| “ | Surama, cruel in equal measure to man and beast, filled her with the most unnamable repulsion; and she could not but feel that he meant some vague, indefinable harm to Alfred. She did not like the Thibetans, either, and thought it very peculiar that Surama was able to talk with them. Alfred would not tell her who or what Surama was, but had once explained rather haltingly that he was a much older man than would be commonly thought credible, and that he had mastered secrets and been through experiences calculated to make him a colleague of phenomenal value for any scientist seeking Nature's hidden mysteries. | „ | |
| ~ HPL: "The Last Test" |
Surama is a character created by H. P. Lovecraft and Adolphe de Castro for their short story "The Last Test".
Biography[]
One of the most enigmatic characters in Lovecraft's fiction, virtually nothing is known about the real nature of Surama. Physically, he is a bald, clean-shaven and abnormally lean man. His skin is dark and parchment-like, and so tightly drawn as to make his head resemble a skull, even more so due to his deep-set black eyes. His anatomy is not entirely human, combining simian and saurian traits as well, although he manages to appear human when wearing the right kind of clothes (similar to Wilbur Whateley). He also has some form of psychic perception that allows him to pick up images and ideas from the minds of others, and to speak any language flawlessly without the need to learn it.
In terms of personality, Surama is noted for his keen intellect, but also for his sardonic demeanor, which is most often expressed by a deep guttural chuckle. He is also highly sadistic, as seen in the way he treats test animals and enjoys watching them suffer.
Of his early life little is known, although Dr. Alfred Clarendon's statements imply that he was originally an Atlantean priest who prolonged his life through unnatural means, and whose body was preserved in a sealed temple in an Atlantean colony in Northern Africa. After speaking to the Saharan Tuareg people, who are descendants of the Atlanteans, Dr. Clarendon somehow managed to revive the mummified body of Surama, hoping that the ancient man's knowledge would prove useful to modern medicine.
Surama promised Clarendon to share ancient secrets that would help in Clarendon's goal to find an ultimate cure to all disease, and thus Clarendon hired him as his assistant. For the next years, however, Surama had a negative influence over Clarendon, teaching him to worship ancient entities, and manipulating the American physician towards the fulfillment of Surama's own mysterious agenda, which involved introducing a new disease known as the black fever: actually an extraterrestrial pathogen obtained by Surama by unknown means, and for which there could be no cure.
Thanks in large part to his friendship with Governor James Dalton, Dr. Clarendon was appointed medical director of the California State Penitentiary at San Quentin, and used his position to test new forms of treatment on the inmates when an epidemic of the newly-discovered black fever took place. After a confrontation with the prison's director caused the aggressive and antisocial Clarendon to lose his position, Surama helped him continue his research by inoculating the lethal pathogen in numerous animal test subjects, a kidnapped Mexican boy, Clarendon's Thibetan servants, and the beloved St. Bernard that belonged to Clarendon's sister Georgina.
While Clarendon urged Surama to help him get more subjects, Surama dismissed Clarendon as an obsessed maniac who hadn't lived up to Surama's expectations of what he could achieve. At the peak of his obsession, Clarendon came perilously close to inoculating his own sister, but an intervention from Governor Dalton allowed the physician to realize the extent of his own disgrace and commit suicide by injecting himself instead. Before his death, he told Dalton everything he knew about Surama and the black fever, and used his occult knowledge to summon a fiery entity known as the Nemesis of Flame, which burned down the clinic, while Surama was destroyed by a bolt of lightning coming straight from the night sky.
After his death, Surama's skeleton was found to have features of both apes and reptiles, with "disturbing suggestions of lines of evolution of which palaeontology has revealed no trace", and it's been noted that while the skull itself looked human, "only well-cut clothing could have made such a body look like a man". (HPL: "The Last Test")
Behind the Mythos[]
Surama is strikingly similar to Kathulos from Robert E. Howard's Skull-Face. Both are resurrected Atlantean dark sorcerers with a head resembling a skull, who manipulate the protagonist into assisting them in their plans to destroy civilization. Both also have psychic abilities and are associated with reptiles. Kathulos debuted in 1929, one year after Surama.