The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki

This subject contains information from the Expanded Cthulhu Mythos, and not based on H.P. Lovecraft's works directly. Jonathon Hobart Stane was a character who appeared in the novella Ire of the Void (EXP) by Richard Lee Byers.

History[]

Stane was born to an upper-class Arkham family sometime in the late nineteenth century and had inherited his parents considerable wealth. An intelligent and good-looking gentleman, he had been known as a well-meaning fellow who donated much of his fortune to good causes over the years.

When America joined the Great War in 1917, Stane was one of the first in Arkham to sign up and after going through basic training, spent a final night with his fiancée Barbara before being shipped out. Unfortunately for the pair, they were attacked by a Hound of Tindalos, which claimed the life of Barbara and left Stane himself badly mutilated.

Unable to take part in the war effort, Stane was transferred to a private hospital in upstate New York where he underwent numerous surgeries in an effort to fix his deformities, but from the day of his release he became a recluse, seemingly never leaving his house, and having everything he needed delivered.

Stane had then began to collect books of occult lore, including the Livre d'Eibon, the Pnakotic Manuscripts, the Cultes des Goules and De Vermis Mysteriis, managing to determine something of the nature of his attackers. Realising that the Hounds were likely to come back for any victim which they had not killed on their first attempt, he took to kidnapping transients and others who would not be missed from the streets of Arkham, before sacrificing them in a specially-constructed cell in his home in hopes that his offerings would keep the creatures from devouring him.

When Professor Norman Withers came to him in 1926 in search of information on the creatures which had abducted his friend Claus Schmidt, Stane supplied him with the knowledge, but was secretly horrified at the thought that Withers wished to open another portal to their dimension. Forcing Withers into his sacrificial cell, he was outwitted by the old professor, who tricked him into opening the door to the prison before locking Stane himself inside with the Hound, which finished the work it had started nine years previously.