Silver Key

The Silver Key is a fictional artifact in the Cthulhu Mythos. It was originally created by H. P. Lovecraft for his eponymous short story.

Overview[]

The Silver Key is an ancient magical artifact that unlocks gates of space and time, allowing access to remote times and places of the universe. It was last in the possession of Randolph Carter, who used it to travel through the Ultimate Gate.

It is described as "a huge key of tarnished silver covered with cryptical arabesques". Carter has a vision of his late grandfather, who tells him where to find the key: It's in a box in the attic of his Boston home, where it was placed by Edmund Carter, his ancestor who lived at the time of the Witch Trials. The key had been handed down to Edmund by ancestors further back: Randolph's grandfather mentions Sir Randolph Carter, an Elizabethan wizard, and another ancestor who lived at the time of the Crusades and learned secrets from the Saracens who held him captive. Randolph Carter eventually uses the Silver Key to go back in time, reverting from his adult self in 1928 to his child self in 1883. (HPL: "The Silver Key")

To use the key, it must be held up to the setting sun and turned nine times, with some particular "syllables of ceremony" intoned on the ninth turn, at a location near a "dark polarity and induced gate". The Silver Key was created in prehistoric Hyperborea, and is attuned to "the personal consciousness-angles of human beings alone". When Carter found his consciousness transported to the body of Zkauba (an insectoid Yaddithian from millions of years in the past), he found that the Silver Key might assist him in travelling back to his own time, but would not have the power to return him to his original body. To do so, Carter would need a powerful spell that might give the key "limitless powers it otherwise lacked". (HPL: "Through the Gates of the Silver Key")

In Other Media[]

In the manga series Alicia Y, Randolph Carter used the Silver Key to free Alicia when she was trapped underneath a giant star-shaped stone.
In the manga series D.Y.N. Freaks, Narukami Chikage is a wielder of the Silver Key. It can be used to seal the powers of Yoguruma Mugen, an avatar of the evil god Yog-Sothoth.
In the mobile game Fate/Grand Order, the Silver Key is described as being a crucial ability for humans while facing off against the Outer Gods. Originally located in Salem, Massachusetts, the Silver Key was preserved by an English Thaumaturgist until it was eventually handed to Abigail Williams, a girl who met the conditions to inherit it. Abigail was turned into a living version of the Silver Key itself, after Raum tricked her into summoning and temporarily fusing with Yog-Sothoth. Randolph Carter is also implied to be a possessor of the Silver Key.
In the mobile game Crash Fever, the character Silvia is based on the Silver Key. After Nakoto was used to further spread the C-Virus throughout the virtual world of ALICE, the Silver Key was designed as a prototype weapon to fight against it, using data collected from Yog-Sothoth. The Silver Key has the ability to create a fake C-Virus, allowing the user to gain the benefits of the C-Virus without getting infected. Silvia was chosen to become the wielder of the Silver Key, and would later be trained by Tsathoggua, in order to counteract the awakening of Azathoth.
In the visual novel Saya no Uta, Masahiko Ogai had a document titled "In Regards to the Silver Key".
In the Warehouse 13 episode "An Evil Within", the Silver Key was used as an artifact that caused people to see waking dreams of Lovecraft's creatures.

Silver Key

Overview[]

In Other Media[]

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