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Serpent Men
Serpent Men are a fictional race created by Robert E. Howard for his King Kull tales. They first appeared in " The Shadow Kingdom", published in ''Weird Tales'' in August 1929. They were later adapted for the Marvel Comics Conan comics by Roy Thomas and Marie Severin. Their first Marvel Universe appearance was in ''Kull the Conqueror'' vol. 1 #2 (September, 1971). Origin and society In Robert E. Howard's King Kull stories, the serpent people worship a god known as the Great Serpent. Later writers would identify the Great Serpent with the Great Old One Yig and with the Stygian serpent god Set from Howard's Conan stories. The Serpent Men were created untold aeons ago by the Great Serpent. At some point, the Serpent Men had a cultural split, with one group becoming the Man-Serpents. One Man-Serpent is the titular being in the Conan story "The God in the Bowl". The seat of the First Empire of the Serpent People, during the Paleozoic era, is Valusia. Valusia is a fictional co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert E
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and '' berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic (paranormal)
Magic, sometimes spelled magick, is an ancient praxis rooted in sacred rituals, spiritual divinations, and/or cultural lineage—with an intention to invoke, manipulate, or otherwise manifest supernatural forces, beings, or entities in the natural, incarnate world. It is a categorical yet often ambiguous term which has been used to refer to a wide variety of beliefs and practices, frequently considered separate from both religion and science. Although connotations have varied from positive to negative at times throughout history, magic continues to have an important religious and medicinal role in many cultures today. Within Western culture, magic has been linked to ideas of the Other, foreignness, and primitivism; indicating that it is "a powerful marker of cultural difference" and likewise, a non-modern phenomenon. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Western intellectuals perceived the practice of magic to be a sign of a primitive mentality and also c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shibboleth
A shibboleth (; hbo, , šībbōleṯ) is any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwords, simple ways of self-identification, signaling loyalty and affinity, maintaining traditional segregation, or protecting from real or perceived threats. Origin The term originates from the Hebrew word (), which means the part of a plant containing grain, such as the head of a stalk of wheat or rye; or less commonly (but arguably more appropriately) "flood, torrent". The modern use derives from an account in the Hebrew Bible, in which pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish Ephraimites, whose dialect used a differently sounding first consonant. The difference concerns the Hebrew letter '' shin'', which is now pronounced as (as in '' shoe''). In the Book of Judges, chapter 12, after the inhabitants of Gilead under the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illusion
An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the mind normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Although illusions distort the human perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people. Illusions may occur with any of the human senses, but visual illusions ( optical illusions) are the best-known and understood. The emphasis on visual illusions occurs because vision often dominates the other senses. For example, individuals watching a ventriloquist will perceive the voice is coming from the dummy since they are able to see the dummy mouth the words. Some illusions are based on general assumptions the brain makes during perception. These assumptions are made using organizational principles (e.g., Gestalt theory), an individual's capacity for depth perception and motion perception, and perceptual constancy. Other illusions occur because of biological sensory structures within the human body or conditions outside the body within one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snake Scales
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads ( cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humanoid
A humanoid (; from English ''human'' and '' -oid'' "resembling") is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. The earliest recorded use of the term, in 1870, referred to indigenous peoples in areas colonized by Europeans. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically similar, but not identical, to those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it is now considered rare. More generally, the term can refer to anything with distinctly human characteristics or adaptations, such as possessing opposable anterior forelimb- appendages (i.e. thumbs), visible spectrum- binocular vision (i.e. having two eyes), or biomechanic plantigrade- bipedalism (i.e. the ability to walk on heels and metatarsals in an upright position). Science fiction media frequently present sentient extraterrestrial lifeforms as humanoid as a byproduct of convergent evolution. In theoretical converge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana
''Encyclopedia Cthulhiana'' is a reference guide to the invented places, beings, and concepts from the Cthulhu Mythos developed by H. P. Lovecraft and others. It was published by Chaosium in 1994. Description ''Encyclopedia Cthulhiana'' is a 400-page book by Daniel Harms that contains an alphabetized listing of entities, cults and lore from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos that were published during the twentieth century. Sources include works by Ramsey Campbell, Robert Bloch, and Stephen King, as well as scenarios from the ''Call of Cthulhu'' game. There are also suggestions about how this information could be included in a ''Call of Cthulhu'' adventure or campaign. An expanded 423-page second edition was published in 1998. Reception In '' Dragon'' magazine #218 (June 1995), Rick Swan stated that this book possessed "a diligence on the part of the researchers that borders on the superhuman". Awards ''Encyclopedia Cthulhiana'' won a Special Achievement Award at the 1995 O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyperborean Cycle
The Hyperborean cycle is a series of short stories by Clark Ashton Smith that take place in the fictional prehistoric setting of Hyperborea. Smith's cycle takes cues from his friends, H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard and their works. Lovecraft wrote to Smith in a letter dated 3 December 1929: "I must not delay in expressing my well-nigh delirious delight at '' The Tale of Satampra Zeiros'' mith's short story.. at an atmosphere! I can see & feel & smell the jungle around immemorial Commoriom, which I am sure must lie buried today in glacial ice near Olathoe, in the Land of Lomar!". Soon afterward, Lovecraft included Smith's Tsathoggua (which originally appeared in "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros") in the story "The Mound", ghostwritten for Zealia Bishop in December 1929. Lovecraft also mentioned Tsathoggua in "The Whisperer in Darkness", which he began on February 24, 1930, and in "At the Mountains of Madness" a year later, along with the Hyperborean cities of Commoriom and U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsathoggua
Tsathoggua (the ''Sleeper of N'kai'', also known as Zhothaqquah) is a supernatural entity in the Cthulhu Mythos shared fictional universe. He is the creation of American writer Clark Ashton Smith and is part of his Hyperborean cycle. Tsathoggua/Zhothaqquah is described as an Old One, a god-like being from the pantheon. He was introduced in Smith's short story " The Tale of Satampra Zeiros", written in 1929 and published in the November 1931 issue of ''Weird Tales''. His first appearance in print, however, was in H. P. Lovecraft's story "The Whisperer in Darkness", written in 1930 and published in the August 1931 issue of ''Weird Tales''. Description The first description of Tsathoggua occurs in "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros", in which the protagonists encounter one of the entity's idols: Later, in Smith's "The Seven Geases" (1933), Tsathoggua is described again: Robert M. Price notes that "Lovecraft's Tsathoggua and Smith's differ at practically every point". Lovecraft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. Because it is on the North American Plate, North American Tectonic Plate, Greenland is included as a part of North America geographically. North America covers an area of about , about 16.5% of Earth's land area and about 4.8% of its total surface. North America is the third-largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the list of continents and continental subregions by population, fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 579 million people in List of sovereign states and dependent territories in North America, 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In Americas (terminology)#Human ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
K'n-yan
''The Mound'' is a horror/science fiction novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written by him as a ghostwriter from December 1929 to January 1930 after he was hired by Zealia Bishop to create a story about a Native American mound which is haunted by a headless ghost. Lovecraft expanded the story into a tale about a mound that conceals a gateway to a subterranean civilization, the realm of K'n-yan. The story was not published during Lovecraft's lifetime. A heavily abridged version was published in the November 1940 issue of ''Weird Tales'', and the full text was finally published in 1989. Plot The story is narrated by an ethnologist who visits the town of Binger, Oklahoma, in 1928 to investigate certain stories related to a certain nearby mound, which is said to be haunted by a strange Native American man by day and a headless woman by night. The local people avoid the place, and there are strange stories of those who dared to venture there either disappearing, or returni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pict
The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from early medieval texts and Pictish stones. Their Latin name, , appears in written records from the 3rd to the 10th century. Early medieval sources report the existence of a distinct Pictish language, which today is believed to have been an Insular Celtic language, closely related to the Brittonic spoken by the Britons who lived to the south. Picts are assumed to have been the descendants of the Caledonii and other Iron Age tribes that were mentioned by Roman historians or on the world map of Ptolemy. The Pictish kingdom, often called Pictland in modern sources, achieved a large degree of political unity in the late 7th and early 8th centuries through the expanding kingdom of Fortriu, the Iron Age Verturiones. By the year 900, the result ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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