| “ | Conrad pursues the obscure and mystic as some men pursue romance; his shelves throng with delightful nightmares of every variety. | „ | |
| ~ John O'Donnel (CIRCLE: "The Children of the Night") |
John Conrad is a fictional character featured in the Cthulhu Mythos stories of Robert E. Howard. He is often partnered with Prof. John Kirowan.
Overview[]
John Conrad is an erudite man of the early 20th century, his stories taking place around 1930. His "bizarrely fashioned study" contains relics from around the world and includes an eclectic collection of books about witchcraft and demonology, as well as horror fiction by Machen, Poe, and Blackwood. One of the rarest books in his collection is a copy of the Nameless Cults by Friedrich von Junzt. He has also read the Latin translation of Abdul Alhazred's Necronomicon. One of the artefacts he owns is a small prehistoric flint mallet which, unknown to Conrad, belonged to the Children of the Night. Conrad himself carved a wooden handle to fit the mallet, and commented on "how difficult it was to carve it into a shape and balance corresponding with the head". (CIRCLE: "The Children of the Night")
Conrad's strong academic interest in occult matters led him to befriend the sorcerer John Grimlan. However, Grimlan dismissed Conrad as a mere dabbler, too afraid to advance in his studies. Conrad, on his part, eventually came to regard Grimlan as a disquieting man who was only interested in the "dark" aspects of magic and arcana, which Conrad saw as "evil and perverse". Nevertheless, he remained Grimlan's only friend, and was loyal enough to follow Grimlan's instructions after his death, which involved a ritualistic ceremony, during which Grimlan's body was reclaimed by Malik Tous, the entity he had sold his soul to in exchange for 250 years of unaging life and knowledge. After the ceremony was concluded and Grimlan's body disappeared, Conrad and Kirowan fled the house in terror. (CIRCLE: "Dig Me No Grave")
Trivia[]
- Conrad's nationality is unknown, but is either British or American of British descent. (CIRCLE: "The Children of the Night")
- In "Dig Me No Grave", Grimlan claims that Conrad has never even heard of Yog-Sothoth and Kathulos. This apparently contradicts "The Children of the Night", in which Yog-Sothoth is mentioned by Kirowan as part of a conversation with Conrad and the context strongly implies that the deity is referenced in the Nameless Cults and/or the Necronomicon, both of which Conrad has read. It is possible that "Dig Me No Grave" might take place before "The Children of the Night". Alternatively, it's also possible that Grimlan simply underestimated Conrad's knowledge of the occult, and Conrad never bothered to correct him.