People of K'n-yan

'People of K'n-yan, AKA K'n-yanian, People of Xinaián, Xinaiánian, Tsathite, Old Ones, etc.

Origin: The People of K'n-yan are from H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop's "The Mound (fiction)".

Description

"...The tall, lean, darkly robed being with the filleted black hair and seamed, coppery, expressionless, aquiline face looked more like an Indian than anything else in my previous experience. And yet my trained ethnologist's eye told me at once that this was no redskin of any sort hitherto known to history, but a creature of vast racial variation and of a wholly different culture-stream.... This man's long-headedness was so pronounced that I recognised it at once, even at this vast distance and in the uncertain field of the binoculars. I saw, too, that the pattern of his robe represented a decorative tradition utterly remote from anything we recognise in southwestern native art. There were shining metal trappings, likewise, and a short sword or kindred weapon at his side, all wrought in a fashion wholly alien to anything I had ever heard of.... He was the product of a civilisation, I felt instinctively, though of what civilisation I could not guess.... As I neared the mound I saw the man very clearly, and fancied I could trace an expression of infinite evil and decadence on his seamed, hairless features.... All the creature's costume and trappings bespoke exquisite workmanship and cultivation...."
— H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop, "The Mound (fiction)"

The People of K'n-yan are a humanoid race, progenitors of modern humans and actually extraterrestrials who arrived with their god Tulu in prehistoric times, that are sometimes said to resemble some unknown Native American race with a long, cone-shaped skull, elaborately-decorated robes, and access to advanced technology. They are immortal and have powerful psionic abilities, including telepathy and the ability to dematerialize at will. The dominant race of the formerly more diverse Hollow Earth land of K'n-yan, they are technologically advanced, using machines that employ principles of atomic energy, though they have largely abandoned their mechanized culture finding it unfulfilling.

In older ages their were several races of People, but the race of the city of Tsath conquered all the others over time and, regarding them as inferior classes, interbred the other races with monstrous creatures or biologically engineered them as food, slave labor, and for other assorted purposes; thus, in the era of modern men, the People of K'n-yan are largely of the Tsathite race, with the descendants of the other races less recognizably human forms such as the Gyaa-yothn or Y'm-bhi. In elder epics, "People of K'n-yan]] would have referred to a great number of other humanoid peoples.

Heresies and Controversies

• Compare with Star-Spawn of Cthulhu, as creatures which had followed Cthulhu to Earth and served it in elder days before R'lyeh, Atlantis, and Lemuria fell beneath the waves; compare also with the Lemurian race which inhabited those elder continents before they fell; you might think of the ancient People which followed Cthulhu to Earth as amphibious, semi-material, proto-human beings from which the Lemurian race descended, which in turn formed the basis of the humanoid People, who evolved into man. (fan theory, from Theosophy)
• Compare with the subterranean, technologically advanced, proto-human, albino, decadent, sadistic, and insane Deros. (fan theory, from Richard Sharpe Shaver)

Quotes

"...They worshipped Yig, the great father of serpents, and Tulu, the octopus-headed entity that had brought them down from the stars; appeasing both of these hideous monstrosities by means of human sacrifices offered up in a very curious manner which Charging Buffalo did not care to describe...."
— H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop, "The Mound (fiction)"

"...The tall, lean, darkly robed being with the filleted black hair and seamed, coppery, expressionless, aquiline face looked more like an Indian than anything else in my previous experience. And yet my trained ethnologist's eye told me at once that this was no redskin of any sort hitherto known to history, but a creature of vast racial variation and of a wholly different culture-stream.... This man's long-headedness was so pronounced that I recognised it at once, even at this vast distance and in the uncertain field of the binoculars. I saw, too, that the pattern of his robe represented a decorative tradition utterly remote from anything we recognise in southwestern native art. There were shining metal trappings, likewise, and a short sword or kindred weapon at his side, all wrought in a fashion wholly alien to anything I had ever heard of.... He was the product of a civilisation, I felt instinctively, though of what civilisation I could not guess.... As I neared the mound I saw the man very clearly, and fancied I could trace an expression of infinite evil and decadence on his seamed, hairless features.... All the creature's costume and trappings bespoke exquisite workmanship and cultivation...."
— H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop, "The Mound (fiction)"

"Once the Old Ones below had had colonies on the surface and had traded with men everywhere, even in the lands that had sunk under the big waters. It was when those lands had sunk that the Old Ones closed themselves up below and refused to deal with surface people. The refugees from the sinking places had told them that the gods of outer earth were against men, and that no men could survive on the outer earth unless they were daemons in league with the evil gods. That is why they shut out all surface folk, and did fearful things to any who ventured down where they dwelt.... It seemed that the infinite ancientness of these creatures had brought them strangely near to the borderline of spirit, so that their ghostly emanations were more commonly frequent and vivid.... The Old Ones themselves were half-ghost - indeed, it was said that they no longer grew old or reproduced their kind, but flickered eternally in a state between flesh and spirit. The change was not complete, though, for they had to breathe.... It was whispered that the Old Ones had come down from the stars to the world when it was very young, and had gone inside to build their cities of solid gold because the surface was not then fit to live on. They were the ancestors of all men, yet none could guess from what star - or what place beyond the stars - they came. Their hidden cities were still full of gold and silver, but men had better let them alone unless protected by very strong magic.... The people had all come to talk by means of thought only; speech having been found crude and needless, except for religious devotions and emotional expression, as aeons of discovery and study rolled by...."
— H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop, "The Mound (fiction)"

Associated Mythos Elements

• races:
  • Deros (compare/contrast as an alternate take on the People)
  • Children Tulu (compare/contrast as an alternate take on the ancestors of the People)
  • Lemurian (compare/contrast as an alternate take on the ancestors/cousins of the People)
  • Gyaa-yothn, biologically-engineered, Unicorn-like horrors
  • Y'm-bhi - biologically-engineered semi-human beasts brought back from the dead with atomic energy and hypnotism to serve as dog-like or mule-like slaves
  • Serpent People, a debased, quadrupedal form appear to have populated red-litten Yoth before its conquest under the People
• deities:
  • Yig, Father of Snakes; AKA Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan
  • Tiráwa, Father of Men
  • Tulu
  • Azathoth
  • Nyarlathotep
  • Tsathoggua
  • Nug and Yeb
  • Shub-Niggurath
• locations:
  • Quivira and Cíbola, lost cities of gold sought by Coronado
  • K'n-yan, AKA Xinaián, a blue-litten world of the Hollow Earth
    • Tsath, A great, tall city beyond the mountains
    • Do-Hna, a valley of some population
    • B'Graa, a town built of finely-wrought gold
  • Yoth, a red-litten world below K'n-yan
    • Vaults of Zin, a location beneath the largest city of Yoth
    • N'kai, an unlit cavern beneath Yoth
  • Lemuria and Atlantis
  • Relex

References

• fiction:
  • H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop's "The Mound (fiction)" (where they are described in detail)
  • H.P. Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness (fiction)", "The Call of Cthulhu (fiction)", "The Shadow Out of Time (fiction)", "At the Mountains of Madness (fiction)" (which share the background mythology)
  • H.P. Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls (fiction)", "The Nameless City (fiction)", "The Statement of Randolph Carter (fiction)" (some elements of these stories bear some similarity to this story)
  • H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop's "Curse of Yig (fiction)" (the mythos of "Curse of Yig" is expanded in "The Mound")
  • possibly H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop's "Medusa's Coil (fiction)"
• Call of Cthulhu Scenarios: Call of Cthulhu Scenarios
• sourcebook: Malleus Monstrorum