| “ | But Carter preferred to look at them than at his captors, which were indeed shocking and uncouth black things with smooth, oily, whale-like surfaces, unpleasant horns that curved inward toward each other, bat wings whose beating made no sound, ugly prehensile paws, and barbed tails that lashed needlessly and disquietingly. And worst of all, they never spoke or laughed, and never smiled because they had no faces at all to smile with, but only a suggestive blankness where a face ought to be. All they ever did was clutch and fly and tickle; that was the way of night-gaunts. | „ | |
| ~ HPL , The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
Night-gaunts are a species of flying creatures in the Cthulhu Mythos, who first appeared in H. P. Lovecraft's novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. They inhabit Earth's Dreamlands and are described as having smooth whale-like skin, long slender humanoid bodies, curving horns, leather bat-like wings, and a blank expanse of flesh where one would expect a face to be.
They revere and worship Nodens as their lord and master.
Trivia[]
- The concept of night-gaunts first came to Lovecraft as a young child, in a series of recurring nightmares in which "they would whirl me through space at a sickening rate of speed, the while fretting & impelling me with their detestable tridents". Lovecraft credited the illustrations of Gustave Doré as inspiration for their appearance.
- A pair of night-gaunts are employed as supernatural muscle by the Silver Twilight Lodge in Peter J. Evans' novel Feeders from Within.
Gallery[]
- Main article: Night-gaunt/Gallery