Randolph Carter is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos. The character is semi-autobiographical, sharing several of Lovecraft's biographical aspects as well as his antiquarian tastes and mild nature.
Biography[]
Randolph is the descendant of the Elizabethan magician Sir Randolph Carter, as well as another ancestor who fought in the crusades, and was captured by Muslims and learned their magical secrets. Another ancestor, Edmund Carter "the wizard", fled from the gallows during the Salem Witch Trials and resettled at Arkham; "tales of his sorceries were many." (HPL: "Through the Gates of the Silver Key")
Carter was born c. 1874. At the age of nine, he underwent a mysterious experience in the Snake Den, a cave at his great-uncle Christopher's Arkham farm, and thereafter exhibited a gift of prophecy.
Randolph Carter graduated from Miskatonic University. During World War I, he served in the French Foreign Legion, where he met Etienne-Laurent de Marigny, a New Orleans mystic who became a close friend. De Marigny took him to Bayonne to show him "certain terrible secrets in the nighted and immemorial crypts that burrow beneath that brooding, eon-weighted city". De Marigny later became Carter's literary and financial executor. (HPL: "Through the Gates of the Silver Key")
Like Lovecraft, he is an under-appreciated horror writer. His story "The Attic Window" appeared in the January 1922 issue of the fictional magazine Whispers.
Early Encounters with the Unknown[]
See: The Statement of Randolph Carter
His first appearance was in the short story "The Statement of Randolph Carter", in which he and his friend Harley Warren attempt to locate the door between the human world and a hellish dimension. Though Carter survives, Warren was killed by an unseen evil.
Quest for Kadath[]
See: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
Revelation and Transformation[]
See: Through the Gates of the Silver Key
After obtaining the Silver Key, Carter performed the ritual of the Key in the hills behind Arkham, in the cave known as the Snake Den, on October 7, 1928. The ritual opened a gateway into a strange realm, which offered up visions of Earth's distant past before resolving into an unknown area of strange stone architecture. There Carter encountered 'Umr at-Tawil, The Most Ancient One, whom Carter knew from the writings of Abdul Alhazred in his Necronomicon. 'Umr-At-Tawil addressed Carter telepathically, telling him that he had unlocked the First Gate, and giving him the choice of proceeding to the Ultimate Gate or turning back the way he had come.
In Other Media[]
- Alicia Y: Randolph Carter appears in the manga series, when he used the Silver Key to free Alicia after she was trapped underneath a giant star-shaped stone. He used to be known as H. P. Lovecraft before assuming himself as a dweller of the Dreamlands.
- Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.: appears as a playable character in the Nintendo 3DS game.
- Demonbane: In the novel Zanma Taisen Demonbane, Randolph Carter (also known as King of Ilek-Vad) is the grand admiral of the Elder God Spacecorp of Dreamlands, as well as the strongest Elder God. He is a former human who became a deity and the ruler of the Opal Throne in the City of Ilek-Vad. In the final battle against the Vortex Blaster, Carter traded his life for the authority of the Silver Key to extend the moment before the universe was destroyed into infinity, barely keeping it alive.
- Fate/Grand Order: appears in the Japanese mobile game, as a time traveler who fights against the Outer Gods. He is heavily implied to be H. P. Lovecraft himself.
- Persona 2 : Eternal Punishment: appears as his disguised form, Chandraputra, in the PSP remake.
Gallery[]
- Main article: Randolph Carter/Gallery