Horse of the Invisible
Horses of the Invisible are from William Hope Hodgson's "The Horse of the Invisible (fiction)".
Description
In the instant afterwards it seemed to me that the whole place shook beneath the ponderous hoof-falls of some huge thing.... And then, from a patch of darkness to my left, there burst suddenly an infernal gobbling sort of neighing.... He was sure he saw something that looked like an enormous horse's head, right upon him in the light of the last flash of his pistol. Immediately afterwards he was struck a tremendous blow which knocked him down....
— William Hope Hodgson. "The Horse of the Invisible (fiction)"
A Horse of the Invisible is a malevolent, invisible, horse-like spiritual entity tied to rare reports of hauntings and haunting-related deaths at scenes of ancient violence and suffering. The presence of a Horse of the Invisible might be revealed by the pounding of its ghostly hooves or its unearthly, gobbling voice, and may be made temporarily visible with the application of Powder of Ibn-Ghazi; it may indeed take the form of something comparable to an monstrous, emaciated horse and may be described as a ghostly horse, though that resemblance is superficial: it doesn't seem to be a Ghost at all, nor to have ever been a material horse at all, but rather an immaterial denizen of an alien plane conjured to Earth to serve corrupt wizards as familiars and servants.
The Horse of the Invisible clings to places of suffering near places where its conjuror died, such as prisons where its conjuror was questioned, tried, and executed, or places of sacrifice and black magic where its conjuror was active, Horses of the Invisible are violent and cruel, choosing a victim that comes to its attention to taunt and terrorize, slowly pursuing the victim and escalating its attacks in a series of increasingly menacing incidents taking place over a series of nights, culminating at last in the Horse of the Invisible trampling its chosen victim - usually an innocent connected to the site through no fault of their own, such as new home owners, or sometimes well-meaning ghost-hunters selected mostly for the maximum effect of terror and suffering - beneath its spectral hooves.
Such activity often suggest a Demonic oppression, while the alien, immaterial, and invisible nature of the Horse of the Invisible suggesting a violent Elemental. Victims have reportedly been temporarily protected from their tormentor behind the barrier of an Electric Pentacle, and since the entity seems to be loosely tied to a specific location, it's possible that removing the victim from the site might help to temporarily relieve the situation, though much like "Demonic" activity, the victim may be pursued by the Horse, with the activity eventually resuming wherever the victim goes, unless the Horse's attention is drawn by a new, innocent victim. It seems that Horses of the Invisible are capable of materializing at the end of the period of pursuit and oppression, allowing them to trample their victims; apparently the Horse is empowered by the fear and misery it causes, gaining the power to ultimately harm its victims by frightening and haunting the victim repeatedly while the victim loses sleep, hope, and the will to live during the period of oppression. It may be possible to help the victim by raising the victim's morale enough to defeat the oppression, but the Horse may resume its efforts to destroy its victim using whatever energy it can summon for the effort, or again be drawn to a new victim, if not ultimately destroyed, or banished back to its original plane.
Associated Mythos Elements
- race: Ghost
- race: Elemental
- race: Demon
- artifact: Powdre of Ibn-Ghazi
- artifact: Electric Pentacle
References
- fiction: William Hope Hodgson's "The Horse of the Invisible (fiction)"
- sourcebook: Malleus Monstrorum
