The Nameless Mist is an Outer God. It is the progenitor of several other cosmic entities, including the Outer God Yog-Sothoth. It is older than everything except Azathoth (its creator) and the Unnamed Darkness (its sibling).
Its powers include possible omnipresence, reality warping, acausality, spacetime manipulation, immortality, and incorporeality.
Behind the Mythos [edit | edit source]
The Magnum Innominandum idea came to Lovecraft during a Roman dream he recalled in three letters, one of those being incorporeted in CIRCLE: "The Horror from the Hills" and one posthumously published as HPL: "The Very Old Folk". It was also mentioned in HPL: "the Whisperer in Darkness" alongside many mythos concepts such as Hastur, the Yellow Sign or Yog-Sothoth. It also is part of an incarnation from De Vermis Mysteriis penned by Lovecraft for CIRCLE: "The Shambler from the Stars" by Bloch.
Lovecraft also mentionned the "Not-to-be-Named One" in HPL: "The Mound" as husband of Shub-Niggurath (this has led to the theory that the Magnum Innominandum and the Nameless Mist are two separate entities, and the Magnum Innominandum is Yog-Sothoth). He also introduced "Him Who is Not to Be Named" along with other names such as Shub-Niggurath or Nyarlathothep (though Yog-Sothoth is not named in the invocation).
Lovecraft mentioned the Nameless Mist in a family tree of Azathoth. (HPL: Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft 4.617) The Nameless Mist was given the name "Nyog'Sothep" and "N'yog-Sothep" by later authors.
The Magnum Innominandum and The Nameless Mist were unified as the same entity later by other writers, notably by Lin Carter and by the Call of Cthulhu RPG.
