| “ | Know you who I am? Kathulos of Egypt! Bah! They knew me in the old days! I reigned in the dim misty sea lands ages and ages before the sea rose and engulfed the land. I died, not as men die; the magic draft of life everlasting was ours! I drank deep and slept. Long I slept in my lacquered case! My flesh withered and grew hard; my blood dried in my veins. I became as one dead. But still within me burned the spirit of life, sleeping but anticipating the awakening. The great cities crumbled to dust. The sea drank the land. The tall shrines and the lofty spires sank beneath the green waves. All this I knew as I slept, as a man knows in dreams. Kathulos of Egypt? Faugh! Kathulos of Atlantis! | „ | |
| ~ Kathulos (CIRCLE: Skull-Face) |
Kathulos of Atlantis is a character created by Robert E. Howard for his novella Skull-Face (1929). A revived dark sorcerer from Atlantis who becomes the head and high-priest of a worldwide secret cult centered in northern Africa, he is also known to his followers as the Scorpion, Son of the Ocean, Skull-Face, or more commonly the Master (an alias he shares with B'Moth).
He might also be related to, or synonymous with, L'mur-Kathulos, mentioned in H. P. Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness. While writing that story, Lovecraft told Howard in a letter that he was planning to reference Kathulos "in some future black allusion".
Some sources identify Kathulos as a human avatar of Cthulhu. (EXP: "The Strange Doom of Enos Harker")
Quotations[]
| “ | His is the eye of the slaver and all the world is his slave market. | „ | |
| ~ Zuleika, about Kathulos (CIRCLE: Skull-Face) |
| “ | Like an octopus his tentacles stretch to the high places of civilization and the far corners of the world. | „ | |
| ~ John Gordon, about Kathulos (CIRCLE: Skull-Face) |
| “ | Under the green seas they lie, the ancient masters, in their lacquered cases, dead as men reckon death, but only sleeping. Sleeping through the long ages as hours, awaiting the day of awakening! The old masters, the wise men, who foresaw the day when the sea would gulp the land, and who made ready. Made ready that they might rise again in the barbaric days to come. As did I. Sleeping they lie, ancient kings and grim wizards, who died as men die, before Atlantis sank. Who, sleeping, sank with her but who shall arise again! | „ | |
| ~ Kathulos (CIRCLE: Skull-Face) |
| “ | It would be amusing to identify your Kathulos with my Cthulhu—indeed, I may so adopt him in some future black allusion. | „ | |
| ~ H. P. Lovecraft, in a letter to Robert E. Howard, dated August 14, 1930. |
| “ | They might walk among men in human form, sowing madness and chaos, for these were deemed by them spiritual enlightenment. Nyarlathotep had appeared once in human form as the Egyptian pharaoh Nephren-Ka, while Klulu strode the doomed shores of Atlantis with the gaunt visage of the priest-king Kathulos. | „ | |
| ~ EXP: "The Strange Doom of Enos Harker" |
Description[]
Kathulos is a tall, gaunt man whose head is shaped like a skull covered in yellowish parchment-like skin, with deep-sunken eyes. His hands have been compared to those of a corpse or mummy, complete with claw-like nails. He describes himself as a sorcerer, magician and scientist, who held a high position in the old empire of Atlantis, and who along with many other sages and kings, found the means to preserve his body in a state of suspended animation that would last for ages. As a result, his flesh is hard as wood, and Stephen Costigan muses that he seems to be both dead and alive at the same time. His powers include the ability to mesmerize people and control the minds of animals. (CIRCLE: Skull-Face)
History[]
Kathulos was found in a state of suspended animation inside an airtight sarcophagus floating in the ocean off the coast of Senegal. A German scientist named Von Lorfmon, who examined it, pronounced it to be millions of years old.
Even before awakening, Kathulos was identified as the subject of an ancient prophecy originating on Egypt, but spread over the entire African continent, about a man who would rise from the ocean and lead the nations of Africa in a glorious crusade to conquer the world.
With the aid of the prophecy and his mastery over science and mesmerism, Kathulos soon expanded his influence beyond Africa, gaining followers from Asia and Central America as well. People from all nations and creeds were converted to the cult of the Scorpion and planned for the day in which they would overtake the world by force.
In the early 1920s, Kathulos and his followers stirred up rebellions in several African nations, leading the British government to employ their secret agent John Gordon to investigate his activities.
To acquire resources and allies in Europe and North America, Kathulos operated a secret empire of opium, hashish and other drugs, gathering addicts from all layers of society, including influential people in positions of authority. From these, Kathulos extracted military secrets and guarantee that he wouldn't be persecuted for his crimes, including the assassination of those who could pose a threat to him.
At some point in the early 20th century, Kathulos himself left Africa and started to operate from a hideout in London. Secretly, he planned to launch an attack on European civilization and establish a new world order, then betray all his non-African allies and guide the people of Africa in a new enterprise: to build another empire like Atlantis, that would be ready to welcome the scores of Atlantean kings and wizards who would awake from suspended animation and rise from the seas. (CIRCLE: Skull-Face)
John Grimlan mentioned Kathulos in connection with Yog-Sothoth and sunken cities. (CIRCLE: "Dig Me No Grave")
Behind the Mythos[]
The name Kathulos is evocative of H. P. Lovecraft's famous creation, Cthulhu, who is mentioned by name in some of Robert E. Howard's stories, such as "The Children of the Night" and "The Fire of Asshurbanipal". Howard held Cthulhu's debut story, "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928), in high regard, praising it when it first appeared on Weird Tales. In Skull-Face, the references to Kathulos' metaphorical "tentacles" (referring to his far-reaching influence), his title as Son of the Ocean and association with a sunken city, and the idea that he is somehow both dead and alive simultaneously (explaining how he could reawaken after being entombed for aeons), all suggest that the similarity might have been intentional on Howard's part.
Kathulos' name is also nearly identical to Kuthulos, a minor character impersonated by the villainous Thulsa Doom in yet another Howard story, "Delcardes' Cat" (written in 1928, but not published until 1967). Here Thulsa Doom (whose name was used by the otherwise unrelated villain of the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian) seems to be a prototype of Kathulos: a dark and powerful sorcerer with a skull for a head, and an enemy of Kull of Atlantis.
Additionally, Kathulos shares many similarities with Surama from Lovecraft's "The Last Test" (1928). Both characters are revived sorcerers from Atlantis, both have a skull-like head and psychic abilities, both are associated with reptiles, and both try to manipulate the protagonist into helping them in their plans to undermine civilization.
Finally, he also shares traits with Bertram Russell's B'Moth, who debuted in Weird Tales earlier the same year, in "The Scourge of B'Moth". Both are the leaders of a worldwide secret cult, both associated with reptiles and known to their followers as "the Master". Coincidentally, both B'Moth and Kathulos would be portrayed as avatars of Cthulhu in the Expanded Mythos: the former in the Call of Cthulhu RPG and the latter in "The Strange Doom of Enos Harker", by Robert M. Price.