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Mara999 — Gnophkeh
#monster #clarkashtonsmith #gnophkeh #voormis #hyperborea
Published: 2017-01-13 16:40:21 +0000 UTC; Views: 3328; Favourites: 110; Downloads: 0
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Description
A pair of gnophkeh from Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborean Cycle. Not to be confused with the non-humanoid and similarly named Gnoph-keh, these brutish humanoids are enemies of both the voormis and early Hyperborean human tribes. The description of the gnophkeh as hairy cannibals, with large ears and proboscidean noses, gives me the mental image of much more vicious Melmacians. The voormis are described as having reddish fur, so the loincloths on these two are meant to be made of voormis skins.Related content
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I was just thinking about Alf just before lookimng up "gnoph keh".
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Actually given HPLs fondness for cats, I am sure he would have considered the Melmacians very monstrous
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It's almost too tempting to compare this to the Trolls in Middle-Earth, so instead I'm just gonna say, they remind me of the trolls in Troll Hunter (sort of) if only because of the influence they draw from the actual trolls of Norse/Scandinavian lore.
With that said, now that you mention large ears and proboscidean noses there is indeed something almost elephantine not only about these guys, but also actual trolls and giants too; the hairier kind of trolls in particular definitely remind me of mammoths or mastodons.
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It might be that the various folkloric monsters as well as the creatures described by Tolkien and Smith all have in common a sense of being very ancient, from a primordial pre-human time. The very concept of furred humanoids triggers something in the human brain, probably because of the disturbingly human and disturbingly inhuman being combined in one being. That's probably why hairy humanoids are so incredibly common in fiction and folklore, because everybody can relate to the concept somehow. The voormis are described as looking more like a conventional bigfoot than the gnophkeh do, with being pretty typical apemen in the same style as Robert E. Howard and Burroughs' many barbarous hominids.
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Gnarly, dude.
Those are some scary sketches you've brewed for these guys. I'm gonna go look up "Hyperborean Cycle" now.
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The Gnophkeh aren't mentioned nearly as often as the voormis and various other creatures in the stories. Most of Smith's stories can be easily found online. I recommend reading "The Seven Geases":
www.eldritchdark.com/writings/…
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Cool! I didn't knew this kind of Gnophkeh... Now you should do the voormis...
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Yeah, they are on my to-do list.
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