Muylari

Muylari (Erlini: "The Watcher (Of All)") is a man who was cursed with immortality after he and his wife were saved from being eaten by a dark rider, who was quite likely the Dark Elven and Lord of Essaence warlord Lorgalis the White by implication. (The spectral miners lend weight to this possibility as Lorgalis was known to use orcish hordes.) He owed his life to his new master. When Muylari's wife passed away, he returned to pay his debt. He was forced to oversee the plundering of silver mines in the Seolfar Strake (Lysierian Hills), far to the north-west near Claedesbrim Bay (Darkstone Bay), near the edge of northern Jaiman. He used sorcery in the form of "forget" and other mind destruction spells to make the locals of Velaskar fail to understand what was happening to them.

Unfortunately, while mining in what was once known as Silver Valley, they awakened a powerful extra-planar entity that was dormant deep underground. The equines had long been rumored to have kept it at bay, but now enslaved, were unable to stop it from breaking free and conquering the valley. They were all cursed with undeath, and Muylari fled, only to suffer immortality for thousands of years.

Behind The Scenes

While the valley was still present in its cursed state when Selias Jodame visited in the early 6000s Second Era, it would become unstable and shifted between time and space until it anchored under the necropolis of Bandur Etrevion a few hundred miles to the south-west. Muylari returned to tell his story, and was never seen or heard from again. Adventurers followed a talking wolf to the valley and witnessed the equines fly up and battle the monstrosity, in spite of their undeath, which resembled a flying serpent with arms and wings. These Terrorite demons frequently served as lieutenants of Demon Lords, and were almost identical in appearance to the avatar of Klysus (Luukos). These facts are both relevant to the symbolism of that specific area within The Graveyard. Terrorites would summon demonic servants at will, some of whom were known to ride "night mares", which were demonic possessed and would seek vengeance upon those who wronged the horses before they died. It is worth noting that the Ordainers the Terrorites served were called Death Watchers, which translates as Vog Muylari, and that one of the most powerful was Maleskari which is conspicuously close to Velaskar.

Terrorites were known for tearing into other realities unexpectedly, knocking out whoever they ensnared with their sleep poison. It would have somewhat resembled a very large flying abyran'sa demon in appearance, but there is no actual relationship, unless the abyran were intentional allusions to the Progeny of Yig. The Shadow Valley has a sleep theme in general, whether night mares or sleep-immune night hounds. It is related to the more subtle sleep theme of The Graveyard, which includes: a society task of "where death sleeps cold", bog sleeping ghouls, its Lovecraft allusions regarding Old Ones, the nightmares of Bandur Etrevion fueled by otherworldly powers, the dream state of Oblivion, the sleeping nature of the Staff of Doom and Eissa's brother, the dormant Ordainer symbolism, the sleeping death and "resurrection" of the Lords of Essaence, the Dante and Egyptian night journeys to the dawn, hell as where "the sun in silence rests", the Orgiana and Morgu stanzas in The Temple of Darkness Poem, and the poems on the seal of the Helm of Kadaena ("The Shadow") and her false sarcophagus calling her the "sleeping queen" who "spurns death" (hence the frieze inscription "defies Death itself.") The Dark Path had its presence in The Broken Lands as well, which among other things has the lesser vruul, which slumbered in urns filled with foul fluid for thousands of years.

In particular, the way out of Shadow Valley involves plummeting through sheer blackness over a span of hard RT, which spits you out back under The Graveyard through a rift. This is probably an allusion to the end of "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" by H.P. Lovecraft, which is alluded to in Purgatory, as well as extensively in The Broken Lands where Uthex Kathiasas may be a portmanteau of Utha Kadaena with Ex and Kadath. The quest seeker had just encountered the pharaoh demonic Other God in the abandoned castle on Kadath, who tells him the marvelous place he is seeking is his own world from his childhood memories, and sends him back through the black void to return the "Great One" gods of earth to where they belong. (Nyarlathotep was tricking him into traveling to the court of Azathoth, essentially Agoth or The Unlife, but he remembered he was in a dream and leaped into the plummeting darkness to save himself.) The Dark Gods were waging war on Kulthea in the Wars of Dominion rather than residing on their moon, and only arrived in our world by accident from other planes of existence. They were banished to the moon or the Black Hel at the end of the Wars.

The fall through the chasm of darkness is more immediately an allusion to the end of "The Shadow out of Time", where the narrator has suffered from amnesia and pseudo-memories with "daemoniac dreams" of vistas from both the past and future. When he is escaping the underground ruins amidst the "demonic wind", he falls through the darkness in a dream delirium, returning to the waking world in much the same way. The vultite manuscript of Kadaena in the Crypt is probably an allusion to this story, implying Bandur wrote his book "Servants of the Shadow: Power through Thralldom" with her knowledge, and that she wrote her manuscript in the deep past using his own language. This novella appears to influence the stories of The Graveyard, The Broken Lands, and the Purgatory messaging.

Shadow Valley makes allusions to "The Call of Cthulhu" as well. The depiction of a dragon in the mine shaft and the demon as a "wyrm" is likely a reference to Cthulhu appearing partly dragon. The strongest influences on the story are arguably "The Colour Out of Space", "The Mound", and the ancient Vedic myth of Vala with the release of Ushas and slaying of the world dragon Vritra. The theme of the trampling cosmic horses of a "lord of the abyss" entity (along with the serpent) may come from "The Dark Eidolon" by Clark Ashton Smith, whose work could be the basis of the gong in The Broken Lands, though this may be the brass shield in "The Fall of the House of Usher". The steeds as warders against a serpent demon comes from the Vedic myth (hence Utha and Valaskar.)

There was also the western themed "The Mound" ghost-written for Zelia Bishop, with "warring horsemen in the sky" where they "could not be sure the horses were really horses". (Both this and "The Dark Eidolon" feature Tsathoggua.) The mounds in middle America would have apparitions and strangeness about equipment, and the story has partially dematerialized picks and shovels (and excavators) in the underground ruins. It was not published in its full form until 1989 in a collection of other stories ghost-written by Lovecraft, which included "The Horror in the Museum" which is alluded to below The Graveyard. The ending features more underground wind and yet another mad surface scramble. There was mining equipment displaced, through what was totally sealed off, as well as wall carvings and serpent idols. The Lovecraft entity was the vengeance themed Yig, the Father of Serpents, worshipped by western natives and would transform victims who had killed snakes. The idea of being hidden for long aeons in a still deeper black chasm refers to N'kai, the shoggoths worshipping Tsathoggua, who in turn was worshipped by the quadruped reptilians and later almost fatally the K'n-yans. The conquistador who had spent much time with them attempted to telepathically probe forbidden N'kai, and was haunted by hideous and maddening dreams, implying astral projection into the abyss.

See Also

• Elanthian Times - Volume I Issue I (slightly inaccurate depiction of the "wyrm")
• Jaron Galarn
• Selias Jodame
• Maleskari
• Isles of transfer