Antarctica

🐙 Antarctica is the southernmost continent on the planet Earth. Howard Phillips Lovecraft had a long-running fascination with Antarctica and one of his most famous stories, At the Mountains of Madness, has ensured it a central place in the Cthulhu Mythos.

The fabled Plateau of Leng is rumoured to be situated somewhere in the Antarctic (although sources conflict on this), and a ruined Elder Thing city is located there. At the Mountains of Madness also heavily implies that some undisclosed monstrosity inhabits the plain beyond the barrier mountains and Elder Thing city.

Stories with Antarctic Settings

H. P. Lovecraft's Works

• At the Mountains of Madness (1936)

Mythos-Adjacent Works

• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)
• Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell (1938)

Expanded Mythos Works

• Beyond the Mountains of Madness, Charles and Janyce Engan (Call of Cthulhu Role-Playing Game, 1999)
• "Big Nasty", Josh Reynolds (2003)
• Beyond the Mountains of Madness, ed. Robert M. Price (fiction anthology, 2015)
• "A Pleasure in Madness", C. J. Henderson (2017)

Mythos-Inspired Works

• "At the Mountains of Murkiness" by Arthur C. Clarke (1940)
• Nemo: Heart of Ice by Alan Moore (2013)

Inhabitants of Antarctica

• Albino penguins (HPL: At the Mountains of Madness)
• At least one Chthonian (EXP: "Big Nasty")
• Elder Things (HPL: At the Mountains of Madness)
• Groth-Golka (EXP: "The Fishers from Outside")
• K'n-yanians (HPL: The Mound)
• A race of "strange hybrid men living under the snow and ice" (AWD: "The Thing That Walked on the Wind")
• At least one Shoggoth (HPL: At the Mountains of Madness)
• People of Tsalal (ADJ: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket)

Other References

• Prof. Harold Hadley Copeland's papers contain references to a primordial city of "the Yuggoth-spawn" in Antarctica (EXP: "Out of the Ages"). It's not known whether "Yuggoth-spawn" refers to the Mi-Go or a different species from Yuggoth.

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