In the mist-shrouded town of Arkham, Massachusetts (a fictional New England locale blending colonial history with cosmic dread, where the mundane and the eldritch blur), where the Miskatonic River (a serpentine waterway tied to mysterious disappearances and aquatic horrors) winds through shadowed valleys, stands Miskatonic University—often called “Arkham University” by outsiders. Founded around 1690 as Arkham College and elevated to university status by 1805, it was created to educate New England’s elite in arts, sciences, and humanities. Beneath this respectable façade, however, lies a deep fascination with the esoteric, drawing scholars who study forbidden histories and occult phenomena under the cover of legitimate disciplines.
Miskatonic exists ostensibly as a bastion of rational inquiry, modeled on Harvard and Yale. Yet Arkham’s haunted legacy has shaped it into an unwitting gateway to eldritch horrors (vast, incomprehensible entities from beyond time and space that embody existential terror and indifference to humanity). The university balances prestigious academia with a perilous attraction to cosmic secrets, making it both a beacon of knowledge and a vortex of danger.
Dr. Henry Armitage
Elderly librarian and polymath, expert in rare languages and occult texts. In 1928 he led the effort to stop the Dunwich Horror (a rampaging, near-invisible offspring of Yog-Sothoth—an Outer God of gates, time, and dimensions), using restricted tomes to banish the entity.
Professor William Dyer
Geologist who commanded the doomed 1930 Antarctic expedition. His team discovered ruins of the Elder Things (ancient star-headed beings who bio-engineered early life on Earth) and their rebellious shoggoths (amorphous, shape-shifting protoplasmic servants).
Albert N. Wilmarth
Folklorist who uncovered the Mi-Go (crustacean-like aliens from Yuggoth/Pluto who harvest human brains into metal cylinders). His correspondence exposed their activities before his mysterious disappearance.
Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee
Economist whose body was possessed for five years by a member of the Great Race of Yith (cone-shaped, time-traveling beings who swap minds across eras to preserve knowledge).
Randolph Carter
Mystic and dreamer famous for journeys into the Dreamlands (a parallel realm entered through sleep, filled with wondrous and nightmarish cities).
Asenath Waite
Brilliant early female student whose mind was overtaken by her sorcerous father Ephraim through body-swapping magic.
Wilbur Whateley
Grotesque hybrid (offspring of a human and an eldritch entity, often showing accelerated growth, physical deformities, superhuman intellect, and inevitable malevolence; examples include the Dunwich and Innsmouth bloodlines) who attempted to steal forbidden books from the library and was killed in the attempt.
Sponsored Antarctic, Australian, and Pacific expeditions that revealed pre-human civilizations.
Advanced controversial theories on heredity, unknowingly echoing the hybrid horrors of Innsmouth (where humans interbred with Deep Ones—fish-like aquatic beings—producing hybrids with the “Innsmouth Look”: bulging eyes, scaly skin, and eventual full transformation).
Suffered tragedies including student madness from hyperspatial mathematics (non-Euclidean geometries that shatter sanity) and near-summonings of Outer Gods on campus.
The heart of Miskatonic’s peril is the Orne Library, a Gothic maze guarded against unearthly intruders. Its restricted vault holds soul-warping tomes accessible only to trusted faculty:
Necronomicon – Abdul Alhazred’s infamous grimoire of spells, histories, and rituals concerning the Great Old Ones.
Unaussprechlichen Kulten – Friedrich von Junzt’s catalog of global cults devoted to eldritch entities.
Book of Eibon – Hyperborean sorcerer’s text of ancient elemental and summoning magic.
De Vermis Mysteriis – Ludvig Prinn’s necromantic work on resurrection and worm-like horrors.
Cultes des Goules – Comte d’Erlette’s guide to pacts with ghouls (corpse-eating subterranean humanoids).
Pnakotic Manuscripts – Crystalline records of the Great Race of Yith spanning cosmic history.
Dhol Chants – Tibetan hymns for summoning burrowing monstrosities.
Ponape Scripture – Polynesian text describing R’lyeh and Cthulhu worship.
These volumes whisper temptations and madness to any who dare read them. To speak their names lightly is to invite peril, for Miskatonic University remains a Pandora’s box at the edge of cosmic revelation.