
 * Nyarlathotep is also linked with the Slender Man because of his humanoid appearance, sadistic desires, and also Slender Man has the same name: "G'hor Nyarlathotep".
 * Nyarlathotep is the final boss of the FPS indie-game DUSK.
 * Fake Kashihara becomes Nyarlathotep, the final boss in Persona 2: Innocent Sin.
 * Leland Gaunt, the main antagonist of Stephen King's novel Needful Things, is hinted to be an avatar of Nyarlathotep.
 * Likewise, Randall Flagg is also greatly hinted to be an avatar and was even called by the name Nyarlathotep at one point. Despite the similarities, the Dark Tower series reveals at one point Flagg was once a mortal human.
 * In Edward M. Erdelac's Merkabah Rider book series, Nyarlathotep and Sauron from Tolkien's Middle Earth legendarium are implied to be the same entity.

Trivia

 * The name of this deity is noted for its Egyptian suffix, which gives its name an Egyptian tone.
 * Due to being H.P. Lovecraft's most used deity, and serving as the main antagonist of more stories than any other character, Nyarlathotep is the main antagonist of the Cthulhu Mythos.
 * A common misconception is that Azathoth (or possibly Yog-Sothoth or Cthulhu) serves this role. However, Nyarlathotep is the true main antagonist, since, despite working for Azathoth, he is obviously more evil, and (in some versions) has plans to usurp him as well.
 * Despite being not as powerful as Azathoth or Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep is easily the most evil of the Gods in the mythos and, on top of that, is one of the most evil villains in fiction.
 * This might be due to his understanding of human morality, emotion, and even speech, an ability that Azathoth himself is never said to have.
 * Interestingly, Nyarlathotep is also more human than any other God in the mythos, in addition to being more evil, meaning that Lovecraft may have been commenting on the evil nature of humanity.