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This subject contains information from the Mythos Adjacent Works, and while share similar themes and features of the Mythos are not based on his work, or generally considered a part of the Mythos proper. This subject contains information from the "Lovecraft Circle" Myth Cycles, and while guided by HPL are not based on his work alone. Atlantis is a legendary lost continent, usually supposed to have been located in the North Atlantic Ocean. It was believed to have hosted an ancient civilization that was destroyed and sunk beneath the ocean in a cataclysmic event. The myth of Atlantis was incorporated as a background element by H. P. Lovecraft and other Cthulhu Mythos authors; Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, among others, set stories in pre-cataclysm Atlantis.

In Lovecraft Circle Works[]

The kingdom of Atlantis thrived for thousands of years. At its prime, it was a mighty empire, with a respected naval fleet. The Atlanteans enslaved ape-like creatures known as Gyaa-Hua and waged wars against the nation of Mu. (HPL: "Bothon")

Alien gods were worshiped in Atlantis (HPL: "The Last Test") and there are rumours that the cult of Ghatanothoa was present in it (HPL: "Out of the Aeons").

It is believed that the Azores were once part of Atlantis. (CIRCLE: The Moon Pool)

In addition to the island itself, the Atlanteans also spawned colonies in Africa (HPL: "The Last Test") and continental Thuria (CIRCLE: "The Hyborian Age"), which survived after the sinking of their parent kingdom. The Saharan Tuareg people are their descendants (HPL: "The Last Test"), as are the Cimmerians (CIRCLE: "The Hyborian Age").

Priests and sorcerers of Atlantis have found means to preserve their bodies in a death-like state that resembles mummification, but from which they can be revived even after several millennia. At least two Atlantean sages have been brought back to life in this way: Surama (HPL: "The Last Test") and Kathulos, although many others remain in stasis at the bottom of the sea (CIRCLE: Skull-Face). Both Surama and Kathulos displayed traits such as parchment-like skin, a head eerily reminiscent of an animated skull, and psychic abilities, and both are also associated with reptiles, Surama in his saurian anatomy (HPL: "The Last Test") and Kathulos in his ability to control snakes (CIRCLE: Skull-Face).

The Shining Trapezohedron was in Atlantis at the time of its sinking. (HPL: "The Haunter of the Dark")

When Thomas Olney visited the strange house atop a cliff near Kingsport, the mysterious man who lived there told him stories about "how the Kings of Atlantis fought with the slippery blasphemies that wriggled out of rifts in the ocean's floor, and how the pillared and weedy temple of Poseidonis is still glimpsed at midnight by lost ships, who know by its sight that they are lost". (HPL: "The Strange High House in the Mist")

Lt. Commander Karl Heinrich of the submarine U-29, which sank to the bottom of an oceanic abyss in 1917, found the ruins of a city that he believed to be Atlantis, the location of which he estimated as N. Latitude 20º, W. Longitude 35º. There, Heinrich saw the temple of a god shining with a mysterious light and felt the mental influence of the entity that had driven his fellow crewmembers to madness and death. (HPL: "The Temple")

When Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee mind-swapped with a member of the Great Race of Yith, one of the other Yithian victims he met was a priest of Atlantis' middle kingdom. (HPL: The Shadow Out of Time)

In 1928, Halpin Chalmers consumed the Liao drug that gave him visions of the past, and watched, among other things, "the migrations from Atlantis". (CIRCLE: "The Hounds of Tindalos")

Stories set in Atlantis[]

Other references[]

Colonel Urquart believed that Atlantis, like Mu before it, was destroyed by the Lloigor. (EXP: "The Return of the Lloigor")

Known Inhabitants[]

Gallery[]

Behind the Mythos[]

The reference to Poseidonis in Lovecraft's "The Strange High House in the Mist" might be a nod to the island of Poseidonis, the last portion of Atlantis to sink, in Clark Ashton Smith's "A Voyage to Sfanomoë". Smith's Poseidonis series also includes the story "The Double Shadow", which mentions the Serpent People and Hyperborea.

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